"One of the best cycling commutes you can imagine in a city," is how one cyclist described the route he takes from Granton all the way to Hermiston Gait "every day".
“The weather has to be a hurricane for me not to,” he added.
Around 600,000 active travel journeys are made on the Roseburn Path each year, most of these by bike. Among these cyclists is Dr Mark Hartl, a resident in Granton, one of the developing areas that a proposed new North-South tramline is designed to serve.
But, though he might benefit from the connection, Hartl is more concerned with defending the path along which it has been proposed the tram might run. “It would be a real retrograde step if that path was diminished in any way,” he said.
Read more:
- Edinburgh Trams £2bn expansion: new routes and costs
- Edinburgh tram routes: cost, journey times and comparison
- Dean Bridge or Roseburn Path - are Edinburgh tram plans a choice?
The Roseburn Path is part of a much wider network of railway-line paths and other off-road routes that web across Edinburgh, connecting with others like the Telford Path, the Innocent Railway, the Union Canal, the Water of Leith path. Getting onto these routes by bike feels like passing into an alternate travel universe, away from the traffic and the noise.
It is also, controversially, the City of Edinburgh Council’s preferred route north from the centre for its next tram phase, currently under consultation. The plan, if pushed forward, would be to put a narrower version of the cycle and walkway alongside the tram route. Whilst there is an alternative on-road route being put forward, via Orchard Brae, it is much more costly.
One of Hartl’s concerns is that if the path is narrowed to allow it run alongside the tram route, it will create more conflict between users. “You would have a situation, like at the Union Canal, where there is conflict between cyclists and pedestrians because there's very little space. I mean, it's manageable, but if it's a busy day, it's difficult for everyone.”
The current plan, which would involve running a battery-powered tram down a single track, would mean that 93% of the route would be a minimum of three metres wide, the City of Edinburgh standard for a shared-use cycle path.
But there are set to be two pinch points along the route, one at Telford Road Bridge, would see it shrinks down to just 2.17m over a stretch of 24m. The other, on the south side of the Roseburn Terrace Bridge, will narrow the path down to two metres - though it's thought that on this latter stretch it may be possible, with some mitigations, to keep the three-metre width.
“There's so much green space,” Hartl described, “and trees, the wildlife they support and the uplifting feeling of being away from the road, away from noise and fumes. I grew up in a big city, and there's lots of cycle paths next to the road, and they're secure, and they're fine, but they're still on the road, and you're still being impacted by the proximity to moving cars. But going through the Roseburn Path is like being in the country.”
How a tram could wreck Edinburgh cycle route, the Roseburn Path
This is a route that was, he said, instrumental in allowing him to give up running a car. “I moved to Edinburgh in 2017. I had an old car, too expensive to fix at the MOT. I saw these cycle paths that go from Granton to where I work in Hermiston, and I thought, I'm going to try and give up the car and see how it goes for cycling.
"I had cycled a lot before, when I was younger, and then for about 20 years, I didn't because of kids and other things. So, I was starting cycling again, and I wasn't sure whether I was up to it or not, but those cycle paths made the difference to me to be able to even consider it.”
A new connecting link joining the Roseburn Path to the Union Canal has even improved his commute so that it is "offroad now all the way from Granton Square, near where I live, to Hermiston - amazing, 16km, all offroad”.
Hartl is not someone who stays away from the road out of fear. “If I can, I do avoid cycling on the road, although, growing up in Vienna, in a big city, it doesn't really frighten me, but it's just unpleasant. It stinks. You've got to have your wits about you all the time, and it is potentially dangerous, not just because of the cars, but because the roads here in Edinburgh are so bad. There are potholes everywhere, some of them a real danger to cyclists.”
Hartl is one of many cyclists who have been critical of the proposed route. One of Scotland's most famous cyclists, the round-the-world record holder, Mark Beaumont, came out against it.
Another is Euan Baxter, the man behind the Save the Roseburn Path campaign, a long-term user of the route, who described to me how the path was how he got into cycling in the city. “At one point,” he said, “I lived at one end and my girlfriend, now my wife, lived at the other. It connected us.”
For some, the virtue of the current route is that it’s away from the dangers posed by cars – and feels like a relatively safe space. Vicki Hawkins, also a campaigner for Save the Roseburn Path, for instance, described herself as “an underconfident cyclist” and noted how important the path was for children and young people, including her sons.
“For us,” she said, “it’s a fantastic network to get from where we live to Ainslie Park Leisure Centre for swimming several times a week. It means that he, as a teenager can ride independently and I’m not worried as a parent. So that gives him independence. It’s good for his mental health, his physical health. I wouldn’t be comfortable with him cycling to Ainslie Park on the roads. As a parent it would be like, ‘No we’re taking the bus.’”
It's a concern that others, including myself, share. A 2025 report by Sustrans, found that the most important factor in getting more residents to cycle is the provision of more “traffic free cycle paths away from roads, like through parks or along waterways”.
But, with a predicted cost of £650-850 million, the alternative Orchard Brae route comes in at far more than the £350-480m estimated for the Roseburn Path, a price difference partly due to the work needed to reinforce the Dean Bridge, and also because the track will have to be embedded and utilities under the street moved.
Meanwhile, not all cyclists are entirely against the proposal. In fact, many are not. Ian Maxwell, speaking for the Lothian cycle campaign. Spokes, said: “Spokes has both concerns, and support in terms of the tram. I think one has to look at the Roseburn path in that context.”
The campaign, he says, is looking at the plan, not only in terms of how it alters the Roseburm walking and cycling route, but also within the wider picture for transport and cyclists in Edinburgh as a whole. “We give cautious support,” he said, “overall to the tram, if further things can be considered.”
“Under this proposed plan,” he said, “access to that corridor would be maintained, but it would be far less pleasant than it is at the moment. If they were proposing to close it off to walkers and cyclists completely, then we would oppose that.
Spokes, Maxwell said, welcomes the "compromise" that there will be “only a single track running and that it will be battery powered” - which is something that campaigners and councillors pushed for earlier this year.
“That does leave space,” he observed, “for people to continue to walk and cycle along the path. It won't be the same as the Roseburn Path at the moment, but with that compromise, and with other things that we would like to see in the tram design Spokes would support it. If you can implement a properly designed tram system covering this whole corridor that we're talking about, that will improve the transport mix.”
Spokes' draft submission for the consultation notes that the "aim of the tram is to reduce car traffic" and that "if successful, this is a huge benefit to walking and cycling, as well as its benefits in terms of congestion, public health and climate".
But it urges that the project should be accompanied by complementary measures to further encourage use of public transport and active travel, "bus gates and congestion charging".
Maxwell acknowledged that many in the cycling community are upset by the plan. “There will be a lot of cyclists who will deeply regret losing the Roseburn path as a sort of main corridor. But when the legislation for trams first went through, Roseburn was part of the options that they were talking about. Back then, we supported the use of Roseburn, as long as the cycle access to that corridor was maintained. We consulted our membership.
“Edinburgh," Maxwell said, "has got the potential to be a far better sustainable Transport city than it is at the moment. That's why, at Spokes, we are looking at that wider picture. And that's why we're disappointed that this consultation doesn't look doesn't take this wider look. If all you're looking at is how do I get a tram from A to B? You're not really addressing the whole issue.”
Share