Tag: glasgow

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Partick 20mph, the discussion goes on …

You may remember that last month we posted our response to Glasgow City Council’s proposals for parking restrictions within the 20mph zone in Partick.  While we support 20mph as a default urban speed limit, we do not support Glasgow City Council’s piecemeal approach.  We are very unhappy that parking is allowed on both sides of relatively narrow one way streets, which prevents not only cycle lanes being provided but also prevents contraflow cycling.  Indeed, it seems that some streets are made one way simply to allow parking both sides.

Glasgow City Council have responded to our letter with an e-mail that:

  • implies we want every road and street in Glasgow to be 20mph.  We do not; we accept that some radial routes will operate at 30 or even 40mph.
  • maintains their piecemeal approach, albeit they are accelerating slightly, which could take years to make the city a 20mph city, save for exceptions of some main roads outwith shopping areas or high accident areas.
  • maintains their current approach to installing traffic calming.

All this is an expensive way to do what, in our view, could be done quicker by following what we understand to be the Edinburgh approach, ie a city-wide approach.

Our 2 letters and the intervening GCC e-mail text are on our Consultations page.  Please read them and do comment on further Consultations, particularly if you live or work in the areas affected.

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Glasgow SEC – take care this weekend, and for some time on Waterloo Street!

For all motor enthusiasts the Ignition Festival takes place at the SEC this weekend and it will cause disruption to pedestrians and cyclists, but great excitement to car fans.

This walkway from Finnieston is not yet closed, but will be soon:

If approaching from the east, ie along the Broomielaw from the city centre, then there is a very informative sign for you:

The map might be displayed by Friday, who knows.  All this, apart from affecting your commute or leisure trip might impede access to the meeting point for the GoBike ride on Sunday.  If so, we will try to let people know but, if you do intend to come on the ride and can’t get to the meeting point, phone the contact point given on the Rides page on the website: https://www.gobike.org/about-us/cycle-rides

GoBike member, Andy Winter, posted on our Facebook group yesterday about the closure of a section of the West City Way on Waterloo Street, between Douglas Street and Pitt Street, with no alternative signed.  See: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gobike/  If travelling east it means either using the footway on the south side of Waterloo Street, or cycling up Pitt Street to Bothwell Street.  If travelling west, the roadway may be used.  Flagship cycle route?  Hmm.

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Byres Road design events – your invitation!

One of our members has forwarded this invitation for us all:

Your invitation – please share!

Since the launch event on 23 February, we’ve been busy with technical surveys and initial design work for the redesign of Byres Road.

A series of public events will be taking place in August to share different options. Everybody is welcome – we need input from as many people as possible to guide us to the right solution.

Please come. And please share this invitation!

More information in the flyer and text below….

What’s this about? 

There’s a new Byres Road coming… funding of £9m has been allocated through the Glasgow City Region Deal to make Byres Road a great place to be. Work will start on the ground in late 2018.  We have until then to do the design work – with public input – and get the necessary consents in place.

How can I get involved?

During August 2017 there will be a series of design events where we’ll share different options to balance pedestrians, cyclists, buses and traffic — and to make Byres Road a better place for everybody.

This is everyone’s opportunity to reshape Byres Road as a world-class street for businesses, residents and visitors. Come and have your say.

Drop-in design days on 14-16 August are our big focus. Initial design options will be on display, with the design team there to hear your thoughts. This is your opportunity to shape the future of the street!

Monday 14 August 1pm-7pm Hillhead Library
Tuesday 15 August 1pm-7pm Hillhead Library
Wednesday 16 August 1pm-7pm Hillhead Library

Inclusive design workshop on Monday 7 August is specifically for disabled people, elderly people and those with long term health conditions. It will be held in an accessible West End venue on Monday 7 August.  Please book in advance via Glasgow Disability Alliance: admin@gdaonline.co.uk or  0141 556 7103.

Business breakfast on Tuesday 15 August is for anybody who runs or works in a business on or near Byres Road. Drop in between 8am and 10am for a chat with the design team – we’ll be at The Hill, 94 Byres Road. Help shape the proposals so that they are good for business!

To find out more about the project….

Check out the exhibitions in Hillhead and Partick Libraries for more information.
Facebook.com/ByresRoadCorners has lots of informative posts and debate.
Contact us direct at byresroadcorners@gmail.com or 07900 334110.

Check out the conversations on our Facebook page
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Parking controls and 20mph for Partick but no contraflow cycling on one-way streets.

Glasgow City Council are currently consulting on a Traffic Regulation Order to introduce a mandatory 20mph speed limit in a significant number of streets in Partick, see https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=18127  This follows earlier proposals to “manage” parking, which introduced some new one-way streets.  Unfortunately parking is still being allowed to a significant extent on many streets, to such an extent in fact that the Council refuse to allow contraflow cycling on these streets.  This is despite contraflow cycling on one-way streets being the default position in the design guide the Council uses, Cycling by Design!  Further details on our Consultations page and our Design Guides page.  Our letter of support for the 20mph proposal includes our concerns: GoBike Partick 20mph support with concern 100717

We have also responded to on-line consultations for Glasgow City Council’s proposed Mini-Holland scheme (details were on view on 23 June), the Green Party’s ambitious proposals to update their active travel policy and the future of the Walk, Cycle, Vote campaign.  We have supported a minor proposal from Glasgow City Council to control parking on Havannah Street/Duke Street.  See our Consultations page for details.

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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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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