All posts by Living Streets Edinburgh

Living Streets Edinburgh – Recording of Election Hustings 2022

News

We held an online election hustings on Tuesday 12 April 2022, to hear what parties had to say about walking and wheeling in the city, in the run-in to the Council elections on May 5th.

Party representatives were:

  • Kayleigh O’Neill (Scottish Green Party)
  • Cllr Kevin Lang (Scottish Liberal Democrats)
  • Mhairi Munro-O’Brian (Scottish Labour)
  • Cllr Lesley Macinnes (Scottish National Party)
  • Cllr Jim Campbell (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party)

You can watch the whole event, chaired by top transport journalist Alastair Dalton, here: https://youtu.be/P-lzZYhIlHA

Here is a list of questions asked at the hustings events by audience members, although there wasn’t enough time to answer many of them.

Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging : Living Streets Edinburgh Group views (April 2022)

Council Policy, ,

1.  LSEG welcomes the rollout of EV charging for the city.

With the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) passenger vehicles due to be stopped from 2030, we urgently need to develop green alternatives and the necessary infrastructure to support them. This will not in itself reduce congestion or the dominance of streets by motor vehicles, or road safety.

Encouraging a switch from private cars to shared vehicles and improved public transport, cycling and (of course) walking and wheeling, is vital. The ‘Sustainable Travel Hierarchy’ (with walking and wheeling top, and private cars last) must be respected.

2. With regard to proposals for public EV charging, we support a street-by-street zoned approach. Incentives should be available to encourage owners of EVs to charge at home, with standard and fast chargers using off peak electricity when possible.

3. We recognise that many residents in the inner city do not have garages or driveways where they can charge their vehicles. For these users we support on-street carriageway build-outs (i.e. not on the footway) and lighting column EV chargers, where they are adjacent to the kerbside.

4. For commercial vehicles, taxis, LGVs, HGVs (and indeed buses) we believe rapid chargers should be located in special off-street hubs. Rapid and ultra-rapid chargers are large and not suited to either commercial or residential streets.

5. We do not support the siting of EV infrastructure on existing footways. The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) has recognised the problems of pavement clutter, as highlighted in recent years by LSEG and Living Streets nationally; mass installation of EV chargers on footways would run entirely counter to this policy.  No EV infrastructure at all should be sited on the city’s most historic streets such as the Royal Mile or George Street.

6. CEC should enforce prohibitions against laying wires between private properties and vehicles on the road.

7. At present, there is considerable uncertainty around many aspects of EV, due to the first units being commissioned before design guidance has been agreed, and the lack of zoning. We need to see that design guidance, after it has been written by CEC, and we need to know more about the processes and entitlements for the EV infrastructure proposals, for objecting to EV charger placement, etc?

8.   We look forward to continued engagement with CEC on this topic, which is likely to evolve quickly. We would also welcome public feedback, from ‘everyday walking’ perspectives.

Living Streets Edinburgh Group

April 2022

Election hustings (online): Tuesday, 12 April 2022

News

Living Streets Edinburgh election hustings will give the public the chance to hear candidates from the main political parties speak about their party’s plans to make Edinburgh better for ‘everyday walking and wheeling’. Voting in the council elections takes place on May 5th, 2022.

We will briefly outline our Manifesto for Walking – which you can see here – before hearing from candidates from all the main political parties about their plans for walking in Edinburgh. This will be followed by questions from members of the public.

We have invited the transport spokespeople from all the major parties. As we are politically impartial, we will ensure that everyone has an equal chance to contribute. Representatives confirmed so far are:

Scottish Green Party – Kayleigh O’Neill

Scottish Liberal Democratic Party – Cllr Kevin Lang

Scottish Labour – Mhairi Munro-Brian

Scottish National Party – Cllr Lesley Macinnes

We are delighted that the event will be chaired by leading Scottish transport journalist Alastair Dalton.

We hope you can join us from 5.00 to 6.30 pm on Tuesday 12 April. To register, just click this link : Webinar Registration – Zoom

LSE responds to Transport Scotland consultation on potential exemptions to the ban on pavement parking

News, Press Release,

The consultation is open until 11 March 2022: be sure to have your say!  

