Parking bikes in multi-dwellings and offices - a review of approaches in Swedish municipalities

Paper i proceeding, 2024

Car parking often gets quite a lot of attention - but what about bike parking? With cities moving toward climate neutrality and the 15-minute city, bikes will play a crucial role in the transport system. Still, bike thefts have been identified as one of the barriers to larger adoption of bike usage, especially when more expensive bikes such as e-bikes are introduced. It is thus important to provide good and safe bike parking at multi-dwelling houses and commercial buildings. Providing good bike parking and other biking service, such as bike-sharing, can also be a tool to reduce the need for car parking. In this paper, we collect data from 56 municipalities of varying sizes in Sweden on requirements for bike parking in new multi-dwelling houses and commercial buildings. Data is collected through a survey, interviews as well as workshops with civil servants in charge of parking regulations. Analysis of parking regulations documents is also included. Factors studied are the number of parking spaces regulated, specification on quality (such as locking possibilities and weather protection), as well as the provision of shared bikes. 86 % of the studied municipalities have some kind of regulations regarding bike parking at new multi-dwelling houses and 73 % at new commercial buildings. We find that medium-sized municipalities (>50,000 inhabitants) have worked the most with bike parking, especially compared to municipalities of similar size that are commuting municipalities to the three largest cities in Sweden. We also find that quality is an essential issue, however, municipalities feel unsure about how to regulate and follow up on the issue. Insights from the study can help municipalities either considering developing regulations about bike parking or considering revisions of current regulations.