Throwing £31m away each year

At a birthday party last weekend I was gobsmacked when this sparkling, musical birthday fountain was produced only to be thrown away about one minute later. Once lit, the flower sparkles whilst the petals slowly open lighting the candles around. At the same time, the "Happy Birthday" tune starts playing. There were no details on the packaging about replacing the pyrotechnic so this contraption is clearly intended to be used once then thrown away, batteries (yes, two) and all.

Lambeth Council is working out what services are for the axe as it's being forced to make cuts of £79m over the next 4 years.

It costs £31m a year to collect and dispose of Lambeth's rubbish (£113 for each of the 272,000 residents) so it's clear to me that the sanest way to protect essential services is to cut down the amount of crap we mindlessly consume.

What's this got to with riding a bike? Well, first of all we'll have fewer lorries on the streets...

Secondly, it gives me a chance to mention Lambeth Freecycle - the Yahoo group for giving and collecting unwanted items. When we use it we normally give preference to people collecting on foot/public transport or by bike.

Thirdly, if you're reading this shortly after it's been posted, there's still time to vote for the Council to provide funding to kickstart the Brixton Reuse Centre (including bicycles). Deadline for voting is midnight 1st December.

Moving stuff by bike

There's work going on at a local pub with at least some of the wood arriving by bike. It's not as heavily laden as this bike that I've seen being cycled by St James's Park and photographed in Victoria

Tower Bridge is the base of Office Depot's fleet of 8 'La Petite Reine' cargo bikes that make deliveries in the City of London. Read more in their press pack.

A longer established local leader in delivery by bicycle is Darwin's Deli in Sail Street

Hopefully this idea will catch on at Pimlico Plumbers, directly opposite Darwin's Deli. I bet most of their journeys are within two or three miles.

Transport for London undertook a useful scoping study on moving freight by bike . See if you can guess which stationery company was involved in their trial.

There's more on cargo bikes at I Bike London

Hanging out at Pedal Power Kennington

Dave Lukes volunteered to nip in in over the weekend to the PPK workshop on the old Lilian Baylis school site to put up some of the storage items donated by BC Bikes. We now have wheels hanging from the ceiling and racks hanging off slatboard hooks.

It's great to have reclaimed some floor space and great to have volunteers such as Dave helping out with the project.

Lambeth Cyclists Deco Decadence Ride

Dozens turned out in the chill for yesterday's Deco Decadence ride, one of Lambeth Cyclists regular Architecture Rides. From the Embankment, opposite the Moderne former London Fire Brigade HQ in Lambeth, we headed out west taking in the deco wonders of Chiswick Park, the Great West Road and Hanwell. Our two volunteer ride leaders, from English Heritage, knew their stuff and were entertaining. A great day out.

Quality Streets

Please take a moment to write to your local Councillor to ask for our streets to have a 20mph limit and ask your friends to do the same. Sustrans have set up a website with a link to help you write to your Councillor: http://www.quality-streets.org.uk/

TfL's Journey Planner and the London Cycle Network

I've got to get from Old Street to Lewisham this afternoon. TfL's Journey Planner proposes a back street route which I'm sure will be one of the London Cycle Network (LCN) routes. It's got more twists and turns than Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. I'd be happy to give it a go if I knew it was an identifiable, signed route.

The trouble is that most of the LCN is a convoluted mess for reasons I won't go into now. However there must be a couple of routes that are pretty well thought through and signed, such as LCN 3 in Lambeth from Clapham to Waterloo.

So, how bloody stupid are TfL that neither their Journey Planner nor their Local Cycling Guides (aka maps) flag this handful of useful, signed routes up.

The consequence is that I'll be taking the Old Kent Road instead of TfL's suggested route. I know I can follow that without stopping every couple of hundred yards to peer at a map at dusk.

Where does Road Tax go?

There is no such thing as Road Tax, though the Advertising Standards Authority doesn't object to car advertisers using the term.

Some motorists strop about cyclists not paying road tax and object to them using the roads. The reality is that roads are paid for out of general taxation, such as council tax.

Anyway, motorists actually pay Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) based on their vehicle's CO2 emissions, so a cyclists would pay £0 even if they had to pay.

But, for a moment, let's pretend Road Tax to spend on roads exists and raises the money that VED raises.

In 2009 government revenue from VED was £5.63bn.

I don't know how much gets spent on roads each year, but I do know that the 2009 contract just to widen a mere 22 miles of the M25 motorway (which cyclists can't use) was £3.4bn

'War on the Motorist'? I don't think so.

Mind you, I can't help but feel that a better use of that cash would have been to build a splendid motor-traffic free cycle route along the south bank of the Thames.