Air Pollution

[Soapy FFC]

2 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Neither of the places I mentioned were Winchburgh but both are pretty nearby and I assume the same applies to there.  

One thing I had never encountered until I started working down here was that there are loads of people who are really snobby about buses and would just never consider getting a bus anywhere, ever.  

A former neighbour of mine was like that. "I don't do buses" she said.

[VincentGuerin]

39 minutes ago, 101 said:

I'm not sure how you encourage people to walk and cycle more, I'm the same if in Edinburgh I typically walk round, back home I walk to the shops to get my groceries but plenty folk drive a very short distance. Stopping that imo is key to improving air quality.

It's a medium-term thing and it takes actual investment. Various places I've visited for work etc over the years have actual cycle and walking routes alongside roads (but over a verge from them for safety) and with traffic signals etc that make it safe to cycle or walk. Things like that allied to actual convenient and affordable public transport would make a difference.

And sell it to people. Accentuate the advantages of not having to shell out for petrol, or parking, or the hassle of sitting in traffic etc.

It's not going to work to tell people they need to change to save the planet. Some folk just won't believe you and, as we've seen after decades of this messaging, most folk just don't care. You need to implement measures that make life better for people, show them why they are better, and actually deliver.

I have absolutely no confidence this will happen. I'm delighted I don't have children.

[jamamafegan]

1 hour ago, Alert Mongoose said:

And just to add Beeching should have been sent to prison for one of the worst crimes of recent times.

And those who lacked any kind of foresight and permitted developments on the old lines. 

[Alert Mongoose]

8 minutes ago, jamamafegan said:

And those who lacked any kind of foresight and permitted developments on the old lines. 

Fair point. Though it has helped provide excellent bramble sites so I guess his defence could have used that in mitigation?

[101]

7 minutes ago, jamamafegan said:

And those who lacked any kind of foresight and permitted developments on the old lines. 

Some of the "active travel" replacements have been a good addition to local transport connections. 

[invergowrie arab]

3 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

Until enough of us can force ourselves ('NOT IN MY CAR YARD!') to use public transport, then public transport will effectively remain too expensive. 

I don't see us reaching the point where publicly funded transport solutions run economically on paper in the near future, sadly.  It has to happen over time though.

The bit that needs to happen in the future is for people (via taxation presumably) move the money they spend on buying/running cars into investing in the infrastructure required.  Personally, I think that electric cars are a white elephant that ought not to be persued but just an opinion.

 

Public transport doesn't have to run "economically" at all if its genuine public transport as opposed to private transport accessible to the public.

The ambition should be free bus and train travel at the point of use delivered by a national transport service.

We are halfway there with the bus service except with the money puring out of Holyrood and into the hands of private shareholders and west of scotland gangsters.

[Alert Mongoose]

1 hour ago, invergowrie arab said:

Public transport doesn't have to run "economically" at all if its genuine public transport as opposed to private transport accessible to the public.

The ambition should be free bus and train travel at the point of use delivered by a national transport service.

We are halfway there with the bus service except with the money puring out of Holyrood and into the hands of private shareholders and west of scotland gangsters.

I agree it doesn't but sadly the mindset of the goverments(s) especially with the drive for cutting public expenditure means that it would almost need to.

[ICTChris]

Looking at that map in the OP, Eastern/Central Europe is polluted af.

It’d be intereting to see a detailed postcode breakdown of that info. I remember St John’s Road in Corstorphine being named one of the most polluted in Edinburgh, that might have changed now. Certainly seems a lot airier with a few of the buildings gone.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

Looking at that map in the OP, Eastern/Central Europe is polluted af.

It’d be intereting to see a detailed postcode breakdown of that info. I remember St John’s Road in Corstorphine being named one of the most polluted in Edinburgh, that might have changed now. Certainly seems a lot airier with a few of the buildings gone.

It’s still up there. Same with Queensferry Road and Salamander St.

[ICTChris]

1 minute ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

It’s still up there. Same with Queensferry Road and Salamander St.

The scrapyard on Salamander street is closing down, maybe that will help. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

5 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

The scrapyard on Salamander street is closing down, maybe that will help. 

