CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.

Making Edinburgh Fit For Walking Monday 1st June

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  1. SRD
    Moderator

    Making Edinburgh Fit For Walking

    Monday 1st June, 18.00 to 20.00 on at the Quaker Meeting House 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh.

    You are warmly invited to the launch event of our Edinburgh supporters' group to discuss and perhaps get involved in making Edinburgh fit for walking on the 1st of June 2015 at the Friends meeting House, Victoria Street, Edinburgh. Doors open 17.45

    We’re virtually all walkers – and in many ways Edinburgh is great city to walk in. But motor traffic continues to dominate the vast majority of the city’s streets, and pedestrians have languished at the bottom of transport priorities for far too long.

    Living Streets' Edinburgh local group is being formally launched to make the case for the enormous economic, environmental and social benefits of prioritising walking within a high-quality public realm in the capital. Come along to hear about what Living Streets stands for, how walking fits into a civilised public realm, and about the local group's plans for an exciting late summer campaign of street audits. This is your opportunity to get involved and help us press the City of Edinburgh Council to transform its many sensible walking-related policies into practical improvements on our streets. Please join us for a discussion and debate on the way forward with the following speakers:

    Standing Up for Walkers, David Spaven, Convener of the Living Streets Edinburgh Group
    A Better Public Realm, Marion Williams, Director of the Cockburn Association (Edinburgh’s Civic Trust)
    Auditing Edinburgh’s Streets, Stuart Hay, Director of Living Streets Scotland

    The meeting room will be open from 17.45, with tea, coffee and biscuits available. There will be opportunities to tell us what you think about walking in Edinburgh generally and in your own locality – and to help shape our late summer campaign.

    If you need any more information, please Contact David Spaven Tel: 0131 447 7764 Email: david@deltix.co.uk. Twiter: (@LivingStreetsEd) | Web: http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/local-group/edinburgh-living-streets-group

    Don’t miss this opportunity to help make Edinburgh a European exemplar of a pedestrian-friendly city!

    Thank you,

    David Spaven,
    Chair, Edinburgh Living Streets local group

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. AIMC
    Member

    To celebrate Walk to School Week, Sciennes Primary are substituting their May Cycle to School day with a Walk to School Day next Tuesday 19th May. Walk will start at King's Buildings (furthermost point of catchment) at 8.10 sharp. Everyone welcome. http://goo.gl/DkC4OF

    Will it be easier to negotiate narrow pavements and pavement clutter and not parked cars and traffic?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. SRD
    Moderator

    Conveniently located for the Bow Bar after?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. daisydaisy
    Member

    So this Living Streets meeting is on MONDAY 1st JUNE.
    SRD, I'll see you there. Had a pleasing conversation with 2 colleagues who had emphatic suggestions for how the roads could be improved for pedestrians and they might come along too.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. chdot
    Admin

    "suggestions for how the roads could be improved for pedestrians"

    Sort out stuff like this -

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. chdot
    Admin

    Encourage more of this -

    Decent timings for pedestrians, plus diagonal 'suggestion lines' on crossings like this. Of course people CAN cross diagonally, but it's often not clear if there will be enough time to do it!

    Extreme version - https://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=18021

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. chdot
    Admin

    No doubt Ponding will be discussed!

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=14898

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. SRD
    Moderator

    tonight! hope to see some of you there

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. wingpig
    Member

    Don't think I can get to it, so if there are any online-participation-able things connected to it please post them afterwards.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    We'll be there, looking forward to it!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. jdanielp
    Member

    It was nice to meet some more forumites, SRD, daisydaisy, Roibeard, PS and Utrechtcyclist, tonight following the meeting, which was an interesting and surprisingly well attended event despite this evening's rubbish weather.

    What was a little concerning was the relative negativity with which David, Marion and a reasonable portion of the audience have towards cyclists and cycle campaigning which is perceived to be taking space from pedestrians... Stuart from Living Streets has a more enlightened view at least!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. chdot
    Admin

    "cycle campaigning which is perceived to be taking space from pedestrians"

    Do you mean 'campaigning space' or physical space? (Or both?)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. jdanielp
    Member

    Physical space primarily I'd say, but campaigning space too.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. PS
    Member

    Physical space, really. A few comments about conflict being created "by design" (basically, the cooncil's tendency to go for shared use pavements, which can lead to cyclist "whizzing past at 20mph" and "cyclists never giving way to walkers" at the top of Middle Meadow Walk). I think this was just an unfortunate choice of words.

    From a campaigning perspective there were comments about learning from cycle campaign groups, but I felt one slide where David highlighted that cyclists were only 1% of traffic to school but get 7% of the travel budget could have been misinterpreted as suggesting that cycling money should be diverted to walking.

    I should say I don't think that was the intention or mood in the room, but there is always that risk when these things get raised.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. PS
    Member

    Some comments from David and Stuart that they perceive the council officials as really meaning what they say, but the problem is that the good words aren't finding their way down to the implementers at the council. Something that kaputnik and I discussed at POP.

    Nice to meet everyone tonight. Clearly some good crossover between bike and foot users will help keep things straight. ;-)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. chdot
    Admin

    "but I felt one slide where David highlighted that cyclists were only 1% of traffic to school but get 7% of the travel budget could have been misinterpreted as suggesting that cycling money should be diverted to walking."

    I hope that wasn't his intention.

    'Cycling' money isn't just for 'cycling to school'!

