Transform Scotland’s Public affairs manager Laura Hyde-White said

“It is deeply disappointing to see the Government abandon its target to cut car traffic by 20% by 2030. This was a very ambitious goal which demanded transformational change.”

“Yet since its announcement progress has been piecemeal at best, with the Government spending the past four years tinkering with public transport fares and delivery plans stuck in limbo as responsibility bounced between national and local government.”

“But we need traffic reduction more than ever — not only for climate, but for cleaner air and safer streets, a healthier and fairer society, and a stronger economy.”

Read more here

Source: Transform Scotland

Photo by Quaid Lagan on Unsplash

Mark Ruskell launched his Safer Streets Bill in 2017 and it is now making its way through the Scottish Parliament as the Restricted Roads (20mph Limt)(Scotland) Bill. The full details may be seen here.

The Bill has now moved to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee for scrutiny and this committee has launched its own consultation, which closes on 28 January. There is information about the bill and a link to the committee’s survey here.

You can help us support this bill by doing two things – respond to this survey and contact to your MSP. We pulled together some help for you to do those things below.

RESPOND TO THE SURVEY

The link again is here.

We need a 20mph limit. The reasons for a 20mph default speed limit include:

1. Consistency from town to town across Scotland. Drivers will expect to drive at 20 not 30mph unless there is signage that allows them to drive at speeds in excess of 20.
2. Consistency within towns. Drivers will expect to drive at 20mph unless there is signage that allows them to drive at speeds in excess of this. Currently there is a lack of consistency, with some proactive communities aiming to protect their schools and their local residential areas with a 20mph limit. There is an increasing number of city areas where local authorities are imposing a 20mph limit to make places more people-friendly and to encourage active travel.
3. Reduction in signage. As urban speeds go up and down there is signage at each change in speed and this will be reduced if the default speed is 20mph. Local communities will see the benefits of a lower speed limit and will resist moves to increase a limit to 30mph.
4. Reduction in pollution. As motor traffic moves at a lower, but importantly, more consistent speed, vehicle emissions will be reduced as there is less requirement to accelerate away from traffic lights. See link, (a), below
5. Reduced danger to pedestrians. It is widely recognised that a vehicle travelling at 20mph is less likely to kill or seriously injure a pedestrian with whom it collides, than if it is travelling at 30mph or more.
6. An improved environment for cycling. The speed differential between a motor vehicle and a bicycle is reduced from a factor of 3 or 4 to a factor of 2 or less. Bicycles can regularly travel at 10-12mph and more people will feel confident of cycling on road alongside motor traffic moving at no more than 20mph.
7. A reduction in motor traffic within towns. Drivers will tend to use the outer ring roads where speed limits are 30mph or higher rather than a more direct route through an urban centre.
8. A reduction in congestion. This would come as more drivers avoid urban centres and those who do travel within urban areas move at a more consistent speed, with less need to overtake etc.
9. Improved compliance, monitoring and enforcement of the speed limit. A consistent speed limit of 20mph, rather than one that changes across an urban area, will encourage compliance by drivers and ease any monitoring and compliance to be done by the authorities. See note (b) below.
10. Reduction in the requirement for “traffic calming”. Local authorities are finding it necessary to install traffic calming measures, usually speed tables or cushions, to reduce motor traffic speeds to no more than 20mph. This expensive practice will not be so regularly required with a default speed of 20mph (Note that traffic calming can cost in the region of £60k vs £1k per km for speed limit signage).

(a) – see point 4 above – this link from a contribution to the Guardian newspaper provides interesting reading, including this quote:

“Research in Germany has shown that the greater the speed of vehicles in built-up areas, the higher is the incidence of acceleration, deceleration, and braking, all of which increase air pollution. German research indicates that traffic calming reduces idle times by 15%, gear changing by 12%, brake use by 14%, and gasoline use by 12% (Newman and Kenworthy 1992, 39–40). This slower and calmer style of driving reduces emissions, as demonstrated by an evaluation in Buxtehude, Germany. Table E-1 shows the relative change in emissions and fuel use when the speed limit is cut from 50kmh (31mph) to 30kmh (19mph) for two different driving styles. Even aggressive driving under the slower speed limit produces lower emissions (but higher fuel use) than under the higher speed limit, although calm driving produces greater reductions for most emissions and net fuel savings (Newman and Kenworthy 1992, 39 –40).”

