By Mikayla van Loon
Bike riders have been left baffled by a lengthy closure of the Mooroolbark Train Station’s Parkiteer bike parking just over a year since building was complete.
Mooroolbark based university student Kate Pengelly rides her bike to the station everyday to then catch public transport to campus.
But since 12 February the bike parking facility has been closed due to a faulty door, seeing Kate have to ride a further 20 minutes to Croydon Train Station.
“Because of the replacement buses at the moment, the commute is already very long. So it’s quite disappointing that it hasn’t been fixed, especially when they said they were working to fix it as soon as possible but I don’t really think that’s happened,” she said.
“The Croydon Parkiteer is getting quite crowded because I think all the people who were at Mooroolbark, now quite a few of them are riding to Croydon.”
Kate said she has contacted Parkiteer and has submitted it on the Snap Send Solve application to which PTV and Yarra Ranges Council have seen the claim but have not responded.
Parkiteer has confirmed the original design of the door, which was completed during the building process of the new station, is too heavy for the hinges.
While it has been an issue for a while, Parkiteer said it has come to a point where it would be a liability to leave the facility open, with the chance someone could get trapped inside the bike cage.
The bike parking operator is currently going through a warranty claim with the builder and is in the process of forming a new design.
Once the design is approved, Parkiteer expects it to be a further six to eight weeks for manufacturing and construction to occur.
Although riding a further distance to Croydon hasn’t stopped her from doing so, Kate said it can be rather annoying particularly as the weather changes, sometimes riding 30 minutes, instead of five to get home.
“They’ve put in a lot of money to build this new infrastructure because it was meant to be a new and improved Parkiteer. So it’s just a bit of a shame for the community to not have it, to not have it working,” Kate said.
“Especially when we’re trying to encourage people to ride to work and school, it just makes it really impractical. It’s just a door that needs fixing so it’d be good if it gets fixed.”
