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.
When Chris Boardman took on the role for Manchester he got full support from the mayor Andy Burnham, who said he would do exactly what Boardman recommended.
Here the Transport Minister gives the usual platitudes about raising awareness.
I fear yet another NiceWay.
If she only sits there looking at “policy”, nothing will change
Wellquite. Policy is telling people what they must do, but invariably it's really telling people what they ought to do. Policy without teeth is just advice.
If the job title is to be "Active Nation Commissioner", then does it come with the duty, indeed the wherewithal, to actually commission stuff?
TRO/TSO policy could certainly do with some change. As could schemes having to go through 10 or more separate consultations before any work is done. Although that may be CEC playing games rather than Holyrood policy.
If I was the Active Nation Commissioner's worst enemy I would try to manoeuvre them into doing a complex wardrobe review for the Emperor.
The correct course of action is to shout very loudly about Imperial nakedness.
She certainly has the energy.
If she fights for more space in the cities for people rather than vehicles then great.
Out of city rural transport is much harder to 'activise'. It's usually portrayed as an adventure playground festooned with events we all like to watch on the Adventure Show. (Highland scenery as backdrop to heroic human endeavour).
To get more residents of Perth (eg) to cycle 3 miles into town is much harder than motivating 'sports cyclists'. (Waited for bus there and saw not one cyclist in centre).
Whether she targets a 'test case' location or not I don't know. National ad campaigns are liked by ScotGov but don't seem to have impact on activity levels (unless they mitigayed even worse outcomes).
I would target small cities / large towns in Scotland and have initial events of safety in number commute days. Close a steet or two - sign up people.
"National ad campaigns are liked by ScotGov but don't seem to have impact on activity levels (unless they mitigayed even worse outcomes)."
The only outcome mitigated by the NiceWayCode campaign was the temporary postponement of the ad agency that created it going out of business. That's about all such campaigns are ever good for...
The Active Travel Task Force Report is here:
https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/active-travel-task-force-report/
News reaches me that the Commissioner will work two days a week for a fee of £285 per day.
They can be contacted on;
Nice wee piece about Boardman and his £1.5 billion (aargh) but why on the SPORTS blog?
From link -
“
“People say do you enjoy it? No! I just feel this massive burden not to screw it up.”
“
Not sure I agree with all of it but anyway
https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/scotland-cycling-tsar-lee-craigie-shouted-motorists-1354237
I do like Lee Craigie but I had a lot of problems with that article. Drivers and cyclists should just be nice to each other; we need cultural change, education and "legislative incentives" - what are they exactly? Heavy fines for SUV owners? Also that parents can find a safe route for children if they look hard enough - why should it require detective work to find a safe route for children?
So much wrong with that article. There are virtually no safe cycling routes for children in Scotland that can be accessed without first braving unsafe roads. I think it is reasonable to argue that a cycle route is only as safe as its least safe point. No amount of squirrelling by parents will change that.
"Understanding each other" does not alter the laws of physics - cars pose a potentially lethal threat to cyclists, which cyclists do not pose to drivers. Such an imbalance in power isn't resolved by making nice - we need a system in place where mistakes by drivers (or cyclists) don't have potentially lethal consequences. In three words "segregated cycle infrastructure".
Road signs telling drivers not to close pass cyclists - I doubt the powers that be would accept this street clutter, but if they did would anyone expect these to make any noticeable difference?
The understanding of cycling by different socio-economic groups is wrong. Less well-off people are the least likely to cycle, with the better-off (particularly well-paid middle aged, middle class men) the most likely to cycle. Morningside and Meadows has the highest proportion of commuter cyclists in Scotland.
Education in isolation does not get people out of their cars. Until cycling is the easiest option for short urban trips then many people will choose to drive. Once you have the infrastructure in place, then try and encourage people to cycle - until then it's a convenient drain to pour active travel funding down, without doing anything that upsets the green ink brigade.
Still - hats off to the team at Transport Scotland for the excellent house training. I genuinely thought she would have quit by now.
Agreed...
In six words "segregated cycle infrastructure and modal filters"
These are all soft solutions, which are no solutions at all.
@neddie - absolutely.
Blimey. I was going to give this article the benefit of the doubt but Morningsider, Neddie and Rosie are already bang on.
a trial of new road signs
Passive intervention that doesn't require anything done about anything.
