What does £1 million of cycling infrastructure actually buy?
It's a question worth asking - especially if you're a local authority, transport planner, or anyone making the case for cycling investment.
The answer might surprise you.
Spend £1 million on a fully segregated cycle lane and you'll get somewhere between 700 and 900 metres of protected route. That's less than a kilometre - potentially not enough to connect two meaningful destinations. It takes years to plan, consult, and build. And once it's done, you'll need ongoing public funding to maintain it.
Spend the same £1 million on a smart bike parking network and you could deliver 500 to 1,000 secure parking spaces across 5-8 locations - with city-wide coverage from day one. Deployment takes weeks or months, not years. And here's the thing: parking generates revenue. Membership fees can fund ongoing maintenance and management, making the infrastructure self-sustaining.
This isn't to say cycle lanes don't matter. They do. Safe routes are essential. But secure parking addresses one of the biggest barriers to cycling uptake: theft. Research shows 86% of potential cyclists would be encouraged to ride if they had somewhere secure to leave their bike. London boroughs report 12-18 month waiting lists for residential cycle hangars. The demand is real.
The challenge historically has been that bike parking operated as isolated, standalone assets. A hangar here, a hub there - but no connection between them. Cycle lanes, by contrast, form networks. Each new kilometre extends the whole system.
Smart management platforms change this. For as little as £1,000-2,000 per facility, technology can connect parking assets into genuine networks - single membership, multiple locations, real-time monitoring, integrated journey planning. Suddenly parking has the same network benefits as route infrastructure, at a fraction of the capital cost.
We've pulled together the evidence on all of this - UK and European cost benchmarks, case studies, and practical examples of what different budget levels can deliver - in a new reference report.
Whether you're building a business case, challenging assumptions, or just trying to understand the options, we hope it's useful.
Download the full report below.