Attendees: Gavin Clark (Chair), Fiona McDonald, Daniel Verhamme, Laurie Rominger, Clemens Von Scheffer
Apologies: Rachel Martin
2. Matters arising from minutes of April meeting
Fiona McBain – iBike Officer talk – Gavin has now signed up to train as a bikeability instructor with the iBike project. Fiona also leant ACF their smoothie bike to use for the ACF stand at Broomhill primary school fair. Sustrans / ibike also provided a £40 supermarket voucher to pay for the fruit. The Facebook post also resulted in another school requesting a stand. Gavin, Laurie and Clemens had a very successful couple of hours with children making smoothies by pedal power – something like 45 kids had participated.
Cycle parking – no response yet from Dobbies or the Beach Boulevard but Morrisons have now installed more than 10 bike stands close to their entrance.
3. Events & Activities
Critical Mass – the last ride had 33 riders cycling a new route along to Old Aberdeen and back which was well received.
Cycle Scotland Close Pass campaign – does include an Aberdeen cyclist case study but not any ACF members. Seems to be a well-publicised campaign on buses, social media etc.
Clean Air Day on Thu 15th June – Gavin will probably man an ACF stall at this event outside M&S in city centre, but has yet to receive confirmation from ACC organiser. Daniel offered to help out for a short time.
4. Consultations
Wellington Rd – Craigshaw Drive to Charlestown turn off – Laurie and Gavin to feed into consultation.
New Traffic measures from ACC – new 20mph speed limits, Ellon Rd at Murcar roundabout to be reduced to 40mph, Milltimber brae 20mph for new bridge to Station Rd. Disappointingly no measures for the Deeside Way crossing of the B979 at Milltimber, which is something we can feedback.
Roads winter treatment plan
ACC have written to ACF to start a consultation about the treatment of cycle paths during the winter, this follows questions raised by Councillor Kate Blake last winter. Cycle paths are generally not treated well if at all.
Union St East & West – stakeholder meeting last week – Rachel attended. ACF supported bidirectional cycle lane on one side of the road (ie option 5) – but said would have preferred option 1 – cycle lanes on both sides of the road.
Concerns were raised about how the junctions with side streets would work and how cyclists would cross safely to the other side of the road at the end of the section.
Rachel has started drafting a written response to the proposals. Members were encouraged to contribute comments – deadline 9th June.
5. Liaison with Council
The ACF quarterly meeting with Miranda Radley and Iain Yuill will be held on Thu 1st at 5pm at Town House. Gavin asked for any issues that needed raising to be emailed. Clemens suggested more yellow lines on King Street and agreed he would attend the meeting in place of Rachel.
Gavin reported the participation request by ACF via the community empowerment act has not resulted in any concrete action, although arguably the subject of the request is being covered by the stakeholder engagement as above. We attend the city transport user partnership (ACTUP) when possible but it hasn’t delivered much for us yet.
6. AOCB
Gavin has received an email from Sustrans about ‘And She cycles’ campaign targeted at women and teenage girls. Grants are available up to £2,000 for schools, community groups for improving participation in teenagers. Gavin will circulate the email to interested members.
The plaque has finally been attached to the wall next to the artwork on the Deeside line to acknowledge Sustrans funding for the project, thanks to Ian Mitchell for his assistance.
Gavin has been contacted by a user of the Formartine Buchan Way who has complained about the drainage on some sections of the cycle path – very wet and muddy. The user also complained about the gates that are designed to stop motorbikes but let horses/cyclists through. However, these gates also obstruct cyclists with panniers and those with adapted bikes. Gavin will pass on comments to Nestrans. Laurie reported that the drainage problem starts at Dyce Station.
Daniel shared the following link outlining improvements recently approved by ACC. This is using funding from Bus Lane Enforcement (BLE).
Projects to encourage more walking, cycling, and wheeling approved | Aberdeen City Council
7. Date of next meeting – Tues 27th June at 19.30
Aberdeen Cycle Forum 