The AA have carried out tests, see this article, to support a view that lower speed limits raise fuel consumption and hence pollution, although there is no mention of the reduced acceleration and braking when driving at a steady speed of 20mph. However the overriding concerns should be to reduce the severity of accidents and to encourage the switch to active travel. This article, “Speed reduction methods to promote road safety and save lives” gives a good summary of what can be done.

(b) – see point 9 above – Enforcement is an issue, as it is with ALL speed limits, from 20 – 70, but, like smoking and drink driving, the public mood must change. However, some enforcement will be needed and, given the other benefits – fewer and less-severe accidents, for example, Police Scotland and/or our Local Authorities should be funded accordingly.

CONTACT TO YOUR MSP

It is really important that we visit or write to our MSP to show our support for the 20mph Bill,  particularly those of us with MSPs on the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee.

Here is our official response and we also have a template letter here  with a pdf of that  too, that you might want to work from if you need some help getting started.

For the west of Scotland, the essential MSPs to contact are:

John Mason (Shettleston) john.mason.msp@parliament.scot

Richard Lyle (Uddingston & Bellshill) richard.lyle.msp@parliament.scot

Jamie Greene (West of Scotland Region) jamie.greene.msp@parliament.scot

As the bill progresses Cabinet Ministers will have the final say, so it’s important, particularly if your MSP is a Cabinet Minister that you meet them or email them. In the West of Scotland these people are:

Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow Southside) nicola.sturgeon.msp@parliament.scot

Humza Yousaf (Glasgow Region) humza.yousaf.msp@parliament.scot

Derek Mackay (Renfrewshire North & West) derek.mackay.msp@parliament.scot

Aileen Campbell (Clydesdale) aileen.campbell.msp@parliament.scot

In addition to all the points in favour of the Bill listed above, here is a reminder of the MSP briefing that Mark Ruskell sent to us:  SaferStreetsMSPbrief

At the AGM Transform Scotland launched their Transform 20 campaign: ‘As part of Transform Scotland’s 20th anniversary year we’ve launched a new campaign called #Transform20. This campaign focuses on offering an easy way for the public to communicate their ideas to transform transport in Scotland to become more eco-friendly, safer and easier to access.

Ideas can be simple and don’t require a detailed explanation. To submit your idea, please go to our website http://transform20.transform.scot, where you can submit a brief description of up to 200 words on how you think Scottish transport can be transformed. Your idea must be accompanied by a title (under 10 words) and there’s an option to upload a high quality picture to support your idea. You can also upload supporting documents or provide a link to further information if you wish.’

GoBike has submitted our Contraflow campaign to this page, others have submitted their ideas too.  Why not have a look and submit your bee-in-your-bonnet campaigning idea?

If you like our Contraflow campaign please send in your contraflow picture, telling us where it is, to campaigning@gobike.org and we’ll add it to the web page.

It’s September 8th!!

It’s #GlasgowCycleInfraDay17!!!

Yes, the day has finally arrived for us to take to the streets of Glasgow and show the world exactly what our cycling infrastructure is like.  Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad, and we need to see it all so we can show it to the Council and help to make ours a true Cycling City.

Keep your camera with you today and when you spot any cycling infrastructure that you want to highlight (good or bad) – or if you spot somewhere that’s crying out for infrastructure it doesn’t have yet – take a picture and Tweet it with the hashtag #GlasgowCycleInfraDay17.  Don’t worry if you don’t have Twitter, you can still take part by emailing your pictures to us at CycleInfraDay@gmail.com.

