This link probably explains it best
Thanks for that especially, thats my afternoon scuppered!!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Road layout changes in the west end at Ryans bar? (Also Haymarket)
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Posted 9 years ago #
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Has that "interesting" design secured planning permission?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Sadly yes.
LONG time coming.
This is just part of the saga -
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/24952/morrison_street_goods_yard
Old story of developers have time/money/expertise/will to keep applying.
Councils help/collude/resist, but fear the cost of appeals against refusal.
'Don't like it' is not a valid reason for objecting - even by the Planning Committee!
Posted 9 years ago # -
OK I was wrong.
SEVENTEEN!
"
Plans to develop the former Morrison Street Goods Yard, a former railway site which has been partially derelict and partially a car park for many years were approved by The City of Edinburgh Council on 25 June 2008.[4] Tiger Developments purchased the site from City of Edinburgh Council for approximately £50 million in December 2006. The plans for the site included a 17-storey, 5-star hotel, a 3-star hotel, office buildings, retail space, bars, shops and a small supermarket.[5] However, this approval was overturned by Scottish ministers in October 2009, on the recommendation of a planning inquiry reporter, citing concerns about the impact of the 17-storey hotel on Edinburgh's skyline.[6]
A revised planning application, incorporating a similar mixed use, with a lower skyline, was approved by the Council in December 2010.[7] Work to strengthen the railway tunnels under Haymarket began in 2013 in preparation for the construction of the new £200m development above which is to include a 320-space underground car park.[8] This involves grouting between the tunnel lining and the surrounding ground, and drilling and inserting metal bars within the brick lining. Due to line operations, works access is limited in the north tunnel to between midnight and 5am four nights of the week and in the south tunnel from 1am to 9.30am one night a week.[9] Above-ground construction is scheduled to start in early 2015 and the first phase is expected to be complete by 2016. The Haymarket, as the development is to be known, will provide new pedestrian links to neighbouring Fountainbridge and The Exchange district.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
SEVENTEEN!
Indeed. Artists impressions are reliably unreliable. People like to have a picture in their heads and developers are happy to provide one. But developers have zero obligation to make their building look like the artists impression. If the artists impression looks light, airy, appropriate materials, surrounded by new trees, with lots of public space, then you can almost guarantee it will be none of these things...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Brilliant map @kaputnik. Did you notice how all the tramlines were in the centre of the road leaving a reasonable amount of space on the nearside for other vehicles including bikes, AND, because of the geometry it looks like they could be crossed at a less acute angle than we are forced to do now.
Can anyone explain why the westbound tramline at Haymarket veers left so much? If it had stayed parallel with the eastbound line (and only turned left at the tramstop, like the eastbound does) there wouldn't have been the pinchpoint outside the station which has danger and inconvenience designed in. Why was it done like that?
Posted 9 years ago # -
terrible to find ourselves in agreement with the EEN...
Plook again at design mistakes
IT is so easy to be critical of new development in Edinburgh given the sometimes jarring juxtaposition it makes with the classical designs of the New Town or the more baroque Old Town.
The Scottish Parliament is always thrown up as an example of this. But to me it’s an interesting and challenging building even if it’s one which the majority of people seem to hate. The National Museum of Scotland on the other hand has won many awards but to my eye is a bit ‘so what?’
These things are subjective, but two new developments have recently been made public and have set my teeth on edge.
The plans for the St James Quarter appear to be straight of the Big American Book of How To Build a Shopping Mall by
B. Blander McBland while those for the Haymarket gap site, pictured, look as if they’ve been misplaced by a Benidorm hotel chain. All that’s missing are some lurid towels draped from the balconies.
It’s all very well for Edinburgh Airport to receive a Zit award for its ugly new terminal building as while it’s not an accolade any architect would want, at least it’s not in the centre of town and we don’t all have to look at it. But these two sites have the potential to really offer something new to make Edinburgh a city talked about for its modern architecture in a good way. If they don’t do that, then it could be our city which knocks Aberdeen off its Plook on the Plinth perch as the Carbuncle Award comes to us for the most dismal city in Scotland."
Posted 9 years ago # -
Can anyone explain why the westbound tramline at Haymarket veers left so much?