Motorists who manage to overtake the torpedo on a 60mph road by moving almost into the adjacent lane, but cannot do likewise when I ride a regular upright bike whose width is in fact identical, are therefore fundamentally lazy. When the object ahead is determined to be, through experience both learned and taught, merely two-dimensional, why bother risking going all the way into the other lane for fear of meeting a driver coming the other way? Ah, but that little red electric car thing might damage my paintwork! The rest of the time I only have to move across just enough. I don't even like crossing those road markings! It's dangerous!
I get shouted at on a daily basis by car drivers, because there's mutual fear.
Yet many of us, including me, don't. So for example, is there something about the way I ride, or something about me, that causes a difference in driver behaviour? I get close passed relatively often but it rarely takes me by surprise and my spidey senses are better met with a zen-like reaction. I would find it hard to believe that I am a more experienced cyclist than Lee. I'm certainly not fitter than her.
squirrelling about
An active response from people who should not have to do so. When the cycle path is better than the road, people will want to use the cycle path.
cyclists should stop "othering" motorists
"It's nice to be nice."* When (all most) motorists stop having a ridiculously inflated sense of their own abilities, and stop crashing into fences, bollards, brick walls, ambulances, other cars, and people, we can stop othering them.
A Transport Scotland spokesman said
Boilerplate.
* ™ Magnificent Octopus
the 'mutual fear' fear bit annoyed me, exactly what fear does a motorist suffer from when passing a cyclist ?
The emotion is rage is it not?
Was turning onto A70 at Carnwath (cemetery road) on Saturday. Car to my right was indicating late to turn right leaving me clear to go, though there was a van directly behind. I stuck close to edge of road to allow van to pass. Unfortunately my buddy behind took the turn slightly wider. This enrages the guy in the van who rolls down passenger window and shouts something about Highway Code. I wave and shout Merry Christmas.
This causes him to stop his van on the highway fling the door wide and step onto the road (he was a very big lad). He seemed to think if i was a car there would have been an accident??
I wondered aloud who was currently following the Highway Code now (you dick).
Sorry about language.
Fortunately he was not speeding to the apple pie for some rolls.
Now I accept I was cheeky in cutting out and indeed my amigo was a little wide and should perhaps not have followed me. So it is our fault. I did wonder if he would try to kill me once he was back in his van but he actually passed very nicely. Maybe a Volkswagen, the type that is turned into a camper van. Colour was very light gold or very light olive. Is actually hard to describe the colour.
The apple pie people did not know him. The apple pie people were amazed we were willing to say we were wrong.
As I said in the PIE - WE ARE ALL JUST HUMANS (though some of us are angrier than others).
@Iain McR, in the absence of an answer I've tweeted Lee:
https://twitter.com/acsedinburgh/status/1213544466159673345
@acsimpson - To be fair, motorists do fear hitting cyclists because most people don't want to injure another human being, even by accident.
@Rosie - that may or may not be true, but definitely less so when in a car looking at a cyclist.
Personally I feel we are viewed as less than human and treated as such. Hard to come to any other conclusion.
@Rosie, That may be true for some drivers. However there is no such fear apparent from the typical close pass while shouting imbecile. I also don't image that it is measurably different to the fear of hitting a lamppost which drivers also suffer from.
This, I'm afraid, is not a good look from someone whose job is to constructively critique the Scottish Government's transport policies;
https://twitter.com/leecraigie_/status/1241010211059621891
I bloody love our FM! Listening to @NicolaSturgeon and
@CathCalderwood1 today live really brought home to me how lucky we are in Scotland to have two intelligent, straight talking, honest (yes, honest) women at the helm right now.
Yep. Far too sycophantic in a gushing "sisterly solidarity" kinda way.
Sigh.
Especially when Sturgeon had actual power over transport policy as Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities, it was all resounding commitments and targets and determination, accompanying cuts in active travel budgets.
I don't decry Sturgeon performing well as a calming and educational force - it's what's needed at present.
@lee Craigie - ok she has gushed her adoration but she could still raise matters from a position of sisterly love? About as likely to. Be effective as if a stance like Chris Boardman’s was adopted. Ie zero,
Whereas Boardman and Burnham are a powerhouse
she could still raise matters from a position of sisterly love?
Ordering a taxi is never that straightforward
I've got some sisterly solidarity with Lesley Macinnes and Daisy Narayanan, brought about by them actually doing stuff for active travel, and getting a lot of flak for it.
Bit harsh IWRATS
Pretty sure I spotted Lee walking down our street yesterday
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