00:00:30 – News and chat from around and about
00:14:52 – Kevin Argue updates us on implementing Glasgow’s Active Travel and Liveable Neighbourhoods schemes
So on tonight’s active travel Cafe we have uh Kevin argu from Glasgow city council who’ll be talking about their City Network and the delivery of that thank you very much Kevin for coming along um first of all though we will start off with our regular crowdsourced news uh
From around the uh country and some occasionally a bit long Beyond and so who would like to start us off is that hand Mark or uh yeah I was trying to find the real hand but I could the sorry not the real hand the the fake
Hand the fake hand yes I was trying to find go for real one but but I’ll go for a real one yes so um although I’m working in Guilford I’m also reporting on something that’s been happening today which is pretty poor news really from Sur County Council um they had 2.8
Million for a high quality route from the northeast corner of Guilford through a big roundabout called The Box gra roundabout into the center of Guilford it was supposed to actually start work in January 2022 and there was a huge public meeting which basically the cabinet member agreed that they wouldn’t
Start work and they’ve just agreed today to drop all to drop most of the scheme to do the roundabout in the middle but not to do any of the highquality protected routs either side of the roundabout and to negotiate with at about what they’ll do with the money
That they you know the one and a half million or so that they would have been spending on the route now that’s literally happened this afternoon or this morning um which is disappointing to put it mly the objections were mainly to the grounds of it would have taken them they
Were going to close the entire Road the London Road for six months and the residents kicked up us about the actual the closure for The Works more than they did about the actual deliver what would have been there once they’d finished okay thanks sorry to start with
Bad news yeah start with bad news maybe we things will go up from the there uh Adam what have you um I I attended the Salsbury CS conference cycling confence or active travel conference that they had uh phenomenal headline of speakers um Ian Walker Rachel alred Peter Walker um um
But they were during one of the presentations um which was by the cabinet minister Cabinet member for transport carollyn Tom Thomas for Wilshire um in the Q&A at the end she admitted that they just submitted the actual travel capability score self assessment um and said it was a number
They got a score of one so it’s not very good for them but that implies that every single highways Authority across the um across the England has now submitted that to act of travel England um uh which means everybody should send out an foi or at least coordinate make your
Fois yeah um because that um the one thing about the self assessment is it goes into detail as to what people believe or or the council believes it’s doing and what it’s not doing and so it’s a very good way of of you getting actually some sort of fair feedback so
That’s that’s the only news I’ve got okay oh we’ve got um two new ones Andy from York right yes just to follow on from that as it happens I already submitted an foi because I didn’t know whether it was had the scor come out or not so I’ll
Be ahead of a game on that one um just a report that um spent this morning uh in a discussion about um with with various stakeholder groups about the station Frontage we got a a transforming cities funded uh project there which is is already underway but this is sort of
Last minute looking at how some of the detailed design might be improved some of the concerns about Crossing points of cycle routes with pedestrian routes to bus stops and all that sort of thing but um that that’s working progress just to report that okay and a Kelly I’m not sure what
The a is all it’s Andy yeah I’m over Andy as well okay there yeah um yeah I’m over in Wiltshire um unfortunately wasn’t able to make the uh event in Salsbury which did look really good so um yeah um I did actually catch a zoom session there um that was fed out with
Councelor Thomas the um Cabinet member talking about transport and I was quite interested to hear we’re talking about school streets even though the countywide LC whip in Wilshire says that they will not be deploying any school streets anywhere which is uh quite frustrating but that wasn’t what I
Wanted to talk about so um yeah a few news items for me um all fairly local I think so um my wife um is a governor at freshford school um just not far away um she held a question answer event for a playing out event that she’s organizing
Next month um which the road’s been closed for two hours outside the school uh hopefully a precursor to a school Street um there’s been uh quite a lot of um heated discussion about it should I say for a two-hour closure um but she it went very well uh on the whole and um
That’s all going to be well supported by the local community so um really good for that one um there’s um I’ve had some discussions with Wilshire Council about um state of a quite a steep um Hill near me called Winsley Hill that I use on a
Regular basis it had some very deep um almost trenches in there um they refused to uh repair them because they weren’t a problem for cars um but um after me pressing them quite a bit and potentially other people as well they’re now resurfacing the whole Road and
That’s been done this week um and then the other one I wanted to uh mention was um uh there’s actually a um a a lot of um gas m replacement going on near me and that has resulted in a um for about three months it started in the start of
The Year still going on resulted in a low traffic neighborhood um of sorts um while work it’s going on um cars aren’t able to use that road apart from access um which is great I’ve loved it and cycl along there every day um but um I’m
Going to try on the back of that to actually go and um get that um some sort of modal filter on to that so I would say um try and use um Road works as a uh a means to um gather data I’ve tried to get they’ve
Got no traffic surveys being done but I’m trying to get hold of the speed indicating device um registers the number of vehicles um the as an anecdote when I’m using that road in the morning about 20 vehicles I encounter either overtaking me or traveling towards me um that’s
Done down to um about one uh Max imum currently so you can get a feel for how many people are rat running along that road um which is pretty much everyone so um yeah that’s that’s it for me yeah that’s good we we almost got an ltn because Road Works um sadly for
Reasons it it didn’t quite work in Oxford um uh but it it very nearly happened the one that started with Road Works anyway let me move on to Matthew um yeah thank you uh just uh something that’s happening not exactly in Darlington but it’s how politics uh
Imp Peril active travel um so in midlesboro there’s a place called linor Road uh which has a segregated cycle Lane put in it’s a it’s a shopping street um bots of businesses there um it was put in under the offices of an independent May quite a an interesting
Character um uh he’s no longer with us a labor mayor got in on the promise to rip it out so labor campaigned in the May El in the local elections to uh rip out the uh the cycle Lane um but of course he can’t afford to take it out um and uh he
Then said to the teas Valley mayor well will you cough up because of course the wonderful thing about Devolution here is that we’re no longer a highways Authority um a transport sorry transport Authority so we have to we used to bid to DFT for money um as a local Authority
