This is the third Digest during the quieter pre-election period. If you want to know what some of the candidates had to say about cycling, you can watch a video of GoBike’s Hustings event. You can also see Pedal on Parliament getting their message across.

This Digest has news about Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire. There’s also some feedback about developments in Glasgow.

Since COVID-19 restrictions are easing, the usual editor is away and the previous editor is filling in. So, there are no links to jump to the topics this time (knowledge update required!). However, things are still a bit quiet so it shouldn’t take long to scroll through.

Contents
(new consultations in bold)

Section 1: Current Consultations

1. East Dunbartonshire Council – Climate Conversation (until 2 May)
2. North Lanarkshire Council – Town Hubs location surveys
3. Glasgow Urban Sports – GUSM74 Urban Sports Sculpture Park survey

Section 2: Forthcoming Consultations

None this time.

Section 3: Consultation Feedback

1. Glasgow City Council – Hill Street Temporary Traffic Regulation Order
2. Glasgow City Council – St. Andrews Drive Sustainable Transport Route
3. Community Action Lanarkshire – Make Your Way, Key Links consultation
4. Multiplex – Glasgow Uni newsletter April 2021

Section 1: Current Consultations
(in date order for responses)

1.1: East Dunbartonshire Council – Climate Conversation

EDC’s ongoing Climate Conversation was first covered in Digest 82, Item 1.7. It is due to feed into a Climate Action Plan then, following on from that, an Active Travel Strategy. So, it should set the tone for any future active travel development in East Dunbartonshire (assuming there is any after EDC ignored Spaces for People and stopped the Bears Way).

The workshops have all finished now but the consultation is still open. This is your last chance to comment before it closes on 2 May.

1.2: North Lanarkshire Council – Town Hub Location Survey

The Town Hub consultation first featured in Digest 81, Item 1.2. Following the workshops in March, the next phase is gathering opinions about the site options. The Hubs are about using school refurbishments (or other redevelopment) to deliver wider community facilities. While not strictly about cycling, the new hubs should be made easy to access by bike/active travel. The areas involved are: Airdrie, Bellshill, Coatbridge, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth, Motherwell, ‘Northern Corridor’ (Chryston), Shotts and Wishaw.

It’s a bit unusual to see a council consultation like this during the ‘purdah’ pre-election period, especially as some of the potential hub locations are on land that isn’t owned by the council! For example, one option for the Airdrie hub is the site of the current University Hospital Monklands. The hospital isn’t due to move to its new site at Wester Moffat until the late 2020s. Most of the other locations are current schools, except for a few, such as Cumbernauld town centre, Wishaw Sports Centre and Ravenscraig (Motherwell). The latter will arguably have better active travel access from Craigneuk/Wishaw than from Motherwell itself.

Each area is covered in one of the videos on the consultation webpage (without subtitles, sadly). It may be easier to watch them by clicking the red link to open them in a new tab/window. There are also videos at the foot of the page explaining the thinking behind the project. Each area has a link to a survey to give your views. There’s no obvious closing date for this one, but do get your views in soon!

1.3: GUS – GUSM74 Urban Sports Sculpture Park survey

First covered in Digest 81, Item 1.9, the GUSM74 skate park would redevelop the area under a flyover near West St underground station. The GUSM74 survey is still open for BMX riders, skaters, or their families, to have their say.

Section 2: Forthcoming Consultations

None this time.

Section 3: Consultation Feedback

3.1: Glasgow City Council – Hill Street Temporary Traffic Regulation Order

This Temporary TRO seems to be new and we have no record of any consultation prior to implementation. It’s possibly to do with St Aloysius College, which is a private school at 45 Hill St on the block mentioned in the order, between Scott St and Dalhousie St (just north of Glasgow School of Art). It seems this single block will become two-way, while the rest of Hill St stays one-way.
The streets in Garnethill are narrow with parked motor vehicles adding to the lack of space for cycling, so do take care in the area.

