Charlie Wood – Spokes Porty

Pedal on Parliament

Read on for details of our feeder ride – leaving Porty Prom at 11.30am on Saturday 22 April!

After last year’s triumphant return, Pedal on Parliament is back for another family-friendly ride through Edinburgh, on roads closed to motor vehicles, to take our message to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Saturday 22 April 2023 – save the date.

Spokes Porty is fully supportive of POP’s manifesto to promote safe and healthy active travel, and its aim of making Scotland a cycle friendly country. We’ve been working hard to promote local schemes. While we’ve had success with small schemes, for example, ending parking on the Seafield entrance to the Prom, we are yet to see any progress on building safe strategic permament links in and out of Porty towards Musselburgh, to the east towards Leith, and to the south on Brighton Place. We are, of course, fully supportive of the temporary protected cycle lanes on Duddingston Road, Duddingston Road West and on the A1 corridor, and we look forward to them becoming permanent, albeit with design improvements. These cycle lanes are particularly important for children cycling to the local schools.

Lots has changed since this first PoP in 2012, but our core message hasn’t – it’s time to make Scotland a cycle-friendly country. The experience of seeing so many people take to bikes and enjoy our streets when the cars disappeared during COVID lockdowns showed us what we’ve always known. People will cycle if the conditions are right. It’s up to our politicians to make cycling a safe and realistic option for everyone.
pedalonparliament.org

There will be a family friendly feeder ride setting of from Portobello. We hope as many of you as possible will come along, both to support Pedal on Parliament, and to support Spokes Porty. We’ll meet at the Community Garden on Porty Prom for 11.15 in the hope of setting off at 11.30am, making our way up, via NCN1/The Innocent Path to The Meadows at a leisurely pace. That should get us to the Meadows for 12:30, with half an hour for a snack and leg stretch before we join the main ride on Chambers Street.

We have no fixed plans or times for the way home, a lot depends on peoples’ preferences on how long to stick around, but we can discuss this on the ride for those who may prefer to return in a group ride.

(This is not a led ride, we’ll all cycle together to offer moral and mechanical support but you’re responsible for your own safety.)

If you want to support PoP financially, as well as look fantastic on the day, you can buy some t-shirts and hoodies here.

Hope to see you there.

Traffic Count

Spokes Porty carried out traffic counts on Brighton Place on Tuesday May 17th. These were timed to coincide with the Spokes city center count on Forest Road and Lothian Road – a morning count between 08:00 and 09:00 and a lunchtime count between 12:30 and 13:30. We counted eastbound (into Porty) and westbound traffic on Brighton Place, between the bridge and the junction with East and West Brighton Crescents.

Total for each period were as follows:

	Morning	Lunch
Bikes	63	18
Commercial (bus, taxi, van, etc)	87	87
Private car	313	299
Bikes as % of total traffic	13.6%	4.5%
% of cars which are single-occupant	71.6%	70.6%

This is only the third count we’ve done, the previous ones being September and May last year, six months and a year ago, so we can’t draw out any real trends but the changes from a year ago are:

Bikes up 7%
Commercial up 17%
Cars up 12%

One thing that is sadly consistent is the ~70% of cars having only a single occupant.

Pedal on Parliament 22

After a couple of years of local PoP-up events the classic Pedal on Parliament mass ride is back to celebrate its 10th birthday in 2022, with a new route and time.

Saturday 23 April 2022 – save the date.

Spokes Porty is fully supportive of POP’s manifesto to promote safe and healthy active travel, and it’s aim of making Scotland a cycle friendly country.

Lots has changed since this first PoP in 2012, but our core message hasn’t – it’s time to make Scotland a cycle-friendly country. The experience of seeing so many people take to bikes and enjoy our streets when the cars disappeared during COVID lockdowns showed us what we’ve always known. People will cycle if the conditions are right. It’s up to our politicians to make cycling a safe and realistic option for everyone.
pedalonparliament.org

There will be a family friendly feeder ride setting of from Portobello. Timing to be confirmed, but we’ll be making our way up, via The Meadows, from the Prom at a leisurely pace and with enough time for a snack and a rest before the mass ride sets of from Chambers Steet for Holyrood.

We’ll meet at the Community Garden on Porty Prom for 10:45 in the hope of setting off at 11:00. That should get us to the Meadows for 12:00, half an hour for a snack and leg stretch then off up to join the ride on Chambers Street.

There’s a Facebook event here.

(This is not a led ride, we’ll all cycle together to offer moral and mechanical support but you’re responsible for you own safety.)

If you want to support PoP financially, as well as look fantastic on the day, you can buy some t-shirts and hoodies here.

Hope to see you there.