Edinburgh traffic: How Valencia's Turia Gardens changed my mind about reducing cars in the capital – Stephen Jardine

Stephen Jardine’s recent trip to Valencia was the final nail in the coffin of his opposition to every attempt to limit car traffic in Edinburgh

They say travel broadens the mind. It also makes you revisit old assumptions. Last week, I was in Europe’s Green Capital 2024 and received a startling vision of what can be achieved, if you have the guts.

Half a century ago, a major flood led to the re-routing of the river through the centre of Valencia. Spain’s third-biggest city planned to use the space for a super highway through the centre but residents rose up protest demanding it should instead be turned into a park.

They triumphed and the result is the Turia Gardens, a 9km-long green lung snaking through the heart of the city. That provided the catalyst for a whole host of other changes. Traffic is now severely limited with people instead using the metro, trams, buses or an incredible 40km network of bike paths. All this in a city just twice the size of Edinburgh.

Watching the city ebb and flow made me revisit some old ghosts. Twenty years ago, Edinburgh was considering congestion charging. On the eve of the public referendum, I dragged one of the council leaders around the city for a newspaper column and he was roundly abused by a taxi driver and just about everyone we met. The scheme failed and was dropped.

A most congested city

Looking back, it was heavily flawed but at least it was trying to do something. Having opposed all attempts to limit traffic down the years, I’ve now changed my opinion and visiting Valencia was the final nail in the coffin for the status quo.

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A view of part of Turia Gardens in Valencia, Spain's third-biggest city (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Trying to get people out of their cars in a historic place like Edinburgh isn’t easy. That is why it’s one of the most congested cities in the UK. How else do we move around with no metro and only a limited tram system? That comes down to decades of under investment where we prevaricated while others were brave and ambitious. Valencia is about to cover the lines into the railway station with another new park. We’re arguing about the tram going to Granton. That is why we keep missing our climate targets.

Look at Edinburgh’s failed bike-hire scheme. Scotland’s capital is one of the few major cities without this option because the way it was set up in 2019 was bound to fail, as it did three years later. Finally, it’s set to return and hopefully this time lessons have been learned.

A historic city with a future

Even the tram feels like one of those tiny tourists trains you see being driven around city centres to amuse the kids. In Valencia, a £10 card gave me free access to all museums and public transport for a day. In Edinburgh, every time you board a tram there will be a visitor heading in the wrong direction, utterly confused about how to buy a ticket.

Thankfully Edinburgh is now heading in the right direction with the low-emissions zone and city-centre pedestrianisation coming our way, but there’s still so much more to do to make this a place with as much future as past.

It’s not enough to be bursting with amazing history unless we want to just become a historic theme park. Bold innovation long ago made Edinburgh the city it is today. Now we need that same ambition to ensure it can compete on the world stage in the future.