Alistair Shepherd (@alistairshepherd.uk)

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 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. https://threadinburgh.scot/2026/06/01/rails-to-trails-the-thread-about-how-north-edinburgh-got-its-cycle-paths/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=jetpack_social