The bike storage park in Amsterdam’s harbour area, where abandoned and wrongly-parked bikes await collection, is so full that the city is being forced to take new measures, the Parool reported on Thursday.

The fietsdepot has space for 75,000 bikes a year, but city officials say the total number of bikes taken to the storage is heading for 100,000.

In 2023, some 48,000 bikes were not picked up within the allotted six weeks, of which 75% were in a bad state of repair. Bikes which are collected by their owners are usually fetched within two weeks.

Now officials are planning to cut the length of time bikes are kept from six to four weeks. In addition, bike rental companies such as Swapfiets rather than users will be responsible for picking up their two-wheelers which have been wrongly parked and cut free by fietsdepot staff.

The administration cost is also being increased by €2.50 to €25, while having your bike brought back home if you can’t fetch it yourself will cost €15 on top of that.