The Climbing Arena is NOT accessible by bus in any direction. Not from Edinburgh, not from Broxburn, Livingston or anywhere for that matter. Shameful
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Going car-free
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Posted 10 months ago #
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No guilt over my car usage, it's handy for social use, the only real consideration is which one to use. :)
Sunday not an edge case for my walking, it's when I do it. Saturday is generally dad taxi, cleaning windows, and cutting grass.
From Burntisland, I can get a bus to Kirkcaldy, and then another one Cowdenbeath, and then to Glenrothes.
Or you can go Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath, Glenrothes. or if you want to get to the other side, say Scotlandwell there are no buses any time. First 7 from BI is at 9am, I like to be walking by then.Re, bus to climbing arena, you can get a bus to Newbridge, and then walk half the distance you would have had to walk to get to the Lomond hills from Glenrothes. ;)
Posted 10 months ago # -
The other consideration when living out of town is that of course there is no traffic, so it takes 3 or 4 minutes to get out of the village and then you are doing a mile a minute to your destination. :)
Also, to be clear I'm not saying your life choices are wrong, just pointing out, as you did originally that they are limiting (so actually just agreeing with the point you raised), and potentially leading to loved ones missing out on development/social opportunities from time to time.
Posted 10 months ago # -
Funny how car people always think their use-case is somehow special - the planet doesn't see you as special. And there won't be any social activities on a dead planet while our children are fighting for survival.
In the same way that disabled people are limited mainly by the ableist environment around them, we are only "limited" by the car-based society* around us. And yet we live happy, social and fulfilling lives (actually made better without having to deal with all the sh*t that goes with car ownership and to work countless hours to pay for it - we now have more money to spend on good stuff, like good quality food, making the house nice, eating out with friends, taking the train places...)
Like I say, one of the worst things about being car-free is listening to all the nonsense about it from people that don't know
*Part of the reason we live this way is to set the example and campaign to make the world less car-based (which we almost certainly wouldn't bother with if we weren't car-free)
Posted 10 months ago # -
as soon as they get wind you’re car-free, then go on, unprompted, to justify their own car use!
You raised the subject on discussion forum...
No idea how much the original people with a plan considered the location - though proximity to motorways must have been obvious.
The climbing arena took an existing popular "natural"* climbing wall built a building right next to it and put an indoor climbing wall with poor access in its place. There is no good reason for it to be there. If they had built it with access to the outdoor wall you could almost justify having the additional facilities but as it stands its not even that convenient to drive to really. In fact with the current glut of empty office space it could be rebuilt anywhere and have more utility.
*it is in a quarry so not really natural in the strictest sense.
Posted 10 months ago # -
The obvious location for a natural climbing arena in Edinburgh would be Salisbury Crags. You can just imagine the heritage bodies having a coniption over partially roofing over the crags though.
We could even have things like a hospital in the city centre in a custom-built building (oh, we used to!)
But no, planners are determined to spread everything out, forcing everyone to have fewer choices (more limiting!?) and further monoculture
Posted 10 months ago # -
you can just imagine the heritage bodies having a coniption
I'd pay money for that! Given there reluctance to close the road to traffic I think a climbing wall would blow their minds!
Posted 10 months ago # -
@neddie:
The obvious location for a natural climbing arena in Edinburgh would be Salisbury Crags. You can just imagine the heritage bodies having a coniption over partially roofing over the crags though.
AFAIK they've been strangely silent on the issue of the bloomin' great green security fence that's been put up around the bottom of it. It's the Ramblers and Mountaineering Scotland that seem to have been kicking up the most fuss about that.
I suspect you were speaking somewhat tongue in cheek but personally I wouldn't be at all keen on roofing over any natural rock venue to create an indoor climbing centre. Even roofing over a side bay of the disused Ratho Quarry was close to being a step too far. (I think only one existing route of any significance in the quarry ended up being made inaccessible by the construction of the arena, in the far corner, near where the fire exit doors are IIRC*.)
The initial proposal for the climbing arena was that parts of the natural rock would be left exposed and available for climbing - presumably bolted**. But that idea was nixed pretty darned quick when the insurers got involved, due to the unpredictability of 'natural' rock - holds snapping and the like. The centre operator has much more control over the soundness of the climbing surface and surrounding environment if it's all artificial and regularly maintained.
IIRC the areas initially left exposed within the arena are now largely covered by the speed climbing wall, and the variable angle lead climbing wall. I think the guerrilla bolts may have been chopped at some point during the centre's operating life - perhaps when the council took the place over - but they were certainly in situ when it did originally open.
