{"id":638695,"date":"2025-12-17T18:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T18:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/638695\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T18:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T18:59:15","slug":"plans-for-two-way-cycling-on-rose-street-rejected-by-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/638695\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans for two-way cycling on Rose Street rejected by council"},"content":{"rendered":"

PLANS\u00a0to lift restrictions on two-way cycling<\/a> on Edinburgh\u2019s famous Rose Street have been shot down by the City of Edinburgh Council<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plans would have seen two-way cycling introduced on the busy street, which currently only allows westbound cycling and sees heavy foot traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s\u00a0traffic\u00a0regulation\u00a0orders (TRO)<\/a>\u00a0sub-committee voted to reject these plans yesterday,\u00a0overruling the recommendations of council officers, who wanted to set aside objections and\u00a0proceed\u00a0with a TRO.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Plans for two-way cycling on other city streets, such as Thistle Street<\/a>, did pass through, however, but an exception was made for Rose Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Rose<\/a>Rose Street has been described as the closest thing Edinburgh has to a pedestrianised street, but is not actually pedestrianised (C) Lewis Clarke \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Four members of the council voted against the proposals, while four voted for them, with convener Margaret Arma Graham deciding to reject the proposals but reserving the right to return to the matter in\u00a0the\u00a0future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cycling is already\u00a0permitted\u00a0in one direction on Rose Street, and limited motor vehicle traffic is only\u00a0permitted\u00a0after 8pm and before 10:30am most days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, there were fears, raised by the local community council and Living Streets Edinburgh, that increased cycling traffic both ways could lead to conflict between cyclists and pedestrians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deborah Paton, lead officer of the council\u2019s Transport and Environment Committee refuted these claims after a question from Conservative\u00a0councillor Phil Doggart, who described Rose Street as pedestrianised.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI want to emphasise that pedestrians\u00a0remain\u00a0at the top of the hierarchy on Rose Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cVehicular movement is already\u00a0permitted\u00a0in one direction at some times of the day, and, to reiterate, cycling in one direction\u00a0is already\u00a0in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this order is doing is making it legal for those that want to [cycle].\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is primarily to access destinations on the street, we don\u2019t have any particular reason to think that it would be used more as a through route, because it logically doesn\u2019t make sense as a through route.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cCycling is already in place in one direction, and this would support cycling in both directions, which would align with city mobility plans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to the meeting, objections to the plans were raised by Living Streets Edinburgh, a group campaigning for greater pedestrianisation in Edinburgh, and the New Town and Broughton Community Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They feared that the plans would introduce unexpected dangers to pedestrians on Rose Street, endangering \u201ca more hostile space for older, disabled and blind people\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SNP councillor Catherine Fullerton\u00a0echoed these fears, saying: \u201cPeople\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0expect cyclists to be on Rose Street,\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0the bottom line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen such cyclists get too close,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a lot of harsh words spoken between cyclists and pedestrians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there should be signs along Rose Street saying that there will be cyclists and that it\u2019s not just purely pedestrians.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councillor Fullerton expressed her support for a fully pedestrianised Rose Street, and there was also discussion of the fact that cyclists already go both ways, legal or otherwise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greens\u00a0councillor Kayliegh Kinross-O\u2019Neill also expressed concern for disabled people on Rose Street and enquired whether signage\u00a0indicating\u00a0different uses for the street could be used to reassure vulnerable road users.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lib Dem\u00a0councillor Hal Osler questioned why the report was being\u00a0forwarded\u00a0to the council if it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0expected that many cyclists would make use of Rose Street eastbound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councillor Kevin Lang another Liberal Democrat councillor, however, pointed out that cyclists already use Rose Street both ways and that the restrictions are\u00a0likely unenforceable:\u00a0\u201cI\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0have instinctively known that Rose Street had a one-way restriction in place on Rose Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0also one of those people who gets a little bit nervous about setting in place restrictions which are unenforceable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor that reason, I came in quite comfortable with the officer report and the TRO.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are allowing cyclists on Rose Street, I don\u2019t see any discernible difference between them going one way or two ways.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unusually, convener Margaret Graham decided to go against the council\u2019s recommendations, and moved to approve the report but omitting Rose Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There were four votes for Margaret Graham\u2019s proposal to omit Rose Street, including Councillor Osler of the Lib Dems, and four against.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councillor Lang, however, voted to move forward with the TRO as advertised, splitting the Liberal Democrat vote.<\/p>\n

Two-way cycling has, however, been approved on Cassel\u2019s Street, Circus Lane, Drummond Street, Richmond Lane, Simpson Loan, Thistle Street, and Wishaw Terrace.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANS\u00a0to lift restrictions on two-way cycling on Edinburgh\u2019s famous Rose Street have been shot down by the City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,196760,28047,4230,1102,37802,4884,196761,82644,63348,175229,712,191055,196173,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-638695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-council-meeting","10":"tag-cycle-lanes","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-edinburgh","13":"tag-edinburgh-council","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-living-streets","16":"tag-new-town","17":"tag-pedestrians","18":"tag-rose-street","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-thistle-street","21":"tag-traffic-regulation-order","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115736449293517049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}