On Jul 17, 1:01*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:27:45 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote:

On 22 June, 14:36, Mizter T wrote:
No bikes yet of course - they'll come later, and the system goes live
on 30 July. I've a more lengthy post gestating in my head about the
CycleHirescheme - must get on with putting fingers to keyboard and
post it soon!

I've noticed some Things in Tavistock Place. *The first I'd noticed,
but I probably hadn't been paying attention. *No bikes yet.

They aren't covered (and apparently people have been mistaking them
for parking meters).

Ha, yes, I hadn't thought that that might happen, but the "Things" -
the 'payment column' unit - do look a bit like parking ticket
machines. Once the bikes themselves arrive on the racks then perhaps
the potential for such confusions might be lessened.


I have yet to see a parking bay and totem for the scheme with my own
eyes. However I do keep seeing them in the background of Flickr photos
or on the telly.

There's a number around, not sure of what percentage has been
completed yet. There are also several sites where the groundwork has
been done, and there are metal 'base plates' awaiting the installation
of the racks themselves, and the 'payment column'. I know there are
some planning permission issues with regards to some of the sites, but
there are also other sites on which work has only recently begun, and
I *think* some others where nothing on the ground appears to have
happened yet - but I suppose if that may be explained, at least in
some cases, by the location only being a provisional one or the
information I've looked at being out-of-date.


I did see someone riding past 55 Broadway yesterday lunchtime on one of
the new bikes. It did make me pause and think as to whether the scheme
was live yet.

No, the system goes live on Friday 30 July, just under two weeks away.
Meanwhile the first two "Cycle Superhighways" officially 'open' this
Monday (19 July). I'll try and write something about them shortly.


I still can't my head round the charging model although I've not devoted
a lot of brain power to understanding it. [...]

It's not really all that complicated - see the fees and charges on
this page:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/12444.aspx

First off you need to pay an "access fee" to be able to use the system
- this is £1 for 24-hours or £5 for seven days, or else £45 for a
year's membership. Then you pay for how long you use the bike - no
charge for up to half an hour, £1 for up to an hour, then it starts to
jump up somewhat at £4 for an hour and a half etc etc (see the table
for details).

The thinking that users will only borrow the bikes for a short period
of of time (to make a journey across central London), and will return
them to a dock once they get 'there' - the charging model is thus
intended to ensure that bikes stay in circulation and remain available
for other users. All the other bike hire schemes in major cities (of
which there are now several in Europe and around the world) seem to
broadly follow this principle.

The cycle hire scheme only really covers zone 1 plus a little bit
extra in parts so hirers should be able to get from one side to the
other within an hour (it'll be interesting to see how many might
'split their journey' though and return and then re-rent a bike at an
intermediate docking station so as to remain within the 'free' half-
hour!)

[...] It's going to be very
interesting to see how it goes. I'm still not sure whether I think it is
a good idea in principle or just a waste of money scheme from a Mayor
who loves cycling.

I basically think it's a great idea for lots of reasons, and I don't
think it being something of a pet project of Mayor Boris invalidates
it either! FWIW, I think that Ken was warm to such an idea too, and he
was generally pretty keen on cycling measures even if he wasn't
himself a cyclist.

The fact that many other cities now boast similar schemes would, I
think, inevitably have meant that a cycle hire scheme for London is
something that would have been seriously considered before too long,
were it not for the current Mayor taking it forward now. And in a
sense, the fact that it's being taken forward by a Tory Mayor could
work in its favour, by defusing some of the inevitable criticism that
will come its way.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure that TfL wouldn't have been faced with a
totally blank sheet of paper when the edict came down to implement
such a scheme - I'm sure some preliminary investigations had already
been done.


A recent press release was very careful to mention the possibility of
"teething problems" which is a subtle way of trying to defuse the
inevitable furore when a journalist can't get a bike out of a rack or
finds a rack full and has to cycle to the next one to end his trip.

I think it's just an honest take on all the various teething problems
that I think will inevitably occur - and one can easily imagine a
whole gamut of them. In a sense I suppose that's spin through honestly
and lowering expectations that all will be perfect from the word go,
but with something so novel I think it'd be rather foolish to promise
everything would be hunky-dory right from the beginning.