Ive parked my bike in an alley in City for years now and today just been informed (by leaflet) that from 22 sept ALL alleyway parkers in City will be ticketed as the Corporation have new powers to get at us - theyve been petitioning for sometime now and have finally managed it and - I’m informed - intend to enforce to the full letter - it’ll be very expensive for anyoen thinking that it wont happen to them in their little alley.
This will affect hundreds of bikers - can we do anything about it ???
Don’t they have to have adequate signs in place, surely it will be a massive job and a massive cost for them to put signs up in all the alleyways across London!!
I have been on the phone to them speaking to the most senior level I copuld get to - they are informing bikers now and in near future BUT - as I understand it - bikers do not have a legal right to parek in alley ways and on pavements but a glitch / technicality in the law meant that in certain places this was unenforceable - it is now enforcable and they are giving us til 22 sep and after that its ticket - time - they dont have to sign etc etc but today they had leaflets and a man expalining to all those who wanted to listen that this is the situation.
They are v serious about this one - this will happen
I used to park in the alley between Lombard St and Cornhill when I was working over that way and from memory there were very few, if any bike bays in the immediate area.
Where are they expecting all the bikes and scoots to go now? as I still pop over there now and again to visit.
I have just come back from Paris for the weekend, there were scooters and bikes dotted ALL OVER the pavements and streets!!
It makes me sad that I live in a place that is SO regimented!!
For decades, there were all sorts of patches of pavement that M/C traditionally parked on. They were out of the way and caused no-one any harm. Then they outsourced the parking wardens and put them on piece work and most of them disappeared. Then there was a loophole about who owned the bits of pavement and you could park on pavement lights or inside the brass strip. Now that is part of the highway and ticketable. The wardens were ignoring it anyway.
The next thing you know is that they will start charging for parking in M/C bays. But that would be too expensive and a straight revenue generation scheme, so it would never happen, right?
Glad that the current place I’m working at has it’s own underground parking. Supposed to be back in the city on a new contract from the beginning of December, I’ll have to check to see if they have parking.
Never thought I’d have to start including bike parking in my decision making on whether to take a contract or not :crazy:
I’m starting to think the BMF and MAG are ineffectual, they don’t seem to be able to do anything at all to uphold our interests. I’m not a member of either organisation so can’t really criticise them but a case in point is the bus lanes issue. Boris has been in charge for about 5 months now but no movement on this front so far, so i would have thought this was an easy target for our lobbyists. I will be writing to him again today.
Well at the end of the day it’s been a good run, it’s only taken them 24 years to close a loophole that everyone has been using to park in the alleyways.
'Tis true, it has certainly taken them some time to close this loophole as I added a note on new legislation to close it well over 2 years ago and it’s only just come into force!
This one will be a lot harder to fight as effectively bikes have been breaking the law for 20 + years but have only got away with it because of the arcane British legal system and a mistake in the original draft of the local bylaws.
I just find it sad that in every country I have been to ( a lot !) parking of bikes on pavements is tolerated or legal once done sensibly and in Paris they have even painted white boxes on the pavements. But yet in England its is seen as somthing illegal that must be clamped down on and yet we have a lot fewer bikes than Spain Italy or France
