The latest Walking and Cycling Index reveals that walking in Edinburgh prevents 1,067 serious long-term health conditions every year. The physical health benefits are clear, but is walking as accessible to all as we may think? In this video, Edinburgh resident Annie explains the realities of using walking as transport in a major city.
The Walking and Cycling Index is the biggest assessment of walking, wheeling and cycling in urban areas in the UK and Ireland. It is delivered by Sustrans in collaboration with 23 cities and urban areas. Each city reports on the progress made towards making walking, wheeling and cycling more attractive, everyday ways to travel.
You can read the 2023 Walking and Cycling Index report for Edinburgh here: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/walking-cycling-index/edinburgh
My name’s Annie I’ve lived in edenburgh since about 2009 and I’ve lived in gorgi or Del for the last 10 years or so I walk probably most days is very much my preferred form of Transport mostly probably because I’m visually impaired so I can’t drive so walking combined
With buses is my main way of getting about but I also really like walking because I like being outside being in the weather being in the community seeing what’s going on and getting to like explore places that I wouldn’t otherwise maybe have noticed walking also allows me to access most
Places that I need to get to on dayto day um occasionally I’ll need to get a bus or a taxi or something to get to you know the odd place but most of the things like shops doctors um places that I’m going to go socially I can walk to
Um either cuz they’re very local or just because is quite walkable in general um and because we have quite good buses I can always jump on a bus on the way back if I want to as well I do come across sort of some barriers in terms of being
Able to walk safely and confidently especially because I’m visually impaired the worst one for me is people parked on the payment cuz then I have to walk either quite sometimes quite far out into the road if people are parked sort of halfway on I can have to walk quite
Far out into the road sometimes on you know the wrong side of the road it’s just doesn’t feel very safe at all I think walking would be sign ific anly easier if we had slightly wider Pavements uh I know that’s a challenge cuz we’re in an old city that’s not necessarily practical everywhere
Obviously it’s it’s incredibly important to prioritize non-car travel for environmental reasons and that that’s also very important because we need to have a future but alongside that we shouldn’t lose the fact that walking needs to be accessible to everybody and we shouldn’t be making that difficult for pedestrians particularly elderly and disabled pedestrians