I think as trams pass on a curve, they need more clearance between the lines than they do on the straight and level.
I've noticed at Haymarket Yards, that only 1 tram at a time seems to go either way, the other waits at a signal if they happen to be crossing at this point.
Posted 9 years ago # -
So (maybe) without any loss of utility, they could have laid a single track through Haymarket Yards and put in a safer cycle lane?
Posted 9 years ago # -
That's a plausible explanation @kaputnik, and a very good point @chug about possibility of single track at Haymarket Yards.
What this shows is how little other road users were considered alongside the Hubris of the trams.
I've also picked up from somewhere that Edinburgh specified a bigger one-off tram system compared to others in operation in the UK which might contribute to the problems we now have (negotiating curves, dominating the space etc). Does anyone know anything about that? I don't know the history of the project specification.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Edinburgh specified the longest tram units in Europe, that's for sure. One of a number of reasons that other operators didn't want to buy the "spare" ones that are lying around given they committed to all the trams already by the time they faced the reality they couldn't complete the line.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Thanks @k.
Jeez, what a pathetic and damaging decision-making process.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Had chance to stand and stare at the Haymarket debacle for 15 minutes today. There is no need for the westbound tram track to lurch so far over to the left leaving no room for the cycle lane. @kaputnik's suggestion that the trams need the space to pass each other was plausible but the curves at that point are quite gentle and the tracks could have been left closer together without any risk of trams impacting each other. This design decision screws the whole junction up from a cyclist's point of view, and I'd love to know why they did it like this. Does anyone know of any publicly available design documentation?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I copy this link to the Spokes' suggestion for remodelling Haymarket junction not because it's a good idea but because the diagram is useful. p://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/v5-HayMap-shrunk-300x133.jpg
I don't think there is any short term lick-of-paint-signage solution. Neither is the island hopping wrong side of the road suggestion from Spokes the answer.
I suggest a junction redesign that might appear to throw everything up in the air, but at its basis keeps the general geometry but changes the way different modes of transport use it, and I should credit David Hembrow's View from the Cycle Path blog on Simultaneous Green.
First, get rid of a lot of the island clutter around the junction. Second, build a segregated cycle path along the left of Morrison Street to Haymarket (The path will continue past Haymarket but I'll come to that in a minute.
At the junction, introduce the simultaneous green idea which means the green phases for motorised traffic are separated from cycle-and-pedestrian phases. For those that haven't, I would urge you to read Hembrow's blog which explains far better than I can how brilliant these junctions are. Essentially, cyclists and pedestrians get two opportunities for every cycle of the lights to make any manoeuvre, so at this junction they could go straight on, left into Dalry Road or even right into West Maitland Street or Grosvenor Street. Cyclists coming from Haymarket Terrace would use the same phases to go straight on or right into Dalry Road. Pedestrians would use the same phases to cross in any direction so clearly cyclists and pedestrians would have to accommodate each other and show consideration, but this is not the problem it may seem (see Hembrow). Motorised traffic would go on the same phases they do now, but there will be no vulnerable users in the junction.
Now, back to the segregated path to get past the tram tracks. This segregated path should continue past Ryrie's Bar and keep to the left in Haymarket Station forecourt with the taxi drop off point on the right (rather like well designed paths pass behind bus stops). There's plenty space for this segregated path and the position of the taxi point removes any risk of taxi left hooks. To get out of the forecourt (which, key point, crosses the tracks at a much safer angle) introduce an extended bus lane as already suggested back as far as the Bar so the only traffic the cyclist should encounter on exitting would be anything in the bus lane. This is a compromise I don't like but I would put give way signs there for cycles rather than lights, just in case a bus/taxi/?motorcycle? was coming down the bus lane. It's possible that because of the simultaneous green at the junction, that bikes would have passed the station before buses caught them up. A better solution would be to have the segregated path extend a little into Haymarket Terrace, before joining the bus lane, but the road does narrow at that point.
The problems for bikes heading eastward are fewer, but this scheme would have as a minimum a wide cycle lane which operated on the simultaneous green principle, separate from the motorised phase, when cycles could continue straight or turn into Dalry Road.
If this were implemented, it would be an exemplar of how well designed junctions elsewhere could contribute to the Council's policies.
Posted 9 years ago #
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