🚲 edi.bike | issue 18 | 11th Dec ‘23
the soggy sonder continues
Welcome to your weekly roundup of cycle travel news, events and infrastructure progress in Scotland’s capital city. This week I quaxed our Christmas tree for the first time, and surely not the last :)
📰 News this Week
🌆 Locally
📆 We’re on the eleventh day of Infrasisters’ excellent ‘Advent calendar of Crap Infrastructure’ – visit their site every day up until Christmas and see all the opportunities for improvement they’ve uncovered along the way. Their recent #OurStreetsOurNights ride has received great coverage in Scotland on Sunday 🐦 - if you’re a Scotsman subscriber, here’s the online counterpart to that article;
❣️ A great article this week from George Watson’s College covering many aspects of their staff and pupils cycling, their bike buses (volunteers still needed 🐦) and improving facilities, and various Watsons bike buses - including some lovely quotes from pupils and staff about why they choose to ride to school;
📽️ Jodi Gordon from Cycle Law Scotland gave a talk at the University of Edinburgh this week, which can be watched back on the University’s website, covering:
The Highway Code (and recent changes)
Your rights and responsibilities as a road user
Common incident hotspots to be careful around
Insurance issues
What to do if you are involved in a collision
Using civil law to make a claim for negligence.
🫂 Help Needed
From last week:
🤝 Community activist group SW20 is now a Co-op Local Community Fund Cause 🐦 meaning that you can support their work 🐦 just by shopping in the Co-op; become a member and choose to support them by signing in via this page.
Ongoing:
📋 Help Edinburgh Uni: “How political identities influence attitudes to sustainable transport” survey;
🗨️ Spokes are in need of new members for their Planning and Resources groups;
🆘 Support Bikes for Refugees following their recent break-in with an SMS donation 🐦or on EasyDonate; there’s also an ongoing event to support detailed below;
🎭 Edinburgh Festival of Cycling are looking for new volunteers and additional directors
🛠Edinburgh Tool Library still seeking donations of unused bike tools – get in touch.
🇬🇧 Nationally
📈 Transport for London’s annual overview [PDF] reports daily cycling journeys in the UK’s capital grew to 1.26 million in 2023 - an increase of 6.2% since 2022 and 20% since 2019 - and a clear demonstration that significant modal shift is indeed possible in the UK if the cycle infrastructure gets built. In Glasgow, Cycling Scotland’s count of one key new route saw cycling reaching of 13% of all journeys across a 48h period.
🌈 Infrastructure Progress & Consultations
🏫 The Council “have received funding from Sustrans to implement a School Zone at Dalry Primary School that will help to make the area outside the school safer and more enjoyable for pupils, parents, carers and residents”. The consultation is open and closes on the 15th January.
Ongoing…
🚗 8 days left - the ongoing public consultation on the future of Holyrood Pk is still available to respond to until 19th December - worth reading Car Free Holyrood’s blog post.
⛵ Musselburgh Active Toun consultation currently ongoing shared with us by Andrew Keba, until around the end of December;
📜 Open until 8th February, the City of Edinburgh Council are consulting on the second phase of the George Street & First New Town project, covering North Castle St, Frederick St and Hanover St (North) - you can review and respond to the consultation, but it’s also worth looking over some of the criticisms that campaign group SW20 have of the designs 🐦.
📆 Events and Happenings
🎄 Sale continues tomorrow Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th: Bikes for Refugees Scotland are continuing their fundraising sale (see this update ) both days 11:00 - 15:00 at the Phoenix Club, 1 Harrison Place EH11 1SF:
“2nd hand adult and kids bikes, bike jumble, new and 2nd hand bike parts, cycling gear & accessories, BfR branded merchandise - everything cheap and discounted…
When you buy a bike or accessories/parts you are also supporting a New Scot. All proceeds from the big Christmas sale will support new Scots refugees access to free bicycles, providing essential mobility and freedom of movement.” — Bikes for Refugees Scotland
🛣 Road Closures and Route Issues
⚠️ Reports that Inglis Green Road’s cycleways have been removed pending extensive works in the area 🐦, and have been replaced by the scourge of all that is good and passable, namely parked motor vehicles. Sigh.
🔧 Road closure in Morningside on Tipperlinn Rd at South Morningside Pl for gas leak repairs, ongoing;
🫡 On Wednesday 13th 3 Rifles Battalion are off to a church service, resulting in a rolling road closure “for a short period as required” between 8.30am and midday on Redford Rd - Colinton Rd - Bridge Rd - Spylaw St;
⛔ This Friday 15th may see the full closure of King Stables Rd between Lothian Rd and Barrace Steps, even to cycles - at least according to the Council’s roads report. Likely still passable via the pavement, but if this is part of your key routes you might want to be aware - the Christmas Corporation™ will consume all in its path;
⛵ In Musselburgh? Sunday 17th sees New St closed between Edinburgh Rd and Harbour Rd for Scottish Water repairs;
☀️ Down in Leith, the resurfacing works on Commercial St should finish up this week, and it’s worth avoiding Duke St at Duncan Pl on Sunday 17th while stop/go boards are in play 8am-4pm for Hyperoptic to clear some ducts;
❓ New this week, it would appear the Council team responsible for updates have split off the ‘Travelling Safely’ measures from the usual road report, into a separate document [PDF]; just interesting to see the schemes collected up in one place in this way.
Ongoing…
🪣 Resurfacing works on Viewforth in Bruntsfield are nearly into their third phase:
Phase 2 (started on 1st Dec) - road closed between Montpelier and Viewforth Sq;
Phase 3 (updated to start this Wednesday 13th Dec) - road closed between Viewforth Sq and Gilmore Pl;
🦩 Water of Leith: 23 remaining weeks of closure at a section of the shared walkway in Leith - Spokes have worked with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust on suggested diversions [PDF] during the Coalie Pk closure.
🧑🎄 Ho, ho, ho-no: 12hr daily partial closures of Castle St for Edinburgh’s Christmas are ongoing: between George St and Rose St, plus North Castle St at George St, 10am - 10pm daily; Waverley Br closed 9.30am - 10.30pm daily except for taxis accessing the rank via Market St); George St closed except for cycles (at all times) and loading (6.30am - 9.30am daily);
⛏️ CCWEL-adjacent works on Charlotte Sq and North / South Charlotte St running until March 2024:
Phase 1 and 2 are completed;
Phase 3 begins 8th Jan ‘24 - daytime lane closures on Charlotte Sq (east side), North and South Charlotte Street, daytime closures of Charlotte Sq (south and west sides).
💡 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, running until March ‘24;
💧 9-month programme of Scottish Water drainage improvement work on Longstone Rd 🐦;
🧰 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. Over this weekend a cantankerous motor vehicle proponent had dismantled a lot of the barriers around the site in order to drive through the works, which I suppose is cheaper than therapy.
Ongoing updates on the Council’s Road reports page as the week unfolds and via @edintravel 🐦 on TwiXtter.
Thanks for reading - ride safe, and easy on the pigs in blankets, there’s weeks of all this yet! 🚲
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