A pedestrian crossing on Edinburgh Elm Row has been branded 'confusing' by a campaigner for road safety.
Although the crossing was designed with tactile pavements to aid people with visual impairments across the road, a local expert believes the “over engineered” and “costly” design has made it a dangerous and confusing crossing for those with visual impairments.
The criticism has come from a local freelance transportation consultant and the convener of Edinburgh’s Living Streets group. David Hunter criticised the East side of Edinburgh’s newly redesigned Elm Row crossing.
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“I’ve got some sympathy for the designers, but it’s a big muddle,” David said. “The tactile pavements try to tell the visually impaired where to go and guide them through the crossing, but there’s such a big mix of different types of paving that I think most would be totally confused by what they encounter.”
In a photo David shared online, the crossing has multiple types of tactile pavements branching in different directions as pedestrians cross both the cycle lanes and the carriageway.
The council described the crossing as having blister paving to signal crossing points; corduroy tactile paving to "delineate the cycleway from the pedestrian footway"; and a rumble strip to make cyclists aware of the crossing. The council added that the tactile pavements were installed as per Edinburgh Street Design Guidance.
However, others on Twitter criticised the crossing and highlighted the potential discomfort of crossing the many tactile pavements for wheelchair users.
“The crossing is too complicated, over the top, over engineered and expensive. The result is from too many objectives. If the designers would have taken a step back to think ‘Does this work?’ I think the problem could have been avoided,” David said.
David also believes designers missed a crucial step in the design process. According to him, the designs should have been vetted by visual impairment organisations and wheelchair users to ensure the designs made sense for the people they clearly designed the crossings to help.
However, a spokesperson for the council said that the crossing was designed following workshops with various local accessibility and active transport groups.
Councillor Scott Arthur, Transport and Environment Convener, said: “This pedestrian crossing, which is still under construction, has been designed to aid people with visual impairments and to ensure segregation between pedestrians and people cycling at signalised junctions. I have been assured that the crossing complies with design guidance and was designed following workshops with groups such as Living Streets and the Edinburgh Access Panel.”
The Elm Row crossing is one part of the Leith Walk redesign associated with the Trams to Newhaven project and construction. The new tram lines will run through Leith Walk and Broughton Street among other areas, and roads, carriageways, cycle lanes, pedestrian crossings and pedestrian zones have all been redesigned as part of the process.
The redesign, now in its final stages, is slowly being unveiled to the public, and there has been a lot of criticism for the pedestrian pavements and cycle lanes on Leith Walk.
David said the Elm Row crossing isn’t the only pedestrian disappointment to come from the Leith Walk redesign.
“The redesign is incredibly disappointing,” he said. “I’m very disappointed in the pedestrian facilities on Leith Walk. It’s not all bad, but there are an awful lot of missed opportunities,” he said.
“It’s a wide road, and they’ve installed tram lines, dual carriageways, two cycle lanes and pedestrians have been given what’s left. In a lot of places, the pedestrian pavements don’t even meet the minimum width requirements the council has specified.”
As regards the Elm Row pedestrian crossing, David said he hopes “the visually impaired folk of Edinburgh are well skilled in interpreting tactile paving [because it] may take some figuring out!”
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