CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 14years 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.
In reality the air quality in Waverley station is an issue, and it was easier and cheaper to ban private motor vehicles/restrict taxis than to get the Scotrail, East Coast, Cross Country, TransPennine trains upgraded to run on electricity instead of diesel
I imagine it was just a wee bit cheaper to stick in a few barriers that it was to electrify thousands of miles of track and replace all the rolling stock.
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FRUSTRATED Waverley chiefs have vowed to shut the station to all vehicles as their spat with the council reaches boiling point.
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"A number of cyclists are also understood to have hit the “pop-up” barriers."
Hit as ran into, struck in exasperation or a barrier attempted to extrude itself whilst a cyclist passed overhead?
FRUSTRATED Waverley chiefs have vowed to shut the station to all vehicles as their spat with the council reaches boiling point.
I thought that as Network Rail owned the station, it could do more or less anything it pleased on the site. Taxis, CEC or otherwise, don't have a God-given right to drive inside.
Network Rail can indeed do what "it likes", but it has to be reminded that it is there to serve the needs of travelling public, who they seem to be treating with some sort of contempt as if they are getting in the way of them playing at Fat Controller.
"it could do more or less anything it pleased on the site"
It is!
AND putting megabollards on Market Street - which it probably doesn't own...
Walked through the station to cut to John Lewis on Saturday. Noticed at the stepped entrance from Calton Road that they've installed two anti-ram bollards at the foot of the steps, badly offset from the central handrail and creating quite a constriction for anyone with luggage (such as the people infront of me).
I can't think who in their right mind specified these bollards, there's no motor vehicle beyond a scrambling bike or a tank which could make it up the steps, take a few right angled turns and get down the other side. The bollards aren't close enough together to stop the former and the latter is just preposterous.
Clearly the budget to buy expensive security toys is much higher than the budget to pay someone to do some basic risk assessment on the site.
I'd assumed that those great big silver bollards are NR's way of marking its territory. There seemed to be little other reaosn for them being at the foot of the Calton Road entrance stairway...
Luggage carriers can always take the newly installed lift at Calton Road.
Waverley chiefs have vowed to shut the station to all vehicles
This would free up an awful lot of space for cycle parking and perhaps a bike hub, with a nice, taxi-free ramp providing access to Waverley Bridge. ;-)
Another day at Waverley (yesterday)
Welcome sign flooded -
Two men (may or may not be from Network Rail) taking an interest -
Ooh look, automatic barrier system not in operation -
Surely that 'dedicated cycle route' part of the sign should be in blue (blue rectangle = 'information'). There's no mention of a red rectangle in my version of 'Know your traffic signs'.
"There's no mention of a red rectangle in my version of 'Know your traffic signs'."
Network Rail makes things up as it goes along...
...oops. My mistake. Red rectangles are used for 'roadworks and temporary situations'.
Yesterday the 'vehicle stopper' on the 'cycle side' was down.
Don't know if this was a temporary problem - or 'to make it easier for bikes'.
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“There has also been a problem with taxis being lifted off the ground by the barrier. It’s a drum which rolls up out of the ground but there seems to be a major issue with it.
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http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/waverley-barriers-still-causing-chaos-1-3335728
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As if the tramlines were not enough, several cyclists have been injured by the rising bollards recently installed in the Waverley south ramp. Cyclists are now meant to use the north ramp, but unfortunately the sign at the south ramp is far too small, and is particularly easy to miss in the evening. Anyone caught out should email joanna.noble[AT]networkrail.co.uk. Please also copy to our bike/rail person., ewan[AT]navyblue.org.uk.
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http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/spwkr14.03.12.pdf
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RAIL bosses have been forced to remove one of the stop gates at the £1 million Waverley security barrier to have repairs carried out, just six weeks after it was installed.
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No barriers today!
Didn't feel I wanted to ride under the raised on though.
Perhaps just as well -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-27479427
OAP dies after being hit by car on Edinburgh's Waverley Bridge
Not clear on the details of what exactly happened and where, but surely this is an entirely unnecessary tragedy, not helped by the large amounts of pedestrians corralled onto narrow pavements littered with obstructions and far too many taxis and tourist buses going this way and that way.
Council has proposal currently under consultation that will make it more pedestrian friendly. Includes wider pavements and better crossing ( at least that the intention).
No surprises there. Closest I have come to being hit of late was a Royal mail van doing a U-ie.
I find it baffling that parents think this is a safe maneuver outside schools, but I see it everyday.
Likewise. I almost got t-boned into a Scottish Water trench by a taxi a few years back. And last night a car I was right behind on Queen Street inexplicably slowed to a crawl in the left hand lane (no signalling, naturally) before performing a high speed U (no signal, again).
U-turns are one of those manoeuvres where drivers are rushed, quickly look for a gap in the traffic, and their brains (such as they are) fail to identify non-car/bus/lorry shaped objects as reasons not to perform the u-turn. Careless driving at the very least and, I'd suggest, downright dangerous driving in an urban environment.
Not a U-turn, but stupid reversing:-
"One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: “The car drove on to the ramp leading into the station. After realising they’re not allowed down there they then seem to have panicked and reversed out, colliding with the pedestrian. The car rolled over the man before hitting an Airlink coach parked opposite the station entrance.”"
It sounds like the car reversed over the man while trying to extract itself from the taxi-only entrance:
Of course the accident is the result of the installation of confusing station barriers rather than awful driving.
ah, beaten to it
It just seems that anywhere drivers can go, some will regardless of restrictions, laws, etc. Either out of disregard for the law, or out of stupidity. The only answer is to stop all vehicles from making the deadly turn from Waverley Bridge.
The car rolled over the man before hitting an Airlink coach parked opposite the station entrance.”"
!!! Exactly how fast were they reversing?
There was no need for this to happen, and no it wasn't the barriers fault.
It sounds like the car reversed over the man while trying to extract itself from the taxi-only entrance:
Was it the taxi-entrace? I think it's the northernmost entrance, which is the cycling / service vehicles route? If that's the case, private vehicles haven't been allowed down that way for years, the barriers just reinforce the fact.
And if you were to find yourself to make a wrong turn here and facing the barriers, surely the only reasonable way to extract yourself is with extreme care and caution.
It looks like the taxi entrance from the pictures since the airport buses usually park pretty much opposite it, especially if there is just one there as is shown, but how the car managed to not only reverse over the man but also into the side of the airport bus beggars belief...
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