Neither of the proposed grounds for exemption are acceptable: no streets should be exempt from the ban on pavement parking. This is for the following reasons:

  • as a matter of principle, “pavements are for people”, not vehicles. The interests of pedestrians, and especially disabled pedestrians, should be paramount.
  • pavement parking damages footways which are not generally designed to carry the weight of a motor vehicle.
  • restrictions on parking are one of the main tools at the disposal of a local authority to achieve environmental and social goals such as the targets for reducing car travel by 2030 (20% nationally, 30% in Edinburgh).
  • any exemption will leave a council powerless to intervene should a pavement be obstructed, even if it appears that the pavement is wide enough to accommodate pavement parking.
  • if a street is too narrow for a fire engine or other emergency vehicle to pass, then parking should be banned altogether.
  • The implementation of exemptions would involve a range of legal orders, installation of signage etc. which would be an unwelcome additional burden on council responsibilities and budgets, and also add to pavement clutter.
  • A ’zero-exemption’ policy would permit quicker implementation of the ban.

Councils should instead focus enforcement resources where they are needed most but always retaining, for all streets, the powers to intervene should it be necessary. We know that Police Scotland will not respond to reports of footway obstructions so the new powers for local authorities must not be given up. Councils should also start conversations as soon as possible with communities which will be most affected (ie in the many streets where pavement parking is currently common) in order to help residents understand the action that they will need to take when the ban comes into effect.

LivingStreets Edinburgh Group: our manifesto for Council elections May 2022

City Centre Transformation, Council Policy, News, , , ,

Please see our manifesto for the 2022 council elections. We hope that all parties and all candidates will adopt these policies, to make Edinburgh the wonderfully walkable city it should be. Please help get walking and wheeling given the priority it needs by asking your councillor and candidates for their support!

Living Streets Edinburgh is the local group of the national charity that campaigns for everyday walking and wheeling. Edinburgh is essentially a wonderful city for walking, thanks to its size, history and geography. However, the pedestrian environment is often substandard and overlooked by policy makers. We want everyday walking to be accessible, attractive, convenient and quick.

All parties in the current council agreed in August 2020 that walking is “top of the sustainable movement hierarchy”. But in practice walking is often given inadequate priority and funding, despite it being the greenest and most universal way that people travel.  We ask all candidates and political parties standing for election in May 2022 to support the following actions for the next council term:

Reduce motor traffic

  • Reduce road space for motor vehicles, including supporting low traffic zones and reducing on-street parking spaces;
  • provide better alternatives for people to travel by walking, cycling and public transport;
  • adopt a tougher approach to enforcement of antisocial parking – including at bus stops, schools and in bus and cycle lanes;
  • early and ‘zero tolerance’ enforcement of the pavement parking ban when it is introduced.

Improve pavements

  • Introduce proper wider pavements in all ‘town centre’ locations, replacing the temporary ‘spaces for people’ measures;
  • make pavements smooth and trip-free with a 20% increase in footway maintenance budgets;
  • set a new budget to remove pavement clutter, and stop adding to it (for example through EV chargers);
  • introduce at least 100 dropped kerbs (or continuous pavements) a year where they are missing.

Improve pedestrian crossings

  • Review every signalled pedestrian crossing to reduce the time people have to wait to cross;
  • increase the ‘green man time’ for pedestrians to a minimum of 10 seconds;
  • increase the pedestrian crossing budget by 20% and support the widespread introduction of low cost crossings such as ‘informal zebras’.

Make roads safer

  • Renew the council’s road safety plan with a vision zero approach – there should be no deaths or serious injuries from traffic collisions by 2030;
  • increase enforcement of road traffic offences such as speeding and red light jumping, with a big increase in the use of speed cameras;
  • introduce a safe travel plan for every school in the city which either removes traffic from the school gates or (where not possible) makes the pavement wider.

Use planning controls effectively

  • Encourage car-free housing on brownfield sites;
  • reject car-dependent applications including commercial ventures such as ‘drive through’s;
  • ensure developers pay a fair contribution to improving pedestrian spaces through voluntary or ‘Section 75’ payments.

https://www.livingstreetsedinburgh.org.uk

November 2021