CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years 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.
Lord Provost Frank Ross:
Unfortunately we have missed the opportunity that the Covid 19 lockdown presented to us. We had a real chance to deliver modal shift to active travel but now that the commuting traffic has returned it has gone. Sorry.
https://twitter.com/frankross06/status/1294216735244070917?s=21
I don't think he's wrong tbh.
The best we can now hope for is pressure from residents as the rest of the world starts to see improvements. Maybe if the EEN finally goes under.
Surely they should all resign? If it's your job to attend to Edinburgh's public health and you fail to do that in an emergency you should let someone else try.
We need to know if Adam McVey agrees.
“how people collectively, if unconsciously 'make' a place. John Street ... has no identity anymore, no vibe to it”
Yep.
Interestingly, Midlothian Council thinks the same thing.
"The take-up of historic building repair and restoration grants and grants for shop front improvements has however, been slow. This is due to the depressed state of retail in the town centre and the devastating effect that Covid-19 has had on town centre shopping in general."
"The best we can now hope for is pressure from residents"
Need the patience of a saint then! Edinburgh residents will exert pressure for more cycle lanes shortly after the Four Horsemen have appeared on the horizon...
@chdot, that's a nice opinion piece by the venerable Joyce McMillan. She's right about the Scottish government's drift and short-termism, reflected on a local level here by statements from our Lord Provost. But what she seeks as a solution is not going to happen. It's almost as though she's not on the same planet as the Johnson government, looming Brexit, and the increasingly rabid supporters of both. By the autumn we will potentially have 10%+ unemployment, and then next year even more people will probably be out of work. Unfortunately it seems things will get a lot worse before they get any better.
We all knew this was going to happen - hell, even I predicted this three months ago. How did we get here:
It isn't a lack of cash - the Council were given £5m
It isn't the legislation - Traffic Regulation Notices and TTROs are up to the job
No, the Councillors lamenting this are really to blame. There was a bit of push back on the initial three road closures - from people who wanted no change, who would never be satisfied with any amount of consultation and were vehemently opposed to ANY reallocation of road space from vehicles to walking or cycling.
The administration bottled it.
They fell back into a default "consultation mode" - in an attempt to satisfy the insatiable. They wasted precious time waiting for consultation reports, as traffic volumes visibly rose. They will argue that this is simply "political reality", that it needed done to win hearts and minds or to "bring people along with the Council". Except that it isn't and it didn't.
This was a time when politicians could make their own political reality - it literally became a criminal offence to leave your own house. Have any of the "anti's" changed their mind? I'm going to say no.
Councillors - "We" have not wasted this opportunity - you have.
"Fascinating" reading material on the SFP programme so far:
https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s25364/Item%206.11%20-%20SfP%20Programme%20Update.pdf
Pretty interesting to read through the various project costs in Appendix 1. £66k for East Craigs LTN while segregated routes on Comiston Road and Lanark Road are £115k and £165k respectively.
The reaction to the Craigmount/East Craigs changes has been fascinating, especially from the residents of the new-build cul-de-sacs with two-car garages who are worried about extra traffic and pollution.
I am going to set up Stilts Not Soot, a campaign aimed at getting motor traffic (and its associated particulate emissions) onto elevated expressways built above Edinburgh's arterial roads.
The benefits are obvious: streets become available for walking, cycling, wheeling and commerce without disrupting the economy. The elevated roads will be accessible from the bypass which will become double-decker as part of the project. The elevated routes feed multi-storey car parks one kilometre from Princes Street in all directions.
Who would bet against me getting Transport Scotland funding?
Yes we need this like The Luther Blisset Project in Milan, where the anarchists take the mickey.
Inter or AC intended to sign John Barnes from Watford but by mistake purchased Luther Blisset is the origin of the name.
@Stickman Balerno is populated by the original White Settlers (when the first fields were turned to housing schemes). They are the demographic of our wee cinema and lovely people but boy do they resent anyone doing what the did. Buying a house in a former field and driving a long car as a single occupant into Edinburgh thinking they are individuals when they are clones
Good idea IWEATS, but why bother delineating into roads, access ramps and multi storey car parks? Why not have one contiguous elevated concrete surface area across the entirety of Edinburgh?
