CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years 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.
Mr Mackay said the new road schemes were to reduce congestion and journey times rather than encouraging more people to drive.
Can someone please write an explanation of "induced demand" on a cricket bat, then hit Mr Mackay on the head with it?
http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/campaigners-denounce-failure-to-cut-scots-car-use-1-4007389
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Ministers have failed to persuade Scots to switch from cars to greener transport over the last decade, a new version of the Scottish Government’s national transport strategy showed today.
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Yeah but
It's not Ministers' job to do that, it's up to US to change our behaviours...
Most people may say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. However, this does not apply to road building.
Now, of course every time new roads are built, more driving occurs. BUT one day there will be so many roads that there simply cannot be enough cars to fill them.
One day, there will be small lemon-soaked paper napkins.
Maybe one day the entire country will be covered in Tarmac and all the houses will be spread out evenly across the landTarmac so that everyone has their house and 1 square mile of Tarmac.
All cars will be self-driving and so will be able to take an infinite number of routes in any direction from any house.
Utopia for Mr Mackay.
chdot - The revised National Transport Strategy actually says that, just in more words than you use:
"The climate change challenge has been set out in ambitious legislation – the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 – and has been translated into equally ambitious approaches to ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’, both of which require committed responses from society at large, not just government."
@M
Thanks.
Clearly I'm just more economical with the actualité.
"both of which require committed responses from society at large, not just government."
Which is entirely true, but when the SG thinks that WayNice codes and TV ads showing people being dragged backwards is a good contribution (not saying 'and the only one') then there's a long way to go.
"We're going to builds lots and lots of roads and bridges and dual carriageways but we would really really like to you to use far less well funded and often inconvenient and downright dangerous transport instead"
Job done.
Price of oil is plummeting as well - that's not going to help.
"It's not Ministers' job to do that, it's up to US to change our behaviours..."
I think you meant to say a Cultural Change (TM). Does the minister mean we need to become more Scottish, less Scottish, more Danish, more Dutch?
So confusing this culture stuff! Better just build some more roads: and hey, oil is dirt cheap right now, that must be good for the North East where all these new roads are being built...er...
Price of oil is plummeting as well - that's not going to help
It may well help longer term in that they're pumping it out of the ground faster than it can even be used.
Once it's gone it's gone forever...
No more car use to worry about
I was thinking about something this morning: 3 mile round trips.
There are basically 4 options for those journeys.
#1: Walk. I often walk - especially in the winter (I rarely cycle in the winter) - but I'm a fast walker and not everyone wants to walk 3 miles.
#2: Cycling. I don't need to tell you guys this is the king of transport options, but not everyone has a bike, not everyone wants to cycle (or able to cycle), and not every destination has bike parking.
#3: Public transport: slow (slower than a bike) due to waiting for buses and stopping at bus stops. Rarely takes you exactly where you want to go. Also, for one person, you're going to get gouged £3 - £1 per mile.
#4: Car. Clearly superior to public transport in almost every way. No hanging around at bus stops. Plenty of space. Control of your environment etc. AND, much cheaper than the bus.
So, when I see this thread and read the line,
"Ministers have failed to persuade Scots to switch from cars"
I think, "Failed to persuade"???. Politicians have done practically zero to encourage people to use public transport.
In fact, public transport is, for most journeys, not only less efficient, it's more expensive - even if there's just one person in the car.
So it's not even "the cheap option for poor people".
Derek Mackay can continue spouting his nonsense, but as long as his government continues to reward drivers while punishing bus users, we'll continue to see increased car use and decreased bus use...
...Because people do what they're rewarded for doing.
A decline in (urban) bus use isn't inevitable. It isn't a matter of persuasion. The regulated and heavily subsidised London bus service has seen passenger numbers grow by 31% in the last decade. I'm sure this could be replicated in Edinburgh and Glasgow at least, there simply isn't the political will (to upset that nice Mr Soutar...)
"#1: Walk. I often walk - especially in the winter"
Me too. In fact, lots of people in Edinburgh walk. I think walking in this city may have stayed static or even increased a bit, in contrast to "the rest of Scotland" where walking is slowly declining.
"#2: Cycling. "
Again, I do this a lot. Edinburgh has the highest modal share for cycling in Scotland, so we are exceptional in this case.
"#3: Public transport"
Bus usage is pretty high in Edinburgh, again the highest in Scotland.
"#4: Car. "
Once again, Edinburgh is the exception as car use is declining slightly year on year, along with car ownership.
So why is the city a traffic hellhole? Well, it's small; those that do use their cars seem to be mainly single occupant drivists; lots of similar single occupant drivists commute into Edinburgh from the Lothians and Fife, where, needless to say, levels of walking, cycling, bus usage etc. are lower than in Edinburgh.
I would add: 5. Train
Quite a lot of people commute into Edinburgh by train from Glasgow and points west, Fife, and East Lothian. I presume folk from Midlothian and the Borders now have this option too, so let's see what happens over the next year.
6. Tram
Seems quite popular so far.....if it gets down to Leith I'd expect usage to climb considerably.
@crowriver
I didn't include trains because I was using 3 mile journeys as my model.
For long commuter journeys, public transport starts to make sense as it costs £1.50 on the bus to get from, say, Musselburgh to Joppa, or Musselburgh to Corstorphine.
