allantracy wrote:


I've never stumbled over a Boris-Bike rank on my various recent trips to
London[1], nor of course would I impose a bike on my fellow travellers
on the train to London.


I've nearly stumbled over the odd cyclist though.

The place has gone mad - young eco warriors, cycling everywhere,
convinced they're saving the planet, though clearly not themselves for
a ripe old age.

If they don't end up under a bus the fumes, worthy of any a sixty a
day smoker, will get them first and you just know they're all non-
smokers (why?) as well.

Mad as a box of frogs, the lot of them, and surely absolute proof that
a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.


The congestion charge in no way deters me from driving into London but
the raised levels of stress caused by the idiot kamikaze cyclists
does.

On 07/11/2012 20:14, Mizter T wrote:

On 07/11/2012 20:03, Arthur Figgis wrote:

On 07/11/2012 19:49, Paul Corfield wrote:

Clearly the big gripe is that ever increasing fares become
progressively more unaffordable for people on low or fixed incomes and
that the Mayor hasn't done anything about it. I doubt this assessment
will stave off all the questions given the typical reaction from
various quarters today. However it does get the Mayor off the hook of
not having done the assessment at all.

Although a fair number of people on low or fixed incomes don't directly
pay the fares (eg pensioners) or might not travel as much (would there
be much point in an non-working person travelling in the morning peak
every weekday?).

Though people on low incomes aren't necessarily non-working - I
appreciate you allowed for that, but nonetheless it's worth emphasising
anyway. I overheard a conversation on the train the other day where the
two participants seemed to wildly overestimate the pay of those in lower
income brackets. (I await a Figgis demolition of my fussy sentence!)

Definitions are always a problem, from either end, and I think it helps
to spell out what is meant because of the pensioner/housebound/etc
issue, plus working usually paying more than not working.

Some of my mates up north assume that almost all Londoners are in abject
poverty - at home people aspire to a decent job so that they won't have
to live in a flat or overlooking old docks.

A few weeks ago I got a bus somewhere in darkest Sussex. It was much
more expensive than a London bus, but only one other passenger actually
paid a fare.

One of the negative outcomes of the ENCTS (aka the older folks freebie
bus pass) seems to have been bus operators pushing up single fares, as
(AIUI) their recompense for ENCTS users is based on a percentage of said
fares.

It does look like it. Or introducing flat fares, at an upper end.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message of Wed, 7 Nov 2012 19:23:38 in
uk.railway, Mizter T writes

On 07/11/2012 19:16, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
18:30:09 on Wed, 7 Nov 2012, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
There was some fuss a while back about Boris Bike usage being
dominated by the kind of people who are found in central London, need
to get around that area and who are able to use conventional bikes.

I've never stumbled over a Boris-Bike rank on my various recent trips to
London[1], nor of course would I impose a bike on my fellow travellers
on the train to London.

Official (TfL) live map of docking stations (with availability):
https://web.barclayscyclehire.tfl.gov.uk/maps

Unofficial live map:
http://cyclehire.eu/main/

There is also http://bikes.oobrien.com/london/. Its use of colour
gives a good flavour of the distribution of empty and full stations.
On weekdays, the centre tends to be empty until about 0700 and full from
about 0900 and again empty from about 1900. Bike shuffling by Barclays
Cycle Hire seems to have little effect.


PDF map of current docking station locations:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/roadusers/cycle-hire-phase-2-map.pdf

I find that many journeys between an intended origin destination station
pair are problematic. Either there is no bike to start the trip or no
empty slot to drop it.

In July, when I last looked, the local maps at each station did not
reliably show local stations. (I was told the status of local stations,
but not told how to find them.) It was intended to fix the maps by the
end of August. I have not checked this has been done. Intelligent phone
applications probably address this problem. e.g. the map at "Bayswater
Road, Hyde Park" did not show "Lancaster Gate, Bayswater" and
"Kensington Gore, Knightsbridge" did not show "Prince Consort
Road, Knightsbridge". [I went between Royal Albert Hall Prom concerts
and Lancaster Gate Station.]

