"Improve Travel in Edinburgh" they say

As an Edinburgh resident, I received a survey request in the post the other day from Sustrans and National Centre for Social Research. They invited me to “Help us improve travel in your neighbourhood” by completing an Edinburgh Travel survey. They even offered me £5 voucher for doing so! So I thought I’d fill it in since travel in and around Edinburgh is important to me. The point of this they say is to help understand travel behaviour, inform policy and guide investment in Edinburgh.

The thing about surveys put together by those with a strong bias, ie Sustrans, who are all about getting cars off the road and people onto bicycles, is that you find the questions seem to be framed in a particular way to skew the outcome. Multiple choice options don’t really feel like they ask the questions I’d like to answer and are open to mis-interpretation.

At the end of the survey was a tiny box for me to add my comments. I ended up sitting and thinking about it for quite some time, after which my comments turned out to be much more than the online survey would accept and I had to cut out most of my thoughts. But on the attempts to push more people into cycling and wheeling instead of driving in Edinburgh, here are my thoughts;

Geography and weather. Cycling and wheeling may be a very practical idea in Holland, but around here the number and steepness of the hills all over the town makes it completely impractical as a day to day means of getting about for the vast majority. Especially so if you add in shopping and/or children and imagine how on earth you could cycle up steep hills pushing, carrying or hauling such extra weight. I’m not against cycling and 30 years ago I was a keen cyclist and used a bicycle to travel to and from work. However, I certainly couldn’t manage it now. In heavy rain at any time of year and In winter when the roads are wet/icy/ snowy attempting to use a bicycle on steep and slippery roads or paths is a very dangerous idea for anyone. For these reasons, people will just not take to cycling around Edinburgh.
Electric Battery Technology Disaster – although electric cycles could overcome some of the hills, I am not alone in being very opposed on ethical grounds to the widespread use of electric battery technology in scooters, bicycles and vehicles. Manufacture of these technologies is very polluting, damaging to the environment and uses child and slave labour. There is horrendous damage to the environment, to water courses and to indigenous communities, caused in the mining the metals and minerals required. Such batteries are hazardous, inefficient and charging them uses a lot of energy, (electricity generated from fossil fuel) and with a limited life span they need to be replaced. (click HERE for more information) I am convinced this issue is a far more real and measurably devastating man-made impact on our planet than the controversial theory that we need to reduce man made CO2 to net zero to try to avoid a potential 1.5 degrees warming over the next century. I have seen calculations that the whole of Scotland’s contribution in cutting our nations carbon emissions would make less than 1/200^th of a degree difference to this whole plan, in other words no difference to climate change whatsoever.
Freedom of Choice and Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right enshrined into our constitution and continues to be eroded. Since many will not be able to meet a lot of their travel needs without relying on motorised transport, having less and less roads, unmaintained surfaces and being severely restricted and financially penalised for driving on roads is simply an unlawful attack on peoples’ rights. It is already causing a negative impact to quality of life with increases stress, lost time and rising costs impacts many for whom there are no viable alternatives. People need to be encouraged into reasonable changes in behaviour using truly inclusive consideration, consultation and input to develop a truly visionary future, not a set of dogmatic policies which are clearly following one size fits all global policies. Less car use could be driven by incentives and practical alternatives which will actually work for people, and not as seems to be happening by dictats, forced restrictions, surveillance, unworkable schemes and punishments.
Re 20 Minute Cities – it really concerns me that governments and NGO’s will be specifying what goods, services and facilites will be deemed “essential” or “healthy” for me or anyone. It is a blatant stripping away of rights to be told by any organisation where you should (can) shop, exercise, visit and what choices will be available only within a short distance of home. In addition, these policies will likely destroy small, family and artisan businesses and the large, powerful monopolistic suppliers will be all that is left. In this increasingly toxic world, one’s individual choices have to be made very carefully and thoughtfully and seldom is the best choice the same for any two people.
Governments may put more benches, spaces and facilities for people to walk, wheel and cycle, but if this is at the expense of useable road space making travelling by car too difficult and expensive, most of those car users will just not make the journeys or patronise the same businesses and shops. People will instead patronise out of town centres with parking or shop online (aka “Made in China”). We have already seen that the result of this is the decimation of the heart of communities, losing local shops, cafes, and specialist services and businesses who rely on customers easily reaching them from further afield, passing trade, as well as deliveries and other road services. If this continues then it becomes self defeating since people will not want to walk, wheel or cycle to anywhere local, because there will be not much left worth travelling to. Anybody providing services which requires heavy goods or equipment to be transported to a location will find it impossible when there is no vehicular access. There are many negative implications we can’t imagine.
There is no need for “Low Emission Zones” since recent testing and reporting has demonstrated a vast improvement in the quality of the air in cities, so much so that air quality is now deemed to be “excellent” with levels of pollutants well below safety thresholds everywhere across the country now in 2023.
Public transport systems are currently woefully inadequate to provide the flexibility to meet the wide array of needs which people have for travel. For example I am a carer for an elderly relative and 5 times a week I need to make a journey from my house to theirs. I can currently drive directly across town, a 6 mile, 17 minutes journey by car door to door. I can do this at non “rush hour” to avoid busy traffic and so I travel efficiently and easily. I need to do shopping on the way and often bring my dog with me. I am also able to take my relative out in the car, otherwise they are housebound and there are no shops of facilities they can reach themselves. If restrictions are placed on my direct route or to the number of times I am “allowed” to travel by car, this will very negatively affect both me and my relative’s life quality. I could not manage to offer this level of care practically by using public transport without severely cutting back on the care and options I could manage. The council have just recently cut back on the single bus service to my relative’s neighbourhood. I would need to cut out any flexibility and around 8 hours per week of time available to care for my relative if I had to rely on busses.
Adding cycle lanes into existing roads creates dangers, impedes access and passage of emergency vehicles, and general access for the disabled and others. It makes it very difficult and frustrating for anyone who needs to or wants to visit somewhere by car. I have seen first hand a proliferation of cycle lanes all over the city which are usually completely empty. Whilst these are hardly used, a huge additional pressure is put onto the traffic flows, creating unnecessary congestion, delays and ironically more pollution. Frustratingly, I have also experienced cyclists ignoring the dedicated lanes just cycling on the roads anyway.

There has to be proper engagement, ideas and consultation on what incentives and positive action can be used to encourage less congestion, without using physical barriers and punishments. I am not advocating new road building, but proper maintenance and better design of existing roads and public transport for all. Poorly maintained highways cause damage and accidents and the council are sorely neglecting this, in favour of cycle lanes, which are not and will not be of much practical use in much of Edinburgh as outlined previously.

Oh, and the £5 voucher – encouraging me to walk and shop locally? No of course not, it was to spend online. No thank you!