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"Scottish Government is getting it wrong on cycling"

(6 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by chdot
  • Latest reply from Wilmington's Cow

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Sadly this is not the only way in which the Scottish Government is getting it wrong on cycling. It is failing on funding, it is failing on research, and it is failing in the cycling messages which it presents to motorists and to cyclists.

    Yet Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon recently told Parliament that the government has “commitment and determination” to reach its “target” for 10% of all trips to be bike by 2020.

    "

    Full version of Spokes letter in today's Herald.

    http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1307-Herald-cycling-casualties.rtf

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. Kim
    Member

    It is also interesting to note that the Scottish Government's reaction to deaths on the A9 (in which excessive speeding was a major factor) is to spend £3,000m on making the road faster. This ignores the evidence from the "improvements" at the Ballinluig Junction where £15m was spent, but the fatal collisions have continued. Instead of learning the lesson of the A77 where the use of average speed cameras cut the number of collisions over night.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    The only conclusion one can reach is that the lives of motorists (especially those residing in north east Scotland) are more valuable than those of cyclists.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. cc
    Member

    As Kim makes clear, they don't seem to give a stuff about the lives of motorists either, or they would be doing what's been shown to save lives.

    I think it boils down to an old political grudge: for decades the Labservatives (as I think of the traditional Westminster ruling parties) have invested in big fast roads in the Central Belt and southwards, and the Highlands has been perceived by non-Labservatives to have not had its fair share of roads cash. Hence the A9 and A96 investments. They simply want big fast wide roads to be built further north too.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. MeepMeep
    Member

    Purely coincidental how Salmond is an old ally of NE Scotland...

    cc: you've hit the nail on the head - there is a considerable chip on the collective shoulder about their not being invited to the central belt party. As a rural area (and totally generalising here), it can be receptively cold and suspicious of change and anything not quite understood, but haughtily prickly about perceived slights. Salmond knows how to play the game and cycling is the black stepping stone, the fake handhold, the poisoned chalice.

    An utterly detestable man in both person and persona, but admittedly good at his particular trade.

    Many of the folk I know that still live up that way don't really want more roads. What they want is a more financially sustainable way of getting about in an area that is hugely reliant on private transport at an ever increasing premium. They don't want to sit for two hours on the A947 to get into and out of Dyce twice a day. The word "train" has cropped up a number of times. All anecdotal, of course.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Of course he's more likely to be a NE Scotland ally given that's where his constituency is. Agree with all the above.

    Posted 11 years ago #

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