පාපැදි හොරුන්ව මට්ටු කරන 'ලොකී'

Parking safety concerns cyclists in Brussels

Brussels has promoted cycling throughout the city, but its residents are concerned with safety when parking their bikes.

A Brussels-based company, LOCKY, is providing a paid parking service to give local cyclists extra sense of security against thieves.

Using a metal-locked station at one of its nine locations costs around one dollar per hour or about 16 dollars for a monthly subscription.

Shady Cantarella, CEO of LOCKY, said the material of his products is tough against theft tools.

"It's not a stainless-steel arm like you have on the U-lock. We have developed a material that's almost impossible to cut it through. If you try to cut it through, it's actually the disc of the angle grinder itself that will get destroyed," he said.

Bike safety in Brussels is going downhill with a sharp spike in thefts recorded over the past few years. According to security agency Safe.Brussels, reported bike thefts in the Belgian capital rose more than 70 percent between 2015 and 2022. There are fears that the trend could put the brakes on the city's mobility targets.

In the face of traffic congestion and EU air pollution limits, the Belgian capital is encouraging its residents to cycle. The city aims to triple the number of cyclists on its roads by 2030 from 2018.

Improving the parking infrastructure is one of the measures to achieve this goal, as more than 13,000 residents are currently on the waiting list for a bike parking space.

Bart Dhondt, Vice Mayor for Mobility of the City of Brussels, said the city government is building large parking lots in the city to ensure the safety of bikes.

"More than 600 bikes can park here safely. We also increased the safety around the whole building and so there are a number of these kinds of big parkings in the center of the city," he said.

Steven Fierens, a spokesman for Brussels Mobility, said the city is making efforts to improve safety for both bikes and cyclists.

"A lot of people want to bike and safety is one of the main concerns of why people won't bike. And if safety is improved then you have more cyclists on the road," said Fierens.

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