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Students claim lack of car parking is harming their studies – but university tells them to try cycling to class

Last month, Queen’s University Belfast opened three new on-campus cycle parking facilities as part of ongoing active travel efforts – but students say they’ve walked into lectures an hour late because “there’s no place to park”

Students at Queen’s University Belfast have claimed that the lack of car parking spaces on campus is negatively affecting their studies, just a month after the university unveiled three new cycle parking facilities for up to 80 bikes, as part of ongoing efforts to encourage active travel and “reduce car dependency”.

While a number of students complained to the BBC that the dearth of secure car parking was making them late for lectures or having a detrimental effect on their sleep, the university said “staff and students are encouraged to use active forms of sustainable travel” and “link up with the cycling community”.

On-campus car parking is scarce at Queen’s University Belfast, based in the south of the city, with staff often spending years on waiting lists for spaces on the main site. Meanwhile, free on-street parking is confined to the residential ‘Holylands’ area nearby, where the narrow streets quickly fill up in the morning with cars, several of which are stationed fully on the pavement.

> “Disappointed” cyclists forced to lock bikes on outdoor railings as Belfast’s new Grand Central Station opens with no cycle parking provisions

Speaking to BBC NI, Masters student Jamie Dowie complained that there are “no places to park” at the university.

“I have walked into lectures an hour late,” he said. “If you have an exam, you’re up maybe two or three hours beforehand so you can get parked. You lose out on sleep.

“There are no places to park. It’s all side streets, there’s no actual proper parking facilities,” he continued, adding that, once parked, he’s often worried that his car will be damaged on residential streets.

“It’s next to impossible to get parked in the morning, you have to show up at seven o’clock. And what are you supposed to do at seven o’clock in the morning?” asked PhD student Rebecca Bennett, who says she walks to and from the university, something she describes as a “bit scary”.

“When you hear those news reports about the increased femicide rate in Northern Ireland, it’s a huge issue. And it just makes you think twice about walking alone at night,” she said.

> New barriers on infamous ‘car park’ cycle lane vandalised, as councillor calls for “robust” protection “before someone gets seriously hurt”

Politics and International Relations student Caitlin Hilton also told the BBC that, because it’s “very hard” to find anywhere to park, she has to get up earlier than she would otherwise, which she claims negatively impacts on her ability to learn and study.

And Oisín McCarron even claimed that his quality of life while at university has been worsened by a lack of parking availability.

“It’s very difficult to get parked anywhere, to the point where people are just parking on the footpath. I can’t drive during the week because there’s no parking where I live,” he said.

Others, meanwhile, described the parking situation at Queen’s as a “nightmare” and complained about parking prices on nearby streets.

“I get the bus up from Newry,” says Siofra Kearney. “It’s an hour and twenty minute journey, which is longer than it would take me to drive. All because I’m unable to get my car parked or move reliably around the city.

“It’s not a very accessible city for students.”

However, responding to these complaints, a Queen’s spokesperson pointed out that current traffic congestion across the city is “a result of infrastructure issues outside of the control or remit of Queen’s”, and that staff and students are encouraged to walk, cycle, or use public transport to access the campus.

“Our staff and students are also encouraged to use active forms of sustainable travel and we are actively engaging with the Department for Infrastructure and Belfast City Council,” they added.

Opening of new bike parking facilities at Queen's University Belfast

Belfast Lord Mayor Councillor Micky Murray, Sara Lynch, Head of Sustainability at Queen’s, Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd, and Queen’s President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Ian Greer at the opening of the new bike parking facilities (Queen’s University Belfast)

Just last month, Queen’s officially launched three new sheltered cycle parking facilities on campus, which have space for up to 80 bikes and are home to Belfast’s first free, publicly accessible e-bike charger.

The new cycle parking facilities, funded by Queen’s and Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure and supported by Belfast City Council, form part of the local authority’s initiative to develop a network of secure cycle parking locations in the city.

“The new, all-inclusive cycle, parking infrastructure at Queen's main car park, near the Peter Froggatt Centre, is setting a new standard for cycling facilities in Belfast, encompassing a fob access e-bike parking facility, with accompanying battery charging cabinet,” Queen’s said in a statement.

“A second, new open canopy shelter, also in the main Queen’s car park, is designed for bike commuters with disabilities, cargo bike users, and other non-standard cycles. Beyond the main site, there is also a new fob access bike shelter at Queen's University's Physical Education Centre (PEC).

