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.
Cycling currently accounts for 0.9% of all journeys, although if I do that calculation properly and weight car journeys by the number of occupants (since each occupant represents a journey rather than each car) it comes closer to 0.5%.
Committed to 10% by 2020? My sides are aching.
In the context of an additional £382 million being made available, this is peanuts. Depending on how it breaks down, might just get funding back to roughly last year's levels. Not that bad, but not heading towards 10% of all journeys any time soon...
Congratulations to SPOKES, Transform Scotland and everyone who took part in the campaign to save the active travel budget. I know the extra amount is small, although it will make a real difference to some cyclists somewhere, but this is a serious political achievement.
Fair enough, Spokes and all the campaigning groups and individuals do deserve praise for at least managing to preserve funding levels after the threatened catastrophe. Perhaps some of the £72 million extra on roads will pay for cycling provision too. We can but hope, and keep up the pressure for cycling infrastructure to be provided as part of new roads build...
I must have missed the massive outpouring of protest and public discontent at the spending on roads not increasing quite enough that resulted in the extra £72 million found for them.
I'd vote for a party that promised to peg spending on active travel against the roads budget. So you can have your £1.2bn bridge but only if you can budget for the 2% on top for cycling - doesn't sound much but that's £24 million per vanity project.
@kaputnik - can you stand in the next election so I can vote for you?
I must have missed the massive outpouring of protest and public discontent at the spending on roads not increasing quite enough that resulted in the extra £72 million found for them.
The Forth road bridge 2 and the Aberdeen bypass won't build themselves, you know! Maybe the capital cost of these two 'essential' infrastructure projects was, ahem, underestimated?
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John Lauder (@John_Lauder)
2/8/12 5:27 PM
@CyclingEdin @JohnSwinney @SpokesLothian @sustrans He did mention active travel and I think he gave it a real boost;
Details tomorrow
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"but this is a serious political achievement"
YES
That's the problem. None of this should have been necessary.
Which other country that has targets for cycling would consider cutting active travel budgets?
can you stand in the next election so I can vote for you?
We'll lose, but we'll have awesome posters...
One could do worse than vote Green in May's council elections. If the Greens get more councillors, the balance of power may be put in play on the council in Edinburgh. If there was a Labour/Green coalition I'd imagine active travel would shoot up the political agenda in the city.
kaputnik -I'm not good at subtlety - can I check that
I'd vote for a party that promised to peg spending on active travel against the roads budgetis a dig at the nats and their promise in their last manifesto?
We'll lose, but we'll have awesome posters...
so true (at least the second half)
"If there was a Labour/Green coalition I'd imagine active travel would shoot up the political agenda in the city."
True, but -
Labour is trying very hard - Edinburgh Labour revised Manifesto published. Maybe too hard!
Greens will be standing in all wards, though they think some are more possible to win than others.
The Conservatives are likely to have two candidates in a few wards. Under the PR system they could both be elected. Tories may well have at least as many seats as at present. There has even been press speculation about a Tory/SNP alliance - a full coalition seems unlikely.
The current LibDem/SNP coalition has not been wholly successful (even discounting the tram) and is unlikely to be repeated - even if the seat numbers added up.
The biggest unknown is how much the voters will make their decisions based on local, Scottish or UK politics/preferences.
It seems probable that the LibDems won't get as many seats as five years ago which might be due to local considerations or Westminster ones.
If the SNP do well it would be more due to satisfaction with Holyrood rather than the City Chambers.
I presume Spokes will be organising a husting with a representative of these 5 parties. I'm sure they'll all say nice things about encouraging walking and cycling.
I think they'll all need to be asked how they expect the Council's 15% by 2020 cycling target to be reached.
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STVEdinburgh:
Laughter in chamber as Cllr Balfour predicts that city will have a Tory led #edincouncil administration after May.
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Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/STVEdinburgh/status/167582764718239744
Well they used to be in charge in the past - alternated with Labour when there were only really three parties. (Also before PR.)
"Councils will share £11.5bn funds this year"
http://www.stv.tv/news/scotland/296940-councils-will-share-115bn-funds-this-year
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John_Lauder: .@sustrans budget from @scotgovweb increased by 25% will deliver projects across Scotland. But emissions will rise. http://t.co/gjRBotmD
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Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/John_Lauder/status/167596651215732736
Link is to letter in Scotsman -
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Published: 09 February 2012
This week’s budget showed the SNP had listened to the evidence and a powerful campaign by people and organisations from across Scotland by investing in active travel.
We know from the Chief Medical Officer’s report last autumn that Scotland’s health and obesity crisis is some way from disappearing.
It’s important that Scots get more exercise, and building it into the daily routine is one of the easiest ways to go about it.
Sustrans works with the Scottish Government, councils, schools and communities to enable people to walk or cycle for more of the journeys they make every day. This new funding will build on this and will make our streets safer and friendlier.
