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Scottish Budget 2020/21

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    Today.

    (Some time after 2 - https://bb.parliament.scot/#20200206 )

    Under new management -

    https://kateforbes.scot

    Will she change anything??

    The Scotsman hopes Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has resisted pressure to raise taxes to fund a public spending splurge as he prepared to announce the Budget.

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scottish-budget-higher-taxes-will-just-damage-the-economy-leader-comment-1-5086460

    Posted 4 years ago #
  2. chdot
    Admin

    The other budget -

    It would take Boris Johnson two full terms as prime minister to fulfil his pledge to “level up” the British economy, according to one of the UK’s leading economic thinktanks.

    The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said Johnson’s plans would probably take more than a decade to raise the level of economic output across the country, due to capacity constraints.

    In a warning before next month’s budget, Britain’s oldest economic thinktank said the government’s plan to raise investment in infrastructure projects by about £20bn per year would have only a modest impact on the UK’s dismal productivity levels.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/06/economists-warning-boris-johnson-election-pledge-output

    Posted 4 years ago #
  3. LaidBack
    Member

    Quite hard for Kate Forbes to do anything at such short notice.
    ScotGov also forced to go first on estimations of Treasury spend as UKGov delayed their budget.
    ScotGreens want to see no more major road upgrades and more on active travel, bus and rail.
    Think it will be very tight. Even if passed (so councils can set their council tax) then ScotGov may have to revise if the guesstimate of how much of our own money comes back here is out. With current antipathy between Holyrood and London I almost expect UK budget tax changes to impact on higher top earner tax rate in Scotland...

    Posted 4 years ago #
  4. toomanybikes
    Member

    "And the Scottish government has pledged to put environmental issues at the heart of all of its plans as a reaction to the "climate emergency"."

    Odds of cycling budget re-doubling to £160 million today?

    Maybe they'll keep that up their sleeves to use as a bargaining chip for Green support later on.

    Maybe I'm wildly over optimistic.

    ScotGreens want to see no more major road upgrades

    yeah, the recent Matheson double down on the A9 dualling bodes poorly

    Posted 4 years ago #
  5. jonty
    Member

    Maybe they'll keep that up their sleeves to use as a bargaining chip for Green support later on.

    I wondered this about that news yesterday about their continued refusal to put a cycle path down that section of the A9. A nice little u-turn kept in hand to use later.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  6. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Putting a cycle path down the side of a dual carriageway is a horrible idea.

    You never see anyone on this bit. Even if it connected to anything why would you use it?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  7. LaidBack
    Member

    Yes... cycling always feels 'more rewarding' when out of the earshot of a main road. That said we don't like going 'round the houses' with hills either!
    Will all be fine when the A9 is electrified and just the quiet rumble of self driving EVs. ;-)

    Posted 4 years ago #
  8. neddie
    Member

    IWRATS - there appears to be only 2 cars using that bit of dual carriageway as well.

    I don't know, you spend billions on infrastructure and they don't even use it.

    You might even get the impression the road only connects a handful of communities, with 200 miles between the cities to draw out any travellers between them into very thinly spread "traffic"

    The cycle path between Kingussie and Aviemore is used by a few commuters, I know of at least one. And not forgetting that efficient modes of transport look "empty"

    @Laidback

    I'm sure you weren't being serious, but I'm pretty sure that a 70mph EV is equally as noisy as 70mph fossil fuelled contraption, due to tyre noise being dominant above about 20mph

    Posted 4 years ago #
  9. toomanybikes
    Member

    there's a cool graph on page four here of the crossing point for engine/ tyre noise, for anyone else who wanted to know exactly how big the difference would be.

    Although this doesn't account for the outlier vehicles, e.g. most big motorbikes or the extreme example of the last gen formula 1 cars

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Flash Video

    Posted 4 years ago #
  10. cb
    Member

    You never see any cyclists at Drumochter either, and that's where there is no alternative route.

    Dualling bits of the A9 and not putting in a parallel path would be much worse in my view.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  11. jonty
    Member

    >Putting a cycle path down the side of a dual carriageway is a horrible idea.

    My understanding was that part of the government's 'defence' was that the path would be mostly far enough away from the carriageway that it wouldn't count as part of the core scheme. I might be talking rubbish though. It certainly fills an off-road infrastructure gap.

    There's a place for both direct routes and pretty ones. Though they could both do with being higher quality.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  12. LaidBack
    Member

    @neddie - agreed - tyre noise and particles from them will still make it noisy and dusty. EVs tend to be pretty heavy too.
    HGV EVs I dread to think... in Sweden they are looking at such things but with overhead or under road pick ups. Or they could just use rail.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  13. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    You never see any cyclists at Drumochter

    I certainly have seen bikes there. There's no other option. I guess they will always then take the old A9 through Kincraig.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    There's a place for both direct routes and pretty ones.

    Agreed. I just don't think there's a place for routes beside 70mph dual carriageways.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  15. toomanybikes
    Member

    the Drumochter bit alongside the carriageway is a fairly unpleasant stretch. I think headphones blaring something more pleasant would have greatly improved it though. The view to the left was quite nice, but the terrible path surface at the time was quite distracting.

    Or they could just use rail.

    Would this be feasible without substantial line capacity upgrades? I guess that feeds further into the dualling railway rather than dualling road debate.

