[furyg3]

Not at a busy train station in Holland.

200+ bikes are removed per day at Amsterdam's central train station for being parked outside of the designated bicycle parking areas (e.g. sidewalks, bridges, alongside the walls of the station). Even within the designated areas, you usually have to be parked in a bike rack or your lock will be cut and the bike removed.

At busy stations it would be great to know which one of the designated spots you should bike towards. Biking farther away and walking for 3 minutes is much better than guessing incorrectly, searching for a spot for 10 minutes, and still having to walk for three minutes... especially when you need to catch a train!

[errtnsd]

Great argument. My country is much more relaxed when it comes to bike parking ( and stealing unfortunately ).

[mcv]

Probably because your country doesn't have as many bikes as Netherland does.

In most places in Netherland, parking wherever you like is no big deal, but there are places (train stations in particular) where bikes really need to be restricted, or there'd be no room for anything other than bikes.

It's the same as with cars: the occasional randomly parked car is not a big problem, but once you've got thousands of cars being parked all over the place, it becomes time to restrict them to designated parking spots. It's no different with bikes, except you need a lot more bikes to get to the point where they become a problem. Dutch cities have that many bikes.