Londoners drop out of Boris's bike hire scheme

Cycle hire use in London has plunged since Transport for London doubled charges to use the bikes.

There were around 7.6 million hires between the beginning of January and the end of November this year as opposed to over 9 million in the same period last year.

Cycle hire use fell even further in the past four months, with 25% fewer hires between August and the end of November than in 2012.

The drop in hires follows the decision to double daily and yearly charges at the beginning of 2013.

TfL increased a year’s membership from £45 to £90 and daily charges rose from £1 to £2 causing many users to drop out of the scheme.

A poll commissioned by TfL earlier this year found rising dissatisfaction with the scheme among users, with the doubling of charges the main complaint given by those abandoning it.

Critics say it is time to re-assess how the scheme operates.

“The steep decline in the number of cycle hires and therefore the revenue raised from user fees poses questions over whether this heavily subsidised scheme is really offering good value for money for the London taxpayer,” Green Party London Assembly Member Darren Johnson said.

“Given the very high capital costs of the scheme and the environmental, health and congestion-busting benefits of cycling, TfL should be encouraging the greatest possible use of the scheme by keeping user fees affordable instead of doubling them.”

There are signs that the wider ‘cycling revolution’ has also stalled. City Hall say that cycling across London last year rose by as little as one per cent.

The mayor has a target of increasing cycle trips by 400% by 2025.

Sources close to the Mayor believe a cold winter and other one-off factors could have kept people off their bikes last year.

However, they pointed to the continuing coverage of cycling casualties as another factor discouraging new cyclists from taking up their bikes.

City Hall now plan to invest in a new network of so-called “quietways” in order to guide less confident cyclists away from main roads.

Anger at Chatsworth Rd market shows confusion about what, and who, London's street markets are for

Bargains have no place at weekend street markets

Listen: Boris Johnson can't say how much a Tube fare costs

Is it a guinea?

Boris's fares freeze is 'crazy' warns Boris.

Freezing fares will lead to cancelled projects and the removal of concessions for pensioners and the unemployed, Boris Johnson has warned himself.

“Obviously it is hard for me to predict what anybody who was in that crazy position would be forced to cut,” Johnson told himself two years ago.

“But I can certainly tell you that… you face a threat to all kinds of things, not least the concessions I have already mentioned and some of the vital improvements to our network, particularly in outer London bus services”.

There would be “no doubt” that freezing fares would lead to a “very substantial erosion” of services he warned adding that he was “absolutely determined to prevent that from happening.”

Writing for the Telegraph two months ago he said a “universal fares freeze” would take “a huge chunk out of the budget. It means indefinitely postponing or cancelling schemes that are essential for growth, such as replacing the clapped-out signalling on the District line, or ordering new trains for the Piccadilly.”

Today Boris dismissed suggestions from himself that a universal fares freeze would threaten services saying the £350 million cost to TfL “would not in any way prejudice our ability to invest in the network”.

The cycle safety campaign risks scaring cyclists off the road

There’s a worrying poll out today which found that one-in-five cyclists in London have given up cycling altogether, following a spate of high profile collisions and casualties.

The findings are based on a small sub-sample of cyclists and so should be read with care, but it is a sign of something I’ve been worrying about for some time now. It’s the worry that the campaign for safer cycling – well-intentioned as it is – could actually be making cycling less safe in London.

By remorselessly highlighting every cycling death in London with events like the “TfL Die In” the campaigners actually risk frightening cyclists and potential cyclists off the road.

They risk creating a climate in which the public believe that cycling is becoming ever more dangerous in London, when the real story is much more complex.

Today’s poll found that 51% of Londoners believe cycling is more dangerous than it was a year ago. But in reality, the overall number of deaths has come down slightly in recent years despite a big rise in the number of cyclists going on the roads.

And while the rate of serious injuries has increased, it is possible this is partly the result of lots more inexperienced cyclists taking up cycling in the past few years.

The big aim of cycle campaigners should be to make cycling look as attractive as possible in order to encourage a critical mass of cyclists onto the road. My worry is that the recent campaign to highlight problems with cycle safety could be having the opposite effect. It could in short, be falling victim to its own success.

It’s a difficult balance to find. On the one hand, the campaign to highlight cycle safety has put real political pressure on local and national government for more investment and protection for cyclists. If that in turn makes the streets safer for cycling then more people will take it up in time.

But if the tactics of the campaign simply terrify thousands more potential cyclists off the road, then we could simply be taking one step forward in order to take two steps back.

