🚲 edi.bike | 30th Oct ‘23
whose sweets? our sweets! 🍭
🗞️ Episode 12: Hello. Buoyed this weekend by a lovely potter through town in the sunshine with a good hunner other people on bikes at the weekend with Critical Mass Edinburgh. If you’ve never been along, it’s a great vibe and has a real sense of community and purpose to it. And we’ll hit 3000 miles travelled this week on our family cargo bike since it arrived with us last June too 🎉
Happy Halloween / Oidhche Shamhna shona dhut 🎃
Trying out a format tweak this week where I’ll inline Twitter messages where possible, or otherwise visually indicate a link is headed there 🐦. It’s possible to view a single tweet – but not a full thread – without an account, but it’s also a socially toxic hellscape to spend time on, so I’m experimenting with diminishing how much traffic we send to it or at least indicate when a link is a trapdoor to the anonymous netherworld lurking beneath us 👻
📰 News this Week
🌆 Locally
📷 A few photos 🐦 and a longer album of folks attending Critical Mass on Saturday – as always, meets 2pm last Saturday of every month, Middle Meadow Walk;
🛒 There’s a new bike shop opening in Morningside, opposite Cafe Nero, called Society Cycles. While I couldn’t confirm they’ve as yet opened their doors, a local FB group has a photo featuring their mission statement;
🏙️ The City of Edinburgh Council are hiring for three new Active Travel roles;
From last week: ⚡ SW20 have added a Raleigh Motus electric hybrid bike to their local rental options, in addition to their Urban Arrow cargo bike - find out more here;
🫂 Help Needed
Pedal on Parliament is an annual, mass-scale protest ride calling for the prioritisation of funding, cycling infrastructure and legislation. It’s put together by a team of volunteers and they have an AGM coming up with a call for new volunteers. Here’s the thread 🐦:
Hello! Sorry we've been quiet these past few months. Running a POP is always full on, and it's hard to keep the momentum going day after day, month after month, and year after year…
We're planning for our AGM which will be on 9th November (two weeks time) hopefully in person and in Edinburgh - come along if you can. We call it an AGM but this isn't really about the formal AGM type business - as always, it's our (and your) chance to reflect on what we're doing, why we do it and what we should do next & how we should do it.
It's also hopefully a chance for new people to join us and refresh the core group who make it all happen. This is vital if we're to remain a relevant and vibrant campaign and keep going for the long haul.
POP has always been a grassroots volunteer effort that runs on love and pure adrenaline (and t-shirts). It's a massive blast to do, but ngl, it's a lot of work too. It's changed the landscape of cycle policy in Scotland but there's still much to do.
If you think you could be part of this thing, in whatever way you're able, then join us on the 9th to get involved.
😠 As mentioned last week (new donation links below) Bikes for Refugees recently suffered a break-in and the loss of laptops, cash, their 📷Riese & Muller cargo bike (please keep an eye out) and bikes that were destined for the folks they help. They have a worthy mission:
“New Scots asylum seekers need your support. With a daily living allowance of £5.84 and no right to work, access to bicycles provide an essential free and sustainable mode of transport to support access to services and promote health and wellbeing.”
If you’re able to donate - bikes, or funds - these are the donation codes copied from this Bikes for refugees tweet 🐦:
To Donate £1,
TEXT NEWSCOTS TO 70201
To Donate £3,
TEXT NEWSCOTS TO 70331
To Donate £5,
TEXT NEWSCOTS TO 70970
To Donate £10,
TEXT NEWSCOTS TO 70191
There’s a website to donate more, too.
Recently: 📣Spokes are in need of new members for their Planning and Resources groups; Edinburgh Festival of Cycling have put out a call for new volunteers and additional directors, Cargo Bike Movement are looking for new trustees; and 🛠Edinburgh Tool Library still seeking donations of unused bike tools – get in touch.
🏴 Nationally
⚠️ Cycling Scotland have called out fast food tech-middlemen such as Just Eat and Deliveroo for ‘incentivising’ careless and illegal cycling;
🚆 Scotrail have added cycle space reservations to their mobile app, making booking a good deal more convenient;
🧑⚖️ The High Court has given Transport Action Network legal permission to challenge the UK Department for Transport’s decision to cut walking and cycling funding by 75% – who were either pandering in the car vs. cycle culture war or simply participating in the Tory party’s continuing war on itself, depending on how hard you squint. TAN are now crowdfunding with £26k of the required £40k already pledged, donate here.
🌈 Infrastructure Progress & Consultations
🔺 There unfortunately continues to be issues on Lanark Rd, during the impossibly slow return of orca bollards and other high-tech segregation features like ‘painted dinnae-park-in-the-bike-lane lines’ on Lanark Rd, as shared here 🐦;
🧭 Work starts today on a new Active Travel Route between Pennywell Rd and Gypsy brae to serve the West Villages near Granton;
📰 The overly car-centric mixed modal spaces at Elm Row have made the Evening News with a meeting being proposed in a 🐦 response from Transport/Environment Committee convener Dr Scott Arthur. What’s particularly unfortunate is that Living Streets Edinburgh, and others, were making noise about the state of the plans as early as February 2022.
🗳️ There were over 1,900 responses to the consultation on the Greenbank-Meadows Quiet Route - plus further written comments. This was mentioned in Cllr Arthur’s recent 12m video review 🐦 of ongoing Braidburn Terrace works, including that they had hoped to have a report to the Transport & Environment Committee in November but given the volume of feedback this will likely be in the new year now;
⛰️ Ongoing open consultation on the future of Holyrood Pk – including key aims favouring active travel over vehicular access – available to respond to until 19th December.
📆 Events and Happenings
🎏 Porty Community Energy will be hosting a Fundraising ceilidh on the 25th Nov 5-10pm, get your tickets at Ceilidh Collective;
🚺 Infrasisters – “a group of women campaigning for night-time cycling infrastructure in Edinburgh that’s safe and comfortable for women and girls” – have sent out a ‘save the date’ for their #OurStreetOurNights campaign ride on Dec 1st:
“Our next ride will be on Friday 1st December at 7.30pm from Middle Meadow Walk, and we're planning a wee tour of central Edinburgh. Light up your bikes and come along!”
👶🏼 Balance Bike classes for under-6s at community hub Bridgend Farmhouse, upcoming on Saturday mornings - two classes (10am and 11am) are available and run for 6 week blocks from 4th Nov ‘23 and Feb 17th ‘24; run by A Wee Pedal who also do excellent beginner cycle coaching for all ages (3.5yo to 60+!).
🛣 Road Closures and Route Issues
🪣 Lauriston Farm Rd closed for resurfacing, Silverknowes Rd to the junction of Cramond;
🔔 Bellevue Rd closed today, from McDonald Rd to McDonald Pl, for Scottish Water crane works until Fri 3rd;
🌹 Rose St South Ln closed between South St David St and Hanover St for Scottish Power cabling works until around Nov 9th;
🕯️ Candlemaker Row’s ‘Eastern Section’ – unsure but the ‘top half’ above Mechant St is more easterly 🫠 – will be closed from today until Nov 6th for sewer works;
🚿 Scottish Water works - lane closures and contraflow continue on Gorgie Rd, between Ford's Rd and Balgreen Rd, until 1st November;
Resurfacing works are also targeting Peffermill Rd and Commercial St for around 5 weeks apiece starting today, but look to largely be overnight work taking place.
Still ongoing…
⚒️ Causewayside is still closed for resurfacing between West Preston St and Grange Rd until 14th November;
⛏ City centre resurfacing works on Regent Rd, Waterloo Pl and Princes St should last approximately another week 🐦;
💡 Running until March, a programme of footway works and street lighting renewal on Polwarth Gdns, involving lane closures and parking restrictions. Polwarth Pl, Polwarth Pk, Harden Pl and Mertoun Pl will be closed as work progresses;
⛏️ CCWEL-adjacent works on Charlotte Sq and North / South Charlotte St running until March 2024:
Phase 1 - nightshift closures of North AND South Charlotte Street, 7.30pm - 6.30am each weeknight until 3rd Nov approximately;
Phase 2 from 6th Nov until 23rd Nov - daytime closure of Charlotte Square north side;
Phase 3 from 8th Jan ‘24 - daytime lane closures on Charlotte Square east side, North and South Charlotte Street, daytime closures of Charlotte Square south and west sides.
💧 9-month programme of Scottish Water drainage improvement work on Longstone Rd 🐦;
❌ New video linked; Braidburn Ter closed (dismount to pass via pavement) at the end of the Greenbank-Meadows Quiet Route while the new pedestrian and cycle realm enhancement works 🐦 are underway, with overnight closures of Comiston Rd coming later in the project 🐦 including bus diversions - local councillor and Transport/Environment Committee chair Scott Arthur recently posted a 12m video walking through these works 🐦 and also talks about the processing of the Greenbank-Meadows quiet route consultation feedback.
Ongoing updates on the Council’s Road reports page as the week unfolds and via @edintravel 🐦 on “X”. No more Twitter taglines; it used to be a good place to be.
Thanks for reading - ride safe, and never stay in your lane 🚲
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