“The project is all about embracing active travel as people lessen car dependency behaviours, and supporting health, well-being, and sustainability,” the university added.

Speaking to road.cc, Nathan Booth, an assistant estates manager in environmental and transport at Queen’s, said the students interviewed by the BBC should “link up with the cycling community here at the university”.

“We now have cycling infrastructure that has been well received by staff, students, and members of the public,” Booth told road.cc. “We now have the wonderful challenge to get access fobs into the hands of all those eager to park their bike inside Ireland’s first secure e-bike facility!

“The students referenced in the BBC article are encouraged to experience this pioneering facility and link up with the cycling community here at the university.

“Last month we commenced the first student community bike ride which was an insured event to support students who are unfamiliar with cycling on the streets of Belfast.

“An inner-city commute and a riverside commute were two of the routes we covered. There will be future community bike rides of this nature.”

“The climate crisis is one of the most significant challenges facing society today, which is why Queen’s has pledged to achieve Net Zero by 2040. As an anchor institution, we are committed to leading the way, with our partners, to help Northern Ireland’s transition to a Net Zero society,” Queen’s President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Ian Greer said at the launch of the new facilities last month.

“To help achieve our Net Zero goal and encourage active travel we have a responsibility to provide the infrastructure to make it easier for people to travel sustainably. This new cycling infrastructure is a best-practice example of what can be achieved when partners work together to create solutions.

“These three new facilities are the first of their kind in Belfast. As well as providing secure cycle parking for 80 cycles, they also provide parking for non-standard cycles, including cargo bikes and recumbent cycles. One of the facilities is also home to the first publicly accessible free e-bike charging provision in Belfast.

“We hope that this unique infrastructure will provide secure parking for those who already cycle, and that by reducing the barriers and creating more and accessible cycle parking, that it will encourage more people to cycle as their preferred mode of transport, leaving the car behind.”

While the BBC chose to focus on students seemingly desperate to park their cars where there is limited availability at Queen’s, another member of staff, assistant estates manager Chris Johnston, told road.cc that a number of recent initiatives, such as increased storage and changing facilities, the Cycle Plus bike to work scheme, and the creation of an on-campus cycle repair and hire shop, have made it easier than ever to park the bike instead.

“I ditched the car and now commute by train and bike,” he said. “It was driving me insane sitting in traffic.”

After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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36 comments

Avatar
Shades | 3 weeks ago
4 likes

The real cost of motoring has gone down massively over the last 50 years; I'm sure the die hard motorists would tell you otherwise.  If I'm wrong then why are the majority of 16 year olds getting a car.  All the negative impacts of too many cars are plain to see but motornormativity means they are just overlooked by most people; governments are scared off 'attacking the motorist' with, for example, road charging or increased fuel duty.  A few rat-runs have been closed near us; anyone would think that the world had ended with the motorists wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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Rendel Harris replied to Shades | 3 weeks ago
1 like

Interesting article here that proves you right: adjusted for inflation motoring is cheaper on every single metric except fuel compared to 1972, and that is more than offset by the improved mpg of modern cars. VED was more than double what it is today, insurance was 25% more expensive, finance is much cheaper today and warranties are far longer...the war on motorists simply doesn't exist.

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chrisonabike replied to Rendel Harris | 3 weeks ago
1 like

Good article.

"Expense" and wealth always relative of course. More expensive today than yesterday? A crisis. Can't have more, "better" AND cheaper? Hard times.
It *could* be even cheaper but someone (gub'mint) is in the way? Oppression.

Snarky but that's people / popular discourse.

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Benthic | 3 weeks ago
6 likes

Motorists are utterly convinced that the world owes them storage space for their four-wheeled possessions.

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chrisonabike replied to Benthic | 3 weeks ago
3 likes

...because by and large the world tells them that!

Example - in the UK the rules effectively run "you can park anywhere, except where expressly forbidden".  So we have thousands of miles of marginally effective yellow lines.

Contrast that with e.g. the Dutch "you can only park where indicated" (Robert Weetman has some good examples comparing e.g. urban streets in different countries).

That means that motorists feel proprietorial about "their" area of public space and become quite angry when charged for parking.  I guess it's also "I've promoted myself to knight-status with my expensive steed but now petty bureaucrats are proposing limiting my rights to ride (drive) the land?!"

