Parking fees for bikes?

[spen666]

This is getting quite tiring now as you're not bothering to read things I've written previously. I made clear reference to the cost of season tickets and the yearly cost of this service. It is expensive even when you take the cost of a season ticket into account. This would suggest it is overpriced.

And again, I'll repeat that no where have I said poor people should be taxed to pay for this service. So please stop using that to try and construct some sort of argument.

So where is this magic money going to come from to pay you for your hardship in cycling?


you are right, it is getting tiring now.

It is very tiring asking the same question as to where the money is going to appear from to pay the costs up front of setting up such a scheme and running the scheme




Mythical FUTURE savings do not pay the costs that are needed to set up the scheme. Those costs need to come from somewhere.

Perhaps the money fairy will pay these costs? If not are you going to increase taxes which will have an effect on poor people making them poorer or are you going to cut services to find the money? Of course cutting services will affect poor people as well.

 

[Riverman]

So where is this magic money going to come from to pay you for your hardship in cycling?


you are right, it is getting tiring now.

It is very tiring asking the same question as to where the money is going to appear from to pay the costs up front of setting up such a scheme and running the scheme




Mythical FUTURE savings do not pay the costs that are needed to set up the scheme. Those costs need to come from somewhere.

Perhaps the money fairy will pay these costs? If not are you going to increase taxes which will have an effect on poor people making them poorer or are you going to cut services to find the money? Of course cutting services will affect poor people as well.

There's about a million ways you could raise the money to pay for the scheme, bearing in mind that in the long term the scheme should pay for itself. Especially if London is able to avoid the £300 million pound fine it will get from the EU if pollution levels in London remain as they are. Something I have mentioned previously. Personally I think raising the congestion charge slightly or increasing aviation taxes would help to pay for it, or using various other streams of income I have suggested. The point is, people should not be having to pay for secure cycle storage if they can't afford it. it's totally inequitable to suggest so, it's very unfair. Why the hell should some poor person have to risk having their bike nicked? Whilst those on higher incomes bear a tiny cost to prevent this? To protect their shiney bikes which let's be honest here spen they can do without. If a poor person loses their bike, it can be very damaging to their lives.

The service should be there to look after everyone who cycles, not just the rich.

Lastly I'm not someone who believes in massive cuts to the public sector to help reduce the deficit, I'm someone who believes in tax rises, particularly those that hit the very wealthy, and modest cuts to the public sector to reduce the deficit.

Funding secure cycling facilities is a really good thing in these kinda times as more and more people will be eager to take up cycling as they find themselves unemployed etc. It's quite likely bike crime will increase too if we don't ensure the facilities are there to prevent it.

 

[MartinC]

Martin, You seem to miss the point here. This is a debate about paying for a new expense

You seem to think that the scheme should be subsidised / paid for out of general taxation. So you are either advocating increasing taxation to raise the costs of such a scheme or are you advocating cuts to services?

The new money needs to come from somewhere

I'm not sure it's me that's missing the point. It could be paid for for by simply removing a minute fraction of the subsidy provided from taxation for car use. For example cancelling one road "improvement" scheme could pay for it for many years.

You're playing the old game of insisting that the status quo is maintained by requiring anyone who proposes a change to detail exactly how it's implemented but avoiding justifying how the current situation is maintained.

The last time I saw an analysis of government figures it showed that each car in the country was being subsidised by about £2000 per annum. Can you justify why this shouldn't be changed?

 

[spen666]

There's about a million ways you could raise the money to pay for the scheme, bearing in mind that in the long term the scheme should pay for itself. Especially if London is able to avoid the £300 million pound fine it will get from the EU if pollution levels in London remain as they are. Something I have mentioned previously. Personally I think raising the congestion charge slightly or increasing aviation taxes would help to pay for it, or using various other streams of income I have suggested.

So you increase these taxes- that's fine - not going to argue on the raising of these taxes.
Now you have raised £x million pounds in taxes. How can you justify spending this on a luxury like cycle parking rather than say more teachers or drugs to treat say cancer patients or reducing hospital waiting times?

The point is, people should not be having to pay for secure cycle storage if they can't afford it. it's totally inequitable to suggest so, it's very unfair. Why the hell should some poor person have to risk having their bike nicked? Whilst those on higher incomes bear a tiny cost to prevent this? To protect their shiney bikes which let's be honest here spen they can do without. If a poor person loses their bike, it can be very damaging to their lives.

As already explaineed this idea of not being able to afford cycle parking is a nonsense as cycling to work would be cheasper than any form of transport people are using now - eg zone 1 return on tube = £3.60 parking for bike =£1.50. Still leaves a net £2.60 per day minimum saving. If travelling from outside zone 1. savings will be more

The service should be there to look after everyone who cycles, not just the rich.

Lastly I'm not someone who believes in massive cuts to the public sector to help reduce the deficit, I'm someone who believes in tax rises, particularly those that hit the very wealthy, and modest cuts to the public sector to reduce the deficit.

Funding secure cycling facilities is a really good thing in these kinda times as more and more people will be eager to take up cycling as they find themselves unemployed etc. It's quite likely bike crime will increase too if we don't ensure the facilities are there to prevent it.

People will not be cycling into central London if they are not working there and if they are there & not working, they are unlikely to be needing to leave their bikes unattended are they?

 

[Riverman]

N

ow you have raised £x million pounds in taxes. How can you justify spending this on a luxury like cycle parking rather than say more teachers or drugs to treat say cancer patients or reducing hospital waiting times?

This is such a completely ludicrous argument. This has nothing to do with cancer drugs. The budget for this would be entirely seperate from it, it would be part of public transport. You could make the above argument about just about everything we spend public money on that is why it's ludicrous spen. But if we spend money on this we might not have enough money to pay for this, or this or this or this... It is ludicrous bordering on insanity to suggest paying for this will affect whether we can pay for cancer drugs.

It reminds me a bit of the people who argue that we shouldn't spending money on prescription heroin for heroin addicts because we might not be able to pay for cancer drugs even though the evidence shows that heroin prescription is a very effective form of treatment for heroin addicts and pays for itself through reduced crime rates. The people who object to it hate heroin addicts, this they should be made to suffer and use this ludicrous cancer drug funding argument to try and deny them treatment.

People will not be cycling into central London if they are not working there and if they are there & not working, they are unlikely to be needing to leave their bikes unattended are they?

I'd have thought people cycle into central London to do lots of things..........

like you know... shopping, going to a restaurant, doing the groceries, going to see people. going to the park..... Do they even have to have a reason to go there?


By the in regards to cycle into work, which is actually not what this topic is meant to be about, it would be perfectly resonable to require large businesses in London to build secure cycle storage for their employees.

This however this is a public service for everyone to use spen, not just people cycling into work. The fact this simple point has been lost on you even though we've been discussing it over eight pages gives me an indication that you have been missing a very basic point throughout this discussion.

 

[decca234uk]

I've just come back from cycle friendly Munster and parking is free for cyclists all round the city.