Council is failing to learn from mistakes
BUSES can’t cross a speed table on Butterbiggins Road junction on the new South City Way? (Glasgow needs to get cycle routes just right, Tuesday).
When sitting on bus 4A up Sauchiehall Street a few days ago the driver didn’t hesitate to cruise over several tables at 15mph or so.
As passengers hardly notice them, I couldn’t tell if it was four or five. Sounds like council flannel, trying to excuse an omission.
Question is, why was it changed? Was the specification actually changed, if so, why? To save money, for whom? To make life easier for the contractor, or what?
Or was change in construction unauthorised?
It’s not the first time apparently agreed details have been changed on new cycle and pedestrian facilities. Cyclists complain the pelican on Sauchiehall Street at Charing Cross isn’t as agreed, as a result there is potentially hazardous pedestrian-cycle conflict.
Why isn’t the council learning from mistakes?
Pat Toms
Via email
THE number of cyclists continues to go up in a straight line as we improve the infrastructure.
It’s more than doubled in less than a decade. Maybe the proportion cycling will never grow as high as Amsterdam or Copenhagen but we can get it much higher and we’ll all be better off if we do.
Charlie Duran
Posted online
CATRIONA Stewart’s article comparing cycling infrastructure in Copenhagen with the South City Way was interesting but ignored the most crucial aspect of why cycling as transport is so popular in Copenhagen.
Simply put, it is the fastest, most direct way to get around the city – better and cheaper than cars and public transport.
Copenhageners are not some super green liberals cycling for the sake of the planet or because they are somehow “different” to us. Political commitment, effort and investment was made because there was a realisation that there will never be enough space for ever more cars in our city centres. New roads simply attract even more cars and that there is a wider social cost to car use that affects us all – pollution, road accidents, increased obesity, the vast amounts of public money spent on road building, repairs and the sheer amount of public space given over to it. Whether you drive or not,
you are paying for this.
In contrast to the drivers’ popular refrain that “bikes don’t pay road tax”, cycling – due to its efficiency, pollution-free nature and increased activity – actually contributes positively to city coffers: less burden on roads, better physical and mental health, much lower investment per mile travelled plus its ability to transport vastly more people for a given amount of road space.
Glasgow has actually relatively low per capita car ownership but enjoys high levels of congestion, urban pollution and obesity.
A network (rather than isolated strips of varying “designs”) of properly-segregated cycle lanes
that use the effective Copenhagen designs would offer the vast majority of Glaswegians a safe and inexpensive alternative mode of transport.
In financial terms, it is a far better, more cost-effective longterm investment for (and in) the future of the city and its people than spending on road building and electric vehicle infrastructure.
Brian Kiloh Via email
I WAS pleased to read that Kelly Macdonald has signed up for BBC’s Line of Duty.
I think she’ll be an excellent addition to a superb show.
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