That way, drivers can take the shortest route from anywhere to anywhere, and park immediately outside their destination (it’s OK, no one else will want to park there at the same time!)
It might be a little bit dark in the “real world” underneath, but at least it will be cool from searing heat generated by the fumes, CO2 and car air-conditioners blasting from above...
Shangri-la!
"Buying a house in a former field and driving a long car as a single occupant into Edinburgh thinking they are individuals when they are clones"
Way of the world, guv'nor, innit?
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same
@neddie, Graeme Garden was onto this decades ago.
The administration bottled it.
This is how Edinburgh Council rolls. Some good ideas, often some of the best intentions, but ultimately it does not have the courage of its convictions. The Council doesn’t build what it wants the future to be like, but rather what it might just about get away with. I suspect it’s too institutionally scarred by the original tram debacle to do anything remotely close to what would barely cause an eyelid to be batted anywhere in Europe.
"...too institutionally scarred by the original tram debacle to do anything remotely close to what would barely cause an eyelid to be batted anywhere in Europe."
And yet apparently can sign off an omnishambles like the new St James, Picardy Place gyratory, etc. with what seemed like indecent haste. Also see the revived plans for the Underbelly winter coronavirus wonderland.
I'm not buying the "institutionally scarred" angle. The council is composed of different factions, and somehow it nearly always seems to be the following interests that win out:
- car drivers
- tourism, hospitality and retail businesses
Institutionally scarred to do anything to radically upset the motor vehicle status quo, crow.
So despite limited resources and tight budgets, it appears that the best use of council staff time is collating and presenting evidence from elsewhere, and even then that doesn’t seem to be enough.
The Council's paper reviewing the benefits of the cycling economy is not as objective or as wide ranging as I hoped. This will simply fuel debate rather than help it reach a conclusion.It feels like an opportunity has been missed.
Read it here :
democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s253…
https://twitter.com/cllrscottarthur/status/1294973025390125057?s=21
Fairmilehead Community Council claimed the number of cyclists and pedestrians using Comiston Road was “minimal”, even with the Covid lockdown.Secretary Norman Tinlin said: “The main concern is this is going ahead without consultation. A lot of houses on that main drag don’t have drives.Where are they going to park their cars?”
I actually checked the popularity of some Strava segments on Saturday - as many people used Comiston Road as the Ferry Road path.
All the usual caveats about Strava notwithstanding, that isn't what I would call "minimal".
Also as usual, you don't judge the need for a bridge by the number of people swimming across the river.
Norman Tinlin is a proto PG. He has been in the cc for too long and progressivism is not his middle name. He would do well to consider what makes our roads congested and even dangerous in the first place.
A consultation is not a referendum.
"Covid road changes leave buses with just five inches on either side"
Wait till they learn about cycle lanes.
@Frenchy: I’ve come up with a more Tory-friendly version of the “crossing the river” analogy.
There are few small business start-ups because of red tape.
Anyone who wants to start a business has already done so, showing that the red tape isn’t an issue.
This means that there is no need to do anything about the red tape.
Imagine if there was no red tape, how many consultants would lose their jobs??
You can't buy a bed in a small business!
“The main concern is this is going ahead without consultation. A lot of houses on that main drag don’t have drives.Where are they going to park their cars?”
I had a quick look on Google Maps. The numbers below may be out by one or two, but are certainly roughly right.
I counted two houses on the west side without driveways, and nineteen on the east side.
All of the ones on the east side are at the northern end of Comiston Road, around here.
But guess what! The plans have parking bays here. 313m worth of parking bays between the Braid Hills Hotel and Comiston View. Even allowing 5m each, that's enough for 62 cars.
I cycled up Comiston Road on Saturday, there were approximately 40 vehicles parked on the entire length of the street (both sides), let alone just outside the houses with no drives.
I think the residents will cope.
I wonder how many complaints are from multi-car households on Comiston Road without room for all their cars in their drives?
I suspect the issue for residents is that they would actually have to start using their driveways, rather than just parking on the road - which seems to be the default option on Comiston Road. The inside lane in both directions is effectively a linear car park for residents and an unofficial park and ride for car commuters from Midlothian.
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