Tag Archives: street Design Guidance

Our Future Streets – A discussion on the future of Edinburgh’s streets

City Mobility Plan, , , ,

Thank you for attending our webinar with Daisy Narayanan, head of placemaking and mobility at Edinburgh Council, and Cllr Scott Arthur, convener of the Transport and Environment Committee, who discussed changes to central Edinburgh i.e. the North / South Bridges, Canongate, Cowgate, the Mound and more.

Missed the event? Here is the video on YouTube

Here are the headlines:

  • Edinburgh is very congested and that’s something we have to tackle to hit net zero, as well as accommodate growth: land has been set aside for around 37,000 new houses in and around the city over the next few years.
  • How and when these changes are happening are yet to be outlined in detail. But expecting some / most of it within a year.
  • Traffic modelling shows an expected 10% traffic evaporation once these new proposals go through – the Council has a 30% reduction target in car kilometres by 2030.
  • The proposals to restrict traffic on the bridges etc partly depend on letting traffic flow (partially) through Holyrood Park – Historic Environment Scotland (HES) owns Holyrood Park and is currently consulting on the park’s future – the Council and HES will have to work together.
  • Scott Arthur said he does not foresee any changes to Lothian Bus routes through the city centre, but of course Lothian Buses makes up its own routes, not the Council.
  • This is not a car ‘ban’. Residents and businesses will retain access to areas like Cowgate [editor: unanswered questions if any of proposed areas will actually be pedestrianised].
  • The new proposals mean re-examining plans to make Lothian Road a ‘boulevard’.There is an opportunity to widen pavements on the bridges as well as restrict through-traffic.
  • The Council is considering restricting vehicle access to Calton Road from Leith Street i.e. where the back of Waverley Station is.
  • Any changes to Picardy Place will be incremental e.g. possibly again allowing vehicles to turn onto London Road.
  • The fundamental challenge is the volume of traffic in the city. However, the plans aim to make it easier for people who really need to drive. The tram network is planned to double and bus journey times are planned to decrease by 25% within a decade.
  • The Council and Network Rail are talking about opening certain sections of the South Suburban Railway i.e. Slateford to Portobello, but not the entire loop. Timescale? 2035. Ultimate permission will come from Network Rail.Please email us if you’d like to be sent the slide deck / Zoom chat.

Further reading:

City Mobility Plan – First Review – February 2024

What are The City of Edinburgh Council plans for city centre traffic?

City Centre Transformation, Public Event, ,

What are The City of Edinburgh Council plans for city centre traffic?

What will they mean for everyday walking and wheeling?

Join us online at 12.00 on 1 March to hear a short presentation from Daisy Narayanan and join the Q&A!

Register you place here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsc-ugrjwpEtRfWiZMru0iH5nbbZlNLzXF#/registration

Minute of Living Streets Edinburgh Annual General Meeting

News, Public Event, , , , ,

Quaker Meeting House, November 14, 2022
Approximately 25 people were present.

  1. A number of apologies were recorded
  2. The Minute of LSEG AGM 2021 was approved and adopted. There were no matters arising.
  3. David Hunter noted LSEG’S significant activity of the previous year.
  4. Isobel Leckie noted that financial activity this year was minimal. The bank account balance with Bank of Scotland is £1144.36.
  5. DH outlined the current structure of the Living Streets Edinburgh Group having no formal committee structure but individuals taking responsibility for particular aspects. A requirement of Living Streets is that local groups have two named office holders. It was agreed that David Hunter and Isobel Leckie continue in respective posts as Convenor and Treasurer.
  6. Guest speaker Cllr. Arthur made the point that personal transport is about having choices and that these should focus on sustainability. Although walking is the main mode for a third of the population it arouses least public comment. He wanted to get away from an ongoing battle between cyclists and motorists. and to focus more on walking and public transport.
  7. A number of questions were raised from the floor which Cllr Arthur responded to.
  8. DH spoke to a paper indicating LSEG proposed priorities for 2023:
    – Campaign for increased budgets for the pedestrian environment (capital and staffing)
    – Secure better enforcement of controls on parking
    – Support specific local campaigns for placemaking and traffic reduction – LTNs, 20 min – Neighbourhood plans
    – Develop walk friendly- environments at and around schools
    – Influence planning policy and practice to aid walking and wheeling and reduce motor traffic
    – Grow number of our supporters and range of our campaigns.
    – DH described ways in which individuals could become involved with LSEG campaigning and encouraged anyone interested to get in touch.
  1. There was no further business and the meeting was closed.