Here are the details of the Order:

3.2: Glasgow City Council – St. Andrews Drive Sustainable Transport Route

This extension to the South West City Way was first announced in a Consultation Extra in November 2019. The official order for the route was in Digest 81, Item 1.1 and GoBike submitted this response:

We had already submitted a very detailed letter in response to an earlier consultation:

Our detailed comments do not, sadly, form part of the TRO Consultation and GoBike is rarely involved in cycleway design. Here is the response of 20 April to our reluctant acceptance of the limited TRO:

“MESSAGE SENT ON BEHALF OF CHRISTINE FRANCIS, HEAD OF TECHNICAL SERVICES.
NEIGHBOURHOODS REGENERATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

Dear Ms Fort
THE GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL, (St. ANDREWS DRIVE) (SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT ROUTE) ORDER 20__

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the above named Traffic Regulation Order.
We note your letter of “No Objection” this will be considered and included within the final report which will inform the decision. Once a decision has been taken in regards to these proposals I shall write to you again and advise of the outcome.
We further note your points raised in your letter as these are not under the TRO process these will be replied to under separate cover.

Yours sincerely, etc“

We look forward to the promised response under “separate cover”!

3.3: Community Action Lanarkshire – Make Your Way, Key Links consultation

This project first came up in Digest 75, Item 1.3. The Key Links projects is about creating new active travel routes in Abington, Douglas, Leadhills and Wanlockhead in rural South Lanarkshire. Make Your Way had won funding for a feasibility study in summer 2020.

An update on the CAL website has feedback about the consultation (and a ringing endorsement from one of the local candidates).

3.4: Multiplex – Glasgow Uni newsletter April 2021

Multiplex have released their latest update about the Glasgow Uni campus redevelopment – April 2021 newsletter. It doesn’t mention a change to the temporary traffic lights on University Avenue. GoBike member Iain had taken this up with the developers after several members found the green light phase wasn’t long enough. That meant they couldn’t cycle past the roadworks before oncoming traffic got a green light. The phase has now been lengthened – please let us know if you have any further issues with it.

The next Digest will be after the Scottish Parliament election, when normal service may be resumed.

Due to the suspension of campaigning we postponed the publication of our candidate blogs and party statements over the weekend. Our final post(*) is from the Scottish National Party, which will be represented at the hustings by Kaukab Stewart. We have also been provided with a statement from Michael Matheson, the SNP Transport Secretary on active travel.

Kaukab has been campaigning for independence since the 1990s and has worked as a teacher in communities across Scotland for almost 30 years and lives in the west end of the city with her family.

She stood as the SNP candidate in the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999 against the late Donald Dewar. During her time in the party she has taken on other political heavyweights including former Chancellor Alistair Darling at the 2010 General Election.

Kaukab is hugely passionate about education and ensuring that every young person in Scotland is given an equal chance to succeed. She brings first hand experience to the table along with a determination to make Scottish education even better.

Statement from Michael Matheson SNP Transport Secretary

Over the past year during this dreadful pandemic, our way of living has been turned on its head. One of the biggest changes was that the requirement to firstly “stay at home” and then to “stay local” meant many more of us living and working locally.  The closure of gyms and contact sports to keep people safe also meant many were without their usual ways of keeping fit.  Walking and cycling – active travel – suddenly became much more popular and necessary to get about and get some daily exercise.

As we rebuild and recover from the pandemic it allows us to reimagine how we go about our daily lives. A priority for the SNP, if re-elected, will be to ensure Scotland’s economic and social recovery is green and investment in active travel will be crucial to that.

That is why the SNP has already committed to the Scotland Road Safety Framework, which has just been renewed to 2030 and invests in cyclist and pedestrian spaces to keep people using them safe from traffic. During the pandemic, we have made almost £39 million available to local authorities and other statutory bodies through the Spaces for People programme -which aims to provide temporary on and off-road segregated walking and cycling routes, safer junctions and improved design of local street space.

Last month’s Scottish Budget announcement of an additional £15 million direct capital for the active travel budget bringing the total annual active travel budget to £115.5 million for 2021-22. 

The active travel budget compares favourably to spending on roads. Active travel funding as a percentage of our capital investment in Motorways and Trunk Roads has increased from 6.3% in 2017-18 to 28.2% in the 2021-22 budget.

