Edinburgh ‘Travelling Safely’ post-covid street schemes

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Background info on the ETROs
ETRO pre-consultation
ETRO public advertisement for comment/objection (by 23.5.23)
June 2023 Committee update, following faulty ETROs
City Centre ETRO/21/26
North ETRO/21/27
South ETRO/21/29
East ETRO/21/28
West ETRO/21/30

Background info on the ETROs

The Spaces for People covid schemes used Temporary Traffic Orders (TTROs) which expire soon and cannot be renewed. The Council wishes to convert the temporary schemes into experimental schemes, under Experimental Traffic Orders (ETROs), with a view to becoming permanent (with any changes) at the end of the 18 month ETRO duration. They will also now be called Travelling Safely rather than the covid-related Spaces for People name.
Extensive detailed info about the Covid TTRO schemes, and our responses at that time, is here
An initial decision to convert the TTROs to ETROs was made in November 2011. At that stage the actual draft Orders were not yet available, but the schemes were categorised into City Centre, North, South, East and West, summarised in an ‘Overview’ document and an initial consultation held, to which Spokes responded.
The ETROs only cover what is required by law, such as loading and waiting, and bus lanes. There is no legal requirement for the Orders to specify the detail of road layouts such as cycle segregation; but of course these must be compatible with the waiting, loading and any other criteria in the Orders

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ETRO pre-consultation, June-November 2022

Under new government rules, councils can advertise an ETRO for public consultation without any stakeholder pre-consultation (which is required with standard TROs). However the previous SNP/Labour council decided (largely for political reasons?) that there would be consultation on the draft ETROs with stakeholders, and to an unclear extent with the public, before they were formally launched for the official public consultation.
This voluntary consultation (June 2022) was officially to inform a Committee decision in Aug/Sept 2022 as to whether to go ahead with the ETROs for all or some of the schemes. Few physical changes to the schemes were expected; any significant changes would happen during the official ETRO experimental period, depending on that consultation and decisions then
ETRO FAQs provided by the Council
‘Statement of Reasons‘ for all the ETROs (Traffic Orders require this)
Consultation page (consultn ends 3.7.22)
Spokes response
Living Streets response

Sept 2022 – ETRO process approved at 1.9.22 TEC, with some changes

Committee report 1.9.22 (postponed from 18.8.22) recommends ETRO process for all schemes, with some changes (see October below)
Appendix 1 – Consultation – report of survey
Appendix 2 – Detailed recommendations for each scheme
Appendix 3 – Consultation – stakeholder responses
Committee approves report (Minutes here), proposed by Greens with some Labour additions, rejecting amendments by Con, LibDem and the full Labour amendment
Spokes detailed tweets on the debate: 1 2 3 4 5 (vote) 6
October 2022: Amended draft ETROs issued for Comiston Rd & Cockburn St (maps below)
Next stage (late 2022 ?): Council will publish ETROs for all schemes (in batches as below, we presume) at which time the statutory 6-month consultation begins

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ETRO public advertisement for comment/objection (by 23.5.23)

Following the September Transport Cttee decision (above), the ETROs have been published for public comment or objection. ETROs last for up to 18 months, and during the first 6 months (to 23.5.23) are open for comment/objection, ideally based on your experience of using each scheme. During the remaining 12 months the Council deals with the comments/objections (we do not know if objections can trigger an inquiry?) and can then declare the schemes permanent, with or without changes.
Travelling Safely consultation page / consultation text (pdf made by Spokes to preserve the text). Includes a complete list of all schemes covered by the ETROs. The page itself includes links to maps of all the ETROs, which are intended to be more user-friendly than the actual ETRO plans, but are still difficult, with very small text (unless greatly zoomed) and yellow/orange which is hard to distinguish.
Travelling Safely FAQs
Travelling Safely official ‘Statement of Reasons’ (accompanying all the ETROs)
The ETRO Plans – the advertised plans are linked below. Unfortunately they have been combined into just one or two files per area, and are not helpfully separated out or ordered, unlike the pre-consultation plans, which are also below. Since there are few differences, it may be simpler to look first at the pre-consultation plans. There is also another version of the plans in the consultation page, but these too are problematic as explained above. Note too that the plans are only legally required to show the traffic restrictions (no waiting, etc), not the bollarded bike lanes themselves!

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June 2023 Committee update, following faulty ETROs

The ETROs (which had been prepared by an outside consultancy) were found to have legal flaws and so had to be withdrawn for re-advertising. This meant an update in the Business Bulletin at 15.6.23 Transport Cttee (TEC) which in turn prompted a Conservative motion (which was withdrawn when obviously to be defeated) to scrap several schemes and a LibDem motion to separate out 4 schemes into their individual ETROs rather than grouped with others. Labour amended this to guarantee that the aims of schemes would not be watered down, and the motion was passed. More info and relevant documents in this pdf.

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