Safety fears for children as Braid estate reopens to traffic
Roads in Morningside’s Braid estate are to be reopened to traffic despite pleas from campaigners who claimed safety would be put at risk.
Edinburgh City Council’s transport committee will remove “traffic filters” – typically large planters – from a controversial Spaces for People schemes, on part of the Greenbank to Meadows Quiet Route, and install a segregated cycle lane, after the move emerged as the favoured option of residents in a survey.
But a deputation from Blackford Safe Routes said such filters were the “only sensible option for residential streets” and could reduce the risk of death and serious injury by 50 per cent.
The group said removal would result in the loss of a safe east-west route for pupils walking and cycling to South Morningside Primary School, adding: “Voting to remove modal filters, which are the safest option, is knowingly putting the interests of motorists ahead of children’s right to life.”
Another deputation, representing residents of Braid Avenue, said before the Quiet Route, Braid Avenue was “a no-go area for wheeling, walking and cycling”, but: “It is an absolute joy now to be part of the Quiet Route. Benefits include traffic reduction of 40 per cent.”
And Morningside Green councillor Ben Parker said he was angry the decision to remove the filters would happen on the same day as the committee had united in support of an emergency motion about the death of a child cyclist.
He said: “Please don’t let the sympathies you expressed earlier turn out to be hollow promises when faced with what should be a very simple decision about the continuation of the Quiet Route in my ward which provides so many benefits.”
Transport convener Scott Arthur said in view of the history of the scheme and people feeling they had not been listened to previously, that the change was right as it had been supported by around 50 per cent of people.
But he said: “I’ll make a prediction: if we do go for this option, people in the Braid estate, many of whom support this option, are going to be contacting us, possibly asking for some of these filters to come back. And as a committee, given the nature of this debate, I think we have to be open to those requests.”