Official bike parking charges in London revealed

[kawakid]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6227709.stm

The one thing I like about biking is free parking, up here my local council provides great parking for bikes, next to the police station, under cover, anchor bars ohh and its free. Another North South win.
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I've a twin and a 4.

[LustyLew]

If I had to pay £12.50 a month to ensure I get a space and a nice solid bar to chain my bike to, then I'm all for it.

It's still a fraction of the cost of the train, or driving!

Where I park at the moment is pure carnage.
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Like a Yorkie - I'm not for the girls

[Stiffler]

So let me just do a quick bit of conservative maths:

~4000 spaces all charged at £1.50 a day = £6000 a day

£30,000 a week or £1,560,000 a year....

Think they can afford to build space for 500 more bikes with that?? Call me a cynic, but does anyone else think this is just a cover story for yet another way for councils to make money out of the road users of this country??

Tim
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Current Bikes - Kawasaki ZX-6R (636) | BMW G650GS

[sickpup]

Although I disagree with it I can understand it.

As LH-ER5 knows all the parking spaces in the square mile are filled by 8am on a weekday, theres over 2000 of them. Think about that, over 2000 spaces in a square mile!

Theres a huge amount of spaces in central London and every space equals lost revenue.

[techierob]

[JonB]

London does not equate to the South of England dummy!

Everywhere else has free bike parking. In the South.
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[headlamp]

Both the Westminster & Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea's schemes to charge bikes is a cynical attempt to recover revenues lost through the congestion charge as more cars don't drive into Central London.

Kensington are proposing only allowing residents to park in motorcycling 'bays' & pay for the privilege anyone else on two wheels will not be allowed.....or park on a standard meter. Westminster, by offering an extra 500 places in bays as well as secure parking is trying to justify a 'tax' on bikes. The non-cynical solution is to allow bikes to park anywhere, as long as they don't cause an obstruction, on single yellow lines with the exception being residents bays. At the same time, all the bus lanes in London should be open to PTW's.
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Using a mobile phone while driving a car should be made a capital offence!

[TheDonUK]

Living, working and now commuting to and from the affected areas this is a joke,

using stiffler's figures and saying there are 4000 spaces, can a mere 500 spaces justify a tax?, Why not double the length of every bike bay(where "safe"), so maybe you get another 3000+ spaces, at the expense of car spaces (or remove unnecessary yellow lines), after all is that not at least the premise of what they claim to intend to do with the congestion charge and numerous other propasals currently in effect or at the green paper stage

Have they considered the problem of desplaying licences or tickets on a bike... Issues such as Theft, Weather, Location to be displayed... or will we all have to register with a system, which i would imagine make the ticket issuing processes instantaneous, removing the ability to ride off before the ticket is placed on the bike.

Most places i go regularly i know backstreet/offroad places to park and (touch wood) havent been ticketed when parked in them.

If they bring this in, may have to buy a Velcro numberplate

[Project9928]

I wouldn't fantsy leaving my bike in Central London anyway, even if it has a more chains then you can carry....... its still going to get nicked!

Paying for the privilage to have your bike stolen..... great

Then again that only applies if you can find a space in the first place.

Like most councils they will use the money to make a 2nd rate shelter, which will be covered in graffity within 2 minutes of it being put up. No doubt they will then be used as a toilet during the night. Not to mention they would probably use a bit of copper pipe for you to lock your bike to.

The rest of the money will be used to screw over the bikers and then the cost of parking a bike in London will increase every year.

I'm sure they mean well

[flat eric]

it's a blinking disgrace that they are being allowed to force this upon the biking community. although i'm from north wales, i am not in the slightest for it. it's only a matter of time when other councils get their budgets cut, that they start to look around for ways to claw some money from other means.
think back to when they brought in the congestion charge to reduce traffic in London city centre. now that they have reduced the traffic (as they set out to do), their proffits are down. now hang on, i thought the only reason was to reduce traffic, not make money form the poor already overtaxed public.
no.... they have got greedy, and because they were making so much money, now that it's started to go down (the revenue that is), they want to access other areas of revenue.
So the reason it was brought in, was to make money Ahhhh, now i see (wink,wink,nudge,nudge).
and now that the revenue has gone down, they are now charging bikers to park their bikes in what must be described as minute areas.
and i'd like to know how we are supposed to stop people from nicking the tickets ?

i will be contacting my council to see what their stance is.
i'm with you brothers from the south.

[yambabe]

Can all you Londoners clear something up for a poor ignorant Northern lass here? The impression I am getting from the replies is that the congestion charge is made by the various London Boroughs, specifically their councils.

Is it not the case that the revenue from the congestion charge actually goes to TFL and not the Boroughs at all, so the introduction of it shouldn't have made any difference to Borough revenue? Unless possibly there are now a few empty car parking spaces knocking about the place that would have previously been paid for by car drivers maybe?

Having read the Westminster proposals in some detail (and AFAIK they are still only proposals, you can download them from here) the one thing that I picked up on was that they would not be doing anything until they had a system for ticketing or identifying the bikes that were there legally. I have not heard anything yet to suggest that they have found one.

