(Index/Chapters below)
Cllr Scott Arthur City Council Transport Convener – the Future Streets policy, with particular reference to the place of cycling, and when/how action will follow
Laura Laker Cycling, transport and environment journalist – to critique the proposals. Laura researches and writes on cycling issues extensively, including in national/international media such as The Guardian and Bloomberg; and in specifically cycling publications such as Cycling Industry News and Road.CC
… followed by our always-anticipated one-hour panel QA, chaired by Ewen Maclean, organiser of Blackford Safe Routes – your chance to interrogate and challenge the speakers
Spokes website article: http://www.spokes.org.uk/2024/03/draft-future-streets-edinburgh-on-the-way/
00:00 Welcome and Introduction – Emma
05:50 Cllr Scott Arthur – Edinburgh City Transport Convener
28:58 Laura Laker – transport & environment journalist
45:39 Announcements – Emma
50:10 Q&A: Chair: Ewen Maclean
01:51:20 Thanks: Emma
Good okay well welcome to you all it’s great to have such a cool room uh on this spokes public meeting on edinburgh’s future streets policy and the place of cycling my name is Emma Wildwood and I’m a member of the resources working group oh there we go
Um I’m going to just remind us why we’re here and then introduce our speakers because they’re um who you’ve come to here um but before I do that I’d like to welcome um any counselors that we have in the room I believe Ross McKenzie who’s the independent for gorgi and Dal
Ry is here is that correct thank you thank you is there anybody else who um is a counselor on the city council well I know about you um well we do appreciate counselors um taking taking the time we and your interest in active travel so thank you for coming here this
Evening on the first of February the transport Committee of Edinburgh city council approved the future streets policy and as I’m sure most of you here are well aware it includes the active travel plan the circulation plan which decides which forms of Transport have priority on which streets and the city center
Transformation which frees the center from through traffic overall what’s being presented I think is very welcome um though there’s many questions and I’m sure we’ll hear them from you this evening and much of the detail is still to be developed however given the city council’s commitment to reach Net Zero
In six years time which includes a commitment to cut car mileage by 30% by the same year uh 2030 there seems to be considerable urgency to this policy so our speakers might consider the following questions as they address the meeting what time scale for the proposed changes given the commitment to carbon
Zero by 2030 when can we expect the removal of through traffic in the city center and will this happen in one step as the city of gent did so successfully or will it be phased what is the time frame for the protected cycle Lanes on Main routes so
That’s pretty much the main topic for tonight um however the recent transport committee also agreed to consult the public on the tram extension to Granton either on road or on the roseburn route with a path alongside and this is proving very controversial again I’m sure many of you
Are aware of that um so even though the consultation will not begin for some weeks um and there’s clear implications about whether the tram uses the path or is on road and there are major implications for cycling spokes has already published an article on our website laying out these issues in
Detail uh and we would encourage you to read that so we’re happy to take some questions on roseburn but we don’t want it to be the entirety of tonight’s Q a because there are lots of other things to discuss and there will be time to discuss that um and likewise um when we
Do come to the Q&A I would ask you um uh we’re going to kind of do it so that we take groups of questions so there may not be chance to answer everybody’s question and we’ll try and move to different topics as we go um I’m going
To let each of our speakers speak for not more than 15 to 20 minutes and when it comes to the Q&A may I remind you to keep your comments and questions short and to the point and please keep your communication cordial Yan mlan is going to chair the
Q&A and I’ll introduce him here because Yan has been the backbone of Blackford safe Roots campaign and also a number of bike buses and I and I believe there’s a number of you that have been involved in these bike buses and um it’s such a joy
For me on Friday mornings to see the we unicorns um as I cycle into town on my way to work but now I turn to our speakers um we’re very pleased that Dr Scott Arthur convenor of the transport Committee of Edinburgh city council and labor counselor for Collington Ox gangs
And fair mile head is with us and and he will take the floor first and then uh Laura Laker environmental journalist and cycling specialist who has kindly come up from London to speak on the Edinburgh City council’s plans and Laura was just telling me before the start of the
Meeting that she has a book out in May called Pavements and potholes I’ll show you a picture she’s going to show you a picture of it so she can do her own publicity but we’re we’re very grateful and I’m sorry I’ve got my back to you
But we’re very grateful um to both our speakers and particularly for Laura for coming up from London so without further Ado over to councelor Arthur thank you em am I microphone on no no are okay now well that’s it thank you so uh my name is scur I’m the
Transport convenor here in Edinburgh not a job ever wanted to do to be honest or or even dreamt of but here I am uh so always got this is the same title as last year transport transition because I think it’s not about change up to 2030
And Beyond it is a bit it is a bit of transition and I think it’s always important to remind people off that so the the what I call the the challenges we Face In The City the combined challenges are already outlined reducing car car Miles by 30% by 2030 that’s a
Agreed policy here in Edinburgh uh we’ve got to cut cut congestion edinb is one of the most congested cities uh in the UK uh and we’ve got to get our emissions down for Net Zero that 2030 Target the second thing getting getting Basics right while sh ambition we’ll hear about
Laura’s pothole book later I’m sure it’s more more than potholes in her book but when when I go to community meetings right across the city is to when to get the right to talk about some of the ambitious stuff we want to do uh we have
To show that we’re want to get the basics right as well and that involves you know filling potholes and and also my remat is getting bins collected as well on Street Clan us so if if we get that right it gives us the right to talk about other stuff so that’s the getting
The basics right and shown ambition City growth we’re going to build we set aside land for up to 37,000 houses in Edinburgh over the next few years more are going to get built in the surrounding local Authority we’re already a congested city so we have to start thinking about how we adapt to
That so that’s I mean my hometown is kot across from F so that’s a town the size of kot more or less getting built inside Edinburgh it’s quite quite a dawn perspect Laura if you’ve never been to Cod it’s a fantastic place you should go the uh the uh five-dimensional Party
Politics we’ve got five political parties in edra and the reality is to get anything across the line we need at least three of those parties to agree so there’s a lot of working together going on and anybody who tuned who’s tuned into the transport support Committee in the last Administration this one I’ll
See that and I think it’s partly because the personalities we have in the committee now that there’s a lot more working together even though there is differences change is painful we know when we deliver these big infrastructure projects uh it can be quite painful for communities communities and quite uh
Painful for businesses and I think more and more we have to be mindful of those impacts as we progress through some of the change we’re going to see over the next decade or so inequality Edinburgh is a really uh unequal City we’ve got some of the wealthiest people people in the UK
Wealthiest people in the world in Edinburgh uh but we’ve also got some of them that the poorest we have to be mindful of that and getting good access to transport for race people means they’ve got Access to Health Care education training and work so it’s really important and we’re also an une
Equal City in terms of your access to transport so when I go to uh Community meetings I’m always telling them we have one of the best public transport systems in in the UK but if if I was to say that in Rau or dumby dkes I would get chased
Out the room because it’s pretty awful there uh so there’s lots to be done uh and this this this slide here I threw this in last night really just to make the point about consensus uh so the pavement parking ban which I’m really proud of it could have
Been controversial and in the committee we could have spent a lot of time arguing about it but I think because of the way the committee works now we’ve managed to get uh a bit of consensus on that and in fact all 63 counselors in the council voted for it I think twice
And then the committee approved it as well U if we’ been much more if some of the council had been much more opportunistic they could have perhaps campaigned against it but they didn’t um so I think there’s two contrasting quotes not contrasting so we’ve got Margaret thater I’m not not the number
One member of her fan club H talking about how consensus isn’t necessarily a good thing but jeene CR at the top who I’m a big fan of he was part of the the polo program uh talking about how failure isn’t really an option and that’s some of the stresses we face in
The committee is sometimes we have to accept uh progress and it might not be perfect as opposed to failure so because failure isn’t really an option uh cycle use in Edinburgh this data I think I think this data is the latest data I could find on published
Papers in the council shows that cycling around 4% of trips or uh kilometers cycled or tra in Edinburgh what’s powerful of course there is public transport is already quite a strong element here uh in Edinburgh and I was speaking to uh bus companies from across the UK this afternoon and they’re really
Impressed to see the uptake of bus here which is fantastic bus andram so transport projects um this is to remind I put this slide here first just to remind people that we are hopefully going to see some progress in a bik high scheme um and we’ll get a report on that
Coming to committee next month uh powerful for us to to to go back to that place uh George Street is still kind of the the active Landmark project we want to progress and I talked about that in detail last year but just to recap that’s about creating a space which is
Uh better for people to spend time uh and hopefully spend money help people’s well-being but also help boost the economy and help P our tourism sector up market so hopefully people will stay longer in Ed when they come and visit and also spend a bit more more money as
Well and hopefully with that it come better jobs better pay better condition question of funding for it from the Scottish government but we submitted our Grant application last week for the costs we need to run that because there’s a bit of a myth that the lez is a money-making operation whereas in fact
It’s going to cost the council money to run it and we’re seeking agreement from the Scottish government and I think it’s there for them to fund those operating costs um CC well will launch CC well on the 20th of March hopefully have some from the Scottish government come along
To to cut the ribbon on it if that’s what we’re going to do and I’ve listed here some of the active or completed projects since we last met in this room H so there’s a there’s a lot happening just now either you know delivered quite Route 61 uh almost delivered CC well and
Just about to start uh West Edinburgh link uh so I want to high put red I want to highlight it Western blink the it’s not like a lot of other projects it’s not about connecting to the city center it’s actually as the name suggests it’s
Out in the west of the city it’s going to connect a area of real deprivation to in terms of active travel to really good employment and Retail and Leisure you know in terms of the GU and also into the the water relief as well so I think
That’s going to be quite a good project completely unacceptable I think these days I think having an urban car Urban du carriageway running through a residential development so hopefully we’ll see some improvement and the first 50 of the new trch of vehicles will arrive hopefully starting in April and
Now so the the headline for these will be that they’re they’re fully electric but I think the the real story I think will be the passenger experience inside them in terms of you know just the difference compared to what we have just now which is already pretty good this is
Going to be way better in terms of people’s experience but we let all the ustes talk about the the detail of that the so this is uh so the lady on the on your s of left here is uh s Sarah boy who runs the L and buses Forest is MD
