City’s pavement project is a positive step
Pavements are just as susceptible to wear and tear and frost damage as our roads
I’m surprised it took a ban on pavement parking to expose the poor state of the city’s pedestrian routes. Anyone who walks anywhere in the Capital will tell you the trip hazards are regular and severe.
However, Transport Convener Scott Arthur says that the number of complaints about cracked pavements has gone up since the parking ban began. He said: “Now that people can actually see the pavement on their street, quite often they're finding it has been utterly destroyed by cars having parked on it. So we've had a rise in complaints about footways because of this.”
He managed to put a positive spin on it by saying “in a way, it’s a welcome problem because we’ve got these cars off the footways”. He is hopeful that after an initial repair investment, the pavements will stay in better shape for longer since there won’t be cars parking on them any more, “and we'll start to really feel the benefit of that in terms of the amount of money we have to spend to keep them in a good condition.”
That’s the theory, anyway. I suspect that pavements are just as susceptible to wear and tear and frost damage as our roads, and they will need annual upkeep too. Pavements also endure things like skateboards and scooters, wheelie bins being dragged back and forth, weeds growing between the slabs and tree roots pushing paving upwards.
The council is spending a total of £12.5 million on improvements to roads and footpaths this year, with 219 sites identified for investment. And it is to prioritise pavements in poorer parts of the city on the grounds residents in areas of deprivation are less likely to have cars and are therefore more affected by footpaths in poor condition.
It’s great news that the council is prioritising the residents rather than the tourists. Of course it’s important to have a city centre we are proud of, but it’s also important that the streets are safe to walk or wheel on for those of us who live here and use them every day.
I hope this project is a success and that we can report on how it is going in this paper in the near future.