On your bike with such an idea
Some cross-grained Muppet has postulated the idea that Boris bikes would enhance the overall wellbeing of the Midlands, and be a welcome asset to the region. For those of you who do not know what a Boris bike is, sit back, relax and all will be revealed.
Many moons ago in a foreign land some 130 miles south of God’s country, the then Mayor of London, the mop top Boris Johnson introduced a new concept to the travelling community.
These London bikes are dotted in dozens of places around the centre of the city, and can be borrowed for 30 minutes for a small fee paid by waving your bank card over a reader, releasing the bike from its docking port, and allowing the rider 30 minuets or so to trundle from A to B, where you put the bike back into an empty docking port at your destination. Simples.
Let us consider the following. London, its financial, shopping and entertainment centres all border one another, the whole conglomerate is bigger than Birmingham, and so the system makes sense.
Up here, north of Watford, life is somewhat slower, a little laid back, and the bus, metro and transport infrastructure is much more reliable, cheaper, and road speeds are much faster, and a higher proportion of people have their own transport and you could get the whole of the West Midlands into the 620 square miles of the capital.
The wide-open spaces of Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire are but minutes from both Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Everything is but a microcosm of the big smoke.
There is also the cost, in the wicked city, it's £2 for starters, here that same sum gets you a full length bus journey. Up here in the Midlands, goods and commodities are relatively cheaper, and the average wage reflects this. and who of sound body and mind would be seen dead on the rather large and clumpy machine, not withstanding, hipsters, air head trendys, and MPs on photo shoots. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for new ideas, but some should stay in the concept stage, like the Sinclair C5, motorised skates, and, I’m sorry to say this, Boris bikes in Birmingham, and God help us, Wolverhampton, and just how long would they last?
The more enterprising in the illegal community will weigh them in for scrap so all in all, weighing up the pros and cons, I think that the idea of Santander sponsored pay-as-you-go bikes, up here, in the Black Country, and Birmingham, is as foreign to us as faggots and mushy paes are to the denizens of Holland Park.
Tony Levy
Wednesfield
