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.
stickyWell I think we need a separate thread
The past
The future, mostly unwritten of course.
Cllr/Dr. A manages to create scepticism about what he means/says
Says a lot of ‘the right things’ then contradicts nuances.
As mentioned on the election thread, the good/bad news is only intends to be transport chair for three months
“
I've contacted the Greens and they are open to chatting about where they can work with Labour. I hope to establish common ground with the SNP and Lib Dems too. The overlap with the Tories will be smaller, but still important.
“
https://twitter.com/cllrscottarthur/status/1530831924796837891
I don't get this weird interregnum.
The last word I heard is that Val Walker is Culture and Communities convener, so how can she become TEC (or just TC?) in a few months? I mean, I suppose she technically can do both, but in a scenario of keeping a cobbled together pseudo-coalition together, it seems open to problems, or indeed challenge.
Brave Sir Arthur running away from having to actually do anything, again? Or does he see a poisoned chalice?
"only intends to be transport chair for three months"
The Road To Hell, etc.
“I don't get this weird interregnum.”
Yes
Partly why I started this thread…
The last word I heard is that Val Walker is Culture and Communities convener, so how can she become TEC (or just TC?) in a few months?
Cllr Arthur mentioned somewhere that they'd be restructuring committees too at some point. So perhaps they intend to reduce the number of conveners needed by one?
Cllr Arthur, of course, has a full time job alongside his councillor role. I don't think it's suspicious that he doesn't want to permanently be a committee convener on top of that.
Cllr Arthur mentioned somewhere that they'd be restructuring committees too at some point. So perhaps they intend to reduce the number of conveners needed by one?
That would mean one less enhanced convener salary. I find it unlikely.
https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Labour-leadership-roles-May-2022-.pdf
That would mean one less enhanced convener salary. I find it unlikely.
Appropriately cynical, but their other options are also limited.
Nine of their twelve councillors are already in leadership positions in that list. Two of the other three abstained in the administration vote, so may not be allowed convenerships. The remaining councillor is Cllr Jenkinson - a new councillor who may or may not want to be a committee convener.
@Frenchy, I agree, but Val Walker is also a new councillor who according to SA will become TE Convener when “a more able colleague completes her transition to being a councillor”, but who is made Culture and Communities convener in the meantime. Even with a possible restructure, I just can't fathom it other than they're making it up on the hoof.
From 48:52
My bold
“
It was good to get a update on these active travel schemes yesterday:
1. Lyndsay Road junction/ Bernard-Salamander Streets (AKA Leith Connection Phase 3)
2. Lochend/ Albion/ Easter Road
3. South Queensferry
4. Burdiehouse
Meaningful public engagement should start soon.
“
https://twitter.com/cllrscottarthur/status/1531535952128004098
Saw him later at the vigil. He was disappointing at the last vigil as he was a media hoor.
Has he had media training, I wonder? Considering he's bringing a 50% increase in budget, you'd hope to hear something a lot more positive than "we'll continue with the last council's pipeline of plans"
“
All other committee conveners, paid £36,699 per annum, are:
Culture and Communities : Val Walker (Labour)
Transport and Environment : Scott Arthur (Labour) (interim convener)
“
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/new-top-team-running-edinburgh-24110625
https://twitter.com/CllrScottArthur/status/1532057668571254784
One of things I hope to do is accelerate the work on improving the active travel routes to schools. We will define the problem with school communities, and then co-design a solution.
Mmm yes, because if there's one thing I associate with accelerated rollouts and bold leadership, it's having locals with absolutely incompatible motivations scrum with each other to produce - at best - a half-assed compromise to ensure nobody can accuse any politicians or parties of being to blame for the unsatisfactory result. Best practice? Design guidance from experts? Pshaw, what's really required is a grudge match between pro active travel parents on one side and a coalition of SUV-addict parents & local gammons on the other, with the responsible councillor half-heartedly exhorting the participants to fair play from a safe distance.
Indeed.
A lot has been done for/with Edinburgh schools over the last 20 years.
Don’t know where things are currently, but I suspect some schools aren’t that bothered or are ‘too difficult’ - busy roads etc.
