Londoners on Bikes

richVSrich

EKE_38BPM wrote:

I just want everyone on the road to stick to the Highway Code.
Trucks, Vans, Cars, Motorbikes, Scooters (scum), Cyclists and Peds.

It appears too much to ask people to do what they are supposed to!

I agree with this whole heartedly...

I do believe in treat others how you wish to be treated - when you cycle "properly" vehicles do respect you more...(whole other debate i'm sure)

Maybe we need the police to get tougher on everyone (and i do mean everyone)?

EKE_38BPM

richVSrich wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

I just want everyone on the road to stick to the Highway Code.
Trucks, Vans, Cars, Motorbikes, Scooters (scum), Cyclists and Peds.

It appears too much to ask people to do what they are supposed to!

I agree with this whole heartedly...

I do believe in treat others how you wish to be treated - when you cycle "properly" vehicles do respect you more...(whole other debate i'm sure)

Maybe we need the police to get tougher on everyone (and i do mean everyone)?

I've said this before. The problem is that to have proper traffic enforcement, you'll need more police and that will cost more. Perhaps give all cyclists helmetcams and make us deputys (in the style of old cowboy films) so that if we see any infringments (motorists in ASLs, RLJing motorists, mobile phone use etc) we can film the perp (I'm getting into this, I'm even using the lingo) and get penalty notices sent out.
How about immediate powers? D-locking cars parked in cycle lanes or drivers using mobile phones?

wulfhound

And it comes back once more to political will.

The police know they can readily "blitz" cyclists for RLJing & pavement cycling with relatively little blowback. Only if they start committing enough resources to it that other policing tasks suffer do they get any flak from the public ("it's not that important, why aren't you catching muggers?").

But they can't take effective action against the routine, everyday motoring offences that make our lives dangerous and, in some cases, encourage illegal cycling behaviour - even though the means exist to do so with very little manpower, and have done for quite some time. Speeding is the obvious one.. there just isn't the political will to do anything about it, even though it's costing lives, making the street environment a hostile place, and forcing cyclists on to the pavement. They'll take action against uninsured drivers, as that's something "ordinary law abiding citizens" are opposed to, but apparently using a mobile while driving, routinely speeding etc. is considered acceptable enough that they don't dare enforce the law there.

The Big Society way would be to allow residents along roads where it's a problem to fit speed cameras, put contracts out to Lawyers-R-Us style firms to collect the fines, with 20% of money earned going back to the person who fitted the camera or some such. Can only imagine it ending badly though..

ga02clr

I thought I would add my two pennies worth on this. While I in no way think Boris has been the savour of bikes and cycling in London Ken most certainly is not bike friendly.
Unless I am mistaken it was Ken that saw the introduction of bendy busses. How such long vehicles in central London's narrow congested streets appeared as a good idea is completely beyond me. They often straddled multiple lanes or just the cycle lane and the standard road and all too often blocked of junctions as well. Awful in practice and made my commute to work worse.
I now rarely use a Barclays bike having moved further out of town but I don’t quite know apart from the fact they are concentrated in the main business areas of London they can be described as elitist or the domain of the rich. You can get 24 hours access for £1 and then if your journeys are less than 30 min you don’t pay anything else. If you’re over 30 mins then it’s a £1 for an hour. Yes the cost go up if you have the bike for over an hour but the point is that you make your journey and then put the bike back for others and pick a new one up when you move on. You can cover quite a long distance in an hour even in London! A tube or bus trip is £2 or £1.35 for a single if you use an Oyster card. Is Ken by that logic saying the bus and tube are also unaffordable and elitist and how does he propose to make it more affordable and accessible?
As far as I can see the point of the bikes was to reduce the number of journeys made by taxi, car etc. To that end it does not matter the demographic of those that chose to use it I am far more concerned by the number of people using it. I don’t think cost is the issue for people choosing not to use them.
My final point on the candidates would be personally I do not trust one word Ken says. He has twice previously promised to reduce fairs for public transport and twice they went up. If he is prepared to do this on an issue which let’s be honest effects a far greater number of voters than cycling issues do then the chance of him implementing something that will upset a much smaller pool of potential votes are very limited.
None of the candidates are particularly bike friendly. Personally the biggest two things I would like them to do is ban lorries without the ability to see all around them (sides and front) from the centre of London (expanded to all town centres) and secondly educate riders and car drivers on the dangers and best practices of riding and driving in towns. I would fund the latter by enforcing the fines on the morons who just jump red lights. If you jump a red light you get sent on a course you pay for the privilege of (similar to speeding motorist) and I would also do the same with drivers who drive into Bike box’s and generally drive in a dangerous manor breaking traffic laws in town centres. I have seen the police pull drivers and cyclist over in the past month so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility and the police seem to love an easy target.
Rant over… Thoughts?

wulfhound

Interesting stuff &, on a personal level, I broadly agree - Ken is inclined to be more anti-car than pro-bike; Boris is moderately pro-bike but also pro-car. Which presents a problem in Inner London, where it can be hard to encourage one without discouraging the other.

FWIW, Ken laid the foundations for the Barclays scheme; Boris certainly did a fair bit of the work, but took 100% of the credit.

Afaics his argument vis the demographic has to do with the level of subsidies that are still being put in to the scheme. If it were self funding, it wouldn't matter. However, instead of slating it for being popular with its current users, he should be asking questions about why others aren't using it. There are a few reasons but the big one is the same reason commuter cycling in London is biased towards the young and male.

Getting politicians to stick to their promises can of course be a battle - but it's easier at least than getting them to do something where no democratic mandate exists; if they fail to do so, direct action becomes much more legitimate. That's not something Londoners On Bikes will ever be involved with - it exists only until election day, in any case - but there are plenty of people who are prepared to.

rick_chasey

Ken made a bigger song & dance about cycling.

I remember all those stats he quoted about cycling becoming more popular in London and he spent a lot of time talking about how he wants London to be more cycling friendly. Of course, talk is cheap, but still. I don't hear the same noises coming out of the Boris camp.


He even brought the Tour to London, ostensibly in line with that particular message.

Wasn't all the Boris bike stuff & cycle superhighway stuff things he put into motion that were finished off under Boris? Or am I mistaken?

wulfhound

Yes - in terms of initiating projects that have actually happened, Ken has a better track record, but that's true of almost any aspect of London life. Don't know how much of that is Boris' own fault and how much is down to the country being, allegedly, skint.

In any case - Londoners On Bikes will be assessing candidates primarily based on their manifesto commitments & any promises made between now and election day.

Ken's big song and dance of the moment is his proposed 7% cut to public transport fares. Nothing against buses or trains, use 'em all the time, but the cost of that cut is reckoned to be in the region of £200M/year - with political will behind it, that's the kind of money that would give London some genuinely great cycling facilities over the next Mayoral term. So one thing we're very keen to hear from all the candidates is how much cold hard cash they'll commit to cycling projects, and no doubt that will be one of the things that gets taken in to account when the voting recommendation gets decided.

rick_chasey

wulfhound wrote:

Yes - in terms of initiating projects that have actually happened, Ken has a better track record, but that's true of almost any aspect of London life. Don't know how much of that is Boris' own fault and how much is down to the country being, allegedly, skint.

In any case - Londoners On Bikes will be assessing candidates primarily based on their manifesto commitments & any promises made between now and election day.

Ken's big song and dance of the moment is his proposed 7% cut to public transport fares. Nothing against buses or trains, use 'em all the time, but the cost of that cut is reckoned to be in the region of £200M/year - with political will behind it, that's the kind of money that would give London some genuinely great cycling facilities over the next Mayoral term. So one thing we're very keen to hear from all the candidates is how much cold hard cash they'll commit to cycling projects, and no doubt that will be one of the things that gets taken in to account when the voting recommendation gets decided.

I'd suggest no electable mayor will risk committing cash to cyclists, unfortunately (and I'm campaigning for one of them!)

wulfhound

Why not..? Seen as a vote loser?

rick_chasey

Pretty much. People don't care about it enough - even people who cycle. It's a low priority for most people, and, like it or not, it's quite divisive.

wulfhound

Agree that, on the national stage, it's a low priority compared to e.g. the NHS, economy, tax, education, even Europe.

However, the London Mayor has very little power in any of those areas. Transport, policing and to some extent local environmental issues (parks, waste management) are where he has clout. So, for us, the question is, is it / can it be a high priority within that subset of issues.

Would be interested to hear a about why your candidate's campaign sees it as a divisive issue (both personally & from a campaign point of view - still learning the ropes as to what makes politics "tick" behind the obvious newspaper headlines). Feel free to drop me a PM if you're prepared to discuss further 'offline'.

anonymousblackfg

Read an interesting Ken article in the comic the other week, he's of the view we're on the threshold of Cycling provision becoming a real isssue and we'll look back in 10 years and ask ourselves how it wasn't before. That sounds a poitive stance but at the same time it sounds as though 'why push it, it'll sort itself out'. Whether he has the policies, cash or gumption to drive change through is another thing.

rick_chasey

wulfhound wrote:

Agree that, on the national stage, it's a low priority compared to e.g. the NHS, economy, tax, education, even Europe.

However, the London Mayor has very little power in any of those areas. Transport, policing and to some extent local environmental issues (parks, waste management) are where he has clout. So, for us, the question is, is it / can it be a high priority within that subset of issues.

Would be interested to hear a about why your candidate's campaign sees it as a divisive issue (both personally & from a campaign point of view - still learning the ropes as to what makes politics "tick" behind the obvious newspaper headlines). Feel free to drop me a PM if you're prepared to discuss further 'offline'.

No it's fine. I've never met the candidate - beyond shaking his hand - cycling as a divisive issue is my take on it.

You only need to listen to a radio show on cycling for you to see how divisive it is.

rick_chasey

Nice little live-blog on the radio debate:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog ... ort-london

Noticed this:

We've learned that things did not go well in the lift after the hustings was over. Boris went nose to nose with Ken in a small lift and told Ken three times: "You're a f*cking liar, you're a f*cking liar, you're a f*cking liar." Paddick and Jenny were also squeezed in, alongside LBC's managing editor, James Rea. Johnson's anger was due to claims made during the hustings by Livingstone about Johnson's tax arrangements, which the mayor flatly denies. He told me later that Ken's claims were "nonsense". Of course at that point we hadn't heard about the ding-dong in the lift.

rick_chasey

Also from the blog:



Tony Travers answers Hannah Waldram's comment about what the top transport priority for the next mayor should be:

I think that by far the top priority should be to get the Underground running effectively - that is with fewer delays. While the buses are important, they are less susceptible to the kind of top-down intervention the tube requires. Since the (wretched and subsequently failed) PPP began - at Gordon Brown's insistence - in 2003, upwards of £12bn has been spent on reinvesting in the Underground. I am not sure that it feels as if £12bn+ worth of value has been added ... So I would do whatever necessary to drive up the operational standard of the Underground.

Also support the idea (which Boris and Ken are agreed about) to allow the mayor to take over the "local" national rail system in London.

No mention of bikes.