Travelling between the Meadows and King's Buildings is an important route for students and staff working at Edinburgh University and is a major route for children and parents walking and cycling to Sciennes Primary School. It also offers people living in the area a way of getting to the city centre, especially since there will soon be a high-quality cycle route linking The Meadows and George Street.

In 2012, the council spent £650,000 on making a cycle route, known as the 'Quality Bike Corridor'. Unfortunately, that money was wasted on narrow on-road cycle lanes in which drivers can legally park their cars during much of the day, and often illegally park during the rest. Chris Boardman, former sports cyclist and current walking and cycling commissioner for Greater Manchester, has described these kinds of lanes as being "proven to actively make cyclists LESS safe, their only purpose is to look as if you’ve done something helpful without disturbing anyone driving as the imperative" and "possibly THE best ways ever invented for a council to pour money down the drain". In short, while the council claims this is a cycle route, it is effectively nothing of the sort and is not fit for purpose.

Of course, there is an alternative - to provide high-quality, Dutch-style cycle lanes along the route, where people cycling are separated from vehicles. This would involve a combination of narrowing traffic lanes (which would have the added bonus of lowering speeds) and removing parking. As an alternative to removing parking, the streets that form the route could be made one-way and through traffic encouraged to use the parallel A701, leaving enough room for dedicated cycling space and parking. The new cycle lanes must be protected physically, by a raised surface or kerbs.

In short, we demand that a solution is urgently found to have genuinely safe cycling infrastructure on this route, suitable for all ages and abilities.