Level but now we have to bid into our meral Authority in the teas Valley region they then sift through and send through what they want to go to DFT so there’s another layer of politicking and uh and power play there um so the the teas valy mayor said well it’s your
Fault you’re going to u-turn on your thing he’s now standing for election and looking very shaky um Ben hin is in private eye more often than pinet was um at the height of his crime um and so now Ben hin has had himself filmed walking down the Cy Lane saying I
Will take this out I will pay to remove this and meeting with a couple of shopkeepers who obviously are were probably already failing businesses and cost of living and brexit have no longer been the final Lan in the coffin but of course they’re pointing at the cycle
Lane so just a solary notice that elections um a way of getting the right politicians in power but during the election campaign they will throw cyclists under the bus and pedestrians under the probably throw a bus under the bus as well if they could get hold of
One um so there we are that’s what’s happening in that all sounds very classic um H how are we doing you’re on mute at the Moment s that um let’s go to Ay while H sorts his audio out okay thanks Robin I don’t know if anybody from Camden is on but uh Camden Council have recently put out what looks like a really strong consultation for their end of Clark andwell Road now this used to be called
Clark andwell boulevar and that has been renamed because that was too Posh and so now it’s O C which is what they call it so so this is a long horrible Road uh that goes from one horrible Junction to another one in from Camden uh down and
Islington and it’s really good news that Camden have got such a strong consultation out so we are supporting it we’re out leting tomorrow and we hope that Islington will follow suit they’ve got the slightly trickier part to do because there’s more Junctions and it’s a narrower Road blahy blah but it still
Needs fixing there been fatalities on that part of the road women have lost legs on there so uh that’s good news from from Camden I’ll speak on their behalf is there some good news for you thank you ay um H we’ve got speaker from Glasgow today so you’re on home territory yeah
Well I’m going to take K to task on a few things because we’ve got one of the Avenues projects at the local community council is asking the road’s been closed off since September and it’s still not ready and it’s still not open and there are no diversions put in for like but
That’s we’ll come to that after you can do that on a separate Forum because we’re not going to go down to every Road in GL exactly yeah yeah yeah um what what what what is interesting is that Edinburgh is having the same same sort of session on the Thursday um which will
Probably be going online as well if Martin D gets it together as well so we’ve got Laura Laker up to speak as well so it could be quite interesting that one that will does sound like a good session okay thank you thought we’d hear from you tonight great and um just
Before we switch over to Kevin then I’ll um a little bit of news from Oxford which is that we had our um Oxford sh budget passed um so there was already I mean there’s quite a lot of roads and uh cycleways in the budget um but because
We’ve we’ve uh we had a split in the Coalition and to get the budget past the Liv Dems of greens had to team up with labor again their old Coalition members who left them and labor we were wondering how labor would take it and what they do but actually what they
Insisted on was um something with quite a lot of active travel in and um what they said is they want more school streets more controlled parking zones uh a feasibility study for vehicle based charging based on vehicle categories in a misss and a study on demand responsive transport and A6 million mini Holland
Project which I know somebody on this call is very happy on because um reasons professional reasons but I’ll leave that to their discretion um might make another topic topic here another time but let us head north um all the way up uh the uh M6 to uh and the M8 to GL
Um there’s an inappropriate metaphor for a active travel conference uh call um and uh Kevin um over to you hi folks um so yeah I’ll just um screen share just now um but yeah um you said M6 M6 m74 the M8 and then you’ll find yourself in
Glasgow um so if you bear with me I’ll just get my um present uh where is it where is it show Windows to many things open you see here we go right okay this should connect if I is it pull through for you all someone can give me a yes or no right
Smashing okay um so listen thank you very much for inviting me um CLA reached out to me probably before Christmas clar socks um and offered me the opportunity to come along and and talk about what we’re doing in Glasgow uh and I’m deleted to do so um so I’m Kevin Kevin
Argu the sustainable Transport Group manager at glas city council I sit within a part of the organization called transport planning and delivery within a wider part of the organization called neighborhoods regeneration and sustainability NRS um so my in transport planning and delivery I work quite closely with transport strategy colleagues and I lead
The delivery part of that um I oversee a team of 2527 uh once we recruit finish recruitment um Engineers project managers um Urban designers technicians transport planners um site supervisors and so on and our job really is is overseeing a range of active travel and sustainable transport projects from
Concept design all the way right through to delivery uh we work closely with um some client teams in organization uh usually in my my colleagues in the transport strategy team who perhaps developed the outline business case and concepts for projects and then we take
Them forward um I note that H was it on the call earlier on was Keen to maybe talk with some of the Avenues I actually the way the division of labor works in the city center um I don’t really have to do with the Avenues I speak to some
Of the pro have a look at some of the project designs and so on but I take care of everything else so effectively there’s what’s in the city center the Avenue stuff which have a bit of you know oversight with connection with and so on but don’t really involved with the
Day-to-day I do everything else in the city that’s what who it works with my team in terms of City Network and um the liveable neighborhoods terms of background I noticed in the the chat facility uh my old friend Andrew abis um Andrew below um mentioned that my old
Role at stering Council was now advertised so yeah I began live working in local Authority um 16 17 years ago um because I am by trade by background Town planner or or planner uh and I started life in easn barire Council uh but very quickly get fed up with uh planning
Applications and and planning strategy because I want you to be at the sharper end of delivery and Design and had my ideas about how things should be taken forward um managed to sh hard my way into delivering a few projects in eastern bartonshire H before I really
LED on the kir Town Center master plan um which was an Essence an active travel scheme an active travel and placemaking scheme how do you bring people off of the canal if you’re familiar with Kirk andk to bring them into the town center off their bikes which are a Leisure
Route and then use the Town Center um um I’m enormously proud of that as a project at the time as I’m sure many people on this call will be familiar with that you go through the pain of developing and designing a project uh that maybe the local community aren’t
