I was trying to use a VINCI Car Park today which is next to the cinema in west India quay London, now time was short and we were rushing around doing things to get to see the film…we get to the car park and F**K me NO BIKES ALLOWED. so me being me, i storms of to the office to find out why M/Bikes are banned, the poor guy in his little office gave me a little card and said i should ring or Email them…I bloody well have.
Now guys if you click on the site, and scroll down to the bottom of that page, read the last part, which states :
"We are committed to making our environment better, which includes innovations such as installing solar-powered parking equipment and encouraging the greater use of small cars or motorbikes. "
Sorry …did i miss some thing, where is the encouragment if you ban them from parking
Email has been sent, will let you know their febble reply.
yeah, thats a pain in the tits not being able to park at that carpark. I’ll contact them too if you like
in the meantime aside from dumping the bike out front which i’ve seen a few people do (parked on the pedestrian area) there’s the waitrose carpark which has a dedicated bike park but its the other end of canary wharf
JZ and I parked in a car park in Bakewell, Derbyshire whilst we were away. We’d found 1 M/bike space and could get both our bikes in at a push. As we were unsure of the parking restrictions, I checked the info board … ‘All vehicles must display a valid ticket’
When I asked at the tourist info centre, they pretty much repeated what it said on the board, implying we should pay and display. Fine, we did just that, so JZ figures if we’re paying full price we should’ve taken up a car space each !!!
Could be that they don’t allow bikes, because they are let down by their own technology.
I had similar problem in Antwerp the other weekend when the induction loop of the barrier would not pick up my bike and therefore not allow a ticket to be issued.
Luckily it was close to midnight and there were no cars behind me…
thats a good point as it goes, there’s a few ncp’s that this happens to also
NCP under the hilton on park lane, and the the one on tottenham court road have caused me grief before - the barrier is on an aggressive down slope. the one at the hilton the guy has to come help release the barrier, and the one at tottenham court road you’re just screwed. the attendent there just shrugged - apparently he cant open the barriers manually?
even for a bloke my size it was bloody hard work to pull the 200kgs of bike backwards and turn it around on the slope, then get back on. cant recommend it
The car park at the O2 Centre, Finchley Road, is a good one. The barriers only go about half way across, with plenty of room for a bike to ride right past. Not wanting to get in trouble, I sent the g/f to check what they expect bikes to do, to which they said ‘just ride round the barrier’
Pay and display for bikes always strikes me as being a bit daft, particularly as you can get loads of bikes into, say, 3 car spaces. It’s easy enough for someone to pinch your ticket when you’re not there.
It seems to be getting more popular tho - there’s the pay and display bays with special slip ways for bikes on the Hastings sea front, etc, and I’ve seen wardens actually checking bikes out. One helpful warden suggested writing my numberplate on my ticket before putting on my bike. That’s about all we can do I spose.
Regardless, the situation you found yourself in is pretty ridiculous Could it be a liability thing, I wonder? Mebbe they’ve had problems with bikes being damaged in the carpark before now (liability disclaimers are not foolproof…)
In Helmsley they charge for parking bikes… the same rate as cars, your press “motorcycle” on the machine and it prints 2 copies of the ticket so you can keep one on your person in case of pilferage
And still despite paying the same as the cars… all the bikes cram into one small area, 3 or 4 in each space… what an odd bunch we are at times.
Had to use a hospital car park last week when I was on the bike and wondered if there was any bike parking - I eventually found a single space which had most of the markings removed. I was very glad as the car park attendents there are like vultures
Could it be a liability thing, I wonder? Mebbe they’ve had problems with bikes being damaged in the carpark before now (liability disclaimers are not foolproof…)