There is also a problem that the system sometimes ignores attempts to
dock a particular bike. A "hook" on the bike does not fit an "eye" on a
dock. I can coax a match, now I understand the problem.

I find a need to feed back on about half my hires. The most common fault
is a dead empty slot.

I will probably pay 90UKP for a year. I would probably not pay 250.

Casual usage is very tedious to drive and I can't recommend it.
--
Walter Briscoe

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Wed, 7 Nov 2012 19:16:03 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

I've never stumbled over a Boris-Bike rank on my various recent trips to
London[1], nor of course would I impose a bike on my fellow travellers
on the train to London.

Goodness - never? They were deliberately located away from Main Line
stations so that will explain why you might not have immediately seen
one at St Pancras. However I fall across the things all over Zone 1.

Indeed. I do sometimes wonder about Roland! The nearest one to King's Cross
and St Pancras isn't exactly far away or non-obvious either.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 07/11/2012 17:17, Robin9 wrote:

Paul Corfield;133861 Wrote:

On Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:40:34 +0000, Recliner
wrote:
-
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20234125

Quote:

Fares across London's transport network will go up by 4.2% from
January, mayor Boris Johnson has announced.

The rise means a single bus fare on Oyster pay-as-you-go will be
£1.40, up by 5p, while a zone 1 Tube journey will cost £2.10, an
increase of 10p.

The increase, described by the mayor as "balanced", is 1% above the
Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation, similar to the increase seen in
train fares.

Cycle hire cost also doubled with an annual membership rising to £90.

In October, the government announced that from January the average
fares on mainline trains will rise by 4.2% rather than 6.2%.

The RPI plus 1% formula used for mainline trains is also expected to
apply for London's transport network for the next two years.

-- End quote

So Boris Bike users see a much larger increase than LU and bus users
-- is the Barclays sponsorship being cut?-

[x posted to uk.railway]

The full detail of the fares revision, but not the cycle hire changes,
is in the Mayoral Decision document.

http://tinyurl.com/c8esof8

The TfL press release confirms that, after a long period of silence,
that PAYG is to be extended outside Greater London to Shenfield and
Broxbourne. This delivers the Greater Anglia franchise commitment. I
imagine that the DfT did this through gritted teeth given their
refusal to extend Oyster to other places.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/26143.aspx

Interestingly the above PR only refers to Broxbourne as the limit of
the West Anglia PAYG scheme. When the GA franchise award was
announced the PAYG scheme was going to run to Hertford East (see
below). I wonder what the true position is?

http://tinyurl.com/bb7gp52

The only other interesting aspect of the fares revision is the
re-emergence of a price difference between One Day Travelcards and the
daily cap. Daily caps are capped at 2012 levels whereas paper one day
tickets are increased. Apparently this is to "reflect the increaased
costs of issuing paper tickets". I wonder whether this is a pointer
as to possible conclusions in the DfT fares review and a desire to
push ITSO standard smartcards.

I don't particularly understand why the cycle hire scheme charges are
going up quite so much. There wasn't an increase last year plus the
scheme area (and therefore costs) has increased and will increase
again next year. Lots of people are referring to the Barclays
sponsorship issue but it was never going to be the case that Barclays
contributed and kept contributing to expand the scheme. The scheme
sucks up public money and TfL admitted a few months back that it had
no idea as to when the scheme would break even. Expansion to new
boroughs only happens if the boroughs in question fork out millions of
pounds as a contribution.

As every local authority is strapped for cash, how likely are they to
pay good money to help this Boris vanity project? Boris may be a cyclist
and keen to misuse his power indulging his prejudice, but most senior
people in local authorities are not cyclists, least of all in the
outer suburbs.


One retort to "misuse his power indulging his prejudice" might be 'doing
what he said he'd do in his manifesto'...

