Welcome to the first issue of our Consultations Digest, a regular post, updating you on consultations in these three areas:
- Consultations to which GoBike has responded.
- Upcoming consultations, for which we welcome your comments as to how we should respond, but we will also include here consultations for which you, as an individual, are asked to respond.
- Feedback on submitted consultations.
So we will be giving you far more information than we have in the past and we hope that this will encourage you, as GoBike members, to not only give us your views as to how we should respond but also to put your views directly to the organisation that has issued the consultation.
See also our Consultations page on our website.
1. Consultation responses
Since our last post on this topic, we have responded to:
BREDISHOLM ROAD AND CHURCH STREET ROAD CALMING. This is a residential area in the Baillieston area of Glasgow, where a new housing development is being constructed at the end of a long-standing residential road. There are houses on the south side of Bredisholm Road and, for much of the north side there are a large supermarket and a park. The footway on the north side has been removed to allow access for construction traffic and this extra road width is encouraging drivers to speed causing concern to residents. Speed cushions, which are inconvenient for people cycling are thus to be installed in an attempt to slow these people down, but once all the construction work is complete those on the northern side of the road will be removed to allow construction of a new 2m wide footway. Our letter giving our comments is here: GoBike Bredisholm Road comments letter 180118
We have also, 22 January, responded to an on-line survey from CyclingUK, who are looking for how the central organisation can help its affiliated groups, such as GoBike! Many of us are CyclingUK members, probably for the insurance and the UK-wide news, rather than its campaigning input. There’s potential for further expansion into Scotland here. If you are a member, keep a lookout for the response summary.
2. Upcoming consultations
There is quite a variety here, but we will start with 3 from Glasgow City Council:
- Port Dundas Constrolled Parking Zone Amendments which introduces 9 parking bays into this area of the city that the council is developing. If you do know the area and have any comments please get them to us, and to the Council – but responses must be received by Friday, ie 26 January.
- Silverburn to Newlands, amendments/completion of the cycle route. This route, primarily shared footway, was started in Spring 2015 but never completed. We now hear that it’s on the move again, but, for those of us on our bikes there will be multiple steps to be taken to negotiate junctions! Discussion is just starting on our Slack channel and we will give more information as soon as we can.
- And a third point, for information, is that 2 of us from GoBike plus 2 from Space4people Byres Road, will be meeting the consultants for the changes to make Byres Road more people friendly tomorrow, 24 January.
Transform Scotland have told us about 4 consultations, for which either an INDIVIDUAL or a WORKPLACE response is appropriate. Please do get your views in.
“I can advise that, thought was given to all road users when designing the traffic calming measures on this section of road. The decision to incorporate speed tables into the design was done to improve the pedestrian crossing provisions on this stretch of road as well as reduce the speed of all traffic.
In addition to the above, I can advise that the proposals do not include any vertical calming measures between White Cart Water and Camphill Avenue and as such cyclists travelling on this incline will not have to negotiate any speed tables until the gradient levels out to the north of Camphill Avenue. Further to this, the proposed speed tables will be constructed with a 1m ramp so inconvenience to cyclists will be kept to a minimum.
In conclusion, while I appreciate the concerns you have raised, it is my intention to proceed with the proposals as advertised.”
3.2 Yoker to Knightswood, Route to BMX park, Shared Footway section
We objected, see our post of 06 December, to the shared footway section of this route, having previously supported the segregated cycleway sections. Our concern was based on drawings sent to us, some of which were not to scale and which indicated that the footway widths would be very inadequate. To resolve our concerns Tricia Fort and Bob Downie attended a meeting with council officers earlier this month, at which there was acknowledgement that the information issued could have been better. We were given a run-through of the route, an explanation of the strengths and limitations of the route and details of changes to be introduced to avoid destruction of trees on Lincoln Avenue. In response, we submitted this letter: GoBike Yoker to Knightwood Redetermination Withdraw objection 110118
3.3 Sauchiehall Street upgrade
Work has started on the Sauchiehall Street improvements, which we are delighted to see, but back in February 2017 we expressed our objection to Elmbank Street being made one-way, with no contraflow cycle lane, instead of the current two-way. On 20 December GCC replied to us to say “ In this instance the Project Team determined that the provision of a contraflow cycle lane would present issues in terms of health and safety and therefore the decision not to implement was taken.” We have asked what the health and safety concerns are, given that there are so many instances within the city of contraflow cycle lanes – the 3 we quoted are all in the city centre: Gordon Street, Argyle Street and Howard Street. We await a further response.
So, that’s all for now, folks, but do respond where you can, do let us know your views and do tell us about any consultations we aren’t aware of.