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.
First impressions of the Scottish Budget. The budget documents state total Scottish Government expenditure on active travel of £39m in 2016/17.
This is about the same as last year in cash terms, but a very slight fall in the share of the total transport budget, equating to roughly 1.8% of the £2.1725bn transport budget for 2016/17.
The most notable change in the transport budget is an increase in expenditure on trunk roads, up from £694.8m this year to £820.3m next year.
is this online yet?
Sally - here you go:
Tartan Tories leading us down the garden path? Surely not!
Started a bit of a debate on twitter by challenging my SNP Holyrood candidate on the poor investment in AT in today's budget.
His response was "I support more investment in AT and will seek meeting to discuss if elected. specifically for west Edinburgh given we have 2 most polluted streets"
I then used this to quiz the other candidates on their commitments
So far the LibDem has said "I cycle to work, walk kids in, good for health &env't. I'd Improve cycle routes& allow bikes on buses like inCanada "
& Labour "safer cycle routes to schools in Edinburgh western, specific cycle rails in visible locations for locking bike to for start..!"
I wouldn't go so far as to say these were commitments but it is a start to get candidates airing their views and competing in the Active Travel space for votes.
Anyone else going to try the same approach?
#walkcyclevote
Yikes, I see that the "Cycling, Walking and Safer Routes" line item goes from £8m to £5.9m (bottom of http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/9056/16). As I understand it, this is one of the places that local authorities can get money to match Sustrans money from the Community Links programme, so the reduction could make things really tricky for councils. Here's hoping that the guaranteed percentage of the transport budget that CEC have committed to saves the day here in Edinburgh at least...
In any case, I got a leaflet from my prospective SNP candidate just yesterday so I will certainly make use of those contact details on it to see what she's got to say!
@HankChief
Politicians are always going to tell you what they think you want to hear. The best way to find out what politicians really think about active travel is to ask them the exact opposite of what you want.
Say you think money spent on AT is completely wasted. See if they agree!
@edd1e_h Fair point.
I might have to use a different twitter account for that though < wanders off to check if @feihCknaH is taken >
Please all do follow HankChief's lead - the one thing we hear from politicians is that active travel doesn't come up enough on the doorstep
"one thing we hear from politicians is that active travel doesn't come up enough on the doorstep"
I'm sure there are very few things that come up regularly so that is just an excuse.
Politicians should 'lead' - not just do (or not) things that people 'mention' - or ask for in focus groups!
'We' are still unable to get across the idea that improving conditions for walking and cycling is for the benefit of all - not just for some noisy self-interested minority group.
Spokes is holding a hustings for MSP candidates from all parties on 21 March, so have your questions ready.
Let me get these spending priorities right:
Air Services down by £3.1m
Rail Services down by £57m !!!
Bus Services at standstill
Active Travel apparently at standstill
Ferry Services up by £11.5m
Motorways and Trunk Roads up by £125.5m !!!
Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Can we not kick the Scottish Motorists' Party out in May?
P.S.:- The inflation adjusted figures are even more grim... :-(
In summary, the SMP's transport priorities are as follows (p. 134):
"In 2016-17 we will:
- continue construction of the Forth Replacement Crossing as programmed;
- progress construction of the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements project and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR)/Balmedie to Tipperty project;
- progress procurement of the A737 Dalry Bypass;
- progress design and development work on dualling the A9 and A96 and continue
construction of the A9 Kincraig to Dalraddy project;
- progress design and development work on the A90 Haudagain Roundabout;
- focus on essential improvements and on safety and congestion relief improvements that offer value for money;
- continue to maintain the safe operation of the Forth and Tay Road Bridges; and
- continue to appraise investment in the motorway and trunk road programme with appropriate tools to further assure its contribution to our Economic Strategy."
Anyone got a link to some return on investment calculations for active transport? I'm sure I remember some studies floating around...
I see what they did there.
SMP Gov have presented the Active (and Sustainable) Travel support as an increase on this year. Which it is, but only an increase in the budgeted figure. The actual total was higher this year as a result of concerted lobbying from advocates of greater investment in active travel.
