At present, the City Corporation have no plans to allow bikes into their bus lanes, and are awaiting the results of the Transport for London trial. The City only has seven bus lanes in the Square Mile, four of which are 'by-pass' lanes for security checkpoints which would not be open to motorcycles under any circumstances. More news to follow once their draft LIP is published.
As most of you now know, Westminster are having a "trial" of allowing motorcycles into some of Westminster's bus lanes, so when you are out and about in Westminster, use them! The signs are all now up, bus lanes are open, the trial started on 5th September and will continue for at least 18 months.
The routes are:* Cockspur St (eastbound)
* Kensington Road - Kensington Gore (eastbound + westbound)
* Baker St - Portman St - Orchard St (southbound)
* Haymarket (southbound)
* Bayswater Road (eastbound)
* Piccadilly (eastbound)
* Gloucester Place (northbound)
Islington:Islington Council is in the process of producing a Powered Two Wheeler Statement as an appendix to their Local Implementation Plan. Following negotiations with the Council, and with the assistance of collegues from the BMF, MAG have managed to 'tone down' some of the worst excesses of that statement. One positive outcome from these negotiations is that the Council is seriously considering a trial permitting shared use of an advanced stop line. More details of this will follow once they are to hand.
Westminster Parking:Over the past few months MAG have been in meetings with the Council, who have finally agreed that more parking for motorcycles does need to be provided. The simplest way for this to happen reasonably quickly is for new motorcycle bays to be made out of existing paid-for car parking bays. Because this would mean a drop in revenue for the Council, this new motorcycle parking would also have to be paid-for. However, these new bays will be "secure" in that there will be some sort of anchoring device for chains and locks, and at the moment they have in mind that we would pay about £2 for a whole day. Short-term rates have yet to be decided. The "control" hours would probably be 0830h - 1830h.
With regard to how it would be paid for, the council are considering a new scheme whereby you phone in to a call centre from your mobile and register your credit card, and pay that way, so no ticket needs to be displayed on the bike (and no need for a constant supply of coins). The Parking Attendant (PA) can then check with the centre whether you've bought a ticket or not. That method would also make it easier to extend your time of parking, without returning to the meter, if you needed to leave the bike longer than you had originally intended. You can also choose to get a reminder text when your allocated time is about to run out. The scheme is also being considered for cars, and it will be possible to register more than one car to one credit card so presumably the same will apply to motorcycles. We would like to talk to the Council about some sort of discount season ticket scheme for commuters, too.
None of the free parking we already enjoy is being taken away - all the above is in addition to that.
The Council have identified ten sites for trial, which are all in prime locations such as Pall Mall, St James, Covent Garden, Soho, etc..and each site will have parking for ten motorcycles. These bays will be "delineated" too - this is apparently necessary for this pay/secure scheme to work, probably because of the anchoring devices.
The bad news is that the scheme was supposed to be trialled starting in the New Year, but it has been pushed back to May. However MAG's contact with the Council is keen to bring this forward again and is pressing for it to happen asap. We'll start pressing again in the New Year.
So far as extending existing bays, which is something MAG looked at earlier, there are no plans to do this at present as it isn't as cost-effective as simply putting in new bays because the Council have to pay about £2500 to get the approval for each individual bay, which they regard as not cost-effective.
Related Linkswww.greater-london.mag-uk.org