On cycling, we are offering new support to increase access to bikes for all including the provision of public bike and e-bike share schemes, particularly in areas of multiple deprivation and we are supporting the use of e-bikes and adapted bikes through interest-free loans and grants. 

We are committed to continuing our support for the provision of child and adult cycle training and safety programmes, including driver awareness training.  

The SNP in government also recently updated the Climate Change Plan, which has 100 policies for tackling climate change. These include a commitment to support transformational active travel projects with over £500 million of investment in the next five years, delivering better active travel infrastructure, access to bikes and behaviour change schemes.  

We also want to ensure local authorities work in a ‘joined-up way in delivering active travel infrastructure, linking towns and cities with ‘Active Freeways’. That’s why we have committed to investing an additional £50 million to deliver a strategic active travel network, to provide segregated active travel routes on main travel corridors to city and town centres and major trip attractors – linking communities throughout Scotland.

If we are to tackle the climate emergency and rethink the way we travel within and between our towns, cities and villages, then we need ambitious plans which not only transform our walkways and roads but allow local authorities to be ambitious in their plans to make better spaces for cycling, walking and wheeling. The SNP is not only committed to making all that happen, but to funding it too.  

If you haven’t already done so please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

* We did not receive a candidate blog and party statement submission from the Labour Party.

Patrick is co-leader of the Scottish Green Party, along with Lorna Slater, and has previously represented the Glasgow Region in the Scottish Parliament since 2003.

He has been involved in a very wide range of issues including asylum, sexual health, housing, fair work and transgender rights. In response to climate change, he has campaigned extensively on improving public transport and active travel infrastructure and has repeatedly advocated for radical measures to reduce CO2 emissions and end dependence on fossil fuels.

When he’s not fighting for social and environmental justice, he will likely be consuming copious amounts of sci-fi and responsible amounts of craft beer. Glasgow residents are also likely to have seen him whizzing around the city on an aptly-coloured green bike.

Statement

Active Travel

The Scottish Greens know that a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable transport system for Scotland is a vital component in our fight against climate change.

We want a transport system that prioritises walking, cycling and other active mobility modes, followed by public transport. Commercial and business traffic can be reduced, and encouraged into sustainable modes. Private cars will likely always have a role to play, but cannot be allowed to dominate our public spaces as they do today.

We know we need to make walking and cycling the most attractive and viable transport options in order to achieve this. This means changing both the physical space on our roads and streets, and the culture of how they’re used. It will take serious capital investment to transform our infrastructure, but this should be seen as an investment in a healthy and sustainable economy. So too is spending to achieve behaviour change and an overall shift in attitude and culture.

In the 2020/21 budget negotiations, we secured an additional £15m for cycling, walking and wheeling, bringing the total to record levels, along with a commitment to ensure that the £50m town centre fund supports active travel – but we recognise there’s still a long way to go.

So the Scottish Greens want to see a radical boost in funding in active travel from 2.2%, where it currently stands, to forming at least 10% of total transport budget. This would bring us more in line with other northern European countries, which have far higher numbers of trips made on foot or by bike. It would also reduce air pollution which is estimated to cause over 2,500 deaths per year in Scotland. We’d invest as much again in the ’15-minute neighbourhood’ concept, ensuring that communities’ needs are met with lower demand for road space.

Harnessing a significant modal shift towards active travel in Scotland also requires working closely with local government and communities. For the Scottish Greens, this means calling for increased public consultation and participatory budgeting on active travel as well as 20mph speed limits in residential areas, cycle hubs at bus and train stations, better street lighting and lengthened crossing times at pedestrian crossings.

Every child in Scotland should be given the opportunity to undertake on-road cycle training and provision for the training of adults must also be supported.

To make active travel safe and appealing, the most vulnerable road users need to be protected by law. Changing the law to presumed liability would ensure that when road accidents do happen, the most vulnerable road users are protected.

In line with other major European nations, pedestrians and cyclists with additional vulnerabilities (children, older people, disabled people) should receive automatic compensation in road accidents.

These policies are by no means an exhaustive list of the policies that Scottish Greens believe are required to increase active travel uptake in Scotland and we know that much more work is needed.

I also know how daunting it can be to start cycling in a city like Glasgow, with its woeful track record on active travel. But also know how liberating and joyful it can be, and I want more Glaswegians to share in that.