Living Streets Edinburgh Group response to draft Council plans, May 2023

Consultation Response, , , ,

The City of Edinburgh Council has issued a number of important draft plans related to its overall ‘City Mobility Plan’.  You can read our comments here on the plans for Active Travel, Road Safety and Parking.

You can see the Council’s draft plans, and how to comment on them here: https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/cmp/ The deadline for responses is 9 July 2023: please have your say! We also welcome your feedback on our comments. 

LSEG Parking Action Plan 2023Download
LSEG ATAP 2023Download
LSEG road safety 2023Download

Edinburgh Accessible Streets Initiative (EASI): Proposal from Living Streets Edinburgh Group

City Mobility Plan, Council Policy, , ,

Council officials have estimated that there are 17,000 inadequate or missing dropped kerbs in the capital. This makes pedestrian movement for many people difficult or impossible and is at odds with the ‘Equal Pavements Pledge’ signed by the Council in 2021 https://www.transportforall.org.uk/campaign/equal-pavements-pledge/. Step-free pedestrian surfaces have a crucial role in not only making a city inclusive for disabled people, but one which makes walking and wheeling easier and more attractive for everyone else too.

The ‘dropped kerb programme’ has been designated as a ‘high priority’ action in council plans since at least 2010, when the first Active Travel Action Plan was produced. However it is only in the last year that systematic progress has been realised on the ground, and it currently has the capacity to deliver no more than 20 – 30 new dropped kerbs each year. (It is recognised that in addition, an increasing number of missing dropped kerbs are also being installed through routine maintenance and major capital schemes.)

However, Council action to improve pavement accessibility is not at present of sufficient scale to make the improvements needed, faced with the city’s historic legacy of inaccessible footways. The recent experience of installing dropped kerbs has also highlighted the need in many places to not only ‘drop’ the kerb at side roads, yards, vennels and such like but to make other improvements. In many cases, especially where the side road carries little traffic, a continuous footway is a better solution than a dropped kerb and these have begun to be installed in Edinburgh (for example Lauriston Place). Many side road junctions would benefit not only from step-free kerbs, but also ‘tightening’ the splay, to reduce the distance which pedestrians have to cross, and to slow down turning traffic. This also helps other high priority road users such as cyclists.

The current programme budgets are not sufficient to fund interventions like continuous footways and improvements to junction geometry at scale. It is therefore proposed to develop a much more ambitious programme to elevate the current ‘dropped kerb programme’ efforts to a major initiative to improve pedestrian accessibility. The Mobility and Access Committee Scotland (MACS) has advocated such initiatives through its guidance ‘Small Changes Can make a Big Difference’ bit.ly/3zrT4AG.

The new programme could set a number of strategic goals, along the lines of to ensure that…

• within x years, all Retail High Streets and High Density Residential Streets (as defined in ESDG) are step-free;
• within y years, all (major) bus routes are step-free;
• designated ‘town centres’ will be step-free as part of 20 minute neighbourhoods.

The programme would need to operate at multiple levels, co-ordinating activity from different sections of the Council. It would include ensuring step free pedestrian space is included as part of major projects (like CCWEL), but also that small scale (and cheaper) improvements continue to be delivered as part of capital maintenance programmes and on demand, in addition to the more strategic goals such as those suggested above. Ensuring that developers pay for improvements where appropriate would be another important element, which would require significant change from the Planning department.

Monitoring will be another important aspect of the programme, so that accurate information is maintained on how many kerbs have been improved, and what still needs to be done. Comprehensive online maps should show step-free pedestrian routes. The programme could also be further extended to engage with the public for example through joining ’Project Sidewalk’ which enables citizens to comment on and evaluate accessibility through direct lived experience (see for example, Amsterdam: https://sidewalk-amsterdam.cs.washington.edu/ )

Implementation on a programme like EASI will almost certainly require external funding – for example from Sustrans, or directly from the Scottish Government either through direct Active Travel grants or associated with the Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2). With a sufficiently high budget and scope, this programme could not only make a tangible impact on improving the experience for disabled – and indeed all – pedestrians in Edinburgh, but also act as an exemplar to raise the bar in our expectations for walking and wheeling across Scotland.

David Hunter
Living Streets Edinburgh Group

November 2022