The chap on your right is Jim McFarlin who’s the chair of the board and next standing next to me c day uh so Jim uh and Sara do fantastic work running the bus company for us obviously SAR runs it day today uh 177% uptaken passengers last year uh carried 110 pass million
Passengers in a single year uh absolutely incredible what they do for us and we really have I guess most people here live in edbro we take it for granted you know the 3 in 10 bus Journeys in Scotland happen on Lo and buses uh2 you can go anywhere you like
Cheapest bus fair in Scotland I think uh and the the bus the drivers themselves best pay best conditions in Scotland uh 99.6% of those Journeys are completed on routes that come with no subsidy so it’s much different from bus services elsewhere in the UK and and the Envy of
Quite a lot of places uh and we take it for granted our our Peril uh tra with uh Hannah Ross on the left on your left here uh she delivered that Tri line for us always say she shed Blood Sweat and Tears I’m never sure about the blood B but she certainly
Burned quite a lot of energy uh only for me to come along at the end and take all the credit for her what I sh for what I sh for Hara but you can see the tram driver in the in the cab there kind of
Photo buming me so this was great for us because that line down to New Haven was supposed to be completed back in 2011 and we all know the story there but what they showed with that the restart of that project delivering it on budget and taking passengers on board ahead of
Schedule showed that we’re serious about this and it shows we can deliver it and it showed people both in edra we can do this and also people outside Eden and that’s really really important so that that line was completed a small part relatively small part of the network have now was
Completed by Hannah and her team uh but that’s enabled us to double the patronage on a good month it’s cover car in uh over a million people uh absolutely incredible loading buses car in 2 million per week of course but this is still good given that it’s just uh
One line so it’s really important for the city and it’s remember it’s not just about moving people it’s about stimulating the economy and making it more attractive for people to invest here and we see if you go down to leth along the line take the tram line look
At the new development along the line that some of that might have happened without the tra but I don’t think it would have happened as quick and that that’s really important connects people in Le the the highest density part of Edinburgh one of the most deprived parts of Edinburgh to
Leisure and job opportunities in the city center out with the GU and at the airport self you know there’s 5,000 people work in the airport in every shift so it’s a big employment opportunity for people uh so Grant biocar and bond is is the next part so I’ll talk you through
Some of the what’s planned for this so the reason I use this slide is it really emphas emphasizes that point about how the tra helped bring development to Le help bring homes and help bring jobs uh really really important so the line that will’ll hopefully build uh and open by
2035 it’ll connect Granton we’re going to build 3 and a half thousand Net Zero homes in Granton over the next few years it’ll take those people past uh or connect to Edinburgh College the I have to get the order right here the Western General the retail park into the city center um past
The university past ceron to out to the Royal firm then out to Southeast Edinburgh with the massive Redevelopment and development opportunities so again it’s about jobs and it’s about investment and it’s about homes so it’s really really important and this this helps make this happen so Scottish government recognizes how important this
Is and and that’s why hopefully fingers crossed and all that and tou we recognize it as a piece of national infrastructure not just the the counselor’s train set in enra which the existing L sometimes ex course get called and the case for this line is really really strong and so strong I
Think that I really do think this is where we should have started and and perhaps we’d have a better story with tra just now in edinb because of the the the capacity and also the opportunity so the one of the decision points we have to make is whether or not
We take the tra down roseburn or across the dean Bridge uh then we go through the city center I’ll come back to roseburn I think few the slides then out and we’ll complete it in these phases and we’ll actually have another tram Depot at the other end end of the line in southeast
Edinburgh so the the the roseburn demon bridge is as Emma touched on earlier it is something that people’s interested in and they’re actually two quite different routes so it’s not like we’re comparing uh two even Alternatives and flipping a coin because they’re so equal they’re actually quite different uh but what the
Committee has agreed is we’ll we’ll consult on both these alternatives on an equal basis uh and we’ll we’ll put them through this lens and now these are just things that I thought up when I put the S together last night uh so don’t treat this as an exhaustive list but we’ll
Look at Cost environmental impact carbon requirement for construction impact on businesses and residents construction time Journey times and journey reliability that’s really important uh patronage and connectivity uh because only the the roseburn routs give you direct access to the Western General from West Edinburgh and that’s quite important uh operating
Costs and then the walking in cycling options and I think as hinted in an introduction um no matter what route we go for there there will be active travel investment and probably people probably know that I did ask in committee that when the report comes back we look at
The possibility if it goes down roseburn of having a walking and cycle route alongside the tra R down that roseburn path which was what was originally suggested back in 2007 when the council got the permission to run a tra line down the roseb path uh the other decision point is about
Whether we go along priny Street or around The Meadows appears to be much less controversial than than I thought it would be and it seems quite likely that the outcome there might be that we go across North Bridge but we’ll see how the consultation uh how the consultation
Response comes through on that as well so the opportunity once we get outside the city center is that obviously we’re speaking to network rail about reopening the southern sub and if we get this right we get good connectivity between that new tra line and the southern sub okay 2035 of course
It’s not going to happen tomorrow but the opportunity is there to get that right right can I play this video don’t know before you play the video we’ll go into the future Street stuff now but I just want to play this video first because last year when I was here I
Talked about the importance of working with um disability campaigners and disability charities in in order to get the balance right in terms of how we take these projects forward are you able to play this video with sound I probably should have checked before we uh is it
Me do I do it do I do it we should have TR us beforehand but no it’s not going to as a shame turn up the volume on your laptop we might he you think so okay well do is I’ll give you a link to
The video later and it can be shared but we’re making the point that basically we’ve set up an accessibility commission uh these this group is going to be independent of the council and they’re going to hold us to account on some of the decisions we make around accessibility really important because
If you’re been in Edinburgh over the last few years you know that Edinburgh didn’t always get this right and we’ve left some people feeling isolated so future streets so uh you know Edinburgh is quite a dense City in places and I don’t mean the people the uh so we have to think carefully
About how the transport network is going to work in the future if we’re going to accommodate all that growth if we’re going to deal with congestion uh we can’t just do it incrementally we have to have some sort of blueprint for the future I think edinburgh’s perhaps suffered in the past from perhaps
Councilors closing random roads because it felt right at the time but what this is about is having a blueprint that can a for and deliver against so what the council team did was they layered the the different objectives so Place Urban realm uh walking cycling public transport and general traffic uh Al
Together and try to reach an optimized network uh and so this is the optimized Network I know there’s far too much detail here uh but what this does it sets out how we want the city to evolve in terms of transport and where the priorities should be and a lot of this
Is been influenced by what we’ve seen on Le walk and La of was there today and I don’t that she’ll comment on it when she when she talks uh is uh and hopefully she won’t be too harsh on us thank you the uh in this we recognize that in most
Streets in Edinburgh we can’t do everything like we try to do in Le walk and we can only really do two things really well so one of those things will be walking and then the question comes in what is the second thing so in a lot
Of our arterial routes uh we’re going to try to find public transport and where possible also cycling and then you see 400 m of that cycling Network their home so safe access to it and also in terms of active travel we’re also looking at pedestrian connectivity
To bus routs as well and it’s absolute core that was called the Edinburgh City Center transformation but what this consultation has done for us is it showed us that previous slide it showed us that there’s appetite for for this to be bigger and also what I inherited what
My committee inherited was a 10-year plan for doing this and I think the consultation showed us that people want to move a bit faster as well so this is the plan so basically it’s about reducing so it’s not about reducing access to the city center so people who have blue badges will still
Be able to access businesses will still there’ll still be just as many blue badge spaces if not more Etc so it’s not about reducing that businesses will still get deliveries residents will still be able to access their homes it’s just about reducing the through traffic that’s the focus of it
Uh and so this is here and so the challenge we have of course is the rate at which we do that given that people want us to move faster I think so that 10-year plan is so what we’re going to do is we’ll start probably this summer
And it might be we discussed this this morning it might be late summer we’ll close the the cow gate to through traffic and if that works out okay it will never reopen to through traffic and then next year as we come into summer hopefully that the target is Easter
We’ll then start to close the rest the city center down to through traffic now the pace of this is really important and I think that was one of the questions that Emma asked so we put in place the network is it it’s not going to be a 10-year plan anymore it’s possible it
Could be a 10-hour plan maybe be 10 days 10 weeks or 10 months but that it’s that kind of scale so hopefully we’ll start Easter next year Easter 2025 uh and it almost certainly hopefully will be completed within a year okay so it’s a different different
Scale but what that means is 2 minutes left okay what that means is it what’s not going to come with the George Street type public realm I showed you that will have to follow on later okay but we have to do the best we can at the pace to get
This right uh bus prior measures we we have a plan to increase uh bus travel times by 25% uh most people will know about this uh is really important just bu things by 25% and also improve reliability uh and we’ve worked up some of the street crosssections for this this is the
A8 uh which will probably be the Pathfinder for this project uh but uh people who been watching the budget in the state us from transform Scotland so thank you Nigel uh it shows that the budget this week’s not been that kind to people who are interested in sustainable
Transport so the The Walking wheeling and cycling budget is 100 million short of what was expected so for Edinburgh that means1 million cuz that that’s kind of proat our share of that uh the spending on that bus priority stuff has been paused and me reassured it is a
One-year pause uh spending to rail has been cut I was at a meeting last week with rail operators There’s real concern about the subsidy for moving Freight off the road onto tracks is being cut real concern uh but thank well thankfully for some they found 210 million for roads so
There you go so and if people Keen observers will have noticed that have turned quite cynically turned the transport hierarchy upside down so people might want to draw their own conclusions I don’t know but coming back to that 2030 thing Emma sorry coming back to that 2030 thing if forsees a
Country by reducing car use Nationwide by 20% 30% in Edinburgh pausing that bus partnership fund money just pauses that Target by a year cuz it’s unachievable without that bus partnership fund money it’s on transformed Scotland’s website so uh conclusions you’ll be glad to hear much get quite stressed uh and
