CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Exactly! It's a new stop line for new lights, there wasn't a crossing there before! Just how much can one short section of cycle path be messed up?
So.
Wrong surface
Misaligned stop line
Wrong tactiles
Cycle path installation team, you had one job...
Update
"
The new stop line / zig-zags were installed incorrectly by the contractor and will be redone at no additional cost to the Council.
"
The new $generic_infra was installed incorrectly by the contractor
Why does this keep happening, and what is CEC doing to stop it happening the next time? Are the contractors so unused to building cycle infrastructure that they unconsciously deviate from the schematics because they can only think in terms of motor vehicle infrastructure? Or, are the schematics actually at fault? In which case, who's checking them? Is there no-one with actual Real Experience of designing cycle infra correctly?
Tactiles are incorrectly specified during design, and/or the incorrect ones are installed on the day. Road markings are painted in the wrong places—despite spray painting their intended location beforehand. The wrong tarmac mix is used. The wrong stones are laid.
All of this is wasting CEC's project time and costing the contractors in materials and attention to detail.
To be fair they have the right color on St Leonard's street. Did a wee tour round today to check. No sign of work commencing on Clerk street crossing yet, though.
This is what the consultation looked like.
If a contractor builds it wrong it's just their money down the drain not our taxes - frustrating it delays it more but I've been waiting years for this to be built, so I can wait a few more days.
As for experience, this kind of stuff is still pretty new/rare in the UK or we wouldn't be getting so excited seeing it built. So I don't expect there are many folk with experience of designing stuff like this. No doubt everyone is learning.
@kokomo - all fair points, except that every single piece of tactile paving that's been put in in the past two years have been done wrong.
"every single piece of tactile paving that's been put in in the past two years"
I don't think that's strictly true, but it certainly seems like it!
Chicanes too (it seems like!)
@srd
If every single slab of tactile paving has been done wrong (which judging by the reporting on here it definitely feels like) then there is a higher order flaw in the spec as arellcat says. The person laying the paving consistently interprets the spec wrongly then there is something wrong with the spec.
However, just to contradict myself I was in high morningside last week and had to head to Waverley. This was in the middle of the day. I found myself on what I can only assume was the quality bike corridor? However, my experience was very positive. Only a single salient exemplar at wrong time of day and all lights may have been green but I sailed from a point well beyond the bike station all the way to Top of buccleuch St before turning right just before the mosque and then down towards the cycle service. I was in a lane that was out from the car parking but not hampered by cars that were being driven. It flowed well, the surface was smooth and clearly delineated. Obviously, might be much worse in rush hour.
The contractors should learn by doing. But maybe the opinions on what is right are not consistent? Personally I think the tactiles parallel to the direction I am going are wrong as they are slippy when wet. I cross to the perpendicular side if no peds about. If peds about I really slow down, which would seem like the intention of the installation (apart from helping the non existent visually impaired, they do exist but just not around any tactile paving slabs I have ever seen). Other objections such as width of ridges and the middle strip do of course exist.
It would be good if these details were correct. It is nevertheless even better cycling around Edinburgh at the moment with the meadows Tarmac new, the strath earn road top of marchmont Tarmac nice. The lovely Tarmac from Baird drive to stenhouse beside the tram a joy etc. even the stretches that have had temporary fixes are less bumpy at the moment - quite a few bits of my commute have the wrong filler at the moment. It will all go to pot in the winter so I see the argument for doing it right but at this moment my experience of cycling in Edinburgh is the best it has ever been. Even leith walk, full of pavement parkers or cars abandoned in the middle of the road has a nice new surface.
My 'problem' now is that I can't quite figure out what's going here -
Looking at the plan (from link above), it seems that the cycle lane is moving right - which may be a good thing, allowing a walking route to the swing park.
BUT the new link means that pedestrians and cyclists will be crossing each other ON the crossing. Presumably reasonable numbers on foot will be using new crossing(?)
"Personally I think the tactiles parallel to the direction I am going are wrong as they are slippy when wet."
You are not alone in this, but that's the UK-wide rule.
Can't remember if it's 'guidance' or 'law' - PLUS plenty of talk about whether they are necessary, desirable or even 'legally required' in any/all places now being introduced.
@chdot, that is certainly what happens at the crossing at the other end of the meadows coming in from the road just south of the kings theatre there is a shared ped and cycle path that comes to a head at a shared crossing where most peds and majority of bikes head straight across onto the meadows path but I turn right to go round the road. This works as the two routes veer away from each other. You do have to take care not to cut across the peds on the pavement perpendicular to the crossing before you go on to the crossing for sure.
