We all see cycling porn shots of Holland and other European countries. A favorite is to show a gizillion bikes parked outside a train station or on a central square.

This Ottawa picture is taken up close, so the whole thing is filled with a sea of parked bikes. Alas, the sea does not continue out of the frame, this is all there were. It’s a exposure of cycles, but really our bounty is modest.

Next time I get into the Constitution Square garage, I will take a picture of the ever-increasing size of the popular indoor cycle parking garage there. It’s a well-endowed cycle parking lot.

I suspect people from a very poor country are impressed by our large parking lots full of cars at big box malls. Certainly car aquisition rates high on newcomers’ priority lists. But for jaded Canadians, large parking lots are not something to celebrate, but to lament.

Last time I was in Den Hague in Holland I felt rather repulsed by the sea of cycles parked outside. It was out of control, a mess of bikes. In some European cities, the shear mass of parked and abandoned bikes becomes an eyesore, a trip hazard, visual clutter … rather like our car parking lots. We have to be careful what we wish for.