Guess who didn't ask for this extra money? The Scottish Green Party. https://greens.scot/news/a-green-programme-for-government-make-scotland-fairer-create-a-clean-economy
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Active travel spend to double
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Posted 7 years ago #
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If we go back to the Holyrood election, no party (except the Greens) were going to put anything like this much into Active Travel.
The fact that the SNP have changed their position on this can only be a good thing. There will still be many doubters in their party and other parties who need to be convinced that active travel investment is a popular/vote winning thing.
I don't for a minute think this level of investment is sufficient and it certainly won't end cycle campaigners asking for more money. But surely we should credit them with a step change in the right direction.
From the random tweets put out by the Scotish Government account this afternoon, the active travel tweet is the most popular so maybe it is resonating with the public.
None of this means we won't scrutinise what they actually spend the money on and ensuring we get the best out of it.
Posted 7 years ago # -
What if all the campaigning by PoP, Spokes and all the others is finally starting to pay off?
I think that's it.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Ok, let's be clear here. PoP asked for £100m. This year the government have given us £80m. Ok,so we didn't get what we asked for but.... It's bloody close. The reality is there may not be £80m of projects in the pipeline. So starting lower is actually a good thing. It's something to build from.
I am astonished by some of the negativity here. To those who are predicting doom... Why not go back to the original threads were we suggested doing POP. There were many that said don't bother, waste of time, no one will notice. Well, I'm sorry. Politicians have noticed, and I can assure you we have very strong supporters in government. Is everyone on board? Of course not. However, if we make a success of this, the voice of the naysayers will diminish.
We've been called naive many times before for thinking we can change things. Well , we and everyone who has supported POP, spokes, GoBike etc have helped make a difference.
Well done everyone. The fight isn't over, but I truly think we have turned the tide on Scotland.
Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we scrutinise. The day after we ask for more.Posted 7 years ago # -
@magnatom: well said.
After her speech in the chamber today Niclla Sturgeon could have gone anywhere. She went to the Cycling Without Age conference. I think that says something.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@magnatom
Heartfelt.
Posted 7 years ago # -
This year the government have given us £80m
they gave 'us' nothing.
if 'we' were spending it, and wisely, that would be superb
how much will be squandered on helmet/hi-vis education, think horse, keep left, shared-use bollocks, etc ?
most if not all of it, right ?
Posted 7 years ago # -
"I am astonished by some of the negativity here."
I'm not.
CCE is the home of cynics and whingers and people who have been promised all sorts and been let down.
It's also the home of people who want things to be better and are also willing to do stuff - write to politicians and/or turn out for/help with PoP (and much more).
Of course it's easy/normal for individuals to be cynical and active.
I know I am.
I also know that this is GREAT news and some of the cynicism in other posts clearly relates to 'will the money get wasted', 'it's just ScotGov appearing to be generous - with 'public' money - and SG will be happy to blame others when it makes little difference'.
HOWEVER
"The fight isn't over, but I truly think we have turned the tide on Scotland."
This is SO true.
Anyone who has been on CCE for any length of time knows how important (and wonderful) PoP has been/is.
Clearly magnatom and sallyhinch have been way more than just "important" in this, but a lot of CCEers have done (collectively) LOTS of stuff - and many more who aren't on CCE too.
PoP somehow came along at the right time and built on the work of Spokes (etc) - complementing not competing. Spokes - to its great credit - didn't feel threatened and has helped to make PoP much bigger than the apparent sum of the visible parts.
As to the future - "Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we scrutinise. The day after we ask for more" - is a good start.
Now my difficult/controversial/shock horror bit.
I feel that somehow PoP should spin off an organisation that can scrutinise and (attempt to) hold the SG to account - and more importantly (attempt to) push it in the right direction.
To do this it should be willing to take its cut of the £80m.
Posted 7 years ago # -
To do this it should be willing to take its cut of the £80m
do you mean "demand" rather than "willing" ?
i expect the usual quangos are already lined up to siphon off the 'surplus' cash
Posted 7 years ago # -
Wouldn't mind having a share. LB could sell them an e-bike UA for carrying the documents around in / research purposes. ;-)
I really think the announcement is a good start. Other parties will be keen to get the cycling vote too.
