History of Edinburgh the meantime the Old Town continued to decay into an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates, and was practically segregated socially from the rest of the city. This was especially true where the sub-division of tenements offered the cheapest lodgings in narrow alleyways that formed the backdrop to the infamous 'West Port Murders' of Burke and Hare. In 1865 Alexander Smith wrote of one of the poorest districts, The Cowgate is the Irish portion of the city. Edinburgh leaps over it with bridges: the inhabitants are morally and geographically the lower orders. They keep to their own quarters,
Transport in Edinburgh the Straiton and Dreghorn junctions on the Edinburgh City Bypass. The Newbridge Roundabout on the A8 western approach to the city and the Gogar Roundabout close to Edinburgh Park are other bottlenecks in the west of the city which suffer from congestion. The office and business developments at Edinburgh Park themselves generate a large amount of traffic in that part of the city, with the new Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters opening at Gogarburn ensuring that upwards of 20,000 people now work in this area. In the city centre itself, narrow, cobbled and winding streets in the Old Town as