I'm Ashleigh,

 

A member of the Riverside Community Council and currently I'm responsible for the Active Travel Subgroup. If you don't know me, you may have seen me around the neighbourhood in a big cargo trike with two very noisy little boys inside the box. 

If you're still happy to be involved with our activities then keep reading! If not, pop me an email and let me know and I'll take you off the list :)

 

Summer is here and hopefully this will mean more people choosing Active Travel in and around Riverside. There is a huge list of things we need to see changed in Riverside in order to make Active Travel a better option for everyone, and I need to take this moment to thank Di for her hard work on the Active Travel Survey. We have a great list of things to start dreaming about and working on.  

 

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a particular bugbear/passion that they are very keen to get working on? You wouldn't necessarily be volunteering to lead a project or anything, but I'd be interested to hear what you are all thinking so we can decide which things to get started on first. There's enough to keep us busy for some time, and we might as well start with the things we all feel the most strongly about. 

 

Some of the things that have been brought up to the community council recently are the following:

 

1) People are concerned about the 20mph speed limit not being adhered to (Hot spots are Forth Road, Dean Crescent, Miller Place, Shore Road and Sutherland Avenue). Obviously this impacts Active Travel as people will feel safer to walk, wheel and cycle if cars are moving slower. Di and I have discussed the possibility of a campaign to raise awareness. I've written a rough draft of an article we'll host on the RCC website (attached for comments), and we've briefly considered the idea of stickers on the sides of bins, so that at least one day a week people are reminded of the 20mph limit. Any thoughts on this? 

 

2) Stirling Council has approached the RCC about the potential permanent closure of Lovers Walk to create an Active Travel corridor in and out of Riverside (The RCC has basically put the ball back in SC's court, as they will need to do a consultation). The current shared path next to the road is pretty abysmal, so this might be a very good thing. Any thoughts on this? 

 

3) The RCC is trying to get a pedestrian crossing installed over Forth Road at the junction with Shore road and Forth Crescent. Currently a nightmare to cross! At least Stirling Council just installed some bollards to prevent pavement parking there, so visibility is slightly improved. 

 

4) Parking: There is a separate subgroup for parking related issues, but some of them overlap with Active travel issues, such as pavement parking. The Scottish pavement parking ban is due to come into effect next year sometime, so hopefully pavement parking will be reduced once that happens. Any ideas of how to tackle it until then? Also parking around the school is being looked at, and the School Streets closures may make a difference here. If you haven't yet filled out the follow up survey after the 3 day trial then you can do it here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BL2BZN2

 

I'll wrap it up here so that this email doesn't get any longer! I'd love to hear back from everyone about what things you'd like to see us start to tackle and then we can chat further about next steps.

 

Kind regards

Ashleigh