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“Plans to make Edinburgh city centre ‘largely traffic free’ “

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    This is about the new council report which was been mentioned elsewhere, but worth its own thread.

    This is what Cllr. MacInnes thinks (at end of article) -

    “

    Transport Convener, Cllr Lesley Macinnes, said: “It’s very much about trying to find out how much of a vision people are willing to embrace and what we then need to do to deliver that.

    “We are very conscious that we have a city centre residential population in marked contrast to many other cities. We need to take care of their needs and expectations of where they live. It’s also about those who visit and those who come into the city centre.

    “Health is a key aspect of this and it’s about air quality, it’s about providing more opportunities to walk and cycle and better use of public transport.”

    She added: “We are going forward with consultation with the public on three projects which are being brought together quite unusually to form a single consultation around the Low Emission Zone, the next city mobility plan and the city centre transformation.

    “What is really exciting about the prospectus is the vision that it represents. The status quo is not enough for this city. We have to make change and this is about the nature of that change. How much of a vision are we willing to embrace, what do we need to do to put that vision in place?”

    “

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/plans-to-make-edinburgh-city-centre-largely-traffic-free-1-4778621

    On-line for an hour and a half and no comments (yet)!

    Posted 5 years ago #

  2. Rosie
    Member

    On-line for an hour and a half and no comments (yet)!

    It was on-line last night.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    Ah yes, just saw update date!

    Still no comments, no-one against it then?...

    Posted 5 years ago #

  4. toomanybikes
    Member

    Oh there's comments now... With one martyr willing to step out into the heap of <rule 2>

    Every time I go back down to Leeds City centre and walk through the pedestrianised network, lined with busy shops, I'm re-amazed at what traffic is allowed through Edinburgh's city centre.

    Frustrating we don't have a good pedestrianised shopping street to showcase that cars don't mean business. (although the commenters using the tartan tat shops as evidence of pedestrianisation being bad for business, might not be convinced by any evidence).

    Posted 5 years ago #

  5. crowriver
    Member

    So apparently pedestrianised zones are "ablist" if we believe the EEN comments. Folk coming up with the classic straw man that if private cars are banned, this will exclude wheelchair users. My goodness the car enthusiasts are getting desperate!

    Posted 5 years ago #

  6. unhurt
    Member

    The assumption that everyone with a disability has access to a car is... interesting.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  7. Frenchy
    Member

    And for those that do, a large reduction in the number of other people using cars is a very good thing.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  8. neddie
    Member

    Playing the “disabled card”, in terms of motor vehicle access, normally has nothing to do with caring about disabled people and all about “what about ME?”

    Posted 5 years ago #

  9. crowriver
    Member

    This makes for interesting reading (though I don't usually go near the Express). Especially this quote:

    "Professor Anthony Woolf, chairman of ARMA, said: “Risk factors such as obesity, poor diet and lack of physical activity are contributing to this rise in the population. "

    Of course there are many reasons why people might be disable or need a wheelchair, but still.

    I wonder which mode of transport most fosters obesity and lack of physical activity?

    ---

    Bone, joint and muscle conditions are the leading cause of disability in the UK

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/865750/Bone-joint-muscle-conditions-leading-cause-disability-UK-arthiritis

    Posted 5 years ago #

  10. chdot
    Admin

    https://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2018/08/council-to-look-at-ways-of-prioritising-public-transport-in-the-city/

    Posted 5 years ago #

  11. gembo
    Member

    My obsession with Edinburgh bus stops being too close together finally getting an airing guess what if you put them further apart therefore reducing the number of stops, the journey times are reduced.

    I see also the bus lanes times to be considered again maybe

    Posted 5 years ago #

  12. chdot
    Admin

    “Edinburgh bus stops being too close together“

    Supposedly this was because (in the past) significant part of customer base was elderly.

    By contrast tram stops are too far.

    One option would be to have a selection of bus routes to have every other bus as an ‘express’ only stopping at about 1 in 3 stops.