Clearly, for the latter, the fare is far more reasonable.
Trams: I'd just lump these in with buses, TBH.
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6. Tram
Seems quite popular so far.....if it gets down to Leith I'd expect usage to climb considerably.
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But the crucial thing (in context of this thread) is whether tram users previously did similar trips by bus - or car.
If from bus then will that mean extra PT capacity - or will there be a cutback in bus seats/standing spaces.
If from car will it be more than the tiny proportion in the original business case?
I remember reading that the trams had upped public transport generally.
Also, people will walk further to catch a tram than a bus. A pal who live in Saughton tells me that people will walk 15 mins or more to catch the tram, whereas many people won't walk more than 5-10 mins to catch a bus.
That's borne out by other studies about catching light railway vs catching a bus.
Also tram is "express" and very different from the bus.
"I didn't include trains because I was using 3 mile journeys as my model."
Fair point, though I suspect many car journeys for commuting are between 3 and 5 miles, exactly the sort of distances where walking is less practical, cycling becomes less popular, and buses are a bit slow (at least if they go through the city centre en route).
Having said that I know parents at my kids' primary school who drive between 1 and 2 miles to work. Ridiculous in my view: I'd rather walk or cycle.
One colleague drives from Orchard Brae to Lothian Road. She goes to the gym every night.
Another drives from Morningside.
Worst example was someone I knew when I worked at Edinburgh Park. He used to *drive* to the Gyle centre on his lunch hour, despite the office being right next to the underpass at the roundabout.
Some people can't envisage getting out of their car.
Our office is on South Gyle Crescent, and there's a real good contingent of people who will drive to the Gyle or Edinburgh Park at lunch time.
Roughly 22% of journeys under 1km in Scotland are made by car.
See: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/statistics/j389989-49.htm
"Roughly 22% of journeys under 1km in Scotland are made by car."
Those will all be transporting washing machines and fridges of course.
"
Derek Mackay is right when he says we need a culture change – we do. A culture change among our politicians, of all parties. To put their money where their mouth is. To give Scots the roads and towns and cities they deserve.
"
That's all you need to read.
But you should read the whole piece!
Went to a talk by this guy a couple of nights back at Napier. Very interesting - he was closely involved in COP21. Every measure he talked about was to do with demand mananagement. There was no talk, and he specifically poo-pooed any thought, of compelling people to do anything, which was interesting. Price signals seem to be the magic wand that will leave the coal and oil unburnt.
Sally - wonderful! Informative and a pleasure to read.
It is worth us all remembering that the active travel budget over the last few years would be much smaller if it wasn't for all the work done by PoP, SPOKES and many dedicated individuals - much of which was co-ordinated through CCE.
It's hard work, though. I wish they'd just go 'oh look, we can achieve all our goals if we just invested in proper cycling infrastructure, why did nobody tell us?!' so we could go back to just riding around enjoying our bikes...
"It is worth us all remembering that the active travel budget over the last few years would be much smaller if it wasn't for all the work done by PoP, SPOKES and many dedicated individuals"
Almost certainly true.
SADLY
The problem with living in Edinburgh is that 'we' forget how bad things really are.
The simple fact is that without THIRTY EIGHT years of Spokes (realistically a handful of doggedly dedicated people, not including me - I've just taken some photos for them over the years) there would probably be very little in the way of 'cycle facilities' in Edinburgh.
OK too much of what exists is less than wonderful, but without Spokes, Lesley Hinds and Andrew Burns would be less bold/supportive (all things are relative!) and there would almost certainly be no rising cycle budget.
The 'problem' largely rests with Transport Scotland AND the unwillingness of the SG to actually understand/believe in/ act on all the evidence that INVESTING in "active travel" is good for people, 'public health' etc. AND would save (some of) our money.
Of course politicians only care about 'short term' - until the next election BUT the SNP has so entrenched itself (for at least another 5 years) that they really COULD (and should want to) take Scotland in the cleaner/greener/smarter direction it allegedly wants.
"
It's hard work, though. I wish they'd just go 'oh look, we can achieve all our goals if we just invested in proper cycling infrastructure, why did nobody tell us?!' so we could go back to just riding around enjoying our bikes...
"
Quite
"the SNP has so entrenched itself (for at least another 5 years) that they really COULD (and should want to) take Scotland in the cleaner/greener/smarter direction it allegedly wants."
You're talking about a government which refuses to divest from fossil fuels. A party which for 40 years has kept telling us "It's Scotland's Oil". Which, despite its claims to want a lower carbon future, insists on prioritising major road building projects. Which refuses to do anything much about energy efficiency. About the only thing the SNP have got right is energy (electricity generation) policy: no nukes and investment in renewables.
Otherwise they are wedded to a 1960s vision of the private car being the answer to most transport issues, whatever their rhetoric about car use being unsustainable.
What I'm saying is, don't look for a Damascene conversion from the SNP to the cause of active travel. It ain't gonna happen. They only respond to real political pressure, i.e.. losing their majority would be a start. The carbon reduction targets were only agreed because the Greens forced the SNP's hand while in minority government. Five more years of "strong government" from the SNP will see us progress very little towards those targets.
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