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Space-Efficient, Paternoster-like Bike Storage Lockers

The V-Locker system, designed by Meyer-Hayoz

By Rain Noe - April 11

in Bikes | Urbanism

Underground bike storage systems, like those seen in Japan, are amazing. But they obviously require a massive amount of excavation and construction.

A Swiss company called V-Locker has designed an easier-to-implement solution. The company has developed tower modules containing bike lockers that travel upwards in a paternoster-like arrangement.

Depending on the size of the tower, these can hold 6, 8, 12 or 20 bikes per unit, within a minimal footprint; 4.5 square meters, or 48 square feet, is all that's required.

A single door at the bottom is where riders can access the lockers (via app, of course). As a bonus, riders can also store their backpacks and helmets in the lockers, which are of course weatherproof.

The towers themselves are modular, making installation straightforward. The pieces are trucked to the site and stacked with a crane.

The exterior designs are customizable, in order to comply with any given municipality's visual regulations or tastes.

This is no mere concept, by the way; there are currently six of these located through Switzerland and seven in Germany, with more to come.

The design and engineering for these was done by consultancy Meyer-Hayoz.

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Dee An

8 months ago

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Bicycles are awkward objects to store, not only in context but in the limited space available to them on trains and in hallways.
Fold up pedals do help, but there doesn't appear to be a good solution for folding the handlebars available for an affordable price. There is a fold-up stem available, but it is expensive.
If fold-up pedals and stems were the norm, a lot more bicycles could be stored in the same volume.

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Ryan Cee

8 months ago

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Paying someone to guard a bike rack sounds a lot cheaper than any of this.

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- Robin Vickery
  
  Ryan Cee
  
  8 months ago
  
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  Minimum wage in Zurich where the company is based is 23.90 CHF/hour (1 CHF is about $1.10). To pay someone to watch the bike rack around the clock would cost more than $280,000 in wages alone. And it wouldn't be nearly as useful or effective as a secure bike locker.
  
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A M L

8 months ago

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1- How does the cost per storage bay compare to the Japanese design? Seems like these are more expensive as every 6 bikes require a new waterproof structure, control system, etc…
2- One benefit of this system are these can be quickly deployed and manufactured offsite
3- maybe these costs would be better spent on anti-angle grinder bike locks (think chainsaw protective pants). A quick google search shows a number of them exist.

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P Z

8 months ago

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Ebikes can easily cost over $5,000 and only the very top end locks can stand up to a $100 battery powered angle grinder. This solution doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me.

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Robin Vickery

8 months ago

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1. The expense is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount expended on storing cars for the 95% of the time they are not in use.
2. People of all classes use bicycles as their primary form of transport in most European cities.
3. Bike theft is a big problem. In Amsterdam, for example, around 30,000 bikes a year are stolen. A thief using a cheap battery powered angle grinder can cut through almost any lock in seconds and you stand almost no chance of getting your bike back. When you rely on it for getting to work, collecting the children from school, doing the shopping, etc, having your bike stolen can have a major affect on your life.

I'm not sure this is the solution, but it deserves better than a sneer.

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Zach W

8 months ago

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So an expensive 30ft tall tower that holds 6 bikes??? Yeah, this is not the solution.....

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- Robin Vickery
  
  Zach W
  
  8 months ago
  
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  "So an expensive 30ft tall tower that holds 6 bikes???”
  
  Nope, the 7m version (that's less than 23ft) can hold 8 bikes securely in a footprint (4.5 m²) that's slightly more than a third of a standard Swiss car park bay (12.5 m²).
  
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  - Robin Vickery
    
    Robin Vickery
    
    8 months ago
    
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    I'm not sure why you think the volume of a car is relevant, unless you're planning on stacking them up.
    
    The fact is, you don't need to "run the numbers" - they already have these outside Beuel station in Bonn (and I think it's one of the photos in the article). It can hold 96 bicycles and takes up slightly less space than three parking spaces.
    
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  - Zach W
    
    Robin Vickery
    
    8 months ago
    
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    "I'm not sure why you think the volume of a car is relevant, unless you're planning on stacking them up." Did you seriously ask that question with a picture of stacked car parking in the background??? Quite possibly the most common type of car parking lots are stacked!!
    Storage for those 96 bikes takes up the square footage of 3 parking spaces, but they're also like 40 feet tall! which is kind of a big detail you left out.
    
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  - Zach W
    
    Robin Vickery
    
    8 months ago
    
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    Ok, holds 6 bike and is 23f tall...... it's also prone to electrical failures and vandalism.
    
    It might use less "surface area" than a single car space but I bet it takes up at least double the total volume just for 6 bikes.
    
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  - Zach W
    
    Robin Vickery
    
    8 months ago
    
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    I got curious and ran the numbers.
    -The car park space is 12 sq meters and let's assume 2m tall for a total of 24 cubic meters.
    -The bike rack is 4 sq meter and 7 meters tall so that's 28 cubic meters, which is more volume than a car park.
    So like I said before, 6 bikes taking up more room than a single car space isn't that clever....
    
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Ryan Cee

8 months ago

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Goddamn the expenses we go to satiate middle class crime paranoia...

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- Dee An
  
  Ryan Cee
  
  8 months ago
  
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  Yeah, the usual approach is to have middle class people drive to work, and have the emissions from their cars reduce the life expectancy of lower income families who live in the cheap housing near the main roads. /s
  Fear of theft is a barrier to bicycle adoption. A middle income person, by definition, will suffer less disruption to their life if their bicycle is stolen than a lower income person will.
  
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