Self interest

Discussing the future garden cafe at the Creative Exchange (artist studios) in Perth with Grace got me thinking. Since pre-pandemic times I now rarely meet friends at city centre cafes.  To get to town I have to cross Matalan's glass & dog-shit littered carpark, walk down dingy, vomit and pee-puddled vennels with bins and endure the pollution, traffic and noise as I cross Canal and South Street. 

And there are too many businesses, like Byers and Co, the jeweller quoted in the Courier last week amazingly dismissive of the custom of pedestrians and cyclists.

 If they're flush enough to afford that attitude, good luck to them!  

"It's all vested interest, isn't it" said dad whose life has been devoted not to "What can the council do for me?", but "What can I do for others?" But with business, it's money-making and me me me.

At the pre-pandemic traders' meeting with local politicians John Swinney and Pete Wishart, an elderly jeweller from a now pedestrianised street told an obviously well-dined out story, about fifty years old, of doing a week's business in half an hour because a woman once drove up to his shop door, looked in the window and bought some jewellery. As though that couldn't happen by someone walking up to the window on their own two feet. You'd think she'd been carried there in a sedan chair. Listening to the extraordinary attitudes of these traders the impression is of faces turned resolutely to the past.

But not the real past. Because the era of the medieval burghs, of which Perth was one, was the heyday of merchants and trading. People walked the streets, knew each other, couldn't help but meet each other. The town was compact and human-sized. Commerce thrived as never before or since. We are so fortunate that the medieval street pattern has been preserved in Perth. We could have thriving business again in the heart of the city. But that city has to be attractive to people and to residents. I live in the city. I used to cycle everywhere. When that got too dangerous I walked. Now I stay at home or drive out of the city or drive to the retail parks. Traffic and cars everywhere means that as a pedestrian or cyclist the city is neither attractive nor safe. A car-based culture is not a culture with community and a lack of community means ineveitable social and economic deprivation. We are seeing that already with knife attacks near the island and on the South Inch. Perth does not seem altogether relaxed and happy.

The shopkeepers have it wrong. It isn't digging up the few pedestrian streets that will bring back business. Commerce has more or less died here but traffic thrives. That is the connection they refuse to make. So why do they complain so about green, traffic-free, people-friendly streets?

In the not too distant future, if the pandemic hasn't pushed the cost of travel beyond the reach of most people, city breaks will be to low-traffic cities where you hear people, not cars, where you breathe clean air and are not suffering a permanent low level of traffic-induced stress. Or maybe people won't feel the need to take breaks because their town will be so pleasant to spend time in and to meet others that they will feel relaxed where they are.

Lindsay the butcher said in the meeting it's the older generation that want to drive in and that was his trade. That may be. But it's certainly not all the older generation and good luck to anyone with a business relying on an older generation which doesn't want to keep active. Lindsay's has been around since before most people had cars. It's now that they do that he's suffering.

Another woman owning a well-known shop selling upper-end clothing on a pedestrianised street argued not only for putting back that street to cars but also to make St John's Place a car park. She got perhaps the loudest cheer of the night. Yes, they wanted this in the square where they are going to put Perth's flagship attraction, the new museum and the Stone of Destiny currently surrounded by the cafes. They wanted a carpark round the kirk. "We can look into it" said Mr Swinney. This trader's shop is aimed at outdoor types and walkers. The irony was lost on her. The businesses all wanted to de-pedestrianise. This isn't what shoppers want, it isn't the way modern urban development is going and it shows total indifference to the climate crisis.

"A car park in St John's Place?" I said to Pete, later.  Seriously? 

"No," he said. 

But as we all know, politicians will say anything to anyone.

The owner of a traditional tea-room was instrumental in shafting the plans to pedestrianise one street section last year. When asked if he would support pedestrianisation he said his older clientele wouldn't want to sit outside and look at the beggar sitting down the street.

