http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16092264.Nicola_Sturgeon_gets_on_her_bike_for_climate_change/
Three years ago -
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=14650&page=12#post-187225
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Nicola Sturgeon and bikes
(25 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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not picking on her directly - but perhaps she should introduce a law that all holyrood members should cycle to work - then we'll see some change ;-) instead of photoshoots of bikes indoors or mp's on cyclepaths cutting some yellow tape and smiling never to be seen on that said path every again.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“or mp's on cyclepaths cutting some yellow tape and smiling never to be seen on that said path every again“
Yep, spot the ill-fitting helmet (occasionally on back to front).
Posted 6 years ago # -
That would be an interesting commute - Bute House to Holyrood should be a fairly easy doddle along a traffic free Princes Street, Leith Street and Calton Road, or Regent road and Abbeymount.
The truth is rather less palatable or safe.
Would laugh my socks off if she tried it for a week and deemed it acceptable.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Time for that photo of Keith Brown standing by the A9 in hi-viz with two suitably diverse children wearing bicycle hats.
Instant blood-boiler.
Ms Sturgeon has started running at lunchtimes. Lapping the Seat on a road bike would be a lower impact way of getting stronger and a nice introduction to the charming by-ways of Edinburgh.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Impact is good for someone her age - builds bone density.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"That would be an interesting commute"
Definitely. Though no doubt she'd get a police bicycle escort to make it easier. And then gradually others would time their commute so they could draft the FM and get safe passage.
This should happen.
Posted 6 years ago # -
A squadron of PoP people escorting the first minister to and from work on her bicycle one summer's day is a realistic deliverable and should be added to this year's outcomes.
I would gladly take ownership of delivery.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"That would be an interesting commute"
A few alternative options:
Princes Street, up the Mound, down Royal Mile;
Lothian Road, King's Stables Road, Grassmarket, Cowgate, Holyrood Road;
Lothian Road; Meadows, Holyrood Park.Reckon the last of these would be least stressful if you took the "quiet route" with segregated path bits, and birled down the shared use in Holyrood Park with a hand on the brake lever to slow for joggers etc.
OTOH with a police escort she'd be fine on Queen's Drive: woe betide any close passing motorists!
Posted 6 years ago # -
If the leccy rent-a-bikes are around by then, so much the better.
Posted 6 years ago # -
A few alternative options:
Think I'd take Waverley Bridge, rather than the Mound.
Says a lot that we can list all these different routes for a journey through the city centre of less than two miles, trying to figure out which one is the least awful.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Should Sturgeon cycle?
YES or NO
Among the many many proposals for Edinburgh, was something called The Parliament Way from Waverley Station to the Holyrood Parliament. The Way was to be 6m wide and covered from Waverley to Tolbooth Wynd, where it would join the Canongate.
That was back in 1999.
Posted 6 years ago # -
A squadron of PoP people escorting the first minister to and from work on her bicycle one summer's day is a realistic deliverable and should be added to this year's outcomes.
I would gladly take ownership of delivery.
You may be held to this statement...
Posted 6 years ago # -
I'm a sucker for a jolly cycling gif on Spokes Facebook however the only caption I could think of was Cycling Policy Making Mush - a PR stunt Going Nowhere. A little sour.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Rosie - bravo - i like that :)
Posted 6 years ago # -
It does seem odd that not more MSPs cycle. When I'm in Westminster with work there are numerous MPs that cycle to and from meetings - cabinet members included if you remember plebgate.
She doesn't have a contingent of Special Protection officers so no real reason not to.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“She doesn't have a contingent of Special Protection officers so no real reason not to.”
Perhaps, she does of course have The Car Service.
But, she doesn’t need to cycle (no one does).
The point here is that she allowed herself (as do many other politicians) to be seen (organised photocall) with a bike in a ‘you should cycle’ sort of way.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The FM (shock horror) actually likes to get home of an evening to spend time with her husband, and doesn't stay in Bute House very much if she can avoid it. She works as she travels, predominantly in the back of a car - politicians are in the rare breed that cycling doesn't actually suit very well (opposition tend not to have the enormous volume of papers she gets; you cant prepare and part-memorise the hundreds of pages in the FMQ brief while avoiding Edinburgh potholes)
Posted 6 years ago # -
politicians are in the rare breed that cycling doesn't actually suit very well”
If others got a paid for driver and car then may consider themselves in a similar position, I see people working on the train all the time, I sore someone working on an I pad while driving one day. If the FM had to drive themselves or pay for transport sure would manage to find some time to read her paper. It seems a case of subsidy creating incentives not to cycle. If was universal free drivers and cars there may be few cyclists. A rare breed of having the public pay for their commute to work.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I think Boris Johnson got prevented from cycling once he became Foreign Secretary - too difficult to maintain protection and security (for the paperwork, if not the man himself). He was genuinely peeved about that (I don't rate him much as either a person or a politician but the cycling was not for show).
Chris Mullin tried to get rid of his ministerial car when he was a junior back in the Labour administration and they put up a huge fight about it.
Those are both Westminster examples of course, but it shows that it's harder than it might seem for a politician to 'walk the walk' when it comes to active travel.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Of course Boris doesn't trouble himself with reading papers or remembering details, so cycling would quite suit.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Fair point!
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ms Sturgeon and her husband both work in Edinburgh. I'd stay over if I was them rather than spend three hours a day in a car.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I don't particularly want to get at Sturgeon for not cycling, since there are security issues. Remember Cameron cycling while someone brought his papers in a car? Also I can imagine people bouncing in front of her with smartphones like idiots do during the Tour de France.
In happier times, the PM Gladstone travelled by public transport.
@sallyhinch - didn't Boris like cycling as he found it easier to get to his mistresses?
Posted 6 years ago # -
The issue isn’t whether or not NS (and other politicians) cycles to work (or at all).
It’s about the fairly cynical PR stunts that politicians allow themselves to be involved in.
Can’t remember if Lesley Hinds ever got photographed sitting on a bike before she bought one, but at least she always admitted she was scared to cycle in Ed - and then did things to make it better.
NS is fortunate to now have a Transport Minister who seems to ‘get it’. Perhaps she could publicly support some of his initiatives.
Time she came to PoP too.
Posted 6 years ago #
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