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.
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Environmental and sustainable transport campaigners have warned that by pouring billions into motorways and road building programmes the Scottish Government's Infrastructure Plan fails to fund the urgent investment needed to cut carbon emissions and create a genuinely sustainable economy.
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http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/snp-road-building-plans-largest-since-thatcher.aspx
I am reliably informed that the Cycling, Walking and Safer Streets budget is to continue over the next three years - but probably at a reduced rate of around £6m-£6.5m per year.
According to Spokes* in 2011/12:
"The CWSS fund [population-based funding to every council for cycling, walking and safer streets] is retained, but cut from £9.1m to £7.5m"
So from 2012/13 it is is to be cut even further. One third of the budget has disappeared compared to 2010/11.
This is in line with Spokes' predictions** so basically cuts total cycling spend to 0.8% of the total transport budget.
*
http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/2011/01/manifestos-and-budget/
**
http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/p.all_3.pdf
Here is the level of CWSS fund (£m), actual, announced and predicted!
10/11 9.0 actual
11/12 7.5 actual
12/13 6.1 Just announced
13/14 5.6 My prediction*
14/15 8.2 Ditto*
*based on total announced local govt capital spending for that year.
i.e. it will rise again as we approach the next Scottish elections (may be a coincidence!!)
Of course, CWSS is only one of the main funding streams for cycling/walking in the budget. The other equally important one, SAT, is cut much worse in the draft budget (SAT includes Sustrans funding for their work with local councils, so future projects after the Leith-Portobello 2012 route will be badly affected). The reduced SAT funding is also being given new responsibilities, e.g. paying for a big park and ride scheme, which will leave possibly £1m-£2m for Sustrans compared to £5.4m this year and £7.5m in in 2010-11. To be fair I should also mention the new Future Transport Fund (FTF) but that seems unlikely to provide more than around £1m cycling investment in 2012-13.
For latest budget news and what you can do, see
http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/2011/12/budget-msps-support-spokes/
Oh, I forgot to mention...
Trunk road spending rising by ~£100m in the draft 2012-12 budget. Slightly puts the few measly £1m's of total cycle funding into perspective!!
I'm not "reliably informed" but I did hear of a meeting recently where someone from Cycling Scotland said they'd been told by senior officials or politicians (I don't know which) that they might be able to get more funds for CWSS as long they didn't make a fuss. Which sounded like we should be grateful for a few small crumbs that might fall off the table, and let the big boys spend the real money on proper roads.
More positively (if we actually dare ask the government to follow it's manifesto policy to "increase the proportion of transport spending on … active and sustainable travel”) apparently one of the stronger arguments is that spending on lots of local facilities supports more jobs than wasting the same amount on a few big schemes.
"apparently one of the stronger arguments is that spending on lots of local facilities supports more jobs"
Well clearly not...
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