    I think this forum (and various people on it of course!) have done more than most to raise 'pedestrian' issues - particularly where interests overlap or where there is (potentially) conflict.

    'We' have been very critical of some of CEC's 'shared use' 'infrastructure'.

    "Shared Use - the debate begins"

    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=10924

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. chdot
    Admin

    Previously -

    "

    August 2013

    When improving facilities for cyclists isn't worth it.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm keen on any schemes that improve the infrastructure for cyclists. But I don't want this to be at the expense of pedestrian space. It's hard enough already to walk along many of our pavements pushing a buggy with an older child alongside. And we don't need any more excuses for pedestrians to complain about cyclists.

    "

    http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/when-improving-facilities-for-cyclists.html

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. PS
    Member

    I hope that wasn't his intention.

    I don't think it was. I think his intention was to say that walking should receive funding commensurate with the proportion of people who do it.

    IIRC, the slide in question had three bullets with %ages of trips in Edinburgh done on foot (and then, in brackets, by bike) for all trips, to school and to work. Cycling stats for all trips was 2%, to school 1%, I think, walking obviously much higher.

    So, it was a call to arms for walkers, using the funding secured by cyclists as an example of what can be done if you campaign well (perhaps ignoring the fact that the intention of increasing the cycling budget is to get cycling trip levels up to - and above - the percentage of the transport budget that is allocated to cycling).

    However, having those stats in your presentation when you mention cyclists whizzing past your shoulder and a culture of macho cycling in Edinburgh, does create the risk of cycling/ists coming out of it as the problem as opposed to the excessive funding of motor vehicle traffic.

    If we're going to be mercantilist about this (assuming that the transport budget is not going to increase), funding for walking needs to come from somewhere. A slide that said something like 40% of trips to school are by car but motor vehicles receive 90% of the transport budget might give a clearer lie to what needs to change.

    To be fair, complaints about cyclists at the meeting were pretty reasonable (eg, fast moving cyclists on the canal towpath "which should be a leisure facility rather than a highway" not slowing for peds, North St Andrew St's cycling lane being taken from pedestrian space when there is all of the road given over to just two tram lines), and daisydaisy did a fine job of saying walkers should be working with cyclists as there's a lot of shared interests and goals for us all (and shared use paths are not one of them).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. chdot
    Admin

    "If we're going to be mercantilist about this (assuming that the transport budget is not going to increase), funding for walking needs to come from somewhere. A slide that said something like 40% of trips to school are by car but motor vehicles receive 90% of the transport budget might give a clearer lie to what needs to change."

    Yes.

    A lot of 'cycling stuff' also is useful for pedestrians - sometimes deliberate/planned sometimes coincidental/accidental.

    One point of the 'active travel' label is to ''combine' walking and cycling. There may be times when 'cyclists' and 'pedestrians' have different interests BUT more often have common interests.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. SRD
    Moderator

    I'm not totally convinced that the 'budget %' angle works as well for pedestrians as it does for cycling, mainly because cycling was starting from such a low base. By contrast, most transport work that goes in has some pedestrian base, just often not a very good one. so they are spending money - possibly more than the cycling budget - already on pedestrian space, BUT, it is being poorly designed (or not bravely designed).

    I'm more concerned about the quality and type of pedestrian infra, and concerned that focussing on %s and £s may well be a red herring.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  21. chdot
    Admin

    "I'm more concerned about the quality and type of pedestrian infra, and concerned that focussing on %s and £s may well be a red herring."

    Agree.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  22. daisydaisy
    Member

    You'll have had your radicalism.
    It was very 'Edinburgh' wasn't it? I missed the start unfortunately, maybe SRD can tell us if anyone mentioned pedestrian fatalities, which are far more numerous than cycling fatalities? I was hoping for something more "Stop de Kindermoord" ("Stop the Child Murder") and less "it's' ever so important that we make a proper job of renewing the cobbles in the New Town". I know that was the Cockburn Association, and they're obviously a powerful group to have (somewhat) on side, but still, frustrating to the point that I'm thinking about SRD's idea about deciding whether to change an organisation or leave it (can't remember what that was called).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  23. chdot
    Admin

    "can't remember what that was called"

    Exitism??

    Posted 8 years ago #

  24. ARobComp
    Member

    I suppose noone brought up the potential distance travelled differences which explain why cycle funding can bring greater change. As in would you walk 3-5 miles to get to school/work - probably not. Will you cycle it if it's safe to do so, almost certainly if you're able to.

    I tried to hit this point in a council meeting about encouraging active travel once, and I got quickly shot down by Lesley Hinds who was very quick to be all political about it "oh walking is very important too" and I pointed out that Yes of course walking is massively important, but when we're talking about people travelling over 3 miles to get to work, the greater benefit will be by encouraging more people to cycle. (especially considering edinburghs current infrastructure)

    In my opinion and based on my research anyways. Sure I'm wrong though,,, Ho hum.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  25. daisydaisy
    Member

    Exactly, I see myself (when cycling) as one less car on the road, but I live 4 miles from work and don't have time to walk there and back everyday. This is entirely beneficial to pedestrians (safety, noise, pollution, smaller share of road space - could be freed up for more pavements). Ungrateful wretches!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  26. chdot
    Admin

    "research"

    Really?

    You mean evidence??

    Why not just go with your gut feeling - like politicians do.

    (Or at least ignore the evidence because acting on it might be 'unpopular'!)

    Posted 8 years ago #

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