London’s former cycling commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, has declared Cycle Superhighway 11 “dead” in response to watered down plans in which only two gates to Regent’s Park would be shut to motorists and only for shorter hours. Responding to this, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has blamed the “unnecessarily confrontational approach” of Gilligan and Boris Johnson for creating a “community bitterly divided.”
Writing on his blog, Gilligan said that a key element of the original CS11 plans was to close four of the eight gates to Regent’s Park for 20 hours a day, seven days a week (13 hours more on top of their existing midnight-7am closure) to prevent the Outer Circle being used as a rat-run by motorists.
The majority of consultation respondents were in favour of such a move, but Westminster Council has been among those to have objected to plans since.
According to Gilligan: “The closure of the gates, and the removal of rat-running in the park, is the only thing which makes CS11 a meaningful route. But a nimby minority is vocally opposed to losing their rat-run.”
He characterises Khan’s willingness to water down the plan an “act of defining weakness [that] effectively ends any serious cycling and walking programme in this mayoralty.”
He continues:
“Let no-one imagine, by the way, that this abject capitulation will satisfy anybody. The pro-cycling groups are and will be against it. But nor will the antis be satisfied, because the scheme still includes some gate closures and a remodelling of the gyratory at Swiss Cottage, which they hate.
“With exquisite political skill, Sadiq and his A-team have now succeeded in changing a scheme which would have done real good, and had 60% support, into to a scheme which will do little or no good, and which has no support at all (including, crucially, from one of the controllers of the roads.) For that reason, what will almost certainly happen is nothing, not even the brief gate closures proposed. CS11 is dead.”
In a statement to Camden New Journal, the mayor said: “CS11 was left for dead by Andrew Gilligan and Boris Johnson, with the community bitterly divided by their unnecessarily confrontational approach and all the stakeholders in disagreement about the plans. This work is ongoing and involves rebuilding relationships that were severely damaged by Andrew Gilligan.”
London Cycling Campaign’s Simon Munk told the Guardian: “Long term, through motor traffic has no business in any park, particularly this one. It shouldn’t be acceptable that massive volumes of motor traffic, saving a minute or two on people’s journeys, are cutting through the park. Every day, let alone every week and month that goes by, we risk further collisions.”
A spokesperson for Khan added: “Despite the positive consultation results there has to be agreement from all responsible authorities for the plans to be progressed, and we continue to work with all stakeholders to take these plans forward.”
41 thoughts on “Is CS11 dead? Gilligan blames nimbies, Sadiq blames Gilligan”
The master of aiming for
The master of aiming for impossible consensus; the Premier of Procrastination; the art of leading without leading.
Well done Khan – at the next election, I fear you’ll find that if you are unable to make decisions, they tend to get made for you.
> there has to be agreement
> there has to be agreement from all responsible authorities
Why? If the arguments against are weak and plain incorrect, why can’t the mayor simply override them and force the plan through?
I mean, look at local planning. Say you have 1,000 returns on a large planning application, with a good portion of them being objections. The planning committee can still dismiss the objections and decide in favour of the application, so why can’t the mayor do the same?
Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:
Because the road round the park belongs to the City of Westminster. The London Mayor only has authority over TfL’s trunk routes. Westminster has been conspicuously anti-cycling-infrastructure from day 1, on every scheme. They don’t want to lose their precious car parking and precious rat-runs. It’s why Westminster is a traffic-choked polluted hell-hole.
matthewn5]
Because the road round the park belongs to the City of Westminster. The London Mayor only has authority over TfL’s trunk routes. Westminster has been conspicuously anti-cycling-infrastructure from day 1, on every scheme. They don’t want to lose their precious car parking and precious rat-runs. It’s why Westminster is a traffic-choked polluted hell-hole.
I think some of the road is Camden.(the West) Camden do support the scheme. So do the Royal Parks. Westminster do oppose any cycling infrastructure project, that is true.
