Shiply

http://www.shiply.com/how-it-works.php
This is a transport brokerage / reverse auction set up. You say what you want to ship and transporters bid for the job. They don't want to run empty lorries etc - any income they get is better than none, and this opens up cheap transport opportunities for customers.

Bike Belles

http://www.bikebelles.org.uk/ is a new Sustrans micro-site subtitled "What every woman needs to know to get out and about by bike".

London Cycle Network (Plus)

Following my entry http://stibasa.blogspot.com/2009/03/london-cycle-network-plus.html a few days ago I have discovered that the project did not allocate funding to upgrade the Thames venue / A1306 to LCDS standards.

No Yellow Pages

There was a distribution of Yellow Pages directories today and I didn't get one! This must have been because I have been taken off their distribution list as requested.

The YP Customer Service Team is on 0800 555 444.

London Cycle Network (Plus)

Maybe I'm a bit of an old cynic, but the LCN+ seems to generate a lot of paper and not so much on the ground. Every so often I'm sent an extract from one of the project documents showing me what £ has been spent or is being asked for, plus what's been done on the ground or is programmed, so I thought I'd decode it and show it here. I mean decode fairly literally - the item I'm looking at, for example, has a 'scheme code' and a 'barrier reference' - meaningless outside the project.

The LCN+ project has identified "barriers" to completion of the network. In B&D one of these is Barking's Northern Relief Road, the issue being how you cross it. There are two "grade separated" crossings at Wakering Rd and Linton Rd. The one at Linton Rd is in a pickle because of the redevelopment there, but as the report I'm looking at says, "Redevelopment in the area will contribute to necessary changes". Put another way, the route has been designed in to the redevelopment. Something of a breakthrough if it works.

The route to/from Wakering Rd ("Link 2") has suffered from rather bad "legibility" since the "Costa del Barking" development in the Church Road area was built. With new roads and flow restrictions it took a full strength Sat Nav to find one's way through, but I notice new signs are appearing to confirm that one is heading for Barking. I have to investigate fully, but thanks to our Cycling Officer for this long overdue work.

Link 3 includes "Goresbrook Road and A13 (Heathway to Havering Boundary). This is the first bit of the A13[06] route that we audited back in 'o3 in what is called a CRIM. The report says "Design and Implementation of improvements following review of CRISP recommendations." The CRISP recommendations are the ideas generated during the CRIM (which was a bike ride down the route taking notes and photos) or submitted at around the same time for the same purpose. I'm guessing the "review" was a look through to cross out which ones there are no plans to do.

The junction of Heathway and the A1306 is also part of link 3. The report says "upgrade of four arm ATS junction and installation of ASLs. It's actually a 5 arm junction - Goresbrook Road, Heathway, A1306 (east), Chequers Lane, and A1306 (west), but I suppose blocked off Goresbrook Road hasn't been counted. ASLs = Advance(d) Stop Lines. Not High Tech, just forward of the motor vehicle ones.

The third bit oflink 3 in the report is the junction of the A1306 with Thames Avenue - just our side of the A1306 Beam Bridge. This junction is to be upgraded to conform to the London Cycle Design Standards.I'm not sure exactly what that entails

Delays to new trains on Barking to Gospel Oak line - and to 15 minute service?

Rail magazine issue 612 (page 9) says:

"Delivery of 12 two-car class 172 Turbostars to London Overground will be late ... The diesel multiple units were due to be delivered in the summer according to Transport for London spokesman Guy Pitt, but the delay means the Class 150/1s currently used on the Gospel Oak-Barking line will remain in place until the new units arrive. Pitt says this will not ... impact on the planned 15-minute timetable on the railway due to be introduced later this year. 'We are not quite moving into contingency territory yet,' he said."

Barking & Gospel Oak Line to close for 16 weeks?

Rail magazine issue 612 (25 Feb - 10 Mar) says (page 17) that the line will be closed for 16 weeks from next Christmas Day. I think it must be wrong. TfL say on this page (my emphasis):

"works are scheduled to take place on Sundays from April to December 2009 on the Richmond to Stratford line and all week, every week from late December 2009 to April 2010 between Gospel Oak and Stratford."

This press release says: "No service between Gospel Oak and Stratford for 16 continuous weeks, from 25 December 2009 until 12 April 201". Many of the other details in the press release tie up with the Rail Magazine article.

Plaza Bicycles

Travelling up Ilford lane on the top of a 179 I noticed a hand written sign at a shop called Plaza that "Plaza Bicycles" is now open. I can't give you any more details and I wouldn't build your hopes up, but if you're in the vicinity of 350 Ilford Lane, (between Khartoum Road and Wingate Road) it might be worth popping your head round the door to see what's what.

Is this madness or revelatory?

I've come across an outfit called The Venus Project and it its activist arm The Zeitgeist Movement. It's a bit hard to say whether their ideas are hare brained idealistic lunacy or a workable whilst radical model for society.

Certainly some of the building blocks of their argument are undisputable and/or extremely appealing. For example, we only have the resources of the planet to sustain humanity. I think this is undisputable. They add that the amount of money that there is is irrelevant and it is created or destroyed at will.

They say that the planet can produce enough food for everyone (which I assume is true) but that not everyone has enough money to buy the food they need (plainly true). They place great faith in science and technology over politics, charity and religion.

They are truly internationalist (we're all fellow humans on one shared planet). Some of the futuristic stuff (maglev trains going at 4000 mph, for example) is a bit less plausible but they point out how much resource both physical and intellectual has gone into war and destruction, saying it should be spent on making things better - "weapons of mass creation" and how much stuff is made not to last, which is very wasteful.

The root cause of the world's problems is the monetary system, which is obsolete, they argue, and we can do without it. I promise you it makes a very thought provoking read.

Free packaging

I've taken to selling stuff I don't want on e-bay and Amazon. So far I've managed to re-use old packaging with no problems. One of my buyers gave me a good tip though: computer shops are often keen to get rid of packaging.

This may also make it easier for you to not stash boxes for equipment you've bought. If the manufacturesr/retailer doesn't require you to keep it then maybe someone else can use it rather than it gathering dust in your loft.

And the real threat to pedestrians is...

CTC's Cycle Digest issue 57 says:

• 364,082 pedestrians were injured by drivers between 1998 and 2007, while 2,623 were
injured by cyclists

• Pedestrians are 263 times more likely to be killed by a driver than by a cyclist - this despite
the fact that cyclists and pedestrians often share the same space and much of motor
vehicle mileage is made on motorways, where pedestrians are prohibited.

Source :www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-01-26b.250454.h

It's nice to have these facts to hand. BTW 364,082 / 2623 ~= 139