Tycoons YJ07NHX and TAW5E Teach Road Use Protocols.

Aberdeen is tycoon town. If you're not a tycoon yet, you will be soon, and then you'll get to live on Rubislaw Den North - Aberdeen's Millionaire's Row! The drivers of silver grey German luxury marques and Range Rovers display their entrepreneurial mastery of our town as they decide what's best and how to go about things in the best way. And yes, that includes road-use protocols as well as city centre redevelopments!

In this video, (left for us in the dead-letter box behind at the top of the TK Maxx stair tower on the top-deck of the multi-storey car-park in Union Square) our nefarious double-agent "Codename JannieJumbo" is treated to a masterclass in road-use protocols, firstly by the driver of Aberdeen Car Mercedes-Bens SL 350 Convertible Auto Tiptronic (ooooh!) reg. YJ07NHX and secondly by the driver of Aberdeen Car Range Rover TDV8 Auto Vogue (oooooooh!) reg TAW5E with it's 3.6 litre engine.



The message about correct road use in this part of Aberdeen is quite clear. No pedal-cycles here, if you please! You'll make the place look all raggedy - like DSS-land or student-ville or something. If you can't afford a lovely car - you don't belong here. Just go away.

And, indeed yes, "Codename JannieJumbo" shows himself up at the end of the video with the sort of "effing and jeffing" most unbecoming of this most gentile of our West-end streets. What a terrible oik he is. We bet he wasn't even wearing a cycle-helmet.

"Codename JannieJumbo" shows us the urban motorway we could have had.

Nestled away at the far end of the west end of Aberdeen is a secret. A green corridor cuts through the heart of Craigiebuckler in a dead straight line from the no 16a bus terminus at Airyhall all the way to Rubislaw Park Road and then Queens Road at Hill of Rubislaw.

If you drew a straight line going west from Queens Road and kept it going straight where today it curves round to the northwest at Angusfield Lane, it would discribe this green corridor. We saw this map online somewhere:

Check it out - the underdeveloped 'green corridor' had been planned as long ago as 1949 to be the route for a thrilling high-speed radial expressway cutting Cragiebuckler in two to link Countesswells Road at Hillhead with Queens Road at Hill of Rubislaw. A huge cloverleaf interchange occupies what is today Robert Gordons College playing fields at Slopefield. And we're pretty sure that the junction with Queens Road would have been an exciting gyratory or something. Maybe even a flyover!

Some people say that these plans are "car-sick" and that they show the pathology inherent in the "centre of the car-crazy 20th century", but we think that these people aren't true Aberdonians. Now that plans are afoot to go ahead with that other long-planned radial expressway for Aberdeen - The Berryden Corridor Improvement Project - maybe the 'powers that be' will get on and build this one next. We think it'll make a lovely addition to the bypass - which is also shown (albeit closer in to Aberdeen) on the 1949 plan. The bypass is going to be a 'special category road'. That's a motorway in all but name. We can't tell you how excited we are about that.

Anyway, an orbital motorway needs high speed radial expressways to usher important consumers to city centre underground shopping destinations, so we see no reason why the "Cragibuckler Green Corridor Expressway Improvements" shouldn't be next on the agenda. You heard it here first!

Our pathetic undercover double agent "Codename Janniejumbo" shows us the route all the way from Slopefield to Bayview Road.



Towards the end of the video, Codename Janniejumbo does his usual great job of pointing out parking opportunities in the cycle-lanes of the west end. But we don't know what he's on about at the very end of the video, though. Something about "close passes"? Hilton.co.uk van RJ10AZA Audi A4 'sport' SV02ZSO Fiesta SW08NPC?

Queen's Road Parking Lane - A "Record Breaker"!

They say you need "dedication" if you "wanna be a Record Breaker".

Recently, one of the contributers to mothership and inspiration "Bristol Traffic" contacted us and threw down the gauntlet by drawing our attention to one of their posts: "Stokes Croft World Record Attempt". Their post shows 6 (six) cars making good used of a cycle parking lane in Bristol. We were impressed.

But not wanting to appear weak at the time, we scoffed, and said that the innovatively important drivers of Aberdeen Cars would show the necessary dedication to surmount the marker laid down by their colleagues in Bristol. After all, the oil-drilling drivers of Aberdeen Cars are engaged in Work Of National Importance. We asserted that the pioneering paveparkers of Aberdeen Cars would pull off what we call "The Triple" - Cycle Lane, Double Yellows AND paveparking. We boasted that these Bristolian amateurs have got a lot to learn from their hard-as-nails northern cousins in the Oil Capital of Europe, who know a thing or two about economic growth.

