Family over so a trip around edinburgh
and then some more walking
Tag: edinburgh
new speed limit should make cyclists lives a bit safer ….
Residential streets across Scotland could see compulsory 20mph zones come into force following a successful trial of the speed limits on 25 miles of streets in Edinburgh.
Transport Scotland has said that inital trialling on the south side of Edinburgh showed fewer collisions in the target areas – and that when the results had been fully analysed they would be providing advice to councils based on Edinburgh’s experiences.
Transport convener Lesley Hinds told the Scotsman: “In the pilot area, the level of support for the 20mph speed limit has increased, and was viewed by residents as safer for children walking about the area and to play in the street, better conditions for walking and fewer traffic incidents.
“The speed surveys have demonstrated the 20mph speed limit has resulted in an overall positive drop in speeds.
“Taking account of the positive feedback from this pilot scheme, subject to final approval of the local transport strategy in January, a programme will be implemented to extend 20mph limits to all residential streets, shopping areas and main roads with large numbers of pedestrians.”
Many areas also have 20mph advisory signs, but these compulsory limits are rarer. Edinburgh City Council spent £100,000 on the experiment.
It’s now mooted that the limits be widened to include all residential and shopping streets.
Neil Greig, the Scotland-based policy and research director of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: “In the right places, 20mph zones are very popular, but their impact on road safety in pure injury numbers is often oversold.
“Projects from elsewhere in the UK have shown mixed results, with speeds coming down but crash numbers much the same and even a decrease in walking and cycling in cities such as Portsmouth.
“If the schemes in Edinburgh have been popular and left residents feeling safer and more likely to cycle, then we have no problem with them being extended.
“However, we do have concerns about blanket approaches, particularly when main roads are included.”
In June, the Scottish Government unveiled its updated Cycling Action Plan for Scotland (CAPS 2013), three years after the original version was published in 2010. Like its predecessor, the new plan calls for 10 per cent of journeys in the country to be made by bicycle by 2020.
The revised action plan also calls on local authorities to reduce speed limits in residential areas to 20mph as part of a wider strategy including developing cycling infrastructure that is aimed at encouraging more people to ride bikes, as well as meeting road casualty reduction targets and achieving better integration with public transport.
A spokeswoman for Transport Scotland said:“Transport Scotland is committed to encouraging local authorities to consider 20mph zones in all residential areas.
“The Scottish Government has encouraged the use of 20mph speed limits in residential areas and around schools, and has issued guidance most recently in 2006.
“Transport Scotland is assisting the City of Edinburgh Council with the evaluation of its 20mph speed limit pilot scheme in south central Edinburgh, which has designated all side streets, and some of the main routes, in the area as 20mph.
“We are aware of the DfT guidance issued in January which actively encourages local authorities to introduce more 20mph limits. When we receive the council’s pilot project final report we will review this, and consider issuing best practice guidance to local authorities.”
The Streets of San Fransisco – Danny MacAskill
this week Danny MacAskill takes it to San Francisco to do some high stakes street riding. Get a brew on, sit back and relax…
Pedal on Parliament Edinburgh
pedal on parliament was amazing. Came across from Glasgow on the train
and then joined up with another Brompton rider who showed me a nice way down to Leith on the cycle path (old railway)
Joined up with a feeder ride in Leith
then on to the park where the crowds got bigger and bigger
then a wait for the off
then down the royal mile
and eventually to parliament where we could barely hear a word of the speeches on a feeble PA … but message to holyrood is strong if a bit silent …
FROM Pedal on Parliament SITE Just wow. When PoP thought of this we wondered if we might get 300 riders out. Then we raised our sights a little and started to hope we’d see a thousand. As we stood at the top of Middle Meadow Walk and saw the bikes come pouring in from all directions we began to think we’d started something big but we didn’t know how big until the head of the ride reached Holyrood while the back was still leaving the Meadows. The police’s conservative estimate was that 2,500 of you were out there pedalling on Parliament and we suspect it might be even more. In fact, we think that more people turned out to ride with us than have even signed the petition, showing the depths of feeling that was out there among people to see safer cycling.
There will be more as we digest all the great photos and videos, blog posts and testimonies that have been pouring in since the moment the ride started to assemble in the Meadows. We’d like to thank you all who turned out – not just for turning out but for being such a great, good natured and patient crowd. We’d like to thank the police for their assistance at a ride that turned out to be up to ten times larger than they were expecting. And, with a few grumpy exceptions we’d like to thank the people of Edinburgh for allowing us to have our moment in the sun – and in many cases, cheering us on.
