On Nov 22, 1:36*pm, Offramp wrote:
I always imagine some driver along the north circular leaning out of
his window shaking his fist and shouting bloody cyclists, then parking
at Edgware, hauling out a Boris Bike and immediately shaking his fist
and shouting Bloody Useless drivers!!

Don't forget the bit after he parks the car and becomes a pedestrian
at which point he will shake his fists at cyclists AND car drivers.

--
Simon Mason

Simon Mason wrote:
On Nov 22, 1:36*pm, Offramp wrote:
I always imagine some driver along the north circular leaning out of
his window shaking his fist and shouting bloody cyclists, then parking
at Edgware, hauling out a Boris Bike and immediately shaking his fist
and shouting Bloody Useless drivers!!

Don't forget the bit after he parks the car and becomes a pedestrian
at which point he will shake his fists at cyclists AND car drivers.


Why does all this make me think of Boltar?

In message
s.com of Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:43:14 in uk.transport.london, Simon Mason
writes
On Nov 22, 1:36*pm, Offramp wrote:
I always imagine some driver along the north circular leaning out of
his window shaking his fist and shouting bloody cyclists, then parking
at Edgware, hauling out a Boris Bike and immediately shaking his fist
and shouting Bloody Useless drivers!!

Don't forget the bit after he parks the car and becomes a pedestrian
at which point he will shake his fists at cyclists AND car drivers.

The Boris (sic) Bikes area is roughly equivalent to Zone 1.
cf. https://web.barclayscyclehire.tfl.gov.uk/maps

At 2209, a prospective Boris Biker might have been lucky. ;(
My cropped snapshot shows:
Bikes Empties
Fore Street Avenue 0 26
Bank of England 0 15
Queen Street, Bank 2 18
Barbican Centre 0 19
Aldersgate Street 2 12
Clerkenwell Green 0 21

Fore Street Avenue was also empty at 1850, as I walked past.

http://bikes.oobrien.com/ shows the Boris Bike load balance.
I find the imbalance often makes the system unusable: during the day,
the centre is full and the outskirts empty and vice versa at night.
Hardly surprising.

A Boris Bike journey is between a station with one or more bikes and a
station with one or more empty bike slots. It is bad when no bikes can
be found; it is worse when no slots can be found. ;(
I recently found a third failure mode. Empty slots in 2 station would
not accept 'my' bike. Staff collected it six hours later and the system
still shows me owing 50UKP for its failure. ;((

I shake imaginary fists at those who ignore 'no exit except in
emergency', 'keep left', 'keep right', etc. in tube stations, except
where I do it.

LU seems to ignore relevant breaches of TfL's Conditions of Carriage
(CoC). cf. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/conditions-of-
carriage-october-2011.pdf
"4.5.1 ... you must not: ... use emergency exits except in an emergency
or when instructed to do so by our staff. You may be prosecuted for
disobeying these requirements." I find nothing in CoC covering the
'shortcut' from the ticket hall to the eastbound Central Line Platform
at Tottenham Court Road.
I look forward to seeing the effect of such indiscipline, during the
Summer Olympics, from 27 July to 12 August 2012.
--
Walter Briscoe