At the CEC Traffic Regulation Order Sub-Committee meeting today (24th October 2024), the committee decided the fate of the Corstorphine LTN project, voting to remove the bus gate and retain the other constituent parts.

Whilst the loss of the Bus Gate on Manse Road is disappointing given it is a key part of the original goal of reducing intrusive traffic through Corstorphine’s oldest village roads which also flank a main local Primary school, the Corstorphine LTN has always been a much bigger project than just one bus gate.

The media focus on the need for safety and active travel improvements this project has brought, both directly and indirectly, to the Corstorphine community over the last four years is unprecedented, and has, one way or another, brought wider attention to the issues here than we’ve had the opportunity to air properly in many decades.

Low Traffic Corstorphine is a group of local Corstorphine residents and business people passionate about bringing safer streets, better air quality and improved accessibility to residents of all ages, genders and abilities whether they are walkers, wheelers, cyclers, drivers or passengers.

Whilst the Manse Road Bus Gate has been the most contentious part of the project, there have been many other important and more widely accepted improvements introduced, for example:

– Wider pavements often with bollarded protection and improved crossings on main routes and around the Primary Schools.

– Traffic calming measures to slow traffic in residential streets where many children and parents/ carers travel frequently by foot or cycle/wheel.

– Very welcome place-making projects which have improved the local environment with the involvement of the local primary schools, for pedestrians and community spaces, making many areas which were previously hostile to active travellers far more fun, relaxing and safe.

– Measures to reduce intrusive rat running through the Featherhall estate have made this
space quieter for residents there, and the general acceptance over time of the ‘pocket park’ at Featherhall Crescent Sth/Nth which provides a much-needed spot to stop and sit while walking from one part to another.

– Improvements around the Carricknowe Primary as part of the School Streets programme

– Improvements to the shopping space at Carricknowe including a much more convenient direct route to Union Park and safer widened pavements and crossings there too for shoppers & visitors.

The loss of the bus gate element will most certainly lead to an increase in intrusive rat-running traffic to Manse Road, which, before Covid, reached levels of 4000+ vehicles a day – through an unsuitable old village road with narrow pavements – a road even vocal opposers of the project have highlighted as unsafe for pedestrians. This is not a line of messaging that rings consistent with a safety-conscious council that elsewhere in the city is pushing hard on street safety and reduction of driven miles targets they aim to fulfil by 2030.

Most critically, there is no evidence this will make any reduction in peripheral traffic on LTN boundary roads, because the increases reported there over the trial period were by no means fully attributable to the LTN interventions. Additionally, there appears to be no sense within CEC of the effects on Corstorphine of the inevitable increases in local traffic as a result of the massive developments on our western doorstep which will undeniably increase the levels of traffic locally – if they’ve not already.

Displacing traffic from boundary routes more capable of dealing with the extra traffic back to local narrow village routes around residential and school streets is not progress and not the answer for any local community. It’s certainly not progress for the residents of Manse Road, who will once again be beset by several thousands of vehicles passing or sitting outside their homes every day on a road which has very little space between road and front door, unlike Station Road.

And yet, all is not lost. Other elements within the project have helped to make it safer and more pleasant to travel around by foot and wheel, and the community does indeed, according to local surveys, feel safer to travel more actively. Environmental improvement of the community spaces within the LTN project area has, in our view, made the place more pleasant to live and work in.

As such we are happy to see the vast majority of the LTN elements retained and we look forward to them being made permanent and in keeping the local Corstorphine environment. Low Traffic Corstorphine will continue to encourage and support all efforts to achieve a safer and more sustainably accessible Corstorphine for all who live and work in this local community.

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Chris Young & Janis Ross-Williamson
Co-Chairs of Low Traffic Corstorphine

Related links

Watch the CEC Traffic Regulation Order Sub-Committee meeting webcast