In order to gain a real terms (after inflation) increase in the total funding compared to this year's actual spend (rather than the headline budget figure) it seems more lobbying will be required.
Luckily it is election year at Holyrood in 2016...
@Darkerside - the one we cite for POP is here http://travelwest.info/project/ee-24-economic-benefits-cycling (sadly link rot means the link in the POP manifesto is broken - I will need to fix that) which gives returns of up to £22 for every £1 invested. There are other studies linked to in the latest Cycling Embassy roundup http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/blog/2015/11/29/its-time-to-talk-about-shopping (not just the shopping benefits) - with returns of up to 24:1 according to this link http://www.ecf.com/news/recent-studies-show-investing-in-cycling-pays-off-globally/
A slight note of caution though - most of the really high returns are based on off-road infrastructure (railway lines and the like) because from the policy maker's point of view it's all jam - lots of health benefits and no knock-on effects on drivers. I was talking to Rachel Aldred and she said that the projected returns of the London Cycle Superhighways, where space is being taken away from cars, are calculated to be much lower even with the health benefits taken into account because the assumption is that traffic will not change at all so congestion is projected to go up. Obviously this is daft but the same assumption is made for building new roads - so that they appear to magically reduce congestion for ever. There's a paper on the lunacy of ignoring induced demand here http://www.ejtir.tbm.tudelft.nl/issues/2012_03/pdf/2012_03_02.pdf
Ta much.
Has anyone FOI-ed the business cases for any of the major trunk road projects?
(I apologise for crowd-sourcing blog post research. I'm technically on a course...)
A96 scheme strategic business case is linked below (1). The scheme the SG are pursuing has a Benefit/Cost ratio of between 1 and 1.25. I reckon even that is pretty optimistic.
I haven't seen a business case for the A9 - probably because there is no way it could stack up financially, e.g. the section between Pitlochry and Moy (approx 70 miles) is used by between 7000 and 9500 vehicles a day (2 - section 6.1) The UK Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (3) considers that a wide single carriageway road can cope with between 13,000 and 21,000 vehicles per day. So this long section of the current A9 is already over specified for the number of vehicles it carries and the SG is about to spike most of the £3bn cost of A9 dualling on further upgrading it.
(3) http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/dmrb/vol5/section1/ta4697.pdf
"- focus on essential improvements and on safety and congestion relief improvements that offer value for money;"
So they plan to build world class facilities that encourage drivers out of cars by ensuring they will be safer and quicker when not driving.
Or did they not understand what they wrote?
"Or did they not understand what they wrote?"
Perhaps not.
I suspect Spokes and PoP might find this useful -
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improvements that offer value for money
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Spokes posts...
General cycling/transport impact of draft budget
Specific impact on council cycling activity
Most important tweet - please RT if you agree!
DdF
I've retweeted, but think I've now used up my hashtag quota for the next year...
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Spokes CycleCampaign (@SpokesLothian)
12/02/2016, 11:17 pm
.@ScotParl #Cycling Group supports our Budget plan!->
Have U emailed your MSPs?? https://twitter.com/SpokesLothian/status/684486810681081856 @CyclingEdin
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Joint call by Spokes, FOE Scotland, Ramblers Scotland, Stop Climate Chaos & POP to transfer 1% of the planned trunk roads budget back into active travel - if you haven't contacted your MSPs yet about this then do so now as the final debate is this week http://pedalonparliament.org/budget-take-steps-now/
Is that 1% of the trunk road budget to replace the current .5%, or to add to it, to make 1.5%?
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Spokes CycleCampaign (@SpokesLothian)
22/02/2016, 10:36 am
Can @scotgov afford NOT to move 1% of #trunkroad cash to #activetravel? ---> http://www.spokes.org.uk/2016/02/budget-msps-briefed-on-1-of-trunk-roads-plan/ #pothole @edfoc
http://pic.twitter.com/5a1SvwE8Zs
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Budget blow to walk & cycle
With no changes to the draft budget, the Scottish Government has set the ground for a retreat on walking and cycling by Councils across the country…
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