Summary
We support the overall objectives to provide an attractive east-west route for cyclists as an alternative to the increasingly-congested Union Canal towpath, to enhance cycling, walking and wheeling on the corridor and to make the street more accessible for everyone. There are a number of proposed improvements for pedestrians especially in the form of new opportunities to cross the road and better side road treatments.
However, the plans as a whole not only fail to prioritise pedestrian movement but in several places, space for walking and wheeling is actually significantly reduced. There are large sections of pavement which are left well below the “absolute minimum” width specified by the Council’s own guidance for the street (and indeed for any street, let alone one as busy as this). There is negligible improvement in the pedestrian space at the schools which should have been a primary consideration. Every bus stop has a cycle bypass (‘floating’ bus stop), most of which also do not conform to the council’s own minimum standards and will cause significant concern to many pedestrians, especially those who are blind or disabled.
As a result, we do not support the proposals.
Dundee Street/Fountainbridge
Pavements (footways)
With ‘walking and wheeling’ recognised by the Council and nationally as at the ‘top of the sustainable travel hierarchy’, the most basic need is adequate pavement space. Unfortunately, this isn’t provided in the proposals, a fundamental weakness of the proposals. As we saw in Leith Walk, walking space is increased only where space is left over after other considerations; where space is most contested it is walking which suffers.
There is no general widening of the footway along the main road (Dundee Street/Fountainbridge), including at some of the narrowest sections. According to the ESDG, the pavements on Dundee Street/Fountainbridge should be at least 2.5 m wide (Factsheet P3). Several sections (southern pavement at the Diggers junction, northern pavement west of the Telfer Subway, southern section at the Edinburgh Printmakers) are below the council’s “absolute minimum” permitted width of 2 metres for any street.
The extent of substandard footway widths may be greater than appears. For example the plans show the southern pavement at the western end of Dundee Street (“Diggers”) as 2.1 metres wide, rather than 1.7 metres in reality.
We have been notified of at least 12 sections of footway which are actually being reduced in width – by as much as 2.4 metres (see appendix 1).
There are positive aspects in the plan with regard to pavements too. ‘Continuous footways’ across almost all side streets give pedestrians enhanced priority and should slow down traffic. It is essential that they have appropriate tactile paving to alert visually impaired people that they are entering a space where they are likely to encounter a turning vehicle. Some side road junctions are also being narrowed which again is important to slow down traffic. Especially hostile junctions are the entrances to the Fountainpark Centre and the Western Approach Road (where we would like to see traffic calming measures through a raised carriageway).
Once the Fountainbridge developments are complete, we understand that there will be significant amounts of new pedestrian space on the south side of the street, which will be welcome. If and when this materialises, it will provide an opportunity to reconsider the balance of pavement widths between the north and south sides of the street.
We want to see a pedestrian (and ideally cycle) link from Yeaman Place to the canal. The Walker Bridge is the only bridge over the Union Canal in Edinburgh which doesn’t give access to the towpath. There is no access to the canal between Harrison Park East and Gibson Terrace, a distance of over 650 metres. This gap effectively denies the general Polwarth community access to the canal. It also reduces the sense of safety for people (especially women) using the towpath on foot, running or cycling. Our understanding is that plans for the former Dalton scrapyard on Yeaman Place could deliver this vital link.
Schools
Providing adequate pedestrian space at schools on a busy road should be a primary objective of the scheme. Sections of the street have very high footfall from children at Boroughmuir High and Tollcross Primary schools. Edinburgh Street Design Guidance Factsheet p3 states “A 3m minimum footway width is to be provided outside schools and other buildings likely to generate concentrated pedestrian flows.” (page 3)
The section of pavement immediately west of BHS is being widened by only 30 centimetres to 2 metres, despite being used by hundreds of children every day to access Sainsbury’s and other shops. This modest widening (introduced in response to our comments on an earlier draft) is achieved by reducing the width of the northern footway.
There appears to be no change to the footway dimensions at Tollcross Primary School on either side of Fountainbridge. The pavement at the school gate is currently just under 2.5 metres wide and has guardrails which narrow it further.
Immediately at the entrance to both schools, a cycle bypass/floating bus stop is proposed. This is despite the council’s own guidance cautioning that “the provision and design of floating bus stops in close proximity to schools, hospitals, sheltered housing etc. should be given careful consideration.” (Factsheet C4, page 18).
Pedestrian /cycle crossings
A number of new and amended crossings are introduced. These are mostly very welcome. Of note is the installation of pedestrian phases across the Henderson Terrace/WAR ‘Diggers’ junction. This will rectify one of the most notoriously hostile junctions for pedestrians in the whole city. Also welcome are the signals at the Yeaman Place and Grove Street junctions and the zebra crossing over Drysdale Road, although this should be more directly on the walking desire line.
The junction at Gardners Crescent would be converted to a ‘CyclOps‘ style (Cycle-Optimised) junction which we think would be the first such junction in Edinburgh; as such it needs the most careful thought. As we understand it, pedestrians will have to cross a cycle lane before being able to cross the road but cyclists will not have to stop at a red light for many manoeuvres, being instead expected to give way to pedestrians at zebra-style markings. This has the potential to result in conflict because pedestrians who see the green man invitation to cross may encounter cyclists who do not stop. This will be especially difficult for older, disabled and blind people. We understand that in the Netherlands, such junctions have pedestrian crossings towards the outside of the cycle roundabout, with clear yielding markings and speed calming measures for cyclists.