Keep an eye out for our Holyrood 2021 manifesto, due to launch on 14th April, for more detail on the Scottish Greens’ pledges and commitments to walking, cycling and wheeling.

If you haven’t already done so please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

I’m standing to be the first Liberal Democrat MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, having just turned 30 I’m the youngest candidate standing in the constituency. I was born and raised in Greenock, I left school aged 16 to pursue a career in the technology industry with Hewlett Packard in Erskine. For the past five years I’ve been working primarily in London but also in San Francisco, delivering consultancy to some of the world’s largest companies.

I’m well aware of the positive benefits the Scottish Parliament can achieve, especially for young people. My career is the direct result of investment made by the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition from 1999-2007. I was 8 years old when the Scottish Parliament first sat but in the last decade I’ve seen the opportunities I was provided fall away for future generations, I now want to return home to make sure we come out of this pandemic with a positive progressive path for Scotland.

Statement

Safer cycling and walking

Scottish Liberal Democrats will:

Change town planning processes to make sure roads have separate spaces for cyclists, walkers/wheelers and motorists, to keep them all safe.

Make cycling more attractive with a new challenge fund to help install showers and changing rooms in workplaces and community facilities.

Decarbonise commuting through more support for e-bikes, as part of a plan to increase government support for households to buy or use forms of electric transport.

Bring forward the £50 million programme for Active Freeway routes from town centres to outlying neighbourhoods, which has been delayed until 2025 by the current government.

Plan so that every child has done their cycling proficiency test by the end of primary school, and every adult can take tuition and a test if they want it. We need to get children interested at the earliest possible opportunity. Only around 4% of children cycle to school.

Insist on a Fatal Accident Inquiry for each pedestrian death and require regional transport authorities to take remedial action.

Attitudes to cycling will only change if it is viewed as a safe and convenient alternative to other forms of transport. Research by Sustrans and Edinburgh Council in 2015 found that just 62% of city residents felt safe riding a bike during the day, falling to 34% at night. The figures for driving a car were up towards 90%.

20-minute neighbourhoods

Active travel will be helped by the drive for 20-minute neighbourhoods. The idea is to build ‘local living’ into how we plan and invest in communities.  This would mean basic services, such as schools, employment, healthcare and other community facilities are accessible and can be reached without a car. The approach should help to disperse investment, jobs and services more widely.

Making Glasgow more accessible for all

Charities including RNIB often campaign on the accessibility of the built environment. We agree with them that there are serious issues which need addressing. For example, clamping down on street furniture to make pavements easier to navigate

We also campaigned for years to clamp down on pavement parking. It was the Liberal Democrats who first tried to legislate on this in the 2007-11 Parliament. It is good that legislation has now been passed.

We campaigned for the Spaces for People rollout and worked to secure funding from Ministers. We wanted to reclaim road space for pedestrians to give everyone more room so that it’s easier to distance. Having more space on streets will also help disabled people in the long-term.

The implementation of that wasn’t perfect everywhere, and where there were issues on the ground in places like Edinburgh we campaigned to see them rectified. It’s in nobody’s interest to see rollouts that don’t work with the community’s needs.

There is a lesson to learn here – that plans need to be properly backed up by planning, consultation and funding. We can avoid and remove obstacles by taking account of the needs of disabled people early in the design process

If you haven’t already done so please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

Graham Simpson has been a Scottish Conservative for Central Scotland since 2016. He was a councillor in South Lanarkshire between 2007 and 2017 and formed South Lanarkshire’s Cycling Partnership. Prior to being elected to parliament he was a sub editor for The Scottish Sun.

Statement

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us all the value of the outdoors.

More and more people have discovered what’s on their doorsteps and they are liking it.

The numbers of people cycling and walking has increased and the challenge must be to ensure that increase is here to stay.

People need to feel safe and secure when they are cycling.

So I want to see more segregated routes in every town and city.

The Spaces for People scheme has been good – mostly – but some councils have not gone about it in the right way.

Edinburgh, for example, was particularly bad. They steamrollered scheme through without any consultation and that has got people’s backs up.

