CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years 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.
From another thread -
"The guy who runs Till's seems very pleased with the cycle way even though it's titchy.
He likes the larger pavements and the increase in footfall.
I suspect he'd even be happy to go on the record as a supporting voice if he were asked."
What's our view on whether it was just Frank Ross who whipped his party to vote against, or were there more antis amongst the Council SNP members?
"
David Brennan (@magnatom)
31/08/2016, 13:33
Dear people of #milngavie and #bearsden, this is what you are campaigning against. #bearsway
http://pic.twitter.com/bYUUbBdF43
"
@ih:
I don't know the internal workings of SNP Edinburgh but I've got the impression from other things I've read that Frank Ross isn't first choice as their leader, so I'd be surprised if he had that much sway.
I thought Frank Ross was their number one?
My local SNP councillor who is a reasonable chap seemed to have believed the PG hype as he thought there was no longer Sustrans funding rather than just that we lost out to south side of Glasgow for community links plus. That seems to be going well in the south side but The bears way in milngavie has some similar local opposition. Bearsden is of course in east Dunbartonshire these days.
Hopefully Sustrans will come out openly and support an option a type route
Just reading the history of the Aberdeen to Inverness railway. It was held up in the 1850s by one man - a local eccentric named William Alves Welsh - who at first insisted that it should go through his front garden and then, once plans had been made and costed for that line, as far behind his house as possible and in the sea if feasible. He petitioned both the lower and upper houses of the London parliament against the scheme, then against railways in general, before becoming a figure of fun.
Is this off topic?
Attached is schedule going forward, by email from Lesley
Link: https://i.imgur.com/SNvn5bw.png
Timeline summary:
Initial stakeholder review concluded by beginning of December
Project gets split into 3 sections at this point, seems a bit like Leith Programme
Detailed Design begins with statutory consultation on these designs in (1) February 2017, (2) April 2017 and (3) June 2017
TRO advertising about a month after each statutory consultation after a redraft
Back to transport committee in (1) September, (2) November and (3) January
12 month 'public hearing process' for Section (1) Roseburn to Melville St (excl)
Construction beginning (2) November 2017, (3) January 2018, (1) September 2018
It says Section 1 is Roseburn-Melville St at the bottom.
Oh yes so it does :D (post edited)
@IWRATS - I hope not
These plans aren't doing anything to give the lanes the best chance of success.
So they are going to build the section from SAS to York Place 2nd? Without the George Street development (2020?) then it's just a short link between two busy sections of road. Will do next to nothing for new cyclists.
And no doubt every other cycling project in the city is getting delayed because of this.
"And no doubt every other cycling project in the city is getting delayed because of this."
Not necessarily. It depends on a few things:
- Who is doing the detailed design work. In house? Or tendered out?
- How the construction is managed.
Remember there are a whole load of other projects in the pipeline for design work. Some of these may be done in house, others will be tendered out. (See relevant thread for details, I don't recall the name of it...)
Ok 2 things about that timetable
1. The Stakeholder Group review is scheduled to last 3-4 months from 05/09/16 to 02/09/16 [sic: this is only 3 months] and the Notes to this say "Start dates depends on Committee decision Option A or B" but that decision clearly has not been made, so how can this item be completed as stated?
2. Under section 1, which is the Roseburn to Melville St section there is some serious confusion: under Detailed Design there is a period 05/12/16 to 01/10/17 for several steps from Drawings to T&E Committee Consideration, a period which includes Consideration of Objections, revisions, Ctte Report prep from 05/05/17 to 01/09/17. But then this is followed by a whole year of Public Hearing Process from 04/09/17 to 07/09/18, all after the committee decision.
Something is not right here.
@ih, yeah this just reminds us that the Council failed to make a decision on A or B. So, is the Stakeholder group supposed to make this decision now? Or will it be made by the committee at some unspecified future date (presumably after May next year)?
@crowriver: true, but are any segregated paths going to be proposed while all this is going on?
@Stickman, no idea. Depends on what proposals are worked up for routes such as Holyrood to St Leonards; Holyrood to Portobello, etc.
If I got the gist of Lesley's statement on the webcast correctly, the A/B/other routing decision is now in the hands of the stakeholders group/committee/quango under the authority of the TEC and Paul Lawrence director of place.
A report on *that* Murrayfield/Roseburn meeting -
https://jamesrannochcc.wordpress.com/2016/08/04/ripwell-reports-roseburn-to-leith-walk-cycle-route
I have been giving this week's TEC a bit of thought...
My biggest thought is that the odds were stacked against us.