Possibly. Don’t know if the docks traffic contribute much. Again I don’t think it’s as narrow and high sided as it was at one point. 

[RawB93]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

The scrapyard on Salamander street is closing down, maybe that will help. 

It was by that scrapyard I saw the biggest rat I've ever seen in my life. I initially thought it was a cat.

Also read a few years ago that in 2015, something like 54 deaths were linked to air pollution on my old street. Mental.

I've moved now but on just as busy a road and by traffic lights too which I think makes it worse. I have to clean the windows on that side of the house about 4 times more often than the other.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Loads of new builds down Salamander now. Still a busy road obviously.

[Tony Ferrino]

9 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

And just to add Beeching should have been sent to prison for one of the worst crimes of recent times.

He was asked to make a report. The governments of the time decided on whether to accept it.

[ICTChris]

Did people at the time think Beeching was a disaster?

['WellDel]

10 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Car ownership must be lower in London than almost anywhere else in the UK, surely?

I wonder about the gap between rhetoric and action on stuff like this. We have friends who live in a new build estate outside Edinburgh. They got rid of one of their cars but have found that without a car they are basically stranded in their estate, with barely any public transport available. I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t navigate a bus around the main streets there even if there was one. This estate was built a couple of years ago, why wasn’t a requirement for public transport included? Similarly my mother-in-law lives in a village that has massively expanded in the last few years due to new build houses, it’s probably more than doubled in size. She doesn’t drive and the bus service is absolutely terrible, pot luck whether it turns up, infrequent services. She’s retired so it’s just an annoyance to her but to people using it to get to work or school or wherever it is pretty much unusable. Of course, the whole place is a permanent snarl up of traffic.

But then, I live in a Edinburgh a city that has great public transport and most of my colleagues (when I worked in the city) would drive from the outskirts to the centre for work, some of them paid £10 a day for parking. Madness but they did it. I take my wee boy to his school and there are parents dropping off in cars - the catchment area is literally walkable. You could walk across the entire thing in 15 minutes. Insanity but people do it.

There are so many places like this the length and breadth of the country. Small villages and towns that expand massively, yet the transport and public infrastructure does not grow with it.

I live in a village which has probably increased four fold in the last 20 odd years. It's a very good commuter location, but though I'm fortunate enough to be a 5 min walk to the shops if I need any essentials, the folks on the extremities, where there is not a single bus stop, would probably be a 40 min return walk just to go for a loaf. 

Not too far away the great new hope of regeneration that is the Ravenscraig redevelopment has seen thousands of new houses built over a vast area of land in the same time period, yet other than a Marston's pub in the middle of it, there is not a single shop, chemist, doctors surgery, or anything to serve the many thousand of residents and, as far as I know, no real public transport link into town. Folks who stay bang in the middle of it have a couple of miles round trip just to get some shopping or collect a prescription, not to mention the pressures put on the existing doctors, schools etc to accomodate all the extra people. Car use will never decrease in these areas until councils insist that the necessary transport and social infrastructure are included in the granting of planning permission. 

The very folk who want to penalise car users are the ones responsible for them having to do so.

[johnnydun]

If they really want to get rid of the 20 year old Diesels, they should maybe make car finance a bit more accessible.

[Alert Mongoose]

33 minutes ago, Tony Ferrino said:

He was asked to make a report. The governments of the time decided on whether to accept it.

Agreed, but it was obviously the shitest report in living memory. Worse than Ernie Walkers' even.

[101]

30 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

Car use will never decrease in these areas until councils insist that the necessary transport and social infrastructure are included in the granting of planning permission. 

The new scheme being built in South Queensferry are a great case in point of this absolutely nothing but houses for miles and motorway on 3 sides. 

Not sure why folk would choose to live there as there are far nicer places with even a wee bit further from Edinburgh that won't have the drone of the motorway and have lots more facilities and connections.

But you're right along with making sure the houses are insulated to the max and have solar panels and electric car charging they should mandate that there is provision of public transport infrastructure.

[Tony Ferrino]

52 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Did people at the time think Beeching was a disaster?

Probably over estimating the age of the posters on here Chris.