Road safety campaigners have said the company behind Edinburgh’s tram project should have heeded advice to segregate cyclists from tram tracks before the network was built.
Ian Maxwell, of the Spokes group, said a Dutch consultant hired by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE) in late 2007 to advise on the transport scheme concluded that Edinburgh’s busiest roads, such as Princes Street and Leith Walk, were wide enough to accommodate separate cycle lanes alongside trams, buses and cars. However, when the first tram tracks were put in place in 2009, the paths were eradicated along Princes Street.
Mr Maxwell spoke out after the death of Zhi Min Soh, a 23-year-old medical student from Malaysia, last week. Her bike wheel got caught in the tram tracks, throwing her under a minibus at the junction of Princes Street and Lothian Road. More than 200 cyclists have reported tram-track related incidents in which wheels have slipped or become stuck.
Mr Maxwell said he had helped to bring Hans van der Stok, the Dutch consultant who worked for Goudappel Coffeng, to Edinburgh in the hope that his expertise in road design would make the streets safer for cyclists. But his suggestion that the safety of cyclists should be a priority was “largely ignored” by TIE.
“It was our idea to bring over Stok, and after his visit, we had a series of meetings with Edinburgh council and TIE, but the end result is that they didn’t take heed of his suggestions,” Mr Maxwell said. “It was very frustrating. The cycle lanes were lost on Princes Street because of the trams.”
Advertisement
An independent inquiry into how the £521 million trams system was developed, chaired by Lord Hardie, will start hearings in September but its remit does not cover safety issues.
David Kluth, director of undergraduate medical teaching at Edinburgh University described Zhi Min Soh as “a talented, thoughtful student,” adding: “We have all lost a bright star of the future.”
A spokeswoman for Edinburgh council said that a safety review was under way after the incident.