    So those would be noticeable able faster while there would still be a service to all existing stops.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  13. gembo
    Member

    Depends how many shelters were sold for advertising. They won't be ripped out. The express bus is a good idea. I loved the drama of the 44x when it came to the part of its route around slateford where it stopped stopping until Junioer green. There would be a tannoy announcement etc but still people would try to stop the bus when it didn't stop. The driver really had to fancy you to get that to work.

    The new buses that tell you the stops could work as one in three expresses. But I imagine little mini dramas at stops 2 and 3.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  14. the canuck
    Member

    yes, in my area, i can stand at one bus stop and see the previous and following. most of us in the area have to walk a few minutes to get to a stop, so ripping out every other along the road wouldn't really affect anyone except the handful of people living next to one.

    interestingly, yesterday i saw a collection of small sculptures made from 'vandalised bus shelter glass.'

    Posted 5 years ago #

  15. Rosie
    Member

    I read somewhere that people will walk 15 minutes to a light railway, a metro, or a tram, without complaint, but think that's too far for a bus. I suppose because a bus goes slower.

    Could do with another tram stop in Saughton.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  16. piosad
    Member

    2/3 Edinburgh bus stops strikes me as the ideal distance between tram stops, just saying like.

    Where I grew up (Moscow) buses in particular serve mostly to feed into the underground, whereas the (faster) trams are a legitimate way of getting around medium distances. Edinburgh Underground isn't going to happen(*) but in my future dictatorship buses won't be facilitating cross-town journeys because that's what the trams are for.

    (*) By the way it's not clear to me why that should be the case other than lack of money/will/imagination (admittedly I'm no geology expert). Smaller cities like Rennes and Toulouse have one.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  17. chdot
    Admin

    Geology is an issue.

    “Smaller cities like Rennes and Toulouse have one.”

    Bigger issue is local government financing - and levels of autonomy generally.

    UK not really very good at it.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  18. gembo
    Member

    The clockwork orange in Glasgow is curious. It covers west Glasgow (north and south of the Clyde but is largely empty on the southern semi circle.(though there is a big park and ride at shields road)

    The east end does not get any coverage. A bit like the road race yesterday, the route took in the leafier parts of west end and city centre (avoiding all the burnt bits of sauchiehall st). Looked very swish.

    Think it was similar to the commonwealth games route? The cyclists smashed up Rottenrow which is quite hard to walk up though not long.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  19. Nelly
    Member

    "The east end does not get any coverage. A bit like the road race yesterday, the route took in the leafier parts of west end and city centre (avoiding all the burnt bits of sauchiehall st). Looked very swish."

    Standard for tv coverage, its like the queen thinking everything smells of fresh paint.

    The TdF also manages to whitewash / ignore the less salubrious parts of France during July.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  20. Stickman
    Member

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/concern-for-west-end-under-new-plans-to-pedestrianise-edinburgh-s-streets-1-4779226

    Fairly positive quotes in this article; the one for balance with "I must be able to drive to the checkout" must be due later.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  21. Morningsider
    Member

    Lothian Regional Council developed plans for a two line "Edinburgh Metro", which involved an underground section between Warriston and Cameron Toll on the north-south line.

    Some brief details here: https://www.edinburghtrams.info/the_network/studies

    Posted 5 years ago #

  22. crowriver
    Member

    "The east end does not get any coverage. A bit like the road race yesterday, the route took in the leafier parts of west end and city centre (avoiding all the burnt bits of sauchiehall st). Looked very swish."

    "Standard for tv coverage, its like the queen thinking everything smells of fresh paint.
    The TdF also manages to whitewash / ignore the less salubrious parts of France during July."

    Potemkin villages may have been invented for the Czars of the Russian Empire but they have since gone international.

    See also the Festival roadworks ban in Edinburgh, and various bits of temporary pedestrianisation...

    Posted 5 years ago #

  23. crowriver
    Member

    @Stickman, "Fairly positive quotes in this article; the one for balance with "I must be able to drive to the checkout" must be due later."

