Sad state of city centre


I was quite shocked by the state of Aberdeen city centre on a recent visit. Union Street looked somewhat grubby and unloved and it seemed that the only busy shop was Poundstretcher!

As a family, our trips into Aberdeen city centre have become rarer and rarer. This is a direct result of the increasing hassles of getting there. Faced with the thought of sitting for an inordinate length of time at every set of traffic lights, negotiating a slalom of empty bus lanes, then finding there is no parking at the end of the hassle, we have taken the decision to vote with our feet... or, more often, our fingers.

Shopping on the internet is the most common replacement, although we do feel guilty doing it. The revenue goes straight down the wire to some corporate HQ in London, or the USA. No benefit for our local economy in that.

It's funny, because whenever we go to any other city we seem to spend a fortune in the shops. The reason? Simply because other cities seem to be easier to get into, easier to park and more convenient.

For many years Aberdeen - bolstered by year-after-year of record trading figures in the city - seemed to have the arrogant attitude that, no matter what restrictions were implemented on the private motorist, people would still go out of their way to travel into such a wonderful city centre to do their shopping, patronise restaurants, cinemas and bars. No matter how many warnings were issued about storing up problems for the future, car parking was cut, bus lanes were installed, road narrowings were instigated.

As recently as last year you may recall that a development proposal for the city centre was rejected because it had too much car parking!

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Judging by the disgraceful state of our main street, retailers are moving out.

No-one owes Aberdeen a living. We need to encourage people to flock into our city centre to patronise the businesses there.

Our city fathers need to forget their political dogma about enforcing restriction on people who simply want to use their chosen form of transport.

First step is to cut congestion and I would suggest this is the action plan:
1. Increase the amount of parking in the city centre. As much as 50% of the cars in the city centre are driving round and round in search of the elusive parking place. Provide more parking and you (1) reduce congestion and (2) reduce pollution! A win, win situation, I would suggest.
2. Review the bus lanes - where possible remove them, where not possible turn them into 2+2 lanes which at least means precious road space is use to incentivise car sharing.
3. Review all traffic lights on main radial routes. Are they optimised for traffic flow? The government guidelines actually encourage councils to use traffic lights to discourage car use.
4. Review key junctions - are there places where relatively minor adjustments would allow two lanes of traffic on peak flow directions.

Before anyone starts suggesting that the economy of Aberdeen and the jobs of city workers are less important than the environment, just bear in mind:
• Modern cars are thousands of times less polluting than the cars of relatively few years ago.
• Private cars can be more fuel efficient and less polluting than public transport.
• Within the next decade or so zero emission cars will almost certainly be the norm.
• Cars produce only 10% or less of emissions per household.

Given that there is still a question mark over the theory that carbon dioxide causes global warming (rather than the converse theory that a naturally warm global cycle is increasing the levels of carbon dioxide), we're going to look pretty stupid in years to come if we wreck our city centre for the sake of what?

More than 400 stores at the click of a mouse and only one web address to remember www.deliver2.co.uk.

Posted: Wed - March 7, 2007 at 05:26 PM          

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