CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

Summerhall and Bikes

(26 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
  • Latest reply from chdot

No tags yet.


  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    I went to Summerhall after work last night for a bit of performance art (Freeze! is pretty good - strays towards some artistic pretension occasionally, but manages to drag it back with a bit of humour every now and then, and what he can do with gravity when balancing rocks is stunning. Plus, given Barney's is brewed there you can get it on tap, and Tony Singh has a wee stall selling Indian snacks)...

    Where was I?

    Oh yes, I went to Summerhall after work last night, and the number of bikes parked on every coneivable bit of railing outside was positively Dutch. It was fab (I was mainly thinking so because there was just enough space for my bike, though I obviously would have preferred there to be parking undercover and off the street, but you can't have everything).

    Not sure there's going to be quite the same amount of bikes, nor parking available, at the Pleasance, where I'm going after work tomorrow (Blam! - I'm now working through shows with exclamation marks in their titles) but we'll see.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. PS
    Member

    Fewer railings, fo' sho', at the Pleasance, but the Sports Centre bit has lots of sheffield stands outside and you used to be able to open the secure bike parking bit and put your bike in there if you had long arms (which you do).

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    +1 for the sports centre parking.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. Vez
    Member

    I do some work for Summerhall and forwarded on the info (from this forum) about the Commonwealth Games 'legacy' cycle racks to t'management. They successfully applied and there are now 2 in the Summerhall courtyard - one in the main courtyard (turn right before the pub) and one through in the rear courtyard (go past the pub and it's then over on your left). Access to the courtyard is up the side street with the Bethany charity shop on the corner. Bikes can get through pedestrian side gate.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Probably need to change the sign on the side street entrance saying there is no pedestrian access... ;)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Vez
    Member

    There are now 4 sheltered bike racks with 5 Sheffield stands each at Summerhall. Two outside the TechCube tower on the corner, one in the back courtyard and the last one will be in front of the cafe windows (installation in progress). All for use of staff, visitors and residents. Funded by Cycling Scotland :-)

    Posted 7 years ago #

  7. bakky
    Member

    Made a video about the junction changes here, including left-hook risk and issues with early release signals.

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Plugins

    Posted 1 week ago #

  8. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Good thoughts about amending the design, but I had two questions in my head:

    - How would the Dutch or the Danes approach the design of the junction?
    - Could an eight year-old use the junction safely?

    Posted 1 week ago #

  9. bakky
    Member

    I liked the notion of this as a CYCLOPS tbh - see Iain Ownenson's mock-up.

    I am perhaps unadventurous / being realistic about CEC appetite rather than considering it a blank canvas... others would say modal filters would sort it right out (and they're not wrong...)

    Posted 1 week ago #

  10. wingpig
    Member

    I'd also argue that the dashed-border cycle-guide from the north arm heading south is 1: way too narrow and goes too close to the corner at the Dick Vet and 2: shouldn't start from way over to the east when that's technically leading over from the left-turn zone, whereas the cycle feed line into the ASL box is straight-on-lane-wards of the left turn lane. It could be that the cycle guide channels were afterthoughts, or that they wanted to keep the box junction markings over as wide an area as possible for maximal box-junction-marking effect. I believe I've referred to this as INTO THE GUTTER, SCUM on at least two consultations. The channel is also very narrow on the northbound side, as emphasized by the puddles in the video.

    Posted 1 week ago #

  11. chdot
    Admin

    So the turn right boxes are for people to wait for the lights to change?

    Shouldn’t they have a clear ‘feed-in’ lane?

    Posted 1 week ago #

  12. bakky
    Member

    @chdot used as per this council CGI monstrosity:

    https://bsky.app/profile/edinburghcouncil.bsky.social/post/3mrf6tkepzk2l

    Posted 1 week ago #

  13. chdot
    Admin

    From link -

    “

    Two stage right turns for cyclists have been introduced on Summerhall. This will make it safer and easier for cyclists to turn right onto Hope Park Terrace and from the opposite direction on Summerhall, right onto Melville Drive.

    “

    So

    Does this mean CEC thinks all cyclists should be doing this manoeuvre?

    More importantly perhaps, will it mean that (some) drivers will assume they should?

    And act accordingly?!

