Welcome to the Spokes Porty blog. Spokes Porty is now three years old. We’ve been so busy campaigning that we hadn’t got round to building our website. We have, however, been communicating with many of you via Twitter. Since we started in November 2018, we’ve been working on a number of campaigns and issues.
The most important has been the Portobello High Street junction with Sir Harry Lauder Road where two cyclists have tragically lost their lives. We have been working with the Council and the Community Council on both interim and longer term safety measures for cyclists, both at the junction itself, and in the wider area. We are disappointed and dismayed that the Council has taken so long to decide on safety interventions, but a decision was finally made in October about the next steps. We expect to see implementation of some measures early next year. We will be writing up a more detailed blog post of this soon.
Other issues have included campaigning to reopen the Innocent Path which was closed (in theory) for several months on the advice of Historic Environment Scotland due to rockfalls in the park above the path. While many people continued to use the path, others did not, and the Council did not provide a safe signed diversion route. The path was finally reopened in late October.
We have also been heavily involved in Edinburgh’s Spaces for People pop up cycle lanes and temporary pavement widening as part of the Council’s Covid transport interventions. Many people are now benefiting from the protected cycle lanes on Duddingston Road and Duddingston Road West, including families, commuters, and visitors to Porty Beach.
We are now starting work on the regulatory processes required to take the temporary Spaces for People infrastructure to the next stage.