No, not at all. I can see you might have thought that, but it was not my intention. Sorry.
My comment about the people you also quoted was intended as a criticism of the headline, not of your selected quote. One employee (not a ‘shopkeeper’) and one other unidentified person (could have been a passing member of the public for all we know) mentioned drugs and the headline translated this as “UK town shopkeepers”
So my reply was just continuing a conversation, to subtly encourage others to also read the article, as you did, to see what else was said. Some actual shopkeepers commented, one clearly having a prejudice against cyclists, but not for any drug-related reasons as far as was reported.
There was such a range of other noteworthy quotes it seemed better to encourage others to also read it rather than just take the headline at its clickbaity face value.
It was an old tradition, long lost. There are a very few, possibly in London or maybe other major cities. I would bet the only bikes Middlesborough police have access to are the stolen ones they may have recovered. Strong emphasis on the “may” there.
In past jobs I’ve had to negotiate with Councils and work with shop owners to remove on-street car parking for both bike lanes and to build accessible tram stops for trams. Initially we’d always get a lot of pushback, but once we’d had a few wins some of our biggest advocates were the shop owners who’d previously been detractors right up until the point they’d see more customers.
And this is in a city where the inner city shopping strips were literally built around tram lines.
Bizarre that even a story in a cycling publication fails to even attempt or refute any of the claims of these shopkeepers but instead just gives an applebox their their ranting. Even when those rants are falsifiable claims…
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
– Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 2, bk. 4, ch. 7 (1776)
It’s one of the great tragedies of 20th century transport history that so many cities ripped out their tram networks to make space for cars. Melbourne was lucky that they weren’t removed, despite a few attempts through the 1950’s and 1980’s. The city’s basically shaped around them - we have these long, linear shopping strips through the inner suburbs, some that are kilometres long, because they’re well served by tram, and the CBD would be a disaster without the 20 tram lines that go through the centre of town.
It’s not on that well-known bastion of the 1950s, the Isle of Wight is it? /s
And Croydon HAS tram lines running directly through the centre of town. (Talking of which, I suspect your town is in fact in the US, given how you spelt ‘center’. ) But the local council is doing its best to kill off all incentives to go to Croydon for any reason whatsoever - the whole area is a wasteland compared to 10 or 20 years ago - despite the trams.
Lived 7-8 years in Croydon, watched the Tory government run it into the ground, all the social programs gone, no money for treating addiction/homelesness/mental health, then they wonder why things are going so badly… that plus there’s the Home Office there, and the council has no cash to put up all the asylum seekers, homeless people shipped from the rest of London and similar. The Labour council did a shit job for sure (their house building program and bailouts for the shopping centres were run by incompetents to put it nicely), but being starved of funds really did not help.
Nah, East Kent, there’s 2 or so police on official police bicycles, but here’s actually pretty good for cycling.
Grew up in the Southeast US, so american spelling is deeply ingrained…
I completely agree about the fuckwitted (and vicious) local council financing cuts inflicted by the Tories over many years in general.
Yet many councils do worse than others due to their own local fuckwittery. It is rare to read a copy of Private Eye without Croydon Council getting a few paragraphs in its “Rotten Boroughs” section. The list of continuous and ongoing fuck-ups, blatant corruption, failed and/or overspent projects, general financial shenanigans and so on that Croydon Council has produced is a very long one. I lived and worked there for a decade or more, and am still living close enough to see the continuing effects. They have completely ruined the centre of Croydon.
(I forgive your ‘center’ given your geographical upbringing. )
100% agree they’ve made the worst possible zoning, development and especially financial decisions, but they certainly aren’t working with a wealth of resources or support either.
What’s needed is a viable third/fourth option for voting, Tories have burned one too many bridges (and their traditional voters tend to leave as soon as they can afford to), leaving just Labour for the council seats, as no-one who wants to win will run as Lib Dem.
That might be nice. But Labour councillors capable of oversight (and themselves not being ‘in on it’) and senior staff who are not nakedly corrupt and incompetent would also be a good start. The conflicts of interest and bungs to friends and colleagues are legion.
) But the local council is doing its best to kill off all incentives to go to Croydon for any reason whatsoever - the whole area is a wasteland compared to 10 or 20 years ago - despite the trams.
