The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday December 04 2024 #Transport

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to transport correspondent Alastair Dalton about all the latest news on Scottish travel including 20mph speed limits and plans for a new electric bike hire scheme in Edinburgh

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Wednesday.

00:05My name is Dale Miller.

00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Transport Correspondent, Alastair

00:11Dalton.

00:12He's coming live to us with a 20 mile per hour zone sign in the background and you'll

00:17find out exactly why he's there in a moment, but we'll talk through the front page of today's

00:23Scotsman firstly.

00:25It was hard not to lead on the Scottish budget preview.

00:28Shona Robison will stand at 2.50pm to deliver the Scottish budget.

00:34You will be able to get all the very latest coverage around that, including analysis,

00:38key points from the Scottish budget.

00:40We will be running a blog across the site from 2pm.

00:45The Scotsman is your one stop shop for everything coming out of the budget, so please tune into

00:50that.

00:51Alastair, you'll be tuning into the budget for any transport announcements as well, but

00:57that's not why I'm speaking to you this morning.

01:00You wrote a story about 20 mile per hour zones in Edinburgh and there's a substantial roll

01:06out that is being looked at.

01:09Yeah, that's right.

01:10I'm actually in Glasgow today on a bus route that has a 20 mile an hour limit.

01:15That's what Edinburgh City Council is proposing, that when it rolled out the 20 mile an hour

01:22zone across the city, which finished in 2018, it left some major routes, particularly bus

01:28routes at 30.

01:29But now it's planning to add 20 mile an hour limits to stretches of some of those.

01:35So there's a total of 66 roads in the built up part of Edinburgh, which would go from

01:4230 to 20 under the council's plans.

01:46And that's stretches of main roads like Queensferry Road, Lanark Road, London Road,

01:54Dalkeith Road, some of the main routes into the city centre.

02:00What they're saying is that these are areas which have high numbers of pedestrians and

02:06cyclists, there's shops, there's high density housing like tenements and flats, and some

02:11of these streets are narrower.

02:13So there's a need for a reduction.

02:16They're also saying much of the time buses don't manage to get up to 30, even in 30 mile

02:23an hour zones because of traffic congestion.

02:27So there shouldn't be that much difference in journey times.

02:31Although Lothian, Edinburgh's main operator, has expressed concern and it's particularly

02:36worried about off-peak journeys and night bus journeys when there's less traffic on

02:41the road and its buses will be slowed down.

02:45Alistair, am I right in saying that there's going to be maybe some impact on semi-rural

02:51areas within Edinburgh as well with plans to move towards tighter, lower speed limits

02:59effectively?

03:00Yes, so a second part of the council plan is the rural area of Edinburgh.

03:07It stretches quite far west of the city bypass and many of the roads in that area that fall

03:14up against West Lothian are 60 miles an hour.

03:17But the council's saying that's inappropriate, particularly where you've got roads going

03:22past houses, small hamlets.

03:25So they're proposed to reduce many of those roads either to 50, 40, 30 or in some cases

03:3420.

03:35And the lowest speed would be on the narrowest lanes, including some of those that connect

03:40Verano to the Pentland Hills and the Lezawars, which are very popular with cyclists, pedestrians

03:47and horse riders.

03:49But for other areas, there would be lower speeds than there are at the moment.

03:55And they said that West Lothian Council will collaborate so that where a road crosses the

04:00border, that might see a change in the speed too.

04:04Alistair, I think it's certainly interesting as we see expansion of some residential areas.

04:09We're also seeing a lowering of speed limits in traditional areas as well, even noting

04:15in more recent times a 40 mile per hour zone on the main route past Edinburgh Airport,

04:20where we know there's a lot of fresh residential and even industrial development planned as

04:26well.

04:26So watch this space and you can read that story at scotsman.com under the transport

04:32tag.

04:33One other story, Alistair, electric bikes or bike hire scheme looks like it might be

04:38coming back to Edinburgh.

04:40Yes, so many people would have been surprised that Edinburgh traditionally has quite a number

04:46of people cycling.

04:48A cycle hire scheme was introduced in 2018 Council and it quickly became very popular.

04:57It was expanded.

04:58There was a quarter of a million journeys a year within a few years.

05:02But it collapsed just in three years.

05:04There was a large amount of vandalism, bikes being stolen, and it was costing the Council

05:11far too much.

05:13And that is in stark contrast to Glasgow, which has had a scheme since 2014 for the

05:18Commonwealth Games and it's now continuing expanding, has some half a million journeys

05:24a year.

05:25So the Council has been talking to several potential operators and hopes to get a scheme

05:31up and running by next summer.

05:35They've decided that because of the slightly hilly nature of Edinburgh, although Glasgow

05:40is pretty hilly too, to just have it as electric bikes.

05:47They also are saying that they have learned the lessons of the last scheme.

05:51So the new project would be at no risk to the Council.

05:57There's all the risk and no cost to the Council.

06:00The operator would have to carry any losses.

06:04And they also say that lock technology has improved a lot, which would make it much more

06:09difficult to steal a bike and take it away.

06:15Finally, they plan to limit it initially to the city centre.

06:19I think it's some of the outlying areas that had some of the biggest theft and vandalism

06:23problems.

06:25You would anticipate, given the number of tourists moving through Edinburgh at different

06:29times of the year, that it could be a well-used scheme again.

06:32You can read both those stories we've discussed today.

06:35As I mentioned, that's Scotsman.com.

06:37You'll find all Alastair's coverage by going to the navigation bar and finding the transport

06:42section.

06:44Please do read those.

06:45You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky.

06:49And please visit our site for all the very latest budget coverage throughout the afternoon

06:54and into the evening.

06:55And pick up a copy of The Scotsman tomorrow, where we will deliver the full package.

06:59Alastair, thanks very much for joining us.

07:01And thanks to all our viewers as well.

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