An update on floating bus stops
Sadly, there has been some misleading press surrounding the “floating* bus stops”. That favourite word of the media, “controversial”, again! People broadly support schemes to reduce traffic, to make streets safe, and to reduce pollution. Saving lives is not controversial!
The Dundee St scheme aims to enable people to walk and cycle in the area, particularly groups such as families, women, children, older people, and less-confident cyclists. If such groups, e.g. children, are forced to interact with buses anywhere on the route, then that entire route becomes no longer viable for them! Accordingly, for the scheme to have value, people must be separated from buses, and floating* bus stops are a key way to achieve that.
*In the media, the common claim is that “floating bus stops mean that passengers have to cross a cycleway to get on or off a bus”, and there is a conflation of “floating” bus stop types:
- “shared-use bus boarder” (SUBB) – where passengers must board or alight a bus into an active cycleway. This design (rightly) faces a moratorium on its use in England.
- “bus stop bypass” (BSB) – where passengers board or alight a bus onto a large pedestrian island, protected by kerbs. Passengers are then free to cross any cycleway at leisure. They may even cross the carriageway directly, without ever crossing a cycleway! As people not-in-cars are able to communicate and negotiate, interactions are rare. For example, cyclists will temper their speed to allow a pedestrian to cross, or a pedestrian may pause for a moment to let a cyclist pass.
The type of floating bus stop design used in the Dundee St scheme is the “bus stop bypass” and accordingly negative interaction between cyclists and pedestrians should be rare.
When cyclists are given their own space, free from traffic pressures, new, “ordinary”, people are attracted to ride and they are more likely to ride in a benign and sociable style. Similarly, existing cyclists become more “chill”, and do the same.
One should also consider that every return bus journey necessitates crossing a carriageway twice! – campaign organisations would do well to focus their efforts on the real danger of death and injury when crossing a carriageway, or even simply walking along the pavement or waiting at a bus stop!
Now, there is no question that visually-impaired and/or mobility-restricted people could face an increased difficulty in crossing a cycleway compared to the status-quo, and we would never try to dispute that. However, and this is a very big “however”…
However, the Equality Act does not create a hierarchy of protected characteristics and “bus stop bypasses” have both accessibility benefits, and risks, to those within several protected groups. Those benefits and risks must be weighed.
The Equality Act does set a framework for decision-making in this situation, which requires decisions are proportional, balanced, evidence-based, and reasonable. It is unsurprising that real risk of death, and exclusion of whole groups like children riding bikes or users of mobility-aids, must be given significant weight. In short, we don’t throw children under buses. We should not fall into the trap of seeing this as a “cyclists** versus visually-impaired people” culture war.
**cyclists are people too, not some kind of separate species.
By way of example, we must balance population-level health outcomes. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, and an active lifestyle helps prevent it. We can enable that activity when we build it into daily life by creating safe, convenient infrastructure for walking and cycling – exercise that can be sustained by ordinary people – “Build it and they will come!” In contrast, gym sessions are a rather fragile means of exercise, as it’s all too easy to give up.
Further, disabled people themselves very much object to the “appropriation of access conflicts [that] simplifies complex embodiments of disability, drowns out the diversity of disabled voices, and objectifies and simplifies disabled people’s experiences. Such objectification is symptomatic of endemic ableism and the continued medicalisation of disability; a dominant social paradigm in which disabled bodies are objects to be controlled and improved.” Further reading, and includes a section on floating bus stops.
UK Government statutory guidance on floating bus stops provision and design (applies to England only)
Overview
The council are proposing to improve walking, wheeling, and cycling along Dundee Street and Fountainbridge, as well as surrounding streets connecting to the Union Canal.
The changes will be transformative and create safer, more attractive streets for everyone.
The aim is to create:
- walking and street improvements
- a high-quality, direct, cycling route to provide an alternative to the busy and shared Union Canal path
- a connection between the Telfer Subway and the Union Canal via Gibson Terrace, improving connections to the surrounding network from Roseburn, the Canal, the Meadows and beyond
The Dundee St and Fountainbridge consultation is open until the 12 Jan 2026.
Be sure to have your say!
Our thoughts
Things to like:
- We believe this is an excellent and much needed project, to satisfy the huge latent demand for active travel in the area. It will help pupils, parents and carers from Boroughmuir High School and the other local schools to travel safely and independently. In addition, many families from James Gillespie’s Primary, and High, schools travel to Fountainpark for leisure activities and parties.
- Extends the already excellent Dalry park to the Roseburn path cycle/walking routes, already widely used by families.
- The scheme provides suitable, convenient, and safe infrastructure, enabling increasing numbers of people to choose to walk, wheel and cycle – with associated physical- and mental health benefits, reducing the burden on the health services, as well as making people happier
- Many enhancements* for pedestrians and mobility-aid users, such as wider footways, build-outs, reduced crossing distances, continuous footway crossings, and new signalised crossings
- Protected, direct, contiguous, and convenient cycle lanes
- The use of floating bus stops throughout (sometimes called bus stop bypasses) that are proven, effective, safe, and successfully in use in many cities in the UK and beyond
- Reduced traffic dominance (and its associated noise, pollution, and danger) on Dundee st and the surrounding areas
- Semi-low-traffic** neighbourhoods for the Harrison park, Dundee Terrace, and the “Brysons” area. Formed of “modal filters” (strategic closures to through-traffic)
*Despite what certain local “walking campaign” groups may claim, pavement widths are not meaningfully reduced anywhere, and like all NIMBY organisations, they offer no viable alternatives
**See section on the low-traffic neighbourhood below
Things that could be improved
- The signalised junction at Gardeners Crescent and Fountainbridge gives little priority to walkers and cyclists, and accordingly there will be long wait times. Genuine priority to active modes would be given if a Dutch-style roundabout were implemented, with cycle- and zebra-crossings around the outside, and motor traffic giving way at the crossings (see picture below)
- The “semi” low-traffic neighbourhoods for the Harrison park, Dundee Terrace and the “Brysons” area should be strengthened to remove through-traffic from Dundee Terrace, West Bryson Rd, and Harrison Rd. This would have the benefit of removing the need for expensive, over-engineered, segregated cycleway at the junction of Harrison Gardens and Harrison Road. It would also put the council in a stronger negotiating position when it comes to detractors
- The bidirectional cycleway outside Telfer subway should be extended along the length of the Fountainpark complex. There is plenty of space for it, and cyclists will use the proposed unidirectional lane in both directions anyway to access the destinations at the retail/entertainment park. For example, a family travelling on bikes from Gravity at the East end of the leisure park will not want to cross Dundee St twice to get to the Telfer subway and beyond – it would be better if they could travel westbound along the North side of Dundee St to do this.
- Cycle access needs to be maintained between Gilmore Park (canal access) and the Moda residential development via the pedestrian crossing, as this is a popular route between the canal and Haymarket (via Melvin Walk, Morrison Crescent, and Dalry colonies, see picture below)
- The scheme would benefit from street trees, more greenery, and “nature corridors” throughout
- Benches and seating are required, spaced at convenient intervals along the length. Benches are key to enabling elderly and reduced-mobility people to walk to places, as it allows them to break the journey with rests, and reduces fear of being left too tired to continue
- Bollards should be included on all junction corners and on any large pavement areas to prevent intrusion by corner-cutting and pavement parkers
Some further detailed comments
- A bidirectional cycle crossing of Fountainbridge to access Lochrin Square and Port Hamilton directly from the canal, would be better, to avoid making a two-stage crossing of the junction and subsequent long wait times (see picture below)
- The two-stage right turn introduced for cyclists turning from Dundee Street to Henderson Terrace does not seem to be intuitive and could be improved
- A steeply-ramped raised-table at the access for the West Approach Rd from Dundee St is required to slow vehicle speeds right down at this dangerous crossing
- The bidirectional cycleways appear to be substandard width (recommended minimum is 3.0m) at the following locations and should be widened:
- Ashley Dr and Ogilvie Tce (2.0m)
- Harrison Gdns / Harrison Rd junction (2.0m)
- Dundee St between Telfer subway and Gibson Tce (2.5m)
- The unidirectional cycleways should be widened out to at least 2.0m – on a high-quality cycleway it should be possible for a child to cycle comfortably alongside their parent/carer
- Continuous-footway should be provided at the following locations, which are all lightly-used service roads:
- across the Port Hamilton entrance near Chambers Buildings
- across the driveway entrance to the Fountainbridge telephone exchange
- The Southbound contraflow for cyclists separator at Grove St should be made wider and more substantial by narrowing the carriageway. Semi-permanent “lane defenders” are not appropriate for the purpose
- There needs to be more breaks in the lane-defenders along Dundee St, to allow entry and exit from the cycle lanes to access/return to/from the shops, flats, and businesses (particularly outside Fountainpark on the North side)
- A right turn out of Telfer subway onto Dundee St heading West, via the toucan crossing, needs to be accommodated
- The parallel crossing over Ashley Terrace (near a primary school) should be raised to reduce vehicle speeds and encourage compliance