What should have been a positive thing has turned into something controversial and that should not be happening anywhere.

I want to see the active travel budget as a proportion of overall transport spend increase. It’s been stuck at around the 2-3% mark for years.

I think it is realistic to aim for that to reach 10% over the course of the next parliament, though anything more would be welcome.

We need to set design standards for routes, using what I would call the double buggy test – that is it needs to feel comfortable for anyone pushing a double buggy. If it doesn’t then it has failed.

Get that right and it helps able bodied and not to able bodied too.

My party’s more-detailed proposals will be set out in our manifesto, which we have yet to publish.

If you haven’t already done so please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

Representatives of the various political parties will present their policies for improving provision for wheeling, walking and cycling in Scotland. GoBike will be asking the candidates questions based on the Walk, Wheel, Cycle, Vote pledges. There will then be an opportunity for you to ask questions on how the candidates can make a positive impact on active travel with in the Glasgow Metropolitan area.

The candidates from the five major political parties that will be attending are:

Patrick Harvie – Scottish Green Party
Alex Rowley – Scottish Labour Party
Graham Simpson – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Kaukab Stewart – Scottish National Party
David McKenzie – Scottish Liberal Democrats

During this week we hope to post a blog post from each of the candidates, outlining their parties policies on Active Travel.

On Friday the National Consultation Digest will include a summary of all the active travel policies from each of the parties manifestos.

If you haven’t already done so please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

We can confirm that a representative from each of the five major political parties will attend and have so far had named confirmations from:

Patrick Harvie – Scottish Green Party
Alex Rowley – Scottish Labour Party
Graham Simpson – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Kaukab Stewart – Scottish National Party
David McKenzie – Scottish Liberal Democrats

As with most things over the past year, this event will be online. Please sign up here (link) for free to receive instructions on how to join us. The hustings is open to all with an interest in active travel, so we hope as many of our members and friends can attend.

Our hustings will run under the Wheel, Walk, Cycle Vote banner where we will focus our questions around their three pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

Walk, Wheel, Cycle, Vote is a collaborative campaign asking all candidates for the Scottish Parliament to sign up to three clear pledges that will make Scotland a country where everyone has the choice to walk, wheel or cycle in safety for their everyday journeys. The pledges are:

• Accessibility: Ensure that our streets, paths and footways are accessible to everyone, whether on foot or using any form of mobility aid; by putting accessibility at the heart of our street design, we will create places everyone can use and enjoy.
• Infrastructure: Create a long-term programme to rebuild our villages, towns and cities around walking, wheeling and cycling, with active travel infrastructure everyone can use – the initial goal should be that every child who wants to can walk, wheel or cycle to their school.
• Investment: Provide the sustained, long-term investment needed to start this transformation of Scotland into a country that enables active travel everywhere – starting from 10% of the transport budget, and rising to 20% over the course of the parliament.

Read the asks in full here.

With POP now in its sixth year, and the Scottish local authority elections looming, we’re ringing the changes with four mass rides in four of Scotland’s cities: on Saturday 22nd April there will be simultaneous rides in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen, and on Sunday 23rd April we take to the streets of Glasgow.

The ride will be from Glasgow Green to George Square on entirely closed roads, and will be a family-friendly demonstration suitable for all cyclists of all ages. Meet at Glasgow Green for a 1pm start.

View the route

GoBike is a supporter of POP and the above is taken from their website: http://pedalonparliament.org/

POP Glasgow is just 4 days after GoBike’s Hustings, so get yourself into election mode.  Get yourself informed about who to vote for.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15150845.SNP_pledge_extra_cash_for_active_travel_scheme/

Susan Aitken, leader of the SNP group on Glasgow City Council has pledged to increase spending on walking and cycling to 10% of the transport budget if the SNP take control of the City Council in the May elections.

Come to the GoBike hustings on 19 April to check out what all the parties will spend across the Strathclyde area.

Ivan McKee has, at very short notice, stepped in to take Sandra White’s place at tomorrow’s Hustings.  He’s the SNP candidate for Glasgow Provan, see http://www.snp.org/ivan_mckee  and you can see more about him on his Facebook page

We look forward to welcoming Ivan to our Hustings tomorrow.