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News on LTNs? (Leith/Corstorphine/East Craigs Connections/Oxford)

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  1. ejstubbs
    Member

    @Yodhrin: Well, if Elon presses ahead with this: Elon Musk says Twitter, now X, could charge all users subscription fees then I suspect Twitter's universality would quickly be history.

    Although I actually agree with your basic point. My experience from the world of business is that once upon a time there was e-mail. Then text joined the party. Then Skype Instant Messaging, then Slack and Teams and on and on and on. Similarly, in the personal space there was MySpace - which at least had the decency to curl up and die when FaceBook ate its lunch - then people started to use many more non-obvious platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok for similar purposes. I know people who do everything through FaceBook - for them it is "The Internet". I know at least one company which only used Instagram for its social media feed - which was damn all use when they used it to issue an urgent product recall. It makes it ridiculously difficult to keep up with stuff, whether trivial or important, if you don't know which app-of-the-month it's likely to be published on - and even more so if every one of those apps requires you to register just in order to read something.

    (Funny how populist nut-jobs seem to end up shouting to limited audiences in often controlled-access, if not simply rarely-visited, cocoons - see "TRUTH social", "GB News" etc.)

    Posted 1 year ago #
  2. neddie
    Member

    Twitter is a rubbish place to get news, except hyper-local news

    I've mostly given up with it and bought a Guardian subscription instead - one of the few truly independent traditional-medias remaining

    No billionaires controlling you there...

    Posted 1 year ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

    (Ref to Yodhrin on previous page) -

    Bulletin board systems were in many ways a precursor to the modern form of the World Wide Web, social networks, and other aspects of the Internet.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

    Also

    “ … then Slack and Teams and on and on and on. … ”

    So indeed Twitter may disappear.

    IF Twitter becomes ‘paid users only’ AND is (say) £1 a month, it may well survive and be ‘better’.

    £10 a month? No.

    Musk ‘should’ cut his losses and hand it over to people who actually value it for the best it has been/could be.

    Easier said than done.

    Clearly ‘reasonable people’ (us!) would like the idiots/conspiracy theorists banished - but actually, maybe, it’s better to know what they are up to…

    Facebook ended MySpace with ‘better’.

    I don’t do Facebook but would understand if some people used it in a similar way to how they use T - contacting people and organising things, but T can be more useful/functional in many ways.

    Meanwhile CCE has its own uses.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  4. Rosie
    Member

    Twitter is good for local news and campaign groups. I also follow the links for longer articles on national/international issues. You find the journalists/writers who deal with issues you are interested in and follow them. A counterpoint is that when I do buy a good newspaper, I find that there are issues that I didn't realise I was interested in brought to my attention. Social media does tend to narrow in that way - still, 'twas always so from the time of pamphlets, that you read what supported your thoughts/feelings and ignored the rest.

    Muskrat has supposed to have trashed twitter - at least those who use it professionally say that, as they are fed frothing posts from those who paid for the blue tick, rather than who they choose to follow. I haven't noticed the trashing myself, but then I'm a lurker, not a producer.

    He has more chance of setting up viable colonies in Mars than getting people to fork out £10 a month to use it.

    Facebook is good for the semi-personal (that is presenting yourself to friends/acquaintances, sharing jokes, experiences, news items) - I can't understand those who bare their souls on such a public forum. Also good for like-minded groups whether cycling or gardening or your neighbourhood.

    I am though a social media addict.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  5. neddie
    Member

    Facebook is only really used by the 40+ generation (Gen X and some early Millenials)

    Dem kidz now usin' Tiktok, Insta and Steam for peer-to-peer

    I could be wrong...

    Posted 1 year ago #
  6. chdot
    Admin

    “Twitter is a rubbish place to get news, except hyper-local news“

    Depends

    For “hyper-local”, searching for your neighbourhood can be useful/entertaining.

    Currently I’m concerned about next week’s school strikes - (might be called off)

    Searching “cosla” is telling me the latest ‘info’.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  7. neddie
    Member

    On Twitter, our campaign feed (non blue tick) definitely seems to have less reach (fewer likes, retweets) - others have reported the same

    Posted 1 year ago #
  8. chdot
    Admin

    “Dem kidz now usin' Tiktok, Insta and Steam for peer-to-peer

    I could be wrong...”

