CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 14years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
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In a damning analysis of its performance, the council report details how mismanagement, lack of proper accounting and a failure to control costs have contributed to giving Edinburgh some the worst road surfaces of any Scottish city. Transport bosses today admitted that “demand for investment in roads maintenance will always exceed the funding available”.
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Tony Kenmuir, boss at Central Taxis said: “Poor, broken surfaces such as on Calder Road heading west towards Hermiston and potholes on the way from Corstorphine to the airport have been there so long without being repaired that we actually learn where they are and unconsciously drive a weaving route around them for a smoother journey wherever possible."
Unconscious driving would explain the passes I've had from taxi drivers lately.
I've got a great idea...
Everyone inside the city bypass (including buses) can stop driving for 5 years. This will stop the road damage getting any worse. Meanwhile all the roads can be repaired efficiently without need for diversions, signs, temporary traffic lights.
Active travel will shoot up & everyone will become magically healthy again.
The only danger is after 5 years, 'we' (as in all of Edinburgh) may not want to go back 'to the way things were'
</dreaming>
"In 2012/13, the Road Condition Index, which grades roads throughout the country according to Scottish Government criteria, found that 31.09 per cent of the city’s 10.6 million square metres of carriageway “require either investigation or repairs” – just 0.51 per cent lower than the figure quoted in the report."
Are there any targets for the Road Condition Index or can councils be held accountable by e.g. Audit Scotland for the standard of the roads under their control?
Yeah - those awful officials, hiding the truth from our gallant Councillors. If only some external body could have produced a lovely glossy report for our tribunes, setting out the condition of our road network and what it might actually cost to bring it up to a decent state of repair.
The highlight of this report is:
"The Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey shows that the percentage of [Edinburgh's] roads that require intervention has reduced from 52.84% in 2004/05 to 32.5% in 2011/12."
Edinburgh's ravaged tarmac is partly why I bought a cyclocross bike, rather than an all out road machine (which also took a rack and mudguards etc). Possibly the most nuked of streets I've seen is Park Lane up the back of Portobello. I mean, you'd want a quad-bike to drive (slowly) down this short lane. I had some good practice of my handling skills dodging the craters.
Didn't one of the ruling parties enter office with a policy of 'bringing roads up to a good standard'?
Park Lane and the other bad ones in more central Porty are not adopted for maintenance by the Council. They are private roads. It's not the Council's responsibility that they resemble the moon. If the owners fixed them up then the Council would adopt them.
There are plenty bad roads in Edinburgh - EN shouldn’t have to use a private road to shame the Council.
Original Victorian road engineering still lovely to cycle on:
Smooth, with a capital 'smooth'
Nearby modern day 'reproduction' road engineering an absolute mess:
So, basically, the cost would be les than half the cost of a single tram line that benefits few people?
Sometimes I wonder what happened to us as a society.
When I was a kid - in the often derided 1970s - roads were ok, libraries were open for long hours...
What happened? Where did all the money go?
@gibbo
Where did all the money go?
London, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the United Arab Emirates.
Shielding wealth from taxation is now a mainstream activity and London is pretty much its world epicentre. Also, following the 1970 misuse of drugs act the untaxed narcotics trade has become a major part of our economy.
Where did all the money go?
A lot of people bought a lot of tellys and telephones. Then they realised that they weren't big enough. Or small enough. Or new enough. So they bought some bigger / newer / smaller ones. Then they realised that those new things they had bought still they weren't big enough. Or small enough. So they bought some even bigger / newer / smaller ones. But they couldn't afford to buy any bigger / newer / smaller things after this, so somebody "gave" them the money to do it. But charged them for the privilege. So they could still get bigger / newer / smaller things but they were now costing them even more money in the long run, so somebody else lent them some more money to cover the extra cost, and charged them a little bit more for the privilege. So they could still have bigger / smaller / newer things. Just.
Repeat ad infinitum.
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More than half of road repairs fail less than seven years after they are carried out – even though the Capital pays more than twice as much as other Scottish cities for the work, according to a secret council report.
City chiefs have launched a shake-up of the entire transport department in an attempt to tackle rip-off rates for shoddy repairs, which officials warn is “not sustainable financially”
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Of course one thing that would help is less traffic.
And lower speeds.
And more bicycles.
And...
This thread has drifted somewhat...
"Also, following the 1970 misuse of drugs act the untaxed narcotics trade has become a major part of our economy."
So -
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The figures from the ONS include a new methodology for calculating gross domestic product (GDP). The new measure includes factors such as spending on research and development, as well as the economic contribution made by drug dealers and prostitutes.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29422267
Which is all very well if 'the most important thing is' GDP.
In most parts of the world GDP doesn't include subsistence farming, (unpaid) caring or voluntary work.
Perhaps The Big Society would have worked if people contributing had been "valued".
I think I heard the radio say that the UK debt had gone up because of Royal Mail and Network Rail...
(Almost) back OT - re-fixing potholes adds to GDP, so obviously a good thing.
Perhaps The Big Society would have worked if people contributing had been "valued".