    You must have had your optimism glasses on when reading the article. Or you were captivated by Chas Booth's positivity and missed this:

    “For us, it is also about raising levels of footfall to sustain the many independent businesses and we would therefore be looking at a balanced approach that includes car usage to reach us." - Sunil Varu, operations manager at Edinburgh’s West End BID

    Also beyond the warm platitudes there are lines being drawn in the sand:

    "But our customers for example from Glasgow come to our shop and park around the corner. It is a real selling point for us. "
    and
    "“After cutting down the traffic on Princes Street I didn’t think the council would be doing more of this. I hope businesses would not be too restricted with this though because we have goods to transport to and from the premises.” - Anna White, owner of the Scotland Shop on Queensferry Street

    This is rather disappointing from the Cockburn: "“There are always challenges. Edinburgh is unique that it has many residents in the city centre so it may affect them."

    Edinburgh really is not unique, or at least not that unique. I can think of many other cities I've visited which have many residents in the centre. Just for starters: Aberdeen, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Tallinn, Gothenberg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Sofia, Thessaloniki. Some of these cities also have traffic issues and/or large numbers of tourist visitors in compact central areas (Amsterdam, Tallinn and Prague spring to mind) yet they have come up with ways of dealing with the problems.

    Instead of persisting with the myopic "what about my personal parking space outside my shop (disguised as 'loading')" and the "Edinburgh is unique" attitude we could maybe just look at how they do things in other cities, what works and what doesn't?

    Posted 5 years ago #

  24. EdinburghCycleCam
    Member

    "But our customers for example from Glasgow come to our shop and park around the corner. It is a real selling point for us. "
    Surely customers from Glasgow will be used to being unable to park in the city centre.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  25. Frenchy
    Member

    Maybe that's why they're doing their shopping in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  26. PS
    Member

    Surely customers from Glasgow will be used to being unable to park in the city centre.

    They should be using the park & ride at Ingliston anyway, so no problem if all the parking around the West End is removed.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  27. chdot
    Admin

    The Edinburgh shop has only been open a year, so presumably were aware of traffic and parking.

    Might even be that most customers don’t come by car at all...

    https://tietheknot.scot/scotlandshop-com-opens-its-first-shop-in-edinburgh/

    Posted 5 years ago #

  28. Rosie
    Member

    The Transport Committee's prospectus outlines a bold transformation. There is a lot about other European cities in the paper eg Copenhagen (as expected), Oslo. Barcelona and Malmo. Also influenced by Paris and New York's Summer Streets. Some idea of what a sophisticated city looks like i.e. not dominated by cars.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  29. crowriver
    Member

    Aye that's all grand. If CEC are so committed to this then why did they leave "Business As Usual" as one of the options to consult on? Cllr Macinnes can go on about the status quo not being an option without really meaning it, as the status quo is one of the options being put out to consultation...

    The Mobility Plan mentioned in the report is explicitly a replacement for the Local Transport Plan, which "expires" this year. So whatever option emerges after consultation will shape Edinburgh for the next five years.

    I really hope the Edinburgh public goes for the "transformative" option, but if those quotes in the EEN are representative of broader public opinion (or even that of vested interests), we'll be lucky if we end up with the "strategic" option. This latter is clearly what officers are gearing up for, given what I've read in the various other reports on parking, public transport priority, cycling investment, etc.

    Speaking of which, the cycling budget report for 2015/16 shows just how little CEC has managed to achieve so far: nearly all the projects funded that year have been put "on hold".....it's a catalogue of earnest good intentions which the council has so far failed to deliver. Instead the big news for the coming year is all the Community Links+ projects, which are undoubtedly important, but have obviously been prioritised over all the other projects which the council funded design work and consultations for. Ah well maybe after I retire there will be a network of "quiet routes" for me to pootle around on...

    If you think the cycling report is bad, have a look at the pedestrian crossings "priority" list: many of the projects are still not built, some four or more years after they were assessed.

    Posted 5 years ago #

  30. Stickman
    Member

    "Rather than spend time on social media fawning over their own proposals to shut down central Edinburgh, administration councillors – and the Green councillors to which they are beholden - should urgently seek to expedite progress of its long overdue road repairs improvement plan.”

    The Conservatives have set out their stall early on this.

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/council-s-failure-to-hit-target-on-road-repairs-potentially-fatal-1-4779658

    Posted 5 years ago #

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