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North Team just tweeted that they have money for improvements to the Craigleith Junction on the North Edinburgh Path - unfortunately only the path bit, not the Sainsburys side!
Link to document: http://t.co/e0O0iL9DU4
My suggestion - better visibility, paint some give way lines on the junction?
Responses to email address in document by 14/10/13
I once tried to get to the supermarket from this junction but gave up - it was like the death star trench run but with HGVs and impatient shoppers. As a result we now mainly drive to Tesco (I can't be bothered detouring from the canal to the other Sainsbury's that might be an option).
I can't say I have any real issues with the actual path part. So long as the vegetation is kept down, it's worked fine for me since I started using it ~6 years ago.
+1 for vegetation control.
A little further along the path, some improved surface for the bit up to Ravelston Dykes would be nice (some has been improved, but the rest is still v bumpy), and even more, replacing the rotten wooden railings up the same slope would be great - I fear that they would collapse if anyone put any weight on them.
Cutting back of shrubs and trees to improve lines of sight?
I'm rather baffled why they've been "offered" money to improve this junction. I don't think of it as a key access point compared to the ones at the end of the path, and it's probably a place that you'd put pretty low down on a list of places to improve if you had a choice in Edinburgh.
There's oodles of missing dropped kerbs, obstructing barriers and bollards, broken surfaces, etc. that could be improved ahead of this (vegetation maintenance should already be covered) that would actually be a much more noticable change.
£30,000 is a lot of paint.
Realise I'm sounding very negative about this, but I really can't see how you could justify a £30k on one junction. If that's what it costs to make a few tweaks to an already satisfactory junction, with no road interaction, sorting Edinburgh out will cost Billions!
£30k? For one junction?
Which route - Roseburn to Drylaw or Roseburn to D'Mains gets the most traffic?
If the latter then perhaps change the priority of the junction to make Roseburn to D'Mains the 'through route'.
That could be done with a little extra tarmac to smooth the corner and some give way lines on the Drylaw 'exit'.
Or is that complicating things too much?
I don't find that junction satisfactory at all, I think it is awful. The sightlines are terrible and there is no suggestion as to who is supposed to give way to whom at it. And it always seems to be pretty busy to me.
Good for them for doing something about it.
Painting give way lines on the D'Mains spur might prevent me having to slow down when people barge out in front of me... at the moment because it's unmarked I feel that we have equal priority and the onus is equally on me to brake / negotiate.
It might shave off a couple of seconds if it was marked like a road, and thus worked like one too.
Not my first choice of how to spend money though.
I know that this is going to go down like a twen^w lead balloon, but some thing slightly more substantial than sight lines may be better - redesigning the intersection to make a right angle rather than the current blend may encourage the nutters who bomb down from Davidson Mains to slow down a tad (I freely confess to being a nutter, but I do try to slow down to a visual speed).
If we do that, we won't need to lose vegetation.
Jeese!! Listen you to all!!
I thought the idea now-a-days was to remove as much road clutter as possible. As it is, no one currently knows who has priority but thats good! This way everyone slows incase anyone is coming from a blind side! If lines were to be painted it would give rise to the typicall driver like selfishness:-
'This is my bit of path, get off and get on your own side, I have priority!!'
So what if we all have to slow a little, does it add much to your commute time? We're all begining to sound like car drivers!
How depressing!
I think the junction is OK - there would be far better places to spend £30k. Stick a sign "Cyclists slow down and show consideration to other path users" on each arm of the junction, job done.
What DaveC said!
"As it is, no one currently knows who has priority but thats good! This way everyone slows incase anyone is coming from a blind side!"
No, currently various people going through the junction in various ways (but particularly those movements not requiring a sharp turn) think they have priority and make no attempt to slow down, often not even bothering to pretend to look. Give-way lines in all directions would give people who do slow down and look something to gesture at whilst muttering and glaring at path-hogs.
redesigning the intersection to make a right angle
There's enough right-angles and un-navigable turns on Edinburgh's paths, we definitely don't need to be building any more!
make no attempt to slow down, often not even bothering to pretend to look
Yep. Pretty horrible.
I'd suggest improving sight lines all through the junction, so everyone can see their way through to the other side no matter which way they're coming and going. That should not only improve not-crashing-into-each-other safety but it would improve social safety too, in that you could be more sure that there wasn't somebody lurking round a bend ready to attack you. Talking of which, lovely bright lights for the whole junction please so it's very well lit at night.
I've advocated the idea before for roundabouts of actually removing sight lines, but there's method in my madness.
Remove those sight lines until the moment you are about to enter the roundabout/junction and you are forced to slow down otherwise you simply can't see.
30 grand on one junction seems a little... extravagant...
Remove those sight lines until the moment you are about to enter the roundabout/junction and you are forced to slow down otherwise you simply can't see.
Spend even a small amount of time at any junction on any cycle path and you will soon realise that not being able to see does not prevent anyone from simply bombing on to the path at top speed without even looking round, never mind slowing down. You have almost been taken out yourself at the bottom of the Innocent Tunnel (as have I on several occasions).
It seems that many people simply take a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal approach to joining a cyclepath. If you can't see anyone then there is no-one there.
I know people who drive like this too.
If you can't see anyone then there is no-one there.
That's the standard way to cross the road in Edinburgh too. Look away from the traffic, so it doesn't exist, so it won't run you over.
To be fair, often pretending not to notice traffic is the only way to get them to let you out / across.
Source: many years of only sometimes sober experimentation at the Marchmont Rd zebra crossing...
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