Maybury/Craigs Road Junction and Turnhouse Road

Long-awaited work at the Maybury/Craigs Road junction has finally begun, but the knock-on effects have been huge.

The works have meant the junction is closed to traffic joining Maybury Road from the new West Craigs development, resulting in all traffic being redirected onto Turnhouse Road. The traffic pressure here had already been increasing for months, but residents have now been in touch with the team saying they've had to wait up to 40 minutes to get through the lights at the Maybury junction.

Local Lib Dem councillor said, "Originally, this issue was made worse by the closure of the right hand turn onto Glasgow Road, meaning all traffic off Turnhouse Road had to turn left, go all the way up to the East Craigs roundabout and, if you wanted to go onto Glasgow Road, come all the way back down again. This meant passing through the roadworks causing the diversion twice, and increased traffic on Craigs Road and North Gyle Terrace as people tried to escape the jams.

"More frighteningly, some people simply chose to ignore the closure, which resulted in several very close misses as cars went through the lights as pedestrians were crossing the road. 

“I'm so glad that we managed to get the right-hand turn reinstated, to get rid of that immediate safety risk, but I know the traffic problems have not gone away.

"Council officers are continuing to monitor the traffic. The challenge is that the lights at the junction are an older system, meaning they can't be adjusted as much as newer ones. If sufficient changes cannot be made on these older lights, new ones may have to be installed. That decision will have to be balanced against the fact that, if there were to be new lights, it would take work to install them - and that would have further traffic impacts while it took place.”

Cammo Road Closure

The works at Craigs Road, and the traffic pressure on Turnhouse Road, have left Cammo Road as the only other route into and out of West Craigs.

Residents were rightly concerned to discover last week that ‘Road Closed’ signs had been laid out one evening, with no indication of how long for or for what reason. 

Ed said, "It turned out that BT had closed the road overnight to repair a defective manhole cover. They had been supposed to do the work the week before.

“The most important thing though, is that the road was back open again the following morning, and there are no further closures planned.”