Silly bike parking things

In the Netherlands, nearly everybody rides a bike (on average we have more than 1 bike per person!). No wonder that you can find bike parking spots everywhere, like the ones in the photo up here. Actually, this photo shows two different types of bike parking systems.

This is one I found at the trainstation in Eindhoven. In the top photo you see the regular parking spot, in the bottom photo the “new and improved” ones. The old parking method can house nearly twice as many bikes per meter as the new parking method. Seeing as that there are not enough spots anyway, I think this is a pretty lousy “improvement”.

On top of that, the new method also relies on technology that can (and does) fail, can only be used for a short duration (after that your bike is no longer locked!) and is only available for people with a citizens-card. You get that card for free when you register for living in the city, but who wants to keep another card in their wallet just to park their bike?

Solution #

Remove the “improved” method… Why do we keep putting expensive new designs in places were they are not necessary??