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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
“Dramatic drop in traffic as more people choose to walk, cycle and take bus”
(10 posts)-
Posted 1 day ago #
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Leith Walk increase in cycling is impressive, even with it's crazy golf cycle ways.
West Approach Road shows decrease in driving and cycling (!)
I only ever use a short bit of WAR from the crossing at Moda City to Drysdale St due to the impossible for cargo bike ramp and the giant planter blockade on pavement and bus stop. Technically illegal but road is empty when lights at crossing are red, so low risk.Posted 16 hours ago # -
I smell a fish in this "council is meeting all targets" data!
I see they've quietly snuck in a proposal to change the measurement from "a reduction of 30% in car-km" to "a reduction of 30% in car volumes" (whatever that means)
Plus, the Dept for Transport data for Edinburgh shows only a 2% decrease in car-km over the same period (2019 to 2025)
And the council haven't done anything meaningful in the city to reduce traffic...
Where's our "pedestrian priority zones" that were supposed to cover large swathes of the city centre? Where's our bus-gates and modal filters?
Posted 14 hours ago # -
This image is what we were supposed to have, and would've driven actual car-km reduction:
https://www.spokes.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2402-CityCentre-Option-C.png
Posted 14 hours ago # -
I would love these figures to be true. However, @neddie may well be on to something. Annex 2 to the City Mobility Plan update reports:
1. a 26% reduction in bus and coach traffic between 2019 and 2024/25. Given no real change in the bus network and the post-covid tourist boom, that seems unlikely.
2. 26% fewer HGVs. With a growing population and no change in the freight network, that also seems unlikely.
3. 9% fewer LGVs (vans). Are there really fewer vans on the road given the continual growth in online shopping?Certainly makes me question the reported 16% reduction in car traffic.
Posted 11 hours ago # -
I see they've quietly snuck in a proposal to change the measurement from "a reduction of 30% in car-km" to "a reduction of 30% in car volumes" (whatever that means)
I don't think this is necessarily nefarious - there could be very good reasons to change the methodology (transparency, data quality, cost...). The fundamental change seems to be from DfT stats which estimate how far each journey is, to CEC using cameras to count vehicles at particular locations. CEC has no idea how long each journey is in the new methodology, but will have a much better idea of how many vehicles are at each location.
However, on a very quick skim of the new methodology (@Morningsider's link), the thing that really jumps out is the map at 2.2.1. They're not really measuring the car volume in Edinburgh, they're very much measuring it in the city centre.
I hope I have time to read this closer, as I think it's really important, but I find it plausible that there's been a reduction in motor vehicle volumes in the city centre without there being much change in city-wide volumes.
Posted 9 hours ago # -
If you were to weight the counts according to expected journey length between adjacent measurement locations (or the city boundary), then that would give a better representation of the car-km.
For example, the Barnton junction location to Davidson Mains park location is ~1km. Whereas Tollcross to Bread St is only 200m, a fifth of the distance.
That is why I believe the car volumes measured will be very misleading compared to car-km, and amounting to "Gerrymandering" the results.
Posted 7 hours ago # -
What doesn’t really make sense is that public transport remains the same, cycling is up 3%, cars are down 16%. All this tells me that there are fewer people travelling in the city centre
Posted 7 hours ago # -
Item 4.8 from the City Mobility Plan - 2026 Review:
While public transport patronage has not increased compared to 2019, it is notable that, following a significant dip during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, overall public transport patronage has now returned to pre-pandemic levels
This does not align with the graph in Appendix 2 that shows buses and coaches fell by 26%
I smell a fish
Posted 7 hours ago # -
I think it is clear that the Council have switched from DfT counts (used across Britain) to local counts, as it presents a more favourable picture. That isn't bad in itself - as long as the data used remains consistent across any analysis.
My main concern is that the local count seems to have produced results that don't pass a simple sniff test, e.g. a 26% reduction in bus traffic along arterial routes into (and through) central Edinburgh between 2019 and 2024/25 seems highly improbable.
Also, other transport statistics show no significant reduction in the incidence of driving, or reduction in mileage driven. I do agree there could be a localised reduction in car traffic in the centre of town - more likely due to home working than anything done by the Council.
Posted 7 hours ago #
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