Joined up thinking needed in Edinburgh planning

The planning department inside Edinburgh Council may not be able to even conceive of a solution to the problems being produced by present policies, unacknowledged but underway, that displace more and more traffic from 'safe' main roads, to less safe domestic roads.

This must not  be a justification for continuing to pretend these problems, extensive and multiplying, and with potentially serious health and mortality impacts simply do not exist.

Making Traffic congestion a priority

Making Traffic congestion a priority?

And exactly what do you mean by that.

Article with two pics about the spreading traffic congestion far and wide in Edinburgh, caused by the tram project and other related schemes, where the common thread is a stealth policy of trading cash for health in the city-- happy to see plans for the central zone proceed, but ignoring the known and forseen effects on life in the sreets where the people of the city actually live

absurd, cynical and corrosive

Article that seeks to show how the council continues to ignore inconvenient truths, however obvious they may be, however odd the denial of the facts may look to ordinary people. It argues this happens because simply admitting the obvious truths risks having the whole 'stealth' policy of transferring pollution from old main roads (lightly residential for obvious reasons) into very densely inhabited residential areas.

We believe the policy of emptying the old main roads underpins the whole thrust of city centre traffic planning but that the unacknowledged cost, the inconvenient truth, is that

What Edinburgh can learn from Somerset, Staffordshire, Rochdale ---- and Abraham Lincoln

In Somerset, Lord (Chris) Smith is  learning a lesson that box ticking bureaucrats learned in Mid Staffs and former prime Minister Gordon Brown learned in Rochdale after talking to 'some bigoted woman'..... as Abraham Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time--but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

He didn't add, but could have, that the longer you try and fool all of the people all the time, usually the worse the smash up when the fooling has to stop.

What connects these three examples from the recent past, and our

148-Have a go to see how you do against the experts

A release on a very simple set of road signs..but how difficult they proved for the council to explain.

The serious point is they said thse signs did not overly prevent traffic using Charlotte Square, we said it all but made it impossible to imagine any through traffic using it.

Click the pdf below to see for yourself.

 

What does the proposed M1 Motorway speed limit tell us about Edinburgh?

The BBC and other media have been telling us that the government is proposing to set up a 60mph speed limit for a 32-mile stretch of the M1, in a bid to cut pollution.

This is because reducing the speed from 70mph to 60mph is expected to reduce the adverse effects of the traffic in respect of air quality.

In Edinburgh, in the Council chamber and the office at Waverley Court they don't read these stories, or ones like this other one on NHS Choices referring to a story in the Guardian.

They can't read them because otherwise what possible defence would they have for their consistent policiy

A chance to be heard... or a chance to listen?

January 14th and 15th set aside for a Public Hearing of the mix and muddle going on around the TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) and similar legal instruments connected to the development of Charlotte Square, it has only come about because in their haste to rush through the proposals, the council fogot to do the 'i's and cross the 't's of their own process.

Beneath the calm surface of this notification are some murky waters in which promises were made and broken, indeed some broken before ven being made.

This hearing will consider these 4 specific issues.

1 To consider the existing traffic

Allan Alstead - Follow the Money at any Tram Inquiry

A letter in the Scotsman urging the Public Inquiry to be held now, and making the point that while the buck stopped inside Waverley Court and City Chambers...it started at Holyrood.

Block Busting... coming to a street near you?

A letter from America from a person who has lived in Edinburgh, and continues to both love the city, but also fear for it's future,as the Council continues in it's head in the sand, state of denial over it's promotion of the tram project and the continuing, and unstoppable, cascade of bad effects flowing from it.

John Carson- Jumbo Error for the Trams

A letter published by the Scotsman, written by John Carson, pointing out that an inbuilt design characteristic of the tram could scupper hopes for trouble-free, city centre testing of the tram due to start next month

Pages