The owners of a mobile phone shop, a barbers and a cafe set themselves up as a group called Perth Historic Quarter. There was nothing historic about them. They were a flash in the pan for press coverage. As a group they were never heard of again, certainly doing nothing for anyone else, except call for cars to be able to drive to their doorsteps. The store front of the mobile phone shop is the least historic-looking thing on this actually very historic street. Petty vested interest stymied a better, safer pedestrian environment and cleaner air that all might have enjoyed. There is a car park directly behind these stores. Car driving clients would have had to walk all of 90 seconds to reach them. There is another car park at the end of the street, less than five minutes away. And by complaining to the council, extraordinary though it may seem, they still got their way, despite saying to the press that every store wanted to keep the status quo. This was untrue. Other individuals asked businesses in that street whether they were in favour of pedestrianisation and some were. Some have also kept the planters outside their store, even after it was returned to through traffic.

The owner of 'Whispers of the Past' gift shop on George was also in the press last year speaking out against pedestrianisation with a certain energy:

  

“I was furious when I found out. They want to pedestrianise this town. And if that’s successful they can use it as an example.

“I never heard a word about it. I’m sure there will be an accident there.

“I think they are sneaking a lot of things in because of Covid.”

But enough of these. 

I both applaud and feel sorry for those businesses on George St like Casella and Polgato, the George Street Tea-Room or Brewdog that are making an effort with their parklets and outside seating.

As we pull out of the pandemic many of us prefer to eat or drink at public places outside just now but there are also many of us who just don't want to have our coffee, soup or pizza on the road, next to traffic.  It's all very well saying "best support them" but I have never believed that tokenistic support is any match for peoples real desires, which are essentially market forces.  A place is attractive because it is, not because it is along the right lines and we ought to support it in principle.  That way things never really get off the ground. I do actually go to Brewdog. I used to cycle. It's 5 minutes on a bike from my house. But there are no safe bike lanes into town and because of the traffic now I drive there, pick up my pizza and go home.

 As for material things, gifts and jewellery, I can shop online or buy direct from rural suppliers, make bread at home, improve my property, put in a terrace, a pizza oven or buy a good coffee machine. People are. We don't necessarily need town. It's a question of making it attractive, so people want to go there instead of having a beer with friends in the garden at home.

When I do want to buy something I can shop in their gift shops.  The Macmillans shop at Quarrymill has some lovely gift ideas. It's a charity and affordable. I'd rather give my money to them than to such vociferously self-interested individuals.

If I do go out to meet friends or family I am more inclined now to drive to a location which already is traffic-free with a walk or a garden and a cafe and enjoy it all with trees, birdsong and without gulping pollution as I sip my soup.  Yes, someone proposing low traffic or traffic-free streets driving places admits driving to the edge of the city to nearby cafes where you don't have to sit on a city centre pavement with traffic inches from your meal and surrounded by parked private vehicles. But just as I don't believe in tokenistic support, neither do I believe in martyring oneself for green idealism by walking and cycling everywhere in an environment that isn't suited to it. Most people won't do that. For real change, infrastructure changes brought about by political decisions are needed more than good conscience. I prefer to spend my money in places that already have a good environment for people. Doing so and telling people why is a way of exerting pressure on businesses that aren't asking the council for that and that are even opposing it.

Perhaps the pedestrian-friendly businesses should band together, not to complain as businesses and drivers did last year, but to put the business case to PKC for a clean, green street with more pedestrian space and critically, fewer cars. That would be more attractive than sitting in what is all too obviously a car parking space surrounded by traffic.  The Dutch make their streets people-friendly, ride bikes and find other places to put their cars.  Could the bus route stay on Tay Street instead of coming into George Street? Never mind how much less through traffic and on-street parking would enhance the vista of the museum, the attractiveness of the street to shoppers, tourists and residents and reduce pollution. Businesses should be selfish about it. Do it because otherwise if they don't they are likely to miss out on the customers who are already choosing to go elsewhere.