Cyclists are expected to navigate the junction in a clockwise direction, but cyclists heading north from the canal basin will mostly instead want to cross the cobble-free eastern arm of the junction (anti-clockwise) to access the popular shared-use path at Lochrin Square. Again, this will cause conflict with pedestrians (and likely, other cyclists).
Although there is logic in the positioning of the crossings, the design introduces big new gaps in crossing opportunities across Dundee Street. There are three signalised pedestrian crossings clustered in the space of 130 metres – Yeaman Place, Telfer Subway and Gibson Terrace – while the next crossing to the west is 300 metres away at Henderson Terrace.
Removing the crossing at the centre of Fountainpark/KwikFit also creates a long gap from Gibson Terrace to the Viewforth junction. The plans remove the heavily-used pedestrian island refuge which is directly on the natural walking desire line from Boroughmuir High School to the Fountainpark centre. We do not envisage that pedestrians will take a detour from the school area to use the controlled crossing at the Viewforth junction and consider that these changes will increase danger crossing Dundee Street, especially for children.
Bus stops
Every one of the nine bus stops will have a cycle bypass (‘floating bus stop’) so that the cycle lane passes between the pavement and the bus stop. Most of these bus stops do not meet the minimum standards set out in the Council’s Street Design Guidance, which stipulates a minimum footway of at least 2.5 metres wide, in addition to the bus stop ‘island’ (Factsheet C4). The bus stop on the north of Dundee Street over the West Approach Road has no footway at all; all pedestrians therefore have to cross the cycle way twice (or simply walk in it) to move along the footway. Having to cross a cycle lane on a pavement and especially at a bus stop is recognised in all guidance (local and national) as a concern for disabled and especially blind people.
Ashley Drive to Fowler Terrace
We agree with the intention to provide quiet routes for cyclists through low traffic streets to offer attractive alternatives by bike to the congested towpath. We think it likely that most city-bound cyclists would wish to turn off the canal at Harrison Park rather than Ashley Drive and many would prefer to use the traffic-free path through the centre of Harrison Park or Harrison Road, rather than cycle down Ogilvie Terrace to Harrison Gardens and then uphill again to West Bryson Street.
If Ogilvie Terrace is to feature as a key cycle route, a principal aim should be to connect to the under-used former railway path accessed through Harrison Place, which joins Dundee Terrace. It seems strange that the designs ignore the potential to promote and enhance this traffic-free cycling and walking route (eg with improved lighting, surface and signing).
The route from Harrison Park East to Watson Crescent could be another quiet route.
There are three zebra crossing proposed in this section, which in general terms is of course welcome for pedestrians. However, they are not located where they are most needed. The priority should be installing a zebra crossing on Ashley Terrace at the primary school, as the local community has long campaigned for. Some of the short sections of segregated cycleway appear to be of little use to cyclists and build in potential conflict with pedestrians where they criss-cross the footway areas, to everyone’s disadvantage.
There is no attempt to ensure that pavements in the Shandon/North Merchiston areas generally meet 2 metre minimum width required by Council standards.
Conclusions
Until recently, there has been a general presumption that street space for segregated cycling facilities should come from motor vehicle space, not walking space. This presumption has been effectively abandoned here. As we saw in Leith Walk (and in draft proposals like Hawthornvale-Salamander Street, Meadows to George Street, etc) trying to accommodate too many competing claims for travel modes into insufficient space results in sacrificing minimum standards for walking space.
The Council should investigate the possibility of accommodating cycle lanes in Dundee Street/Fountainbridge while retaining acceptable walking space, by reducing carriageway space radically. However it is not clear whether that this is realistic given the requirement for essential motor traffic including buses, even if general traffic was significantly reduced.
The proposed cycle lane should at least be deferred until the Fountainbridge development is completed. This should clarify whether there is sufficient public realm which can better accommodate the competing claims for adequate footway, carriageway and cycle way. In the meantime, some of the less controversial aspects of the scheme (such as improved crossings) could be introduced, with a much reduced budget.
Another approach to providing cyclists with alternatives to the Union Canal towpath would be to invest more in ‘quiet route’ networks, where cyclists are routed through low traffic streets, with filters if needed. This would avoid the major loss of pedestrian space on Dundee Street and may be more useful for cyclists. It would also be far cheaper.
Either way, if the Council is really committed to a travel hierarchy which places walking and wheeling at the top, it cannot continue to design schemes which do not meet even minimum standards for pedestrians, at schools and for older and disabled people. We ask the Council to reconsider its whole approach to bidding for major active travel funding until it develops a better understanding of how to integrate walking, cycling, public transport and general traffic in a way which respects the sustainable travel hierarchy.
December 2025
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Appendix 1: proposed reductions in pavement widths
| Dundee Street/Fountainbridge | Reduction in footway width (metres) |
| North side, bridge over WAR | -0.3 |
| South side between Dundee Terr/Yeaman Place | -1.2 to-1.5 |
| North side, between Telfer Subway and Fountainpark entrance | -1.3 |
| North side, between Fountainpark entrance and Gibson Terrace | -1.8 |
| North side, between Gibson Terrace and Fountainpark centre | -2.1 |
| North side, between Fountainpark centre and Fountainpark exit | -0.3 |
| North side, between Viewforth and Drysdale Road | -1.00 |
| North side, between Drysdale Road and Gilmore Park | -1.5 |
| North side, between Gilmore Park and hotel loading bay | -2.4 |
| North side, between Grove St and Freer Gait | -1.4 |
| South side, between Freer Gait and Gardner’s Crescent | -1 |
| South side, Gardner’s Crescent | -1.5 |
