David Timoney, head of Dublin Cycling Campaign’s research group on tackling bike theft, gives an update on progress.

Using our research results from December 2014, the Bike Theft Working Group has broken the problem down into four areas, “the 4 Es”. Were working on these issues in The Bike Theft Group through the City Council.

1. Education – information around need to use higher quality Gold Secure rated locks.
2. Enforcement – increased focus and intelligence gathering from Gardaí through info and ‘bait bikes’.
3. Engineering - more and better bike parking particularly in apartment blocks.
4. Evaluation – getting a figure for the actual number of thefts and tracking this over time.

We`ve made good progress on item # 2 above (Enforcement) with the Gardaí launching a bait bike initiative as well as holding a press event and placing a number of info bikes around the city. On the Education side, on Oct 19th, we had the Lord Mayor, Criona Ní Dhálaigh, launch the Bike Security campaign in Grangegorman, DIT campus.

The next challenge is Engineering and particularly bike parking in private complexes. Our research shows that one thirdd of bikes stolen in Dublin are taken from apartment blocks. In December, we visited over twenty apartment blocks to examine facilities and then selected three to tour with a few councillors, urban planners from DIT and journalists where we met residents and caretakers and saw the facilities. In the two bad examples we looked at, bike theft was a major problem - the racks weren’t used that much and there were bikes being kept on balconies. In the one good example we found, there was no bike theft problem - the bikes cages were full and there were no bikes on balconies. The good news is that if we could get proper facilities installed through a retrofitting programme it seems we would seee a lot more people using bikes in apartment blocks. Watch this space.

If you are interested in contributing some ideas and energy to the Bike Theft Working Group, email us on info@dublincycling.ie, marking it for the attention of David Timoney.