Edinburgh cycle lanes may have to be ripped out due to delay in deciding whether to make them permanent
Cycling campaigners fear segregated bike lanes installed during Covid but earmarked to be kept could be ripped out after councillors postponed a decision on making them permanent.
A series of traffic measures in the east of the city which were first introduced under the Spaces for People programme, including cycle lanes along the A1 corridor - London Road, Willowbrae Road and Milton Road West, were due to be approved as permanent at a meeting of the council's Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) sub-committee in May, but the decision was delayed until this month.
But when the sub-committee met on August 7, it decided to postpone a decision again, until its next meeting on September 4.
And with the Experimental Traffic Order (ETRO) which extended the measures set to expire on October 28, officials warned there might not be enough time to process the permanent order in time and the current infrastructure would have to be removed.
Lib Dem councillor Kevin Lang wanted assurances that if the cycle lanes were made permanent the current temporary bollards and kerbs - which many people have criticised as a trip hazard - would be replaced with upgraded infrastructure. And he asked how much that would cost.
Council official Andrew Easson said he could not give a price because they could not do much design work on schemes until they knew whether they were to be retained. There were also similar measures in other areas of the city yet to be considered.
He said: "We will look at the schemes that are going forward and prioritise where we think there is the most need to make infrastructure permanent. It may not be a case of revamping the entire infrastructure along the route. There may be certain bits where we know there have been trips or where we think there is more risk of vehicles striking infrastructure - they will be the top priority areas and we will look to roll out those areas first and then follow on, over a period of years, upgrading the infrastructure."
Cllr Lang said: “We have received objections on the basis of the temporary infrastructure. I’m trying to understand what certainty or clarity this committee has as to whether it can set aside those objections on the basis that the temporary infrastructure is going to change or not."
Mr Easson said a budget of £500,000 a year had been set aside for renewing infrastructure. He said if there were concerns that infrastructure was likely to be struck or people likely to trip, such sites could be prioritised. "On the other hand, if you have a stretch of road that has virtually no footfall and very few people cross the road and it's a long straight bit of road, it's probably not that likely it's going to get hit by vehicles and not that likely anyone is going to trip over it."
Green councillor Alex Staniforth raised the prospect of the cycle lanes being ripped out.
He said: “My understanding is that if we do not pass the permanent TRO then the temporary structures would have to be removed; and if we do pass the permanent TRO then these temporary structures will gradually be transformed into permanent structures.”
He asked officials if he was correct and Mr Easson said he was. But Cllr Lang said that answer was different from the one he had been given.
He said: “Cllr Staniforth said if we do approve this, the infrastructure will be changed and the answer to that was yes. When I asked the question ‘Will it be upgraded?’ it was ‘Well, it might and we’ll give consideration to it’. I’m still not clear on what certainty I have as to whether this temporary infrastructure will be changed or not.”
Mr Easson said: “We have budgeted £2.5m over five years to do upgrades, the intention is to spend that money. We will upgrade infrastructure, but what I’m saying is we have to prioritise how we do that and there are a number of circumstances we will regard as high priority - those things will be upgraded.
“Through that consideration there may be some areas of some schemes that we decide either don’t need to be upgraded or are very low priority for upgrading and they would be further back in the programme.”
After listening to officials, Cllr Lang said he did not feel able to make a decision on the TRO. “There’s not been work done on how much it would cost, we don’t know where it would happen, yet we’re being asked to make a permanent decision today - I think that’s an incredibly difficult things for us, to set aside objections and put faith in something that may or may not happen and which we cannot come back to at any point.”
Tory councillor Phil Doggart said: “We’re giving a blanket approval to the whole ETRO when it may well be that it could be years before anything is done.”
Labour’s Joan Griffiths, Lib Dem Hal Osler and chair Margaret Graham also said they felt they could not make a decision.
Today, Ian Maxwell from Spokes said: "I don't understand why this has become so complicated. I think there is a little bit of political game playing going on as well.
"It was great to have these measures put in in a hurry during Covid and it's also great there has been a chance to assess them over quite a few years.
"And the ones they are hoping to make permanent are useful features, so it would be very concerning if they're going to get removed just because of bureaucracy."