Massively comfortable with at the time but I noticed last week in some local press up here that kirell is now the number one town in Scotland T um so the the investment in active travel public realm plac making you know in the longer term it it pays off um after um a long
Time at EAS BN Caro and developing a number of projects and moved over to Sterling um and it was a very interesting time to join Sterling B of A transformation period started there in 2018 and and worked there until 2021 obviously Co happened and it sort of
Blunted a bit of the progress but I’m enormously proud that um we oversaw the design process and procurement process process to get a contractor in place to deliver the walk cycle of Sterling project which is truly transformational for um stering um and um and if you if you’re unfamiliar with Sterling fully
Recommend going up and seeing it for yourself and see what the team got on the ground and it’s a great credit to the staff I left behind that they they oversaw the project and and got it delivered and it’s still being delivered so anyway so enough for the history um
So U I’m going to talk to you a little bit about Glasgow and why we do do so um yeah in our strategies in in Glasgow we it began life pre me joining the organization I joined in 2021 as I mentioned but glasow began to think
About um the the strategies they had in place and how it responded to the everchanging world in terms of what we needed to do in terms of climate emergency and how people use space and how people wish to travel and also how do we reduce the car dominance in the
City center and and and how do we get change the relationship of our people and our citizens and how they access spaces places opportunities amenity and so on so in 2019 the council held the Glasgow connectivity commission uh and then that you began to look at options
And how sance play plays a role in the city and how jys could be better joined up and so on uh that informed then the public conversation on transport in 2020 which was the one of the the most well um engaged with cons to C authorities of
Ran but came out of that unsurprisingly was the the need by the residents of the city to or the desire of the residents of the city to access active and sustainable transport in a way that the on a scale that they had never done before um following on from that the
Glasgow um transport strategy was is incepted which is a spatial development framework for the transport in the city in essence and it’s over two different parts underneath that we have a range of sub strategies that are really important we have the we have our active travel strategy our city center transport plan
And a relable neighborhoods program well I mentioned that I am not necessarily responsible for the Avenues I will be responsible for all three of these in terms of the delivery area of it so I’m currently working on an active travel strategy which we’ll get into in terms
Of the delivery of uh I will be progressing elements of the people friendly the people first zone or people friendly Zone that we’re looking at the city center which effectively as close to a carre city center as we can get and also working with our our level
Neighborhoods program uh in terms of you know that um approaching you know not just 20 M 20 minute neighborhoods but how do we how do we uh across our our city provide people with the opportunities to access Services amenities and and things like that with and reduce their need to travel unsustainably
Um so driv M forward the active travel strategy and what the new delivery mechanisms for it is the the the city Network which we’ll talk look to and also and under and then coupling with that is our travel Behavior change strategy as well so what is our active
Travel strategy well our active travel strategy really is around a number of themes um which is like connectivity people in place and how we rebalance our streets and spaces and these are all themes will be very well familiar with it’s active travel professionals or enthusiasts uh how do we unlock change
And that’s the behavior change how do we give people the opportunity it’s one thing to deliver infrastructure but how do we give people the opportunity to access bites and the skills and education to be able to do that and then also how do we think differently and you’re really talking about step change
Here in Glasgow uh and indeed elsewhere in Scotland but in Glasgow my staff are delivering change on a day-to-day basis and we and the citizens and the residence of the city we are living through change the city is transforming the city we’re going through a process I
Mentioned this because you know not to compare or so and is the aspiration that we could be on this level but if you look at place of Copenhagen or Amsterdam that didn’t Happ an overnight you look at what these cities were in the 70s and
The 80s and so on it was a journey and and they they were through the wall first as it were well that’s where we are in Glasgow at the moment and we’re delivering change on an incremental basis um but you’re really going to see
In the next year or two how this will be ramped up and the scale will be ramped up um I’ll just click on the next slide so as I mentioned we have our city Network delivery plan so the active travel strategy sets out that we’re going to do these theme these themes and
How we’re going the how we’re going to do it the city Network plan is the the is the rationale for it so there I’m not going to talk to too much down the side here about the other themes about how we are progressing this but you know these
Are again well tring themes that we’ll all be familiar with social adjust and put a network in place and make sure that accessibility is there and mod shift and so on but what are we doing well we’re really delivering 270 kilometers of segregated cycle infrastructure across the city providing
Direct and coherent linkages from the varying communities and settlements of Glasgow to the city center and linking it all up this will be fully segregated on Carriage Way reallocated Road space active travel infrastructure uh that will be of the highest quality we’re already delivering it in locations and we’ll continue to
Deliver it in locations it is not without its challenges as I’m sure you’ll be aware um but that is what we’re doing so again why are we doing it so again I’m not going to BU Point our way through these but they’re pretty self-explanatory we
Want to we want you one of the common themes that people tell is that when we or in anywhere in the UK I would imagine that when you engage with them why why are you not choosing cycling as a viable every option well safety safety comes up
So you know we’re going to put the highest quality segregated cycle infrastructure on there and provide people with the safest routes possible we’re going to upgrade Junctions to make sure that cyclists have um throughout the city and protected Junction space their own phase on lights Etc to go in
We’re going to make sure that it’s usable all year around this is Scotland after all people H I know there quite a lot of people down south as well and you get your bad weather down there too but we get quite a lot of rain and snow Etc
In here well this year working when we’re M and his colleagues we’re investing in the fleet to make sure that we’re buying the multihog um that can go in there and either clear snow or sleep or grit and going and grit them or going and make sure that they’re not like
Covered with s and d and so on and we keep them clean and usable all year round we also um want to make sure that we inclusive all across the city people of all abilities and can use it and that that women aren’t disenfranchised from this in Glasgow we have recently in the