Also, "most senior people in local authorities are not cyclists" - do
you mean councillors or officials? Also, define a "cyclist". I'd posit a
fair few do ride a bike on occasion. And if someone were say not to
cycle with great frequency, that needn't inherently mean that they're
indisposed to the general cause.

Anyhow, there's no signs that the scheme is about to arrive in the outer
boroughs. Inner boroughs generally seem keen on the concept in principle
(poss. less so when the chequebook is required).

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Wed, 7 Nov 2012 12:18:02 -0800 (PST), allantracy
wrote:


I've never stumbled over a Boris-Bike rank on my various recent trips
to London[1], nor of course would I impose a bike on my fellow
travellers on the train to London.

I've nearly stumbled over the odd cyclist though.

The place has gone mad - young eco warriors, cycling everywhere,
convinced they're saving the planet, though clearly not themselves for
a ripe old age.

If they don't end up under a bus the fumes, worthy of any a sixty a
day smoker, will get them first and you just know they're all non-
smokers (why?) as well.

Mad as a box of frogs, the lot of them, and surely absolute proof that
a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Oh come on. Only a tiny proportion of London cyclists fall into the
"young eco warrior" category and I suspect my view of that stereotype
is different to yours. This is just classic Daily Mail "outrage"
terminology to besmirch a group of people that the Mail's readers
don't identity with.

People have moved to cycling because it is a generally convenient way
of getting around, costs very little money and is typically much more
reliable than motoring or using some public transport routes.

I used to cycle commute years before it became popular. I rarely
suffered any sort of mechanical issue, the journey time was
predictable and it obviously did me some good in terms of fitness. I
didn't find traffic too much of an issue to be honest and there were
far fewer bus and cycle lanes back then. The downsides were lack of
changing facilities / showers and the filth from exhaust fumes was
horrible. I think I gave up when I bought a motorcycle!

Many journeys are of an average length that ideally suits using a
bicycle. The issue in the UK is making those journeys safe enough for
the average person to contemplate using two wheels. We are years
behind the Danish, Germans and Dutch but I get a small sense that
people are now wanting to see much better facilities. This partly
comes from British cycling as a sport being attractive to many people
and people struggling to pay for petrol to keep their cars going.

One big question is how to translate the ubiquitous (by UK standards)
cycling in a place like Cambridge across the country.

--
Colin Rosenstiel
Cambridge

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

Well the evidence seems to be that Local Authorities are finding the
cash. I may be wrong but I believe some of them have spent some of the
monies that TfL allocate for local transport schemes on the cycle hire
scheme so this is not a direct call on local council tax payers. There
is no shortage of inner boroughs wanting the scheme to reach them -
hence Wandsworth, Hammersmith & Fulham and parts of Lambeth and
Kensington & Chelsea being in the next phase. This TfL paper gives
more detail.


http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...Cycle-Hire-Exp
ansion.pdf

Typical! The scheme might come to Putney just as I lose my lifelong
connection with the place!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 2012\11\08 00:53, wrote:

One big question is how to translate the ubiquitous (by UK standards)
cycling in a place like Cambridge across the country.

Get rid of all the hills.

Basil Jet wrote:
On 2012\11\08 00:53, wrote:

One big question is how to translate the ubiquitous (by UK standards)
cycling in a place like Cambridge across the country.

Get rid of all the hills.

Or have Chinese-style electric bikes. I found their rapid, but silent,
progress disconcerting -- as a pedestrian in China you really have to watch
out for them.

On 2012\11\08 02:29, Recliner wrote:
Basil Jet wrote:
On 2012\11\08 00:53, wrote:

One big question is how to translate the ubiquitous (by UK standards)
cycling in a place like Cambridge across the country.

Get rid of all the hills.

Or have Chinese-style electric bikes. I found their rapid, but silent,
progress disconcerting -- as a pedestrian in China you really have to watch
out for them.

Aren't ordinary push-bikes rapid but silent?