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wtjs replied to chrisonabike | 3 weeks ago
3 likes

I've promoted myself to knight-status with my expensive steed but now petty bureaucrats are proposing limiting my rights to ride (drive) the land

Unfortunately, the police accept this 'increased status due to large expensive car'- I think this is the Chief Constable of Lancashire Comedy Constabulary in her monster guzzler- last MOT July 2022

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wtjs replied to wtjs | 3 weeks ago
1 like

Consequently, other BMW owners in Lancashire don't have to bother with MOTs either. This is YB61 FBK

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Billsmiles | 3 weeks ago
3 likes

I'm guessing a lot of students choose to live at home because of the cost, commuting a fair distance, student digs too cost at least £650 pcm - £850pcm for 11 months a year..7k-10.5k .
A car will makes sense, unfortunately compound competing with those who work there it must be a pain.

I use to use a car and bike combo to get to work (in Bath) which was the most sensible option to get round parking shortage and cost.
Before anyone says why didn't I bike all the way, after a 7-8 miles of a postie walk carrying a pouch or pulling a trolley, 6 days a week, I didn't have the energy to cycle all the way home.

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eburtthebike | 3 weeks ago
2 likes

I thought students were supposed to be intelligent?

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Andrewbanshee | 3 weeks ago
7 likes

I lived a fair distance, 40 ish minutes walk, which I did every day. Only one of my house shares had a car and he walked too. Back then 92 to 95 it wasn't an expectation to be able to park at the university or near it. Who could afford a car on student income? This was Leeds.

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qwerty360 | 4 weeks ago
2 likes

Reality - I expect most first year lectures have more than 80 students at them; So 80 bicycle spaces is a rounding error on potential demand.

But given they can only supply 80 bicycle spaces, how do people expect them to provide 80 car parking spaces instead (and of course the rest...)

Reality is the only way to supply enough parking would be (expensive) multistory replacing half the campus (and then complaints when they get told half their lectures are now off site because they had to replace the lecture halls with parking)...

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Accessibility f... | 4 weeks ago
2 likes

The main road outside the university building:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/jKictGB5ZGiTKC7e7

But yes, let's criticise students who drive instead.

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chrisonabike replied to Accessibility for all | 4 weeks ago
6 likes

Perfect width for them to install bi- directional cycle paths. Or a tram. Or both!

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biking59boomer | 4 weeks ago
3 likes

How many times do we hear students pleading poverty?, yet they can afford to run cars! The uni needs to build more bike spaces instead of parking and they need to either bus/bike/walk it. 

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IanMK | 4 weeks ago
4 likes

So the bike shed will hold 25-30 cycles. Even in the photo there are 9 already. It takes up the space of what? 4 parking spaces. That seems to be a far more effective use of space.
As Spock said: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

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tomascjenkins | 4 weeks ago
1 like

I sympathise with students. In road.cc's hometown Bath, in the mornings there are queues of 100-150 students waiting for buses to take them to the Unis. Many students houses in Bath won't have any storage to keep bikes, so that's a problem too. Most of the houses in the student area don't even have front gardens / railings where you could lock a bike up. I doubt many / any have cars in Bath as there is residents parking and the Uni's don't have many parking spaces. Must be tricky these days being a student with poor options to get into Uni. 

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pockstone replied to tomascjenkins | 4 weeks ago
5 likes

Carrera intercity folder...£400.00. Sounds like you just wrote the perfect reason to buy one. Bit of a pull up from Bath town centre but a breeze on the way home. I wouldn't want to cycle from Newry to Belfast on one, at least not everyday, but trains are available and Botanic station is minutes away from QUB. Monthly season ticket works out at £13.75 a day (20 days a month) without student discount. Expensive, especially if you've already invested in a car, but what price not missing lectures?

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chrisonabike replied to pockstone | 4 weeks ago
2 likes

Cheap heavy 2nd hand folders are bulky and poor rides. But the former only compared to a Brompton and the latter compared to a full-sized bike (or folder costing hundreds or thousands more).

Perfectly stowable in a student room. Very convenient when compared to walking or getting the bus.

BUT ... part of the point of student days - for many - is learning and practicing higher-status habits and acquiring useful contacts (who will be higher-status in the future, if currently in the cheap seats). So ... car, and automobility.

