Parking fees for bikes?

[spen666]

OK, then if cycling generates a surplus, you provide the facilities and operate them for everybody from this invisible surplus


No?


Strange that isn't it.


You are living in cloud cuckoo land. Get yourself back into the real world.

Who has this surplus?

Who are you expecting to provide these facilities?

How do you propose to harness this so called surplus to pay for the facilities

alternatively lets all try alchemy instead, its far more likely to happen

 

[Riverman]

OK, then if cycling generates a surplus, you provide the facilities and operate them for everybody from this invisible surplus


No?


Strange that isn't it.


You are living in cloud cuckoo land. Get yourself back into the real world.

Who has this surplus?

Who are you expecting to provide these facilities?

How do you propose to harness this so called surplus to pay for the facilities

alternatively lets all try alchemy instead, its far more likely to happen

It's the general way people think about transport that needs to change, and this is part of it. People should be encouraged to cycle, whenever possible. This is an opportunity to encourage people to cycle instead of using cars or public transport but is much less of an opportunity if it costs people almost £400 a year to use.For some people this is over half the cost of a season ticket on the tube for zone 1 and 2.

I'm not living in cloud cuckoo land, I'm living in the real world. A world where climate change is a reality, a world where poor people do exist and one where current pollution levels in London are at a record high. A world where all this pollution and lack of exercise has a high cost to society, environment and peoples lives, real costs that we should try and deal with.

That said not even Copenhagen has got cycle parking right but London could learn a lot from them in regards to cycling in general.
http://www.streetfilms.org

Edit: Means testing was mentioned earlier and again that would certainly be a step in the right direction but I still think that kinda sidesteps how we should begin to think about transport.

 

[Riding in Circles]

If it really is secure then it seems very reasonable.

 

[spen666]

It's the general way people think about transport that needs to change, and this is part of it. People should be encouraged to cycle, whenever possible. This is an opportunity to encourage people to cycle instead of using cars or public transport but is much less of an opportunity if it costs people almost £400 a year to use.For some people this is over half the cost of a season ticket on the tube for zone 1 and 2.

I'm not living in cloud cuckoo land, I'm living in the real world. A world where climate change is a reality, a world where poor people do exist and one where current pollution levels in London are at a record high. A world where all this pollution and lack of exercise has a high cost to society, environment and peoples lives, real costs that we should try and deal with.

That said not even Copenhagen has got cycle parking right but London could learn a lot from them in regards to cycling in general.
http://www.streetfilms.org

Edit: Means testing was mentioned earlier and again that would certainly be a step in the right direction but I still think that kinda sidesteps how we should begin to think about transport.

lots of words, but not a single word that answers a single practical point that I raised.

Now if you live in the real world, deal with the real issues about the cost of the same

 

[snorri]

Who has this surplus?

The government considers itself to have a tax surplus which it presently uses to subsidise me and thousands of other car owners so that we are not required to pay the full costs of our habit.
It would not seem unreasonable to have some of this surplus providing subsidised or even free parking for cyclists.

 

[dellzeqq]

OK, then if cycling generates a surplus, you provide the facilities and operate them for everybody from this invisible surplus


No?


Strange that isn't it.


You are living in cloud cuckoo land. Get yourself back into the real world.

Who has this surplus?

Who are you expecting to provide these facilities?

How do you propose to harness this so called surplus to pay for the facilities

alternatively lets all try alchemy instead, its far more likely to happen

every time someone picks up a bike and switches from public transport or from a car the Treasury heaves a small sigh of relief. It's perfectly sensible to subsidise cycling if you consider that Crossrail is costing £16bn, and the new river crossing would have been about £3bn. We're easy on the environment, easy on the public purse, and, particularly in your case Spen, easy on the eye.

 

[spen666]

every time someone picks up a bike and switches from public transport or from a car the Treasury heaves a small sigh of relief. It's perfectly sensible to subsidise cycling if you consider that Crossrail is costing £16bn, and the new river crossing would have been about £3bn. We're easy on the environment, easy on the public purse, and, particularly in your case Spen, easy on the eye.

You are living in cloud cuckoo land.

I repeat my question, where is the money going to come from to provide & run these facilities

There is no facility now. It will cost to provide the facility. We have massive national debts, so where is this money coming from? There is no pot of money slopping round to pay for this.

It has to be paid for from somewhere with new funding.

Either the users pay for it or the tax payer pays for it.

If the latter you have the situation of money being paid by amongst others those who can't even afford a bike paying to store bikes costing £1k or more in some instances.

Is that what you want?

 

[Riverman]

I repeat my question, where is the money going to come from to provide & run these facilities

Perhaps we can subsidise it with the money that we would have lost had there been a Tory majority and we'd brought in £200,000 tax breaks for the top 5% of the population. Or how about all the money we've saved thanks to the Tories not being able to bring in marriage tax breaks. I'm sure that would pay for it and then some.

Then again, why can't we just tax polluters more and pay for it that way? The airline industry should be the first inline.

 

[e-rider]

paying to park a bike is fundamentally wrong in a society that is attempting to promote cycling to the population and reduce pollution - bike theft should be stamped out by getting tough on offenders and then there would be very little need for secure parking

 

[spen666]

paying to park a bike is fundamentally wrong in a society that is attempting to promote cycling to the population and reduce pollution - bike theft should be stamped out by getting tough on offenders and then there would be very little need for secure parking

And in the real world we do have bike theft and always will do.

So where is the funding for the bike parking coming from

 

[CycleFun30]

The idea of paying parking fees for bicycles sounds a bit odd first...
However I would gladly pay £1.5 or even a little bit more for really secure parking at my workplace (an NHS hospital)...
Last summer I bought a nice second hand bike, went to work and locked the bike at the designated
storage area (with CCTV!), but after I finished work the bicycle had disappeared. I asked the security guys to check
the CCTV recordings and they actually saw the thieves - two young local kids... Needless to say the police could not find the bike.
I should have had a more secure lock, I know, since then I have purchased one...
What I am trying to say that appareantly cycle thieves are still smarter than police, security cameras are only effective if
someone is there to watch the recordings regulary, so if we want to make sure that our bikes are kept securely we do have
to make financial sacrifices.

 

[snorri]

If the latter you have the situation of money being paid by amongst others those who can't even afford a bike paying to store bikes costing £1k or more in some instances.

Is that what you want?

We already have the situation of money being paid by amongst others those who can't even afford a car paying to save car owners the full costs of running their £10K+ cars.
That's not what I want.

 

[e-rider]

And in the real world we do have bike theft and always will do.

So where is the funding for the bike parking coming from

the tax payer of course

 

[MacB]

I think the facilities should be free at point of use, it can be paid out of general taxation as the benefits of more cyclists can be perceived to be in the general interests. I currently support and subsidise all sorts of things, I use or don't use, via taxation. Some I'm happier about than others, this one I'd be happy about,

Around the security aspect, you'd expect there to be savings in paperwork for police forces due to a reduction in thefts. It could be nice to be able to cycle places, on a nice bike, without having to carry your own bodyweight in locks.

 

[spen666]

We already have the situation of money being paid by amongst others those who can't even afford a car paying to save car owners the full costs of running their £10K+ cars.
That's not what I want.

So you want to make the poor subsidise another group?


how about those using the facilities pay for it - radical idea eh? Not really, you are advocating it for motorists, but then arguing against it for cyclists by saying it should be subsidised.