On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, John Rowland wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008, John Rowland wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Andrew Heenan wrote:

"Tom Barry" wrote ...

Boris to announce today. Bye bye public transport improvements,
hello happy petrolheads.

Happy for a week or two. Then the penny will drop. Back to all day
queues at Kensington Church Street. Hoist With Their Own Petar.

Plus more income (and less congestion) in the original zone.

Lager and crisps all round!

Quite. As a resident of northeast London who works in central
London, i'm happy that inner-west Londoners will be discouraged
from driving into my bit of the city, and quite content to watch
them stew in their own juice in theirs.

Stew in what juice? Most of the extension was ridiculously quiet
before the CC was extended.

Er, well, steam in their own juice then. You need less of it.

There is talk of a loss of 70 million in charge revenue, though. I'd
like to see this made up by increasing the central charge, but
there's no prospect of that happening, so i suppose it'll have to
come out of the budgets for public transport, cycling, and black
lesbian mime groups or whoever it is that Boris hates this week.

Yeah, that cycle-hating *******.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph...ke_667500n.jpg
http://themotorreport.com.au/wp-cont...ing-a-bike.jpg
http://www.everydaycycling.com/web/M...ON_BIKE_DR.JPG
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20...is-johnson.jpg
http://www.marinbikes.com/cms/_image...in-bike_v2.jpg

Oh, he rides a bike. That means his policies must be good for cyclists.
Oh no, wait.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...-boris-johnson
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/3613
http://www.channel4.com/news/article...gerous/1829747

count to ten and calm down

Appreciated!

You accused him of hating cyclists.

Actually, i didn't. The "whoever it is that Boris hates this week" was
attached only to the "black lesbian mime groups", which was itself a
tongue-in-cheek reference to the sort of thing Ken was perenially accused
of wasting money on by the Tories, who presumably did not approve of this.
Apologies for any confusion caused.

I pointed out that since he is a cyclist himself, he probably doesn't.

Agreed. I have no reason to think he hates cyclists.

You suggested that since he hasn't devoted all his time and all his
budget to putting cyclists before everyone else, he obviously does.

That's not what i meant at all. My point was merely that the fact that he
rides a bike himself doesn't automatically mean his policies are good for
cyclists.

You are quite wrong. Very wrong. Extremely wrong. In fact, since
feminists use the word "misogynist" to describe anyone who thinks that
maybe people who are not women matter too, and you use the word
"cyclist-hater" to describe anyone who thinks that maybe people who are
not cyclists matter too, you are as wrong as a feminist, and it isn't
really possible to get much wronger than that.

Noted.

For years space has been taken away from all other people and given to
cyclists. While that was appropiate at some point, it couldn't continue
for ever or the entire earth would be a cycle path. Deciding that the
time to stop the process has been reached now does not make you a
cyclist hater.

As far as i'm concerned, as long as there is any road space in inner
London that is not purely for the use of buses and cycles, it hasn't gone
far enough.

tom

--
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.