Edinburgh Council is full of big plans for transport but the potholes keep getting worse – John McLellan

Most office workers have stories of colleagues wandering around with sheafs of paper to look terribly busy, and in the old Scotsman building on Holyrood Road, I recall one journalist disappearing to the library every day clutching pen and notebook, despite files being available on the desktop computers.

Into this category must go the updates to Edinburgh Council’s active travel and public transport action plans under discussion at today’s transport and environment committee, described by the convener Scott Arthur as “a game-changer”.

Officers have obviously been very busy pulling together these new papers, four of them, running to 230 pages and covering stuff like reducing parking, encouraging cycling and all the usual malarkey we’ve come to know and love over many years.

In fact, we know it so well that unless the game is statues, it’s hard to see what’s new, other than the launch of yet more consultations designed to give a veneer of concern about public opinion when the outcome is predetermined. Lots of effort, lots of words, but no meaningful progress.

There’s a draft parking plan, which to the surprise of absolutely no one wants to look at jacking up charges, reducing parking availability and cracking on with the expansion of residents’ parking schemes. Whether you agree or not, the game remains the same, and residents in places like Abbeyhill and Willowbrae know the response to sensible suggestions for practical tweaks: cooncil always knows best.

There’s a 127-page active travel action plan which just reiterates the same arguments we’ve heard repeatedly over the past ten years, so what is going to change from yet another information-gathering exercise at public expense? “We want to create a city where you don’t need to own a car to move around,” it says, as if that’s not already possible, although getting the weekly shop in a cargo bike in a howling gale isn’t everyone’s idea of fun.

“We will therefore ensure that public transport, walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure is prioritised to support the choices available to reduce private car use,” it adds, as did virtually every transport report I read in my time as a councillor.

This means more of what Roseburn has been experiencing for months, and judging by the new road layouts will continue to experience for years. Even without the cycle lanes being anywhere near complete it’s certainly persuaded me that driving in that direction is pointless, especially with the current mayhem in North Merchiston and Shandon.

Potholes are a menace to cyclists as well as motorists

“Edinburgh will easily be leading Scotland if we get these plans approved,” said Councillor Arthur. Although that’s not a high bar, there is no guarantee they will go through because the Green and SNP groups will find fault, if only because they’re still in a big hissy huff about not being in charge.

Not, of course, because the plans go too far. They’ll argue they don’t go far enough; no promise to re-erect the gallows at the Hanging Stanes on Braid Road for errant motorists.

As it happens, I’ve cycled as often as possible for 20 years, but despite smug council claims to be leading a transport revolution, conditions on my routes have barely changed. Well, that’s not entirely true, because thanks to potholes, pointless barriers and interminable roadworks it’s much, much worse. Fixing those would indeed be a game-changer.