"
Cycle plan for upgraded A9 a mess say Scottish Greens
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26530245
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Is dualling the A9 really that bad?
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Posted 10 years ago #
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Here's the full press release:
A9 DUALLING SET TO SIDELINE CYCLISTS SAYS JOHNSTONE
Scottish Green MSP Alison Johnstone, co-convener of Holyrood’s cross-party group on cycling, is raising concerns that the dualling of the A9 will make it harder for people living along the route to get from A to B by bicycle.
Ms Johnstone is also warning that the £3billion project risks unnecessary additional costs by not including cycle routes in its design.
In answer to a parliamentary question from Ms Johnstone, Transport Minister Keith Brown states that the Scottish Government is “actively engaged” with “non-motorised” users to consider the dual carriageway’s design.
But in correspondence with the Perth branch of the Scottish Green party, a Transport Scotland official working on the project says the new road is unlikely to have parallel cycle routes due to environmental impacts and costs, despite also claiming not to hold information about such costs.
Alison Johnstone MSP said:
“The Scottish Government is under enormous pressure to get the rate of cycling up from the current one per cent of journeys to ten per cent within the next six years. It would be monumentally daft if they spent three billion pounds on a dual carriageway that did not incorporate better cycle infrastructure for Perthshire and Highland communities along the route, not to mention the opportunities for cycle tourism.
“It seems ministers are not in tune with officials managing the project, and they need to sort it out. Cycling campaigners are already weary of the SNP’s excuses on active travel and this latest mess shows they cannot be trusted when they claim to be committed to making cycling the everyday travel option it should be.
“As for the bizarre excuse of cycle lanes’ environmental impacts, I would remind Transport Scotland of their own appraisal of dualling the A9. It shows that the project contradicts the government’s policies by encouraging rather than reducing traffic, leading to increased climate change emissions and noise pollution.”
Roger Humphry of Perth Greens said:
“Dualling of the A9 gives an opportunity to improve facilities for walking and cycling. However we have no confidence that this will happen.
“The correspondence received from Transport Scotland implies that many of the existing crossing points are to be lost and the government agency has failed to do standard costing of a cycle-path alongside the new road even though they are ruling them out on the basis of cost.
“Close to my own village, Errol, it has taken many years of local campaigning to retrofit the A90 Perth to Dundee road with safe crossings and cycle routes. We shouldn't make the same mistake again along the A9."
(Ends)
Transport Scotland A9 appraisal:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/files/documents/reports/j10194a/j10194a-a2D14.pdfAnswer from Keith Brown:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S4W-19754&ResultsPerPage=10Questions from Perth Greens, with responses from Transport Scotland:
http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/uncategorized/a9-dualling-set-to-sideline-cyclists-says-johnstone/Posted 10 years ago # -
"
Scotland’s main transport body is being urged to forge better relations with residents affected by the closure of junctions off the A9 Perth to Inverness road. As previously revealed in The Courier,
Transport Scotland is proposing to close the majority of private access tracks as part of the £3 billion dualling of the road — with a possible impact on property values in the surrounding area.
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Posted 10 years ago # -
We had someone tailgating us for quite a long way on an otherwise empty duel carriageway on the A9 on Saturday. Add that to all the people who overtook us on corners on the non-dual carriageway bits and I am really not sure how duelling is supposed to stop people driving like total morons. But then we don't need a replacement Forth crossing either so I suppose the main thing is that billions of our tax pounds continue to get squandered on the least deserving of our society. Such is King Salmonds Brave New World.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Posted 10 years ago #
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Dualling is about accepting that people are morons and giving them a lane to moronise in rather than have them driving straight into oncoming traffic.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Danny Alexander should be ashamed of himself. We rely on our politicians being swayed by evidence rather than mass opinion.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"We rely on our politicians being swayed by evidence rather than mass opinion."
Not quite -
'We should be able to rely on our politicians being swayed by evidence rather than mass opinion.'
"Danny Alexander should be ashamed of himself."
True.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Our politicians are swayed by their expectation of our votes. If we;
* vote, and
* base that vote on evidencethen they would be swayed by evidence. Unless they are so gothically corrupt that one term suffices for them to fill their boots, in which case all bets are off.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Evidence doesn't always count for a lot when it comes to public opinion though. We need our politicians to change that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander said regular users of the road were
opposed to the systemregular law-breakers and repeat offenders."Posted 10 years ago # -
Danny Alexander should be ashamed of himself.
Alexander is on a very shoogly peg with a general election just around the corner. He's had an overly cosy association with the coalition with the Tories, took himself a prominent role "campaigning" on the referendum (largely in badly-briefed soundbites issued from the safety of Westminster) and like a lot of senior Lib Dems, his constituency party appear to have melted away underneath him. Given this is his backyard you can expect much more of this ill-informed attempt at populism from he and MPs who find themselves in a similar position.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@amir
I disagree. No politician has a vested interest in their potential voters taking heed of evidence. An informed voter is a pain in the backside. For further details dial up Anas Sarwar on the Today Programme this morning on iPlayer. The ideal voter is a low-information tribal voter.
It is up to us to change the way we act and the systems within which politicians operate.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Debate generally has all been about 'why we need a bigger road' rather than could we improve the adjacent rail line to share traffic. Something which would be a fraction of the cost.
A9 road though is an easy vote winner. Rail services at present are slow, cramped and not frequent enough. Plus you may have to change in Perth.
Mrs Laid Back does Edinburgh Inverness Nairn a bit at present with her work. Her colleagues all drive but have used train when travelling with her so they can use the time better (is long day out whatever). So despite the railway being a costly irrelevance for regular A9rs it could actually take some cars off the road given some improvements. (new Dutch operator has made hopeful noises).
