London Fixed-gear and Single-speed SJS Cycles

I just received this:

"Hey everyone,

Unfortunately the announcement was just made - the people of Greater Manchester, in their wisdom, have voted against the Transport Innovation Fund proposals. This means no new buses, no extra trams or new routes, no additional carriages on trains, no integrated ticketing system and yes, no limited, peak time, weekday, one way only charge to tackle the shocking congestion on our roads and clean up our filthy air.

It is probably obvious to most on this group how this happened - millions upon millions of pounds pumped into scaremongering and outright lies from the faceless, self-interested billionaire owners of the Trafford Centre who bank rolled the no campaign clouded the issue and meant a lot of people thought this was all about a congestion charge and knew nothing about the investment, or didn't understand the correlation between the charge and the improvements - so many people I spoke to in the final days said 'I haven't voted because I take the bus'...

Anyway, we can argue all day about what could possibly have led to such a devastating loss for the future of our region, but I don't think that is particularly helpful. "

SO let's continue to build our beautiful bike community in MCR....

Its a real shame, im not sure how much would have changed but it would still have been a step in the right direction, I had the same experience from people at work who get the bus and train but didn't realise the benefits.

prob the same people that whinge about there not being enough trains and trams and say "somebody should do something about it"...aah well it's all our loss.

sorry, and i'm not hating, but that really sums up the general state of mind of this country

apathy and selfishness

life does not revolve around football, having a car and getting into debt

fucing arseholes for not thinking about tomorrow...

i am so ready to leave this country...

Just heard this on the radio..

FFS, it says a lot about attitudes in this country.

the trouble with democracy is that people don't know what's best for them, that vote reflects the selfishness of humans.

cars will be the death of us, literally.

edit: was writing this before I saw craig's post above!
great minds and all that..

i agree my dear craig...but we should keep on tryin eh?? even though most days i feel like getting a machine gun and mowing down the fuckers...see my thoughts on grown ups in the other post.

and i think it's unfair to say that this referendum was true democracy but won't use this forum to go on and state the obvious about democracy in anarchy and how true democracy and intelligent informed decisions cannot be made through a voting system

it's terrible if people truly weren't aware of the investment..

what a balls up.

hope you keep getting more people on bikes up there, the best velodrome and the best BMX track in the UK got to count for something

come up for the i bike mcr fest 2009 and find out for yourself x xx

dumbass english attitude...

i recall the nightmare when the london congestion charge was being implemented - the roads being fubar'd etc, but when it started it worked...

getting some rollin stickers done AS i type...

Seems the stick and carrot approach didn't work! Was sort of looking forward to seeing the volumes of cyclists increasing in Manchester as they did in London.

Motoring will continue to get more expensive, congestion charge or not. It's a shame the public transport system isn't going to benefit from extra funds for people that will no longer afford to drive. Perhaps there will be some private investment at a later date. Stagecoach can put on more busses to rip people off.

Cycling is becoming more popular here, pretty sure this will continue.

Quite happy if the plan to put a cycle lane down parkway doesn't go ahead, the wide left hand lane is perfect as it is.

The proposed changes would make very little positive difference to the way I travel as a bike rider, but may have helped lessen how much we're fucking over the environment. Looking forward to the economic collapse hopefully before the environmental one! (not really)

Ugh it's all doom and gloom for me today

This is really sad. I made everyone in my flat vote yes. Honestly it hardly registers as a congestion charge, only about 2-3 hours in the day when you would get charged, and with huge benefits to the public transport system. What a mess.
Whilst it'd be nice to see more drivers on the bus, I doubt it would have reduced the actual amount of traffic in the city. And any more buses on the Oxford Road and my death is simply a matter of time.
I agree with Ness on the ridiculousness of a public vote for things like this, but only 23% of people actually voted, I think. Fight apathy or don't, you know.

Too much hatin' not enough riding.
Where'd you get those t-shirts Nasty, they're awesome!

Edit -
Well said Jim, I don't think either a yes or no vote would have drastically changed the way we ride in the city.

the rolling ones are a mock up from nyc - one of john prolly's crew... just blagging idea for stickers

i actually got onto the electoral roll to vote yes, but didnt get any voting info through...

vote NO to haters...