The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

On Jun 22, 12:35*pm, Basil Jet wrote:
The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

It is - it's the one outside the new-ish Blue Fin building. I went and
had a look at it last week. There's another one just the other side of
Blackfriars Road on Stamford Street, outside King's Reach Tower, that
also looked finished, but was surrounded by fencing, so perhaps not
quite there yet. In several other locations the preparatory work has
been done, resulting in there being metal base plates ready and
awaiting the next stage of installation of the docking station.

No bikes yet of course - they'll come later, and the system goes live
on 30 July. I've a more lengthy post gestating in my head about the
Cycle Hire scheme - must get on with putting fingers to keyboard and
post it soon!

On 22/06/2010 21:41, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:35:19 +0100, Basil Jet
wrote:

The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

And TfL leaflets about the hire scheme have started to appear in tube
station leaflet racks. I picked one up this morning.

They have/had something like that in Copenhagen, which I saw. The
bicycles were not in a good way, I might note.

Didn't they have a scheme like that in Paris, and the bicycles simply
disappeared?

wrote on 22 June 2010
22:56:22 ...
On 22/06/2010 21:41, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:35:19 +0100, Basil Jet
wrote:

The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

And TfL leaflets about the hire scheme have started to appear in tube
station leaflet racks. I picked one up this morning.

They have/had something like that in Copenhagen, which I saw. The
bicycles were not in a good way, I might note.

Didn't they have a scheme like that in Paris, and the bicycles simply
disappeared?

The scheme is still running and is highly popular. It now has 20,000
bikes and 1639 stations, roughly one station every 300 metres throughout
the city centre, making Vélib’ the largest system of its kind in the
world. (according to Wikipedia)

Admittedly there has been much more theft and vandalism of the bikes
than originally expected.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

On Jun 22, 9:41*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:35:19 +0100, Basil Jet
wrote:
The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

And TfL leaflets about the hire scheme have started to appear in tube
station leaflet racks. I picked one up this morning.

Good stuff. I know in the grand scheme of things that it's not all
that, that it's not some magic wand that;s going to solve all
transport issues, that it'll suffer all manner of teething issues,
that it'll get hyped mercilessly by Boris and Co, that it'll provide
plentiful opportunities for generating bad press, and not just bad
press but bad things that may (nay, will, at least in some cases)
happen as a result, but nonetheless I find this a very interesting and
exciting scheme, one that has quite a bit of potential to make good
things happen rather beyond the narrow confines of the scheme itself.

As I said upthread, there's a long overdue post that's been floating
round my head about this scheme that I must get round to, well,
posting sometime soon! That, plus my 'trip report' on the new
countdown pedestrian crossing on Blackfriars Rd that I 'did' on the
opening day (that's yesterday)! Oh, and various thoughts on the ELLX
too...
fx: sound of utl-ers furiously adding one "Mizter T" to their kill
files lest they keel over from boredom!

In message akaUn.10530$NM4.4173@hurricane, at 22:56:22 on Tue, 22 Jun
2010, " remarked:
The Mayor's new cycle hire station at the east end of Southwark Street
looks complete, if anyone's interested.

And TfL leaflets about the hire scheme have started to appear in tube
station leaflet racks. I picked one up this morning.

They have/had something like that in Copenhagen, which I saw. The
bicycles were not in a good way, I might note.

Didn't they have a scheme like that in Paris, and the bicycles simply
disappeared?

I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Here in Brussels they have a scheme, this is a rather jolly advert for
them (I presume):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46604657@N00/270337240

But I did note a rack outside the Central Station was completely empty
yesterday.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Lausanne is built on a rather large hill. I imagine all the bikes drift to
the bottom, so some kind of rebalancing is required. I imagine that isn't
so much a problem in London or Paris, though perhaps they will end up
congregating at other places?

Cardiff has the beginnings of a similar scheme:
http://www.oybike.com

Theo
(who notes that the Lausanne metro has a special section for bikes, which
might help with the hill problem)

On 24/06/2010 11:07, Theo Markettos wrote:
Roland wrote:
I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Lausanne is built on a rather large hill. I imagine all the bikes drift to
the bottom, so some kind of rebalancing is required. I imagine that isn't
so much a problem in London or Paris, though perhaps they will end up
congregating at other places?

Cardiff has the beginnings of a similar scheme:
http://www.oybike.com

Theo
(who notes that the Lausanne metro has a special section for bikes, which
might help with the hill problem)

Especially if they give a small discount for people with rented bikes.

In message , at 11:07:28 on Thu,
24 Jun 2010, Theo Markettos
remarked:
I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Lausanne is built on a rather large hill.

And the metro stations are sloping. I tried to take a picture but it's
very difficult to capture the angles properly.

I imagine all the bikes drift to
the bottom, so some kind of rebalancing is required.

Theo
(who notes that the Lausanne metro has a special section for bikes, which
might help with the hill problem)

The man I saw was filling the racks just outside the Metro station at
the bottom of the hill (by the harbour)! Of course, they have such good
public transport, it makes you wonder why they also need a bike scheme.
--
Roland Perry

Theo Markettos wrote on 24 June 2010
11:07:28 ...
Roland wrote:
I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Lausanne is built on a rather large hill. I imagine all the bikes drift to
the bottom, so some kind of rebalancing is required. I imagine that isn't
so much a problem in London or Paris ...

In Paris it's certainly a problem at Montmartre, where bikes have to be
taken by truck back to the top of the hill.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)