Let's join up the inner-tube map!

This is my response to Edinburgh council's survey on its local transport strategy:

The plan should do more to provide specific facilities for cycling, particularly for those people who are perhaps too nervous to cycle on busy roads.  The "issues" document says very little about cycling per se, except as an adjunct to other policies.  For example, it posits that cyclists will benefit from lower speed limits on cars but this is not the same as providing specific support for cycling.

Compare Boris Johnson's recent announcement for a network of cycle routes in London with the unconnected, patchwork, nature of current cycle routes in Edinburgh.

I would like to see the council "join up the inner tube map", for example by designating certain quiet residential streets as "cyclist priority routes".  These streets would be "access-only" for motor vehicles (i.e. for the people who live on the street) but through routes for cyclists.  They would have good quality surfaces (no cobbles or potholes!) and would form a network of routes around the city that even children could use.  They might be supplemented by light-controlled crossings where the routes cross busier roads.

An initiative along these lines could really make cycling in the city far more attractive.