Said it before and I’ll say
Said it before and I’ll say it again – Khan couldn’t give a damn about cycling.
Practically all the promises he made to get elected haven’t been met. List below
1; minimum of 80,000 new homes built a year – only approx 20,000 built in 2017.
2; no stikes on the tube
3; no increase in TFL fares
4; 50% of all new homes to be affordable – now changed to 35%
5; 32,000 police in London – currently less than 31,000
6; make London 100% green by 2050 – they didnt know how “green” it was was he came to power.
7:”Make London a by word for cycling” – he’s canceled more cycling projects that he has approved.
Like him or loathe him the best thing that has happened to cycling in London in the last 30/40 years (possibly ever) is Boris Johnson the Conservative Mayor. Hardline political cycling activitist (90% left wing) can’t even admit this is true….
Thus if anyone who is properly concerned about cycling in London at the next election they should vote for any other candidate BUT Khan.
Zjtm231 wrote:
Is it my imagination or are Labour distinctly anti-cycling?
hawkinspeter wrote:
Varies with individuals.
Boris was a lone voice amongst the pro-car Tories. Westminster usually tries to derail anything bike, and they’ve been Tory for ever, and the current transport ministry is a joke.
On the other hand, Burnham employed St Chris as soon as he could, while Khan hired some ex-Nike marketing wonk.
davel wrote:
Is it my imagination or are Labour distinctly anti-cycling?
— hawkinspeter Varies with individuals. Boris was a lone voice amongst the pro-car Tories. Westminster usually tries to derail anything bike, and they’ve been Tory for ever, and the current transport ministry is a joke. On the other hand, Burnham employed St Chris as soon as he could, while Khan hired some ex-Nike marketing wonk.— Zjtm231
It was under Boris that motorbikes were allowed into bus lanes. Nice.
londoncommute wrote:
Motorcyclists are vulnerable road users too, or don’t they count?
freespirit1 wrote:
Of course they’re more vulnerable than buses, but they’re way less vulnerable than bicycles and so to a cyclist I’m afraid a motorcycle is still one of the predators that we’d like to try and avoid…
freespirit1 wrote:
Motorcyclists are vulnerable like cyclists but also dangerous like motorists. So they can’t be treated as if they were identical to cyclists.
(And they are noisier than either.)
[][/quote]
[][/quote]
It was under Boris that motorbikes were allowed into bus lanes. Nice.
[/quote]
True. But that was nearly eight years ago.
It was truly depressing when Boris was originally elected.
Ken Livingstone had previously brought in the highly sucessful C Charge despite all the opposition, including Labour’s Frank Dobson – who Blair had put up to stand against Ken – along with the Tory’s own Steve ‘Shagger’ Norris. Ken went on to increase the Congestion Charge area with the Western Extension Zone – and for a while cycling in areas like Ladbroke Grove was reasonably stress free.
Some of us over-optimistically looked forward to Ken’s proposals for a third term, of charging ‘gas-guzzling 4x4s a far more appropriate fee of £25 wheb they wanted to foul London’s residential roads, but hopes were dashed when Boris used the services of Lynton Crosby (the business strategist – he of the ‘find a weakness in your opponents that divides them, then hammer it home repeatedly’ approach) – and together with garnering support of the the motorphile outer boroughs and the taxi cabs (illegally campaigning for Boris with slogans emblazoned on their ticket stubs) succeeded in attaining an unlikely mayor for London.
And, once elected Boris went on to disband the Western Extension, to the glee of the child crushing land cruiser brigade, we were left imagining what could might have been with Ken and a Green deputy.
He also (as correctly stated above), allowed P2Ws in cycle lanes, and also, came up wth some truly perverse ideas to tackle pollution (remember the ‘glue to stick emissions to the pavement’ !!).
In the end though, one might see that Lynton Crosby’s strategy (which also helped get Cameron back in – with his own look of disbelief at winning, outdoing everyone else’s astonishment), came a bit of a cropper when he pitched an even dirtier and overtly racist campaign to try and get Zac Goldsmith the London mayoralty this time.
So, the mayor we have now was perhaps the best of two equally unsuited candidates with regard to cycling issues and dealing with the criminal and colossal issue of excessive motor use. And Sadiq Khan perhaps only won as part of a (reasonable) backlash against Zac Goldsmith (who in fairness it might be said ws rather uncomfortable at being subject to Crosby’s manipulation and filthy campaigning tricks).
It is tragic that we never came close enough to gaining the person who would have made a far greater mayor than Khan (who now serves on the GLA, and has had ideas and suggestions re housing taken up by Sadiq) – The Green’s Sian Berry.
With support from co-standee Rosalind Readhead (Ban Private Cars In London) – we could have been well on theway to saving the NHS (with real action on diesel and petrol engine powered machines entering London) – a cycling grid in place – the completion of CS routes – QWs made to fit for purpose (with modal filtering as default).
Sian arguably would not have been as slimy as Sadiq has been, with his vindictive disownment of any achievements of Boris and Gilligan (even the ‘Boris bus’…yes it was extravagant… yes expensive…but it certainly remains the nicest bus to use – and could have been adapted to be fully electric rather than hybrid -….but….now cancelled…thanks Sadiq).
So Sadiq. Cancelling of the ‘Garden Bridge’….fair enough….
though if it had been put somewhere else in addition to the many cycle / pedestrian bridges that were due…?
…and incidentally, what happened to the cycling bridges that were planned? The one from Chelsea? (The one at Canary Wharf is pending – but was always regarded as a hugely desirable, easy win years ago).
Cancelled eh? Was it to do with not pleasing ‘all the stakeholders’ again?
Was it reminiscent of your time as a councillor in Tooting when you turned down some fantastic filtering measures.
Yes, it’s not just the Tories who have been heeding the bleating and braying to end that ‘greatest of social injustices’ – The War On The Motorist.
So Boris came round to see sense in the end (re cycling infra at least). Andrew Gilligan showed an understanding from the start of what was required.
And, as has now been stated many times, recommended to Sadiq early on: “get the job completed quickly – don’t allow the opposition time to mobilise…”
What did Sadiq do…(apart from cancelling the Westway scheme and muttering about getting TfL streamlined and…)…?
Well. It’s nearly half way through the term. Sadiq is moving on with finally cancelling the CS11 programme, having stalled progress (or rendering it totally impotent) …Then blaming Gilligan and Boris… who warned against inaction. Nice one!
Oh but we do have Silvertown Tunnel to look forward to.
How many million again? Or is it billion? It’s hard to keep up with cash for motor projects.
Just as well there are no issues with excessive car use, like 75 square kms needed for parking in London alone and errr…pollution…environmental degradation, noise, inactivity, obesity etc etc etc
….oh and, haven’t those water levels been high in Paris!
emishi55 wrote:
It was under Boris that motorbikes were allowed into bus lanes. Nice.
[/quote]
True. But that was nearly eight years ago.
It was truly depressing when Boris was originally elected.
Ken Livingstone had previously brought in the highly sucessful C Charge despite all the opposition, including Labour’s Frank Dobson – who Blair had put up to stand against Ken – along with the Tory’s own Steve ‘Shagger’ Norris. Ken went on to increase the Congestion Charge area with the Western Extension Zone – and for a while cycling in areas like Ladbroke Grove was reasonably stress free.
Some of us over-optimistically looked forward to Ken’s proposals for a third term, of charging ‘gas-guzzling 4x4s a far more appropriate fee of £25 wheb they wanted to foul London’s residential roads, but hopes were dashed when Boris used the services of Lynton Crosby (the business strategist – he of the ‘find a weakness in your opponents that divides them, then hammer it home repeatedly’ approach) – and together with garnering support of the the motorphile outer boroughs and the taxi cabs (illegally campaigning for Boris with slogans emblazoned on their ticket stubs) succeeded in attaining an unlikely mayor for London.