Please, keep posting your pictures on our Flickr group and adding your stories on the Facebook group, keep tweeting them your videos and blog posts, and keep signing the petition(which will be up for a few weeks yet before we formally lodge it with the Scottish Government. And keep watching this space – we need to keep in contact because, for all the warm words from our politicians at Holyrood today, changing government policy to bring about the real changes needed to make Scotland a cycle friendly country. We’ll let you know what happens next soon, but for now the (exhausted) people who brought you Pedal on Parliament are going to have an early night…
Danny MacAskill returns to Edinburgh
Part ad / part profile … fully nice guy.
Profile of street trials rider Danny Macaskill. Using his new Lezyne Engineering tools, Danny Macaskill re-visits his old job, in the workshop of MacDonalds Cycles in Edinburgh Scotland and chats over his rise to success and how life has changed.
Featuring some new street trials content filmed exclusively for Lezyne by Cut Media’s Stu Thomson in the streets of Edinburgh. Danny also takes a mountain bike ride high on to Dumyat in Trossachs hills in Central Scotland and talks over his love for mountain biking.
Scottish Cyclist protest in Edinburgh
from road.cc
Environmental campaigners in Scotland are calling on cyclists to join them this lunchtime in Edinburgh to protest against government cuts in the amount of money available for sustainable travel. The event, organised by Stop Climate Change Scotland, starts at 1pm outside the Scottish Government offices at St Andrew’s House, and has the backing of former Olympic and world champion, Chris Boardman.
Stop Climate Change Scotland says that the country “has shown global leadership by setting the most ambitious emissions reduction targets in the world.
“But,” it adds, “our Climate Change Act can only set a good example if we actually achieve what we’ve committed to do – and that’s under threat, as the Scottish Government has failed to fund its own plans to reduce emissions.”
The coalition, whose members include CTC and Sustrans as well as Edinburgh cycling campaign group Spokes, says that sustainable transport is the area giving rise to most concern, and is calling on as many people as possible to converge on St Andrew’s House on Regent Road, the principle offices of the Scottish Government, at 1pm today to get their point across.
“Whether you’re young or old, use your bike for commuting, shopping, fitness or pleasure, we’d love to see you there. A broad cross-section of people will send a stronger message,” it says.
Quoted on BBC News, Boardman, who won Olympic gold in the individual pursuit at Barcelona in 1992 and went on to wear the Tour de France yellow jersey after prologue victories in 1994, 1997 and 1998, said: “To get people on their bikes, and make sure Scotland plays its part in addressing climate change, there needs to be proper investment in cycling infrastructure.”
Tom Ballantine from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland added: “The decision to cut funding to support low carbon transport measures such as active travel is deeply worrying.
“A number of parliamentary committees have echoed our concerns that the budget and spending review is not aligned with Scotland’s climate change ambitions.
“The government must now step up and fully fund all of the measures set out in its own plans to meet our climate change targets.”
However, the Scottish Government’s Transport Minister Keith Brown told BBC News that it was committed to encouraging people to cycle.“We’ve spent more than £80m on active and sustainable travel since 2007,” he explained. “We have substantially expanded the cycle networks, for example.
“There is no question that we would like to spend more but we have a 36% cut to our capital budget and we have to live within the resources that we have.”
At the end of December, Mr Brown urged fellow Scots in his New Year Message to switch to sustainable forms of transport in 2012.
However, he was accused of “breathtaking hypocrisy” by Labour’s transport spokeswoman Elaine Murray, who said that Scotland’s active travel budget had been cut from £25.1 million in 2011/12 to £13.9 million in 2014/15,
British and Irish cities suck in the european index of cycle friendly cities
London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Dublin are amongst the most car dependent in Europe. The four capital cities of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom plus Dublin in the Republic of Ireland are among the worst of 13 major European cities surveyed by the Campaign for Better Transport Car for its Car Dependency Scorecard 2011. Only Rome, in 13th position, was found to have more reliance on the motor car than London, Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh and Belfast, which respectively occupied 8th to 12th place.
The scorecard ranks cities on 16 indicators grouped into five main areas – car use, public transport service, public transport cost, side effects of car use and cycling/walking – with each indicator ranked individually then combined with the others to provide an overall score.
Stockholm emerged as the least car-dependent city of the capitals surveyed – Copenhagen, for the record, wasn’t among those studied – scoring well on all indicators other than the cost of public transport. The modal share of walking and cycling was said to be particularly high despite the city’s poor climate in winter.
The Swedish capital was followed by Helsinki, Prague, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Madrid on the list.
