Quickly parking your bike in a rack near the station and sprinting to catch the train could soon be a thing of the past. In the centre of Utrecht cyclists will soon have to pay if they want to park their muscle-driven two-wheeler. From 2013 the city will gradually introduce the scheme, with an aim of providing 22,000 rack units. Free bike parking will be banned in areas near the stabling facilities.

And in future more train passengers could have to pay to park their bikes in a shelter. The ruling free-market VVD party is in favour of abolishing free bike parking. Earlier experiments with parking fees, however, showed that many cyclists simply drop their bikes somewhere else, which led to a chaos on the pavements. The ENFB cyclists' union said that requiring payment for putting your bike in a rack runs counter to the policies pursued by successive governments to get people out of their cars and onto the bike, to reduce traffic congestion.

The manager of the award-winning bicycle shelter in the town of Zutphen ignored such criticism. He says people must realise that paid shelters are the best option.

The squares outside nearly all Dutch train stations usually look chaotic. Many working people and students arrive at the station by bike. The squares are usually jammed to the brink with thousands of bicycles. They are popular locations for bicycle thieves. And with all those bikes, it can take a long time to find out if one's bike has or has not been stolen.

The bicycle shelter in Zutphen is different: it is large, modern and underground. It has served as a model for other shelters, even in Great Britain. However, because it is free-of-charge many people leave their bikes for long periods, if they return at all. The head of the Zutphen shelter says you can prevent this by charging a small fee at the entrance, or by issuing passes. "In any event, we can no longer permit situations such as the one in Wageningen. At the Ede-Wageningen station bicycles are parked outside. There they are dumped, stolen, etcetera. It is a complete mess."

(This video was first published on 9 May 2009)