Last year or so passed our um fist perspective in to planning and we’re trying to embed that into all everything that we that we do in terms of making sure that the infrastructure that we’re designed and building is usable for all and we also want to make sure that
People have access to the city Network throughout underpin us and helping us is we’ve also developed a a street space allocation framework to think about the is this isn’t a decisionmaking tool as such but it’s here to help officers identify conflict and how Road can be reallocated so Road spaces we all know
Is fite and we have a number of things such as our public transport which is our crucial part in getting people out of their private cars also um but also we need to think about businesses and residents and so on and how we then that we can inform our decision making there
So we’ve got a road space reallocation framework which helps and um help us do what we’re doing so the city Network in terms of taking it forward we have split it into a number of delivery areas here as you can see um so there is Phase zero
As we can see down here if I just move my cursor is the current city ways and and connecting projects um uh I’m presently in the process of delivering phases at zero and one and we are then working on phases two as well um this is
Uh phases zero and one are either at in construction and advanced design get into construction and phase two phase two is in design at the moment so there’s a number of things that are going to be happening and these themes these these phases will aspirationally be delivered by
2025 so let’s have a we look at some of the projects that we’re doing in Glasgow in terms of some of the infrastructure well here we have our South City Way um so this is a 7 million pound project which was the first of its kind in
Glasgow it takes the the community up at Queens Park in Gin Hill um starting at Queens Park part of Glasgow uh all the way into the the city center the other Merchants into the merchant City candle rigs if you’re familiar with Glasgow um this is was you know as you can see from
The street um it was a busy thoroughfare High Street at the outset of design in 2018 2016 2017 when this began uh there were a number of special concerns um in terms of how de Balan this off andate the street work and you can imagine there was a number of uh businesses and
Residents who were a bit pbed by the idea of was on street parking and and so on however the city took this forward um in partnership with SRS uh and and to get it delivered now delivery was slowed due to CO as I’m sure happened in
Projects across the the UK and but we’re now on the final phase of the project to deliver high quality segregated cycle infrastructure all the way through from the there from the one community in the South part of Glasgow into the city center and um as you can see here there
Is what was if you can see my cursor moving this Scotland’s first protected Junction that was put in in in Glasgow and it was the first of its kind in Scotland and is now throughout the whole of the city this type of thing in fact
We do it in a much larger scale and we’ll see some examples of that later on um we have our Southwest City way this was also one of the earlier projects that we took forward um as well and we completed the the Final Phase of it last
Year what this starts again in the city center um at the Trad part of Glasgow is just over the river effectively and joins that Community via segregated cycle infrastructure all the way to the one of the prominent museums in Glasgow and po Country Park called the burrow collection um we designed uh the
Infrastructure as you can see is is pretty functional uh it goes through some industrial parts of Glasgow but when we get up to where the bur collection is is one of the more affluent suburbs of Glasgow and we work quite closely with the planning colleagues there to make sure that we were
Designing um because it goes into a Conservation Area um like infrastructure that was in keeping with a vacular the area because you go through industrial units to then very wide streets with large driveways where everybody has big cars and so on how we reallocate the roads Bas to connect it there but a
Really popular project uh and something that was were delighted to um complete we also have e City way here again we can see on screen this is uh the C Gateway Junction on E City way so the East City way goes from the city center of Glasgow or will when it’s complete go
From the city center of Glasgow to uh right on the boundary beside North ler Council it covers seven kilometers of infrastructure uh fully segregated and protected junctures throughout and SE separate phases for PS and cyclist and so on um we’ve reduced cross reallocated roadways reduced Crossing distances upated signal works but also crucially
If you know the space this was delivered this phase was delivered um last year um 2023 we got in sight in January and delivered uh phases six and seven of this in time for the UCI games um to connect um effectively Bridgeton cross train station via seg cycle
Infrastructure to the sis Hoy V uh at the em cema and also directly cross the road from at Celtic Park so we had to engage with Celtic the and the police and so on to think about how we reallocate the road space and how we also an active will deliver an active
Travel infrastructure that also optimizes the performance of the Junctions on certain two weekends two two Saturdays a month in terms of when you know the traffic flows in there for 60,000 people visiting the stadium um we’ve delivered a highly successful project in this area and we will be
Progress in the remaining phases of the project in the next year we have one of our Avenues there um so so we have we have a program of avenues that we’re developing delivering through our city deal the city deal is funded by the UK government and Westminster government and Glasco city
Council the first of its kind was um the suaki Hall Street Avenue if you are familiar with suaki Hall Street this is the one of the main THS in Glasgow for night life bars restaurants nightclubs and so on gaming with students on a you know Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Saturday nights um when I was a student this was four live Lanes of traffic has now been fully reallocated to create the cycle infrastructure there and a bod directional um with the the buff collar uh through the High Street 27 Street trees continuous Crossings throughout
The side streets and um an upgrade it is fair to say that this was the first of its came in Glasgow and Glasgow has learned from it as a design experience and that has fed into other projects but uh a wellknown and well- loved project in the city um and and certainly helped
To inform some of the design decisions that we’ve we made then and that were taken forward since we have our spes for people projects so the we here we see the main Square in Glasgow this is the the council building Glasgow City Chambers where um I work in this building um we
Have the main Square in Glasgow um St George’s Square um JY Square um was two sides of were closed to traffic during the the pandemic through the PES for people program uh where by the city council worked through a variety of temporary interventions that were so successful we have made permanent so we
Me as you can see on the screen here we um across the city we created 47 kilometers of segregated cycle infrastructure that we’re now sequentially working through the process to make permanent an upgrade to uh because we put down some of them were soft segregation some of them were done
