ACF @ 10:10:10
Sunday 10th October (10:10:10) is Global Carbon Reduction Day, in Aberdeen a number of organisations including ACF will have a stall in Union Terrace Gardens [map], so if you are in town why not drop in and say hello. We have the usual goodies and cycle maps to give away. If you have ever wondered who is behind ACF why not come and say hello.
Events start at around 11:00 just drop in
The Thin White Line
Potholes were not the only outcome of the last severe winter on the roads. Many road markings have all but disappeared. For cyclists where the white line is the only thing between you and the car drifting into “your” side of the road this is obviously something of a problemAfter catching up with the worst of the potholes our friends at the council are now turning their attention to markings. WE NEED YOUR HELP if you know of any particulary bad or “missing” cycle lanes, advanced stop boxes etc etc. please drop us an email to the address below
missinglines@aberdeencycleforum.org.uk
Please be specific – which road – what is the nearest intersecting street, how long does the problem last, e.g. Cycle Lane missing North Deeside Road (Eastbound) between Contlaw Brae and Binghill Road, even better attach a photograph. If you did not notice the side street name – why not use google maps to go back and find it.
Realisiticly given the state of the public purse we won’t get everything fixed but with your help we hope to prioritise the spending
Carbon Responsible Transport Strategies Conference
ACF is aware of a conference being held by Aberdeen City Council and Robert Gordon University on the subject of Carbon Responsible Transport Strategies. This will take place in Aberdeen on 12th October.
Birthday Meal
Tuesday 28th September is ACF’s 7th Birthday, to celebrate we are having a
“birthday meal” ahead of the September meeting.
Simply come along to MANZILS (22-24 King St) at 18:00hrs on Tuesday and join us for an excellent curry buffet – costs a mere £8
Westhill Cycle Lane “Improvement”?
When is an improvement to a cycle route not an improvement? When it increases the risks for cyclists.
This seems to be the view of many users of the Westhill cycle path since it was realigned further away from the Kingswells roundabout. Initially cyclists could cross the busy junction in two sections using the hatched area. Unfortunately these “improvements” now result in having to cross two busy lanes at the same time
ACF was consulted during the design of the routes and we were assured there would be a signalised (i.e. “pelican”) crossing. At some point the council changed its mind and did not bother to consult further with us. Cyclists only found out when the work was done.
We have been pursuing this issue for some time, with the help of all your emails and letters, and have finally made some progress. Aberdeen City Council has now commissioned an independent safety audit of the crossing point. We expect this will reveal the blindingly obvious – that the crossing is not safe and there should be a crossing facility. The task then will be to make sure the council installs something…. we’ll update you as soon as we hear anything.
If you use this crossing regularly and want to help – please complain to your councillor, if you don’t know who this is try this
list or enter your postcode here
Questions, Comments or Thoughts on this Article? Please get in contact
Cycle Map Available Online
ACF is please to announce the Aberdeen cycle map is now available online, after much hard work by our friends in ACC the necessary permissions/licences have been acquired:
How to access the online cycle map
Please read the licencing / copyright terms on the page before using the maps. The online map is currently a scanned (raster) copy of the original map, when we created the original map this was done as a paper exercise so we don’t have the underling (vector) map data for the cycle routes etc. In the short term this means we can’t make the map available with features such as pan-zoom etc. The webmaster is currently trying to work round this problem, but it it likely to take some time.
Please note we have no plans of stopping the current paper map, you can learn more including where to get a copy here
Questions, Comments, Concerns? please get in contact
Commuter Challenge Winners!
The results of the 2010 ACF/GetAbout Commuter Challenge and Corporate commuter challenge have now been released. During National Bike Week ACF challenged Aberdonians to leave the car at home and commute to work by bike.
For the first time 9 companies signed up for the corporate commuter challenge,
Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen Airport, Total UK, AVC Media, PSN, Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Nautronix, Aberdeen City Council and NHS Grampian
Employers were awarded points when staff members cycled, the results are now available:
Challenge participants covered more then 4,561 miles, saving an estimated 1,000 pounds in petrol cost With a mean commute of 3.7 miles cycling is an ideal way to save money, keep fit and do your bit for the environment. One JNCC winner reported:
My bike has been in storage for over five years; National Bike Week gave me the kick start to cycle into work and I’m loving it. I’m saving money and time at the gym. I’ve even lost a stone in weight since I started
ACF wins Eco-city award!
At the 50th aniversary City of Aberdeen highland games Aberdeen Cycle
Forum received a highly coveted “Eco-city” award for services to
cycling. Eco-city awards recognise good practice in helping ‘green’
our city so we were delighted to have a new certificate to show off.
The award cites ACF’s work delivering cycle training. We deliver this
through our members both delivering cycling proficency in local
schools and supporting CTC to deliver their try cycling programme. Airyhall school has recently become the first school in
Aberdeen to achieve ‘Cycle Friendly School’ status. Try cycling is
running every Sunday so if you want to try getting [back]on the bike
come along.
New Stands on Union Street Bridge
ACF has long campaigned for better cycle stands in the city centre, particularly along Union Street. In recent years we have made some progress on this with several stands being installed by ACC. Unfortunately it’s never been possible to place them on the bridge over the Denburn valley, due to technical constraints in drilling into the bridge deck.
But now a solution is in sight, a trial of a CYCLEHOOP is in progress – these simply bolt onto the existing street furniture (which many of us have used to lock their bike up to for ages!)and provide a new secure point to lock to. So if you are in town have a go (It’s outside Waterstones)
In May 2010 ACF conducted Aberdeen’s fourth cycle, why count bikes? Cycle use statistics are important to ACF for three reasons: Quantified cycle use makes it a lot easier to lobby for new facilities in the city. Increasing or decreasing use shows if the (somewhat limited) facilities that exist do work. Statistics can be benchmarked with other cities in Scotland and further afield.
Cyclists are counted at 11 key locations around the city between 07:30 and 09:00, the objective of this is to gain a metric of cycle activity and not to count all cyclists. Details results are below, Whilst levels increased from ’08 to’09 this time they roughly held at the same level. Although the number of female cyclists increased.
Read the Detailed Statistics (PDF File, 22kb)If you have any comments on the results, or want to be a “bike spotter” for our next survey (full training is given) please get in contact at the usual address
Aberdeen Cycle Forum 