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.
stickyDefinitely sounds like a different team running it(or a different bureaucrat designing the process) then. The ebike loan certainly involved a bit of form filling, a little back & forth(you need to provide a proper quote from where you intend to buy the bike), and some follow up to prove the purchase was made, but it all went pretty smoothly.
Maybe worth a letter to the relevant minister advising some streamlining?
OK, so we've had the electric car a couple weeks now and have a rough idea what everyday usage looks like and also we had to travel down to Buxton to attend my wifes graduation, so have also driven a medium long distance in the car.
We don't have a charger installed yet (in progress, but like everything ev related seems to take a while to organise), so experience is 100% public charging nextwork so far.
For us the lcoal charging network has been great, as well as cheap. Lots of locations with fast chargers if you need them, but for us there are 4 slow chargers available in the town with no time limit. We've used them most of the time, just drop the car off, and pick it up between 5 and 8 hours later.
Wife charges car roughly 3 times a week, and it costs arround £6 (15p per kwh) to get from 20-80%, or £18-£20 per week. That's opposed to arround £40 - £50 per week in diesel, so less than half the cost of diesel using public network.
When we have our own charger on the Octopus tarrif we will charge at 8p per kw, so that should reduce fuel cost by half again, or from £40-£50 per week to less than £10.
I've heard many horror stories about EVs and long journeys, and tbf if we were doing 500 miles instead of 280 and doing it often I could see the issue.
Going to Buxton, we used the cars navigation app on the way down, and it tries to find cheapest chargers, which just ended up in us driving miles away from the motorway twice to save 5p per kw, which seemed pointless and added an hour to the journey.
On the way back we just stopped at motorway services and paid the extra few pence, and it was fine. We did need 3 stops each way to top up, but tbh we had a 9 year old in the car so would have been making the stops anyway. But it is fair to say in an ICE car it could have been a 5 hour drive instead of a nearly 7 hour journey both ways.
The motorway charging cost varied a lot, and was a lot more expensive than the local network, between 60 and 90p per kw. It probably cost arround the same as an ICE car, and we were arround £100 all in for charging - we did get charged twice on one charge which is a bit annoying but sure will be sorted with a phone call.
So in summary, everyday driving is cheap as chips, and long distance does take longer and is probably the same as an ICE car in terms of cost.
The car it's self has been a breeze to get used to and on motorways practically drives it's self.
Wife charges car roughly 3 times a week, and it costs arround £6 (15p per kwh)
Thats cheap! The CPS destination chargers in Edinburgh are 45p/kwh. If you're with Octopus get an electroverse card, it gives a small discount on a lot of the rapid chargers and saves on apps.
Wonder if it's just a Fife council subsidy?
We've only really used in Dunfermline (fast charger),and Burntisland (slow charger), and both were 15p, quick look at CPS website suggests most in Fife are around 15p. But yes over the water in Lothians much more expensive (30-50p).
(must tell missus as pretty sure she'll be on a charger at Livi centre today).
As I understand the price is set by the owner, so yeah looks like fife council have opted for a nice low price. There are a few cheap chargers in Edinburgh, the rapid at fountain park is free (but full of taxis) and I think Edinburgh Leisure have a cheaper rate than the council.
Wonder why they've gone so cheap, its not like fife is particularly built up so lots of off street parking and home chargers must be common.
At 15p the payback for the charger is pretty tough to justify, although the connivence factor goes a long way.
Jevon's paradox - the cheaper motoring becomes, the more driving people do. Is this "nice" ?
Also, subsidies coming from taxpayers, many of which aren't driving or aren't driving much - is this equitable?
Maybe, just maybe, a (new) progressive government would introduce a pay-per-use road user charge, to replace the income lost from dwindling fuel duty. You know, that income that pays for things like hospitals, schools, police. Things that have been decimated over the course of the current failing government.
That would be far more equitable, based on the amount anyone uses the road network. And would also reduce congestion. What's wrong with this government, that they take the wrong turn at every step?
Jevon's paradox - the cheaper motoring becomes, the more driving people do. Is this "nice" ?
Meh, people are going to drive. I'd rather they did it in an EV than diesel. If a nice low price encourages electric cars onto St Johns road, for the mean time, I'm okay with that. The alternative is the most polluted street in the country. When the council builds up the political will to bring in a congestion charge I'll be okay with that too.
