Pedestrian Campaigners Call For Picardy Place Gyratory To Be Replaced By ‘People-Friendly’ Solution

Local pedestrian campaigners have urged the City Council to scrap the proposed gyratory roundabout at Picardy Place and replace it with a ‘people-friendly’ street layout. In its formal submission [1] to the Council’s consultation on the controversial traffic proposals for the Picardy Place area, Living Streets Edinburgh Group [2], argues that the gyratory is ‘entirely inconsistent with the Council’s own strategic transport objectives for the city centre and Edinburgh as a whole’ and should be scrapped in favour of expanded public space, wider pavements, and more direct road crossings linking bus stops and a future tram stop with the new St James Centre development. The Group’s Convenor, David Spaven, said:

‘The current Picardy Place scheme is a traffic plan – but it should be a people-friendly plan. We are urging the Council to work towards a design which is both a symbolic and very practical demonstration of the importance of walking and ‘place’ rather than ‘movement’, in this highly-visible and much-used area of the city centre and World Heritage Site.

‘The Council have an overall aim of reducing the car’s share of Edinburgh’s transport [3] – but sticking with a three-lane gyratory at the heart of the city around Picardy Place would simply encourage yet more car traffic. And London has a comprehensive programme for removing major gyratory roundabouts, due to their impacts on pedestrians and cyclists. It would be tragic if Edinburgh were to head in the opposite direction, endorsing dis-credited 1960s approaches to urban transport planning.’

 Other measures in the group’s recommendations to the Council include:

  • exploring options for bus-only access on the south section of Leith Street
  • redesign of pedestrian crossings to provide high-quality connectivity along pedestrian ‘desire lines’
  • ensuring that all footways meet the Street Design Guidance ‘desirable minimum’ width of 4 metres or more
  • eliminating ‘shared space’ for pedestrians and cyclists, replaced by segregated provision
  • moving segregated cycleways out of the centre of footways, relocating them between the footway and the carriageway.

MORE INFO: David Spaven on 0131-447-7764 or 07917-877399

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

[1] Living Streets Edinburgh Group consultation response is attached.

[2] Living Streets Edinburgh Group is the local voluntary arm of the national charity campaigning for better conditions for ‘everyday’ walking. See: http://www.livingstreetsedinburgh.org.uk/about/about-living-streets/

[3] The City of Edinburgh Council’s ‘Local Transport Strategy 2014-2019’ refers to ‘reducing the need for motorised travel, especially car travel. Less car traffic helps make a city a safer and more pleasant place to live, as well as an attractive place to invest.’ This qualitative objective is reinforced by a specific quantitative aim to reduce the car’s share of all vehicular traffic on the city’s streets from 42% in 2010 to 29% in 2020.

END OF RELEASE