At the other end of the scale, the cost of public transport was the one issue on which Rome scored highly, although the network itself, and issues with reliability and coverage, among others, dragged it down. The Italian capital was said to have a particularly poor record for road safety.
The cost of public transport in London, plus poor air quality and levels of congestion, contributed to the city’s poor performance and are expected to be topics that feature in the mayoral elections next year.
While cycling was seen as an alternative mode of transport in all the UK cities surveyed, the study’s compilers said that uptake was low and singled out air pollution, the expense and low uptake of public transport and levels of congestion as factors behind their low ranking.
On the positive side, London scored well for low car ownership, Edinburgh for journeys on foot, Cardiff for road safety and Edinburgh for passenger satisfaction with public transport.
Stephen Joseph, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport’s chief executive, comented: “Car dependency damages communities, affects our quality of life and has huge environmental consequences, so the UK cities’ poor standing should be of major concern to politicians.
“To catch up with the best in Europe the UK Governments need to recognise the economic benefits of good air quality and road safety, and ensure public transport, walking and cycling are comparable to car use in terms of cost, journey time and quality.”
The organisation outlined a umber of steps it believed UK governments should take to address the problem, but pointed out that currently, cuts to local bus networks have left many people without local transport and that train fare increases above the rate of inflation will prevent others from using that form of transport.
The recommended measures are:
- Making public transport fares affordable, with smart cards valid on different modes and operators
- Improving public transport journey times through bus priority, and investment in trams where appropriate
- Giving pedestrians and cyclists real priority over other vehicle traffic, including at junctions
- Supporting a good public transport network during off peak times, including evenings and weekends
- Recognising the wider factors which affect car dependency, such as planning regulations.
www.bettertransport.org.uk/system/files/european-car-dependency-scorecar…
The best Bike video so far – Danny MacAskill
Just my opinion but I am numbed when i see this – every trick seems impossible.
Way Back Home
Danny MacAskill’s latest riding clip Way Back Home, is Danny’s journey from Edinburgh back to his home town of Dunvegan in the Isle of Skye. The clip was filmed and directed by Dave Sowerby, a long time friend of Danny’s.
The music used in Danny MacAskill’s Way Back Home video is by Loch Lomond and The Jezabels.
Track 1: Wax and Wire by Loch Lomond
Track 2: A Little Piece by The Jezabels
You could argue that Danny MacAskill has most seven-year-olds’ dream job: he spends much of the day messing about doing tricks on his bike. Plus he gets paid for it.
Until a couple of years ago, the 25-year-old Scot worked, very happily, in an Edinburgh bike shop. Then a video shot by his flatmate showing MacAskill performing a series of gravity- (and sense-) defying cycle stunts on the city’s streets – most notably, a head-high leap before pedalling nonchalantly along a set of spiked-fence railings – was uploaded to YouTube. It has now been viewed almost 24m times, thanks in part to enthusiastic tweeting from Lance Armstrong. MacAskill has acquired a flotilla of sponsors and a globe-trotting job showing off his skills at public displays, on television and – occasionally – for advertisements. And despite the dare-devil nature of his stunts, he’s had remarkably few injuries, although he has broken his collarbone three times.
With a new film to promote showing the effort involved in planning his stunts – MacAskill’s work is always beautifully shot, with a far gentler pace than you would normally expect for a video of bike tricks – I have been summoned to the concrete walkways of London’s South Bank to meet MacAskill and, his PR people breathlessly promise, “learn a few of his tricks”. This is a daunting prospect. I come armed with not just a helmet but industrial-strength elbow and knee pads, borrowed from a mountain-biking colleague.
MacAskill, who has honed his stunts for several hours a day over many years, gamely tries his best. I briefly scoot about on his low-slung stunt machine – made specially for him a couple of years ago after he snapped “between 30 and 40 frames” learning his trade – performing the sort of beginner’s bunny hop he was doing as a kid. In contrast, he leaps effortlessly over the urban infrastructure, landing casually on a front wheel, or bouncing gracefully along a flight of steps. It’s much like a bike-borne version of the urban running- and-leaping sport parkour.
The paradox is that all this was learned in a rural idyll, the village of Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, where MacAskill was raised by a pair of seemingly indulgent parents. He returns to the Hebrides regularly, riding between friends’ houses on the island on a mountain bike. Even then, he says, he can’t resist the occasional trick: “A big skid is my favourite. It always looks cool, particularly if you end it with a good finger point.”
New surfboard II
new plan new idea – new twin fin from J surfboards about to be ordered. All photos from his site – check him out HERE
6’6″ twin – for speedy rides in crappish surf. Just got to think what design / colours I want on mine.
Kite*Surf*Bike*Rambling 