One Minute With The Tindersticks Stuart Staples - Singing Skies

To celebrate the book Singing Skies, a collaboration between the Tindersticks Stuart Staples and his wife, painter, Suzanne Osborne, an exhibition of 365 original ‘sky paintings’ together with Stuarts hand typed lyrics was held in London this month. An acoustic Tindersticks gig, a video installation by acclaimed French director and collaborator Claire Denis, plus a mini-documentary about the process by filmmaker Martin Wallace accompanied the event. Stuart Staples took one minute to speak to Snipe.

Please describe yourself in three words.
Man in France.

What singers inspired you when you started? What ones still do?
It was a great time for singers; John Lydon, Billy McKenzie, Marc Almond, Kevin Rowland, Ian Curtis – so many unique and uncompromising voices. They all still live with me in some way, even if I don’t listen to them very often.

What’s your favourite Tindersticks lyric?
Some songs continue to fascinate me for a long time. An early song like ‘Shes gone’ still holds a mystery for me. When I wrote it my feelings about Suzanne and our baby daughter collided, its ultimate meaning is still just out reach. With a more recent song like ‘This fire of autumn’ from ‘the something rain’ I am still trying to figure out what it is trying to tell me.

What songs, of yours, are you most proud?
For me, songs are successful when they hold the initial moment of inspiration lightly. ‘Marseilles sunshine’ is one of them, ‘This fire of autumn’ another.

What’s the strangest gig and / or best gig you’ve ever played?
Around the time of our first album we had our biggest gig to-date at LA2 on Charing Cross road. To mark the occasion we had asked the Flamenco guitarist from the bar on Hanway St (a late night haunt of ours) to support us – We were hoping for some solo loungey version of ‘Strangers in the night’ (not that he would turn up with his band and play the rock opera he had been working on for years or that he would come equipped with strong alcohol and quality substances.)

I don’t know why Suzanne wasn’t there… Anyway, the concert was something, Mark, our bass player, was reading the set list one song behind us and at one point I went down and couldn’t get up again. I looked up and saw David, who had abandoned his piano, maniacally shaking maracas, his shirt off and a thick line of his undies hanging over the top of his trousers.

What musically have you learnt recently that surprised you?
It’s a good thing to not know what you are doing.

How are the words and visual images in your book with Suzanne Osborn connected?
As I watched Suzanne work, sometimes furiously to catch a moment in a fast-changing sky, at other times, able to explore a sky more static, I was struck by how similar the process was to the writing of my songs. I felt they belonged together.

How did you come to work with Claire Denis, (director of Trouble Everyday)?
We were happy to be chosen by her. It expanded my understanding of Claire Denis films, for sure.

Who is the most famous or surprising person to come to a Tindersticks gig?
Ace of bass, The mayor of Ypres (front row, with sash), Tom Ford, Epic Soundtracks, David Byrne, A-ha, Vaclav Havel, Alain Bashung, etc.

What’s the best advice you ever had?
Take it easy, it’s not a race.

What do you love and hate most about London?
It smells of pies and pasties.

Singing Skies is released in hardback in a limited first edition of 2500 copies and is available from all good bookshops as well as Amazon from 28 November.

Why Labour are wrong to assume they've already won the London Mayoral election

“Labour is very likely to win next time,” the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee told Andrew Marr on Sunday about the 2016 London Mayoral elections.

“The chances are that Labour will win,” she added, going on to suggest that Labour were not only selecting a candidate, but for all intents and purposes the next London mayor.

This is a popular view in London Labour circles for reasons I find difficult to understand. So far there have been four London Mayoral elections. Labour has lost three of them.

Even the one election they did win was hardly a landslide.

When it comes to the mayoralty, London is not a Labour city. Londoners do not choose their mayoral candidates by the colour of their rosette.

When Labour built City Hall they assumed it would be held permanently in Labour hands. They assumed that whoever they selected would be basically crowned as London mayor as long as they wanted the job.

Londoners had other ideas. Ken Livingstone who Blair had blocked from Labour’s candidacy, won the election on an independent ticket with 39% of the vote. Labour’s candidate Frank Dobson came a poor third with just 13%.

It was only when Ken rejoined the party in 2004 that Labour won the mayoral election, with Ken on a significantly reduced majority. They have not won it again since.

Labour supporters should be worried that complacency appears to be creeping back among the party hierarchy in London, many of whom believe that a Conservative Mayor’s eight years in power is an aberration that will pass as soon as Boris leaves the building.

This attitude was sadly on display last night at a meeting of potential Labour candidates for the 2016 election. The meeting had been billed as a discussion about Labour’s election prospects in the general election, but everyone on the panel knew that it was really a de-facto hustings.