    Apparently the Tesla "semi" (artic truck cab) is estimated in at 10 tonnes https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/01/how-much-does-the-tesla-semi-weigh/

    I have no idea which of the 3 listed weights for this volvo cab I should be taking as a comparison https://www.automarket.cz/en/volvo-fh12-420-4x2-7001

    All of them make the 10 tonne Tesla estimate seem too light. It's due to be launched at the end of the year, so more will be apparently then. Apparently the delay to launch is due to required improvements in battery technology required for 500 miles of range. Won't be surprised if it's delayed further

    Posted 4 years ago #
  16. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    To be clear I do think there should be a cycle road up the line of the King's Road from Dunkeld to Inverness.

    Apart from upper Glen Garry and the Slochd there's no need for it to go anywhere near the A9.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  17. neddie
    Member

    HGV EVs I dread to think... in Sweden they are looking at such things but with overhead or under road pick ups

    I definitely think that trolley-bus style wires for E-HGVs would be best for covering the longer distances. That would allow a smaller battery in the tractor for "the last 20miles" off the trunk road network.

    I reckon with today's machine vision, you could design the trolley poles to automatically find and connect to the wires once the E-HGV joins the motorway / trunk road in a seamless manner i.e. without the need to stop.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  18. chdot
    Admin

    "Confirm today there will be significant investment in response to the global climate emergency...this is a budget with wellbeing and fairness at very heart."

    It says on Twitter.

    We shall see, or not.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  19. chdot
    Admin

  20. toomanybikes
    Member

    500 million increase in sustainable transport

    230 million to public transport

    active travel increase only 5 million though... ->85 million

    electric bus and car spending for the rest it seems

    Posted 4 years ago #
  21. chdot
    Admin

    SO

    LITERALLY 1% of Transport on AT - not even that much on cycling.

    Pathetic.

    SG REALLY doesn’t get a) transport b) active travel c) the outstanding, non-transport, ‘wellbeing’ benefits of walking and cycling d) the financial benefits of b and c.

    MASSIVELY pathetic.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  22. chdot
    Admin

  23. toomanybikes
    Member

    I didn't quite clock that the doubling to 80 million was two years ago, rather than last year. So it's not really an increase but just an inflation adjustment.

    Very very disappointing.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    LITERALLY 1% of Transport on AT - not even that much on cycling.

    And how mach of that on actual infrastructure?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  25. toomanybikes
    Member

    Reading the projects in here cheered me up a bit. A fair few I'd not seen before

    https://www.showcase-sustrans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019_11_14_Live-PfE-Projects-List.pdf

    Posted 4 years ago #
  26. CycleAlex
    Member

    'Support for Sustainable & Active Travel' goes from £79m to £107.4m. If the Places for Everyone fund is only going up by £5, where's the other £20m going?

    Motorways cut by ~£90m.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  27. toomanybikes
    Member

    Table 10.07
    ---------------------------------|-18/19|19/20|20/21
    Sustainable & Active Travel --|--79.0|--79.0|107.4
    Scottish Canals----------------|--11.6|--15.0|23.2
    Travel Strategy & Innovation-|----5.3|---5.1|60.2

    how much of the extra 8 million to Scottish canals gets spent on towpaths?

    But more importantly: what on earth is travel strategy and innovation? It's also listed in Table 6.15 for local government

    but additionally within that table there's a 6 million cut in capital for local councils for:
    --------------------------------------------------19/20|20/21
    Support for Sustainable and Active Travel----|--7.0|1.0
    Travel Strategy and Innovation---------------|--N/A|55.1

    Posted 4 years ago #
  28. LaidBack
    Member

    From The National

    The minister announced £1.8bn of capital spending would go on specific projects aimed at cutting emissions.

    To encourage more Scots to use public transport, she said funding for rail and bus services would rise by £286m to £1.55bn in 2020-21.

    In addition, more than £85m will be spent promoting active travel –such as walking and cycling – while a loan fund that helps people make the switch from petrol and diesel to low-emission vehicles is being upped to £35m.

    Spending on forestry is be increased to more than £64m after expert advisers at the Committee on Climate Change highlighted the need to increase tree planting levels.

    Next stage is finding support. Media though much more interested on Derek Mackay story of course.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  29. LaidBack
    Member

    Transform Scotland not impressed.
    'Business as usual'.

    http://transformscotland.org.uk/blog/2020/02/06/scottish-budget-this-is-in-no-way-a-climate-emergency-response/

    Posted 4 years ago #
  30. Morningsider
    Member

    A few points to note:

    1. 84% of the increase in the "Support for sustainable and active travel budget" line is additional loan funding for the Low Carbon Transport Loan Fund. Which should be paid back by those who purchase e-vehicles (mainly cars).
    2. £45m of the decrease in the trunk roads budget is for "depreciation" - which is a non-cash item. I'm not saying this isn't an important accounting measure. However, it is not a reduction in cash being spent on trunk roads.
    3. Support for bus services actually falls by £3.41m, once you take out the cost of the national concessionary fares scheme for elderly and disabled people.
    4. Support for rail services rises by £241m, due almost entirely to contractual obligations to Abellio, Serco and Network Rail. This does not reflect any actual improvement in service over the coming year.
    5. The huge increase in the "Travel strategy and innovation" budget (1080%) is to support the modernisation of the Glasgow Subway.
    6. The £23m increase in the Future Transport Fund is for the Bus Partnership Fund and zero emissions vehicles.

    Want even more - fill your boots with figures (needs Excel)

    Posted 4 years ago #

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