You’ll be able to watch the gallery build throughout the day by keeping an eye on the hashtag on Twitter (you don’t need an account for this – just click this link), or by following the Twitter account (@CycleInfraDay).

Remember, this is supposed to be an easy way of documenting a day in the life of Glasgow’s cycling infrastructure.  So please be sensible; don’t go dashing across busy roads to get an ‘action shot’, or exploring the collapsed section of the cycle lane along the Clyde to show the damage after the weir jammed last week.

Most importantly… have fun!

We reproduce below the submitted text of a Herald newspaper Agenda item, written by GoBike member, Bob Downie, and  published in the Herald today.  It is just possible that the car owning populace of the land might not like this article, so if you agree with it then please get your letter of support into the Herald now!  Bob has written the item in a personal capacity but we are pleased to publish the views of GoBike members if they are generally in line with our aims. The printed text, as in the Herald, is given here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/15483256.Agenda__On_street_parking_should_not_be_at_the_expense_of_cycling_infrastructure/

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“When on your bike, how many times do you hear the phrase “get off the road!”, followed by a barbed statement along the lines of “roads are for cars and you can get your toy onto the pavement”? The answer is more often than many of us would like. Being the mature adults that we are, we sadly shake our heads and cycle on. It is to be hoped that the holders of such ideas will in time pass on to the great motorway in the sky, and be replaced by a younger generation more used to the idea that one’s transport mode depends on the journey, walking, cycling, driving or public transport as the circumstance dictates. We can dream.

However, even enlightened urban car owners consider that they have an absolute right to park on the street outside their property. As a campaigner for improvements in the cycling environment in Glasgow, I keep bumping up against the refusal to install any cycling infrastructure because it could only be built at the expense of on-street parking. This factor, possibly more than any other is the primary reason why we do not, and possibly cannot, have good quality, protected cycle lanes in our fine city.

The desire to park on the road close to one’s property is perfectly understandable, but let us step back and ask the fundamental question, what is a road and what is its function? The online Oxford English defines a road as “a wide way leading from one place to another, especially one with a specially prepared surface which vehicles can use”. The Collins dictionary offers “a road is a long piece of hard ground which is built between two places so that people can drive or ride easily from one place to the other”. However, the most important definition is the Road Traffic Act 1988 which states “a road physically should have the character of a definable route, with ascertainable edges, and that leads from one point to another to enable travellers to move conveniently from one point to another along that route”.

The essence of all the above definitions is that a road is constructed route that people can use to travel by vehicle from one place to another, the RTA of 1988 adding the term “move conveniently”. What is conspicuously missing from any definition of “road” is that it is a place to store your priv2ate property. Now call me picky, but what is a car if not private property?

It thus seems that we cannot have the network of safe, connected cycle infrastructure in Glasgow that we so urgently need, because of the priority given to allowing people to store their private property on the public road. I have no fundamental desire to stop parking where there is room to do so without impeding traffic, but cyclists are every bit as much traffic as are motor vehicles and it is wrong to deny them safe, segregated routes by preferentially prioritising parking. Glasgow, like all urban areas, needs a cycle revolution. The pent-up desire is huge but until safe infrastructure is created the desire will never be satisfied for the many would-be cyclists intimidated by sharing roads with motor vehicle.

So, on-street parking is fine, but should be given the lowest priority and allowed only after the needs of all traffic, including cycling, are satisfied. Roads are routes to travel on and not places to store personal property. I say, “Get the parked cars off the road” and allow the cycle traffic to flow.”

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GoBike is a member of Cycling Scotland and we have been informed about the new Cycling Scotland Strategy 2017-22 which has been approved by the Cycling Scotland Board.  Here’s a copy: Cycling Scotland Strategy 2017-22 – FINAL

(the online version will be available on the new website, which will be going live during the summer)

The Board and all the staff look forward to working with us all, in GoBike and the other member organisations, to achieve the aims and ambitions in this strategy, helping pursue our vision of a sustainable, inclusive and healthy Scotland where anyone, anywhere, can enjoy all the benefits of cycling.