St Michael's Hill Cafe Gusto bike park

Cafe Gusto is actually the cafe in the distance, but as it is the most popular cafe on this stretch (free chocolate croissant with every coffee, and free wifi), this is the "cafe gusto stretch". It is where students come to eat at lunchtime -peak times for these cafes is 12-2 Monday to Friday.

We've seen this bus stop before -as short-stay parking.

You could get two bike racks in here, but the pedestrians and bus passengers may be unhappy.

There's also plenty of room round the corner in Paul street.

This pavement gets used as paveparking by minicabs and others (locals?). But not pedestrians. If a bike rack could go up here in a way that kept it visible to people in nearby cafes (theft protection) but not in the main route to the university, it would be handy.

Proposed bike parking on St Michael's hill

What should come into the inbox today but a PDF of some proposed new bike racks along St Michael's Hill, that parental school run traffic jam that turns into a pedestrian overflow of a morning. These are part of the plan to provide bike parking on every stretch of shops, to make it easier to pop round for your supplies.


This little area has names that appear in our database regularly -Highbury Villas, the Homeopathic hospital, St Michael's Hill itself. Yet we aren't sure how many of the vehicles which appear there are shoppers. Daytime its commuters and students, evening residents taking up space, with the area outside Somerfields being the main parking area
The proposal is for:

1. Two racks at Clarence Place, by Somerfields, not far from the wonderful Highbury Vaults.
2. Two racks on the opposite side of the road, in front of the chemists.
3. Two racks just south of Paul Street, near the cafe stretch.

Having sent one of our reporters over to check out the evening shopping rush, and having checked our databases, we'd like to recommend:

1. Place the Somerfield racks on Clarence Place , and build at least five racks [link].
2. Consider whether the proposed racks outside the chemist's are viable [link].
   
3. Move the bottom pair round onto Paul Street, where they can still be seen but which don't stop passengers getting on or off buses [link].