There is still more to be done, especially given the SNP’s continued commitment to building expensive and unnecessary new roads.
But the cyclists who turned out to protest in Edinburgh earlier this year can feel sure they have made a difference.
John Lauder
Sustrans Scotland
Haymarket Terrace
Edinburgh
GREENS: SWINNEY’S CRUMBS ARE NO COMFORT
Speaking in today's debate on the Scottish Government budget, Green MSPs say last-minute revisions proposed by the Finance Secretary are a missed opportunity.
Additional funds proposed for colleges and housing must be considered against a background of deep cuts by the SNP.
Spending on transport continues to show a massive increase for road-building programmes while funding for projects to make it easier to walk and cycle around our communities is being slashed [1].
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said:
“These crumbs are of little comfort. Green MSPs made perfectly reasonable calls for the SNP to honour their own manifesto promise to increase investment in the sustainable transport systems Scotland needs. Sadly the SNP are stuck in past, thinking we need to spend billions on new motorways, when they have a historic mandate to show how Scotland can be a beacon of progress.”
“It’s good they have heeded the calls to support college students. However, today’s increase must be set against the huge cuts colleges have seen, two years running, to their teaching grants. At a time when the further education sector is crucial to economic recovery, this remains one of the most reckless aspects of the budget.”
(Ends)
[1] Active travel was 1.21 per cent of the government’s travel budget in 2010/11. By 2013/14 it will be 0.79 per cent.
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Spokes CycleCampaign (@SpokesLothian) 2/10/12 3:37 PM Scottish budget: Spokes view of the outcome ... plus some thank you's ... and what is needed now ...
http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/2012/02/scottish-budget-improved
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"
9 Februray 2012
Dear Mr
Funding for Active Travel
Further to my recent letter, I wanted to make sure you had heard the news
announced by Finance Secretary John Swinney MSP during yesterday's budget
debate that an additional £13 million would be invested in cycling and walking over
three years. In addition, an extra £4.5 million will be invested in cycling infrastructure
in 2014/2015 as part of the Future Travel Fund.
I have no doubt that the strength of the campaign run by Spokes, Sustrans and
others has been significant in encouraging the Scottish Government to invest further
in "active travel". Thank you for taking part in that campaign
I acknowledge that we still have a long way to go to meet our ambitious targets for
cycling and walking. However, I do believe this additional investment should be
welcomed, as it has been by Sustrans.
Meanwhile, we are in the process of setting up further meetings between the
Scottish Government officials and cycling organisations and a further meeting with
the Transport Minister Keith Brown MSP, in May - following publication of the annual
review of the "Cycling Action Plan for Scotland". I will keep you fully informed of
future developments.
As ever, please do not hesitate to contact me again on this or any other matter.
Yours sincerely
Jim Eadie MSP
Jim Eadie
MSP for Edinburgh Southern
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh EH99 1SP
Telephone 0131 348 6283
Jim.Eadie.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
"
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Paul Edie (@paul_edie)
2/11/12 10:41 AM
Well done @SpokesLothian and @CyclingEdin for strong and successful campaign as @Edinburgh_CC budgets to spend 5% on #cycling! #EdTravCyc
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SO confusing having an Eadie and an Edie!
It's interesting that it appears Sustrans has taken most, if not all of the restored budget. This maybe just puts things back to the way they were, but I also think that ministers must have been impressed by Sustrans' case for investment benefitting the local economy, and perhaps their national overview.
Edinburgh might benefit from this 'national' money to match its own investment plans?
Some ministers might know more about the subject than others -
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HE URGES drivers to leave their car behind and use public transport – but prefers the ministerial limo himself.
Official figures show transport minister Keith Brown has travelled by train just four times since being appointed a year ago, while making 226 journeys by chauffeur-driven government car.
Didn't he claim to have arrived at last month's demo by train? Clearly he was 'economical with the truth' on that occasion!
Over one year, 226 chauffeur driven trips; 4 train journeys; allegedly lots of local bus trips. Scot Gov tries to claim he may have made other trips by public transport he has paid for himself: aye right!
'We' wondered why there are all these ill-advised cuts to services in the proposed new Scotrail franchise; furthermore why there were cuts proposed to active travel. Now we know!
@Crowriver yes I too heard that his response to the heckle "well how did you get here then?" was that he had taken the train. I'm not sure where he got the train from/to, as nearest station to both Victoria Quay and Bute House where he probably came from is Waverley, which happens to be nearest station to St Andrew House! Perhaps the presidential limo drove him to Waverley, he got out, got into another limo on other side of station and that took him up to SAH?
TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX?!?!?
Publicly paid-for ministerial limo is public transport, no?
"Publicly paid-for ministerial limo is public transport, no?"
Which cheek is your tongue in?
When he's in the car with a chauffeur that's car sharing, innit?
Well publicly-funded taxi trips count as "public transport" I believe!
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