The so here they are the first one is really important because I think more and more when it comes to making these changes we’re confronted by people who are concerned and also increasing that we consed we confronted with conspiracy theories I mean last year there was somebody standing almost around there
That was cheap cheered for in this room by a different mean not not spokes for saying that didn’t didn’t believe in climate change and you know and and what’s happening know is is is as do a bit I don’t blame individuals for this because as the transition gets nearer
And nearer and governments are making more and more changes people are getting left behind because it’s not a just transition and that can be fertile ground for people who are wanting to spread conspiracy theories and that’s something we have to get right uh and that’s why right at the start I put that
Poverty and inequality line we have to work with employers and accessibility campaigners we’re doing that we have to work cross boundary and that’s particularly true on the bus partnership stuff and we have to contribute to ours National progress because we if we align our policies with the Scottish
Government and to a lesser extent the UK government it means we get access to for funding for what we want to do and I think I might can say even though people might have guessed that my part is not part of the Scottish government I think I’m really Keen to maximize that
Alignment between Edinburgh and the Scottish government and I think it’s really thank you for your talk and thanks folks for having me and thank you to Michaela for hosting me um it’s great to be back in one of my favorite cities I’m quite Windswept I’ve had a day of
Cycling around Edinburgh and looking at the new cycle lanes and um yeah it’s been quite an exhausting day but but kind of exciting and fun and um and it’s great to see what’s changed since uh I was last here so I’m Laura Laker I’m a journalist you’re very fortunate here to
Or fortunate to be able to see it um so yeah so I uh do feel like a bit of an impostor being asked to a city that I don’t live in to critique the transport plans and when Dave emailed me to ask me here I was like great that’ll be fun and
Then I realized what was being asked of me to critique these transport plans and I thought okay that’ll be great I’ll be fine I’ll do it in a week um so uh a week ago I opened up this uh immense document basically with about a gazillion words and I think if you laid
Them end to end they probably stretch along the canal here all the way to the fourth and Clyde in Glasgow and I was thinking oh my God what do I do but I think basically I think it kind of boils down to what’s happening on the ground
And that you know the plans are very exciting um so 10 nine years ago I visited Edinburgh I’ve got form turning up here writing about what’s happening or talking about what’s happening in Edinburgh and at the time there was um a budget for py which was quite novel in
The UK a long-term budget and I wanted to see what it was being spent on there was a tram happening um but the cycling routes around it seemed to be very much a kind of afterthought and I know that people were falling off bikes and getting injured and um there was a cycle
Lane on George Street uh a trial cycle Lane do you remember that almost a decade ago um and so I cycled along that but that seemed to be kind of off of the main route and it was was up a hill and down a hill again and I was thinking well this
Doesn’t seem like it’s very joined up thinking um so yeah um so anyway there were bits and Bobs but not very much on the ground in 2022 I did a Whistle Stop tour literally a Whistle Stop tour I had a couple of hours in the city I got given a map uh
And I and I said you know show me what has happened since 2015 um and there were a couple of Wands in the road but it seemed to be that this was the change this is a small piece of cycle Lane and um it kind of went to pedestrian Crossing and then out
The other side and um yeah that seemed to be it so I thought well not much has happened and I was starting to lose from different cities uh and there have been wonderful plans from towns and cities around the UK and around the world but
Um all they add up to is a paper Network and um Chris Borman says in my book did I say I’ve got a book um he said this as well you know it’s very easy to make plans what’s hard is to actually Implement something on the
Ground so today as I said I’ve been given a Whistle Stop tour oh yeah I was already aware of one thing that had happened in Edinburgh and I’d forgotten when I arrived someone said lease walk and I was like oh my God that’s in Edinburgh I’d forgotten the comedy bike
Lane so um yeah so this happened um but today I was very glad sorry that laugh was really loud um I was very glad to see today that a lot more is happened and leas walk I think seemed to be a kind of growing pain stage in edinburgh’s transport cycling
Revolution so yeah anyway so today I’ve been everywhere I’ve spent hours and hours riding around beautiful weather thank you for arranging the great weather for me uh I’ve been to CCW which is City Center West East link I think uh which is wonderful uh I saw this one
Which is great so that one really good um I saw I climbed a mud Mountain which is the Rose burnt Union Canal link uh it’s just a mud Mountain at the moment it’s going to be a garden uh with a cycle route through it it’s going to be
Fantastic so that was pretty exciting and then I saw the low traffic neighborhood in leth uh and the nice quiet streets around there and that was beautiful uh sadly there’s no pictures of me and hi Vis but it did happen um so yeah I was also aware
Before some great city-wide plans uh or implementation of plans the 20 mph Zone um which I understand is one of the first and most extensive in the UK and the pavement parking ban which is a massive thing I know that in England we had a consultation I don’t even know how
Many years ago now and nothing has happened on the ground so fantastic to Edinburgh for doing that and also School streets I think Edinburgh was one of the first cities in the UK to do school streets when I was reading about it that was really quite Forward Thinking so so to the
Plans um I open the files I looked through the files I spent a lot of time reading a lot of very dense writing but um I think and I and I know that Dave uh is amazing at analyzing all of these documents and and your website is very dense as
Well and it’s got lots of great information um so I think what I can bring is maybe perspective in terms of seeing different cities around the country and around the world and what they have done for cycling and kind of comparing it so um the circulation
Plan um it does seem to be a very kind of systematic look at the uh the way that transport works in the city and I know that in the past projects have happened and I think lease walk was a product of a tram being built and then some pavement needing to
Be put in and some buses and some loading and then at the end there’s a cycle Lane which kind of does this whereas I think having a Citywide plan is really important in terms of understanding what goes where and how it all links up um so yeah understandably a big focus
On public transport um I spoke to councelor Arthur yesterday and we were talking about how many bus Journeys there are in the city and I think if you’re talking that and already a lot of people are walking in Edinburgh and so that’s going to be a huge part of it
Already and although we’re here about cycling there’s a bigger picture um piece so in terms of cycling there are three main parts there’s the C calculation plan which is pictured here there’s the active travel action plan and that is basically to deliver um a joined up network of routs which go
Within 400 meters of all homes in Edinburgh and there’ll be Main Road routes and low traffic neighborhoods so in London where I live I’m in on the edge of a low traffic neighborhood I go across the low traffic neighborhood to Stratford and then I get on this long
Cycle Lane I can travel 12 miles across the city all on protected cycle routes or low traffic neighborhoods so this kind of network does work and thinking about cycling as a network and connecting homes to the main road routes is really important um and then there’s the low traffic neighborhoods and this
Kind of concept of 20- minute neighborhoods that everything is within easy reach which is how towns and cities used to be and I think the introduction of cars and the prevalence of cars has kind of changed how we move and how we how we yeah how we live in our cities
And I think getting back to that is a really valuable um I was really impressed with the cycling plans because it seems to be a very comprehensive look at what’s happening what needs to happen for cycling so it’s everything from uh cycle Lanes to ebike charging to Cargo bikes
For businesses um safe frots to schools Junctions maintenance which is really important and I know from writing my book one of the reasons we have such shoddy bike Lanes in the UK is that they’re built and then nothing’s done to maintain them so they become they kind
Of disappear the the bike Lanes Avalon sort of thing so yeah um does seem to be very much about a holistic approach and behavior change which is really important I think it’s sometimes called a sort of soft measure but actually cycling seems intimidating for a lot of
People and I know there’s some great groups in Scotland working on getting people into cycling and having that social support it’s really really important um I think it’s okay for confident people to dig out on a bike but a lot of people I think you’re normal in this country if you feel that
Cycling is Scary or intimidating and you don’t want to share with traffic that’s kind of a normal approach or a normal perspective so yeah so there we go so I think um this is the big map that we’ve already seen um I you might be familiar with gent um the
Circulation plan there so I guess it’s similar to that and terms of uh some stats uh there’s been a huge impact on air pollution across 5 million Euros which in terms of Transport is pretty cheap I know like in Edinburgh there was a very long leadup time two and a half
Years and then over a weekend they managed to uh implement the the U circulation plans so you can’t drive through the city um cycling increased massively but note that they already had quite High cycling levels uh much higher than Edinburgh what what is it 4% here yeah
Um so yeah car shares uh a great way of sort of allow you know you can still use your car but you don’t need it all the time that increased uh 20% drop in City Center traffic I think 40% of car Journeys weren’t ending up in the city
They were just kind of going through um so that’s just to say that as actually a very similar Siz City this was a great success although obviously in a different culture and different cycling levels um I thought this was an amazing statistic 70.7 million trips of less
Than three miles are done in Edinburgh every year which is kind of astonishing yep yeah it’s pretty astonishing um we know that residents support cycling you’ve done some research on this and I’ve got a couple of graphs at the end and S challs is done and quite a few people already
Cycling at least once a week 26% that’s the quarter of people it’s quite big um so I think this is going to be a challenge this is always a challenge anywhere you go there’s balancing needs and demands and and a narrow Wiggly squiggly City like Edinburgh that’s
Going to be a challenge um I know in Glasgow they’re doing great things with cycle Roots but there’s lower in the offices um yep so yeah oh yeah Lea walk was a one-time thing um absurdist may be sad but I think the rest of us probably glad um and in terms of tracking
Tackling through traffic where there’s local support it’s I think it’s great it’s positive to hear and I know that councils around the country and in London have really struggled with this the fact that um stuff happened very quickly during the pandemic and people felt like things were being done to them
And there was no control and obviously the trauma of the lockdowns and so having that conversation with local people is really important and we may know in this room many of us that um the benefits of being able to walk and cycle in our neighborhoods and having less
Traffic but I think this is a conversation that we need to have uh there was a local counselor who did a talk in my area recently and she talked about just approaching it with kindness and I think it’s kind of maybe it sounds a bit cheesy but I think it’s is
Important to be able to have those conversations and to bring people along because like councilor arur was saying a just transition needs to feel like people need to feel like they’re being listened to and um yeah it’s easy to sort of shout at people and say we know
We’re right but um yeah I think that conv ation is important but then also we know there’s support for these measures and I guess that means listening but not buckling Under Pressure so um this is the picture of George Street so a decade on it’s going
To happen apparently um and many of the plans that we’ve seen uh that many of the cycle routs I’ve seen today cycling around have been in train for a decade which is astonishing really and if you’re going to if this is a kind of 2030 plan then everything things going
To need to ramp up very quickly and a number of council officers I met today feel very confident that now things are in train and the processes are there and this complicated but very detailed plan is here um in a way they were saying it simplifies things because everything’s
Set out um you know how everything should work there’s going to be tweaks But ultimately this is this is what’s is needed so who knows I guess the proof will be in the pudding like we said 2015 to 2022 couple of funny little bike Lanes uh 2022 to 2024 I mean I’ve been
Cycling from 9:30 to 3:30 today uh cycling around the city and talking about bike Lanes there quite a lot going on actually so a lot has happened but there’s a really long way to go um it did feel to me like the kind of early days of um London when the
Transformation was happening there cuz I was living in the city there at felt like um cardiff’s done a lot it kind of felt like that there’s like a momentum happening possibly but it has to carry on so um yeah that’s kind of a joke but who knows bit Hillier but less wind so
Oh no there’s more wind it’s Hills and wind don’t know what that means um so yeah competition from Dublin as well Dublin’s doing a circulation plan so you’ve got competition from over there as well so yeah if that’s a motivator for you um yeah so Edinburgh is not alone there are
Cities around the world doing this we’ve got Paris which has had Old Tube trips on bikes it’s amazing um it’s Glasgow competition yeah it’s a good bike they’ve got some good bike lanes over there I’m just saying um so there’s reasons to be hopeful um consensus building is
Positive but also so it’s going to take you know to deliver this stuff takes political will ultimately and it will come down to people being able to stand up for this and to realize that oh you can’t actually see that sorry um this is from San’s um cycling and walking index
And it basically say it’s quite interesting because when you poll people about stuff you know when there’s a consultation about um cycle lanes and low traffic neighborhoods quite often you get people who are very motivated either way you get people who feel very strongly for or very strongly against
And it’s kind of exuse the data but when you go out to the general population and you ask people who might not respond to a consultation that’s when you get the um the bigger support so that’s basically what that that shows consultations don’t always show the
Whole picture um we’ve got a decade of leg work stuff’s Happening Now reasons to be hopeful um there seems to be motivation there’s definitely plans that you’ve committed to um you’re not doing this alone there’s other cities around the world Forward Thinking cities are doing this
All over the globe political will um and oh that’s the bike life stuff that’s the first one was actually your research wasn’t it yeah so yeah um yeah overarching plan seems very positive and yeah thinking about the city as a whole not just bits and Bobs fighting each
Other so it’s got to be a good thing um yeah and if the process can be accelerated um then things are looking very bright and I I kind of came to Edinburgh thinking well she of Edinburgh just to show that you know streets Chang quite atically over time uh yeah
So there you go that’s it thank you very much Laura for that presentation and for for being kind of cautiously optimistic about Edinburgh it’s nice to have that contrast um I’m going to ask you and mlan to come up with a chair uh and and sort him you can take that one
If you like and but this is something of a commercial break because before we go to the Q&A and whilst you’re thinking of your questions I’m just going to um uh make a few announcements um and I better found out what they are so uh one of two things
That you might be interested in or need reminding of living streets is holding an online meeting uh specifically on the city center proposals at midday tomorrow tomorrow the 1st of March um so if could go to living streets edinburgh.jpg souths side now I think at least one of the organizers is here
Kirsty just just if you want more information about that event Cy’s there uh go and seek her out um then uh on the 20th of March we’ve just heard about the opening of CC well um more information from uh Scott Arthur if you’d like um on
The 30th of March um is the uh monthly critical Mass cycle ride is there anyone uh who wants to wave a hand and be responsible for that if you want to hear more Sam wave a hand uh so if you would be interested in joining the critical mass cycle ride on
Saturday from 2 p.m in The Meadows Middle Meadow Walk um do ask Sam more about that and then I would like to very much thank our volunteers um this evening um we had Michaela Drew and Claire on Refreshments so thank you to you and and David on the membership uh stall
And if you’re not already a member of spokes please consider joining and David McLoud is at the back there if you are a member and would like to be more actively involved do consider joining one of our working groups or rejoining if you were once a member and
Would like to get involved again um we have the Resources Group the Planning Group uh maps group uh portabella group and South Edinburgh group and I’m going to ask people to stand up or show hands if you’re a member of that group and then you can actually see somebody you
Can identify and go and talk to so um res resources that’s me other people who are in resources Rosie at the back Dave here if you want to know what we do um uh please ask Dave and Rosie I just just follow orders really uh Planning Group who’s okay great people standing
Up waving hands over there so please go and seek them out is there anybody here from Maps Andy at the front here um if you’re interested in that uh PTO Bello okay again Kirsty if you’re interested in joining the group um particularly interested in cycling bortell South Edinburgh is there anyone
From South Edinburgh okay a couple of people waving their hands there so please do uh chat at the end we have to be out of the building at um 10: but go and see those people ask them for more information ask them um what’s required
And thank you to all of you who are on the lists for stalls and for occasional uh volunteering um it’s really very very much appreciated right now is the time that you’ve all been waiting for and I’m going to hand over to Yan who has a mic
Uh and a chair uh and who is going to lead us in the Q&A thanks very much you thanks very much Emma impressive work by Martin there at the last minute fixing the technical issues um I’d like to say massive thanks to both councelor Arthur and for brilliant talks very hopeful talks and
Uh yeah just you don’t want to hear from me so uh let’s hear first question this is really coun I live quite close to here and I I tend to walk and that’s number one in your hierarchy of getting around the city if you walk you’ve got to cross
The road you’ve got lots of green men some of them in Bren Street for example press a button 4 seconds later Green Man appears in um Melville Drive similar thing second time around it’s 29 seconds which is fair enough you go out the Cameo press
The Green Man there and it’s 1 minute 30 seconds you begin to lose the will to live is there a council policy on that or is it just being like that I been that way can you hear yeah so that that was one of the questions asked in the
Mobility plan last year was about priorities at Junctions I think I think in the past a lot of our infrastructure has been designed to maximize the movement of vehicles rather than maximizing the movement of people and so this is a legacy we’re working through and and I’m pretty sure the consultation
Showed last year that people want greater p p and priority at Junctions and in fact the The Pedestrian cross and hopefully the one I always get the name of the street mixed up the one that’s next to the bike C what’s the name of that street is that still white Lo there
Yeah so the our hope is there that that green man will be stuck on green until a vehicle comes along and then it would go then it would only go to a red man when a vehicle comes along so changing the priority completely on roads like that
And yeah so so yeah is something we are taking seriously making it easier for people to get around and you know and also a lot of walking trips like space it about accessing public transport so we make it easier for people to get to their bus stop they’re more like to use
The bus in there to use their car so all good so thank you for raising actually well done for timing all these green men um I guess I’d actually like to ask Laura response to that as well in terms terms of has she seen similar movement towards prioritization of pedestrians
Over cars in other cities you talked about looking at other cities yeah yeah um I know it’s something that um London has done and um it’s really important because people we you know we’re an aging population it’s hard for people to you know to stand and wait and also in
Terms of um having enough green time to cross the road and that’s been a big movement in some cities to extend that time I think in like Council Arthur said in the past it’s all been about through through movement of traffic and there are priority roads and I think sometimes
Councils just don’t look at this kind of stuff it just stays the way it’s always been and sometimes it’s been tweaked I’m not saying it in Edinburgh but um in other cities I know that it’s been extend the wait time for pesan has been extended so you get more through traffic
But if you’re going to start switching the priorities Around It ultimately if it’s raining or freezing cold the person in standing in the rain on the cold is the one paying the price so not the one in the warm car it almost almost also makes people more likely to take the
Risk and cross without the Green Man and that’s when have acent yeah thanks we’ve got a room question at the back on the left um yeah it’s another question for Scott Arthur um given that we’ve just think that the link what you called the mud hill from the canal to roseburn
Every publication that I read Justified the building of that on the grounds that it was going to link to the roseb path um I think it’s really important when an incoming Council has you know you’ve got to join things up and see one thing through from the end to the beginning as
It were like personally I was against the trams but ripping them up and starting again is a dumb idea but so is ripping up The Path and you know especially when you just just spent 15 million connecting it to the canal um is that actually going to be you know are
We going to stop doing unjoined up City Planning so so maybe maybe it wasn’t clear earlier so the work we’re doing just now on the the two options for the tra so roseburn or across Bridge there will be for well for the if it goes down roseburn we are looking at putting good
Quality walking and cycling alongside the tram on that route so it will be connected uh but hopefully there’ll be other connections to that uh piece of infrastructure as well going forward and that piece of infrastructure is really really good example of where the last administration were willing to take that
Decision around removing I think literally hundreds of trees uh in order to do the right thing in terms of our climate obligations in the longer term um yeah we’re not going to have I did was told before have too many questions about roseburn Perth but please next question okay bear with me
On this just cycle Hay Market to anley park in 15 minutes with two kids on the bike trailer gymnastics and swimming without the path I’d be in my car taking longer the kids missing out in the whole experience of getting outdoors and being nature today we talked about the smell
Of garlic on the way back we’ll pick some Samantha cyclist a beautiful and safe space to cycle giving me access to the sea without fear or anxiety ingberg cyclist I use the roseburn path for walking jogging and cycling this has been the best space in Edinburgh for me
To have a routine for me my physical and mental health Dar cyclist these are just a few of the voices in the loud chorus of support for saving the roseburn path as an active travel Corridor Urban Green Space and cycling route firstly to Spokes why doesn’t spokes the campaign
For cycling in Edinburgh want to join them and secondly to to counselor Scott Arthur how do we make sure these cyclists are heard I just i’ just like to say this this meeting was specifically about future streets and I was asked we’ we’ve got an expert here to talk about future
Streets and the future planning I can see that there’s a lot of emotion about this question I’ll I’ll let councelor Arthur ask answer this question because it’s an important question to answer and I thank for the question spokes has actually produced the response to this and I know no doubt in future meetings
There’ll be more detailed responses to this it’s a quite emotive question I understand that um but I’ll let SC answer this first of all so so I think sorry one again so maybe I’m not being clear again so what the council’s looking at is if we go along roseburn
Path just now they’re looking at providing walking and cycling along a tram route if it goes along the roseburn path and as part of the consultation we’ll provide crosssections which shows that quite well hopefully quite a lot of the Green Space will be retained I mean
And that’s a fact and you know and I welcome you sharing those testimonies but the reality is that we we have a moral obligation to you know get transport and nro and a more sustainable fuang about getting the whole city towards net zero and that’s that’s a an
Obligation that we have to take seriously and there’s no there’s no adjustment we can make to accomodate the impact of climate change that doesn’t come with compromise so you you read testimonies today from people in ed we could read testimonies from people in a developing world who are faced with loss
Of life loss of livelihood and you know loss of Lo loss of ecology on a horrendous scale that the changes we make here are about mitigating those impacts right across the world for the most vulnerable communities so so we have to get this right it’s a important
Decision for a c like Kenra we have to show leadership and respond to the climate emergency and investing in public transport and active transport is absolutely part of that if you look take a look at the planning committee who you know take a look at the planning committee every week they’re making
Decisions around new developments about building homes in a sustainable way in West Edinburgh 23,48119 the world act remember was it think globally act locally that’s what we have to remember but this open consultation where both alternators were presented in an equal way I outlined that in my slides earlier apologies if I
Wasn’t clear thanks I’d like the following questions not to be about the roseb Perth but more about more generally the future streets yes question the front so one future streets um the first thing that will happen is an experimental closure of the cowgate just down here uh where a couple of us have
Got um uh music venues the cowgate is edinburgh’s music Street and you said earlier that businesses will get the deliveries what we as a business get deliveries is deliveries of performers and their equipment um it can’t possibly be something that works similar to the Royal mile where Works to certain times
Etc so what thought have you given to that and why is there be no consultation with the businesses that will be affected so the so we have consulted on the plan as a whole but not not specifically for your street so we did consult you you’ve
Seen the map up there we asked people where the where the what less traffic so you seen the map is shared so the current phase we’re going through is about that engagement with businesses and residents and also suppliers to those business to make sure we get it right and remember what we’re talking
About is no through traffic it’s not a Prohibition on traffic so business you’ll still get access people still can deliver to your business bus me another business was in touch about this this week actually I forget I wouldn’t couldn’t share the name anyway had a discussion and he was reassured by what
We’re doing but there’s no plan yet maybe you shouldn’t put in those terms uh the plan is still evolving and there will be engagement with businesses and residents right along the cowgate to make sure we get this right because as I said earlier about you know change is
Painful this is about make this is about improvements to the city making the city center a better place to visit be spend money and and also make money if if you’re running a business in the city center so it’s important to get this right we don’t want to destroy the city
Center in the process and as I said the the the impact on public transport is what’s limiting the rate of progress we want to see and that’s about making sure the city center continues to thrive in all sorts of ways so I’m on your side absolutely and get get in touch after
There’s a consultation I guess it should be about speak to business about how it’s done that’s going to happen so that’s that’s operational plan that will happen email me after the meeting and I’ll put you in touch with the person that’s leading on that I’d like to she’s
Probably watching on YouTube right now actually but I’d like to put that question also to Laura because she’s got an experience from other cities in the world that will no doubt have solved this problem but I’d also like to point out there are some brilliant people here
Who from the cargo bike Collective carik movement who who do indeed use this sort of delivery for the shorter deliveries in the city I’m just pointing that out as something that’s possible in for the smaller things but I’ll ask Laura to respond about this sort of thing in
Terms yeah yeah I think where where um Street use changes have been successful is where businesses have been consulted and understand um what’s happening and it works and it works for them but it it sounds like something that can be resolved I mean like you said it’s not
Going to be a know through I mean if it’s not going to be a no through route then um hopefully it can be resolved and I know in my area when we had a low traffic neighborhood the council were very good at being quite agile and
Changing uh stuff so so a planter was in some a place where it was difficult for someone to get in and out and they would move it and and I think um it earned trust from the community and it also helped to finesse the scheme and I think
The cities and the councils that have been most successful have been the ones that have been able to be agile and respond to genuine concerns and um business use needs so so get in touch and W it work that very useful and pertinent question um we’ll just go over there
Question now I think next please hello uh my my question might sound a bit like it’s about semantics but I think it’s a bit more than that uh it was mentioned before in terms of uh how the council is trying to fit uh ideally two maybe three things onto
Streets and you discussed walking you discussed uh cycling you discussed buses as sort of the old priority um one thing wasn’t mentioned but I think it’s sort of become a bit of an assumption and and it’s and it’s cause and I think the fact that was wasn’t brought up as one of the
Things that we should at least include in that in order to then have a serious discussion about where they belong and where they maybe don’t belong I think that’s an important Point uh if it was just a slip up and maybe it will be brought up later that’s that’s fine but
Um I did notice that and I was curious as to what uh we wanted to discuss uh this would not be a universal approach of course but this is just incorporating our understanding of if we’re discussing two or three things fitting on a street and we’re saying cycling and walking but
We we’re just throwing in cars as an assumption that they will fit and not discussing whether or not they should fit or whether or not they should even be included in the first place I think that’s worth having as a discussion I’d also direct this towards Laura and uh in
Other cities where you’ve seen um councils try to address uh priorities and the transit pyramid um where they bring it up I think I’ve worded this a bit badly but hopefully you tried to get my point and slightly attachment to that question but I noticed when talking
About the gain plan and what your officers uh proposed as the possible consequences you mentioned an increase in in bus Journey times 40% I remember correctly I was wondering if there was any cause Associated to that and if it was possible to get more details on that
Because I was quite curious as to what that implication was okay I guess I’ll ask councilor AR that question first but the question was in his slides which I think were very useful and dense slides you want slightly more EXP licit understanding of what where cars might
Exist and where not exist in the plans so so the so this is this is difficult you know so the as we heard from the chaps of the front here around the business is that you know you know if we follow the the cars the war on cars narrative which
A lot of people are engaging in now and and and I don’t think that’s what we’re doing here is it’s the easiest thing in the world to to completely block off the city center to cars but then the question question the the real damage would then come is the movement of goods
And services particularly into those City Center locations both for residents and and for businesses and that’s what we have to get right so that’s why it’s no through roads rather than you know a complete uh prohibition on cars and that’s covered in the map here through what we called uh General traffic so
That’s in the it’s not helpful it’s in Gray so the three columns and the key there it’s it’s the top one there so so yeah so that’s absolutely part of that and acknowledge that there’ll still need to be some cars moving around the city we talk about I quite often talk about
Non-essential car use is what we’re trying to non-essential through traffic to try to remove but that accepts that there will be people who still need to use their car and the good news is if you are somebody who needs to use your car you might be a blue barge holder
Fewer cars on the road should hopefully mean it’s easier for you to move around now the challenge is is as we move cars off of these cut through routes in the city center that through traffic it means more of that traffic it’s going to end up on the routes where we still want
To enable cars to move and that’s where the impact in public transport comes because there’s also public transport on those routs and as I said as it stands just now if we were to bring in the B overnight tonight I’ve got other plans tonight I’m afraid the uh there would be
A 40% increase in bus Journey times and there would also be an increase in general traffic as well so what the team is working on just now between now and hopefully Easter next year is thinking about how we make this work in a way that really reduces down those impacts
On bus Journey times because the reality is this through this change the city center is going be a much better place to be spend time and hopefully spend money with you guys uh but people have to be able to get there and if they’re faced with a long a long trip sitting in
A bus there’s nothing worse than being sitting in a bus it’s not moving you feel quite claustrophobic and trapped it’s not going to work so we have to make that work and in fact I was down in loan buses this afternoon uh speaking to them before I came here and that was one
Of the points we went through with them because it’s really obviously it’s really important for them as well to get this right there was a specific question about what was it exactly that caused the 40% delay is it is just that all the traffic getting condensed onto what will be the
The key routes which we allow traffic to go through primarily the primary the primary concern is around loan Road uh up loan road and in turn young place if you go on the check on the committee papers there there’s modeling details there it gives you Journey times for different notes under different scenarios
For some of the bus Journey times overnight they’re better you know but for some the key routes the bus I use H they’re slower so that there TR fixs that my question was also directed at Lis you yeah so um should we have cars in cities at all
Is where and I think the that coun ofed essential yeah where that yeah yeah so I think I mean I’m I don’t I’m not kind of against Cars full stop and you know sometimes it’s very useful to use them and I think this uh model of having the no through route in
The city center is is quite a useful one because and the low traffic neighborhood kind of model because you can get in and out and you know if I need to move some furniture I live in a low traffic neighorhood I’ll hire a car and or a van
And you know go you know you can work it out but it just it’s just about discouraging in people do the easiest thing basically and it’s about providing um Alternatives yeah sorry I’ve got a million clicky buttons on my um presentation trying to flick back
Through it’s going to take you a year um so yeah I think it’s just about providing people with Choice basically and then people would do the easiest thing and if the bus is the easiest thing I mean in London we’ve got great bus ridership and in Edinburgh because
It’s a good service and once you start to prioritize it then it becomes easier and I think I think people will do the kind of it it kind of makes me think of Sim City and they’re seeing the cycle Lanes develop in London you know you build something and people use it it’s
And the Elizabeth line and the trams here um you know people will use what’s there and so if you make it kind of more balanced around different modes then that’s what you get General traffic roots for the black roots on this map that’s was it uh my question
Directly relates to this point about lovian Road I commend the plan I think it’s really ambitious however say sham Wick Place Junction and uh tallc Cross Junction they’re both in the most dangerous hierarchy of Junctions in the whole city for cycling uh are they going to be improved before next year and um
Loing Road about five Lanes wide per points will there be any reduction in the road space to have segregated cycling on that route so the as I said earlier uh none of this comes without compromise and the so you’re familiar with the the loan Road Boulevard approach
The if we go down this route the there’s going to be real compromise with that so we because in that we’re going to have to maintain space for General traffic particularly goods and services coming in the city center and also public transport and there’s going be more
Probably more vehicles on that than is just now so we have to think about mean last time we spoke about we did think there’s space for walking and recycling improvements alongside it but it’s not it’s probably not going to be as we see as we’ve seen previously particularly in
The junction from The Junction north of where the Western approach road comes in perhaps south of there there’s more flexibility but north of it is going to become harder uh but there will be improvements at the junction where the you know where the student died a few years ago the will those improvements
Hopefully should still come and likewise it to cross as as well did you experience these Junctions today um I’m not sure I’ve been everywhere everywhere Johnny Walker Walker I don’t I’m not sure okay not worry hello H uh first I’ll I’ll take Laura to task here because they didn’t
Build it and the cyclist came um in 2007 the drain closed in London cycle use at Water went up like a rocket cycle parking was filled to 300% of capacity and 25% of the Cy Vehicles Crossing Black fres Bridge were bikes before they built cyc lanes and that’s
Why they built cyc lanes because the demand just s surged I don’t think that’s true well um anyway um I’ve been 60 years doing engineering and transport and in that time time I’ve always cycled and driven on Pavements um called carriageways and I think we we need to
Sort of get that terminology right CU it’s you haven’t been allowed to drive on a footway in order to bark on it for the past 189 years that’s been the law you can talk about semantics that’s semantics but what we’ve done is we spent an awful long time in dealing with
The helicopter defense and looking at things from a different end of the telescope um I’d ALS like to find out from loan country when they are going to restore cycle Carriage on the former smt routes because if you live outside and you want to come in it’s not nice to
Cycle out in the pitch night going home um on a fairly busy Minor Road Rural Road and to be able to just put your bike on the bus is great parans are doing it out to Dumar um borders are doing it down to Galla Shields and peees and uh there are companies doing
It in the Northeast I think we need to work on loan country and Loan buses can I ask you to come to an actual question for can we get that done to work on the buses and also I’m a bit of a pavement nerd instead of just putting dods of tarmac in
Potholes the road underneath I am watching a section of the a82 sinking where it sank before because they haven’t fix the basic problem and Junction 17 going to close Okay I’m going to much for the question question I’m going to prey the question to SC as
Being is there plans which I think is a very good question to integrate cycling and active travel with the bus Network which I think is a great question and I think there were buses like embo which are quite good at this and quite Progressive of and so is this part of
The plan that you’ve seen in the future streets I mean something I have spoken to the in terms of the integrating the public and active travel plan and it’s something we have spoken to loan about is you know the notion of having transport hubs where people can bring
Their bikes Park up get on the bike get on the bus R so it’s safer places around some bus stops so people can access the bus network via bike but to be honest I’ve not have discussions with them about people bringing their their bikes on buses and people probably know that
Even if you bring a f bik onto Lo buses it has to be in a a clean and secure bag uh you know to defend them some of the routs are incredibly well used so they they have to get the balance right between demand for both you know
Passengers and passengers with bikes but the next time I meet them tomorrow actually I I’ll try to I’ll try to mention that to them um I was a bit blunt Dave H um about 2007 because actually I remember um uh during the tube strikes there were there were feed rides into the city
Center from London cycling campus campaign and uh numbers did go up but then people realized how horrific the roads were to cycle without the cycle lanes and then they stopped it’s a thing called churn you get these Peaks and then people have a scary experience and
They put their bike away and they don’t get back on so it did it did happen but it it wasn’t the reason for the long-term growth and maybe I know that Johnson went on some of the feeder rise and um maybe that helped him to see actually this was a POS this was
Something that was possible question just there thank you hi there uh this is more for counselor Arthur I imagine you said in your opening slide I think that you were you were personally responsible for the basics and you mentioned keeping the streets clean and potholes edinb streets are truly lethal
For cyclists because of potholes and it’s been deteriorating uh is it because you don’t get funding from central government or what’s what’s the reason for the lethalness of our streets for cyclist so had an informal chy Scotland yesterday and they they brought up that General point about the infrastructure’s
Great but there’s there’s also a need to just to get the basic running service right for everybody and likewise the same meeting which which is about Road Safety actually uh living streets made the same point but about food paths so when I became convener I mean I’ve shared this recently the in the
Committee I asked the ch who’s in charge of the road and foot path maintenance project where we be in terms of funding so when I was convenor uh Road and foot paath maintenance when I first became convener sorry was underfunded to the tune of about 8 million per year so that
Meant that you know back then we needed an an additional 8 million just to maintain in the state they’re in just now so so that that’s where we were then last year’s budget we moved from we get this right so the budget back then was £1 million when I came convenor uh last
Year we moved that budget from 11 million to 22 million uh last week the the budget moved from 22 million I think I’m right to 23.5 million so we are taking it seriously because it is causing real issues in the city I mean there was a mom in my board put hole on
Her bike and she broke her jaw you know so so so it’s completely and it’s shameful the state of the roads and and when I first became convener I said it was both Street cleanliness and ren fot P condition I said it would always be
Honest about it and I have been and in fact hopefully nobody repeats this our data shows that you might not believe this shows that road and foot path condition is very slightly starting to improve so small so small you can hardly measure it but but I but I never I never
Ever talk about that in the media because this is a response that we get because it’s it’s just not good people can look open their curtains and see in the road outside them that both the fot path and the road often is not where it
Wanted to be and even Emma was giving me a hard time about the foot path in her street she lives quite me uh and today when I arrived here so this is a real issue in the city uh you know have to get that right we
Have to get the other stuff right as well but I’ll just correct one thing I’m not personally responsible but I I do I do take responsibility and I I am just uh one of 11 people in a committee and we all have the same vote so just follow
When would the these things being you said there’s a minuscule Improvement so when is the plan that the streets will become safer for cyclists so the uh so it’s a long time so even at the rate so the the doubling the budget last year is is BAS is stabilized the situation
Just I can if you email I’ve got a nice graph I can share with you I’ll show you the graph but it’s going to take time it’s going to take time mean last year we resurfaced uh between five and 600,000 square meters of roads and foot
Paths uh We’ve yet to see the totals for this coming year but it’s going to be something similar but but but but uh despite that and people here take this is seriously last week in the budget so we put for 23.5 there was a party and I’m not going to
Get political they said 10 was enough so that was that was below at that level the roads and foot paths would get worse that and that’s what council officers are telling them so we have to get this right I just encourage to you like to answer that question encourage people to
Make sure they report because they won’t get fixed if they’re not reported true true yeah I think there’s a fix do you have the fix fixed my pothole does that work in yeah cycling UK or cycling Scotland fix my fix that hole fill that hole it just generates an email and com
An email it doesn’t go right into our dayun see but yeah it’s a very serious issue I was shocked with the state of the road actually I thought thought newm was bad in East London but this is another assure people official stats show that Glasgow is worse from
Kirsty uh thanks patiently waiting Laura thank you so much for uh spending time it’s really great to see you um so I’ve got a question for sort of streets versus Junctions so we’ve in the past seen uh you know the occasional esec especially in spaces for people actually where we
You know the council did great work on getting temporary segregated and for structure in and then when we got to the junction it stopped and and uh we and we’ve still got that over in the East where where I live and we have one of the most dangerous Junctions in the city
Where two people have been killed by HTV drivers and I really wanted to know in in your experience from looking at various cities across the world what cities are getting the junction right so it’s hard enough to get the segregated infrastructure in on the Strategic route
But it often stops when we get to the junction so I’m just wondering what your advice might be to councelor Arthur about that we are starting to see it come in the city but we have lots of very dangerous Junctions and we’re not seeing the that we need on them thank
You yeah um yes so Junctions are uh are the hard bit and this this has been a problem with Street schemes around the UK and around the world the ones are easy to put in on a straight line but once you get to the junction you can’t
Do that and so that’s the hard bit you actually need to reconfigure either separate cyclists spatially or temporally so they either them different times or in a different space and it is hard to do and it’s expensive and I know that I’m not making excuses but it is
That is a difficult thing one city that’s doing well is Manchester they’re doing a lot of these Cyclops Junctions and they are quite extensive they’ve got a cycle L around the outside and then a kind of pedestrian route and then the traffic can cross and you get whole
Green phase and it’s very efficient and the great thing about them is that they move same capacity of traffic so if you’re concerned about traffic capacity reduction they’re actually very effective and some place that’s doing them well and it’s sort of quietly getting on with them at quite um quite a
Rapid speed but it is to do and it’s yeah it requires kind of unpicking of Transport networks and um yeah but they are deadly and we know that something like 70% of collisions happen at Junctions and it’s so it’s really important to get those right next question today French
Actually the I’m trying to do these roughly in the order that I saw the hands hey um 30% reduction in car kilometers by 2030 um check my is less than six years away um how do the scale of edinburgh’s proposals compared to other cities which have seen even a 10% reduction in car
Kilometers over that kind of time skill sorry say again the qu question was how do edinburgh’s the speed of edinburgh’s development compared to other cities expecting the next six years to get 30 oh traj um I mean obviously it’s been very slow and it’s been very slow so it’s yeah I
Think things have been bogged down in legal challenge like I’ve said and like probably everyone knows um but I think there is a point at which you start to gather momentum and once you have a pipeline of projects in things start to move quickly if you’re able to fund them
And if you have the political will to keep going um comparing it to other cities is perhaps hard I don’t really have the data but I know that the beginning has been slower and that’s because of the unique situation in Edinburgh things have been difficult to
Deliver and I don’t know it seems like there political will so if all goes well I don’t know it’s hard to say if it’s achievable but I guess we can hope so I mean if you don’t so David the there’s a real challenge here you know
So you look at the national Target 20% there’s no road map yet really yet they’ve got a document called the road map but it’s not there and what what happened on Tuesday was the money for investing in bus was paused the money for rail is going backwards we’ve got a
Demand for a train station in winborough at the edge of the city everybody wants it to happen but it’s not happening so that there’s there’s real issues here I mean it’s an issue we take really seriously you know in terms of dealing with the congestion issue and cutting
Traffic as part of that but we can only spend the money as fast as we get it we can we can we can close down the city but that’s going to be you know which doesn’t cost very much money but that’s going to be really damaging for the
Economy people’s livelihoods jobs Etc so I think you’re right to come here and I just to go faster on this and get it right for the city but we need funding to deliver it and you know the budget the budget on Tuesday was not helpful but this is old news you know
This has been talked about for some time um I guess sort of fing on from Dave’s question there I mean I think counselor mentioned the importance of reliability in getting people to use public transport H and um ALS oo the slide up on the screen showing massive traffic displacement onto loan road and
In the context of what Dave saying about aiming for 30% reduction and what you’re saying about the lack of money I mean ultimately are we going to go back to the sort of congestion charging plan from 20 years ago which was rejected is that really the only viable solution
Here and I guess be interested to hear Laura’s opinion in the context of other cities in the UK elsewhere who do you ultimately end up having to do Road pricing or congestion charging to to make this work so the so this mean this is a good question but the mean the problem we’d
Have is is is if we were to install uh you know congestion charge in Edinburgh tonight like I said I’ve got other things to do after this but if we were to do it tonight H it would be immoral because people in surrounding local authorities have no real way to get into
The city uh yet in terms of public transport people in East loan the the trains are already full uh people coming in from East loan I was on the borders re l last Tuesday leaving Eden BR standing room only out so so we need to get more capacity in public transport
For that to happen of course we could borrow against congestion charge income to do this kind of thing but we have to put the capacity in place at least in line with that coming the the the road pricing question though is is much more interesting I think what we need and
Perhaps wishful thinking is you know the money that you those of us in the room that own a car when when you buy your petrol or diesel you’re paying tax on that just now there’s fewer electric fewer Diesel and fewer Diesel and petrol cars getting bought all the
Time that means we’re losing that fuel excise duty uh so Road pricing is is a alternative to that which can be tailored to meet a city’s needs or a country’s needs so we really need the UK and Scottish government to work together on this because it’s it’s inevitable I
Think Road pricing is almost inevitable uh I I don’t really see what’s alternative we we charge people tax for charging our cars at home it seems a bit clunky to me me so it’s inevitable we probably have to do it by around 2030 so we need the Scottish and UK governments
To work together on us the Scottish government’s already done consultancy work on it uh I think they call it pay as your drive that that report has been written but we’ve not seen any progress with it but it does need neb to work with the UK government to make it work
And to be honest you the old fashioned congestion charge of a ring around the city you know cameras on the bypass or whatever if we were to do that it’d be Absolut almost straight away because I think Road pricing it allows you so much more tailoring you can do it based on
Type of year call uh time of day uh distance travel all all these other things whereas a congestion charge is quite a blunt tool I think so it needs governments to work together I guess um I’d like to ask Laura just what her thoughts on road use pricing are
Particularly from her experience of other cities and various tools at our disposal one of the that being one of them see what thoughts are on that yeah yeah I think um I remember um the CEO of London cycling campaign saying about I don’t know a good eight nine years ago
To me that road user pricing was inevitable um because and I think he was the first person I’d heard saying it felt quite radical at the time but but um it yeah I mean from the economics it seems like it seems like it needs to happen but we’re not really having that
Conversation it seems to be kind of a a lot of shouting and it’s it’s kind of a bit of a dirty word isn’t it it’s um being seen as I don’t know unfair um it’s hard but I think it has to be a carrot and stick situation there has to
Be alternatives for people to use and there’s got to be some sort of disincentive for using the car um Behavior changes hard but it’s yeah there’s got to be I guess a range of options thanks the there are a couple of questions there was one here and one
Here there’s also one there’s some in this side of the room which haven’t been answered yet which were quite early on actually Mar so go for a couple there and move over here this a question about uh the low emission zones and taking all the
Traffic out of the city so why do we need to do both of them so I mean I’ll be honest you sir I I don’t think the low emission zone is going to have too much of an impact on traffic volume coming into the city I
Mean the the latest data we have is slightly data slightly dated sort of in terms of the vehicles coming in but we’ve already got very high levels of compliance over 90% for petrol Vehicles this was based on January uh 23 over 90% for uh petrol V calls the the bus fleet
In edra is already 100% compliant privately owned s company-owned diesel vehicles High compliance the main Gap is privately owned diesel vehicles but the that Gap will have closed since that data was published last January so it have an incremental impact on traffic coming through the city center but I
Don’t think it’s going to be transformational I mean the point I raised with the cabinet secretary this morning is that our our our low traffic City Center the know through routs is coterminous with the low Mission zone so hopefully that will multiply the benefits of low Mission Zone but the
Challenge is that might have we might end up more emissions around that loan Road Place boundary so so that that mean that’s something we’re working through through careful monitoring spending money well I mean the but you know so so when I speak to people in public
Health about air quality in the city and also people like you I met with British Heart Foundation uh a week or two ago and and I’m hopefully going to meet them they’re going to introduce me to the Consultants at Royal infirmary who look at respiratory issues to see some of the
Research uh they would not forgive me if I was to try to POS law missions on because the impact it has on older people in the city and we all going to be old one day H younger people and people with certain health conditions I think it’s it’s a moral responsibility
We have to have to to deal with it I think I think uh councelor Arthur’s answered the question actually I think we’ll move on from that now I think it was a good answer he gave question just next to you Martin Ben do you I had a question about
Finishing infrastructure um so you were talking about the city center West East link um and the fact that it’s got an opening date which is great um but I’m also very aware that um the trams to New Haven um sort of Le walk famous Lea walk psychopath um uh
Includes things um like sort of manhole covers that utility companies still haven’t dealt with there’s still sort of other snagging issues on the path um including a lampost in the middle of it on pickery place which has been there long enough to now have its own Twitter
Account and it’s one of these things I guess my question is is actually both to both of you because Laura you may have experience of this from elsewhere as well as how do we deal with that sort of tail end of a project um because obviously it’s the car traffic has
Reintroduced to Le walk for over a year now and that lane still isn’t actually officially open or finished and it’s how do we how does the council how is there a process of holding contractors to account and making sure that those things actually get finished up and the
Snagging gets done in a timely manner and going forward so it turns out you were cycling and uncycle L today Laura it’s not been opened yet so I mean I actually I mean I was speaking to Hannah who was on the slid earlier uh today I just getting an
Update on what’s happening in the tra and I did ask that very question and she did promise me she would get back to me on it but mean mean they are working really hard to finish these things off I mean there’s all sorts of issues the the
Lamp post is frustrating because I know that at least two times I think I’m right in saying it was set up to remove it but then other things got in the way weather uh so hopefully we’ll get to eventually and and the Lea walk stuff as well it’s frustrating but the all the
Snagging with the with the line and and it’s important to remember that the line itself the tra B is is fantastic you know you the tram I don’t know if you’ve seen this L but the trams are very busy the biggest issue the tram company has is AR TI inspectors can’t get through
The tra because there’s so many people on it so so that’s great but the public realm aspect there is some catching up to do without a doubt the uh but we have committed to putting details of what the outstanding snag and issues are in the public domain and that should come soon
And that’ll enable you know community councils and perhaps even spokes to to you know to keep pesing us to get this right because we do have to get it right and and that’s why I said earlier I didn’t say the tra project was finished I said accepted paying passengers ahead
Of the deadline because for a lot of people it’s not been finished yet because they deal with this outside the doorstep you know so we have to get it right lur have you seen similar snagging issues in other cities yeah I think it’s quite common I think um something can
Change something moves and um and then it becomes very hard to take stuff away once it’s there I think yeah but I did I did cycle past it today and I saw the little fence around it and someone has done a little looks like a tombstone with like
Uniform on it can give this space back but yeah sorry I’m trying to get the questions roughly in order of when the people stuck their hand up that’s there’s someone here at the front as well uh thank you I I I’m really impressed by the vision of the city center uh and and
The Citywide uh proposals but one thing really puzzles me um and that is the maintenance of a north south and an East West General traffic route for private cars you you talk Lots about this how the town must continue to work that’s great the commercial vehicles but maintaining an
Eastwest uh unrestricted traffic route for private cars uh is a real conundrum I I really do not understand why we haven’t gone to a a a structure which is that you can drive to but you can’t drive through the City Center thank you so so I mean I
Mean I mean this the city does have to work and as the gentem made earlier car vehicles still do have to move around the city perhap you know most importantly those movement that movement of goods and services and you know and what what’s presented on
The screen here is is a big expansion of what was proposed a couple of years ago we’ve taken on board that feedback so so it’s bigger it’s bigger Bolder and we’re going to be faster on it that’s that’s the three I used to describe at all but
And so we are pushing the limits I think what’s possible without bringing damage to the economy you know jobs livelihoods and well-being and all the rest of it which is really really really important I don’t mind don’t I sound too flipping about that uh so yeah so so what we’ve
Got is something we think that will work uh and what we want of course is for this this to work no doubt when it comes in there’ll be fine shuning to done to do sorry I mean personally concerns about some of the displac traffic we’re going to get in those non-arterial routs
Around the edge of it so we have to be able to hopefully predict some of them but be agile and dealing with those problems particularly in the new time because they’re already concerned about the not knock on impact of the low emission Zone but if this works and it
Thrives and people love it we can do more I think the question to and that’s what happened that’s what happened in g mean gant’s journey is over a long time it’s I mean it goes back to the ’90s I think but they moved moved quickly in more recent
Years but they’ve been on a journey and so are we I think I think question and and also and the important thing is here is that we’re we’re moving mean I I came here in 1996 and we’re talking about this stuff and you know and I joined a committee transport Committee in
