Councillor Rose is one of only a handful of Edinburgh councillors who keeps a useful blog. It's part neighbourhood notice board, part his personal opinion and part reports (his take) on council business. If only more councillors kept blogs like this then people might have more of an idea what they're voting for come elections. That doesn't change the fact that he's a Tory though, and so I'm unlikely to agree with him on many things. 

Recently he's been in the papers, opposing the installation of traffic lights at a junction with an awful safety record, and on a safer route to school. The upgrade will cost £200k but is clearly safer than 'improving road markings and signage' which is the cheaper option that he prefers. Here's what he's quoted as saying in the Evening News:

"At the moment, what is on the table is probably the most expensive option and it does not address other issues about the stop/start of traffic and the increased pollution it will cause. There are also other downsides, which taken together mean there are better alternatives.

"This is about local shops and businesses as well and it's more about cycling because it's cyclists who have taken the hit in terms of casualties."

The air pollution straw man is not a problem and given the junctions safety record, more lives will be saved by installing the traffic lights than lost due to the marginal local increase in air pollution.

So Cllr Rose seems to be left on the dubious ground that local business profits should come before cyclists safety at this junction. Oh dear. Not only does this sound callous in the extreme, but he is also wrong if he thinks that promoting free traffic flow will benefit local businesses. Research shows that business owners consistently over-estimate the importance of car access for their customers, and under-estimate the value of providing an appealing pedestrian environment to their customers. 

To be fair, on his blog Cllr Rose does claim that he'd like to see the money saved by adopting his proposals invested in the proposed George Square to Kings Buildings cycle route, but that doesn't really solve the safety problem at this junction does it? And it belies an erroneous way of thinking about cycling and cyclists, one that tries to corral cyclists onto "approved" routes, rather promoting safety by design for all road users, throughout the city. 

Besides. It hardly does justice to the 4 year long campaign that local parents from nearby Sciennes Primary School have run to see the junction improved. Fortunately, it would seem it's the parents that have won the day.