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Campaign for safer infrastructure continues ten years later
Pedalling to Parly
By STAFF REPORTERTHE OLD EDINBURGH Club, the city’s
history society, is starting a programme
of small grants for projects and research
which expand what we know about
Edinburgh and which will help bring our
history to life.
The Club’s President, Ted Duvall
said: “We are delighted to invite
proposals which may involve original
research or improving access to historical
resources. Or they could present existing
knowledge to interest new audiences
or involve Edinburgh residents in
other ways.”
The pilot programme is open to local
history and heritage organisations,
schools and colleges and to individual
researchers who may be independent or
in the education sector.
Project grants may be awarded of up
to £3,500 and research grants of up to
£500. A wide range of activities could be
supported including publications,
events, exhibitions, podcasts and videos,
subject guides and trails. Projects may
involve making records more accessible,
for example, through cataloguing and
conservation and promoting their use.
Ted Duvall explained: “The programme
has been made possible by the
generosity of the late Jean Guild who
was a senior librarian with the University
of Edinburgh. We are enormously
grateful to her, as we look forward
to receiving lots of imaginative and
exciting proposals.
“Funds are limited, so we won’t be able
to support everything. The more
interesting the better. We want to enable
activities that might not happen
otherwise, and will have an impact.”
http://www.oldedinburghclub.org.uk/grantsApplications invited
for Jean Guild grants
By KIRSTY LEWINI CYCLED TO Pedal on Parliament (PoP) with
the Porty feeder-ride. It was a cold, windy day
but the rain held off as people from Edinburgh
and beyond turned out to demand safer cycling
in Scotland for all. I spoke at the event on behalf
of the InfraSisters who campaign for night-time
cycling infrastructure that’s safe for women
and girls in Edinburgh. This is a summary of
my speech:
I love cycling. I love my trips away with my
friend Alison as we haul ourselves up hills and
fly down the other side, laughing and singing.
I love my urban safari day trips with my
friends Stella and John. We check out the good,
the bad, and the frankly horrific cycling
infrastructure in the Lothians. These trips are,
of course, punctuated by coffee and cake.
I love being involved with all the professional
folk in Spokes Lothian, people who have
dedicated decades of their lives on a voluntary
basis to enable more people to cycle more often
on safer streets.REPEAT MESSAGE
I love cycling but I’m so dispirited that I still
must stand up here and repeat the same
messages from the first event in 2012.
Many women and girls face a dreadful
dilemma every time we want to go out on our
bikes. Do we risk dangerous close-passing
drivers and lethal junctions? Or do we risk
isolated off-road paths with few escape routes
and numerous reports of anti-social behaviour,
harassment, and even assault?
The solutions should be simple – on-road
protected cycle infrastructure on well lit, direct
routes with safe junctions – but progress in
Edinburgh is desperately and fatally slow.
My message for politicians and transport
professionals at PoP is simple. I want them to
pause, perhaps even close their eyes, and think
of the women and girls who aren’t at POP.There are the women and girls who have been
killed on their bikes:- Heather Stronach who was killed in 2020.
She was 36. - Zhi Min Soh who was killed in 2017.
She was 23. - Audrey Fyfe who was killed in 2011.
She was 75.
Then there are the women and girls who’ve
been knocked off their bikes by drivers, often
seriously injured and are too frightened to get
back on again.
Then there are the women and girls whose
relatives beg them not to cycle in Edinburgh
because they believe it’s simply not safe.
Then there are the women and girls who’ve
been hounded off their bikes by aggressive and
abusive drivers – they’ve been shouted at and
even had things thrown at them.
Then there are the women and girls who’ve
been assaulted on our off-road paths, some of
them in daylight.
Then there are the women and girls who
couldn’t get here today because there simply isn’t
a safe route for them to get to Chambers St, right
in the city centre.
Then there are the women and girls who
would cycle but there’s nowhere for them to
store a bike and so they can’t have one at home.
Then there are the women and girls who
would have used a public hire bike if only we
still had a scheme in the city.
It’s important for politicians and transport
planners to listen to the adults and children
who cycled to Pedal on Parliament, many of
whom had to summon enormous amounts of
courage to do so. But it’s also critical to hear the
stories of the women and girls who didn’t make
it along.
In a modern sustainable Scotland, we
shouldn’t need a Pedal on Parliament protest
every year. I don’t organise the event, but I am
committed to attending until politicians:- Stop campaigning against essential safe cycling
schemes - Stop procrastinating
- Stop making excuses
- Stop compromising schemes with poor designs
- Stop prioritising vehicle movements and
parking over the safety and comfort of women
and girls who should be able to cycle when and
where they want.
Not every woman and girl will want to cycle.
But for those who do, it’s time to make it
possible.
Investing in great infrastructure will turn a
fear of cycling into joy – and what’s not to love
about that?
GET IN TOUCH
TODAY!
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reporter.co.ukKirsty LewinProtesters cycled
to Holyrood