Westminster Council to charge for bike spaces

According to London Tonight, Westminster Council will soon charge about
£1.50 for using one of their bike spaces. They will use the money to provide
somewhere to lock your bike to and provide more spaces You can buy an annual
pass for £100.

 

Fucking wankers.

 

I think it's going to be £150 per year for a pass. And they'll only charge,
or so they say, once they've installed lots of new spaces, locking places
etc etc. And it'll take 6 months to do and cost them over £1m. If that's all
true, and they really are seriously going to increase security and
availability of spaces, £150 pa is **** all compared to the other running
costs of a bike [1]

[1] Although I do think the pass ought to be transferable between bikes.

 

This is their second attempt at doing this. They ran a trial of paid
parking in the St James Park area with specially installed barriers and
sunken anchors to chain your bike to. Unfortunately you had to pay and
they employed wardens to ticket your bike if you didn't comply. The
whole thing was a failure because people simply parked as close to the
area as they could where free bays still existed.

While some people may have no choice in certain areas of Westminster
where people are near a borough boundary they will simply park just
outside the Westminster boundary.

This whole thing stinks but as we seemingly now have to pay for
absolutely everything and employ endless numbers of people to enforce
the rules I can imagine they might get away with it this time. Expect
the next "safety" based restrictions on bikes to emerge from TfL in the
future if Westminster get away with this. Kensington and Chelsea will
then follow once their borough is slapped with the expanded Congestion
Charge Zone from mid February and they can assess what has happened to
PTW usage and parking. Camden will probably follow suit as well as
they are now a Tory borough and will wish to follow Westminster's
pioneering example.

 

Wouldn't surprise me. When I dealt with K&C they were making around thirty
million quid a year on parking, iirc. One of the reasons they opposed the
extension of the CC zone.

TfL are a total bunch of tossers. Out here in the sticks of Greater London
our transport has got far worse since the Gracious Leader seized power.

Ali

 

Paul Corfield wibbled:

Vote the fuckers out then . . . .

 

My money's still on bikes falling under the congestion charge in a
couple of years as us Ken needs to find yet another source of revenue,
err, sorry, of course make the planet greener.

This whole public transport thing stinks to high heaven - since the
latest hike in train fares it is now cheaper for me to travel to the
client's site on the VFR than on the train (based on IR mileage rates).
And that is frankly a joke.

But of course the grand plan is to restore the balance by first getting
everybody off the train by means of the fare increases, then get them
screwed again by charging them for road usage as well.

 

I wish I shared your optimism. If there are indeed lots of new spaces,
with added security, it might be worthwhile. But somehow I bet they
don't materialise. well, maybe one or two, but not enough to make a
difference and relieve the bike space shortage that exists.

Agreed. And it won't be. Otherwise nicking passes will be a growth
industry. So either I have to buy six passes, or take the same bike into
town every time.

 

If adding new spaces doesn't relieve the shortage, charging 150 quid a
year certainly will.

Or pay separately each time. Do you ride into central London more than
100 times a year? And, let's face it, your level of multiple bike
ownership is hardly representative of motorcyclists in general.

That said, it's a shitty move, but hardly unpredictable.

 

Our buses are far more frequent now than ever and all reasonably new,
but they are *far* noisier than their predecessors.
I live near a major through-route of Harrow and the noise from the
buses is now very intrusive at times. This was not often the case when
I first moved there in '95.

 

It's only some southerners. WGAF?

 

Oh yes.

No. Until recently, though, I went in once a week, to the DTI in
Victoria.

This is true, but far, far more motorcyclists own more than one machine
than car drivers do. I can't think of a single person I know who owns
more than one car. Multiple ownership in families, yes, but I don't
actually know an individual who owns two+ cars.

<Thinks>

Maybe Timo.

Whereas I know *lots* of people who own more than one bike. Not as many
as I own, but still two or more.

How are they going to enforce the daily permits, FFS? Presumably a
machine will spit out a sticker with your registration number on it,
and presumably a lot will fall off, get removed, be defaced, or
dissolve in the rain. It's not like you can put them on a dashboard and
lock the doors, is it?

The only sure-fire way is to invite bike owners to file their
registration numbers on a computer and hope that the wardens check
properly. Which they won't.

 

Yup. As I said a few months ago here, the proposal to increase the CC
on high-polluting cars is already changing the CC to an Emissions
Charge, and most bikes don't score highly here.

In terms of TEWI, of course, they score very nicely, but this isn't
taken into account.

Actually, I thought bike travel was almost always cheaper than rail
travel.

It looks that way.

 

*Waves* Maggie & I have three..... Mini Cooper, Suzuki Jeep and
Suzuki Cappucino. I guess you could say the Cappucino is only half a
car....

 

^^^^
what on earth gives you that idea?

The current Camden council has no overall majority with the Libdems
leading Labour by 20 seats to 18.

The Tory's only have 14 seats in Camden.

 

Yeah, but I don't know you ;-)

 

/me points at APOSTLE#

SWMBO and myself have 2 each. Again, not realy *normal* though.


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www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Suzuki don't make a Jeep.

 

DILLIGAF what anyone thinks about what I drive?

 

Pedant. Oh OK then, Suzuki Samurai - jeep shaped thing made by Suzuki.