By orcas and so on uh some of them were done using planters that you can see here but we’re now going through the process of Designing um hard segregation and delivering that as part of our wer plans here um I think when we ran our spaces for people consultation in
2021 um overwhelmingly the residents of the city wanted all the schemes to be maintained we took that to council who um voted for that to be for the schemes to be theend and we’re now working through this process as part of the delivery plans on the city Network um
Cycle routs large scale Road space reallocations and creation of some c space across the city now I’m largely there are spoken about our um our cycle ways approaches that we’ve developed but we also developed on top of that our connecting projects our connecting projects are large um area based Pro
Projects to active travel infrastructure so the first one that I’m going to talk about here is connecting Woodside connecting Woodside began Life as a a mini halling project uh there um the idea of linking the the communities and in this area through in active travel infrastructure to the city center and
Reallocating Road space creating Green Space and so on um was is the main drivers of this scheme um this project has been hugely successful we have here if you can see my cursor gcbe rooad in 2022 that’s one the most Innovative uh it won the award for excellence in the
Scottish transport awards for the most Innovative active travel and placemaking project and this is part these are parts of it as well in terms of the reallocation and tempor of um Road space uh and creating of um Suds and green space in the community as well now the
Project um is on its final we anticipate taking site um later on this summer um on the St George’s Road and Char and cross side of the work um project which will be hugely significant for the city it’ll be once we get to site it’ll be a
50 plus week um program um there so you know basically a year of bills but will be a you know not only a significant piece of infrastructure but significant signal to say that we’re serious about this and that we’re going to complete these projects um I want to mentioned to
You the connecting Battlefield project this project began Life as a srand street design project um in this sou side of Glasgow um the the city council took it in house from there and we have we progressed the design of it and phase one of this project will now is
Presently on site and it is currently funded through transport Scotland’s active travel transformation fund phase one will be complete by June and we anticipate phase two um the Final Phase will be on site in the in the late summer phase two will incorporate lots of public realm upgrades as well as high
Quality cycle infrastructure Road space reallocation connection to local schools and amenities and the college and so on and like like not just you know this is I think really important when you’re making the point about active travel infrastructure and placemaking projects is what’s the better yes like to many of us the
Reallocation of V Space and creation of cycle infrastructure is critically important but what see add value and it’s the Green Space it’s the public realm improvements it’s creation of Civic space in the areas and using active travel as an opportunity to unlock change in areas as well as and
Then you begin supporting wider themes such as civic pride Economic Development regeneration these are really important themes to who come to we also have our connecting York and Kelvin growth project um this is um getting on site later on this year here as well we anticipate will be June July um phase
One um hugely important project for us as well we got live uh a real Community Driven project um four years ago was with the the city council and Community working a partnership to develop Concepts the council has now taken it forward and we will be delivering that
You can see here this is one of our temporary infrastructure projects on the Kelvin way that will form part of this project that will be taken forward to um permanence as well and this has been a hugely popular project there in the city so it’s one we’re delighted to
Bring It Forward the permanence I’m really excited to see we have our Northeast active travel project or or Northeast active travel route um known as meter um we’re currently um we’re actually doing a bit of site clearance work um to prepare for site what’s commen in next week on this project um
This project began life 27 2018 um where um consultation was undertaken with local community the need for some active travel was identified we put in some temporary routes then the co pandemic happened we then rolled out some more permanent routes uh and um during that process uh and we’re now in the process
Of uh upgrading them to full um to to to fully segregated C infrastructure and through the um the development of some protected Junctions and so on this project as I say um phase one of which will begin on site um properly next week B site Glance work just now and will be
Complete by um June this year we also have some upcoming projects that are worth highlighting to you um we are in the design stage working with our Design Consultants on the concept for um the for our north um City Network and our South City Network and my I will be
Also weeding on the greater govern um city city Network project these are all parts comprising key components of our um our city Network the first phases and the projects that was just talk spoken about here when completed will probably give us 80 kilom plus of two of our 80
Kilm plus of segregated cycle infrastructure going towards 270 km of cycling infrastructure that we’re going to deliver so really exciting time to be involved in it and really transformative for the city I also just wanted to talk to you a wee bit while sahaj you here uh
About some of the other offers so that we do in the city so as well as um active travel and sustainable transport infrastructure my team under oversee another a range of other initiatives such as next or b share contract we we managed this contract U with next are
Now owned by tier a German based company we have as you can see on screen you know almost 1200 byes 220 e byes more or less 103 locations across the city we’ve broken the 2 million higher threshold we have you know um an average higher you
Know per day about 1500 um that’s like they peak in summer normally the average winter higher average is about 700 highers a day you know and and and and people are using them for 28 minutes minutes so you can see the journeys and we’re also able to see where the
Tracking on these bikes where they’re picked up where they go and people are using them for really functional everyday Journeys about City it’s not just Recreation or Leisure we know that there’s a real demand for this thing um so you see we’ got 195 customers in Glasgow using this um Next bike tier
Tell me it’s the largest bike high schem in the UK out with London and it’s something again we’re phenomenally proud of but it shows the real need and demand in the city for the infrastructure that we’re building also go with that is our secure on Street cycle parking project um the
Which we have got in place with um cycle um we have in the first 18 months of that since I’ve been with the organization we put in 2011 of these units in the city which residents rent um they can store um six bikes in each unit uh and it’s given us just over
1,200 storage spaces and we’re at 98% occupany with over 3,000 people in the waiting list I’m currently working on a new a new contract with the team to get this expanded throughout the city but honestly as quick as we can put these on the ground people are using them which
