Welcome to the neighbourhood ..
.. it's good to make your acquaintance. Story 170
Welcome to Bridged2050: creating an even better Barnes during this climate crisis
Richmond borough now boasts over 100 bikehangars.
And I managed to bag one.
Richmond council has confirmed that 104 bike hangars are now installed across the borough, an increase of 98 in just six years. Together, they provide around 600 on-street parking spaces for bicycles, offering secure storage for residents who lack the room to keep a bike at home.
Each hangar costs the council about £4,000 to purchase and install from its supplier, Cyclehoops. Residents pay £72 per bike, per year, for access.
Demand for slots continue to outstrip supply. The council reported there are 1256 on waiting lists with three locations with
50 or more people on the waiting list and three additional units with more than 40 people on the waiting lists.
Richmond council are planning to install another 40 hangars this summer.
Barnes will host the borough’s first cargo bikehangar in April. The new unit will provide two secure spaces and will be used by the Barnes Community Association and the Friends of Barnes Common, both of whom rely on cargo bikes to transport equipment to events and support local community gardening projects.
Notes & thoughts
The locations of the bikehangars are selected based on residents’ requests which can be submitted on our website, a process I completed last summer. In my case, the final siting was slightly different from what I had proposed, placed about 100 metres further along the same road.
The Cyclehoops onboarding process deserves a mention. It was simple, quick and refreshingly human. My key arrived by post just a few days later.
Richmond council also deserve credit for the pace of rollout. There were only 83 hangars in July last year. The scale of demand suggests this programme needs to keep moving.
Of course, this is part of a wider—and ongoing—reallocation of street space away from cars and towards buses, pedestrians and bikes. There were the predictable grumbles on the street WhatsApp about the ‘loss of parking’. I resisted the temptation to correct the claim. Another time, face to face.
One councillor later offered a useful perspective when the topic was discussed at the February meeting of the council’s transportation and air quality committee. When a neighbour buys a second car and parks it on the road, that rarely provokes protest. A small green bike shed, by contrast, somehow does.
These conversations will continue as the council presses ahead with its hangar deployment.