And, once elected Boris went on to disband the Western Extension, to the glee of the child crushing land cruiser brigade, we were left imagining what could might have been with Ken and a Green deputy.
He also (as correctly stated above), allowed P2Ws in cycle lanes, and also, came up wth some truly perverse ideas to tackle pollution (remember the ‘glue to stick emissions to the pavement’ !!).
In the end though, one might see that Lynton Crosby’s strategy (which also helped get Cameron back in – with his own look of disbelief at winning, outdoing everyone else’s astonishment), came a bit of a cropper when he pitched an even dirtier and overtly racist campaign to try and get Zac Goldsmith the London mayoralty this time.
So, the mayor we have now was perhaps the best of two equally unsuited candidates with regard to cycling issues and dealing with the criminal and colossal issue of excessive motor use. And Sadiq Khan perhaps only won as part of a (reasonable) backlash against Zac Goldsmith (who in fairness it might be said ws rather uncomfortable at being subject to Crosby’s manipulation and filthy campaigning tricks).
It is tragic that we never came close enough to gaining the person who would have made a far greater mayor than Khan (who now serves on the GLA, and has had ideas and suggestions re housing taken up by Sadiq) – The Green’s Sian Berry.
With support from co-standee Rosalind Readhead (Ban Private Cars In London) – we could have been well on theway to saving the NHS (with real action on diesel and petrol engine powered machines entering London) – a cycling grid in place – the completion of CS routes – QWs made to fit for purpose (with modal filtering as default).
Sian arguably would not have been as slimy as Sadiq has been, with his vindictive disownment of any achievements of Boris and Gilligan (even the ‘Boris bus’…yes it was extravagant… yes expensive…but it certainly remains the nicest bus to use – and could have been adapted to be fully electric rather than hybrid -….but….now cancelled…thanks Sadiq).
So Sadiq. Cancelling of the ‘Garden Bridge’….fair enough….
though if it had been put somewhere else in addition to the many cycle / pedestrian bridges that were due…?
…and incidentally, what happened to the cycling bridges that were planned? The one from Chelsea? (The one at Canary Wharf is pending – but was always regarded as a hugely desirable, easy win years ago).
Cancelled eh? Was it to do with not pleasing ‘all the stakeholders’ again?
Was it reminiscent of your time as a councillor in Tooting when you turned down some fantastic filtering measures.
Yes, it’s not just the Tories who have been heeding the bleating and braying to end that ‘greatest of social injustices’ – The War On The Motorist.
So Boris came round to see sense in the end (re cycling infra at least). Andrew Gilligan showed an understanding from the start of what was required.
And, as has now been stated many times, recommended to Sadiq early on: “get the job completed quickly – don’t allow the opposition time to mobilise…”
What did Sadiq do…(apart from cancelling the Westway scheme and muttering about getting TfL streamlined and…)…?
Well. It’s nearly half way through the term. Sadiq is moving on with finally cancelling the CS11 programme, having stalled progress (or rendering it totally impotent) …Then blaming Gilligan and Boris… who warned against inaction. Nice one!
Oh but we do have Silvertown Tunnel to look forward to.
How many million again? Or is it billion? It’s hard to keep up with cash for motor projects.
Just as well there are no issues with excessive car use, like 75 square kms needed for parking in London alone and errr…pollution…environmental degradation, noise, inactivity, obesity etc etc etc
….oh and, haven’t those water levels been high in Paris!
[/quote]
The art of posting on any kind of social media is brevity.
burtthebike wrote:
…and tidying up the ‘quotes’ markup 😉
brooksby wrote:
I deliberately left it exactly as posted.
burtthebike wrote:
True. But that was nearly eight years ago.
It was truly depressing when Boris was originally elected.
Ken Livingstone had previously brought in the highly sucessful C Charge despite all the opposition, including Labour’s Frank Dobson – who Blair had put up to stand against Ken – along with the Tory’s own Steve ‘Shagger’ Norris. Ken went on to increase the Congestion Charge area with the Western Extension Zone – and for a while cycling in areas like Ladbroke Grove was reasonably stress free.
