PRICE DOUBLING: Barclays Bikes - the beginning of the end ?

thelawnet

BTW, although I am a keen cyclist myself I am not convinced that the scheme is a success, for various reasons, primarily that London is still far too open to motor vehicles. So I can see why they might be reluctant to subsidise it further.

2sides2everystory

thelawnet wrote: »

BTW, although I am a keen cyclist myself I am not convinced that the scheme is a success, for various reasons, primarily that London is still far too open to motor vehicles. So I can see why they might be reluctant to subsidise it further.

Yes yes but who is "they"? If "they" have a blue eagle logo then "they" need to pay up for the increased costs of advertising, else let's get someone else's brand out there. If "they" are TFL then let them get their finger out and find the right advertising sponsor for this season. If "they" can't find an alternative way then let them rip out the bike stations as fast as they put them in and sell the bikes to Vienna or some together city such as that as spares for their similar scheme.

thelawnet

why do Barclays need to pay for increased costs of advertising? They have an agreement in place until 2018.

You can't just tear up the contract when you want more money, otherwise nobody will be willing to do business with you, and you end up with less money, not more.

2sides2everystory

thelawnet wrote: »

why do Barclays need to pay for increased costs of advertising? They have an agreement in place until 2018.

Ah thanks for the reminder - so some public sector employed plonkers "negotiated" a pig-in-a-poke type deal with a crooked bank on behalf of the taxpayers. Just what I was saying from the outset.

You can't just tear up the contract when you want more money, otherwise nobody will be willing to do business with you, and you end up with less money, not more.

Who said money was the object of the Boris/Barclays Bikes exercise? I appreciate you as a lawyer may find it difficult day-to-day to demonetise your rationales, but I thought we have the things because it was a public good for citizens to be encouraged to cycle. Why else have the bloody things cluttering the streets, especially when they will now be sitting serving little purpose other than as some expensive taxpayer subsidised billboard for one crooked bank???

callum9999

2sides2everystory wrote: »

So what's your view then, Callum ? Can you tell us anything about Barclays Bikes? Have you even learned to ride a bike? I very much recommend it for your regular exercise needs. Sadly a whole swarth of those Londoners who were no doubt included in the "Inspired to take up sport by the Olympics" figures spun out yesterday will now have been inspired to save their money and go back to the bad old ways. Worse still, their journeys will be slower as buses have to wait for room to pass the full banks of Barclays Bikes sticking out into the road which are no longer out on hire.

I own a bike thank you very much... If it's so important to you then I suggest you get your own, they don't cost very much.

As to this issue, I have no idea - and unlike you, I don't pretend to have one. I don't see how the bus is any cheaper than the bikes though - a single is £1.40 and presumably you'd be returning. So £2 will still be less than £2.80.

If the department of health were funding this scheme then you may have a point, but tfl don't have an unlimited budget so I don't really see why they should be subsidising public health measures.

Marco_Panettone

Barclays paid significantly less than was offered by other sponsors of the scheme when it was tendered originally. £5m for blanket central London advertising for 6 years seems somewhat cheap....

thelawnet

well that's hardly their fault is it.

Marco_Panettone

thelawnet wrote: »

well that's hardly their fault is it.

No, it isn't. It's the fault of someone at the top of TfL, but if prices have gone up to suplement this funding for the scheme then the person in charge has some more questions to answer.

It is important to remember that it's a daily release fee, not a 'per journey' fee too.

2sides2everystory

callum9999 wrote: »

I own a bike thank you very much... If it's so important to you then I suggest you get your own, they don't cost very much.

I have one too, but they cost a great deal to take on a plane which is usually where I was going to or returning from with my ten kilos strapped to the front of the bike! Most London bike journeys involve taking the bike somewhere you have difficulty in finding secure storage for it including when you take it home if you live in a flat.

As to this issue, I have no idea - and unlike you, I don't pretend to have one. I don't see how the bus is any cheaper than the bikes though - a single is £1.40 and presumably you'd be returning. So £2 will still be less than £2.80.

Well I am not pretending to have an idea, and I confirm I definitely formed an idea about Barclays Bikes in 2013, and then I started this thread .

Yes a single Oyster journey on the bus was or is about £1.40 (I might have said £1.50 but can't remember if that is the new single journey price on the DLR or the new single journey price for using oyster on a bus), and yes there is some logic in your ideas - See there ... you do have an idea

If the department of health were funding this scheme then you may have a point, but tfl don't have an unlimited budget so I don't really see why they should be subsidising public health measures.

Well I could agree that too, but for that matter then, why should TfL have cluttered the streets with Barclays Bikes in the first place when most of the streets of London were so not conducive to cycling as a safe method of transport for Londoners ?? Surely you don't think Boris exceeded his brief on that one (again!).

So shall we conclude that this was from the outset a purely political initiative dreamed up by politicians consorting with bankers and handed over to be played out by armies of un-commercial unimaginative public servants kowtowing to the whims of the usual giant outsourcing companies. How original is that as a device for a big unstoppable money-go-round?Maybe it was a first as one relying directly on the pedal-power of the masses ? :rotfl: