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The Lothian Cycle Campaign

SPOKESWORKER 1st February 2003


Spokesworker is an occasional ("roughly monthly") news sheet, with stop-press news of forthcoming events, and of road, traffic and planning matters. It is not automatically sent to all members. A copy is enclosed if we are writing to you anyway, and copies are handed out at meetings of working groups. It is also published here on the website. If you wish to be notified by email of a new Spokesworker or of other major updates to the Spokes website, contact spokes@spokes.org.uk. Also, you can make sure of getting a paper copy by sending Spokes 10 or so stamped addressed envelopes.   

FOR YOUR DIARY

Feb 12 Dalry Caledonian Home Zones workshop See article..

Feb 17 Tackling Congestion in Scotland Day conference, Edinburgh. Scottish Transport Studies Group. Speakers from Edinburgh Council, Transform Scotland, MSPs, etc. Fee £50 for Spokes members [normal £170]. 226.7971 mail@stsg.org.

Feb 21 Keeping Scotland Moving: Transport Choices Day conference, Edinburgh. Seems to emphasise air, sea, big rail/road, but not much time on local transport. Speakers include Transport Minister Iain Gray, Cllr Andrew Burns of Edinburgh Council, and an MSPs panel. Fee £82.25. mail@cspp.demon.co.uk 558.6179.

Feb 22 Spokes Mailout 10am To help phone Dave 01506.670165

Mar 7 The Inner Life of an Activist FOE and community health speakers. Centre for Human Ecology, 6pm.. Ticket event, optional extra for meal. Details: 624.1972 info@che.ac.uk.

Mar 10 E. Lothian members' meeting with council, 7.30. Mark 01368.864717 maj@finnsdad.freeserve.co.uk

Mar 11 Network Rail - its role CRAG open meeting, 7.30 [7pm for coffee] City Chambers, High Street. 449.5003.

Mar 13 Spokes Election Forum May 1st sees elections

to the Scottish Parliament and all Scottish Councils. Come to our May 13 forum, listen, and query the parties on policies, particularly for Edinburgh City Council.

Confirmed speakers: Cllr Andrew Burns Lab, Cllr Mike Pringle LibDem, Gordon Buchan Con, Bill Brockie Green, Colin Fox SSP. Not yet replied: SNP.

When: Thurs 13 March, 7.30 [6.45 coffee, stall, chat]

Where: Royal Over-Seas League, 100 Princes Street

Mar 18 Obesity from a Public Health Viewpoint Public seminar at Edinburgh Uni, Public Health Sciences, Teviot Place, 5pm. Refreshments & discussion after. 650.3212.

Mar 21 Ecological Debt FOE speaker. Understanding the environmental relationship between the rich and poor world. CHE meeting - details as for March 7 above.

Mar 22 CTC Cycle Campaigning Seminar Stirling, celebrating CTC 125th anniversary. Details: 01483.520735.

Mar 22-23 Towpath Cleanup 9-4.30, Edinburgh-Glasgow Registration essential: 0131.666.0875 cvinfo@btinternet.com.

Mar 27 Cycling & Health conference, Nottingham Univ. 0115.951.4132 www.nationalcyclingstrategy.org.uk/html/events.

Apr 3 Future of Waverley Station 7 Victoria Terr, 7.45. Speaker - station manager, Juliet Donnachie. Info: 334.5232.

May 1 Council and Scottish Parliament Elections [see Mar 13]

May 3-5 CTC 125th anniversary rides 0131.554.7773 .

June 14-22 National Bike Week 1000 events expected UK-wide. Nick Harvey 01243.543888 hq@bikeweek.org.uk. Main theme - encouraging novice and family cycling.

June 18 Spokes BIKE BREAKFAST - City Chambers For details, or if you can help, contact jackieh@waitrose.com. If you are involved with some other environmental /transport /cycling organisation that could provide a stall, please also get in touch.

June 21 Edinburgh-St.Andrews annual ride sponsored for Lepra. 01968.682369 Ros_Kerry@lepra.org.uk

June 22 EDINBURGH BIKEFEST 2003 Help needed now to make the 5th annual BikeFest the most successful ever! Callum Macdonald 0131.524.6150 www.bikefest.org.uk.

June 28 Linlithgow-Hopetoun circular family ride/quiz Info: Niall.Lobley@hopetounhouse.com

Aug 2 Borders Push annual testicular cancer sponsored Gorebridge circular ride. 01875.341158 info@tcas.fsnet.co.uk

Sep 21-22 Edinburgh Council Car-Free Days 529.3595

Sep 22 European Car-Free Day

SPOKES CYCLING WEEKENDS www.bikebus.co.uk

26-27 April: Moffat - Organiser Sally 0131 229 3101

10-11 May: Glenfinnan - Organiser Fiona 0131 652 0333

24-31 May: Wales Holiday - Phone Harry 0131 229 6274

14-15 June: Mull & Lismore Organiser Pat 0131 669 7458

12-13 July: Perthshire - Organiser Richard 0131 667 3983

26-27 July: Dumfries & Galloway - Phone Peter 443 6712

30-31 August: Edzell - Organiser: Ewan 07773 809159

13-15 September: Knapdale - Phone Elaine 01968 673905

20-21 Sept: Glen Doll - Organiser Paul 0131 662 1243

NEW S.E. PUBLICATIONS

Several new Scottish Executive publications to do with planning and/or transport have recently come out - all available via the Planning website www.scotland.gov.uk/planning or the Executive publications pages at www.scotland.gov.uk/publications. These sites are always worth looking at if you are interested in planning and transport issues and regulations.

SPOKES PATH CLEAN-UP

This article was written by Peter Hawkins, originally for the Currie/Balerno News community newspaper. To get involved in future projects, contact: Tim Smith timsmith@ednet.co.uk 554 7264 or Peter Hawkins peterhawk@care4free.net 443 6712.

Volunteers from Spokes, the local Cycle Campaign, have cleaned up a section of path near Woodhall Farm, Juniper Green. The path leads from the footbridge over the river, to the cottages below the Farm, and is located near Woodhall Court. The path had been getting worse every year. A local resident had put slabs down to form stepping stones, but these quickly disappeared into the mud.

Peter Hawkins, former Woodhall Terr resident, who organised the volunteers, said: "under the mud there was a perfectly sound stone surface. But every year the trees drop their litter, and it gradually builds up into a mulch. In the 24 years I've lived here, I don't think the path has ever been cleaned! The mud was 6" deep in places. Along the edge we discovered a row of yellow bricks, which might have been a pavement in the days when horses used the path, or they might have been used as an edging."

"A path like this needs to be cleaned every three or four years. The Victorians who presumably built it, knew a lot about drainage and had road-making skills which have now been largely lost. Now that the path has been cleaned, the water should drain off it quite quickly. It's already a popular route but if anyone has been put off using it because of its condition, I hope they'll find it much better."

"It's not much use asking the Council to do jobs like this - it would be too expensive. The only way to get these jobs done is do it yourself. Access is being widely discussed at the moment, but for us, access is about action - making the best of the paths we have".

Peter believes there are paths all over the city which need work. He has recently been working with volunteers on 'Christian' path in Portobello, the Water of Leith path at Saughton, and the path beside the River Almond, between Cramond Brig and the airport.

HOME ZONES NEWS

A Home Zone is a local area where cars travel at little more than walking pace, and the area is improved, so encouraging walking and cycling and creating a safer, more pleasant local environment.

EARTH POLICY INSTITUTEThis article is from Earth Policy Institute, July 17, 2002. For more info see www.earth-policy.org, or email jlarsen@earth-policy.org. For reprint permission contact rjkauffman@earth-policy.org

WORLD TURNING TO BICYCLE FOR MOBILITY AND EXERCISE

Bicycle Sales Top 100 Million In 2000

by Lester R. Brown and Janet Larsen

In year 2000, world bicycle production climbed to 101 million, more than double the 41 million cars produced. Sales of bikes are soaring because they provide affordable mobility for billions of people, increase physical fitness, alleviate traffic congestion, and do not pollute the air or emit climate-disrupting carbon dioxide.

A half-century ago, it was widely expected that automobile production would quickly exceed that of bicycles. Indeed by 1965, car production, which had been growing rapidly since World War II, was poised to overtake bicycle production. But it never did. Mounting environmental concerns slowed the growth in car output and accelerated that of bikes. Between 1969 and 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, bike sales jumped from 25 to 36 million.

Shortly after the first Earth Day, the two oil-price shocks of the 1970s underlined the risks of oil-dependent mobility. Car sales stalled near 30 million from 1973 to 1983. Bicycle sales, meanwhile, jumped from 52 million to 74 million [www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update13_data.htm]

The bicycle's principal attraction is its low cost. With cars costing easily 100 times as much, the bicycle offers mobility to billions of people who cannot afford a car. The widely affordable bike attracted 960 million buyers during the 1990s, compared with 370 million for the car. The bicycle also reduces the amount of land that needs to be paved. Six bicycles typically can fit into the road space used by one car. For parking, the advantage is even greater, with 20 bicycles occupying the space required for a car.