@chdot
The road is being converted to river to add to the ambience of the Meadows. There they are building a Triathlon transition station. There you swap your bike for a kayak, to cross the river. Hire bikes are provided on the other side.
"there is a shared ped and cycle path that comes to a head at a shared crossing"
Until the recent prescriptive (and misleading) markings there was also effective 'sharing' on the lead-ins to the crossing.
I had perhaps 'imagined'/'hoped' the grand new design would somehow 'deal with' all this!
I did take part in the consultation (as did quite a few CCEers). Initially there was so much 'wrong' with the original planned route. Obviously not possible to get everything perfect!
I'm not impressed with how the path joins Gifford Park from Buccleuch St., but I think putting the route on the other side of B St. and using St. L. St. rather than Lane are improvements.
Can't remember other things 'we' changed.
They didn't take much notice of suggestions to make the crossings accessible to people on the road who might want to join at the crossing, like at Leamington Terrace.
@wingpig, what is stopping people on the road from joining the crossing?
@paulmilne Dropped kerbs, for getting onto the segregated path from the road immediately prior to the crossing (without dismount/shuffle/bump)? Like the one for getting onto the crossing between Leamington Terrace and Leamington Walk from the road, northbound, which I can't link to a StreetView of as my work's browser isn't playing Google Maps today. Feedback to the consultation mentioned this sort of structure at every point where someone might like to join the segregated Meadows-Innocent route from one of the intervening roads, specifically because of the previous lack of demonstrable consideration of cycle infra things as more than just through routes (©CEC).
Cycled by/on Buccleuch street snippet this morning (quite easy to swing onto it southbound) - but disappointed in the finish. Yes, the red chips were in, but it feels a tad bumpy. It feels as if they were getting a bit fed up with it and didn't take the time for that perfectly flat finish we all love on new infrastructure.
Barriers are down, but no sign of bollards LH mentioned. Fully expect parking to be resumed on it today. Stop lines still in wrong place. Poles are up with button boxes but no sign of actual lights yet.
The last few metres of the Meadows lane are still being worked on. The plans show the cycle lane in the middle with footpath on either side and that's how it looks like it's shaping up on the ground.
It will be interesting to see how this all works when the Festival is in full swing and footpaths will be at full capacity!
Rode through it last night, and at least with the barriers on the sides it was more obvious you shouldn't be parking there, but with open ends could be cycled on.
Intrigued to see how the rest fits together - mainly the top of Gifford Park and how they route things between the bins - is the barrier at the end coming out to be replaced with a proper crossing?
I think the crossing, at Festival time, will operate much as the paths through the Meadows do - there will be more people, and so naturally more people on the bike bit, and really you've just got to ride a bit more cautiously. We can't ban pedestrians (and wouldn't want to, obviously).
Clerk street crossing will have cyclepath/footpath at the same level between the buildings, and I assume the plan is to relocate the bins. The current railings will be removed as well.
Across the road, the plan shows what I think is entry into Rankeillor St. from Clerk street but no exit that way. The current crossing and the current barriers will be removed and a new toucan crossing put in its place.
I think the bins were going to be told to form a single row. It remains to be seen if they'll be able to be accessed to be emptied without whatever they're being emptied into crunching up or blocking the cycle lane.
If only they could fit bins with some kind of wheel system to allow them to be moved.
Yesterday
Aye, it was sunny yesterday!
That looks immensely convoluted. I had thought I might go that way as an alternative route to the Commie, but I don't think I'll bother. What is supposed to happen when you get to that busy road?
I think mine took around fourish minutes from NMW to Hermit (including the delay for the Clerk Street crossing, getting straight over Hope Park Crescent and not using the crossing over St Leonard's Street, but then stopping at the ped crossing) which is probably comparable to NMW-(traffic)-HPC-(lights)-HPT-(lights)-Bernard, or NMW-(traffic)-HPC-(lights)-Summerhall-(lights)-WPS-(lights)-EPS-(lights)-Dalkeith. Using Melville Drive is probably quicker and Melville Terrace quicker still, with the easier escape from the eastern end.
Families using the family network family through-route from Meadowfamilys to Innocent AND NOT DEVIATING FAMILY THEREFROM will not be on the busy non-family road, I think; they'll go round the corner from Rankeillor on the sharedway, cross to St Leonard's policerium then be on segregated path up to Hermit.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts
