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Sauchiehall Street Planning Application – please respond by 15 March!

The prospects for improvements on Sauchiehall Street are good.  Only 1 objection so far but lots of support has been expressed to the Planning Application on the Glasgow City Council website (the reference number is 17/00240/DC) that specifies the new cycle lane.  The plans are good in most of what they include but there are omissions.  The GoBike response is here: GoBike Sauchiehall Street Planning Application on-line 2000 character response 100317

There’s a limit of 2000 words to the on-line comment, so wordsmiths beware, but do get your views in.  A bit of confusion on the website under “Important Dates” – the last day for comments is 15 March, but the last day for comments following the Press Notice is today, Friday 10 March – so get your skates on.

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Greens confer in Glasgow – join us for a photo shoot with some Council candidates, Saturday 11 March 1pm

Yes, the Scottish Greens are meeting in Glasgow this Saturday and we have the opportunity for a photo shoot with the Walk Cycle Vote banner (and perhaps the GoBike! one too) soon after 1pm at the Maryhill Burgh Halls, Maryhill Road.

So now’s the time to get your hair done or polish your helmet and join us at 1pm to leaflet attendees at the Conference and sneak your way into a photo or two.

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Don’t forget: Tories in Glasgow tomorrow and Saturday. Please help to flyer the active travel message.

Let’s try to get the Active Travel message to the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party members at the SECC tomorrow and Saturday.

Please meet at 12:45 on both days just to the south of the main entrance to the SECC.  We have Walk Cycle Vote flyers and GoBike flyers to give to delegates going in and out at the lunch break.

Please wear your WCV t-shirt or hoodie or GoBike t-shirt.

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UPDATE: Rutherglen and Cambuslang Main Streets, Survey – open to all

Yesterday we told you about a forthcoming meeting to discuss potential changes to both Rutherglen and Cambuslang Main Streets in South Lanarkshire.  What we hadn’t been told was that the meeting is only open to 1, or at the most 2, people from GoBike!  If you would like to go please get in touch via our Facebook page.  However, there is an on-line survey for each town – really easy to do so please complete them:

LINK FOR RUTHERGLEN SURVEY

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RUTHERGLENSURVEY

 

LINK FOR CAMBUSLANG SURVEY

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CAMBUSLANG

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Sauchiehall Street – GoBike response to the Traffic Regulation Order for part of the Avenue concept

Glasgow City Council are progressing their plans for the Sauchiehall Street “avenue” with a Traffic Regulation Order and a Planning Application.

GoBike has now responded to the Traffic Regulation Order, with this letter: GoBike Sauchiehall Street partial support 280217  The full details of the Order may be seen at: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=18127 but, unfortunately, they do not include details of the cycle way as this is new construction, rather than a change to the existing road layout.  While we very much support the principle of reducing traffic access, limiting parking and a separated cycle way, we do object to the proposal to make Elmbank Street, shown on the photo as it meets Sauchiehall Street, one-way.  This contravenes the default position in the City Council’s design guide, Cycling by Design and limits accessibility in the city for people on bikes.

The Planning Application for the new work on Sauchiehall Street is on the Council’s website at: https://publicaccess.glasgow.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=OKT65HEXMXU00 but all the documents appear to be “unavailable at this time”!  A bit of a contradiction in terms but we are considering our options for comment.  Having looked at the drawings listed with the TRO we are concerned that there are no links to the cycle way from Woodlands Road and St George’s Road – that area over the M8 is not a happy place to cycle, even though lots of us have journeys through there – and the links out of the cycle way into the Core Path area of Sauchiehall Street and all the streets in between Newton Street and Rose Street are unclear.

If you have views about these proposals, please make them clear to the Council or to the Councilors for the area.  Comments on the TRO close this Friday, 03 March and on the Planning Application 21 days after 17 February, according to the advert, which might be 10 March.

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Rutherglen and Cambuslang Main Streets: How could they be improved? Consultation event.

 

We have been sent the following e-mail; you might be interested in replying to the online survey, if you travel through Rutherglen and/or Cambuslang – perhaps you, like me, get annoyed at all the parked cars in the bus/cycle lane?

Link for Rutherglen survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RUTHERGLENSURVEY

Link for Cambuslang survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CAMBUSLANG

We have one place at each of the following workshops, if you are interested in attending either or both of the event on behalf of GoBike! on the 7th (Rutherglen) or 8th (Cambuslang) please let us know via our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GoBikeGlasgow/.

