Parking Action Plan to be considered next year
At last night’s South East Locality meeting the committee considered a demand for double yellow lines to be painted at several places on India Street in the New Town as requested by Councillor Joanna Mowat. Cllr Mowat was reacting to demands from The India Street Association.
There are already double yellow lines to protect the junction at the top where the street meets Darnaway Street, but not at any of the other junctions, where there are only single lines.
Any changes to this would require a Traffic Restriction Order and any changes to loading restrictions etc cannot be considered in isolation.
The committee heard that all of these measures will be dealt with next year in a larger piece of work considering traffic and controlled parking. Shared use parking will be used as one of the ways to improve parking in this and other areas under the Parking Action Plan.
The report states that India Street is a popular way of getting to the city centre on foot. It also used to be a busier route for vehicular traffic until Moray Place was stopped up, preventing traffic finding an alternative to Queen Street.
The council officer explained that the council will deal with these restricting measures in 2019 when it will introduce paid parking on Sundays and visitor parking permits in zones 1 to 8 as part of the implementation of the Parking Action Plan first approved in June 2016. Detailed plans will be prepared but the changes will take about a year to introduce. In June 2016 when the last administration considered implementing the Parking Action Plan they had hoped to finalise it ‘by late 2018’ but it appears that moving to a map based system has meant a delay in introducing the new scheme which the council estimated might raise £900,000 in parking income for the city.
The council will also look at the introduction of crossing points in zones 1 to 8 to improve pedestrian safety.
Cllr Mowat who had raised the matter said : “I think that I am happy at this stage. Issues with parking first raised their head in 2003 when two council candidates stood in the two wards around Stockbridge on the basis of parking matters. In every term since 2007 there have been promises that the Controlled Parking Zone will be put in place. I reserve the right however to bring this back to the committee in June 2019 if nothing has been done.”