Edward Tissiman

Edward Tissiman

@edtiss.bsky.social

From Forres. Live in Edinburgh. Finished the Munros in 2021. Care about cycling and other stuff. https://medium.com/@edward.tissiman

702 followers112 following270 posts

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Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Up to 60% of car commutes to, from and within Edinburgh could be replaced by walking, cycling and public transport - based on commute distances and the behaviour of neighbours:

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Between 2021 and 2025, around 2 million cyclists passed the floating bus stops on Leith Street, Edinburgh, and around 5 million bus passengers boarded or alighted here. No injuries have been recorded. Over the same period, drivers injured around 600 Edinburgh pedestrians, killing 16.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Sat for a coffee at Elm Row and counted the traffic for 15 minutes: 343 pedestrians 52 cyclists 2 cars Remind me why we’ve turned this public square into a car park? This is probably the best connected retail location in Scotland - trams, buses, walkable, busy cycle lane. Why ruin it?

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Could be glorious. Instead, 22 cars parked for free, generating next to no customers and getting in the way of disabled parking and commercial loading. All but one of these cars was parked illegally anyway.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

An insight into cycling trends - the introduction of Voi bikes has added about 500 additional cyclists per day to Leith Walk; the tram closure added another 250 at the peak. The Voi effect is much larger at the weekend, while the inverse is true for the tram.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

This makes an assumption that otherwise, 2026 would have exactly followed 2025. I think that's reasonable given the pattern in the last two years.

Edward Tissiman reposted

Mark McIntyre
@markjmcintyre.bsky.social

There's something amazing about being in a peloton of 40+ bikes on the cycle lane heading home. Every driver at the front of a queue of side-street traffic... every person peering out of a bus window... every passer-by gets the message: "Oh wow, yeah, people are using this stuff". Never gets old.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Can confirm that Braid Road, and the rest of the estate, is back to being a car traffic sewer. Took me 3x as long to get through it, *as a cyclist*. 4x close passes 2x drivers ignoring parallel crossing 2x wrong way down Braidburn Terrace 1x use of pavement as carriageway

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Demand for spaces in cycle hangars in Edinburgh has increased by 2,700 (50%) in the last 12 months. After adjusting for duplication across waiting lists, I estimate that around 7,000 people currently want a spot in one - but Edinburgh Council only provide 1,500 spaces. rpubs.com/edtiss/hangars

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Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Add this to the very long list of things the council should resolve before it thinks about more trams - hangars are self-funded, deliver more revenue than parking spaces, and latent demand for them is likely well over 10,000 (assuming that 6% of flat dwellers would want a spot).

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Demand for spaces in cycle hangars in Edinburgh has increased by 2,700 (50%) in the last 12 months. After adjusting for duplication across waiting lists, I estimate that around 7,000 people currently want a spot in one - but Edinburgh Council only provide 1,500 spaces. rpubs.com/edtiss/hangars

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

The most popular hangar location is Rossie Place near Easter Road, with over 100 people on the waiting list. Across Morningside, 6% of flat dwellers have requested a spot. There are now 277 hangars across Edinburgh - to satisfy *current* demand would require an additional 938.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

This comment from Reddit demonstrates why Edinburgh needs to tow vehicles rather than just ticket them. These are the vans blocking pedestrian crossings, cycle lanes, bus lanes, bus stops, disabled parking… Why do we allow such rampant rule breakers to negotiate a penalty? Tow them.

Edward Tissiman reposted

Ella
@ellatasm.bsky.social

I've sent a draft petition to Edinburgh Council asking it to: *do everything it can to investigate and put in place measures to temporarily mend or brace the bridge or hire a replacement, while a longer term solution is sorted out.* May get rejected as council already working on the issue.

Edward Tissiman reposted

Andrew Heald
@andyheald.bsky.social

Replying to @ellatasm.bsky.social

Thanks for sharing - this bridge has failed with <20% of its designed life span. So.. Who supplied & built it ? Is their warranty &/or are they still approved suppliers ? Why has routine inspection process failed ? Are there are other similar bridges to be checked ? Etc @spurtle.bsky.social

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Just smashed through this record again with 3,036 cyclists on Friday, 14th August.

Edward Tissiman@edtiss.bsky.social

Yet another all-time record set on the Leith Walk cycle lane - 2,582 cyclists on 22nd July 2026. I suspect much of the surge this year is due to the brilliant success of Voi hire e-bikes. @edinburghminute.com @edi.bike @spokes.org.uk @edinreporter.bsky.social

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Blessed be the Lothian Buses drivers who stop at Zebra Crossings on George Street during the Princes Street closure. Can we nominate them for a collective MBE, a bit like Malta during the war?

