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Proposed secure on-street cycle parking facility - pilot

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  1. BikeFan
    Member

    Remember this http://news.stv.tv/east-central/28306-city-plan-to-experiment-with-residential-bike-parking-facilities/ from February 2012?

    I got an "Invitation To Comment And Reply" letter in today's post - view here From that, there will be 6 pilot schemes:- South Oxford Street, 18+41 Warrender Park Terrace, Lonsdale Terrace, Douglas Crescent and Polwarth Gardens.

    One and a half car parking spaces will be lost to create ten bike spaces, at a charge of between £5 and £10 per month per bike - that could work out dearer than a CPZ Resident's Permit but at least you'd be guaranteed a covered space.

    Applicants will be selected at random, but limited to folk who stay within 100 metres. The trial will be for two years and should start late 2013/early 2014.

    I think I'll keep humfing mine up the stairs for the time being.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. crowriver
    Member

    I wonder how they decided on the pilot areas? I presume interested parties were invited to come forward? Also assume estimates of numbers of cyclists in area taken into consideration.

    Judging by the locations though it seems ability and willingness to pay might be a factor?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I saw a copy of the letter that Kim got which suggested a 15-bike rack would be installed, but on a current single yellow thereby not reducing car parking spaces, at a cost of £10 per month (£1,800 per annum per rack).

    I would consider leaving a £120 bike in a communal rack, but not if I had to pay £120 a year for the pleasure

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. SRD
    Moderator

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/cyclists-to-get-street-lock-ups-in-edinburgh-1-3311690

    Five roll-top secure bike units are to be introduced to streets dominated by tenement flats, where residents often struggle to find safe places to keep their bikes.

    The scheme is to be piloted in South Oxford Street, two locations on Warrender Park Terrace, as well as Lonsdale Terrace and Douglas Crescent.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  5. Snowy
    Member

    Interestingly, all of these locations share particular attributes:

    Either
    1) buildings only on one side of the street
    or
    2) cul-de-sac

    or both, in the case of half of Lonsdale Terrace.

    This makes me suspect that these initial installation locations may have been top of the list because the impact on car parking can be minimised by utilising green spaces or the closed end of cul-de-sacs. (Maybe I'm being a bit cynical.)

    The price is steep. Maybe they are going to include free bike insurance? ;-)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  6. Snowy
    Member

    Actually, I've just realised that the reason is probably far simpler. In these locations, the racks can be installed without being directly outside any dwelling which might then complain about them.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  7. fimm
    Member

    Free initially, then £5 a month (£60 a year) if the scheme takes off.
    How much is a resident's parking permit?
    I'd have to be really, really confident that the thing was secure before I left anything other than a very beat-up bike in it.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  8. Min
    Member

    £5 a month seems fair to me. Otherwise they would immediately fill with abandoned bikes and be useless for anybody else. At least the charge means that owners who stop paying could have their bikes removed.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  9. Snowy
    Member

    I think even £5 a month is expensive compared with parking permit costs.

    In three of the proposed streets, for an 'eco-friendly' car ie 0-100g/CO2/km, the 12month permit is £28.50

    Douglas Crescent creeps into a central zone, so the equivalent is £57.50

    To be fair, most cars probably fall into the CO2 category above that, £81 and £161.50 for non-central and central respectively.

    Personal choice to use it or not, of course, but the stated aim of CEC is to utilise permit costs as an encouragement for people to reduce their emissions. Laudable.

    But a bit difficult to reconcile that aim with then charging £60 annually to park a bike on the street.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  10. chdot
    Admin

    Of course the argument here will be 'but we are charging for the shelter'.

    Certainly can't simply be on a 'square footage of roadspace'.

    Probably means that car permits are too cheap...

    Posted 10 years ago #

  11. Min
    Member

    In three of the proposed streets, for an 'eco-friendly' car ie 0-100g/CO2/km, the 12month permit is £28.50

    Really??

    Ah but then, "eco-friendly" cars take up less space, increase rainforests, re-ice the polar ice cap and cause pandas to multiply like rabbits.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  12. fimm
    Member

    Min makes a good point about abandoned bikes and payment for maintenance etc.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  13. kaputnik
    Moderator

    £5 a month seems reasonable-ish, although if you are a student with a £60 BSO from the Bike Station would you be willing to pay that again for a years' storage? Given you don't get much change from a fiver for a pint in many places, I can imagine that many will choose to continue cluttering up stairwells instead of the other option.

    A deposit system might be more practical to encourage those on limited incomes.

    £28.50 a year for a car permit seems heavily lenient!

    Posted 10 years ago #

  14. wingpig
    Member

    "£28.50 a year for a car permit seems heavily lenient!"

    Perhaps it reflects that a permit is merely a permit and not a guarantee of a space. Wonder what the effective incomes-per-space are...

    Posted 10 years ago #

  15. Snowy
    Member

    All valid points.

    Abandonment - in practical terms there needs to be a balance between the time period that a bike could be abandoned for prior to be being noticed & removed, and the payment efficiency - perhaps quarterly is a good balance. I simply don't think CEC would be round immediately to remove a bike if someone didn't pay for 1 month. But there has to be a relatively easy way of dealing with it - give a bike a small sticker and other shelter users can report suspected abandoned bikes, and CEC can tie it back to owners.

