Cargo bikes have a high payload and are environmentally friendly - just like a van, however, parking is sometimes difficult. Because to turn off such a Cargobike, you need enough space, which is not always available in inner cities. In Berlin, the wheels can therefore get their own parking in the future.
The Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection has now issued planning specifications for such parking lots. In the future, motor vehicle parking spaces can be converted into special parking areas for cargo bikes on all roads with a maximum speed of 30. Such parking spaces can also be created for electric scooters in the future.
Senate Department for Environment, Transport and Climate Protection Berlin
This is how the pictograms of the new parking areas look like
With the new rules to ensure uniform specifications for the parking of cargo bikes and e-scooters on the road, said the Berlin Transport State Secretary Ingmar Streese: "Cargo bikes are used more often and need special places." For e-scooters and rental bikes you want to create new parking spaces on the road to get the sidewalks free.
However, the districts of the city are responsible for the selection and rededication of the parking lots. On the vehicle parking space arranged along the roadway, after the rededication, there will be space for three inclined cargo wheels on special bicycle hangers.
Two-meter parking space for electric scooters
The brackets are at 35 centimeters significantly shorter than conventional bicycle handlebar, as cargo wheels need more space to maneuver, said the Senate Department. The parking spaces for e-scooters are two meters wide when parked lengthways. However, bicycles may also be parked on them - as long as the necessary double pictogram is attached to the parking lot.
With these measures, the Senate is responding to the increasing space requirements of alternative mobility services. After all, not only the electric scooters are booming, but also the number of e-cargo bikes sold increased from 21,600 in 2017 to 40,000 in 2018, according to the two-wheeled industry association.
ADFC welcomes the plan, ADAC misses overall concept
The General German Bicycle Club (ADFC) therefore welcomed the decision of the Senate Administration. Often the desire for a cargo bike would be the lack of parking in the way. "Cargo bikes are too heavy and bulky to put them in the basement or bike shed, they are usually too big for normal bicycle stirrups - and they must not decimate the already sparse space of pedestrians," says ADFC spokeswoman Stephanie Crown. Since cargo bikes replace driving and fit on a car parking three to four cargo bikes, this is also space economically the right decision.
The ADAC, however, referred to a lack of overall concept of the Senate. Thus, the parking lot capacities in Berlin are already exhausted, while the car registration numbers continued to rise, said a spokeswoman for the ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg.
"Before parking spaces are created for e-scooters and cargo bikes and thus more traffic is taken to car traffic, it must therefore be evaluated in which places it could really make sense." Otherwise, only the park-search traffic would be amplified, which in turn harms the environment, the spokeswoman said.