Murrayfield/Corstorphine ward was one of the most marginal in 2012. 4 parties received between 20-25% with Labour missing out, so no local representation from the coalition partner trying to push this through or pro-cycling Greens.
Not only that but 2 of the local Cllrs are leaders of their party groups in CEC and the other a former leader and newly appointed MSP.
So we have local Cllrs who will be sensitive to making what is/could appear to be an unpopular decision and have the weight/power to have their party group follow their position.
The local area is weighted towards an affluent/older demographic, who are unlikely to cycle themselves and see car ownership as a measure of success, but not use theirs at rush hour.
We have a row of shops that are already suffering so some retailers on the edge. They also don't have rear access so loading is an important issue. Add in that a couple of those shops that allegedly have a high volume of large bulky items coming and going and loading becomes even more emotive.
All this on one of the most congested and polluted roads in Scotland that is on a number of bus routes.
And then you add in the serial campaigner who doesn't feel compelled to stick to facts and a consultation mailing that didn't get delivered properly.
All in all it was going to be a tough job to convince the locals that it should be one of the first streets in Scotland to have 2.5m of its width given over for a cycle lane.
I'm not saying that these points are all valid or aren't being overplayed and I don't believe they outweigh the significant benefit that the direct Option A would bring but may help explain why we had such a battle.
All true, but there are other factors.
Not least the fact that there is no local veto - otherwise presumably locals would stop general motor traffic too (unless it stopped at the shops)...
@chdot. Oh, I totally agree about there not being a local veto.
However, as Adam said at the TEC the lack of clear local support for the scheme was held against us for CL+ funding, so it does have some affect on the scheme and something we need to be cognisant of.
I can't help feeling CEC should first do more to reduce private motor traffic passing through Haymarket. Once that is dealt with, it should be easy to reduce W. Coates & Roseburn Tce to a 'normal' road i.e. 2 lanes of motor traffic in each direction. This would then leave adequate space for wide pavements / cycle lanes etc
Filtered permeability.
Met at least two roseburn locals at roseburn who were not happy with the other roseburn locals last Monday
@ gembo - yes I wonder how uncomfortable it is for those shop owners who don't join the placard waving.
@gembo - there are lots of local residents who support the scheme. Many contacted the Roseburn Cycle Group and offered to help.
More still would be surprised by the antics of those on the street.
@Rosie having heard how persistent PG was at thrusting petitions onto the shops, I'd say quite a bit.
The thing is, it's difficult to stand up against a torrent of untruths.
Silent majority need to speak up.
"The thing is, it's difficult to stand up against a torrent of untruths."
Perhaps, but may not be easy to sustain the untruths at a Stakeholder Group where those in charge want to produce an outcome based on facts and the best judgements of themselves and their officials.
Does anyone have any idea when the current StreetView images of RT were taken - year and time/day?
Taken this year: the alteration place isn't there (was beside the 'U' beauty place) and it only closed this year.
Don't know what time it was taken though. Probably early AM.
@HankChief That was a very accurate and lucid summary of the battle you took on, with some great help from others as well. So I'd like to thank you very much for that effort.
I think two factors in particular played to that conservative demographic you mentioned. First, PG's campaigning can't be underestimated. He's a strange character whose motivation I've tried to figure out but not reached any solid conclusions. Some of his campaigns on KnS website even have some validity to them, but there's no consistency to his ideology and certainly no honesty to it. The second key factor as you said was the supine behaviour of the local politicians who probably thought objecting to the scheme was a way to keep their supporters on side. I don't think they were right there and when it comes to elections, the cycle track would have been a fairly minor factor in the voters' calculations. However, their lack of intelligent insight coupled with bloody-mindedness made it extremely difficult from the outset.
(Btw, what did @chdot and you mean by 'no local veto'? Seems to me there's too much local veto, in the sense that a very small but vocal minority vetoed what had significant support on a slightly larger canvas.)
Last night I was following on twitter the shenanigans at the Bearsway meeting. Seems Roseburn doesn't have a monopoly of uncivil reactionaries.
I agree with @chdot that in the Stakeholder group it might not be so easy for the antis to continue with their untruths and fear mongering but I would not go in with the view that Option A can be watered down (either to a form on Roseburn Terrace that I can't imagine, or to Option B) but rather the Group should discuss with the antis what exactly they want and then show how Option A can satisfy it. The Group should not accept the tacit approval of law breaking as happens now. How this goes will depend very much on how the Group is chaired and the rubrics that are established to run it. It could descend into chaos, in which case I would be prepared to walk away.
Thanks again, Ian
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