* It's been a while since I was there, partly because it's not easy to get to for me cf Alien Rock, and partly because it's flippin' expensive. And when I want to climb on natural rock there are plenty of places I can do so for free. Although climbing in the main quarry is still allowed, from what I can see of the EICA web site they actually take people elsewhere for their "Introduction to Real Rock" courses (the photo on the web site looks to me like the Gellet Block at Limekilns, which is indeed a pleasant location to spend a summer's evening climbing - or failing to climb as is too foten the case for me!).
** A guerrilla party from Alien Rock went in one night and bolted a couple of routes on those faces before the place officially opened - they actually counted as new routes because most of the bay had been full of quarry spoil before work began on the climbing centre!
Posted 10 months ago # -
But that idea was nixed pretty darned quick when the insurers got involve
And at point the whole thing should have been reevaluated! It no longer had to be in the middle of an old quarry a long drive from basically anywhere.
Posted 10 months ago # -
Unfortunately it was a bit late by then: the place had already been built. It was only as the opening date approached that it became clear that H&S/liability considerations ruled out use of the 'natural' rock within the arena. But yes, it should have been thought about before that.
Posted 10 months ago # -
"Like I say, one of the worst things about being car-free is listening to all the nonsense about it from people that don't know
*Part of the reason we live this way is to set the example and campaign to make the world less car-based"
Let me paraphrase this for you:
I don't want people telling me how to live.
I want to tell other people how to live.Just as an aside, I came from a car free family, no money for cars when I younger, most of the street was car free. First car in our family was mine when I was 25.
Posted 10 months ago # -
Unfortunately it was a bit late by then
Ah, my memory of the timescales is a bit hazy!
Posted 10 months ago # -
I'm not telling anyone how to live, I'm trying to warn you of what the future holds for your children...
An example is just that, an example. No one is forcing anyone to copy the example
Just as no one is forcing anyone to stay in their 20-minute neighbourhoods as the right-wing nut-jobs would have you believe
Posted 10 months ago # -
I was brought up in Livingston, so the idea of 20 minute neighbourhoods is quite appealing to me, it was built on that philosophy in the 60s/70s. Local shops, chemist, pub, chippie, playing fields, swing park for each area. Though, most of the pubs are shut now.
Also, locally for me in Burntisland, the same, lots of things available within 20 minutes walk, including mid week walking. One of the reasons we moved there.
Don't need a car for any of that, or getting to work. This is all good.
However, having a car allows the opportunity to do things further afield at the weekend. I never walked a Munro until I was 25 because there was no opportunity for me to do so. The boy walked his first at 8, and is on his 7th now because I can take him there. Also as I get older and death is closer than birth, adventure with the boy every weekend seems an extremely good use of time, better than whining about everything.
He walks/bikes/scoots to school.
Re the future, cars will be pretty close to 0 carbon pretty soon (some latest gen electric already 80% less carbon in production), so will stop being a carbon issue, or at least your home and what you eat will be much more of a carbon issue than your car (if you have one).
Congestion of course another issue for cities, but like I said before if you live in a place with no congestion, a mile a minute.
Posted 10 months ago # -
“if you live in a place with no congestion, a mile a minute“
Well not exactly. Outside of cities/towns there are also plenty of places big enough to have 30 or 20 limits.
That should be universal.
The ownership/use of cars isn’t primarily an issue - at least on an individual basis. The problems include the ‘entitlement’ and ‘don’t care about others’ attitudes that seem to be increasing - arguably more so after Covid: ‘restrictions’ etc.
The biggest underlying problem is DECADES of planning for/enabling/normalising car use.
ANY tiny readjustment to normality/status quo/‘my rights’/‘democracy’/etc leads to
NONSENSE
That said I’m going off the idea of “20 minute neighbourhoods” as a policy/something else to spend scarce resources on.
As Bc says, it used to be planned into new developments (in practice with mixed results).
They certainly should be at the core of new developments/settlements - ESPECIALLY in terms of transport - good paths for local walking and cycling, easy access to a railway station or appropriate bus service, NO new motorway access points etc!
‘We’/Spokes etc should be having nothing to do with campaigning for/against little bits and pieces. (As in it shouldn’t be necessary.)
I don’t own a car. I wish fewer people did. I wish they had somewhere of their own (not in a space that used to be their front garden either) to keep it.
I wish it was harder to get a driving licence. I wish there was a review process every 5 years. Above all, I wish more drivers understood the cost (to everyone) of their rights/privileges - and paid accordingly.
Posted 10 months ago # -
Not forgetting, under 17s aren’t allowed to drive.