    Yeah but I wouldn’t know if you were…

    A P7 of my acquaintance uses WhatsApp to keep in touch with half his class.

    “Any girls?”

    “NO”

    Posted 1 year ago #
  9. Rosie
    Member

    What about this Threads thingy? Has anyone tried it?

    Posted 1 year ago #
  10. jonty
    Member

    My understanding is that if you're not a Brand or an Influencer (or wanting to talk to them) they aren't particularly interested in your custom.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  11. steveo
    Member

    thats disappointing. No one really wants to replace twitter including Musk.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  12. acsimpson
    Member

    The trouble with all these sites is that they are only interested in making money. My Facebook fee at the moment will serve me 1 item of interested followed by 2 ads and then roughly a 1 to 1 mix of ads and content. At this stage it's fundamentally broken, for instance a group I follow for one of kids activities put a reminder out on Tuesday about last nights meeting. Facebook decided that this wouldn't keep me on the site so failed to show it to me.
    The only way to ensure your message is actually displayed to anyone is to pay money to Facebook.

    Mastodon meanwhile does not have a central company making money off it. It therefore has no ads and will display a feed in the same was that Twitbook and co used to with newest items first which you can scroll down until you reach items you have already read.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    Don’t know where this will go -

    This is so hypocritical of you
    @agcolehamilton
    You invited me to an open air meeting during lockdown, created a v hostile atmosphere encouraging an aggressive months-long campaign on social media/email against proposed transport policy + me as an individual. Bully boy indeed.

    https://x.com/lmacinnessnp/status/1704954472164675962

    In response to -

    On BBC Debate Night,
    @StephenFlynnSNP
    was asked a question he didn't like. He turned on the audience member, outing them as a conservative activist, inviting online harassment of the young man in question by nationalist keyboard warriors.

    Enough of these bullyboy tactics.

    https://x.com/agcolehamilton/status/1704789874581147750

    Posted 1 year ago #
  14. Yodhrin
    Member

    Maybe the BBC should stop populating the Question Time audience with activist plants if they don't want that highly relevant fact "outed" to viewers.

    Posted 1 year ago #
  15. chdot
    Admin

    Yet again, people are trying to game traffic consultations, this time by pretending to be Welsh.

    In Oxford, ppn 200k, we had 1.1m responses to a “do you like the LTNs” survey. This is why I think all councils should do representative polling, not gameable online consultations.

    https://x.com/EmilyKerr36/status/1705126362552447035

    Posted 1 year ago #
  16. chdot
    Admin

    Emboldened by the apparent success of such lobbying, the government is waging war on public health, announcing a “review” of low-traffic neighbourhoods and scrapping the commitment to stop the sale of polluting private vehicles by 2030. Across both the billionaire press and social media, those who seek cleaner air are demonised. Tory MPs who have called for severe penalties against environmental protesters are noticeably more relaxed about the the vandalism of Ulez cameras. It scarcely gets more perverse.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/air-pollution-lobbying-politics-ulez

    Posted 1 year ago #
  17. chdot
    Admin

    Critics say 20mph zones create more emissions, but that’s rejected by modelling from Future Transport London, which suggests 20mph is about 25% cleaner than 30mph in urban settings – partly because of the extra fuel burned by cars accelerating up to the higher limit, then slowing down again.

    Yet, despite the advantages of slower speeds, local campaigners are facing more political pressure than ever, now that LTNs and 20mph zones have been identified by the political right and conspiracy theorists as the latest assault on individual freedom, along with the response to Covid and the climate crisis.

    Some of the slower speed advocates in my study are facing extreme distress under the ongoing assault, and this is likely to persist now the prime minister has identified the car – the biggest killer on the roads – as the real victim.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/02/tory-20mph-speed-limit-benefits

    Posted 1 year ago #
  18. Stickman
    Member

    As expected, the newly extended pavements on Corstorphine High Street are already being used for parking.

    https://twitter.com/gylernorth/status/1709514983183094177

    Posted 1 year ago #
  19. steveo
    Member

  20. chdot
    Admin

    A new Edinburgh bus gate camera is being set up in Leith Links as part of more Low Traffic Neighbourhood measures being rolled out in the area this week.