Some of us over-optimistically looked forward to Ken’s proposals for a third term, of charging ‘gas-guzzling 4x4s a far more appropriate fee of £25 wheb they wanted to foul London’s residential roads, but hopes were dashed when Boris used the services of Lynton Crosby (the business strategist – he of the ‘find a weakness in your opponents that divides them, then hammer it home repeatedly’ approach) – and together with garnering support of the the motorphile outer boroughs and the taxi cabs (illegally campaigning for Boris with slogans emblazoned on their ticket stubs) succeeded in attaining an unlikely mayor for London.
And, once elected Boris went on to disband the Western Extension, to the glee of the child crushing land cruiser brigade, we were left imagining what could might have been with Ken and a Green deputy.
He also (as correctly stated above), allowed P2Ws in cycle lanes, and also, came up wth some truly perverse ideas to tackle pollution (remember the ‘glue to stick emissions to the pavement’ !!).
In the end though, one might see that Lynton Crosby’s strategy (which also helped get Cameron back in – with his own look of disbelief at winning, outdoing everyone else’s astonishment), came a bit of a cropper when he pitched an even dirtier and overtly racist campaign to try and get Zac Goldsmith the London mayoralty this time.
So, the mayor we have now was perhaps the best of two equally unsuited candidates with regard to cycling issues and dealing with the criminal and colossal issue of excessive motor use. And Sadiq Khan perhaps only won as part of a (reasonable) backlash against Zac Goldsmith (who in fairness it might be said ws rather uncomfortable at being subject to Crosby’s manipulation and filthy campaigning tricks).
It is tragic that we never came close enough to gaining the person who would have made a far greater mayor than Khan (who now serves on the GLA, and has had ideas and suggestions re housing taken up by Sadiq) – The Green’s Sian Berry.
With support from co-standee Rosalind Readhead (Ban Private Cars In London) – we could have been well on theway to saving the NHS (with real action on diesel and petrol engine powered machines entering London) – a cycling grid in place – the completion of CS routes – QWs made to fit for purpose (with modal filtering as default).
Sian arguably would not have been as slimy as Sadiq has been, with his vindictive disownment of any achievements of Boris and Gilligan (even the ‘Boris bus’…yes it was extravagant… yes expensive…but it certainly remains the nicest bus to use – and could have been adapted to be fully electric rather than hybrid -….but….now cancelled…thanks Sadiq).
So Sadiq. Cancelling of the ‘Garden Bridge’….fair enough….
though if it had been put somewhere else in addition to the many cycle / pedestrian bridges that were due…?
…and incidentally, what happened to the cycling bridges that were planned? The one from Chelsea? (The one at Canary Wharf is pending – but was always regarded as a hugely desirable, easy win years ago).
Cancelled eh? Was it to do with not pleasing ‘all the stakeholders’ again?
Was it reminiscent of your time as a councillor in Tooting when you turned down some fantastic filtering measures.
Yes, it’s not just the Tories who have been heeding the bleating and braying to end that ‘greatest of social injustices’ – The War On The Motorist.
So Boris came round to see sense in the end (re cycling infra at least). Andrew Gilligan showed an understanding from the start of what was required.
And, as has now been stated many times, recommended to Sadiq early on: “get the job completed quickly – don’t allow the opposition time to mobilise…”
What did Sadiq do…(apart from cancelling the Westway scheme and muttering about getting TfL streamlined and…)…?
Well. It’s nearly half way through the term. Sadiq is moving on with finally cancelling the CS11 programme, having stalled progress (or rendering it totally impotent) …Then blaming Gilligan and Boris… who warned against inaction. Nice one!
Oh but we do have Silvertown Tunnel to look forward to.
How many million again? Or is it billion? It’s hard to keep up with cash for motor projects.