Plenty people can’t really afford to either.
https://twitter.com/steveburke2000/status/1671163662206377985
Posted 10 months ago # -
Surveys on transport always conclude that owning a car is seen as a household essential (although 30% of households don't have one). The industry itself relentlessly persuade people that without their own car they would live a diminished life and be unable to do anything.
The good thing is that the choice of not owning a car means that you free up space for the many that do.
In city is easier to do this as BC points out.
Strange thing about car owners is that (like cyclists) there's a common feeling that not enough is being done to make use of their vehicle easier. Just explained to my good neighbours at St Peter's Place that the new parking fine hadn't increased for years. The just laughed and said that my cargo bike should be taxed. All friendly banter of course and both of these guys can be seen on bikes if a job is local!Posted 10 months ago # -
Case in point, this morning...
Me leaving house through front gate with bike on a beautiful sunny day:
Neighbour: Morning!
Me: Morning!
Neighbour: Are you missing your car?
Me: No, not at all, absolutely not
Neighbour: <continues walking dog>It's just such a weird* question, especially as the first thing you ask someone of their morning, or at least it would be in any other context
"Are you missing your kettle?"
"Are you missing your bowl of fruit?"
"Are you missing your granny?"... (maybe this one would be ok)I mean I know this guy doesn't have much to talk about bar his car and campervan, but 2 years on, he still cannot compute that we are somehow happy as a family without a car and that we might not even miss it
*It seems weird to us, and would be weird in any kind of civilisation that hadn't been completely indoctrinated by the fossil fuel industry, but instead we are the ones that are seen as "weird", outliers...
Posted 10 months ago # -
In my village I'm mostly known as 'the lady with the little red car' (the torpedo, for those at the back), though a few of the more rufty-tufty children know me instead for my big full susser mtb.
Perhaps it's my idiosyncratic transport choices that mean no-one ever asks me if I have a car, or if I used to have a car, or that I might want a car. I assume a motorbike is enough of a car that it counts as such in people's imaginations.
Posted 10 months ago # -
motorbike powered by petrol. you good
Posted 10 months ago # -
Highlights
Use of private motor vehicles for commuting to work is associated with poorer mental health.
The time and money spent on commuting to work is higher for the workers using private motor vehicles compared to active commuters or public transport users.
As driving time and money spent increase, so do levels of worry about sleep loss, being under stress and feeling unhappy or depressed.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198223000970
Posted 10 months ago # -
@neddie - yes it's the finance industry on wheels and once they've had a car many can't do without. I bet there's many car owners that never take a day off driving (says me that uses a bike every day - but only because I'me too lazy to walk and no space on pavements either!).
Other thing with cars and **stuff** generally... we all own too much as I think you've said before! So vast amounts of time and energy is taken up moving things that shouldn't need to be moved in first place.
Sadly the cargo bike trend continues that!. So right now I'm taking stuff to Amnsety Book Shop and Shelter in the UA bucket. In some ways I've fallen into the 'personal mobility as an essential' trap but have little influence on those using items many times bigger to carry a few boxes many in the sub 100kg area. Those that think it's a car or van competitor want it taxed!One sign of hope was taking the tram up from Newhaven last Sunday. Tram stops crowded in both directions as people mingled and chatted away from private vehice self containment. Different from a bus stop too as people have a place where they can wait. Very European and normal. Also saw people on bikes managing to use uphill bike lanes not too badly. Cars were all stuck and tram took priority with people remarking on how smooth and fast it was (this time).
Also... Signore Salvatore came alongside on his e-bike on way to his Marchmont Fish and Chip shop the other day. Nice to see and again was able to chat as we went along South Bridge.
Posted 10 months ago # -
I thought it was interesting in that paper that there's no differentiation between car and motorbike. For the most part, the two aren't equivalent in terms of time taken or levels of enjoyment for a given commute time.
I've often thought though that the stress of driving (especially in commuting) was because of time constraints, and the relatively inflexible, move-aboutable nature of a car when amongst lots of other cars. I notice this myself on my motorbike, because in many urban situations it may as well be a tonne or two of car, rather than a very fast, very powerful and heavy bicycle. I'm too law abiding to filter into the ASL every time, or to zip round the wrong side of a pedestrian crossing island - but 'making progress' is part of the idea of not being in a car, and the byproduct of making progress is that wind-in-the-hair, swooping around a corner feeling we get with cycling.
In fact, unmanoeuverability is as much of an issue in the torpedo: it's often too big to be like a bicycle in use, which leads to additional time spent not moving in traffic, which leads to frustration, if not stress: of my time ebbing away when I could be moving. A climate-controlled car driver need not worry, but a cyclist's muscles cool down and rain and snow and wind becomes increasingly unpleasant.
"Plezier door mobiliteit" indeed!
Posted 10 months ago #
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