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Don't impede
the free movement of cyclists
• A few days ago cyclists using the Oasis Sports
Centre found a litter of notices tied to the kerbside railing
saying that locking cycles there was illegal, would be detected
by camera and any cycle locked there would be removed and the
owner fined.
It is not considerate of Camden (and against its policy
to make things more convenient for cyclists) to slap such a
peremptory notice on the railings outside the Oasis.
The threat to cut locked cycles from the railings is a form
of institutionalised vandalism. To spy with a camera on people
who might even just contemplate standing there with a cycle
is institutionalised snooping and/or to fine a person who has
locked a cycle there is institutionalised extortion.
We can read that it is “against the law” to lock cycles
to railings but equally we know there are very many laws still
on the statute books which are neither useful nor applied
For the most part cyclists lock their bikes with due care and
there is no impediment to pedestrians.
For Camden to start at the Oasis is likely to be the thin end
of a wedge whereby it is made considerably less safe (against
theft) and noticeably less helpful for cyclists to get about
the borough, if we can not lock cycles to certain posts or railings.
The notion that locking cycles at that particular spot impedes
pedestrians is utterly silly.
I have been there often, at different times of the day, and
pedestrians can’t get near the locked cycles as they would
have to enter a slim and closed triangle of space.
Overall, the impression to cyclists is that we are being brought
under a dictatorship in which free movement is made awkward
if not difficult.
Mallory Wober
JM Wober
Lancaster Grove, NW3 |
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