Nov Traffic Count: bikes up, but more if new infra

The biannual Spokes city-centre and Porty traffic counts, on Tuesday 11 November found bikes up almost everywhere compared to November 2023 – though mostly not by large amounts. In the city centre morning rush hour bikes were up 4% from 365 to 381, and at lunchtime up 17% from 156 to 183. In Porty, totalling morning and lunchtime, bike numbers were up a huge 36%, albeit from the low base of 70, to 95.

Whilst it is great to see numbers rising at our traditional city centre on-road count locations,* it is notable that Cycling Scotland’s automatic counters have found much greater increases in bike numbers at locations where new bike infrastructure is in place – see below.

*Count arrangements: The four Spokes city centre counts are northbound and southbound at Lothian Road and Forrest Road, whilst Spokes Porty counts both directions in Brighton Place. For comparability, counts are always at the same times of day, same day of the week, and same times of year (May and November). However, they are of course only snapshots on one particular day, and could be affected by one-off factors such as roadworks.

Covid notes: Graphs below begin in November 2020, which was our first Covid count. Lunchtime counts only began in 2021, so there is no November 2020 lunchtime count. Covid lockdown restrictions were largely removed by August 2021.

Overall, due to changes in the numbers of other vehicles (see below) bikes actually fell slightly from 14.8% of all vehicles to 14.4% in the city centre morning counts; but rose more significantly from 8.4% to 10.2% at lunchtime.

As usual, top scoring bike spot was Forrest Road northbound at 8-9am, where bikes comprised 22.5% of all vehicles. Lowest bike count was Lothian Road southbound at 8-9am, though even here bikes formed 7.9% of all vehicles.

New bike infrastructure

As mentioned above, several locations with newish bike infrastructure have recorded much greater rises in bike trips than the more modest increases in our city centre onroad counts.

Very significant rises have been recorded by Cycling Scotland’s automatic counters, at locations with relatively recent cycle infrastructure, during June-August 2024 as compared to the same period in 2023. At Picardy Place, where the Leith Walk and CCWEL routes meet, bike trips over the 3 months were up 31%, from 124987 to 163678. At the junction of Gilmerton Road and The Pillars Path, where two cycle routes now meet, trips were up 169% from the relatively low 2023 base figure of 5451, to 14670 in 2024.

Edward Tissiman has graphed the data from the Picardy Place (Omni Centre) automatic counter since its installation in 2021. This very clearly demonstrates the growing impact of new cycle infrastructure – the Leith Street cycle lane, the subsequent Leith Walk lanes and then the connection to CCWEL at York Place. Indeed, total Picardy Place cycle movements are even greater than shown, since the location of the counter does not capture all trips.

Whilst comparisons with our one-day, one-hour snapshot counts cannot be definitive, it is hard not to conclude that the infrastructure changes, are primary reasons why bike increases at the Omni path far outstrip those in our onroad traffic counts. An additional explanation could be an increase in delivery bikes, primarily at times of day not covered by our rush-hour count.

It will be interesting to see how CCWEL usage performs in the coming months and years.

Northbound cars up 8-9am; down 12.30-13.30

Northbound car numbers in our city centre morning counts rose considerably (from 715 cars to 806) but fell by a similar amount at lunchtime (from 491 to 405). Southbound numbers, however, varied little from last year. Porty found car numbers rising, though not hugely, both morning and lunchtime.

We can only speculate why citybound car numbers rose very significantly in the morning rush hour, and then fell by a similar large amount at lunchtime. One possibility is a growing post-covid move away from home-working, with more people travelling to, and working a full day at, city centre businesses.

The Low Emission Zone

Our city centre count locations are both within the LEZ. Whilst the main aim of the LEZ is to reduce pollution, it has also been cited in the Council as a measure which will help towards their immensely tough 2030 traffic reduction target.

In the 2-year (or so) lead up to LEZ enforcement there were hints that LEZ worries amongst drivers were having an impact on city centre traffic numbers. However, the growing number of city-bound cars in our latest count now suggests that the reality of the LEZ – for which enforcement began between our 2023 and 2024 counts – is not reducing total car numbers, even if it is keeping out the most polluting vehicles.

Single occupancy

There was very little change in single occupancy, with 75.9% of morning cars having only one occupant, and 70.3% at lunchtime, figures almost identical to our November 2023 count.

Single-occupancy means a huge area of valuable streetspace occupied to move just one person. Even a full car is of course space-inefficient compared to bus, bike or walk, but some three-quarters of all private vehicles in our counts were the most space-inefficient of all, with just one occupant.

An interesting point is the number of people travelling solo citybound in the rush hour. We estimate, at our count points, this was around 895 people (261 by bike; 634 alone in a car) so cyclists comprised 29% of those travelling solo, whilst occupying a far, far lower amount of roadspace.

Traffic Reduction policies – Council and Government

Covid made a massive change to travel patterns, including an initial huge decline in morning bike, car and bus commuter travel, although car trips fell proportionately least – probably because some commuters who could not work from home transferred from bus to car, to isolate themselves from other people.

It is disappointing that both the Council and the Scottish Government did little to build on the initial big fall in car use during Covid, and allowed it to recover significantly, despite Edinburgh’s ‘target’ to reduce car-km 30% by 2030, and the Scottish Government’s ‘commitment’ to reduce car-km 20% by 2030. Indeed the Scottish Government delayed publishing its draft car-km reduction plan for a year or so until January 2022, explicitely to allow car numbers to recover – and the final car reduction ‘route map’ has still not appeared by November 2024!

Edinburgh’s policies to meet its exacting 2030 target were in some respects bold, but delivery is badly lacking. For example, the radical ‘Future Streets‘ proposal to remove through private motor traffic from the city centre, through multiple modal filters, originally expected in one or two years, is delayed to an unknown date [pages 13-16 here] whilst even the very modest initial step of making Cowgate one-way has not been implemented. The Council’s top measure to meet its traffic reduction target is through massively improved bus conditions on main corridors: but the long-debated proposal for 7-7-7 bus lanes is now to be subject to an 18-month experiment [page 13 here], on one route only (#44, Balerno to Musselburgh). And, Workplace Parking Levy proposals have been put on ice, let alone the wider premises parking levy that would make the biggest difference (though a wider levy, to include customer parking at car-based destinations, would need new powers for the Council from the Scottish Government). Earlier suggestions of some form of road user charging have also disappeared from sight.

Portobello count

Spokes Porty now does a traffic count in Brighton Place at the same times as our City Centre counts. See ‘Resources’ below for full data.

The November Porty bike count was its highest ever, higher even than its summer (May) count.

Compared to last November, bikes were up from 70 to 95, with rises both morning and lunchtime. Despite car numbers also rising (from 598 to 633) and a small rise in commercial vehicles, bikes as a percent of all vehicles rose from 8.2% to 10.2%. The Porty counts between May 2023 and 2024 also found increased bike numbers, so it looks a hopeful trend.

Brighton Place totals 8-9am + 1230-1330	May 23	Nov 23	May 24	Nov 24
Bikes	75	70	84	95
Commercial (includes bus & taxi)	185	189	165	207
Cars	600	598	642	633
Bike % of all vehicles	8.7%	8.2%	9.4%	10.2%

Resources …

• Full count data are here. See also our count data page for earlier surveys, trends and reports.
• Please retweet our tweet & bluesky of the count
• Covid brought major changes in commuting patterns, as many people began working from home, and many bus/rail users are thought to have changed to car. This early major change, and its impact on numbers and trends at that time, which may still be influencing traffic patterns to some extent, was discussed in our count article of November 2020.