Also just heard the head of Visit Aberdeen have a go at the 'deplorable train service' from central belt to that key city so maybe not just my 'pet' subject.Meanwhile 'Average Speed Cameras Are Not the Answer' are claiming that the fact a 'legal' journey could take 15 mins longer will drive away tourists. They also think that accidents may stay the same or even increase (although I think that would be odd). Of course when an accident happens the road is often closed for hours with difficult detours.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"Rail services at present are slow, cramped and not frequent enough"
Any sane politician/transport minister/would want to do something about that...
Not least because 'Inverness is the fastest growing city in Scotland.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Perth to Inverness 112 miles
Google says
Train 2 hrs 4 mins
Car 2 hrs 12 mins
Should be able to get closer to an hour by train(?)
Posted 10 years ago # -
So despite the railway being a costly irrelevance for regular A9rs it could actually take some cars off the road given some improvements.
It could certainly take a lot of freight off it and that would surely make a great difference.
Posted 10 years ago # -
If you look at Mrs LB's journey though
155 miles - 2 hours 55 minutes by car3 hours 23 minutes by train (Scotrail's express 8.35 am service with less stops. EC takes 3 hours 40minutes
So Irene's colleagues are 'happy' to sit for an extra 30 minutes times 2 - if they get a seat and wi-fi.
Compare though to applying in a journey going south. Manchester is just as close time wise and it might be cheaper sometimes... That is partly why Scotland is so car centric. Maybe...
Min- Already is taking loads for Tesco and others. Whilst waiting for a cancelled train in a freezing Perth station last year one went through going north. We weren't pleased ;-)
Posted 10 years ago # -
Should be able to get closer to an hour by train(?)
I don't *think* the geography lends itself to particularly high speed services (too many gradients and bendy bits), but there are certainly lots of places where minutes could be shaved off the journey time if Network Rail puts its mind to it.
Of course, the quickest/easiest way to shave minutes off end-to-end journey times is to not have any intermediate stops. That tends to go down like a lead balloon, usually with people who use the railway once in a blue moon.
There were a load of bridge-raising or track-lowering interventions on the Mossend to Elgin route a while back, which enabled larger freight containers to be carried on the railway. I don't know if any action has actually been taken to encourage hauliers to use it though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Don't forget the onward journey and ticket prices. I'm up and down the A9 quite a bit, usually at short notice. I've stopped even looking at train prices so I wouldn't know if they were reasonable or not.
In the Highlands, onward travel from Inverness frequently means a once or twice a day bus. Sunday services can be as scarce as flamingoes. If you're carting outdoor kit and provisions...
Posted 10 years ago # -
The highland "mainline" is largely single track, with passing loops. Combine that with the twisty course it takes with some severe (for railways) gradients, it would require significant engineering and therefore capital investment to get journey times significantly down.
Current government prepared to do these actions for road journeys under the banner of "safety measures" but not for rail journeys under a banner of getting people off the road and making the north more accessible for business and tourist purposes.
Edinburgh to Perth section also overly slow given the indirect route taken, the direct route via Glenfarg having been obliterated by the M90 back in the day. Again, it would be a very expensive engineering exercise to reinstate this route, involving a lot of tunneling.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@kaputnik
I've always wondered why the railway doesn't go that way. How did it get down the steep hill overlooking Strathearn?
Posted 10 years ago # -
@IWRATS the route followed Glen Farg north from the village of that name, picking it's way along the contour lines on embankments/cuttings as required. At the turn of the glen, near Bein Inn, it crossed the old main road (now B996) on a viaduct and cut through the ridge in a tunnel (Glenfarg South). It then ran along the contours of the glen once out the other side, now fairly high up on the slopes above the floor of the glen where the A912 is. At the mouth of the glen, it turned westward towards Perth by the act of there being another tunnel (Glenfarg North). Once out the other side it could descend to the valley floor by running down the contours, parallel to the slope of Balmanno hill.
Both tunnels still safe and open for explorations. Google for great photos by a guy called K-burn.
Posted 10 years ago # -
BBC TV man on the A9 says -
'Today drivers seem to be sticking rigidly to the speed limit'.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Good. More average speed cameras on Scotland's roads please.
Posted 10 years ago # -
They work well on relatively short stretches where the cameras are close together because they should slow down the people who would generally speed. But depending on how far apart the cameras are on the A9 people who do the daft overtaking will soon realise that a few seconds at 90 mph won't be enough to bring their average up over the limit.
Posted 10 years ago # -
They were sticking pretty closely to the limit a couple of weeks ago too, simply showing that most drivers don't read signs, at least the ones saying 'cameras not in use'.
Not sure how feasible it is but I think they could introduce sets of cameras that cover long-distance stretches instead of just the current short stretches. That way you can use the short stretches to reduce spot speeds (eg at dangerous overtaking spots), and if someone has gone from the Road Bridge to Aviemore in too short a time then you can identify them for that offence too.
A colleague tried to argue that it wouldn't work if it covered a section of mixed 60 and 70 mph sections. I tried to demonstrate that yes, it does work if you know the distances of the sections, but he wasn't for listening to the physics...
Posted 10 years ago # -
Third and final A9 road dualling project contract awarded
"The £40m contract involves design work for the road between Tomatin and Moy and the Slochd Summit to Dalraddy."
£40 million, just for design!
"The Scottish government has committed to dualling the Perth to Inverness route - the longest trunk road in the country - by 2025."
By which time, 10% of all journeys will be by bicycle, right?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-30328653
Posted 9 years ago #
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