Just as well there are no issues with excessive car use, like 75 square kms needed for parking in London alone and errr…pollution…environmental degradation, noise, inactivity, obesity etc etc etc
….oh and, haven’t those water levels been high in Paris!
[/quote]
The art of posting on any kind of social media is brevity.
[/quote]
that may be the “art” but when you want to give people a wide ranging view on the subject detail is very much needed, thank you.
check12 wrote:
The art of posting on any kind of social media is brevity.
[/quote]
that may be the “art” but when you want to give people a wide ranging view on the subject detail is very much needed, thank you.
[/quote]
But some research I’ve just conducted shows that the number of times a post is read is inverse to its length, so very few people actually read long posts. If you can’t express yourself succinctly, it probably isn’t worth saying.
You might want to give people a wide ranging view, but I, and I’m sure a lot of other people, would appreciate it if you stuck to the point, and did it in as few words as possible. Prolix is unforgiveable.
burtthebike wrote:
I’m just thankful he used paragraph breaks. It’s the eye-hurting wall-of-text posts that really put people off.
burtthebike wrote:
that may be the “art” but when you want to give people a wide ranging view on the subject detail is very much needed, thank you.
[/quote]
But some research I’ve just conducted shows that the number of times a post is read is inverse to its length, so very few people actually read long posts. If you can’t express yourself succinctly, it probably isn’t worth saying.
You might want to give people a wide ranging view, but I, and I’m sure a lot of other people, would appreciate it if you stuck to the point, and did it in as few words as possible. Prolix is unforgiveable.
[/quote]
by “you” I guess you mean the poster who posted the long post, not me who didn’t 100% agree with what you said.
Depends what you want to get when you post something, if it’s likes or +1s etc then yes many people reading it probably will increase the likelihood of getting what you want. If it’s to give all the facts you have and then the reader can choose to read or not then that’s up to them.
davel wrote:
Is it my imagination or are Labour distinctly anti-cycling?— hawkinspeter
Varies with individuals. Boris was a lone voice amongst the pro-car Tories. Westminster usually tries to derail anything bike, and they’ve been Tory for ever, and the current transport ministry is a joke. On the other hand, Burnham employed St Chris as soon as he could, while Khan hired some ex-Nike marketing wonk.— Zjtm231
Now before we all get on the sucking Boris’ cock about how pro-cycling he is, we have to remember how and why he became so “pro-cycling”
For his entire first term and the first year of his second, he refused to do anything about the calls from various cycling organisation to “Go Dutch” or build any kind of segregated cycle infra.
He did actually say that cycling through Elephant and Castle was ok “if you kept your wits about you”.
He only bucked his ideas up when 6 cyclists were killed in a two week period one November and it became plainly obvious to him that his legacy would be utterly fucked.
Despite getting a fire under his arse to do something, (as we can go through just how fucked the infra that has been put into place – TfL can design it well as long as its a stright line but as soon as it comes into conflict with anything, their design skills go to shit), he still do fuck all about pollution and actually tried to mask the monitoring stations so their readings would go down.
Now despite all that, Khan is absolutely fucking useless and I hope he loses at the next election.
Zjtm231 wrote:
Be careful saying that – as Zac Goldsmith is more anti-cycling than Khan.
Also the London mayoral election uses the AV system so you can vote both Green and Labour e.g. ones policies you wish for as first while the second is to stop someone completely awful getting in.
60% approval rating would be
60% approval rating would be an overwhelming majority in any other situation, general election, brexit vote, whatever. But because the petrolheads object, it can’t go ahead.
Khan has yet to learn that appeasing drivers is futile and never has worked and never will work. For god’s sake man, grow a pair.
No suprissu that Westminster
No suprissu that Westminster council was one of the objectors to this scheme
Sounds much better than any
Sounds much better than any active travel arrangements/infrastructure here in Bristol.
To paraphrase Monty Python “Cycle Superhighway 11? You are lucky to have a Cycle Superhighway, we occasionally get a line of paint alongside the gutter!”.
