SRD on a roll -
http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/not-much-has-changedeverything-has.html
Yesterday's piece -
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
'we'd have to take road-space away from cars'
(22 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Well said. Bingo. Other places have shown us - in spades - that getting people cycling (and thus reduce obesity, and revive local shops, and reduce illegal killer pollution, and make people happier, and and and...) has to involve taking road space away from cars and giving it to bikes. It has to be done. And it's such a positive, profitable investment.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Reallocating Road Space"
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/April2013.htm
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago #
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They use their cars as shopping baskets; or use them as overcoats.
This is totally true.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Not taking space away from cars is exactly what is wrong with the QBC.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Prof Iain Docharty had the same answer to the question how do we make cycling safer and more attractive. Take space away from cars.
Posted 12 years ago # -
He also said it would 'cost nothing'.
Though at another point he said that in European cities now regarded as 'cycling cities' there had been some political cost.
Perhaps politicians who don't care about not being liked are a dying breed...
In Edinburgh no-one has been particularly effective since David Begg. He made the bus lanes happen (I don't think there was a referendum.)
Posted 12 years ago # -
There's such a lack of vision at the Council. Certainly nothing along the lines if "what do we want the city to be like?" Do I remember correctly that Jim Orr's answer to what his vision was was simply parroting out the x% of journeys to work to be by bike line as opposed to a pleasant city centre that people like to spend time in and spend their money in?
As long as the target is a statistic you'll never sell it to the populus - it's meaningless to them. They need to be sold on the fact that this will make the city a better place to live. And businesses need to be sold on the fact that it help their business to have a pleasant city or neighbourhood centre.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I got the impression at one point that Iain Doherty had just said look at that elephant standing right there wearing a T-shirt with 'Take Road Space Away From Cars' written on it but Jim Eadie and Jim Orr both denying all knowledge it was there.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I had a flyer through the door which included the gem that businesses were having trouble taking deliveries due to the QBC, and the council was to put in more parking...
To be honest, there's so much stopping on the QBC 24/7 that I can't really get too upset over this, although it does make it even more of a laughing stock than it already is.
Close the road in one direction using bollards (almost free), give half the resulting space to parking / loading and the rest to a proper segregated cycleway. Easy.
Of course, you'd not sell it as closing the road, but rather, taking the Princes St gyro idea and applying it elsewhere in the city.
Posted 12 years ago # -
dave - flyer from whom????
Posted 12 years ago # -
Not taking space away from cars is exactly what is wrong with the QBC
In fact the QBC took space away from bikes and gave it to cars. (Those parking spaces at the bottom of Mayfield Road weren't there before the QBC, there was a big wide empty stretch at the side of the road, a long way from the traffic flow, lovely to cycle in.) Despair over that stupidity/duplicity was what led me to give up cycling for a while.
Posted 12 years ago # -
srd: a libdem circular masquerading as a newspaper (I had to check both sides to find out which mouthpiece it came from).
There was a suggestion that residents parking might be removed to create loading bays. I can see that being a big success...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Iain Docherty's talk was excellent.
The problem I see is that we all want to mark out territory as our own. The civilised answer is that it should be about making an attractive and calming environment rather than just replacing tarmac for cars with tarmac for bikes (although that is better value than the acres used for car parks). Streetscaping(!) is not the whole answer but to get people on side we need to look at giving space for people on foot in more parts of town.
eg (again) The council could have taken tarmac away and landscaped the junction at Argyle Place to allow more grass and plants. Then the general populace could see it was something done for them - improving safety and non vehicle space. Better still they should have closed the street for good and widened the pavements keeping a bus lane in..
I did laugh though when Ian showed the pic of Strasbourg with the two cyclists amid many more walkers. So much better than the red light jumpers on bikes in UK!
As I've mentioned before the council seem to avoid any policy for years on the High St and Lawnmarket with a free for all with people walking on road, cars, buses and bikes. They'll probably spend a lot of money and end up with same mix!Posted 12 years ago # -
Iain talked effusively about improving city centres, but he didn't explain how the European cities had changed beyond the centre. Sure, they've made them people friendly and done their best to banish cars, and people are frequenting those areas.
But where are those people travelling from? Do they all live locally? Or are they all suburbanites with cars and 2.4 children who have decided that they don't want to drive to faceless shopping malls? Have the cities balanced the pedestrianisation of their centres with disincentives to the construction of out of town amenities?
People drive to those horrendous air-conditioned identikit malls with acres of blacktop, so that they can stroll around on foot and visit all the shops they like, without any danger of being mown down by vehicles and children with wheels in their shoes. Isn't that the same thing as a pedestrianised city centre? But driving there is (too) easy and convenient and—allegedly—almost free, and they don't want to catch a bus or a tram to do the same journey because they've already paid for a car.
There is nothing like the private car to instilling the sense that it is an individual's God-given right to travel at enormous speed anywhere they like, at the expense of anything slower, smaller or more vulnerable.
Taking space away from cars in Edinburgh actually means less money to be made from parking bays and parking fines. Perhaps that funding loss can be offset by making it more expensive to build malls and tarmacking the hell out of the green belt.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Planning restrictions in France are less stringent than those in the UK - just look at the ribbon development on any highway out of any decent-sized town. They also have lots of out of town/edge of town supermarkets.
However, they do have a sense of civic pride and a vision for their town centres. Maybe it's contagious - Bordeaux does it, so Toulouse and Dijon do it too. They also seem, by and large, to take considerably less pride in their cars as anyone who has watched a Frenchman reverse parking with the use of their bumpers can attest...
Posted 12 years ago # -
And, another point mentioned by Iain Docherty, I think French towns have much more power at a local level...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Dave said above:
"Close the road in one direction using bollards (almost free), give half the resulting space to parking / loading and the rest to a proper segregated cycleway. Easy."This would be my solution also. Quick, cheap and effective.
Posted 12 years ago # -
To respond to Arellcat's comments, specifically about Strasbourg, a French city I have visited on many occasions due to having family who live there, and where I was merely one week ago:
he didn't explain how the European cities had changed beyond the centre
Strasbourg's cycling infrastructure is the same outwith the centre. For example, in Ostwald and the hilariously named Illkirch-Graffenstaden, cycle lanes are everywhere. There was even one street which I saw where cars drove on the left, as the other side of the road was entirely for bicycles, and thus it was a one way street. This was 4 miles from the centre.
they don't want to drive to faceless shopping malls?
I think you'd like Strasbourg. There is no such thing as a faceless shopping mall. Instead, imagine Edinburgh from the 1970's, when shops did not open on a Sunday, or a Saturday afternoon, or on bank holidays. I kid you not that over the Easter weekend, no shops at all opened on the Friday, Sunday or Monday. This is standard in Strasbourg. People all shop at their local shops. We always take a few days to get used to it. Also, shops open at random hours, on random days. Monday, 11:30 until 13:30, for example. Then not again until Wednesday, 07:00 until 12:00. And then later on from 14:00 until 17:00. Bizarre.
Have the cities balanced the pedestrianisation of their centres with disincentives to the construction of out of town amenities
I don't know, but out of town amenities don't exist. Out of town, there's lots of fields.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Dave: "Close the road in one direction using bollards (almost free), give half the resulting space to parking / loading and the rest to a proper segregated cycleway. Easy."
That gets my vote.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Yep. It ain't hard. Or expensive. It just takes vision and the will/strength of character to back it up.
Posted 12 years ago #
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