Spaces for People
Protests planned as council offers to rip up cycle lanes
SPACES FOR PEOPLE (SFP)has become a bit of a political hot potato. While Paris forges ahead with bold plans to pedestrianise the Champs-Élysées, councillors in Edinburgh appear entrenched in political toing and froing, seeking agreement among the parties.
The Transport Convener, Cllr Lesley Macinnes, seemed to change direction between speaking to The Edinburgh Reporter on our podcast and a day or two later on the eve of the June Transport and Environment Committee meeting. The about turn was not inconsiderable. Until then Cllr Macinnes had appeared to wholeheartedly support retaining all the segregated cycling lanes in place in future, but it appears that political pressure in the face of so much public comment may have led to a change of mind.
In the last year the council won £5.2 million of Scottish Government funding to put new active travel space on the city’s streets. The funding was to provide extra space for social distancing in town centres, and also to make active travel safer by providing measures such as segregated cycle lanes.
Council officers who had pored over every detail of the schemes, the results of the public consultation and the market research conducted to find a way forward for the measures, recommended retaining some of them, even when the public health message changes.
Largely, this included all of the 39km of segregated cycle lanes which have just been installed, including the lanes at Lanark Road.
Twenty or so deputations made representations to the Transport Committee, and it is clear there is a breadth of views.
As we were going to press the council had provisionally agreed - following the administration’s suggestion - to remove the cycle lanes on Lanark Road, but campaigners were planning a mass cycle protest at
Gillespie Crossroads.
Campaign group Better Edinburgh for Sustainable Transport (BEST) said: “Our members, and many people we have spoken
with, are deeply disappointed about the proposal to remove segregated cycle lanes on Lanark Road.
“Protected cycle lanes on Lanark Road are an essential part of this sustainable, inclusive future. We need bold leaps forward now. We should not be pulling up a scheme on what is in essence an urban dual carriageway. Relegating cyclists to the isolated Water of Leith path would be a retrograde and grossly unfair step. Many people, particularly women, will not want to take a chance on that path in the dark. They will be forced to choose another form of transport.”
Professor Derryck Reid of Keep Edinburgh Moving suggested that the council had erred in dismissing the outcomes of the public consultation. He set up a petition to oppose the plans for the Longstone and Lanark Road areas which attracted over 1500 signatures.
The debate will rumble on, but with Covid cases rising recently in Edinburgh the public health message has not yet changed and the cycle lanes will remain in the interim.