Have any chimed in with positive (or negative) noises?Posted 7 years ago # -
"do you mean "demand" rather than "willing" ?"
Perhaps I mean willing to demand.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"i expect the usual quangos are already lined up to siphon off the 'surplus' cash"
You might be right.
Posted 7 years ago # -
For my education, what are the usual quangos? I can only think of Sustrans, and even that might not actually be a quango.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"
A pipe dream? Only to those who are stuck in the present and cannot see a better future. Other cities have made massive city centre transformations
"
Posted 7 years ago # -
@ih
most money ends up being 'education' which then gets divvied up between Cycling Scotland and advertising agencies.
how much got wasted on the think horse campaign ?
what was learned from it, other than shutting down twitter feeds quickly when the bad press rolled in ?
Posted 7 years ago # -
@magnatom
PoP asked for £100m. This year the government have given us £80m. Ok,so we didn't get what we asked for but.... It's bloody close.
Is it?
Surely it's only close if the $80m is spent on the sort of stuff Spokes wanted £100m spent on.
Otherwise, it's like asking for £1bn for social housing and the government spending £800m to build mansions and saying it's "close" because it's all housing...
My issue isn't with the amout of money being spent (which, as bax pointed out, isn't being "given" to us, it's being taken from us). It's what the Scot Gov is suggesting spending it on.
Or, perhaps more precisely, what Scot Gov is determinted to NOT spend it on.
(Which is anything that'll take space away from cars.)
The proof of the pudding will be whether it significantly increases the amount of cycling. Well, unless you live near the A9, why would it?
Posted 7 years ago # -
"Today we celebrate. Tomorrow we scrutinise. The day after we ask for more."
Quite correct. I've had a lot of anti-competitiveness training so I don't like war analogies ...however...
This is one battle in a war. We've lost many and seen resources squandered in pointless charges against unassailable odds, but this is recognition that tactics needs to change, and that change starts with more money being allocated and postiive noises being tentatively made. Now it's up to us to work to encourage those making the positive noises to deliver adequate change and stop this misallocation of resource by making BIG NOISES when it's done wrong. We'll hold them to account.
Alternate bike analogy:
This is errr like we've had lots of punctures, and there is a hill we want to be up, but...like we fix the puncture and push onwards, then someone comes along and slipstreams us providing a 15% slipstream benefit (against us riding on our own), then more people join on behind and we get an incremental 2% benefit per person that joins. Soon there is a peloton of us and we're gaining an incredible 30-40% slipstream benefit. Eventually Bradley Wiggans explodes from the front and wins the king of the mountains jersey and cycling for everyone is safer in Scotland.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"Surely it's only close if the $80m is spent on the sort of stuff Spokes wanted £100m spent on."
I think you meant 'Pop'. and I think you'll find they're asking for quite different things. some overlap, ofcourse.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"Or, perhaps more precisely, what Scot Gov is determinted to NOT spend it on.
(Which is anything that'll take space away from cars.)
The proof of the pudding will be whether it significantly increases the amount of cycling. Well, unless you live near the A9, why would it?"
I agree and disagree.
For SG there is a large element of (Transport) business as usual, which is disproportionate and depressing.
Doubling any budget is relatively unusual and ought to be welcomed - at least if spent wisely.
I think (hope) that the fact this was fronted by NS and Health has been mentioned are good signs, reasons for optimism.
No reasons for complacency, certainly not 'game over'.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@bax Words are important. Do we know that "most" money gets spent on education? I share your distain of advertising agencies because...well, they're advertising agencies. And I'm not keen on "education" as an excuse to say active travel is being supported, but I can see some benefit in promoting active travel. I asked the question about quangos because I would genuinely like to know where and how the money is spent. My concern, based on what I see (not the figures) is that a lot of effort (and probably money) goes to consultancies to consult, plan, propose, infrastructure which nearly always turns out to be disappointing and a missed opportunity (trams, Leith Walk, St James, East West cycleway, Borders railway, Q. Crossing). Then there's the money spent on existing infrastructure to make it worse (Cramond Brig, Magdelane Glen). So it's more bits of the private sector and some charities that get the money.