And so we were absolutely delighted to be proven right. Here on Aberdeen's upscale, aspirational Queen's Road as it rounds the Hill of Rubislaw, 10 (ten), yes 10 (ten) drivers of Aberdeen Cars have shown their dedication to the one true transport mode by making best possible use of the cycle parking lane.



Not only that, the driver of lead vehicle, an "Essential Services" white van reg SE03ZJX from property bubble boom speculation investment company "Platinum Villa" has done as we always said the drivers of Aberdeen Cars could: Yes, he has "pulled off The Triple". Cycle lane, double yellows and pavement.

Actually, he also earns extra credit for PaveParkVertising and parking close to a fire hydrant. O the dedication!



We feel an almost paternal sense of pride.

SV10VXX Estabilshes the Hierarchy

We always laugh when we hear talk of transport mode travel "hierarchies", like this one which is from Government Agency Transport Scotland's Travel Plan 2010 - 2013.

Our Travel Plan is underpinned by the ethos that the greenest mile is the mile not travelled and we will follow the travel hierarchy set out below:

• no travel – business travel should only be undertaken when it is absolutely essential. Communication technologies such as audio or video conferencing can often deliver the same outcome and save the time which would otherwise have been spent travelling

• walking – a healthy form of transport, viable for journeys, or parts of journeys, up to 2km

• cycling – a healthy and reliable form of travel for journeys of up to 5km

• bus, rail, and other modes of public transport – for essential medium to long journeys, rail travel is the best option, while buses are good for local journeys. Taxis can be used for intra-city business journeys if travel by bus, walking or cycling is not viable

• car travel – a car is necessary for some journeys and a hire car will be the first choice. We promote the use of hire cars over employees’ own vehicles as there are likely cost and carbon savings, and reduced health and safety risks. TS hire cars can be delivered to employees’ homes, offices or rail stations. This means that staff can combine a rail trip with a hire car travel to reach their destination and therefore maximise productive travel time and reduce emissions

• private car – only when a hire car is not viable. As with hire cars, staff should share with other colleagues whenever possible

Hahahaha, yeah right!

Our undercover agent who operates from a position embedded deep within the Aberdeen cycling "activist community" captured this video.  It shows driver of Aberdeen Car Vauxhall Corsa Hatch "Special" (oooh!) EDS 1.3 CDTi reg. SV10VXX establishing and reinforcing the correct hierarchy; the "facts on the ground":

Cars before bikes! Under any and all circumstances!

Travel plans from government agencies should be updated accordingly in order to correspond with reality.

Queen's Road Parking Lane

No doubt enraged by the reports in the local press that the dark anti-progress forces have gained ground in promoting cycling and walking in Aberdeen "City and Shire" (as we reported last week), once again we're delighted to see the self-empowered drivers of Aberdeen Cars take matters into their own hands in order to reverse this insidious trend. We expect little else - these people are our everyday heroes.

See the dashboard flowers? Lovely!

Here we see that the drivers of five Aberdeen Cars, led by VW Beetle Hatchback 1.6 Luna (ooooh!) reg SL10WUE, doing their best to stamp out cycling by making full use of the Queens Road Cycle Parking lane, westbound at the Hill of Rubislaw.

This sends a very clear message to those who think it's a good idea to cycle:

"It isn't - in fact, it's a very bad idea - we don't like it, and we don't like you. We're going to do our best to stop you."

And quite right too. We all know that - what with being the Oil Capital of Europe and all - the local economy depends upon demand for petrol. That petrol, is, of course, made from good ol' North Sea Oil - our stock in trade. The more consumed, the higher the oil price, the better it is for Aberdeen "City and Shire"! Supply And Demand, d'you see?

So, those who think that commuting to and from the western suburbs on this piece of cycle infrastructure makes them big, clever, "green" and better than everyone else obviously have an anti-local-economy axe to grind. And the sooner we re-educate these people and correct their aberrant thinking the better. Then we (and they) can all get back in our nice Aberdeen Cars and jolly well get on with creating economic growth.

This is what is meant by "The Big Society". Isn't it lovely?

Road Closed! Permanently.

It's been brought to our attention that a new menace stalks the freedom of the blameless Aberdeen driver. The permanently closed road! What's that all about, then!?!?

Not content with punishing the already-hard-pressed and tax-farmed motorist with increasing parking charges, our council in all its wisdom,has decided to further punish the innocent motorist by blocking off some of the favourite commuter rat-runs, thus rendering them usable only by tax dodging pedestrians and cyclists.

In this most egregious example, Rubislaw Park Road (formerly a handy high-speed short cut between Cragiebuckler and Kepplestone) is closed to the tax-paying VIP motorcar driver in favour of tax-dodging pedestrian pensioners who chat pleasantly to each other as they dawdle along, pushing an economically-inactive gurgling baby in a buggy.

It's a disgrace!