    RE maintenance, that's a good point. There's an argument that local street infrastructure (including car parking facilities) is maintained through local taxation. Chicken and egg, since I'm guessing that if CEC didn't get money from things like resident permits and parking charges, local council taxes would consequently have to be higher.

    I'm sorry, but I don't see how a family of 4 is going to be encouraged away from car to bike when parking 4 bikes is going to cost them £240 a year even in a non-central zone.

    I guess what I'm saying is that a bike parking charge is perfectly fair in my view. But I'd like it to reflect space usage and emissions compared with other (ie car) parking charges. So it should be a lot lower.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  16. Snowy
    Member

    Oh, the parking permit charges are listed here. Bear in mind that very few cars will be £28.50. The majority in a non-central zone will be paying £81 or £92.50.
    https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/1278/parking-zones_and_permits/1461/resident_and_visitor_permits/3

    Posted 10 years ago #

  17. cc
    Member

    £28.50 a year for a car permit seems heavily lenient!

    All part of the drive to make the air less poisonous (while encouraging car use as much as possible). A parking permit for the smelliest cars costs £371 a year.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  18. zesty
    Member

    So how many bike's do these bike bins hold??
    From the picture it looks to be only 4 so 20 spaces in total also what is the cost of one of these bike bins?

    Personally think they are a waste of money, its not going to exactly stop the more determined thiefs!

    Posted 10 years ago #

  19. crowriver
    Member

    Look, these ones are going to be free. It's only if they're a success (how will this be measured?) that they will roll out across the city and a fiver a month will be charged.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  20. gkgk
    Member

    I've often dreamt of buying a box trailer thing or a caravan and parking it outside the flat as a bike lock-up - I don't have a car and everyone else enjoys free on-street parking here - but this looks pretty good too, very encouraging!

    Posted 10 years ago #

  21. SRD
    Moderator

    @zesty - earlier this year, we had someone posting in here who lived near Lonsdale terrace and has been told she couldn't keep a bike in her flat. Yet there was nowhere on her street where she could lock her bike. For someone like that, is might prove very attractive and help hem start/keep cycling.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  22. chdot
    Admin

    Other options -

    http://www.vextra.dk/Log/USERFILES/Bicycle_Parking_Manual_10MB.pdf

    Posted 10 years ago #

  23. Tulyar
    Member

    It would be interesting work through the legal issues as well, just to get a better picture of how this might apply if the spaces were charged for.

    The law is very specific noting subsection 1.9 of the Roads Scotland Act 1984

    ..(9)Subject to subsection (10) below, every road which is entered in the list of public roads kept by a local roads authority shall vest in the authority for the purposes of their functions as roads authority: but such vesting shall not confer on an authority any heritable right in relation to a road.

    Roughly translated - the roads authority (Council) is not entitled to make money or gain benefits from the use of the land on which the road (which they own) sits, and this is why the money earned from parking charges (in theory at least) should only be used to cover the costs of managing the road & parking on it. Any 'profit' would be due for payment to the owner(s) of the land - generally the frontagers, to whom the land should revert if it is no longer required for use as a road (ie for the sole statutory purpose of moving traffic on foot or awheel). Now here might be a fine challenge for those wanting a bigger front garden. Several examples of this exist in Glasgow, with the university, and SMG taking over entire streets which no longer connect 2 different places, as they own all the property on the street.

    If the road over your land (title plan) is stopped up as a road it comes back to you - so you could rent it out as a parking space, and take the income, or convert it to a pleasant green space, or somewhere to park your bike.

    It might also link to placing cycle parking units on the road and also charging for the use of cycle parking units on land belonging to the flat-owners (an irony there on being charged to park on land that you own?). It might also prompt a bit of legal fun if you can prove a piece of road on your land is not required for passing & repassing of traffic (because 95% of the time it has a car parked on it) if it is used for parking, then obviously it is not required for use as a road, and under Section 79 (I think?) a move to de-list that bit of road and revert it to your ownership might be promoted. Anyone up for setting a precedent?

    Posted 10 years ago #

  24. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Buttons & Robin (@ButtonsAndRobin)
    21/07/2014 21:41
    Spotted. Who can tell me more and how do I get one near me? @CyclingEdin

    http://pic.twitter.com/JBfP6LaMRV

    "

    Posted 10 years ago #

  25. cb
    Member

    Passed by these today, at the junction of Warrender Park Terrace and Spottiswoode Street.

    Three boxes in all, two 3s and one 2. So storage for eight bikes (unless its two bikes per compartment).

    Posted 10 years ago #

  26. neddie
    Member

    and they've moved the bins, nicely blocking the connecting path between Spottiswoode St and Leamington Walk

    Posted 10 years ago #

  27. chdot
    Admin

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/cycle-racks-to-end-scourge-of-bikes-in-flat-stairs-1-3489552

    Comments are mixed...

    Posted 10 years ago #

  28. Snowy
    Member

    The roll-top units aren't bad looking, and probably a more efficient use of space, but seem to leave the bikes more open to the elements.

    The locker units on WP Terr are fairly ugly, but at least the bike would be better protected from moisture. Wonder if more than one bike could fit in a locker?

    Haven't seen the other model.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  29. gembo
    Member

    Most practical thing the council has done for me for years said the woman in the article

    Posted 10 years ago #

  30. rust
    Member

    "you cannot carry a bike up four floors unless you’re an athlete"

    I'm guessing that's not one of the Commonwealth Games sports?

    Posted 10 years ago #

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