Hi All, I’m sorry to say that things are not going well. The Council is set on wasting £9M on a track that will fail to do much beyond increase congestion and remove parking. At the Murrayfield Community Council (MCC) meeting on Tuesday night Cllr Balfour revealed that the decision will be taken before Xmas by a panel of 5 Cllrs- the Transport spokespeople from each Party. That will be Cllr Hinds (Labour, in favour); Cllr McVey (SNP, in favour); Cllr Bagshaw (Green, in favour). The other two (Cllr Alldridge, LibDem and Nick Cook, Tory) will be outvoted whatever they say. The cycling officers know this and are pursuing Option A. There have been 3 Stakeholders meetings now, none of which are considering the fundamentals- that there is already a good route NCR1 and if this design is fundamentally suitable. The Stakeholders Groups are packed in favour of cycling campaigners and officers; the trader and MCC reps are generally swamped. The walkabout in Roseburn included a local rep from the few that want it but everyone from the Roseburn Vision was excluded. The traders at both Roseburn and Haymarket valiantly demonstrated their opposition (see photo below) and Haymarket businesses even mustered a group letter signed by 20 shops asking for me to be included, but the Cllrs just ignored it. The cycling officers preface every speech to Cllrs by saying the reason that cyclists won’t cycle in Edinburgh is because they feel unsafe and a protected track will get a big increase. This is not generally the case- the Scotsman recently stated that Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee have each built numerous cycle routes - both on and off road - over the past 20 years, but the numbers using them on a daily basis remain stubbornly low. A few of us think that this fundamental assumption needs to be challenged. We’ve put together a survey “Why Bike?” which we want everybody to complete. Councillors have been convinced by project consultants on the East-West cycle track who predict an increase of approximately 90% in cycle use in the corridor served by the route, amounting to a 16% increase in overall cycle use in the city if it was delivered. This nonsense is based on a survey carried out by Sustrans of 1,100 people in Edinburgh and Cllr Hinds just sent me copy of it. It’s called Bike Life Edinburgh. There are 1000 members in Spokes who already cycle on a daily basis who no doubt filled it in. The survey concludes that what is needed for the city are protected cycle tracks. I hope that you will complete this survey, no matter how unlikely you are to ever get onto two wheels. Because cycling in Edinburgh is hard work, with many hills and bad weather and any number of cycle tracks will never change that. Cycling is good for the environment, but there are plenty of better measures the Council could be taking. A few of us (residents and traders) think there are several things we can do between now and Xmas. The first is this survey- I hope to get at least 1,000 people to complete it- it will be held online at Survey Monkey and in paper form at the local shops. We need that to conclude by early December and I need to fundraise either £150 or £400 to cover the cost (£50 for a 2-month Survey Monkey subscription, needed for more than 100 signatures- good for up to 1,000; if we get a lot more it will cost £300 for an annual fee). The cost includes getting flyers and posters printed for the shops. I’ll be sending out the crowdfunding link in a couple of days. The other thing we need to do is get Cllr Ross to make good on his offer to cone off the street to the level of the track and see what the impact is on congestion, parking and trade- ideally over a week. It will be gridlock and mayhem, but I believe desperate measures are called for, if we are to protect our streets and shops. And he needs to get it done well before the Councillors make their decision, for only then can they make a true assessment of the impact of this scheme. Best wishes Pete Gregson Roseburn Vision Group