Meh, people are going to drive
No, they aren't. There's always a price point where people stop driving (and switch to alternatives, or don't make the journey)
After all that's been discussed on here, do you seriously think that St John's road will be better clogged with EVs, with their brake, tyre and mining pollution, presenting danger to all and discouraging anyone from ever taking the bus or cycling?
Folk were still driving at near £2/l...
We can pontificate about how much better the world would be if everyone took the bus or rode a bike meanwhile tail pipe emissions are a big problem at local levels that are making people very sick right now. EV are working real world solution that remove a huge amount of the dangerous particulates, if you don't think think replacing half the cars on St Johns road with a EV at 8am would be an improvement you've never tasted the air.
For the record, most ev's replace their brakes when they've corroded from under use.
Folk were still driving at near £2/l...
Of course some folk were still driving at £2/L. A few ("some") folk would still be driving at £200/L. Conversely, at £2/L some folk will have reduced their driving.
So setting the price point correctly is not about eliminating all journeys by car, rather deciding (on price, like everything else) who really needs to drive
Any way in summary, meh people are going to drive.
That doesn't prove anything, and I'm getting a bit tired of refuting your disingenuous nonsense now.
Suggest you don a metal collander and go and join the Stop the Corstorphine LTN roasters
Whats disingenuous about a chart from the government that shows road traffic increasing nearly every year since the early 90's? Even the years where it did not it dropped by a tiny fraction then took off again.
You don't like the facts fine but don't take it out on me.
(Try harder next time)
People choose to drive as they see it as the easiest, cheapest and most socially acceptable way of getting around. Every indication is that you should drive - street layouts, the location of new homes and businesses, political and media discourse, advertising and so on.
The figures Steveo highlights show that demand for driving is price inelastic - that is, demand hardly changes even when fuel (and other) prices rocket. Hardly a surprise, when you think of people who seem happy to commute on standstill roads every day for decades - burining fuel and moving no-where.
I wish it was otherwise, but it isn't.
We do know what gets people out of their cars. However, our glorious leaders have choosen not to implement anything that actually works.
Every CCEer is an outlier - someone happy to cycle on current roads despite all the signals that driving is the natural way of things. I suspect we all (at least deep down) kind of like that, regardless of how much we want to see the mass uptake of cycling in the city.
The government chart posted has nothing to do with pay-per-use road user charging and nothing even to do with the cost of fuel/electricity - which was the original point.
@Morningsider, the chart does not have the resolution time-wise to show fluctuations in demand due to pricing. And even if it did, there is significant lag (for changing ingrained habits) on price changes - so even if prices quadrupled, you wouldn't necessarily see any change in the amount of driving for a year or more.
@steveo I'm happy for you, I really am, being able to do the mental gymnastics required to continue to believe that EVs are any kind of solution. I wish I could get back to that state of blissful ignorance of inconvenient truths.
When life on Earth collapses into a shadow of its former magnificence and descends into a long and brutal dark age on a less habitable planet, I just hope you have a good explanation to give to your children when they ask, "Dad, why didn't you do anything?"
@morningsider
someone happy to cycle on current roads despite all the signals that driving is the natural way of things. I suspect we all (at least deep down) kind of like that, regardless of how much we want to see the mass uptake of cycling in the city
No, absolutely not. I hate that, and I hate that the rest of my family can't cycle because of it either. And I hate that aquantainces tell me they want to cycle but won't... (And it looks like there will never be any prospect of that, literally because of EVs and SUVs)
I also go out of my way to avoid "current" roads, sticking to the paths where possible
"When life on Earth collapses into a shadow of its former magnificence and descends into a long and brutal dark age on a less habitable planet, I just hope you have a good explanation to give to your children when they ask, "Dad, why didn't you do anything?"
You may say this, but transport will decorbonise, probably quicker than anything else, it's certainly making more of an effort to than anything else.
And when transport is carbon neutral you'll still be whittling on about how much you hate cars. Climate change is simply an emotive, and useful hook for you to to attach your hatred to. :)
From the abstract of: what gets people out of their cars
The most effective at reducing overall car use were the Congestion Charge, Parking & Traffic Congrol, and Limited Traffic Zone
Congestion Charge - literal pay-per-use road user charging
I don't think fuel pricing would have any long term impact on road use due to induced demand. If you price people off the roads then those who are willing to drive at t higher price will simply do more of it.
