Increase in rail commuters cycling to stations

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

A video news report, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

The number of people jumping on their bikes to get to the train station each day has more than tripled in just two years.
But it is putting pressure on space for bike racks.
Jenny Hill reports from Leeds station, which is the second busiest station outside London.

[A V Lowe]

For the London commuter its a no-brainer - with a bike you save ^600 on the cost of a London Zones supplement - ^600 just about buys a basic Brompton so you pay back the cost in a year.  But better than that you reduce the train to desk time from 30+ minutes as a troglodyte including an extended period in a travelling sauna and massage parlour, to 10-15 minutes, which for those working in Whitehall can be delivered largely using routes through the Royal Parks.

Even leaving a bike at Paddington you can afford to have 2-3 bikes trashed or stolen each year and still be in pocket.

Swinging that round to the home station, you potentially save ^700 or more on a car park season ticket, cut several minutes from the searching for a space, and walking from there to the platform, and if you are clever you ditch the cost of that car you leave for 9 hours in the car park.  Some people are clocking up a saving of an hour on their door to desk journey times, or roughly 20 days 'holiday' over the period of a year, and claiming direct and indirect cost savings amounting to over^8000 per year on their commuting costs.

SWT^▸ (South West Trains) at Waterloo and Richmond is offering a deal for leasing a fully serviced folding bike - effectively selling a total joureny package from door to door

The other impact detail was one I looked at during the Thameslink and Waterloo & City closures (roughly 6 months in both cases) and at St Pancras the number of cyclists went up by over1000% in just 2 months, because it deiivered a much needed way of getting to work on time.  This may be one to watch when access and onward travel are disrupted for extended periods by works at Paddington and other stations