🚲 edi.bike | 21st August '23
Wheeling into the week with a waffle...
New this week
⚠️ Warnings / Issues
Changes at Dreghorn / Oxgangs Farm are noted in this great thread by SW20 as resulting in motorists using the space as a cut-through, so be aware if passing through.
🛣 Road and Route Closures
🚫 Corstorphine High Street will be closed Monday - Friday for around 3 weeks starting today (21st Aug) for phase 2 of the Corstorphine Connections project;
🚥 Temporary lights 21st & 22nd August at London Rd for resurfacing works;
🎭 Continued old town road closures to facilitate Festival-goers;
…more closures detailed in the near-impenetrable downloads from the council’s Road report page — another week I might start trying to include some new bits from these if I can find a way to peruse them without inducing an aneurysm.
💫 New and Useful
🗺 Neil Redford-Robertson on the Pedal on Parliament FB group shared that there’s a couple of ‘layers’ on Open Street Map that show cycle parking spots - blue dots or squares on the ‘CyclOSM’ or ‘Cycle Map’ layers. I also had some success in the last couple of weeks using cycleparking.net to find some new spots.
🛠 Infrastructure Progress
🌆 There’s a local meeting next Monday 28th with local councillors about traffic, transport and mobility issues in and around Broughton Street;
🗞 Rumours last week that the introduction of a ‘Tourist tax’ for Edinburgh could fund the reintroduction of a cycle hire scheme, which was vastly popular under ‘Just Eat Bikes’ but was forced to close due to vandalism and rising costs.
💬 Transport and Environment Committee Meeting
This week saw the council’s committee for hurting twitter’s feelings wrangling transport in the city meeting to discuss a whole slew of projects and goals;
🧵 Ahead of the meeting SW20 shared a great thread rounding up the facts behind supporting active travel and public transport;
🎤 Some of the deputations included a powerful account from one family new to cycling about using the Greenbank-Meadows quiet route (a frequent haven for our family too);
🗳 The future of the quiet route and traffic on Braid Rd will be subject to further consultation with a few options viable to propose in September;
📽 Transport convener Cllr Scott Arthur shared a quick recap video and linked to the full webcast to watch back.
👥 Events and Happenings
🏢 Wee Spoke Hub’s ‘Commuting Skills - Adult Introduction to On-Road Cycling’on the 25th and beyond (tickets);
🧼 Porty bike wash fundraiser on Friday 25th from 6pm - 8pm
🚦As mentioned last week — the monthly Critical Mass ride is on this Saturday 26th; keep an eye on their Facebook group, X (Twitter) or mailing list to find out the route (a couple days before) and meet 2pm at Middle Meadow Walk.
Later:
📆 The Wee Spoke Hub are having a relaunch event including a led city ride, swapshop, screen printing workshop and clothing repair session on 9th Sept;
🎉 Porty Bikefest looks like a treat on 16th September featuring many and various types of bicycle which is always fun;
🎟 Tickets are now available for the Cycling Scotland Conference 2023, on Thursday 26th October at the John McIntyre Conference Centre at Pollock Halls.
From previous episodes…
🏅 The deadline for Spokes’ recent domestic bike storage competition for experiences, ideas and hints is in two weeks (3rd Sept);
🗨 Broxburn-Maybury A8/A89 Consultation closes 5th Sept - including Active Travel considerations;
🚧 Don’t use the unsafe bike racks running the length of the Newhaven tram route.
🗣 Tell a pal!
Found this useful? Why not forward to a friend. If you run into anything that might be a good fit for next time, feel free to send it over. Safe travels!