Cycling Facilities 2

One of the most impressive (and directly transferable) pieces of bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands was their bike garages! Generally made as underground single floor facilities, these allow for hundreds to thousands of bikes to be stored in a very compact and efficient manner, out of the elements, without having to drag the thing up a flight of stairs to get it into your house. And the best part? It's free to use! Albeit with some stipulations, namely that there's a time limit for how long you can stash your bike before the city comes in and takes it (which isn't really much of a problem if you're using it on a daily basis).

The pictures above and to the left are all taken from the bike parking for the Delft train station. This particular one has an over/underpass system in place so cyclists and busses are able to cross through the same flat point without having to worry about each other. Notably, this particular roadway is a dedicated bike path, meaning that there is no car traffic whatsoever along it. This leads both into and past the parking structure, as can be seen in the next picture.

The parking is just out of frame to the left of both above pictures, but what is shown is the entry and exit on this side of the facility (there is another on the opposite side). Rather than a simple intersection, there is a pair of two-way "on/off ramps" which cyclists can use to get up to speed before merging with traffic out of parking, and to allow other cyclists to slow down before entering without having to do so on the main roadway. Ultimately, it makes the situation safer for everybody involved.

Moving on to the main event, this photo shows in part the actual facility (hidden behind the corner of the wall is significantly more parking, and there's enough on the other side of the central path to double that or more). The facility itself has ceilings at around 3m if I had to guess (I'm just shy of 2m tall and can't reach them), and the bike racks are two bikes tall, so the handlebars of the top set just avoid hitting the ceiling. This facility, when full capacity is possible, can hold over a thousand bikes, and there are two other, slightly smaller similar facilities just on the other side of this one (all three were practically full the whole time we were there).