Boris bikes and cycle superhighways - your views needed

I'd be interested to know how much it costs to have those guys with the funny trucks move the bikes from location to location everyday.

The Scheme for Full Employment: Amazon.co.uk: Magnus Mills: Books

This corporate branding is getting out of hand now.

If *69%* of respondents are unaware that the cycle hire scheme is sponsored by Barclays then who can blame them for getting a bit desperate?

Survey done.

I like the bike scheme - seems to be really heavily in use round Elephant which is on the edge of it.
They should really have had a red colour scheme to tie in with double deckers, phone boxes and beefeaters.

barclays is blue so the bikes are Blue,its not rocket science.

Cheer up bikes.

yeah plus red is more visible = safe. Should have been bright orange bikes really.
I wonder how long before someone is killed/seriously injured on one of these, and what effort will be made to hush it up by barclays corporate machine? Obviously I hope this will never happen but statistically the more successful the scheme is the higher chance of it happening.

Correct. Until a tragedy happens and then they can be Boris Bikes.

So have there been any serious accidents or fatalities yet on/with a Boris Bike? If not that in itself is big news. I have seen quite a few wobbly riders over the last few weeks, perhaps the general public are good on bikes, or drivers are been forced to be more aware of cyclists. What are your thoughts?

barclays is blue so the bikes are Blue,its not rocket science.

I think they were Blue even before Barclays got involved. Just look back at the sample bikes they had at the cycle show last year. That was way before they had the sponsorship in place.

Great detective work!

super highway seems such a grandiose title for a load of blue paint.

super highway seems such a grandiose title for a load of blue paint.

true. how about... BORISBAHN!

So have there been any serious accidents or fatalities yet on/with a Boris Bike? If not that in itself is big news. I have seen quite a few wobbly riders over the last few weeks, perhaps the general public are good on bikes, or drivers are been forced to be more aware of cyclists. What are your thoughts?

There is evidence to show that the more people there are cycling in a city the safer it gets. Therefore hire bikes will lead to a reduction in accidents and, one would imagine, if accidents do happen they will happen to the inexperienced sorts on the hire bikes and therefore make life safer still for me. Sounds good.

bikes gotta be good news.

cycle super highways not so good. ffs. stop spending rakes of money on segregation.

20 mph on all the network please.

that is what we want. and much cheaper.

some people think its probly all rubbish, i think its good, might be abit of a bad start but atleest its a step in the right direction, could work out to make half of the road for bikes and half the amount of cars

that would be nice.

bikes gotta be good news.

cycle super highways not so good. ffs. stop spending rakes of money on segregation.

20 mph on all the network please.

that is what we want. and much cheaper.

Yeah the bikes are a good thing, super-highways are super-pointless. The one near me at Kennington Park, is just half a normal traffic lane painted blue?!? It isn't even it's own lane, so causes more confusion than anything else. At least most of the normal green cycle lanes are to the side of the one for cars and busses. A waste of perfectly good paint.

As for 20mph, it isn't so much the speed that bothers me, because having driven a car in London plenty of times, more than 20mph is just a pipe-dream most of the time anyway, its the lack of fucking indicating that really pisses me off.

bikes gotta be good news.

cycle super highways not so good. ffs. stop spending rakes of money on segregation.

20 mph on all the network please.

that is what we want. and much cheaper.

segregation is good. but only done really well. no buses. no cars. no stopping.

only way to allow the people who are scared of traffic (maybe 90% of population in london) to use bikes...

(and not very expensive compared with say crossrail..)

bump...

If you have segragation say goodbye to going 25mph.

And this also pisses me off "No - it's dangerous 10%". How can you not support cycling becuase it's dangerous. It might be more dangerous for the cyclist but thats it, none of us are killing car drivers or pedestrians are we.

It is only 10% mind.

cycle super highways not so good. ffs. stop spending rakes of money on segregation.

20 mph on all the network please.

that is what we want. and much cheaper.

First time poster here, long time lurker. Apologies, I didn't wish to argue with my first post but the above is complete rubbish.

The super highways aren't segregated in the slightest; that's why they're crap. You can change the limit to 20mph if you want but it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference in central London where the average speed is more like 10. It also won't do anything about wankers in white vans.

So please, 20mph is what you want.

Oh, and it's actually comments like the above that provide TfL and others with a handy excuse for fobbing us off with pointless crap... cycle lanes in the door zone, 'shared use' pavements etc. If they'd be done properly, the super highways could have been great. But TfL said one of the reasons why the highways weren't segregated was because cyclists didn't want them to be.

If you have segragation say goodbye to going 25mph.

True that. Unless you carry on riding in the road or build fast and slow lanes like I think they have in some bits of Denmark.

First time poster here, long time lurker. Apologies, I didn't wish to argue with my first post but the above is complete rubbish.

The super highways aren't segregated in the slightest; that's why they're crap. You can change the limit to 20mph if you want but it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference in central London where the average speed is more like 10. It also won't do anything about wankers in white vans.

So please, 20mph is what you want.

Oh, and it's actually comments like the above that provide TfL and others with a handy excuse for fobbing us off with pointless crap... cycle lanes in the door zone, 'shared use' pavements etc. If they'd be done properly, the super highways could have been great. But TfL said one of the reasons why the highways weren't segregated was because cyclists didn't want them to be.

I definately don't want them segregated; in an ideal world the cycle lanes would be wide and seperated from the road by a big dock off curb or such like. However, we do not have masses of space and I personally do not want to be stuck behind some old dear with a dog in her front basket and not being able to overtake because I'm couped in by a channelled cycle lane a la Pitfield Street.

First time poster here, long time lurker. Apologies, I didn't wish to argue with my first post but the above is complete rubbish.

The super highways aren't segregated in the slightest; that's why they're crap. You can change the limit to 20mph if you want but it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference in central London where the average speed is more like 10. It also won't do anything about wankers in white vans.

So please, 20mph is what you want.

Oh, and it's actually comments like the above that provide TfL and others with a handy excuse for fobbing us off with pointless crap... cycle lanes in the door zone, 'shared use' pavements etc. If they'd be done properly, the super highways could have been great. But TfL said one of the reasons why the highways weren't segregated was because cyclists didn't want them to be.

I would respectfully suggest that this is slightly more complex than you may imagine. Just out of interest, is your apparent opposition to 20mph really based only on what you write above?

how about something like this, though?

http://vimeo.com/1910758

lane reserved for cycles only, wide enough for bikes to overtake each other, going inside bus-stops and parking, and with timed lights to allow you to keep speed up.....

none of us are killing car drivers or pedestrians are we.

last year, eversholt street, cyclist killed ped.