Children face 85-year wait for the green man to appear

COMMUNITY campaigners fighting for pedestrian crossings on dangerous roads have been told they may have to wait up to 85 years.

Council chiefs have admitted they only have enough cash to install or upgrade three crossings a year, meaning that at the current rate of progress, roads at the bottom of the priority list will not be tackled until the end of this century.

More than 250 roads in the city have been identified by campaigners and local politicians as being in need of pedestrian crossings, and the council is slowly working through the list.

The locations are ranked on a number of criteria, including the number of accidents there have been and its proximity to schools and playgrounds.

Currently top priority on the requests list is Bruntsfield Place at the junction of Viewforth, while Oxgangs Road at Swanston Avenue was ranked bottom at 263rd.

Cycle groups and opposition politicians today called for more investment in crossings and for council chiefs to consider revising this criteria to take into account increased traffic volume and major developments, such as the Waterfront.

Tory councillor Jason Rust, whose constituency includes the lowest ranking request for a crossing on Oxgangs Road, said: "When people hear about possibly having to wait up to 85 years then it clearly adds to the frustration that their council tax money is not being spent on problems in their own areas.

"I know there are number of spots in Oxgangs where people do worry about the speeds of drivers coming off the city bypass and not adjusting them for the residential areas.

"There is a feeling that often because this area is a few miles from the city centre that it is neglected in the council's budgets and you can see this to an extent in this list.

"We should be tackling these things pro-actively rather than waiting for an accident to happen."

After a request for a crossing is received by council officials they go along to the location and assess its merits against set criteria.

This includes the number of slight, serious and fatal car accidents, and environmental factors such as the proximity of playgrounds, shops, schools and sheltered housing. The streets are given a scoring and the council then works through the list, starting with highest ranked ones.

Bridget Stevens, chairwoman of Merchiston Community Council, said:

"I'm obviously very happy to hear Bruntsfield Place is top of the list.

It's very near schools and the road gets very busy around lunchtime, and there's also a lot of old people walking around as there are several sheltered housing apartments nearby.

"The council's capacity to install only three new pedestrian crossings a year is pathetically small. I feel for the 262 other places, which will undoubtedly have there own varying degrees of need, who will have to wait a little bit longer for their crossings."

At the other end of the list, Norman Tinlin, transport spokesman for Fairmilehead Community Council, was less critical. He said they had never requested a pedestrian crossing at Oxgangs Road at Swanston Avenue.

"The council regularly put in crossings in places we don't want them. There's one at Buxton Avenue that's not where we would like it.

"Very often these things get put on the list by politicians as a sweetener to their constituents, usually during election times, so I think its good that it will take them 85 years to get round to some of them."

Marshall Poulton, the city council's head of transport, said:

"I think there is merit in looking again at the criteria we use for prioritising the crossings again because as I understand it, this was developed several years ago."

A the turn of the century nearly 50 of the city's youngsters were involved in serious road accidents but this has gradually reduced over the years. A major campaign by the council through its safer routes to schools initiatives has been behind the fall, with new pedestrian crossings and 20mph zones around schools.

A number of the crossings that have been requested and are on the list have little chance of getting built because of their proximity to other crossings or the likelihood of objections over the loss of parking spaces.

• WORK has finally started on a controversial pedestrian crossing on Colinton Road, part of an agreement with developer Applecross, which saw 170 flats built on sports fields at nearby Meggetland.

A wrangle over the crossing's position, cost and lighting has led to a two-year delay.

'It is far too long for people to have to wait'
RESIDENTS near Ferry Road are among those who are campaigning to improve pedestrian safety.

They have called for crossings at the West Ferryfield junction of the street, currently ranked 18th on the council's priority list, and also the Granton Road junction, which lies at 35th on the list.

Councillor Elizabeth Maginnis said both roads have seen a huge increase in traffic over recent years.

She said: "Both of these areas are in dire need of proper pedestrian crossings.

"The criteria which is being used to decide the priorities needs reviewed – it isn't taking account of the major developments which are being built down here in Granton and also increased traffic volumes."

"I thought the silence when the (transport] committee was told we are only doing three of these crossings a year was very telling.

"It is far too long for people to have to wait for safe ways to cross busy roads."