YOUR VIEWS: More on Academy Street in Inverness, a call for action on the A82 and permit parking for residents
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Roads seem to have been uppermost in many readers' minds recently.
Starting in the wrong place to solve street woes
Many schemes have been proposed to improve Academy Street over the last 30 years.
With each new “vision” proposed the same questions recur – where will the displaced traffic go, and how will people access the shops?
From what I heard of the City of Inverness Committee meeting on August 28, neither of these questions has yet been fully answered.
Let us look at displaced traffic – this is traffic which currently uses Academy Street to pass through the city centre, and we are told it accounts for over 3000 vehicles daily.
They use Academy Street not through choice, but because it is the only practical route to get from one side of Inverness to the other. None of this will shift to bicycles!
As things stand, these vehicles will be forced to use less appropriate roads including the residential Crown area, and Harbour Road with its narrow bridge and level crossing.
Traffic is not going to magically disappear, and so the first step has to be to create a viable alternative route.
A solution was put forward some 20 years ago to create such a relief road; plans were developed for a Cross Rail Link from Millburn Road (just east of Morrisons) to Longman Road, carrying traffic over the railway; in other words a road parallel to Academy Street but running through the industrial estate rather than the city centre.
This was far sighted as a precursor to greening Academy Street, and investment should start here before we create traffic chaos elsewhere.
Then, and only then, can we go ahead with the much-needed improvements to make Academy Street more attractive for pedestrians and cyclists.
Turning to the issue of how people will access the shops, restaurants, bars etc, well again we are not at a very good starting point.
The council’s Rose Street car park is poorly located, and the walk from it through the bus station and down Margaret Street is unappealing.
Park and ride has been on the cards for ages without progress.
The west side of the city centre is poorly served for public car parking.
Much should already have been done before we got to this stage.
I heard little mention at the meeting about the huge hinterland for which Inverness serves as the retail hub.
I don’t think many would disagree that the Highland’s public transport is poor, meaning that people must use the car to come to Inverness.
And Inverness itself has been allowed to sprawl into new suburbs with few local facilities and poor bus services – again driving up car dependency.
The vast majority of us do not live within a mile or two of the centre which would be conducive to cycling or walking. So the car is essential to daily Highland life and I do not see any serious attempts to put a viable public transport system in place that would turn this around.
All these things are linked.
We all want to see improvements to the city centre, but the prerequisite steps to achieving this have not been taken.
Thus, in trying to solve one problem we will just create others.
The current plan for Academy Street would certainly be a huge improvement to the ambience of the city, but it is most unlikely to achieve the stated objective of reducing car mileage.
Car usage will not reduce, simply because for most there is no realistic alternative; we will just relocate the traffic to somewhere else.
That, of course, could include loss of business in the city centre in favour of the retail park.
Inverness should be a wealthy city, and we should be able to afford projects like these from our own resources.
We generate a high proportion of the Highland’s GDP and yet we are so cash-strapped and starved of investment that we have to rely on occasional government hand-outs which come with significant strings attached.
Let us take control of our own affairs and invest our money in a planned way to create a city centre that is vibrant, attractive and economically successful.
Simon Cole-Hamilton
Bellfield Drive
North Kessock
Safety of the A82 should also be considered
A recent letter writer to the Courier suggested that, as well as hoping to see progress on A9 dualling, another main Highland route – the A82 – also needs to be improved for the safety of users.
“A9 is dangerous, but us on the A82 only have one route in and out of Fort William. Motorhomes have taken over our wee town. I now feel like a hermit, reluctant to even do a shop for fear of being stuck in gridlock.” – Lynda Tillett, Fort William
Residents make call for permit parking
Residents in Rangemore Road close to Inverness city centre are losing patience with Highland Council over lack of action to get them residents-only permit parking and stop what they say is a parking free-for-all outside their homes.
“Part of the problem is the parking on the pavement, stopping people with disabilities or buggies from using the pavement at all. Perhaps this side of the road could be made a double yellow line to stop it.” – Angus, Inverness
Does alcohol policy hit the right target?
Courier columnist Colin Campbell railed against the possibility of Scotland’s minimum pricing for alcohol potentially being raised further, claiming it would hurt social drinkers.
“Raising the alcohol minimum unit price won’t affect social drinkers like you one bit! The M.U.P. is aimed at curbing access to cheap alcohol which then deters (to a small extent) the ‘vagrant’ type of drinker that you write about in your piece.” – Gordon Streets, Ardersier
Letters should be submitted to newsdesk@hnmedia.co.uk. Please include your address and a daytime contact number. You can also tweet us: @InvCourier or leave a comment on Facebook @invernesscourier