Just shows the real need and demand on it and also it’s a really you know it’s a nice looking unit Sleek design as well but it you know it occupies a car space and really makes a real statement I feel for this one car this one thing occupying one car space
Can be used by six people so we’re looking at this as a model couple other things just before we hand over to you there’s a number of things that we’ve done that we’re reasonably proud of as well um you people may be aware of our
Our Bak bus Which um has won um some awards also but this is real Community this is real partnership working Community Driven initiative but working with the council officers so School in the south side of Glasgow shins uh where parents and the kids for wanting to ride
To school but they have to cross some busy Junctions and the infrastructure that they require isn’t quite there yet it will be in the fness of time as we deliver the set network but it’s not yet um working with the um with the group or or signal technician team uh have
Provided um the BL the ride leader with a effectively what we call a little clicker um which allows them to bring the bite boss which is the all the kids two the key Junctions and then the the reg leader takes control of the junction and can put arms of the of traffic on
Hold to allow enough green time for the children to get through safely a real Innovative approach with other schools in the UK and Glo want to do it and I understand that my colleagues in the traffic team are speaking to uh very different um cities and authorities
Across the UK we also developed um the our cycle activated signage which effectively you can see here this is Janice Janice in my team J this was Janice’s idea she had to get a um transort Scotland through trsg to say a departure of this because this sign does not exist
Before Janice came up with the idea the whole idea is is that um that it detects the cyos on approaches on either way and then side road crossing flashes to then tell the driver who may be approach that there is a Cy for on here and we must give away
This predated the the the changes to the highway code and we like to include this as a standard design detail on our projects now also just to highlight as I’m sure you’re all aware we held the UCI games in Glasgow and gave over our streets um to um competitive cycling um
It was held Scotland wide but you know Glasgow was the major host city of it uh and it was a wonderful event but also showcase what our city can look like uh for holding these events and it was something we were enormously proud to be involved with and support um you know
I’m not going to Rattle through these but you know this is the sheer number of works that my service my department my team delivered in the last year this is the stuff that we’re currently already doing as well for the year ahead and this is the projects that we’ve got in
Development um so as all systems go and this is what the I’d like to finish on these last three sides slides because really just demonstrate the scale that we’re working at and the change that we’re delivering and and and and why for me in terms of
The the kind of work I do and what I feel passionate about and why I want to do what I do why I feel I’m in the right place for that because no other local Authority in Scotland certainly would allow me the opportunity to deliver this
Amount of work and this amount of change and it’s just a bonus I get to do it my city I love um so really thank you for inviting me along uh thank you for listening to me drawing on and yeah um happy chat I’ll stop screen sharing
Now fantastic kin thank you for that uh great run through I think you’ve made a lot of people feel quite envious and wish they were in Glasgow some really great pictures of all the different cycle routes and um um in the city and linking into the City and um also you a
I don’t know if you had an eye on the chat but you a supported from by Andrew from Sterling who is dropping in a few links to support some of the points and questions that came up um but there were also lots of um questions um that arose
And I’m going to start with um one from ay which is what where does all the money come from which is and and also I mean is there a rough size of of money for this I know I think we know that um Scotland among the UK countries has a
Bigger uh active travel budget um in fact the Scotland active travel budget is now bigger than the England active travel budget despite the size of the population where’s the money come from yeah well know listen we we are it’s a really fantastic opportunity for us to
Deliver this kind of change uh we are at the moment uh working in the profession in a bit of a a golden era of funding um in terms of that change we’re very fortunate the Scottish government um is backing that and I’m also very fortunate that I work in admin City Authority with
An Administration who are Keen to support that as well so where does the money come from well we have our national budget um the transport Scotland have uh maintained a minimum commitment of um I think 80 million pounds toward worlds active travel um across there and some of that is exists
In terms of direct funding straight to local authorities some of it is competitive funding um that you have to B for so um and up until very very recently we we you know in Scotland I think it was a slight different model in England but in Scotland you bid to Sr uh
For your design and construction funding and that was based on a um usually on a a bit of a match wnding model where the trans would provide you um 70% of the model that of funding and the local Authority would have to provide the the rest that would be for construction
Funding design funding was 100% funded uh now transport Scotland have launched something called the active travel infrastructure fund uh we are a we bit of a transition year as we sort of I think wrap up such Trends in terms of the design funding and construction funding and I think the aspiration is
Was from 2025 uh we will um move into um transport Scotland providing the funding which will be in a so competitive funding and uh money direct in the hands of local authorities but the money in right in the hands of local authorities is based on assessment um on your track
Record of delivery your well um your strategic plan and vision um have you got the resources to do so uh and so on so you know we’d be very fortunate ourselves Glasgow and Edinburgh and local authorities like that um would be um would be um getting the money from
That way we also we’re we’re fun we are fortunate that glaso c Council has provided as a reasonably sized um Capital pot to use for match funding for these projects also okay great and then a couple of questions about definitions and the type of interventions you’ve used uh um in
Terms of um you mentioned liveable neighborhoods and and um uh so there’s a couple of questions have you have you used things like low traffic neighborhoods where you you’ve stopped through traffic completely or is it more traffic calming um and what kind of motor traffic reduction mechanisms have have you
Used yeah okay so in terms of definition you know there’s a be bit of what’s in an name right you know like there’s a bit of that um and I think Ross the UK we’re talking when we’re talking about uh many Holland or we’re talking about ltns or we’re talking about 20 minute
Neighborhoods or lievable neighborhoods we’re really talking about the same thing we’re talking about how to make a space more friendly for people and reduce the need to travel by car right um so we we in Glasgow we have H done a range of you know yes to all of that you