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/edinburgh-bus-gate-camera-in-leith-links-to-go-live-in-bid-to-stop-drivers-taking-short-cuts-near-primary-school-4374769

    Posted 12 months ago #
  21. SF
    Member

    I see the FB group 'Edinburgh against LEZ & bus gates' is promoting an anti LEZ / LTN / 20 min neighbourhood rally at Holyrood Park on 18th Nov.
    Be interesting to see what the turn out is like.

    Posted 11 months ago #
  22. Wout Van Aerthur Seat
    Member

    I've not heard much re the Leith Links bus gate. Seems like it is quietly doing it's job. I wonder if the higher-density and already less car-dominated nature of the local area, when compared to West Edinburgh, means that locals are less car-brained. Adam Curtis's most recent doc made the argument that we are products of our surroundings and that american suburbia is to blame for the isolation, polarisation and right-wing extremism we've witnessed. I'd argue that we see the same effect in microcosm in our own city.

    Posted 11 months ago #
  23. chdot
    Admin

    Critics argue motorists are now being forced to use less safe junction as result of Corstorphine LTN

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/corstorphine-low-traffic-neighbourhood-simply-transfers-traffic-into-previously-quiet-roads-claim-residents-4399948

    Posted 11 months ago #
  24. neddie
    Member

    "Critics"? Or a single badly-informed privileged local driver, with no education in transport or urban planning?

    The same "critic" who said, "I've made suggestion like a walking bus for children going to school"

    Yeah mate, a walking-bus is symptomatic of a car-dominated, people-unfriendly, terrible environment for walking and cycling.

    Same for bike-buses.

    Posted 11 months ago #
  25. steveo
    Member

    That junction is now much busier, but its difference between 3 cars in the queue and 10. Mountain meet molehill.

    Most people I expect are either avoiding the area or going along to Tesco and Drum Brae (good!)

    Posted 11 months ago #
  26. Stickman
    Member

    @steveo: absolutely. And any queues are often made worse when cars are parked on either side at the SJR junction. Only one direction can get through at a time.

    Previous claims of “gridlock” in the area always correlated to some other incident in thr area: roadworks and lane closures on SJR and Meadowplace Road, crashes on Glasgow Road or Queensferry Road leading to road closures, etc. Bet any “30-40 car” queues happened at the same time as one of these.

    Posted 11 months ago #
  27. Stickman
    Member

    So the LibDems cynical motion to immediately remove the bus gate was defeated.

    Tremendous scenes as the Accessible Corstorphine For All Drivers reps said that none of the 2000 members of their Facebook group support the scheme therefore the majority of Corstorphine oppose it. As a reminder, the condition of joining the group is that you must oppose the scheme.

    My favourite part of their submission was their expert analysis which (correctly) said that no conclusions (for or against) could be drawn from the traffic monitoring data, yet they consistently referred to the traffic data in order to draw conclusions against it.

    Marvellous.

    Posted 11 months ago #
  28. neddie
    Member

    Have they implemented the modal filter on Tolbooth Wynd yet? It isn't showing on Open Street Maps.

    Same question for the bus-gate at Links Gardens

    Just seen above the Links bus-gate is in (but not on OSM)

    Posted 10 months ago #
  29. chdot
    Admin

    This is a wee update on the Corstorphine Connections trial road safety project:
    1. Changes will be made ahead of the school term starting on the January 8th.
    2. Initial public attitudes survey results will be published in January (4th for TEC on the 11th).
    3. A fuller report will be published in March (1st for TEC on the 7th).
    4. At the 11th of March committee meeting the Councillors will then consider the future of the trial scheme as it (potentially) enters its final 6 months.

    https://x.com/CllrScottArthur/status/1732014138199613880

    Posted 10 months ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin

    LTNs have been hugely successful, not just in making streets safer & quieter but also in shifting the Overton window so far that most drivers now care about:

    -air pollution
    -bus priority
    -emergency services access
    -access for disabled people
    -better public transport.

    #winning

    https://twitter.com/brixtonhatter/status/1738096750416523485

    Posted 9 months ago #

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