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Beatnik69 replied to pockstone | 3 weeks ago
0 likes

I have a funny feeling that Translink don't allow bikes on trains before 9am, which is ridiculous. They ned to bring back the guard van that used to hold loads of bikes.

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alchemilla | 4 weeks ago
15 likes

Well done Queens University!
The students' quotes are just because a journalist was out looking for soundbites to make a story.
Doubtless you could stop any driver anywhere and ask about parking and they'd moan about it.

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Rome73 | 4 weeks ago
16 likes

'When I were a lad . . . . . ' and all that. But really, a car when you are an undergraduate? No one, in my day, would even think about owning a car at that age. I'm not blaming today's undergraduates. Car dependency is built into many people's lives very early on - it starts at zero and through early school years as children are 'dropped off' at primary and junior school - even if they live close to the school.  There are real efforts to change this culture (in London at least) with School Streets for example. But there is still a hell of a lot to do. Universal, safe, high quality infrastructure is the biggest drive to behaviour change. There is no point in fantastic cycle parking if the destination is difficult to reach. 

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OldRidgeback | 4 weeks ago
17 likes

It's almost as if there's no other way to get from A to B without driving a car.

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Gbjbanjs | 4 weeks ago
17 likes

QUB was my uni. Noone drove, everyone walked, cycled and used the bus. Get a grip todays students.

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ktache | 4 weeks ago
4 likes

Electric charging points seems new and good though security will probably be a little inadequate.

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ktache replied to ktache | 4 weeks ago
1 like

There was a bloke last night wihh an ebike abomination, sharing the vestibule on the train, nice wide chunky tyres but on tiny wheels, but it did have a fob activated smart screen, don't know how unique the fob was or how widely the system is, but seemed like a good extra security layer.

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kingleo | 4 weeks ago
6 likes

The students at Cambrige have no problem cycling everywhere.

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chrisonabike replied to kingleo | 4 weeks ago
8 likes

Shurely "toff university for wealthy public school types ... er ... historic tourist town, not a real place ... woke councils imposing draconian movement restrictions on people..."?

No doubt there are people who would be severely impacted by driving difficulties (people with local caring responsibilities / trying to juggle an out of town job and studies etc. As there were a few even back when I was a student.

But if the local streets are already chock- full of parked vehicles how is facilitating more going to help the place? And making it easier to run cars certainly ain't gonna help fix the public transport.

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FionaJJ | 4 weeks ago
19 likes

When I was a student it was virtually unheard of for someone to have a car. It wasn't even that it was considered a luxury that almost no-one could afford, it was just not something most students should need, and wouldn't want the faff. In a city environment especially there would never be enough parking, but the sheer logistics of any sizeable university being able to accommodate a significant portion of students driving would be unworkable. Expecting to be able to drive seems unreasonable for able bodied students unless you are at farming college in the countryside and you are going home to the family farm afterwards.

I know most university areas are struggling to keep up with the demand for local accommodation, so it's harder to live within walking distance, but surely there are buses and trains for longer journeys. Apart from anything else, who wants to be driving after lectures? I'd think most students would welcome the opportunity to read on the bus/train.

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slc replied to FionaJJ | 4 weeks ago
5 likes

There are tens of thousands of students attending university in every major UK city. Not all of them are young, many have to balance work, family, and study. So it probably wasn't too difficult for the BBC to find a few drivers.

What you say about the impracticality of cars for students is true, but it is also true for pretty much anyone working in a city unless they use a vehicle as part of their work - who wants to sit in traffic after a day in the office? And yet, the car remains the most popular choice. To me it is as much a mystery as people voting Trump.

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chrisonabike replied to slc | 4 weeks ago
7 likes
slc wrote:

...And yet, the car remains the most popular choice. To me it is as much a mystery as people voting Trump.

No great mystery in either case, surely? Both US politician and the motor trade say "choose us and your life will be better and easier!" And other wealthy and influential people chime in, agreeing...

For many people a car is just something you have to have to take your place in society. Like "being on the housing ladder". Independence - you're not relying on others (except the bank). People will now come to *you* for a ride. Instant status - you're no longer a transport supplicant but a lift landlord!

And of course it promises "solutions" (security apparently, a means to get to education, employment, friends and family).

Once you've got the car and paid the "fixed costs" of tax and insurance - why NOT use it? The cost you seem to be paying per mile after that is small...

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