You might have seen headlines recently about the worst cycling event ever where event planners for the AWPR (the new ring road around Aberdeen for cars only) planned a cycling event in which you cannot take a bike. After much criticism they changed the event and now people can take bikes. However the blunders continue. An article in the paper today reveals that people who live next door to the event location have to travel into the centre of Aberdeen to catch a shuttle bus back to where they started. They cannot walk to a festival that is supposedly a celebration of active travel on a new motorway that will ban cyclists and pedestrians once open. I think someone has mistakenly hired Frank Spencer as event organiser. Either that or I’m somehow stuck in an episode of Little Britain and this is not the real world.
If you’re free on Sunday, skip the AWPR festival and come along to the demo outside Marischal College at 12pm. You don’t have to catch a shuttle bus to get there and you can bring a bike, a scooter, roller blades, or just come on foot.
Building new roads for motor vehicles increases traffic in the long term. A report by the CPRE found that “road-building is failing to provide the congestion relief and economic boost promised, while devastating the environment”. Cycling infrastructure should be considered in all road-building projects and new roads should never make conditions worse for active travel.
rachel.blog 