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
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TravelTranscript
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.