CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

On wanting to have your cake and eat it

(42 posts)

12

  1. Instography
    Member

    I don't know. I'm deeply sceptical of Social Return on Investment because while it's relatively easy to come up with the costs side, it relies on too many cooked up numbers on the intangible social benefits side. I just looked at where all the benefits come from in the Edinburgh Leisure report and it's from a valuation of the health benefits from their activities. They might accurate but I doubt it and when the consultants are distancing themselves from the data behind their own report, you have to wonder.

    If you're looking for cost / benefit analysis of cycling infrastructure there will probably be better estimates of the benefits in other places. I'll have a root around.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. crowriver
    Member

    @Insto: I'm deeply sceptical of Social Return on Investment
    Whereas everyone believes the government when they say building a bypass or three will create x jobs, give an economic return many times greater than the investment, etc.

    Ao we need to phrase it in economic terms, the FM is an economist after all.

    @fimm Maybe we sould provide motorists with a road that becomes a motorway, then a single track road with passing places, then a normal road. See how they like it?

    This is how campaigners (and the government to an extent) portray parts of the roads network: the A9 springs to mind, in fact. Naturally motorists (and the government to an extent) are outraged and want it dualled yesterday...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    Think this pic has a certain validity on this thread -

    From http://imtakingtwo.tiagogoncalves.com/post/29855367564/enrique-penalosa-on-urbanized-2011-gary-hustwit

    Seen at http://angelasbikeblog.tumblr.com/post/30399100769/imtakingtwo-enrique-penalosa-on-urbanized

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. Arellcat
    Moderator

    fimm's comment on the ILoveMyBike/IHateMyBike thread, "And more unrequested mail from Cycling Scotland. Something called "Spin"... which is redemed by having a large picture of Pedal On Parliament on the front." dovetails neatly here. Spin magazine has a small shoutout on the back page:

    "Send us your infrastructure pictures!

    Infrastructure is a key part of boosting cycling levels, and to help us highlight best practice, Cycling Scotland is putting out a call for photos of great Scottish cycle infrastructure. Facebook us (ugh - Ed) or e-mail william at cyclingscotland.org with your pic and a location postcode, plus 50 words on how the infrastructure is changing behaviour. We'll compile the photos to display at our November conference."

    Maybe our crowdsourced green map pins would be a start:

    Googlemap of poor (and good) infrastructure in Edinburgh

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. fimm
    Member

    Yes, I saw that. WRT photos of great Scottish cycle infrastructure - I thought a completely blank response would be quite good... (if unnecessarily negative...)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. gembo
    Member

    It did have two good routes. I sometimes think we can be a bit hard on this forum

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. Instography
    Member

    I got a copy of SPIN today and thought it not too bad. I got the impression that Cycling Scotland might be feeling under a bit of pressure to do a bit more advocacy on top of its pleading with motorists and being a mouthpiece for the Government.

    Like all of these things we can complain about how inadequate it all is or contribute and maybe keep pushing them along the right road.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. fimm
    Member

    I was mostly annoyed that they had started sending me stuff when I had not asked for it!

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I've just received issue 11* of SPIN magazine.

    I'm actually a little bit cross that of 57 people pictured riding their bike or being carried on one, only 5 of them are shown not using magic hats. Admittedly, many of them are shown doing PfS, and another one happens to be the man MacAskill, but others are clearly bimbling along trails and canal paths. Another 6 people are pictured with a bike but not riding.

    Nice wee article from Suzanne, though.

    * Other issues are available, I expect, but I'm not entirely sure where my copies of nos. 2 to 10 went.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  10. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    Maybe it's roman numerals.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  11. Greenroofer
    Member

    Funny, I've just had mine too. I did note that at least some of the people in there didn't have magic hats on, and there was my usual gripe that the children shown wearing them were often wearing them wrong. That's discussion for the H****t thread.

    However the thing that I was saddest about was that the vast majority of the thing was about cycling as recreation (i.e. cycling=golf). Most of the pictures seemed to be people in 'bike gear' rather than cycling as a means of getting about. There also seemed to be an undercurrent of cycling actually being quite dangerous so you probably wouldn't want to do it on the roads.

    I hope that this is a deliberate choice by Cycling Scotland, and is part of a strategy of acknowledging concerns so they get people cycling somewhere, so that they then graduate to doing it everywhere, but I think they missed an opportunity to present cycling as transport.

    +1 for Suzanne's article, which was sound sense.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  12. SRD
    Moderator

    aye. very sporty & very helmety.

    my first thought though was about all the kids (two very prominent on first pages) who needed their saddles raised!

    Posted 9 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

12

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin