Category: GoBike

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Glasgow’s Strategic Plan for Cycling wins a prize!

We now need to hold them to it!  You can read the Strategic Plan here.  Here’s the text we were sent by Glasgow City Council:

Pedal power for Glasgow as city council wins transport award for cycling
Glasgow City Council has been awarded for its achievements in cycling at this year’s Scottish Transport Awards.
Organised by Transport Times, the annual awards is now in its 15th year and recognises excellence, innovation and progress across all areas of Scotland’s transport industry.
Glasgow was shortlisted in four categories, winning Achievements in Cycling for its Strategic Plan for Cycling 2016 – 2025.

Glasgow’s award was received by Councillor Anna Richardson, City Convener for Sustainability and Carbon Reduction.
Cllr Richardson, collecting the award on behalf of the council, said: “Winning this award is fantastic recognition for everyone involved.  Our strategic plan for cycling outlines the city’s vision, objectives, targets and actions for increasing levels of cycling across the city.  And it’s working.
“New investment in infrastructure, from safe, segregated cycle routes to traffic calming and 20mph limits, has led to an increase in the number of people choosing to travel by bike on a daily basis.
“We will continue to work with our partners and local communities to enhance the city’s cycling infrastructure, increase the provision of safe cycle routes segregated from traffic as well as improving road safety, introduce traffic calming schemes, and develop further safer cycle and walking routes.”

Several key cycle routes including the West City Way (safe route largely segregated from traffic from Kelvingrove Park to Central Station) and the South West City Way (2km of urban segregated cycle route linking Pollokshields to the City Centre via the Tradeston footbridge) have been introduced.

New developments already underway include the South City Way, a £6.5m segregated route from Victoria Road in the south side to Merchant City in city centre.  The council project won the Scottish Government’s first ever Community Links Plus funding competition, attracting £3.25m funding.

Key outcomes to date from the implementation of Glasgow Strategic Plan for Cycling include:
•    Each year, a cordon count is undertaken around the city centre.  The number of cycle trips across the cordon has risen 6.7% between 2015 and 2016.
•    Monitoring counts on the new South West City Way route has shown that its popularity has steadily increased by 11% since opening in 2015
•    Glasgow’s mass automated cycle hire scheme has been phenomenally successful, with growth in rentals during 2016 at just under 25%.
Further information about cycling in Glasgow www.glasgow.gov.uk/cycling
Further information about the Scottish Transport Awards www.transporttimes.co.uk
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Byres Road, Glasgow – read what’s happening with the redevelopment.

We have received this news about the redesign of Byres Road:

“What’s happening with Byres Road?

We may have been quiet since the launch event in February, but that doesn’t mean nothing has been happening!

Technical surveys
We’ve been using our enforced silence (due to elections in May and June) to do essential survey research.  A busy street like Byres Road is full of things we have to accommodate: underground pipes and cables, subway tunnel, buses, traffic and lots more besides.  

All of these things are ‘constraints’ that we have to design around, and we need to know what we’re dealing with before starting to work with you, the public, to redesign the face of the street.  We should finish that work in July.

Now that the elections are over and technical surveys are nearly complete, we’re almost ready to kick off our public engagement work again.  But to avoid conflicting with the holiday season, we’ve decided to wait until the school holiday season is over before organising any public events.

Library displays
So, for now, we’ve put up a display in Partick Library, containing the giant map of Byres Road from the February launch event with 200 people’s comments.  It’s a fascinating insight into Byres Road today, and people’s aspirations for it in the future.

The display will be moving up to Hillhead Library later in a few weeks’ time – we’ll let you know when.

Design events in late summer
Once the schools return in August, we’ll be holding a series of public design events, continuing on into September.  We’ll use these to test different options for the street with you. 

Dates will be announced next month in another email update like this – or you can keep up-to-date on Facebook (@ByresRoadCorners).

Over the summer we’ll also be engaging with the local business sector and specific user groups like disabled people, taxi drivers, bus companies and so on.

Overall timeline
The overall timeline for the project (see title pic) gives you an idea of what will happen when over the next couple of years.  You can see it at the Partick Library display too.

Thanks for your patience.  We’ll be in touch again next month!”

Please check in to the Facebook page (@ByresRoadCorners) to get direct updates.

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Glasgow – Woodside “mini-Holland” – your views are sought for the improved funding submission.

Changes are afoot in the St George’s Cross area – again – and Glasgow City Council is asking for views from us all to maximise the effectiveness of their proposals.  Here is the e-mail we got today:

“Dear Sir or Madam

You may be aware of Glasgow City Council’s bid for funding to Transport Scotland’s Community Links Plus competition with the Woodside Mini Holland bid. http://www.sustrans.org.uk/scotland/communities/community-links-plus-design-competition. The competition is seeking exemplar projects that promote walking, cycling and public space.  

We submitted the Woodside Mini-Holland bid last year and were up against 37 other national bids. Woodside Mini Holland was a finalist but unfortunately this project did not win in 2016 (GCC’s South City Way Project won). We have resubmitted our bid with a revised boundary. While most of the focus is still on Woodside a part of the Woodlands area will be included (please see attachment).

For those that are interested we will be running an online consultation from the 19th June for 3 weeks.  A mailshot will be conducted on the 19th and 20th June to all 5648 properties within the map boundary with this information.

Online consultation will utilise:

  • The commonplace Survey tool https://woodsideminiholland.commonplace.is/.  Please enter a many comments and proposals on the map as you would like e.g.  ‘I would like a crossing here as it is difficult to cross’.
  • The Place Standard tool. This is a good tool to get peoples view on the area across a number of topics.  Please go to http://www.placestandard.scot/start/ and copy and paste the Group ID: PgmSd8NPND-9. The group ID means all results and comments will get sent to the Council automatically. This can take 5 minutes to fill out or as long as you wish depending on how many comments you would like to add.

Both online formats are available to use now.

We will also hold a drop-in engagement event giving you an opportunity to meet the project team on:

  • 23 June, 3:30pm – 7:30pm at Woodside Halls (Mid-Hall), Glenfarg Street.

Please feel free to forward this information to your members. As mentioned this is a competition for funding and local support is crucial if the bid is to be successful.

Contact: Sustainabletransport@glasgow.gov.uk

https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/cycling

Sincerely

Craig O’Holleran

Glasgow City Council

Land and Environmental Services
4th Floor, Exchange House, 231 George Street, Glasgow, G1 1RX, 0141 287 9020”

Woodisde Mini Holland Overview – A3-2017 woodside active travel consultation Poster woodside active travel Postcard 1

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Glasgow to install more “Speed Cushions”. Please object – and here’s why.

Speed bumps (Marine Road East, Prestatyn)
Photo © Jaggery (cc-by-sa/2.0)

We have heard from Glasgow City Council that they propose to install 2 sets of speed cushions outside St Fillan’s Primary School in Cathcart, with the aim of ensuring that drivers reduce their speed to the 20mph zone limit.  The text of the e-mail received from the Council is given on our Consultations page.  We have objected on 3 grounds:

  1. GoBike member, Bob Downie, presented a petition to the City Council 2 years ago, proposing a default city-wide 20mph speed limit (allowing for exceptions for some roads to be 30mph or even more).  This was well received by Councillors at the Petitions Committee, but now the Council has reverted to its original piecemeal approach.
  2. Mark Ruskell, Green MSP currently has a bill out for consultation, see: http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/20mphSpeedLimits/  and, if successful, this would bring about default speed limits in all our urban centres of 20mph.
  3. Speed Cushions and tables are very expensive to install and maintain.

Our letter of objection is here: GoBike Crompton Avenue traffic calming Objection 070617 and while we point out that we do not wish to endanger any child, we consider that a better solution for all will be a city-wide 20mph default speed limit.  We will also be voicing our concern to the Glasgow Councillors who attended our Hustings in April.

Further information on traffic calming is given in this excellent blog by one of our GoBike members, “Glasgow Cycleman”.

Please do object to this proposal and, if you live in Glasgow, do let your ward Councillors know about this expensive move.  At the time of the 2015 petition it was estimated that it would take 40 years to achieve what the petition and now Mark Ruskell’s bill will give us.

If you haven’t responded to the survey on Mark Ruskell’s bill yet, please follow the link in point 2 above.

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Responses to Glasgow City Council and Scottish Government Proposals

Recently GoBike has responded positively to proposals from Glasgow City Council for stopping waiting and loading/unloading on the roads in Riverview, see photo, to Mark Ruskell’s proposals for a 20mph urban default speed limit in Scotland, to public realm improvements at Govan Cross and to parking controls in Cranstonhill.  Details may be seen on our Consultations page.

If you wish to comment on the most recent of these, ie the waiting restrictions in Riverview, the consultation is open until Tuesday 13 June and all the details may be found here on the Glasgow City Council website.

The Mark Ruskell 20mph consultation is open until 07 August and it is important that people respond – favourably – to this!  Please support this measure!

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GoBike ride Sunday 04 June – over the hills to Lochwinnoch, but flatter on the return!

 

All welcome to join this ride, which will take us out of Glasgow via the Dams2Darnley Country Park, then via a hilly route through to Dunlop and Beith, before arriving in the Castle Semple Visitors Centre at Lochwinnoch. After lunch, a flatter return to Glasgow via NCN 7 through Paisley. Some of the route is on an off-road hill path and a forestry track, so will be unsuitable for skinny tyre bikes. However, most of the route will be on asphalt.
Meet 10am Bell’s Bridge, Congress Road, Glasgow.
Ride on paths Ride on quiet roads Ride on rough tracks Significant hill climbing Gate or stile en route
Rated: Go Bike star rating Go Bike star rating Go Bike star rating Go Bike star rating

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South Lanarkshire Cycling Partnership under threat – but safe for now – good news

Further to this bad news we have been told by Councillor Robert Brown, LibDem, that the Cycling Partnership is safe – for now – but we need to be vigilant and oppose any further attempt.

South Lanarkshire Council have for some time had a Cycling Partnership to promote and progress cycling issues within the area covered by the local authority.  GoBike has been represented on this Partnership. The new council, elected on 04 May, now propose to merge it into the Sustainability Partnership!

If we are going to get anything like 10% of journeys by bike by 2020, which is still the Scottish Government’s aim, then cycling must be given more prominence, not less. This is a backward move.

The council document, dated 10 May, which is going to be discussed tomorrow, 18 May, is here: South Lan bodies  and the relevant clause, 10.3 is reproduced here:

“10.3. In advance of the new Council, the list has been reviewed by the lead organisations. In terms of the South Lanarkshire Cycling Partnership, it is proposed that it be discontinued and its remit incorporated into that for the Sustainability Partnership. The Council is asked, as a matter of priority, to approve nominations to the joint committees/boards, statutory and partnership bodies detailed in Appendix 4. These are necessary to enable the respective organisations to formally re-establish themselves following the local government elections.”

If you live in South Lanarkshire please e-mail your councillors and ask them not to proceed with this regressive move.  You can find the councillors for your ward here  but do include Councillor Robert Brown in your list of addressees.  He has been prominent in support of cycling and active travel in South Lanarkshire and spoke at our Hustings last month.

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Proposed Restricted Roads (20mph Limit) (Scotland) Bill – please give your views

This is the survey we have been waiting for – Mark Ruskell’s bill on reducing the default speed limit for restricted roads in Scotland to 20mph.  Mark is the Green MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife and the Scottish Parliament’s survey is here: http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/20mphSpeedLimits/

You can read more about Mark Ruskell here: Mark Ruskell MSP

Mark’s proposed bill is an important one in that it covers all of Scotland and will, if implemented, lead to a consistent approach across the country.  When GoBike met the Transport Minister, Humza Yousaf, in February this year, we were told that the Government would not put any obstacles in the way of the bill.  So we are very hopeful that it will go through – but it needs as much support as it can get.  PLEASE DO COMPLETE THE SURVEY! There are 11 questions but there is the option to save and return to it.

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Glasgow City Centre – give your views!

Glasgow City Council is looking at improvements to the City Centre – not before time, do I hear you say?  They have employed consultants to consider the 9 areas of the city centre and they are proactively looking at cycling, walking, reallocation of space away from motor traffic and the reduction of pollution.  So do respond to the consultation and try to attend one or more of the future events.  The information below is from the consultants:

“We have just launched (Y)our Ideas map, register and help map the challenges and opportunities for positive change in the next 10 years for Broomielaw, St Enoch, Central and Blythswood.

https://yourcitycentre.commonplace.is/

We are looking for ideas big and small, for the short, medium and long term. However, if you have immediate comments or complaints. please report it here  ”

There is more information on the website: https://www.glasgowcitycentrestrategy.com/city-centre-districts