A ray of light has appeared in the anti-common sense gloom over Scotland’s cities.
Aberdeen City Council is to re-consider its bus gates scheme after a backlash from Aberdonians and businesses in the Granite City.
No one should be surprised there were complaints, the bus gates system is bonkers.
This is, however, an example that when councils impose the unjustified, unhelpful and unneeded, they can be forced to undo.
Dundee, do what Aberdeen did.
Get sending emails, letters, texts, and buttonhole every councillor. Tell them to reverse the Dundee-damaging measure of a low emissions zone.
Email your councillor, council leader, Lord Provost. Email them all. You’ll find addresses on the council website.
If Dundee’s LEZ has resulted in a problem for you, if your business is affected, tell them. They created that problem so it is beholden upon them to fix it. Ask how they’re going to fix it.
Don’t be a doormat, rage against the machinery of government.
I watched Dundee City Council’s committee meetings on Monday evening and was amused by the all-round self-congratulation for having imposed the LEZ.
It is human nature that, once a group has finished a project, they sit back and think “how wonderful we are”.
But what if assessments are made that are not affected by that confirmation bias?
What if you dispassionately judge the results of the project and decide: this is not an improvement?
The way to make an impartial judgment is to look at the facts.
Dundee LEZ only moves pollution elsewhere
Will the LEZ change air quality in the city centre? Yes, to a degree.
But the big, trumpeting, stamping elephant in the room is – very inconveniently for the self-congratulators – does it change the air quality in the city as a whole?
No. It merely pushes the problem elsewhere.
How can it improve the city’s health overall when not one emissions-producing vehicle has been removed?
Does this matter? It does to people who live where the dirtiest engines have been banished to.
Take Arbroath Road. Craigie High School’s all-weather playing field, and Dundee High’s playing fields, are less than 10 meters from the A92.
The Craigie playing field is beside traffic queues for the Scott-Fyffe circle, with a zebra crossing almost constantly in use.
Idling HGV diesels spew fumes which roll down the incline, across the tarmac path, through the chain link fence, and on to that playing field – to be breathed in by young lungs.
That playing field must be one of the most polluted areas in Dundee. If I was a Craigie parent I’d be asking DCC questions about their priorities.
That’s just one place made worse by the LEZ. You’ll have your own examples of why you think the LEZ is a waste of time, in the wrong place, or anti-prosperity.
Do something about it.
Interrupt the smug back-slapping – they were all at it, every member of every party – with a strongly worded email. Demand answers. Don’t back down, don’t be fobbed off.
If minds can be changed in Aberdeen, they can be changed in Dundee.
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