If you can buy groceries and pay bills with "value" rather than pounds?
Average household wages in real terms are more than double what they were in the 70s. We might not be spending that money on fixing the roads, but there's a lot more of it about.
@chdot
Narcotics are, and always have been, part of the economy. The question is whether or not the industry is taxed in order to contribute to the roads and railways used to transport its goods. Currently it is tax-free, which puts it at a huge, expensively state enforced advantage over other industries.
We would all be better off if you could buy what you wanted from Boots. (Which makes no profit here, due to having to expensively rent the brand name 'Boots' from another company domiciled in the Swiss Canton of Zug.)
"If you can buy groceries and pay bills with "value" rather than pounds?"
Well that's the logic of excluding non-moneyed transactions - which is why Governments don't like barter (harder to tax!)
But the principal remains - 'discounting'/ignoring things people do 'for free', has social consequences.
The ONS has produced an interesting article on 50 years of statistics on household income, taxes and benefits:
While I agree with Kappers on the effects of consumerism. I think the huge growth in housing costs, which represents a transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, can account for the soaking up of much of the extra cash. You needed 3.54 times of median salary to afford the median house price in England in 1997, this had risen to 6.72 times median salary by 2013 (can't find Scottish figures just now).
in the often derided 1970s - roads were ok
In the 1970s, vehicles (including buses) weighed half as much as today, and there were much fewer of them. With the volume of traffic today, it's no wonder they can't keep pace with the damage.
Time to stop driving.
vehicles (including buses) weighed half as much
And of course that means sixteen times as much road damage per journey (though maybe half as many journeys?), proportional as damage is to the fourth power of the axle loading;
http://wiki.pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL#Generalized_Fourth_Power_Law
I think the huge growth in housing costs, which represents a transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, can account for the soaking up of much of the extra cash”
This is in part a result of a government policy as manipulation of the housing market through planning restricting supply through greenbelts allocations and sometimes aritary use requirements (empty offices that could be used houses)but also through pushing demand through tax incentives, and subsided borrowing the interest rate manipulation.
Also governments having a policy of not let prices adjust downwards to quickly. Property is in effect insured by the state, governments will distort the rest of the economy through considering the housing market in setting or the parameters they targets set bank of England.
The property price increases in part "a kin" to a "tax" on those who rent to those who own, also intergenerational “tax”. Although not tax and spend on the figures. It’s a kind of transfer payment from renter to owner, that occurs in part through government manipulation of the market ( the part above what the "real" or "freer market" equiliberium point would be), indeed in respect to housing governments policy may have done more harm that good on occasion.
With rent being a function of house prices, even with a lot of lag, the governments bidding up housing prices has the effect of a regressive tax. Of course its always presented as a natural occurring thing which is somewhat of a mis frame if strip out the governments controls then things may look differently.
I also tend to think this is important in respect to planning and transport. As one of the reasons people do more journeys is because of housing costs and the lay out of towns is also largely influenced by the high prices.
It may also have the perverse effect of reducing efficiency of property in respect to use, as part of the value or property is the investment part as well as use part. Because the investment part may be bigger in the uk than say some of European neighbours can get properly under used at times when more focus on holding as an investment. There is also a theory takes investment from more productive use, property being somewhat of a “tulip”.
So in respect to peoples having a higher average real wage, do we mean or medium as they has been a divergence over last 30 years, of course it also depends on what basket of goods is used as index in respect of property people have a lower income now.
Here's why the roads are worse than they were when I were a lad in t'seventies:
Yes, that's right. Vehicle miles have nearly tripled since the early 1970s. Most of that growth is cars. Not vans, lorries or buses. Cars are wearing the roads down, primarily. Here's why:
Stop driving your freakin' cars everywhere, people!
vehicles (including buses) weighed half as much
And of course that means sixteen times as much road damage per journey (though maybe half as many journeys?), proportional as damage is to the fourth power of the axle loading;
On a number of occassions I've cited that rule of thumb to explain my theory that Lothian Buses switch from high-floor to low-floor buses (~7.5 to ~12 tonnes, 150 to 240hp engines) is responsible for the crumbling of roads wherever their fleet roam and in particular around nearly every bus stop in town.
Time they started paying some sort of road tax to pay for it..
(I'll get ma hi-viz coat)
If I had to guess I would imagine although we could afford more roads in absolute terms today than in the 1970s ( the cost of other useful things has declined making road feel more expensive) the comparative cost has increased in relation to other uses for state funding, roads now represent a higher opportunity cost than they did in the 1970s. Also roads being in worse condition may be using more of a “business school frame”. As only measure what people value. If people can drive on roads with “ pot holes” or poor surfaces with little complaint and don’t notice, then it may be considered better to spend money on other things. I did not really appreciate the great quality variation until I got my bike.
In the 1970s there were also far fewer roads to maintain in the first place.
No city bypass. No M8 extension. No A71 dualling around Heriot Watt. No South Gyle. No Edinburgh Park. No countless cut&paste housing estates built on former parkland/factories/farmland etc. No car based retail parks...
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