Know we have we’ve put filter permeability on on streets we have reduced we’ve removed parking in parking on street to create cycle infrastructure we have reallocated Road space and then used traffic regulation mods like bus Gates and so on to say right this is only for public transport and active
Travel go through US way a whole range of methods but you know we are committed to a 30% reduction and vehicle kilometers driven in Glasgow also so um we’re going through a full raft of things that are open to us and yet you know unapologetically there’s a bit of
Carrot and there’s a bit of stick you know there’s what we can do in terms of the infrastructure uh and change the space and how we can work with communities and provide them the education the skills and the opportunity and all that good stuff but how do we
Use what we can do to like you know that the tools that are disposable through design or traffic regulation order and working with partnership with communities and so on to to create the conditions for that to happen okay and and then has that caused any um
Kickback from uh uh what we call them The Usual Suspects around here um people who are still keen on using their cars to go everywhere of course of course it has and um you know we we’ve had our fair share of challenging um consultation and engagement events and
We have um you know but you know I think that’s what it comes down to is that in Council strategy but even go higher than that at National level transport Scotland and Scottish government have committed to a range of measures in terms of traffic reduction um Net Zero
Um re reprioritization of Road space uh what we call in Scotland our sustainable investment hierarchy with the pest the you walking wheeling and cycling at the very top and public transport and so on all the way right through to the private car at the bottom that is the mechanism
For decision making in Scotland um we’ve brought that into our regional and our local strategies and ultimately our elected members and politicians have mandated Council officers to deliver these changes for our communities this isn’t going to be easy and it shouldn’t be easy because we’re talking about step
Change in our how we how we do things uh and that is a fundamentally where we are at the moment so yeah we have our challenging consultations yes we deal with some we to have some difficult conversations with communities or um or we have to have some difficult conversations with elected members but
We we can get through them and deliver whether those a well in a need I would also say the other side of that is is that there is so much willingness and openness to change and support in Glasgow as well that it’s not all just you know one way yeah there are some
Loud voices shouting negatively there’s plenty of positive voices shouting also hence why we’re getting to deliver the stuff on the ground yeah yeah that’s good to hear very pragmatic approach and um right at the start you were talking about um a place I think Kirk and
Tik where it’s a great place and active travel has made that case have you tracked that as a case study and do you have do you have any data and about what’s been delivered and the benefits and how much investment’s gone into that well you know I having um having done it
Earlier in my career and you know as we all get from projects that were involved in you know you wear the scars and you learn the lessons and and all that kind of thing and you know and I was B I was younger and about wet behind the ears
And pretty green and doing what I did um there but then the point I guess by using that as a store is a little anot as the story is is that you know change doesn’t happen instantly and we delivered this project we remove lots of parking from a street reallocated road
Space Etc a lot of public realm Improvement and so on and at the time you know the community were not best pleased about it in all honesty and then I picked up in that story last week and and thought well there you are there’s that’s a real metric of change and
Success um I had actually mean meaning to reach out to colleagues to to find out you know in terms of any other Mets in terms of economic velopment in terms of like football and vacant units and and so on you know what are the measures
Of success there are and so on and even just other things like you know car volumes and you know speed counts and all that kind of things um yeah but I think though that you know over 10 years ago we took we did that and now you know
You seen the change and I think that’s there’s a lesson for all of us in there when you’re delivering projects and communities or politicians or so on are a bit up and a up and on about certain things that you know change takes time yeah yeah and also those those
Metrics are also always valuable but they as you say they if if they can’t be measured for some years then um uh then that’s not helpful as you’re building the things out um and then there were a couple of questions about a lot of two-way cycle tracks um which
Which sometimes work and sometimes don’t what what’s your experience of those yeah well I think that you would be frankly foolish to decide if there was a one- siiz f all approach and you need to look at each space as unique each you know what’s what what’s the
Space open to and what’s the needs of the street and what’s the needs of the community what’s the needs of the businesses you need to we up these constituent stakeholders look at what space you’ve got to play with and then let that inform Your Design decisions if
You walk into a space and go it has to be this then you’ve already failed right so you can’t do that so where whereby I understand the arguments about unidirectional versus via directional and why why they why one person why certain groups might favor one over
Another or so on but you can’t you can’t do that um in terms of design you have to go in there you know there’s no unique solution for each space so I’m get apologies I’m giving you a we bit of a politician answer there saying I don’t
Favor one nor the other because I think you know one can be fine in one location and one could be F might not be fine in another if you understand what I’m saying um it’s about taking each design or each approach that you’re take for
Each of the streets you know and and you know in its own on its own merits and then using that space in the place to inform Your Design solution okay great we we’re a little bit over time um are you okay for a couple more minutes yeah can Happ St for
Another five minutes or so yeah okay I don’t want to stretch our welcome too much but um we we got a lot of um questions I’ll try not to I will be selective um but uh very popular are you are you um swapping notes with other councils either across Scotland or more
Broadly yeah yeah we are we are um we have a a fantastic relationship with colleagues and other authorities uh we you know um I have been fortunate enough to come down south and and see some um different infrastructure that other councils down south put in either in a professional capacity or um coming
Down just on family holidays and so on uh there as well um and and it’s always something that we’re T to do um but yeah we’re we’re always into idea sharing knowledge sharing best practice you know we would never be arrogant enough to think we do it better than anyone else
What can we learn from others as well and we’re also happy to share our learning with anyone else from other cities towns Etc throughout the throughout the UK right and and what what’s the overall time scale that you see is this a is there a end to the project or does
