A residential e-bicycle parking mismatch? Unpacking a neglected issue in cycling policy

Source abstract

To support bicycling, cities have focused on providing infrastructure to ensure safe movement. Much less research assesses the provision of adequate bicycle parking, especially residential parking. Because of their higher weight and costs, e-bicycles especially require safe, sheltered and accessible parking. The paper describes the features of home-based bicycle parking for Swiss individuals with and without e-bicycles and assesses variations and discrepancies in residential bicycle parking availability and e-bicycle ownership across land use and household characteristics. The 2021 Swiss Mobility and Transport Microcensus (MTMC) provides a representative national sample of data on e-bicycle ownership and residential bicycle parking (n = 10,154). Variations in logit-based estimated probabilities of e-bicycle ownership and quality parking access across predictor variables are assessed. The probability of having accessible sheltered and secured bicycle parking in a locked room, the golden standard of safety, protection from the elements and ease of use, is low and below that of e-bicycle ownership probabilities, regardless of socio-demographics and location features. Across group characteristics, specific mismatches between parking access and e-bicycle ownership are identified. The largest mismatches are found for homeowners and residents of areas poorly served by public transit. Current housing stock is ill-equipped for parking of e-bicycles, especially in areas where regular cycling is historically low. While existing standards can help shape new housing stock, retrofitting existing residential buildings is an important policy challenge. On street veloboxes may be more feasible. The variety of observed bicycle parking forms also points to the limits of current survey instruments. Improvements to survey instruments are proposed.