Edward Tissiman reposted

Simon Christie
@thebonnieloon.bsky.social

North Bridge/Nicolson St. Pedestrians spilling out onto the road and a "cyclists dismount and use footpath" while there are four lanes of road, two of which are full of parked wankpanzers blocking buses 🫠

Edward Tissiman reposted

Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵
@threadinburgh.scot

I'm a firm believer that if your "straightforward", "simple" street layout requires a 1 minute instructional video to try and explain what the ambiguous signs and all that paint on the road wants you to do, it's not nearly as straightforward and simple as you imagine it is.

The City of Edinburgh Council@edinburghcouncil.bsky.social

Two stage right turns for cyclists have been introduced on Summerhall. This will make it safer and easier for cyclists to turn right onto Hope Park Terrace and from the opposite direction on Summerhall, right onto Melville Drive.

Edward Tissiman reposted

Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵
@threadinburgh.scot

If I read this right, "we've shut the bus stops for eight years and noticed nobody has been using them in this period. There's clearly no observed demand so it is a clever, big-brain decision on our part not to reinstate them". Or am I missing something?

Iain Owenson@angrycyclist.bsky.social

Well done CEC, another own goal. Not only have you failed to deliver any active travel improvements (contradicting your own circulation plan), somehow you manage to make things worse for bus passengers www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/no-plan...

edinburghnews.scotsman.comNo plans to reinstate bus stops on North Bridge when route reopens fully to trafficThe historic bridge is set to fully reopen to traffic and pedestrians by the end of July
Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Leith Walk Voi-d at 8.30am. There is massive latent demand for cycling in Edinburgh, suppressed by dangerous driving, a lack of secure storage, and crowded out by excellent public transport provision. And with the tram out of action and some cycle infrastructure in place - here it is.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Closest one for a while. Junction of Greenside Row and Leith Street, cut straight into me, blasted horn after nearly knocking me over. SO23 KZZ, have photo of the driver.

Edward Tissiman reposted

Ella
@ellatasm.bsky.social

Has anyone else noticed this perma-puddle on Trinity Path? Edinburgh. As far as i remember, there has always been a wee burn to the edge of the path, with a puddle after rain. But these days the water feature is always there -even in drought times. @spokes.org.uk ?

Edward Tissiman reposted

Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵
@threadinburgh.scot

Rails to Trails: the thread about how North Edinburgh got its cycle paths On this day, 40 years ago, a councillor cut the ceremonial ribbon and opened a section of cycle path in north Edinburgh. This was a rather special bit of cycle path however as it hadn't been built by the council. It was…

threadinburgh.scotRails to Trails: the thread about how North Edinburgh got its cycle pathsOn this day, 40 years ago, a councillor cut the ceremonial ribbon and opened a section of cycle path in north Edinburgh. This was a rather special bit of cycle path however as it hadn't been built by the council. It was built by direct citizen action: over the course of a single week it had been reclaimed from the trackbed of an old railway a group of volunteers. Wind the clock forward four decades and from these humble beginnings has grown a network of almost 20km (12 miles) of such paths in this part of the city. There's a good chance that you've cycled, walked, jogged or otherwise explored them. The credit for this their creation sits almost entirely with the relentless (and often thankless) hard work of a single, slightly anarchic organisation. This thread is the story of how the North Edinburgh Path Network came to be.
Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

New all-time record set on the Leith Walk cycle lane - 2,568 cyclists on 30th April, 2026. There has been another surge in cycling this spring after slow growth in 2025, and last year's record has already been broken 10 times.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

Context: this cycle lane has been in place since 2019 - the recent surge is due to new lanes along the rest of Leith Walk. Based on observation, around 2/3rd of Leith Walk cyclists pass the counter site, so the "real" record is likely around 3,750.

Edward Tissiman
@edtiss.bsky.social

With thousands of cyclists now using Leith Walk every day, it does suggest that the recent and dramatic fall in *pedestrian* casualties might be related to the introduction of this active travel infrastructure. bsky.app/profile/edti...

Edward Tissiman@edtiss.bsky.social

There is a lot of chat about the danger posed by the introduction of cycle lanes and floating bus stops on Leith Walk from 2021 onward. Pedestrian casualties, Leith Walk, by year: 2015: 15 2016: 13 2017: 9 2018: 10 2019: 12 (including two fatalities) 2020: 3 2021: 0 2022: 2 2023: 0 2024: 2