Bicycle parking for existing apartment buildings: Practices of transformation

Abstract

Many cities have declared themselves future cycling cities. As one such city, Hamburg aims to reduce its carbon emissions from transportation while making this active, affordable mode of transportation attractive to more people. Achieving this transition requires improvements to all forms of cycling infrastructure, including bicycle parking for existing apartment buildings.

In Hamburg, apartment buildings are home to a majority of the city’s population. Most were built between the late nineteenth century and the post-WWII period, erected into urban forms conceptualized for past mobility regimes. While bicycle parking is required in new construction, few existing buildings are equipped with sufficient facilities. Due to grandfather clauses, owners of existing buildings are not required to provide them.

There are, however, cases in which bicycle parking has been added at sites of existing apartment buildings. While certain patterns appear in the types of infrastructure created (e.g. reconfigured ground floor or basement, bike racks, bike sheds), what actually gets built is a unique manifestation of a complex combination of factors, including: the material constraints of the existing buildings; the influences of policies and institutions; and the varied constellations of actors involved in the transformation processes.

I will present results of the first round of data collection from my dissertation research, a multi-case investigation into the practices of creating residential bicycle parking in existing urban neighborhoods in Hamburg, Germany. The aim of my research is to understand how key actors decide to act (or not act) to transform existing urban space to support a sustainable mobility transition, taking residential bicycle parking as the phenomenon of focus.

In this first phase, I use existing apartment buildings as a unit of investigation. More specifically, mid-rise apartment buildings built before the 1970s and located in urban neighborhoods in Hamburg, Germany.

This research connects actors and space, enabling a mapping of the inheritance from the past with negotiations of the present and potentials of the future. I investigate cases using multiple methods, including interviewing, document analysis, on-site data collection, and site mapping. To draw a direct connection between spaces and the information gathered during the interview process, I carry out walking interviews with key actors at sites of existing apartment buildings.

This research is relevant to building owners, managers, and residents, as well as researchers and policy makers. By investigating current practices on private property, my research will contribute knowledge about little-understood processes of transformation – the necessary small-scale spatial shifts that create essential infrastructure and enable a just, sustainable mobility future.