🚲 edi.bike | issue 51 | 29th Jul '24
📰 News this Week
🚵 Bike Barn launch with Mark Beaumont
From the great folks running Bridgend Farmhouse, an event celebrating their new space for repairing bikes, refurbishing bikes for sale, and teaching cycle maintenance:
Come cycle, scoot or wheel round Craigmillar Park with celebrity cyclist Mark Beaumont! Celebrating the official launch of our new Bike Barn - bring your own bike, buy one here or borrow (first come first served). Hot food will be served funded by Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership
10th August | 12 - 3pm | Launch 1pm
🏢 ‘Cycle to Work Day’ Thursday 1st Aug
Ahead of the annual ‘Cycle to Work Day’ on 1st August, Sustrans have shared their getting started guide with answers to common questions. If your steed has been gathering dust - as good a time as any to get back to it…
Local Bits
🅿️ Good to hear confirmation via Spokes [x] that the pricing changes to Cycle Hangar parking spaces for residents - as agreed at the Transport and Environment Committee back in May of this year - are starting to reach hangar users, making their spaces cheaper than a residential parking permit for a car;
♻️ SHRUB Co-op - home of fantastic community cycling resource The Wee Spoke Hub - are aiming to raise £50,000 in six weeks:
Until the 31st of August any donation you make via our crowdfunding page will be doubled. For every donation up to £250 we will receive match-funding from the AVIVA Community Fund. This means your contribution will have double the impact!
Your donations will help secure the continuation of the Food Sharing Hub and all our other zero waste initiatives… Every donation will make an invaluable difference to our community and will contribute towards a sustainable future for the Food Sharing Hub. 🥖🥑🍄
You can find the crowdfunder here.
🍃 A thorough and considered response from Spokes on the recently concluded Midlothian Council Active Travel Draft Strategy consultation - towards plans that could dramatically improve cycling access across Midlothian;
From Last Week:
- Edinburgh City Centre Transformation plans face delays at Committee in August;
- Wester Hailes Community Trust have announced they plan to open a mobility hub later this year;
- ‘Gateways’ film by Markus Stitz, “showcasing accessible routes in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park in Scotland”.
🐘 Active Travel on the Fediverse
If you have an interest in Active Travel social media, particularly in Edinburgh / Scotland / UK, and encouraging folks to shift to friendlier climes than X - along with experience of Mastodon, Federation in general, or online community - consider sending over your email using our submissions form or pinging @edi.bike@mastodon.scot as there’s been some rumblings and it would be good to connect up folks looking at this…
➕ Nationally
👁️ You might recall the ‘Living Well Locally’ Gorgie / Dalry consultation that recently closed features what would be Edinburgh’s first ‘Cycle Optimised Protected Signals’ or ‘CYCLOPS’ junction at Dalry Rd and Gorgie Rd at Ardmillan Ter (page 2 of the detailed design PDF here. There’s a great review video by Walk Ride Greater Manchester on X reviewing some of the features of these junctions, particularly from an accessibility perspective.
📺 Global Cycling Network have a pretty solid new video essay on motonormativity and the psychology of car-centric British culture - watch “Carspiracy - You’ll Never See The World The Same Way Again” on Youtube;
✏️ What should the new Government do about Roads and Traffic? A Strategy for Truth and Reconciliation /via Spokes;
📹 Birmingham-based activist ‘Tim on two wheels’ [x] gave a recent presentation to the police teams who run the road crime reporting portal ‘Operation Snap’ on behalf of Action Vision Zero. They go through a really interesting breakdown of their slides and the nuances and issues around civic reporting in a series of eight threads which can be read ‘unrolled’ at the links that follow - One | Two | Three | Another Three 🙃 | Four | Five | Six | Seven;
🌍 Elsewhere
🏋️ Cyclists Are Taking Over Paris for the Olympic Games
Thousands of additional bikes for sharing, new cycle parking, miles of dedicated lanes and every venue can be reached on two wheels. — by Laura Laker for Bloomberg UK
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🛣 Route Closures and Issues
- There’s a series of timed full or partial road closures - including High St, St Giles St, Parliament Square(s), Cockburn St, Blair St, Lawnmarket, and Johnston Ter during the Edinburgh Festival;
- The Crawford Bridge - between Albion Ter and Bothwell St off Easter Rd - is closed until the 30th of August for refurbishment;
- Melville St at Walker St has some partial closures of the CCWEL segregated lanes for major works as part of the public realm improvements that recently commenced and run until December this year.
📆 Events and Happenings
📆 Upcoming / Ongoing
☕️ Active Travel Cafe is a national, weekly online active travel event; news, talks & discussion via Zoom on Tuesdays at 5pm. They’ve recently published a list of speakers for the next month or so.
✊🏼 🎭 EdFoC | Ongoing - 'Pedal Power', a free exhibition on cycling and activism in Edinburgh, co-curated by Critical Mass Edinburgh, Infrasisters, Spokes and folks running Bike Buses across the city - at the Museum of Edinburgh running until the 22nd September.
Edinburgh Council archives --- who recently launched the ‘Edinburgh 900’ project to celebrate 900 years since Edinburgh became a royal burgh --- have also asked ‘Pedal Power’ to be part of the programme and will tour the exhibition around communities in Edinburgh after it finishes at the Museum of Edinburgh in September.
🔁 Weekly Events
🚵 Every Friday in August; All-inclusive social guided bike rides with A Wee Pedal, 2-4pm from Bridgend Farmhouse. Check out their flyer for more;
⚡️ Porty Community Energy are trialling a weekly Wednesday evening advice drop-in [fb];
⚙️ The Wee Spoke Hub host a weekly ‘Bike Cleaning and Oiling’ drop-in session at their shop every Saturday, 2-4pm;
🛠️ Edinburgh Tool Library host a weekly Bike Kitchen providing 'tools, spare parts, and expertise' to 'learn, grow, and connect with others'; Open every Wednesday from 3pm.
✴️ Other regular events on at The Wee Spoke Hub - follow their schedule here including a Bike DIY Session this Thursday 1st, 5pm - 8pm.
🫂 Help Needed
🔧 The Bike Station are hiring a refurb mechanic for their branch in Perth, deadline this Wednesday 31st July;
Ongoing:
- 🚴🏼 Friends of the Skelf bike park and pump track just off Holyrood Park are [raising money currently;
- 💁 Help Fund a New Specialised Active Chair for Porty Community Energy Activist Roseanne Sinclair at her campaign page;
- 🚌 Volunteer to help marshal a local school Bike Bus - see the Bike Bus Hub Directory;
- 🙋 Sustrans seek volunteers for their ‘I Bike’ school programme: teaching kids, maintaining a bike fleet or marshalling rides with pupils;
- 🗨️ Spokes are in need of new members for their Planning and Resources groups;
- 🤝 SW20 are a Co-op Local Community Fund Cause - support them via this page;
- 🆘 Support Bikes for Refugees with an SMS donation 🐦or on EasyDonate;
🌈 Infrastructure Progress & Consultations
⚒️ Work commencing today, 29th July - Lasswade Rd Cycleways
Spokes recently shared [x] the project page for a partial resurfacing of Lasswade Rd that includes a stretch of segregated cycle lane at each side, close to Gracemount High School. Spokes’ response makes mention of various interesting aspects and suggests changes.
✍🏽 ‘Spaces for People’ Lanes in East of Edinburgh - ETRO
This ‘East Area’ Experimental Traffic Order (ETRO/21/28A) covers a number of Covid-era parking suspensions used to facilitate bollarded cycle lanes around London Rd, Willowbrae and Duddingston, including cycle routes used by school pupils, teachers and parents to and from multiple primary and secondary schools. It is currently open for comments until 28th October by emailing TRO.Consultations@edinburgh.gov.uk quoting ETRO/21/28A.
🌊 Seafield Regeneration
Regeneration plans are afoot in Seafield, including active travel links to Porty, Craigentinny, and Leith. Leith Feeder Ride [x] have a great roundup thread (unrolled) on the scheme; you can also view the masterplan proposals [PDF] and respond to the consultation survey which is open until this Wednesday, 31st July;
🏖️ Brunstane and Portobello
- ‘Edinburgh roads: 'Radical changes' on way for Portobello High Street and Brighton Place’ in The Evening News;
- The ETRO scheme closing Brunstane Rd to motorised traffic has been made permanent.
👣 Foot of the Walk to Ocean Terminal
⚓️ 'Signs of life' [x] - 241 days of planned cycleway construction works starting some time between late Summer and Autumn this year - on the 'Foot of the Walk to Ocean Terminal' protected cycle route as part of Leith Connections, which promises to be a great continuation of the segregated routes slowly taking root in the city centre;
🌷 Just closed: Midlothian’s Active Travel Strategy
🚴🏼♀️ Nearby Midlothian Council have just concluded ’On the Move Midlothian: Our Active Travel Strategy for Everyone’, consisting of two parallel consultations on Active Travel (both of which have now closed) and also wider transport concerns across their council area:
The active travel draft strategy, which includes measurable and achievable targets, focuses on making Midlothian a place where getting around in a way that makes you physically active, such as walking and wheeling, will be an easy, convenient, cheap and realistic option for all.
📄 You can view the draft strategy online [PDF] and the 'Active Travel Survey'.
Thanks for reading - ride safe 🚲
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