500 orphaned bicycles removed

500 orphaned bicycles removed

Are you back from holiday and you can’t find your bike where you left it on TU Delft campus? It might be stalled in the depot opposite Education and Student Affairs on the Mekelweg. In the week of 23 August, the TU Delft Park Management Department is storing around five hundred so-called orphaned bicycles there. These were labelled on 12 July. If the owner has not removed the bicycle yet, the park staff will do so now.

This should create space on the eve of a new academic year. Moreover, park management wants ‘a tidy campus’, according to park manager Marco Wiskamp. “Clutter attracts clutter. Furthermore, it is important for maintenance that a bicycle rack can be lifted or moved. That’s not possible if there are  wrecks anchored to it.”

The majority are certainly wrecks, as can be seen in the depot, although there are also some better ones. According to Wiskamp, labelling was done in a lenient manner this year (only bicycles that had been standing for a long time), because of the summer holidays and corona.

Owners have until 1 October to report to 06-14319073, with key, any ownership papers or a photo and information about where the bike was parked. Most bicycles are never claimed, Wiskamp knows from experience. After 1 October the good ones will be donated to Ipse de Bruggen, where people with a disability fix them up. The rest will be fetched by a company that collects old iron. (SB)