It the city Network um we have a a date of by 2030 um to to deliver um the city Network by 2030 um you know that is going to be challenging there’s no question about that about the range I mean but we’re trying to break it up as
I say by 2025 we should hopefully have delivered another 80 80 kilometers of infrastructure but I mean you know I’m looking at other cities in in the world I mean I think we’re going pretty fast right um but then I look at the scale of pace that change deliver say Paris for
Example and you know since the pandemic they have really ramped it up there and really changed their spaces um I was uh from work I was there last year via work um to in Berlin Berlin have you know probably went down a pretty cheap and cheerful route compared to some of the
Infrastructure that we deliver here in Scotland or indeed the UK um a lot of but you know it’s really functional and pragmatic and delivered at real pace and change and they’re still doing it you know so there are there are things that we can certainly learn in the UK the UK
From other authorities and other locations I think yeah and and I mean you you were talking about some of the temporary infrastructure you had there and there was a comment in the chat of some of your temporary stuff is better than some of our permanent stuff um is is that a
Deliberate move to build things on a temporary basis first and then well make them permanent later so we did that through spaces for people which was um Scotland’s active travel response to the covid-19 pandemic and I believe you guys had a similar thing down south as well
But we so we did that working srans and transport Scotland and to to get funding direct there to put infrastructure on the ground um we’re now in the process of um upgrading that so some of that you know you know using workers or ones and
Things like to get it in there just seg out it’s functional it’s functional but it’s not for me not the not the optimum solution you know uh I would always prefer to use a a hard segregated car unit um if the space in place allowed us
To do that so um but in some in some locations in some communities that we’ve got in Glasgow you know we you know the Orca you know the ready well products and so on they’re reasonably functional they do the job and it can allow you to quickly get a that pace and deliver
Something on the ground that will give you a decent piece of infrastructure for the community right yeah that’s that’s good um any um any issues with the disabled Community yeah uh we we are we have in Glasgow that in the council as a participant not the host of it we have
The accessible incl and inclusive design Forum uh where we try and work with u the mobility and uh like you know visibility impaired groups and so on and visibility and groups and so on and try and take them through the process and engage them on it um it is you
Know UK over not without challenges um but it’s been really valuable also um because it’s really fed into our thinking about how we use tactiles and you know not so I think we all know in this call or most people in the school should be aware of the tactile the
Tactile guidance is exactly that it’s guidance there so therefore how do you use guidance and UK wide there is interpretations of this all over the UK and Street Scapes over there and then when you work with the mobility impaled or the visibility imped groups or the professional uh people who reorientate
Those who have lost sight to then use space that’s when they’ll tell you about oh this approach might be wrong this approach might be wrong but sometimes in terms of the professionals themselves there might not be uniformity of what is the right thing to do so working with
Very different PE groups and people in the city to inform design process is valuable but I mean I wouldn’t sit here and claim to say that you know we’ve got the silver bullet and all got all parties happy with that um there we continuously learn we continuously try
And we continuously seek to improve um you know and and we’re and we’re big enough to acknowledge that if something’s not quite right we’ll go back in and fix that thereafter um you know on one of the schemes in Glasgow we certainly went in in the last year or so
And read all the tactiles as a result of some of the feedback we got after it was built you know so you have to be open to challenge and and be willing to learn and improve well I think that’s a great um really great attitude to have and
Just as a one last question then um which is um are you yet measuring results um up increases in uptake of cycling walking Wheeling yeah we are we are we are we’ve got a number of stats on that that you know might be easier to
Share but um we we are um in terms of um our infrastructure if we take out with the city center um I got one of my staff the Gul for me yeah in in in 2022 uh in terms of like number yeah if we take the accumulative total of routes
Like some of the routes we just spoke about the South City way the Southwest City way the East City way and connecting Woodside and so on in 2022 this infrastructure had um 72,73 th000 rids on it approximately right in terms of usage stats and then
In 2023 it was up to 92,000 um so there is a real and I think you can see with the with the the user stats of um the cycle hires schemes that we’ve got and you can also see with the the demand for the orang street parking as
Well there is a real growth um in Glasgow and yeah one of the things you hear often when you’re doing your CH When you mention challenging consultations right or you know push back you know you do these events with the community and people go but I never
See anybody Cy I why this isn’t needed I never see anybody C then you build it and it’s blumon used yes you yes you give people safe and secure direct cycle infrastructure that people that you know you we often talk about the the idea of Designing
From the 8-y old to the 80y old you know can you unaccompanied child use it or would you let your grandparent use it be comfortable on their own using that infrastructure you provide that infrastructure it will be used design it well locate it correct give people priority make people feel safe it will
Be used I will emboss that in uh I don’t know something take it to my counselors thank you very much Kevin that was a terrific run through the brilliant things you’re doing up in Glasgow I can’t wait to go back I I was actually there on the day
Of the men’s Road Race um visiting visiting the tenament house um on the on business strangly enough but I I came out and found myself in a strange strangely trapped behind barriers and uh it turned out to be the barriers for the UCI race which was a complete bonus not
Completely unexpected but uh I turned out to be in the right place at the right time um but that’s another story uh thank you for that superb talk through and um uh I hope everyone enjoyed that next week um we have um Izzy Romy from the London cying campaign who will be
Talking about their women’s campaign um I think many of you will have seen the powerful video that they put out a few weeks ago and um probably wondering how you combine uh the need to be frank about the challenges that women cyclers face um with the desire to be
Encouraging to um uh all really all users particularly women to encourage them into cycling and I’m sure that’s all topics of that will be discussed next week plus uh Mark ranty highw will be back for another session of the the baged and the interesting so we will all
Look forward to that in the meantime have a very good week and um enjoy your active travels goodbye