“Contrary to what some of the media and people placing bets on Ladbrokes may want to hear today we’re here to discuss how Labour wins in London in 2015,” Tessa Jowell insisted, both raising and brushing aside her place as favourite. Asked about fares later, she added: “this is not yet a mayoral debate”.

Not yet no. But this did not stop other panelists from debating it anyway. Diane Abbott talked about what she would like to do “as a mayoral candidate” while David Lammy talked about what he would do “if I become mayor”.

And it was this last statement that really stood out for me. Here was what Lammy would do if he “becomes” mayor. Not what he would do if he is elected as mayor, but what he would do if he becomes mayor.

We are still two and a half years away from the next London mayoral election, but many people in Labour seem to think they already have it in the bag. The London mayoral election is the most bitterly competitive election in British politics and it is an election that Labour so far has a poor record in.

For some reason the party believes they can wait until 2015 before turning their full attention to the London mayoralty. ‘We mustn’t do anything to distract us from the general election’, is the general and mistaken consensus.

In fact it was telling that the one figure who failed to show last night – Sadiq Khan – is the person who is most likely to get a seat in a potential Miliband government. It was also telling that the only candidate to have actually declared their willingness to stand – Christian Wolmar – was left sitting in the audience.

There were some interesting moments last night. Andrew Adonis laid out a wide-ranging agenda for London on housing, infrastructure and transport. He was impressive on all, even if I didn’t agree with everything he said – particularly his fervour for building lots of new road crossings in East London. Tessa Jowell also agreed with my suggestion that Labour should be encouraging more people out of cars onto public transport, but insisted that they shouldn’t do so through “nasty coercion”. However it stopped there. My question to Lammy on the same subject was dismissed with a simple “I’ve already done transport”.

Overall I came away with the impression of a party that still doesn’t understand why they have lost three out of four mayoral elections. Nor did I get the impression that they yet understand how they will win the fifth.

I’m told that Conservative hopes of winning the next mayoral election are pretty low. After last night’s meeting they should feel a little more cheered.

Tory peer: Cyclists 'longing' to be hit by cars

Cyclists in London are “longing” to be hit by other vehicles so that drivers can then be prosecuted a Conservative peer has claimed.

Lord James of Blackheath said he had witnessed cyclists in London “stand in the middle of the road” and “defy you to run them down.”

“On three mornings, driving up the A3 in the Balham and Clapham area, I have seen cyclists put their cycles up against the central reservation—not the line where the bus lane is—stand in the middle of the road with a camera and defy you to run them down while they photograph you doing it,” he told the House of Lords.

“That is what they are longing for. We need to have that sort of behaviour excluded because it is going to lead to their demise and our prosecution: it is ridiculous.”

He claimed they are trying to create “a new and separate society in London, in which cyclists think they have a superior law and control over everybody in a motor car.”

He also described the Times’ campaign for safer cycling as “ludicrous”.

Other aspects of London life appear to have disturbed Lord James.

Speaking of a recent trip to a Rugby match in Twickenham he remarked that his wife “was totally horrified at the sight of the school buses coming down the road full of children indulging in a pastime which is, I believe, called mooning.”

“I am not going to explain it to your Lordships because we are in mixed company, but the sight of some 40 children mooning simultaneously is not a pretty one.”

He remarked that his wife, who is a youth justice officer “would put them away for a year” if she were given the chance.

Tessa Jowell paves way for possible Mayoral run

I got wind a few days back of a rumour that Tessa Jowell was about to announce her retirement as an MP in order to make way for a bid to become London mayor in 2016.

It was just a rumour and sadly I wasn’t able to stand it up in time.

In any case, last night she announced that she will be standing down in 2015. She makes no mention of any mayoral bid in her statement.

Ah well.

In other news, Jowell is set to appear in a debate on Monday alongside Sadiq Khan, David Lammy, Andrew Adonis, and Diane Abbott – all by sheer coincidence also thought to be considering a run at becoming London mayor.

The title of the debate will be: “Campaign for a Labour Majority: How can we win a mandate from London in 2015?”

According to the preview:

“Panellists will discuss how Labour can build a broad coalition of support that speaks to the concerns of people across London, in order to win outright in 2015 and give an incoming Labour government a strong working majority.”

And if the subject of the London mayoral elections just happens to come up, then I’m sure they’ll be happy to discuss that as well.

In any case I’ll be there. Come back here then for a full report.

UPDATE Asked whether she’ll stand for Mayor, Jowell replied:

“It’s far too early to decide… Obviously I’m thinking about it.”

Only four regular commuters using Emirates Air Line cable car, TfL admits

Just four regular commuters are now using the Emirates Air Line cable car between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, down from 16 last autumn, new figures released to The Scoop reveal.