Still an utter shambles though.
wellsprop wrote:
A line o’ paint in t’gutter? Luxury! We ‘ad ter mek do wi’ randomly-spaced pictures o’ bicycles next ter t’gutter – and we were grateful for ’em!
srchar wrote:
the road leading to the one my parents live on is a one way street yet about a year ago got a ‘cycle lane’ going against the one way traffic, again, just stencilled on bike symbols every 20 meters or so, that was the biggest new cycling development in the town for ages.
Not too sure about less
Not too sure about less vulnerable, they can get squashed too. The potential outcome seems to be the same. Personally I try to avoid all other road users.
I don’t understand the
I don’t understand the blaming of NIMBYs, surely they want their parks to be traffic free?
alansmurphy wrote:
Yes, but not at the expense of driving to the park in the first place 🙂
Kind of seems as if the only
Kind of seems as if the only useful function Sadiq Khan serves is winding up Trump by virtue of his very existence.
Based on his own comments
Based on his own comments will Sadiq be resigning?
He was only voted in on a majority rather than by all responsible voters. As such his position in office cannot gain any progress on any matter regarding the capital.
Note to roadcc – can you
🙂
Note to roadcc – can you pluralise nimby…
alansmurphy wrote:
Not In My Back Yardies. They’re from Jamaica – don’t mess with them.
Khan’s proposal to close two
Khan’s proposal to close two gates, for fewer hours, will not reduce the total number of vehicle movements. Instead it will annoy everyone currently traveling thru’ the park and benefit no one.
The Crown Paving organisation and the LCC are right to oppose this half-hearted effort as worse than useless. Do it properly or not at all.
During the election campaign Khan promised to double the amount of segregated lanes in London. How can he keep that promise if he cannot close some gates in area that didn’t even vote for him?
Kahn and Bristol’s Mayor Rees
Kahn and Bristol’s Mayor Rees seem one of a kind, broken promises and don’t care about bikes. Bristol alledgedly supports bikes but when I was down in the Broadmead shopping centre the lack of bike stands was sticking out like a sore whatever. If there is no where to secure your bike why would you take in it, why not drive in?
OldMixte wrote:
Broadmead has quite a few bike stands at various points around it and also one just by M&S and Tesco. I’ve never had a problem when cycling there.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I was just thinking the same thing, you practically trip over them every few metres.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Its OK but they could do with more (like where they permanently removed the ones by HMV, or by adding some more by the Podium).
Ideally, you don’t want more than two bikes attached to each single rack, as is a state of affairs pretty much constantly at those stands by Tesco.
Of course it’ll only get worse when they refurbish/privatise the area between the Podium and Cabot Circus, with guards to remind you that you can’t cycle there (like in Quakers Friars).
The gates don’t need
The gates don’t need modifying to achieve this do they? I don’t see why they can’t push it through as a trial, monitor motoring numbers around the area, a bit of creative statistics to show the impact is minimal (plus contacting cycling groups to encourage their members to bump up the cycling numbers for a while) and then you have a nice simple argument as to why the full closures should be in effect.
I’m guessing it’s the
I’m guessing it’s the difference between a soundbite and a well reasoned arguement.
Sometimes you really need more than a pithy one liner to really get your point across.
I will read it all.
ktache wrote:
On the contrary, a pithy one liner will often make the point better than a long rambling argument that most people can’t be bothered to read.
Reminds me of Neil Kinnock, infamous for his long, convoluted questions at PMQs which Margaret Thatcher easily dodged. His most successful question was very short and simple. After a long period of the tories claiming that their entire policy was to reduce inflation, and it went up, he asked something like “How is the government’s fight against inflation going?”
Raucous scenes in the house, MT fumbling and embarrassed and widely reported in the msm, something none of his other questions had achieved. And it made the point better than any rambling, sub-clause ridden question could have done.
Being succinct is a skill, cultivate it if you want to be read.