As the world automobile fleet expanded and as people moved in droves to cities, ever worsening traffic congestion highlighted the inherent conflict between the automobile and the city. In London today, the average speed of a car is roughly the same as that of a horse-drawn carriage a century ago. Each year, the average motorist in Bangkok spends the equivalent of 44 working days sitting in a car going nowhere. After a point, more cars mean less mobility. Another attraction of the bicycle is that it does not contribute to the air pollution that claims 3 million lives annually. In recent decades, the densely populated countries of northern Europe have turned to the bicycle to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce air pollution. In Stockholm, one of the world's wealthiest cities, car use has declined in recent years. Railroads and buses are increasingly linked with pedestrian and bicycle routes. In Sweden's urban areas, roughly 10 percent of all trips are by bicycle, about the same number as by public transit. Almost 40 percent of trips are on foot. Only 36 percent are by car.

In the Netherlands, bicycles account for up to half of all trips in some cities. Extensive bike paths and lanes in both the Netherlands (almost 19,000km) and Germany (over 31,000km) connect rural and urban areas. These networks offer the cyclist separate right-of-way, making for safer trips and less direct competition with cars and trucks. In Copenhagen, one third of the population commutes to work by bicycle. By 2005, Copenhagen's innovative city-bike program will provide 3,000 bicycles for free use within the city. Bike use there is expected to continue growing as city planners increase already high car parking fees by 3 percent annually over the next 15 years, impose high fuel taxes and vehicle registration costs, and concentrate future development around rail lines. In many cities in the United States, bikes provide mobility that cars cannot match. More than four fifths of all urban police departments now have some of their force on bicycles. Officers on bikes can usually reach the scene of a crime before those in squad cars, typically making 50 percent more arrests per day. For fiscally sensitive city managers, the low cost of operating a bicycle and the high productivity of an officer using one is a winning combination.

Urban bicycle messenger services are now common in large cities. For firms that market on the Internet, quick delivery means more customers. In a city like New York, where this creates an enormous potential for the use of bicycle messengers, an estimated 300 bicycle messenger firms compete for $700 million worth of business each year.

Land scarcity is also driving the world toward the bicycle, particularly in densely populated Asia, where half the world lives. In heavily populated, affluent Japan, the bicycle plays a strategic role. In Tokyo, where 90 percent of workers commute by rail, 30 percent use a bicycle to reach their local rail station.

When the Chinese government announced in 1994 that it was going to develop an automobile-centred transportation system, the policy was quickly challenged by a group of eminent scientists who produced a white paper indicating several reasons this approach would not work. The first reason was that China did not have enough land both to build the roads, highways, and parking lots needed for automobiles and to feed its people. The scientists argued instead for a rail/bicycle-based transport system. Although some cities in China, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are restricting bicycle use in favour of the car, bike ownership throughout the country is still on the rise. Automobile ownership in China is measured in the millions, but bicycle ownership is in the hundreds of millions. Bicycles are also used to transport goods. In rural Africa where women use bikes to transport farm produce to market, the resulting market expansion has raised farm output. In Ghana, bikes help HIV/AIDS educators reach 50% more people than those on foot.

For decades, the United States largely ignored the bicycle in transport system planning as federal funds were channelled almost exclusively into highway construction. This began to change in 1991 when Congress passed landmark legislation recognizing the role of the bicycle in the development of transport systems and requiring each state to have a bicycle coordinator. From 1992 through 1997, more than $1 billion of federal funds were invested in bicycle infrastructure. In New Jersey, this translated into an 800-mile statewide network of bicycle trails.

This new federal commitment helped boost US bike sales from 15 million in 1991 to 21 million in 2000. When President Clinton signed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century in 1998, he set the stage for further integration of bicycles into transportation planning. Bicycles are gaining popularity in industrial countries because they provide exercise. With half or more of adults now overweight in countries like the United States, Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, obesity is one of the world's leading public health problems. In the United States, obesity-related deaths currently total 300,000 a year, fast approaching the 420,000 for cigarette smoking.

The bicycle's role in the world transport system is expanding. Not only does it provide low-cost mobility, but in cities it often provides more mobility than the automobile. Because it provides mobility and exercise, does not pollute the air or disrupt the earth's climate, and is efficient in its use of land, the bicycle is emerging as the transport vehicle of the future.

 

 
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