    Posted 1 week ago #

  14. chdot
    Admin

    CEC also seems to believe Summerhall is a street name - in fact the name of two streets!

    Posted 1 week ago #

  15. Dave
    Member

    I haven't had to ride through yet, but I'm curious about how many people end up using the two stage turns. When I pass on my lunchtime runs, I've noticed that you have to wait not only for north-south traffic to finish, but then also sit through the green man phase, before you'd be able to complete your right turn and it happens at the same time as all the traffic coming off the Meadows puts the pedal to the metal. Maybe I'm not empathising with the intended user

    Posted 1 week ago #

  16. bakky
    Member

    @chdot

    The video from CEC doesn’t specify, and originally I thought this would be an optional feature. But, as I understand it, the wee blue sign installed makes it ‘mandatory’?

    Good luck with that!

    I also took the ‘Summerhall’ shortcut at least once in the video; trying to introduce the junction of “Melville Drive, Hope Park Terrace, Hope Park Crescent and Summerhall Crescent” was too much in voiceover. Colloquial is fine sometimes.

    Posted 1 week ago #

  17. bakky
    Member

    @Dave that seems like an own goal in terms of pedestrian phase timing? Would there be potential consequences to changing that order?

    Posted 1 week ago #

  18. wingpig
    Member

    The light sequence would also be an issue and potential source of tension for people using the the proposed two-stage right-turn in the Dundee St/Henderson Tce consultation, who you would hope got a much longer cycle-only phase to get them out of the way before drivers leaving the mouth of the West Approach got their green.

    Posted 1 week ago #

  19. chdot
    Admin

    “Colloquial is fine sometimes”

    Yes

    Wasn’t pointing at you!

    I understand why CEC want to make things simpler, but I think they are (potentially) adding to the confusion of all this

    Must admit I hadn’t realised that the road name at the junction wasn’t still “Buccleuch Street”

    So that’s my ‘colloquial’!

    Posted 1 week ago #

  20. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Two stage right turns for cyclists have been introduced on Summerhall.

    It's also very ableist and assumes that cyclists are in fact merely wheeled pedestrians who can u-turn and pivot on the spot.

    Not only that, the right-turning cyclist first has to pretend to be going straight on, and that is already a manoeuvre that is made more dangerous by unobservant left-turning drivers.

    Posted 1 week ago #

  21. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    Thanks bakky for the video.

    The early release signal issues are concerning. Not sure why CEC went for the sensorised version at this junction when cyclist traffic density here would support early release on every cycle IMO. I don't think any of the other implementations I've seen (while driving) in Edinburgh have been sensor-linked, and that's a good thing if Siemens (or whoever) can't do it reliably.

    Posted 1 week ago #

  22. mcairney
    Member

    I think I posted it elsewhere but my main bugbear with the design (going straight-on heading south mainly) is that cars turning right are treating the cyclist phase as an extended opportunity to turn right in the box junction preventing cyclists from proceeding during their advance phase. Also if the cyclist advanced phases were extended then cyclist could turn right before motorised traffic sets off rather than having to take a convoluted 2-step approach.

    Other than that the newly-laid surface and kerb segregration is most welcome!

    Posted 1 week ago #

  23. chdot
    Admin

    “Also if the cyclist advanced phases were extended then …”

    Yes

    Reasons they are so short

    1 ‘don’t annoy the motorists’

    2 any longer and even more drivers would ignore

    Nothing ANPR cameras wouldn’t be able to deal with…

    Posted 1 week ago #

  24. mcairney
    Member

    Would the drivers notice and they did would they actually mind that much? It would give them an extra few seconds scrolling Instagram after all...

    Posted 1 week ago #

  25. wingpig
    Member

    @bakky Did you observe what was happening with pedestrian phases? Presumably, if they've tried to reduce motorist impatience overload by cutting out the green cycle advance half the time, the pedestrian phase would only happen when someone had pressed a button?

    Posted 1 week ago #

  26. chdot
    Admin

    There’s always ‘some drivers’

    “

    Drivers ignoring roadwork closures to skip queues ‘wilfully putting lives at risk’

    Hundreds of cars driven through cones or barriers in England this year, says National Highways

    “

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/18/drivers-roadwork-closures-skip-queues-national-highways-england

    Posted 1 week ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin