Edinburgh can be a shining example of how to create a cleaner, healthier transport system – Lesley Macinnes

This week we’re debating the city mobility plan at Edinburgh Council’s transport and environment committee.

Active travel, like cycling, is a good way to keep fit and stay healthy (Picture: Ian Rutherford)

It’s a 10-year plan to help the city achieve net-zero carbon status by 2030, reduce the inequalities built into our transport options and improve our quality of life.

It is a plan that has been developed through extensive conversations with the city and which takes into account Scottish government thinking and our council plans around eradicating poverty, improving the health of our city and building in sustainability measures.

Why are we creating this plan? We need to make choices now about how the city’s transport options deal with the growing population, increasing commuter traffic from outside Edinburgh and inequalities built into transport in our city where 45 per cent of households do not have access to a car.

Households spend most on transport after housing (approximately £80 weekly per household) and this is a heavy burden for many families.

The health impacts of our current situation are clear: one third of women and one fifth of men do not achieve minimum recommended levels of exercise.

This affects our rates of chronic heart disease, diabetes and other obesity related conditions. Accessibility and inclusion for all matters too. Traffic congestion costs, on average, a driver around 172 hours per year and the Edinburgh economy around £177 million per year.

Proposals include expanding tram lines to go where the population and jobs are, improving the bus network with cleaner, electric buses, adopting 20-minute neighbourhoods across the city where you can reach all of the key things you need within a short walk or cycle from your home, creating safer cycling and walking infrastructure, expanding our electric vehicle charging network, reducing freight vehicle trips and reducing conflict around parking in residential areas.

What does this mean for you? If you, me, businesses and our communities adapt to the measures proposed in the city mobility plan, we have a real chance to reduce ill health caused by air pollution and lack of physical activity, to reduce the stresses and costs of city living by properly tackling congestion and making sure you have more suitable, sustainable options to choose.

Do you, like so many others, want to see a healthier population, with far fewer families suffering from the effects of childhood asthma, for example? Do you want to see a city where fewer vulnerable families are pushed into poverty by transport costs, where the impact of our individual choices on the climate is positive, not negative?

Being asked to change how we go about our daily lives can be hard to accept, when you’re being asked, for example, to think about leaving the car behind sometimes, to use public transport or your feet or wheels instead. Building change into lives can seem like too much to ask, especially now.

But we can gain so much, for individuals and communities across the city, if we accept the need to alter our transport landscape. We can gain cleaner, healthier streets and communities with much better choices for everyone.

This council administration is committed to delivering a better city. It’s a path that many other global cities are following. Let’s make Edinburgh a shining example of embracing positive change.

Lesley Macinnes is Edinburgh Council’s transport and environment convener and SNP councillor for Liberton/Gilmerton

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