News – 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.

Edinburgh Local Council Elections

It’s now just two weeks until the local council elections (May 5th) here in Edinburgh and across Scotland and it’s no exaggeration to say that this election will be crucial for the future of active travel in the city

At the start of the campaign Spokes published its manifesto, a list of what we would like to see from a future administration and, now that the main parties have published their own election manifestos, Spokes has been able to produce a detailed analysis and comparison of these. It goes into a fantastic level of detail and is well worth a read. You may also wish to have a look at the Walk Wheel Cycle Vote requests for pledges on accessibility, infrastructure and investment.

The Spokes analysis is based on a city wide context and these are, after all, elections for local councillors so it’s important to follow up with your local candidates (the candidates for Portobello and Craigmillar are listed below) to ask them to answer questions from a local perspective. In Portobello, Spokes Porty has been asking about the following:

How does your party’s manifesto apply to the local ward in terms of active travel? What improvements will you be working for so that everyone, including children, can walk, wheel and cycle safely and comfortably in the ward?
What do you see as the local barriers/opportunities to increasing the numbers of people walking, wheeling and cycling, and reducing traffic levels and inconsiderate and illegal parking in the ward?
What action do you think needs to be taken at the Portobello High Street Sir Harry Lauder Road King’s Road junction, following the deaths of two people on bikes in recent years?

Do feel free to use these questions when you are contacting candidates.

Lastly, and most importantly, neither Spokes Porty nor Spokes advise you who to vote for – you will doubtless have a range of issues to consider in addition to cycling, active travel and wider transport.

Candidates

Kate Campbell – Scottish National Party (SNP)
Tim Jones – Scottish Conservative and Unionist
Andrew McDonald – Independent
Jane Elizabeth Meagher – Labour and Co-operative Party
Alys Mumford – Scottish Green Party
Heather Pugh – Labour and Co-operative Party
Jill Reilly – Scottish Liberal Democrats
Simon Clark Shedden – Scottish National Party (SNP)
Anne Todd – Alba Party for independence

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.

Our Streets Our Nights

Spokes Porty is proud to support the InfraSisters Our Streets Our Nights mass cycle ride on 11th March, the same week as International Women’s Day. As one of the founding members of the campaign we are thrilled to see so much support across the city. We are also really pleased that a feeder ride has been organised for the ride, leaving from outside the Bank of Scotland on Porty High Street on the corner of Brighton Place at 6.40pm. We hope to see a huge contingent of folk from Edinburgh East cycle up to the Meadows to join the ride.

This is the second ride organised by the same women. In December last year, to mark the UN’s 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, women in Edinburgh led a Light Up The Night cycle ride to highlight the urgent need for cycling infrastructure that is safe and comfortable for women and girls at night. The event was prompted by several incidents on off-road paths in the city. Some of these have been close to home. Many women and girls in and around Porty are afraid to use the Innocent Path in the dark, and Fishwives Causeway, an important alternative to the most dangerous junction in the city – Porty High Street/Sir Harry Lauder Road.

170 people from across the city came on that first ride that was organised, led, and marshalled by women. In good humour, ringing our bells, with our bikes adorned in fairy lights, we created a carnival atmosphere as we cycled through the historic centre.

Despite the cold and covid, the city centre was busy with Friday night revellers, and we were greeted with friendly waves and toots from pedestrians and drivers. The wee girls at the front of the ride shouted instructions to the riders behind, and the volunteer marshals kept us all safe. It was an empowering, celebratory event, especially for the women who had never felt safe enough to cycle in Edinburgh at night on their own.

For an hour the streets were ours to share and enjoy.

Sadly, some women didn’t attend as there was no safe route for them to get to the start of the ride. We are determined to improve cycling infrastructure in the city so that women and girls can cycle without fear whenever and wherever they want. We will keep organising these rides, in the darker months of the year, until all councillors understand what is required, and commit to it.

The Our Streets Our Nights ride on the 11th March will depart from Middle Meadow Walk at 7.30pm, be around an hour long, and involve a circuit around the historic centre. Cyclists are encouraged to dress up, light up their bikes, and say it with flowers. While the ride will be led by women, everyone is welcome to attend.

As with the previous ride, the InfraSisters are calling on all councillors in Edinburgh to follow Transport Scotland’s updated Cycling by Design and:

prioritise safe and comfortable on-road cycle infrastructure, protected from traffic or off-carriageway, on well-lit direct routes
provide well-signed routes which are permeable and always have a way out, not fenced/ walled on both sides, and with good connections to other streets
provide routes which use natural surveillance where possible, for example streets with high footfall.

We hope to see many councillors and national politicians on the ride, especially from Edinburgh East!

You can sign up to the ride via Eventbrite or Facebook or turn up on the night. Use the hashtag #OurStreetsOurNights if you go along to or support the ride and follow @InfraSisters on Twitter for updates and more.

Our views on the pavement parking consultation

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 bans pavement parking, and the Scottish Government is now consulting on the legislation that councils will need to implement this.

The consultation

The consultation closes on 11 March 2022. Our thoughts on the consultation are below:

We believe the pavement parking legislation is already badly weakened by exemptions to allow loading and deliveries, but part of this secondary legislation will weaken it further by allowing councils to exempt entire streets from the ban. It suggests two reasons why a council may apply for an exemption:

The footway is wide enough to allow pavement parking while maintaining a 1.5m (down to 1.2m for ‘short’ sections) path.
The carriageway is too narrow to allow emergency vehicles to pass if vehicles park on the carriageway rather than the footway.

Our position is that neither of these is acceptable. Parking on the pavement should be banned outright and pedestrian space should not be re-allocated for parking vehicles. This includes on both sides of a street. Allowing pavement parking on one side of a street discriminates against those who need to access that side of the street but can’t reliably do so at all times of the day and night.

We oppose pavement parking exemptions for three main reasons:

The Scottish Government’s own sustainable transport hierarchy puts pedestrians and wheelers (those using mobility aids such as wheelchairs) at the top of the hierarchy. For this hierarchy to work, pavements must be kept clear of clutter, including parked vehicles, at all times. Pavement parking can prevent people using guide dogs, people using mobility aids, and people pushing children in buggies from using the pavements. It is unacceptable to force people out into the street and into moving traffic to get around parked vehicles. Pavement parking prevents people from moving around their neighbourhoods, visiting friends and family, and accessing essential services and leisure activities. In Portobello, Edinburgh, there are some streets where people park on the pavements on both sides of the street. Vehicles are nose to tail and there is not enough space for a person using a mobility aid such as a wheelchair to squeeze between the cars. A person may start up one end of pavement, get blocked by a parked vehicle, not be able to get out onto the street and around it, and have to return. These streets are essentially out of bounds for those already facing significant travel barriers.
Allowing pavement parking will encourage encroachment and ‘mission creep’. For example, while drivers may be told they have to leave a certain amount of space for pedestrians on a particular pavement, how will this be monitored and enforced? How can we trust drivers to leave this space when many drivers are demonstrating already that they are willing to block access? Visually impaired people, and those using mobility aids, need certainty that pavements will be accessible at all times. Uncertainty creates stress and anxiety and reduces route options for people both in their own neighbourhoods, and areas that they wish to visit.
Pavement parking damages pavements. The damage can result in trip hazards. The damage also has to be repaired, putting unnecessary financial burdens on councils that are already strapped for cash. These burdens will be passed on to council tax payers.

If there ever were a case where there was sufficient footway space, and where more parking absolutely had to be provided, then the existing TRO process could be used to convert part of the footway to carriageway and the kerb line moved. This retains the distinction between footway and carriageway and maintains a clear ban on pavement parking. However, given the sustainable transport hierarchy, we are generally opposed to the conversion of footway space to road space except in very limited circumstances.

In the second case, if the carriageway is too narrow to allow emergency vehicle access when there are vehicles parked, then parking should not be permitted.

Lastly, the proposal for a separate process to allow councils to apply for exceptions is deeply unfair and biased in favour of parking. Allocation of road space to pedestrian or cycling infrastructure currently requires a TRO, a process which is long winded and not fit for purpose. The proposal for a quicker and simpler, process to allow pedestrian space to be used for parking make it far easier to convert pedestrian space to parking than the other way round.

Spokes Porty will be responding to the consultation on this basis. Do make your views known. We hope the Scottish Government will take our views on board. The sustainable travel hierarchy should not be just words and a diagram in a policy document. It must be implemented on the ground.

Welcome

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.