The Subconscious Power of Bicycle Parking
When discussing bicycle-infrastructure, bike lanes often dominate the conversation. However, parking can play a crucial psychological role.
In 2004, Portland, Oregon, launched an ambitious project to increase the availability of bicycle parking in the city.
One of the initiatives was the building of bike ‘corrals’ —exclusive bike parking facilities that would house 10–20 bikes each. Located on the street, these facilities could increase the bike parking on a block by up to 800%. However, every corral built would involve reallocating 1–2 car spaces, and so there were big questions about the potential impact on local businesses.
There is a common belief that in dense commercial areas, most customers are motorists. By reducing available on-street parking in Portland, it was feared that motorists would choose to take their business to locations where there was free or more readily available parking.
Little data was available to the City of Portland to dispute this, and so they decided to run a study as they rolled out the program. Data was collected through surveys from 248 businesses located within a half-block of locations where the initial 40 bike corrals were installed.
Despite all of the initial concerns, the results turned out to be almost entirely positive. Of those businesses close to the corrals:
- 67% saw an increase in foot and bike traffic
- Cyclists represented 24.8% of the total client base
- 53% reported that it increased the visibility of their business
What’s more, every single business saw an increase in customers who were cyclists as a result of the installation. Sometimes, as it turned out, if you build it they do come. For Portland, it actually began to give businesses an advantage to have a corral nearby.
The demand for bike corrals began to rise rapidly, outpacing the city’s ability to install them. By 2013, they had built 100 corral s— 1,644 bike parking spaces. Today there are 158.
Most of Portland’s bicycle parking is still provided by bike racks on the sidewalk. But as the city continues to grow its cycling population, the demand for effective bike parking increases with it. Once a controversial proposal, bike corrals are now requested by businesses as a desirable solution.
Psychology plays an important, if not underutilized role, in city planning. There is growing research on how we experience cities on a psychological level, and it could help us improve the way we design them. Street signage provides critical information about how a city works, but the location, surroundings, and design of that signage contextualizes information in ways that can change our behavior and even how we feel about the city.
When it comes to cycling, psychology plays a crucial role. When placing large investments into building a bike-friendly city, Portland learned from surveys that there was a major hurdle around the perception of safety. Survey after survey told them the same thing — the number one reason people do not ride bicycles is because of fear of being in the roadway on a bicycle.
This information led to important decisions like protected bike lanes, which help to alleviate those fears by separating cyclists from the traffic itself. Bike lane design plays a big role in bringing cyclists confidently onto the road, but what role does parking play? Why did the corrals work so well in Portland compared to other forms of bike parking?
One answer may lie in priming.
Priming is a psychological phenomenon where exposure to a stimulus influences how a person responds to a subsequent, related stimulus. For example, if I were to say the word ‘doctor’ and show you a list of words, you would notice the word ‘nurse’ quicker than ‘mouse’ because your brain has been primed by a related medical word.
When it comes to bike parking, visible parking facilities provide strong priming stimuli about that location. If you see a store with a dedicated bike corral instead of parking on the sidewalk, it tells your brain that this location is likely to see a higher frequency of cyclist parking, and therefore is probably a destination for cyclists.
If you’re a new cyclist getting acquainted with bike lanes, this information may well tell you to stop here to see what the fuss is all about. This is likely one reason why every business in the Portland study saw increased traffic from cyclists when a corral was installed.
But it doesn’t just work at a business level. The frequency of visible parking around a city provides priming cues about what kind of a cycling city you are. More parking options, and particularly more considered options — whether protected options like a corral or just aesthetically pleasing ones — tells residents not just how much a city cares about infrastructure but also how cycling is expected to be utilized.
One scientific study found, unsurprisingly, that bicycle parking supply correlated with more bike parking. What was interesting though, was that the behavior changes were very location specific. More visible parking at a train station resulted in more people commuting to work by bike. Visible parking at a university created more student cyclists. Higher quality parking options influenced this even more.
The locations within a city where there are visible parking primes residents about what kind of cycling occurs in that city. If protected parking only exists at bus and train stations, it sends a strong signal that cycling is for commuting. Visible corrals around commercial business change this information dramatically and can help create more local travel and recreational travel because it primes residents.
There is a growing movement around creating more bike-friendly cities, but parking often comes as an afterthought. More parking is crucial, but how and where that parking is placed, and how visibly, play key roles in the adoption and ongoing use of bike lanes.
Cost will naturally play a key role in these decisions. Typically, on-sidewalk parking for a bike costs between $75 and $150 per space to buy and install. A bike corral can cost around $350 per space. These additional costs can look unappealing if the impact they have isn’t well understood. For comparison, though, a city parking space for a single car can often cost $15,000.
As cities propose new options to improve infrastructure, it’s important that we account for the psychological impact that each decision has, and how it can change the adoption. These small changes can have a dramatic impact on the way people feel, and ultimately how they behave within a city.
