It seems that the City of Westminster, never the most bike-friendly of places, has decided to start charging bikes to park. It's been big news. MAG's magazine, The Road, even carried an interview with the man behind the scheme.
Apparently, according to the CoW's website, 'permits' cost £150 a year, or you can stump up £1.50 a day to park your machine where you parked it for free, er, yesterday. Perhaps rather tellingly, the main link from the Council's motorcycle charging webpage is headed "I want to pay a fine", because this is what parking is all about - money and driving commuters off two wheels onto that most sacred of multiwheeled Councilland icons, the Sacred Holybus of London.
Westminster's Pay to Park scheme is about as bike-friendly as a neck-height wire strung across the A40 into London. Reading the site makes it clear that the CoW is, once again, on an ideological crusade against anything with an engine (unless it's a bus, of course). If you have an electric bike, you don't pay. Simple.
So despite PTWs being integrated into the mainstream in local transport plans and despite PTWs being one of the best congestion solvents there is, we have a very long way to go. Why? Because, and spin it whatever way you want, there's still a hardcore, ideological dislike of PTWs in County Halls because they're motorised personal transport - and just not sufficiently collectivist.
It must be a pretty strongly held view, too. The Government's Motorcycle Strategy makes it clear that local authorities should "facilitate motorcycling as a choice of travel within a safe and sustainable transport framework". I somehow don't think charging them to park without offering any benefit fits that brief - even using Council-la-la-land logic.
Of course, now that Westminster have whittled a nice sharp edge to the wedge, we can be sure that other local authorities will be queueing up for a go with the mallet. Motorcycle parking charges - coming to a bay near you.
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