“Good Morning,

We are working on behalf of Cam Glen Bike Town which is part of Healthy n Happy Community Development Trust looking at how Rutherglen and Cambuslang main street could be improved. We’d like to invite you to a workshop to generate ideas and discuss  how this could be done. This will take place on Tuesday 7th March (Rutherglen) and on Wednesday 8th March (Cambuslang) at 12.45pm both days (with a start at 1pm finish at 4pm). Please could you confirm whether or not you are able to attend as soon as possible.

 We will also be carrying out an on line survey. (see link above)

 Thank you.

Kind Regards,

Noema Azcona

Assistant Consultant

SYSTRA

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Byres Road, Glasgow – Redevelopment: update news as progress is made.

One of our members has given us the following information since attending the Byres Road Corners meeting on 23 February. 200 people were there so it was very crowded and thus there was not a lot of detail.

Those of you who were unable to attend or did not know about the meeting concerning the proposed £9.0M being spent on improvements to Byres Road, particularly to those of you who are unable to access the ‘Byres Road Corners’ postings on Facebook, you can now get updates by email. To do this email ByresRoadCorners@gmail.com asking for your email address to be linked to their mailing list. If you would like to be involved in any of the developments, such as helping out with tree planting etc., or if you have any sensible suggestions, please add this to your email.

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Conservatives and Greens confer in Glasgow – let’s get the Active Travel message to them.

 

The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party is meeting in Glasgow, at the SECC on Friday 03 and Saturday 04 March, see: http://www.scottishconservatives.com/get-involved/conference-2017/ and the Scottish Greens will be meeting the following week at Maryhill Burgh Hall, see: https://greens.scot/conference from 10:00 – 5:30 so let’s try to get the Walk, Cycle, Vote message to them.

We want, and need, better cycling facilities and a better environment for walking and cycling and the candidates, and campaigners, for the council elections in May will be at these conferences, so we need to get the message to them.  We have Walk, Cycle, Vote flyers, and GoBike flyers and we now need volunteers to meet up and hand them out.  Please come and join us!  Meet up as below:

Conservatives: just outside the SECC, meet up to the left, the river side, of the main entrance at 12:45 on both days (03 and 04 March) and we will flyer from 1-2pm as delegates come out at lunch time.

Greens: meet up outside the Burgh Hall, on Maryhill Road, at 09:30 (on 11 March) and we will flyer until just after 10:00 and we will meet again at 12:45 to give out our leaflets over the lunch break.

Please e-mail convenor@gobike.org if you can to confirm your attendance.

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GoBike meets the Transport Minister

On Tuesday this week, 21 February, Tricia Fort and Bob Downie met Humza Yousaf, MSP, Minister for Transport and the Islands at Victoria Quay in Edinburgh.  We spent the best part of an hour talking to him about our concerns to improve the environment for cycling.  The 4 main topics we raised were:

  1. Urban 20mph speed limit as a default, with exceptions for higher speeds.  We feel this, if correctly managed, is “low hanging fruit” and would quickly, and cheaply, improve the environment for active travel.
  2. Use of evidence when deciding on urban cycle facilities.  Too many cycle facilities take little or no cognisance of where people cycle – and evidence of where people cycle is readily available (though apparently not in cycle infrastructure design offices!).  Too many cycle facilities are discontinuous, yet accident data tells us that junctions and roundabouts are hazardous for cyclists – and isn’t this just where cycle lanes stop?
  3. Space reallocation: we need our space on the main roads where we currently cycle.
  4. Presumed Liability: we support the Road Share campaign for Presumed Liability and a change in civil law to bring in Presumed Liability will be a big improvement for cyclists and pedestrians who are injured on our roads.

The Minister was interested in what we had to say, particularly the evidence of where people currently cycle and although we do not agree on all points, progress has been made.

The full text of the information we gave to the Minister and the text of the press release we issued yesterday are given here: GoBike Press Release 22_02_17 part A and GoBike Press Release 22_02_17 part B

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You can help shape investment in walking and cycling for Scotland!

 

You can help influence greater investment in walking and cycling by responding to this Transport Scotland survey on its priorities for the next twenty years. If you think that cycling should be given more investment (especially in monetary and infrastructure terms), make sure to fill in the survey before it closes on 31 March.

With thanks to Cycling UK Scotland for alerting us to this survey.