This is currently on CEC website - “The City of Edinburgh Council has introduced the School Streets initiative at 12 primary schools across the City, some of which have been in operation since 2015”
Idealistically it should be possible for older children to be able to cycle to school. But from where? A couple of streets away or all parts of the catchment area??
Realistically most kids are never going to cycle to most schools - with or without ‘perfect’ infrastructure.
So walking.
Is the main idea to make it easier/safer? Acceptable for more children to go to school without an adult? Encourage more parents to walk rather than drive?
None of this is new, (almost) all schools will have done one or more Active Travel Plans.
Seems unlikely that having a different councillor in charge with enthusiasm/impatience and a naive belief that ‘locals know best/what they want’ will manage to make much difference.
The "co-design a solution" reminds me of those lords and squires in the 19th century who got railway lines routed for their convenience.
In my head I'm imagining a bit of schadenfreude as we watch him discover that no consultation is ever 'comprehensive' or 'meaningful' enough and no genuinely radical solution will ever reach 100% agreement.
In reality I know that the chances are this will basically just end up being a few widened pavements on corners and some brightly coloured signage (if that.)
"improving the active travel routes to schools" - nice to see a change of heart, given the Councillor has spent the last year trying to get the improved active travel routes to South Morningside Primary ripped out.
Cllr Arthur:
We’ve seen in Nottingham, where they introduced the workplace parking levy that it did not actually reduce congestion.
Really, because Dale et al (2017) concluded their research into the Nottingham WPL by stating:
The findings of this research are highly significant as it is the first time that evidence has been presented for a statistically validated link between the introduction of a WPL and a reduction in congestion.
From ER article
My italics
“
And in fact traffic continues to increase in Nottingham. And that’s because when you price some people out of using their car, it just frees up road space for people who can afford it. And that’s a problem we have to solve. Raising money is great, but we’ll have to solve congestion.”
…
We saw that in the last administration – it was quite often that the Greens would vote with us on the sustainable transport things but where we had to do a bit of, you know, actually making life easier for car drivers, often it was the Conservatives.
Whatever the ‘facts’ about Nottingham, he has some quite bizarre/contradictory ‘understandings’ about use of road space and, seemingly, belief that ‘the rich will always drive and although that’s a bit unfair for poorer people, we have to keep facilitating it’.
IF measures (taxes or carrots) reduce the amount of driving, then good opportunity to reduce the amount of road space for motors. A ‘radical’ version of (self proclaimed) left wing Dr. A might even try to reallocate some road space without even looking at tax/charge/levy options.
Perhaps the most worrying bit is -
“
“Cllr Lesley Macinnes brought huge projects to TEC, you know, the City Centre Transformation, City Mobility Plan, the tramline extension, and inputted directly into City Plan 2030. And these are huge things that I’m absolutely committed to seeing through.
“But really, that rate of change, we can’t really continue that. So what we’ll have to do is consolidate to take us forward.
“
So is that ‘we’ll deal with the big projects already underway, but everything else will have to wait’?
We could continue that, Professor, you disingenuous balloon, you're just going to choose to be an unambitious, obstructionist relic instead.
“ But really, that rate of change, we can’t really continue that. So what we’ll have to do is consolidate to take us forward.”
That is worrying and fundamentally crap from him (and didn’t he and his colleagues vote for that stuff in the previous administration?). But can the SNP and Greens hit plenty of transport votes with amendments in an effort to maintain some sort of direction here? Or does it not work like that?
Nah, they've stitched up the transport committee - 3 SNP, 2 Tory, 2 LD, The Professor, and no Greens - will make it hard to steer things. At full council votes it would also depend whether the reason for his reticence is just him being himself, in which case Labour might vote in favour of amended motions or even just abstain on them, or if it's one of the prices the Tories and LibDems totally didn't extract from Labour wink wink nudge nudge in exchange for their support, in which case Labour will just say "don't amend our motions or we'll vote them down" and our choice will be between pre-compromised half-measures or nothing at all.
3 SNP, 2 Tory, 2 LD, The Professor, and no Greens - will make it hard to steer things
Is this confirmed, or have the Greens just not decided who'll be on it yet? Claire Miller tweeted yesterday, saying that they haven't chosen a lead on transport issues yet, which I read as implying the latter.
Previous committee had 11 members
Presume Dr. A won’t be only Lab member(?)
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