Delivering Our Vision for Edinburgh

Transport affects us all. The current high levels of private car use in Edinburgh damages the city's economy and environment, and harms the health of Edinburgh citizens. Radical solutions are needed that improve the choice, flexibility and convenience of public transport, walking and cycling options if these are to be a compelling alternative for those who currently rely heavily on the private car.

Edinburgh's transport problems are not going to go away easily and concerted action is needed: the ostrich approach adopted by all too many would simply result in more pollution, more road congestion and worsened transport services. This is neither sustainable nor acceptable.

Experience from around the world demonstrates that successful city transport strategies need improvements in public transport to be accompanied by road traffic demand management measures, such as congestion charging, parking controls and access restrictions, in order to "lock in" the benefits. Public transport investment alone cannot tackle the problem of too much road traffic.

Edinburgh's congestion charging proposals can play an important role here. These aim not at getting rid of all road traffic, but at reducing traffic levels and the resultant congestion and pollution impacts.

It should always be borne in mind that 46% of households in Edinburgh have no access to a car - and hence can only benefit from implementation of road user charging.

A network of trams is being designed but to ensure that this becomes a reality the Scottish Executive must deliver funding for its construction, as well as for much-needed walking, cycling, safety and urban realm improvements. Since 1999, the Scottish Executive has made available hundreds of millions of pounds for new road-building in the West of Scotland yet has made no commitment to fund the tram network proposed for Edinburgh. Edinburgh faces the prospect of designing a tram system that central government will then fail to fund.

The private sector must also make major financial contributions towards the provision of transport infrastructure: this happens in other countries and should happen here. The City of Edinburgh Council must make serious investment in infrastructure a condition of planning application approval for all new large-scale developments. The West Edinburgh tramline should largely be paid for as part of future development at Edinburgh Park, The Gyle, Edinburgh Airport and Gogarburn - it is the private companies there that will benefit from investment in the tram line.

Lastly, the congestion charging proposals have potential to raise up to £1.5 billion over 15 years - all of which would be ringfenced for transport improvements. Only this level of investment is going to allow Edinburgh's transport to catch up with the best cities in Europe.

The abolition of the regional tier of local government in Scotland harmed coordination in transport and land use planning. Local government reorganisation left Scotland with most local authority areas too small in scale to provide for effective transport planning.

There is little evidence that the voluntary partnership approach to transport planning has worked: a lack of budgetary responsibility and reliance on voluntary agreements have limited the effectiveness of these arrangements. Their unstable nature tends to lead to controversial issues being avoided, with the lowest common denominator becoming the norm in decision-making.

Edinburgh urgently needs to consider replacing the voluntary approach that underlies the South East Scotland Transport Partnership (SESTRAN) with a powerful regional transport authority that can deliver coordinated and sustainable transport and land use planning across South East Scotland.

Our key principles for delivering sustainable transport

We must ensure transport is:

• safe
• socially inclusive
• locally available
• prioritised to aid walkers, cyclists and public transport
• healthy - for people and the environment