The most bike-unfriendly part of London???

Off-topic
1

Ok y’all I know Westminster takes some beating…

…and Borough Market is a pain in the arse…

But I would like to nominate…

The New Kings Cross Development!

Fook me - the old Kings Cross warehouses just north of the station have been flattened and refurbished over a huge area - so far so good. But the developers have done their very,very best to make it as awkward, difficult,frustrating and dwnright impossible to ride or (God forbid) park a bike on their precious new tarmac.

I found an area, no yellow lines, no parking restriction signs, nobody around, nobody to upset or inconvenience and parked up. I had only just secured the chain when a guy in a Hi-Vis and helmet came up to me…

“Can’t park there mate” says he “Why not there are no signs or lines to say I can’t?”
“Well you’ve been picked up by the CCTV and they told me to move you on”

He was a nice guy so I moved on to the only bike space I could find - miles away in front of the St Martins College - a space for SIX bikes, already rammed. In the same stretch was a loading bay that could take four 28 Ton artics…completely empty (The college has a proper loading bay round the corer that could take another four artics easily - there was one Transit van in it delivering copier paper…

On top of that there are streets that are No Entry at BOTH ends (?) no right turn, no entry and no vehicle signs are on every corner - meanwhile there are racks and racks of empty bicycle parking bays…grr

Oh and a subtle form of torture - roads that you can ride down one way , but the other way is for buses, taxis and bicycles only…FFS that means you can’t do a U-turn and have to do a 3/4 mile detour just to get back to where you were (if you miss an address or turning).

The message is clear - they don’t like bikes and they don’t want us there… and they are mean about it - the buke paking bays could easily be 10 times as big but they tease you by putting unused and unnecessary massive loading bays there instead…what are they expecting St Martins college to need 40 deliveries of 38 tons of coal a day???

Rant over - I feel better now! :slight_smile:

2

London isn’t a pleasant place any more…
Feckin g corporate **** birds have turned it into a honey trap for stupid foreigners to come and work at slave wage rates to service the other paid glitterati of the banking and advertising industries… the rest of us are leaving at the earliest opportunity…

LONDON SUCKS

3

@Toby - agreed, you cannot imagine what I have to suffer!
@Triang - I would say, area within M25 but Kings X will do.

R

4

Thats Camden council for you. As a professional driver in London, I know from experience that Westminster & Camden are THE 2 worst boroughs in London.
CCTV everywhere! Don’t even stop to think about parking, cos they will have ya. :angry:

5

Ok I propose a LB Wednesday meet right in the middle of the Kings X development…that’ll feck em! :smiley:

6

+1

Even I will turn up for those :crazy:

7

I’d be up for meeting there too

8

As long as you can provide beverage I’m in :smiley:

9

Me too :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Mmmm… I wonder… I know Kerb Markets do a market there but it’s on the road just to the left of the station (Kings Boulevard???) that’s no entry each end…(How the feck can you have something called a ‘road’ with tarmac, kerbs, pavement etc and ban all traffic???) but maybe sheer weight of numbers will persuade them…???:slight_smile:

11

Sorry mate, you’re looking for London Walkers. This is London Bikers… :stuck_out_tongue:

12

Count me in! :cool:

13

PMSL :hehe:

14

BOYZ… YOU ARE STARTING TO THINK… I AM PROUD

'member when you was little and looked up at them posters of blokes “thatdidn’tgiveafuck?” time to start bein obnoxious again?
Gov ot listening? NO opportunities?

(never was much of a rabble rouser, but gettin the boyz out to annoy the conservative arse gits shouldn’t be too hard :wink: )

15

Yeah - not the creative, exciting city I remember - now it’s just a deracinated mattress where the international kleptocracy come to stuff their cash.

To have a proper world class city you need to have an authentic, tatty, flea-bitten bohemian edge to it - the kind of subcultural creative milieu which was strong in London from the 60’s up to the 80’s.

All of that’s gone now because people like that can’t afford to live there anymore.

All that’s left is a sterile money obsessed city state - populated by a detached, over-remunerated financial elite serviced by a horribly exploited underclass.

16

Ah, and I thought I was the only one being cynical and getting fed up of London these days. Has certainly changed a lot in the last 14 years I’ve been here. Populated by either the very wealthy who want to live some kind of elitist materialistic superficial lifestyle, or by those struggling by in order to service London… immigrants lured by the bright lights but being royally screwed over in minimum-wage jobs and the remainder of London’s underclass scraping by on benefits and stabbing and fighting each other for the remaining scraps on the table.

“Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and girls are pretty” :cool:

17

Yep - saw a good documentary last year about a street in London - the beautiful Georgian terrace at Camberwell Grove - they interviewed the people that lived there from the 1940’s up to the present day - what was striking was how faceless and sterile the street has become compared to the past.

In the 40’s there was a close knit community of working class Londoners who eventually moved out to the garden suburbs, - they were replaced in the 60’s by young professionals starting families - teachers, writers, architects etc - they talked about what an interesting bunch of people used to live there and how if they were starting out now they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of affording the same Georgian town house to bring up a family in - instead they would be lucky to scrape together enough money for a small flat.

The house at the end of the terrace was owned by the council - and in the 1970’s the tenant was a hippy type bloke who turned it into a drop in commune full of artists, punks etc. They interviewed his next door neighbour - this guy worked in the city and was one of the first bankers to move into the road - I expected him to say how terrible it was to live next to a bunch of anarchist punks but he said it was brilliant and he loved going over there for the mad parties and barbeques.

Ironically The banker guy regretted that people like him had eventually bought up the whole street and have turned it into the hugely expensive, sterile, dull gentrified place it now is.

The street was like a metaphor for what has happened to London in the last 40 odd years.

18

I lived in Hampstead from 92- 98 and whilst a wealthy area it was full of artists and slightly eccentric people. It had a good night life and always seemed to have a good vibe…then the americans and rich bankers moved in.

I go back a lot there and it has totally changed…Hampstead is dead after 6pm …all the bars have closed because all the new residents complain about everything and Camden will clamp down on anything slightly resembling fun.

Last Saturday a guy was busking with a guitar on the high street…within two minutes …two police cars rolled up.

I believe the council has to take the blame as well…as they have clamped down on anything fun!

19

Yeah - classic gentrification - sucks the meat and flesh out of a place and just leaves a well manicured but empty shell.

20

Yep - It’s like Singapore - they wanted to develop the area around Raffles hotel - a beautiful turn of the century colonial building with palms,gardens and a wealth of history going back years…by flattening the Hotel and building a 38 floor skyscraper there instead…they didn’t see that people came to see the old hotel not some anonymous glass shitpile that happens to be called the same name…

Luckily they didn’t but the same mentality meant that in the 80’s big name shops wanted to be associated with the ‘hip’ ‘edgy’ ‘full of young designers selling leading edge (and cheap) fashion gear’ Kings Road - even though they sold £900 handbags for rich tossers - result? Kings Road is died 20 years ago.