I hope you’re all having a peaceful start to springtime and aren’t feeling too much dread about the double digit temperatures creeping closer to the start of the year (!) Sorry, my climate anxiety does not take a spring break. The month of March has been very transport heavy – I hope you find it interesting.
School Air Pollution Event
The Council Chambers were transformed this month for the Parents for Future Scotland event, sponsored by Green colleague Cllr Parker, as kids from across the city came to learn more about transport, safety and climate action. The P4F Scotland team are a fantastic grassroots organisation concerned about climate change in our communities and brought three key asks to Councillors.
I managed to create movement on one of their asks – expanding/building a free bus travel scheme open to carers/companions of folks under 22 who need extra support when travelling. You can read our press release on that here.
Road Safety
At this month’s Transport and Environment Committee we had some quiet but crucial wins on road safety which I’m quite proud of. My amendment on the Road Safety Delivery Plan 25/26 was agreed to which approves the approach for speed reduction measures with our added thresholds for speed reduction measures:
- Average speed above 20mph will indicate that softer speed management measures should initially be considered or a reduction/shift in extents; and
- Average speeds of above 25mph will indicate that speed management measures are required to change the road environment to achieve better speed compliance. This will include consideration of using softer features initially, such as road markings or a reduction/change in the extent of the speed limit.
This means the roads team will be run off their feet with even more roads flagged but with reprioritised thresholds, enforcement and management, we hope this will (pardon the pun) speed up implementation and push for a better behaviour change.
New tram trains?!
Earlier in March I was invited to an event in the Scottish Parliament hosted by Heriot-Watt students who are spearheading calls to reopen a rail route that last served the south of Edinburgh more than 60 years ago.
The team, who have been working on the project as part of their master’s degree, believe that connecting Edinburgh’s existing tram network to the railway could be the perfect way to utilise the tracks, while extending light-rail options in the city.
There’s a lot of chat going on but no firm business cases or proposals yet … watch this space!