Last month one of the biggest, and yet most peaceful, protests seen in Edinburgh for a while took place when over 3,000 cyclists rode their bikes from The Meadows to Holyrood to highlight the POP Scotland campaign on 28 April 2012.
Today a few of those behind the campaign are meeting with Transport Minister, Keith Brown, at Holyrood to talk face to face with the man responsible for answering their calls for increased cycle safety measures on Scotland’s streets and roads. There is a page on the Pedal on Parliament website which has listed various suggestions from supporters as to what they will ask the Minister tomorrow and you can read that here.
Dave Brennan was one of the principal characters who organised POP Scotland and he spoke to The Edinburgh Reporter about where the campaign is headed now.“We are going to meet Keith Brown with an open mind, and we have reason to hope he is going to be positive about it too. But of course we may have to persuade some others in the Government about our cause, so for example we issued an open letter to Alex Salmond and a copy of that is on our website. We are trying to get everyone in the party aligned, but we accept that may not be totally straightforward.
“There is now a Cross Party Cycling Group set up at Holyrood to look at cycling matters, and we attended a meeting of that a couple of weeks ago. My understanding is that they want to proceed with the Cycling Action Plan for Scotland where the SNP government had set up a targets for cycling use to increase to 10% by 2020.
“We think this plan was a great first step, and the aims of it are to be applauded, but as it stands it will not turn 10% of the population into cyclists. We published an eight point manifesto about which there has really been no negative press at all, and it is this we want action on. It is generally received as a good way forward.”
The manifesto is on the POP website and is reproduced for you here:-
“We have created an eight point manifesto to help Scotland’s devolved government reach its target of 10% of journeys by bike by 2020, a target which is now also embedded in its low carbon and obesity strategies. The government’s present Cycling Action Plan [CAPS] is far too limited to achieve the target, whilst the proportion of the transport budget allocated to cycling remains wholly inadequate at under 1%. Our manifesto covers:
Proper funding for cycling.
Design cycling into Scotland’s roads.
Slower speeds where people live, work and play
Integrate cycling into local transport strategies
Improved road traffic law and enforcement
Reduce the risk of HGVs to cyclists and pedestrians
A strategic and joined-up programme of road user training
Improved statistics supporting decision-making and policy”
Brennan continued:-“My belief is that the Cross party cycling group will look at the manifesto and I hope that this will do a lot to encourage more discussions in Parliament. Of course it is important to talk about it, so over the next few months we are going to turn our focus onto local government. The elections got in the way over the last couple of months, but we will now try to put more pressure on them to let us know what their stance is on cycling. In my own area of East Dunbartonshire I will be organising an Infrastructure ride over the next couple of months. I am going to try and involve councillors and I have already managed to involve my own MP in that. Some of the roads here cross over between Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire so we need to persuade a couple of different local authorities.
The Spokes Bike Breakfast is taking place on 20 June 2012 at the City Chambers between 8 and 10 a.m. This is the poster for the event:-
Dave continued:- “In their next newsletter Spokes are going to be giving out postcards based on the POP design saying “Wish you were here” on them to try and encourage as many politicians as possible to get involved in our cycle safety campaign.”
“My own background is that I video some of my commutes and highlight the good and the bad things that happen to me during my journeys. I’m totally frustrated that people don’t understand always how wonderful cycling is!”
Here is an example of one of Dave’s own videos which he films with a helmet camera (not to be advised unless you are very experienced at cycling!)
Dave concluded by explaining:-“We are also planning something for September, not another POP but something like it, and we are also considering another POP for next year as we think we probably will not get everything we want right away.” But one thing is for sure POP Scotland are certainly making a lot of peaceful noise about the need for increased safety for our two wheeled road users, and it seems that Holyrood is prepared to listen.
There are over 1000 photos on the POP Flickr Pool which you can see here and our photos are reproduced from that source.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