Maybe anyone who is likely to be affected could liase with their local MAG group (or even better, join if they haven't already) which would be this one?
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Sod falling in love, I wanna fall in chocolate.

[map]

[Adam_P]

I'm more concerned about the maths of either the person that wrote the BBC article or the government/council person that gave them out...

I mean, 16,000 bikes ride into central londn every day, there's currently 4000 spaces and they're only going to increase this by 500...


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Colin McRae MBE 1968 - 2007 RIP
Orwell Rolls in his Grave
God is imaginary

[TheDonUK]

[headlamp]

[Paivi]

I'm more interested in this proposal:

[Keir]

reading that article has made me think..... 4500 spaces at £1 a day over 5 days a week (the bays are empty at weekends) would equal the £80,000 price tag of the proposed works in just 3 and a half weeks. Ok so supposing 'they' have to cover the cost of parking enforcement during this time then it will go on for what... 4-5 weeks max? would the charge then be cancelled as it has paid for itself? no, it wont because they are sneaky little fucking runts too spineless to admit that this is the beginning of a bike congestion charge.
I couldnt give a toss about the parking charge as i have private parking under my work building but i would be more than happy to pay £1 a day for these 5 weeks for these spaces as they can be handy when popping out. give a little take alot springs to mind.

rant over.
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Current : '08 Yamaha FZ1s
Previous: '99 Honda CBR 600FX, 03 ZX636 B1H, 99 Fazer 600 (red), 02 GSX-R 600 K2, 00 SV650s (red), 2008 ZX10R, 97 Bandit 1200N, 04 ZX6RR K1H, 04 GSX-R 1000, 98 Fazer 600 (gold), 05 Madness 110 Pit bike, 04 CR125R, 00 SV650s (black), 06 KTM 625 SMC, 99 SRAD 600 track bike, 03 SV650, 98 Bandit 1200N, Bandit 600SY, 03 GSX-R 600 K3, 01 GSX-R 600, 01 Fazer 600 (black), VFR 400 NC30 x3, 78 Honda Dream, 00 Speedfight 50

[White Noise]

whats next push bike bays? running shoe bays?
WN
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Buy my wife: 96' Yam XJ600s (Diversion)
Wing Commander White Noise - SE Clique
Riding Tip #86: See God, then back off a bit: Problem is i haven't seen god yet, just a close up of tarmac on revett straight

[natv4]

I would certainly worry that this is the thin edge of the wedge. It may only be a pound fifty now, but that will only increase.

All those of you who think that this won't affect you...do you really believe that bike parking everywhere else will escape? As soon as one borough successfully starts charging for parking, so will everyone else.

London needs to start thinking. Everyone who lives (or has lived) in an area where they find it difficult to park their vehicle each night. Where resident bays are not only required but over used. Bikes an answer to this. The more people whom opt to use a PTW instead of keeping a car (use a cab when needs be), the less of this problem we will have.

If you think, hey why should we let others use our residents bays, then remember when you want to go somewhere (visit a friend) then you will not be allowed to park at your destination either.

Other than for the previously mentioned financial considerations of the boroughs, there seems no good reason not to promote biking as a saviour. In central London, 1 old Victorian house could easily be 3 flats each containing 2 people. Thats 6 people and their vehicles to fit into around 1.5 car spaces outside the door. In that 1.5 car spaces you could easily accomodate 6 bikes. Not everyone is willing or able to give up the car for a bike, but we should encourage those whom are willing to.

Now where do I sign up for MAG/BMF?
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Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
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[tintin]

This was something that was proposed a couple of years ago. I park in Camden (just) so I will probably be affected by riders parking for free in the already crowded bays. Opposite our office are 2 car bays which were for doctors, the parking restriction plate has 'fallen off' and so you can park there without getting a ticket. Two car spaces can easily fit the 14 bikes that normally park there.

Is there an online petition or something similar?
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The older I get the better I was

[natv4]

https://www.free4bikers.org.uk/

This was the nearest thing I could find. I haven't read through properly yet, so I'm not sure if they are going to send it off. I would have hoped someone would have created a petition from the gov.uk site as that would seem more official.
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Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
Bike: Blue Honda VFR800fi (*NEW*) Mileage: 22k Countries visited: GB/F/D/CZ/PL/E/I/B/A/HR/H/Rus/E/MA
West Europe...2004, East Europe...2005, Russia/France...2006, Morocco...2007

[techierob]

[natv4]

Whatever happens, the public are the ones whom foot the bill for any of this.

The boroughs are not allowed to profit from parking, sadly this does not mean they don't. It also does not mean they won't try and recover their supposedly lost revenue.

Its just that they won't admit to why they are doing things.

Shame on everyone whom completed the questionaire and said they would not mind being charged.
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Travelling around the world...a bit at a time. Where am I now? / Visit my BLOG
Bike: Blue Honda VFR800fi (*NEW*) Mileage: 22k Countries visited: GB/F/D/CZ/PL/E/I/B/A/HR/H/Rus/E/MA
West Europe...2004, East Europe...2005, Russia/France...2006, Morocco...2007

[krebsy]

[techierob]