But £80 million IS GREAT news. £16 per head, that's approaching Dutch levels (although admittedly spread across active travel, rather than just cycling) A lot of good could be done with that every year. And that should be spent on genuine priorities that will make a difference in years rather than decades.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"Now it's up to us to work to encourage those making the positive noises to deliver adequate change and stop this misallocation of resource by making BIG NOISES when it's done wrong. We'll hold them to account."
This.
Posted 7 years ago # -
BIG NOISES
Posted 7 years ago # -
Not sure that AT will be big news in 'the real world'.
"
Transport
Much of what was announced in terms of transport infrastructure projects was already in the public domain.
However, the Transport Bill could have a huge impact on communities, piloting an extension of the Concessionary Travel Scheme and allowing local authorities to take a greater role in bus regulation, and franchising, something the SNP have been accused of avoiding.
"
http://www.scotsman.com/news/at-a-glance-nicola-sturgeon-s-programme-for-government-1-4551662
Posted 7 years ago # -
Today's announcement might be fluff but I really don't see how it could do any actual harm.
The most committed and able campaigners amongst us welcome it and I'm happy to follow their lead.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Being the original negative poster in this thread I surely agree with @magnatom. It is great that we actually have a PfG announcement pushing active travel investment as part of the PR offensive, and a testament to the long hard slog that PoP and other campaigning has been. But yes, if we want this money to be spent well we might need to transfer our skills in reading TROs and consultation documents into parliamentary and budget documentation and chase the politicians and civil servants until they have nowhere to hide.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Overall, despite deep misgivings based on the Scottish government's past record of delivery, this is still a positive.
Let's not get too carried away though. £16 on Active Travel (not just cycling) in Scotland sounds impressive until you compare it with £182 per head on motorways and trunk roads.
Also, maybe we need to be very careful in assuming that all the £80 million will be going on Active Travel. The budget line is in fact "Support for Sustainable and Active Travel". IIRC that includes things like dedicated fast busways and electric cars...
So perhaps some detailed clarification as to what exactly the budget is going to be for Active Travel, and within that Cycling, will be required.
Posted 7 years ago # -
The wording in the publication on the Programme for Government is "making our towns and cities friendlier and safer spaces for pedestrians and cyclists by increasing investment that supports active travel from £40 million to £80 million per year from 2018-19"
If we take that as accurate, it means capital spend (so not education) and active travel (so not buses and electric cars).
The next line is also key and where this could stand or fall in my opinion
"appointing an Active Nation Commissioner to ensure delivery of world-class active travel infrastructure across Scotland"
Obviously, as @gibbo has said, what we mean by 'world class' and what the Scottish government mean by 'world class' infrastructure could be two different things. And the commissioner will need to be extremely effective. As Transport Scotland is in the process of revising Cycling by Design, this is where the immediate pressure needs to be as that is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to get quality design baked in. This is definitely something we need to be pressing very hard on over the next few months
Posted 7 years ago # -
I reflected on this overnight. Couldn't sleep, which is odd.
We are in danger of making an enormous mistake. What we need to do is to write, quickly, a plan to achieve the stated aim. It should contain, in my view, plans for a new segregated Dutch quality path right across each of Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dumfries.
We need to view this not as a plan but as an invitation to tender with a very rapid closing date.
If we wait for them to spend it on bus adverts and advanced stop zones we'll have ammunition for wry humour. But the reality is that this is our money, we know how to spend it and they are simply waiting for us to tell them how. It would be rude of us not to tell them.
Now, who has encyclopedic knowledge of cycling in the other five of those cities? (In Edinburhg the clear need is a north-south route so that I can get to my current client, obviously.)
£40M may not be enough for this, to which the answer must be that the transport budget is quite sufficient if reallocated. Boldness must be our friend.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@IWRATS
That is very true. Each city/region should have a blueprint of an ideal cycling/walking environment. The rest is policies and money,Posted 7 years ago # -
plans for a new segregated Dutch quality path right across each of Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dumfries
Curiously enough, with the exception of Dumfries, this was the policy in the Conservative manifesto for the last Holyrood elections ...
(which is not to say it's wrong!)
Posted 7 years ago #
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