Spokes public meeting, Wednesday 24 May
Speakers
- Cllr Scott Arthur, Edinburgh City Transport Convener – the Council’s plans
- Phil Noble, Strategy Manager for Active Travel and Streetspace – more detail on the policy delivery documents, including ATA, the Active Travel Action Plan
- Adrian Davis, Professor of Transport & Health at Napier Transport Research Unit – he will critique the policies – are they sufficiently ambitious? will they work?
- … followed by our one-hour panel QA, chaired by Dr Caroline Brown, Spokes member, Transform Scotland policy adviser, transport academic – your chance to interrogate and challenge the speakers
Arrangements
- Where Augustine United Church 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL
- Date Wednesday 24 May
- Time Starts 7.30, Ends 9.30. Doors open 6.45 for coffee, stalls and chat
- Queries & Questions Queries, or questions for the speakers, can be emailed to spokes@spokes.org.uk. However, questions in person from audience members are likely to have greatest priority on the night
- Online We hope to live broadcast on our youtube channel – details nearer the time on Spokes website. We also intend to make the recording available a few days later.
Background
Edinburgh City Council is consulting on a new Active Travel Action Plan (ATAP) and a series of other Mobility Plan ‘delivery documents’ all aimed to support Edinburgh NetZero 2030, and a 30% reduction in car-km by 2030.
Our public meeting will hear from the Council, followed by an expert critique, and then there’s a full hour panel discussion – your opportunity to challenge the speakers.
Do the delivery plans live up to the Council’s ambition to cut car-km 30% by 2030, alongside greatly increased travel by foot, bike and public transport? Will they enable more people to live car-free? Will they lead to speedy implementation? Our meeting is your opportunity to find out!
The ambition “to create a city where you don’t need to own a car to get around,” mentioned in several of the documents (e.g. Parking Action Plan, p8) is very welcome, for reasons of climate, public health, congestion and equalities. Such an ambition is also essential if the Council is to achieve its ultra-tough target to reduce car-km 30% by 2030.
A top cycling takeaway from the draft ATAP is the new focus on main road segregated routes. It says [chap 5],
“The (off road) traffic-free routes will continue to play a vital role, and we will seek to improve their comfort,safety and security. However, we now plan to develop a joined-up network of routes that feel safe to everyone at all times of day. This network will need to use segregated cycle tracks on main roads, as well as unsegregated on-street routes that have low volumes of motor traffic.”
The three highlighted phrases above [our emphases] neatly summarise important major developments, which we strongly welcome, in the Council’s approach to cycling policy, and we urge determined implementation.–
** Spokes: spokes.org.uk; twitter.com/SpokesLothian
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