In autumn 2020, we carried out some surveys of pedestrian crossings in Edinburgh to see how long people walking had to wait for a ‘green man’ signal, and how long they had to cross the road when the ‘green man’ was on.  We found that, at many busy junctions, people have to wait far too long to cross the road safely and often have only seconds to get to the other side.

We have sent this report to the Council and asked them to introduce more pedestrian priority at signalled junctions as a matter of urgency under the Spaces for People scheme to aid social distancing, and also make longer-term changes to give more priority to pedestrians, rather than motor vehicles.

We have now expanded and updated the original report to bring it up to date for October 2021, adding many more pedestrian crossings across the city, and also adding the comments of volunteers who carried out the timings. In addition, a second report has now been added (January 2022) with some new recordings taken in late 2021.

We will keep pressing not only for improvements to the worst crossings where the waiting time to cross the road is quite unacceptable, but also for improvements to crossings generally across the city. We are looking for a culture change that puts pedestrians before traffic!