2017 and the the the start of this plan came forward and people said we’ve heard this before we’ve got a plan it’s in the council offices somewhere what we wasting time on the difference is now we’re delivering it and and that’s a that’s a big big difference and we go
Deliver at scale and with speed and that’s a difference as well so but you’re welcome sir to be on the sidelines Sidelines is the wrong phrase you’re welcome to be there in the city center urging us to go further and faster very welcome to do that we may
Come back to there’s another question at the front we may come back to that question I actually wanted to get back to kirsty’s question and you had talked about temporal uh issues around Junctions and I honestly wonder why we can’t do more to make these Junctions
Safer already we can put cameras on the line before a bike box and ticket drivers Lorry drivers bus drivers private drivers taxi drivers who go across that line and eat into the bike box so that b bicyclists are both not able to get in there or um are not able
To be seen um we can start putting uh temporal uh Solutions like they are are that are available in other cities and are not frequently used here where cyclists are able to ride off one to two seconds before uh the rest of traffic we don’t need to redesign a single Junction
Or redesign a single Street or close off any traffic anywhere um to do two relatively cheap cheap and um quick winds like that that would frankly save lives so this is good so the the quick win phrase the quick win phrase there is really important so last year as a city
We established what are the the and I’m not allowed to call them 40 most dangerous Junctions the 40 highest risk Junctions or or most interesting or or whatever phrase you want to use but not highest not most dangerous we established what the 40 were and we’ve ranked
The top 10 are going to be prioritized for significant change uh but all 40 are going to get considered for quick wi changes the list is now 41 believe it or not but the 41st one isn’t quite on the list is getting treated separately so so
This is really important for the for the reasons that we ared earlier about a lot of this stuff is easy if you’ve got money but Junctions are still difficult even if you do have money we had the national Summit yesterday on road safety we hosted it in the city Chambers and
This because this is because Road Safety in Scotland has gone backwards we’re nowhere near National targets for road safety deaths on Scotland’s Road are way higher than they should be we’re way off Target uh and one estimate yesterday is the cost of those deaths and serious
Injuries maybe take this a pin s if you like but 1.5 billion it’s a shame we didn’t have that money and we could spend it on actually preventing those Liv being lost but that’s that’s the cost that was mentioned yesterday think but I’m coming to one point but my ask
At that yesterday was for more money of course because that’s what councilors always do but also more Powers because on things like you know speeding uh prohibitions outside schools uh prohibitions on turns jumping lights the council has no power that that’s with the police and the problem is is for the
Police the police have other priorities and I don’t mean that in a in a flippant or negative way but they they have other priorities they’re squeezed as well but Road Safety is an AB absolute priority for the council and so if we had powers to enforce these things we would do it
And so that was my ask yesterday that Summit National Summit was to say we have to give we have to look at giving councils more powers to deal with these things because you’re right these things these interventions could be really cheap but it be really impactful so that
That was my plea so as well as asking the government for more money we need more Powers as well we’ve only got about five minutes left and there’s several questions on this side of the room I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get
Through all of them but I will try I wondered about the possibility of an incentive for middle of the night deliveries yes so already already happens and you know for for the work we’re doing on bus priority a that that posed work on the arterial bus routes uh what that’s going
To have to mean is we’re going to have to engage with all those businesses down those routes to say to them well actually it’s not a good thing really for the city for you to be loading at peak times let’s move that loading outside peak times and that includes the
Gregs on loan road which blocks my bus almost every single day uh because there’s quite a lot of people loading in their steak bakes as as I go past but so so that is about finding a different time or perhaps a different location for loading you go into the city center at
Night time there’s already a lot of this happening prin this is um this a great suggestion there lots lots of suggestion no doubt that could come into consultation there two questions one here and one right at the back and one at the front um I’d just like to re
Iterate the point about um having a discussion about cars in their place because there’s this um pervasive entitlement I guess you call it and it leads to I think it’s partly responsible for the way the leth walk cycle Lane is because it’s just being this assumption
That cars have to go there you have to allow cars you have to make space for cars and everyone else must make way for cars and that’s why especially at the foot of Le walk um the Le walk cycle Lane is I’m sorry it’s atrocious is
Better um further up Le walk I’ll give you that much um but the foot of Le walk there’s barely any space there was barely any space for pedestrians before what is the question you’re coming to so there was barely any space for pedestrians and there’s not a single
There’s also a lot of entitlement from motorists there’s not a single day when I go cycling where I don’t get sworn at or told I shouldn’t be on the road or in in one extreme case someone got out his car and started physically assault me um
You know it’s just I’m not saying it’s not all motorist it’s probably a minority of motorist but that’s all it takes I think I’m very sorry to hear that I think you’re in very sympathy company in this room and I’m very sorry to hear that happen to you there I’m
Going to go on to a question if that’s right because we’ve only got a couple minutes left one right at the back hello two couple of things green lights um for spikes um one of the problems I see is uh cars are drivers already learning the that’s a green
Light for them like we can go now I saw that twice on the way here is there anything planned to be done about that is the council aware of it and the other thing was uh in the plan there is there a plan to make more bike
Parking I I guess as this is a general question has come before about a fact that was related to questions here about enforcement in fact which should enforcement be included in the plans yeah within the powers we have you know and you know we can talk a lot about collaborative working with the
Police but in for these moving moving traffic issues but I think it makes sense for a lot of this to get transferred to councils I mean and I think in the rest of the UK local authorities already have the power to do a lot of this stuff bike parking you
Know I’ve been one of the good things about the last couple of days don’t it’s not always the case I get a lot of positivity on my social media but been seen quite a lot of pictures from bike racks going out across the city and places and also we’re committed of
Course to the bike hangers continuing to roll out which have been quite good for people who who use them so absolutely uh but and and to be honest with you I mean we’re doing living streets tomorrow I mean if bike racks come up there they’ll be saying well why are so many bike
Racks on foot paths maybe they should be taking up car parking spaces instead and I would agree with that I I would make a and in fact I just say that if if we go back to a bike hire scheme that that is my preference as we put the bikes in car
Parking spaces rather than foot paths cuz there’s a lot of concerns about bike High schemes and accessibility if we just consume one bike park one car parking space we can probably get I don’t know you know half a dozen eight bikes parked up safely without too much
A hindrance for people thanks I would make one point which is that there there is some SC I mean Scott you’ll correct me on this but some of some of the enforcement has to come from Scottish government right the powers allowed for example for ampr cameras and stuff is
Not allowed here that something that we were calling for um and that’s something that’s a government uh lobbying decision as well as a council lobbying decision question just there uh there’s two more questions one there and one there take one after the other and then answer um I’m asking
Could you clarify the north south cycle routes across the city center because it looks like loan road is primar cars we’ve got the mound which is really Steep and then you’ve got the bridges which now seems to be well it’s going to always going to be tram tracks there now
Primarily buses and walking so could you clarify what are the main cycle routs north south across that we just hear this question after that and then that’ll be the end of the answer hit this question here as well please same time yeah sure um uh the
Councelor might be aware that um so when we when we discussed things earlier you said about working with businesses but what I was talking more specifically was actually about cultural provision um and about music venues um there’s a big problem in Glasgow right now where there isn’t sufficient um public transport for
People to be able to get in so they’re trying to drive but now when they’re go to go see a live music show um the traffic so the parking has been charges has been extended between seven and 10 so now the average gigg has got an extra
24 on top of what they would pay to be able to go out to have their night out which means they won’t be spending any money in the music menu if they go at all and what would have been an 8 to10 pound ticket is now A50 pound ticket so
I just thought it it would be good that you reminded that people go to Grassroots music venues in the city center from quite far out and so if there’s going to be no ability to drive into those places then you say you don’t want to stop um that you wouldn’t bring
BR in halt to cars unless there was sufficient public transport but it really has to extend quite far away to ensure that the whole city has got access to culture so I mean so so Ed is lucky and in comparison to Glasgow and that we have you know a quite wide
Reaching you know both in terms of extent and and also it works almost 24 hours buses NE almost not not quite so so we are in a good position maybe a better position than Glasgow now so the is there is this uh there is this concern that the changes we make are
Going to mean fewer people come into the City and low Mission Zone people have said that but the low Mission Zone and also these plans and and what I’m saying is our commitment is to make sure people thrive they do better not worse result this now this came up this morning when
We were speaking to uh in the leadership group for the low Mission Zone nationally and please don’t repeat this please don’t repeat this but the uh and in Glasgow they’ve got pedestrian one monitors which P which monitor pedestrian footfall and what those monitors show for them is at the where
They’ve got them there’s been no declining footfall so people are saying uh there’s there’s been issues in the city center because of what’s happening but the monitors are showing up that showing that footfall is holding up I’ve not seen the data so that’s why that’s why I’m putting that cave not reporting
It ons might cover oh yeah yeah yeah okay thanks I’m so I think your questions are north south throughout so we’ll start work next year on Meadows to George Street so that connection right the way through to Meadows up to George Street that will start next year it will
Involve cycling up the mound I think though so that is the key route and it’s one of the challenges we have with this is that there’s only three north south routes and so in terms of doing this incrementally it’s actually really difficult to do it incrementally because
You you end up doing it in steps because you’ve got loading Road uh Mound and North Bridge so there’s no gradual way to introduce this because of those three routs thanks very much I’m going to I’m going to ask Laura and councelor Arthur to wrap up now because we’ve not got any
More time for questions just very quickly but I’d like to thank them both very much for their expertise and their candidness and also just in general for turning up and standing in front of people and answering questions so thanks for both and I’d like to reiterate those
Thanks and thanks to you and mlan also for um organizing the Q&A he’s rushing off for caring responsibilities H and thanks to Sam on Tech and thank you to you all for coming out for thinking about active travel for cycling and for asking um such insightful and helpful questions have a good evening
Bye-bye you