Congestion charging meanwhile can be set at a price which actually makes a difference.
@Baldcyclist
transport will decorbonise, probably quicker than anything else, it's certainly making more of an effort to than anything else
Unfortunately, history does not bode well in that respect. Indeed all the transport CO2 reductions due to EVs to date have been completely wiped out by the increase in SUV sales and the subsequent increases in vehicle weight.
The graph shows that transport has made no progress in over 30 years (despite efficiency gains in engines)
"Congestion Charge"
I don't think you'd get any arguments from anyone here on the merits of congestion charging. Really usefull tool in the 3 or 4 places in the country where congestion is actually a problem.
The graph shows that transport has made no progress in over 30 years (despite efficiency gains in engines)
And how many EV's were sold in the 90's? The graph you want for electric cars is the Energy Supply one. Charged at the right time the co2 emissions of a electric car in Scotland are in the low single digits per mile*. They're better than a Lothian bus (on that single metric).
*Real time Current (07/11/23 1640) emission for Scotland are 29g CO2/KWh. Given a conservative 3 miles/KWh thats <10g co2 per mile and its not particularly windy just now.
From that graph, transport emissions seemed to peak in 2008, and have been trending down (slowly) since.
Interesting to note that post Covid still lower, than pre. Will be interesting to see if that decline continues with Hybrid working.
Also interesting to see domestic household emissions increasing post covid. Some data suggests that wah/hybrid has simply shifted where emmissions are, and that they haven't gone down at all post covid.
“Congestion charging meanwhile can be set at a price which actually makes a difference.“
Of course “can” is the key word.
Still a long way from actually having CC!
And then there will be ‘but we mustn’t penalise poor people/voters’, etc…
There’s still no real consensus about ‘need to reduce car use’.
And (as we all know) high levels of exceptionalism.
In Edinburgh there’s still an absurd amount of what I choose to call ‘silo disfunctionalism’.
There’s the bits of CEC that do the grand projects - well funded but having questionable route compromises and on the ground detailing.
Then there’s the bits that are completely unable/unwilling to make sure that the re-installation of bike lanes on roads after resurfacing is done competently and QUICKLY!
Also the bits that (apparently randomly) decide when and where to add bollards (or not) without the work (apparently) appearing on any public/agreed lists of ‘projects’.
Not forgetting LONG planned stuff that is perpetually delayed/redesigned (eg Meadows to Canal), because ‘reasons’ - often “resources” - which seems to mean ‘the people in charge have left/been reassigned to do the work of people who have left and/or doing things they didn’t know about but someone has (unexpectedly) successfully been awarded megamoney (probably by Sustrans) and we have to do designs/the job by the end of the financial year which is next week’…
ETC
@neddie - poor wording on my part. I simply assumed that CCErs, in some small way, liked their status as outliers - cocking a snook to the car dominated status quo. I didn't mean we were happy with the current situation on our streets.
I do think that car driving is pretty resitant to price signals - driving has bounced back to pre-covid levels during a brutal cost of living crisis.
Research is clear that congestion charging does reduce traffic. However, it is unclear how traffic would be affected by a national road user charging scheme. It would really depend on scheme design. I suspect a road user charging scheme will be intorduced in the next 12-20 years, as the Treasury will want to replace lost income from fuel duty.
“I suspect a road user charging scheme will be intorduced in the next 12-20 years, as the Treasury will want to replace lost income from fuel duty.“
Not sure Gov(s) will be able to wait that long for new/replacement income stream.
“Obviously” sensible for road users to collectively pay (at least) as much as pre-electric.
Whether any Party will have it in a manifesto remains to be seen…
Not sure Gov(s) will be able to wait that long for new/replacement income stream.
I mean they'll not do it but a reduction of costs due to better health outcomes from drops in tail pipe emissions could save the NHS budget which would offset some of the duty incomes.
Gov't has already removed the £0 VED rate which I think is probably good indication of direction of travel. I suspect they'll be working on a way to tax home chargers or a per mile charge that the car could easily phone home to the tax man, most EV's are online most of the time anyway.
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