Thursday March 21st 2024
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Donald Turvill
Edinburgh’s longest segregated bike lane has been officially opened by Edinburgh council – 10 years after it was first proposed.
Despite already being used by cyclists for several months the ribbon was cut on the City Centre to West East Link (CCWEL) yesterday after construction was declared finished.
An often contentious scheme, objections came from disgruntled residents and businesses affected by the works which contributed to delays. And in the decade since plans first emerged, costs rose nearly threefold from £8m to £23m.
A local councillor said contractors had made a “pigs ear” of the installation and remarked it had been a “very poor experience” for those living along the route between Roseburn and George Street, where some sections had to be dug-up and redone more than once.
However speaking at the launch active travel minister Patrick Harvie hailed it as a success and said more had to be done to ensure there were fewer “barriers” in future so similar projects can get off the ground more quickly.
Edinburgh transport convener Scott Arthur said after 10 years in the making it was the “end of an era”.
His predecessor, former councillor and transport convener Lesley Hinds, said it was “great to see something you’ve made a decision about come to fruition”. She recalled the “very contentious” process of “hours of meetings to try and bring people together”.
Describing the two-mile segregated path as “transformational” for the city, Cllr Arthur said it was “the start of connecting things up” to link the capital’s various cycle routes together.
One of the next major milestones in this process will be the pedestrianisation of George Street – a key missing link of the CCWEL – with work to turn it into a ‘cycle street’ not due to be finished until around 2027, under current estimates.
According to cycling campaign Spokes, there has been “overall strong support” for the project but “considerable objection from the immediate Roseburn area” where businesses faced particularly bad disruption, which eventually culminated in a failed bid to get compensation from the council.
Spokes recalled “fierce meetings of the local community council, dominated by objectors” during the consultation process and blamed delays mostly on “a highly-seasoned campaigner”.
It said ultimately the group “would have preferred a direct connection to and along Princes Street” but that what was taken forward was a “massive step forward” for cycling infrastructure in Edinburgh.
Conservative city centre councillor Jo Mowat said many of the issues predicted when the scheme was first discussed “have come to pass”.
Cllr Mowat said: “I have had a steady trickle of complaints about the implementation of the project; the workmanship, the going back, the digging-up, the interaction with officers about signage. I’ve had to be a last resort an awful lot of the time.”
She said an “absolute pigs ear” was made during the construction phase at some sections. “Bishops Walk was dug-up three times,” she said, “it’s a small bit but it took them three times to get that right.
“It was just really poor finish and workmanship. All the Copenhagen junctions at Roseberry Crescent and West Coates, they were laid with the wrong concrete – they had to be dug up too.”
The council confirmed some continuous footway side road crossings had to be redone as concrete was ‘installed incorrectly’ but the cost of this was met by the contractor.
Cllr Mowat added: “I think it’s really difficult to know if its’ been worthwhile… the proof of the pudding will be when we monitor it and see if there are there more cyclists using it.
“In a country where we have little control over the weather actually from October to March – so for at least six months of the year – I just don’t think it is pleasant to cycle because it is dark and it’s wet and splashy. Is that a realistic option?”
Asked if he was confident the project would result in an influx of people choosing to get around the city by bike, Mr Harvie said: “There is an old phrase; build it and they will come. It tends to be the experience we have.
“Some of the projects in my own community have seen triple figure percentage increases in people using the active travel routes once you make them safe, designed to a high standard and accessible.”
He said: “We need to congratulate and thank the people who have made it happen. We also need to learn from projects like this; how do we do this faster? That’s one of the big themes for the Scottish Government at the moment.
“The new Infrastructure Fund is intended to enable local authorities to bring forward their active travel projects and deliver them fast, and remove some of those barriers in the way.
“There genuinely is a huge appetite for people being able to use their communities safely, having streets, communities, towns and cities that are attractive places to spend time in and if we can unlock that potential, if we can harness that enthusiasm we can enable people to transform their communities.”
Cllr Arthur said: “We can learn from this without a doubt. This is Edinburgh’s first real on-street segregated cycle route and the standard of the work is fantastic and an exemplar of what we want to do going forward.
“There’s going to be more of this in the coming weeks, months and years.
“This has been 10 years in the making but it feels like a real tipping point today – this has opened but we’ve now got a pipeline of projects coming forward.”
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