Ha! Potterrow has 'no cycling' signs. TIE
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Cycle Network
(360 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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"brick clock tower on the hotel above Euston?"
No.
John Betjeman wouldn't make that mistake. (Clue.)
Posted 10 years ago # -
Simon - I can't believe you really think we don't have decent cycle infrastructure because cycle campaigners don't have "realistic expectations" or that they have made it "a million times more difficult".
I am well aware of what is in "Cycling: The Way Ahead for Towns and Cities", e.g.:
"Amsterdam, Barcelona,Bremen, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Ferrara, Graz and Strasbourg apply incentives that favour public transport, car-sharing and bicycles, along with restrictive measures on the use of private cars in their town centres. These cities do not harm their economic growth or access to their shopping
centres."The target audience for this document is pretty clear. The foreword states "I [European Environment Commissioner] have decided to take the unusual step of approaching you directly as elected decision-makers for towns and cities of the European Union."
Seriously, I'm not knocking what you have designed. It is an interesting proposal. However, without political buy-in it will remain a pipe dream. You can't single handedly impose a cycle network on a city
I also think you do a real disservice to Edinburgh's cycle campaigners (principally SPOKES). Without them we would have almost zero cycle infrastructure.
You can see the full "Cycling: The Way Ahead for Towns and Cities" here:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/cycling/cycling_en.pdf
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ chdot
Would he consider it unfit for humans to live there and be in favour of it being blown up by any chance?
Posted 10 years ago # -
"Come friendly bombs and rain on...the Potterrow?"
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ Focus
You mean Euston??
Posted 10 years ago # -
The photo is of kings cross and the tower at the back in red brick is St Panras?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Posted 10 years ago #
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Finally caught up with this as been out cycling out in East Lothian.
Interesting to see link up Lauriston Gardens then Street to Bread St and over to west. At present this is one way only and the road is not configured to legally allow bikes to turn right at West Port - although I i have done it from time to time as traffic is very slow there.. (Yes I know there is a contra cycle lane on Lady Lawson St but like most of these are used to give drivers somewhere to park). 'Not Lothian Road Routes' have been one of my themes on early tours. These involve linking streets with mixed surfaces, wheelie bins, randomly parked cars and other unsuitable bits under the label Urban Cycling Assault Course (UCAC).
For routes that are popular it's worth checking the inclines on some direct routes. For example Dublin St will never be popular as the effort required to get up this is beyond the normal sub 200 watt level that non trained cyclists can achieve. People on forum do use it but many here are unusually fit and enjoy the challenge of the hill and the ramp with non-aligned too narrow crossing and tram tracks.
Most decent central car routes are less hilly as it's hard work driving quickly up steep hills (!) Ideally the flattest routes north south should be selected for bikes and buses with cars displaced to slower indirect routes.
The QBC could be a good start with car access only but not a through route.
I'd also make sure West Approach road is a public transport corridor with segregated bike lane. Might be less polluted in future as vehicles slowly shift pollution away from cities to power generating plants.
Posted 10 years ago # -
For example Dublin St will never be popular as the effort required to get up this is beyond the normal sub 200 watt level that non trained cyclists can achieve.
Yes it is steep but what would you suggest as an alternative?
Broughton Street is almost as steep and not for the faint hearted. Dundas Street is almost as steep and definitely not for the faint hearted.
I pick Dublin Street, not for the challenge but because compared to the other two it is relaxing.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've just managed to see this today - I like the idea of your map a lot - it's interesting overlaying your map with the current google cycling layer too.
Re Dublin Street I agree with Min here about the choice of uphill road - for me it's not the steepness but what you are going to have to navigate at an inevitably slow speed. Often if you are going slowly then changing lanes and being assertive can be harder. At the top of Dundas street I often go right along Queen Street for example, but it means getting in the right hand lane while going pretty slowly compared to the cars.
Personally as it stands at the moment I always prefer Queen Street over George Street and Princes Street but that's because I find the traffic more predictable - fewer people trying to find parking spaces and fewer bus stops.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Broughton Street can be intimidating to cycle up, but it would work with segregated bike lanes, linking to the cycleroute nirvana along either York Place or Leith St that the Council recently announced
( ;-) ).Broughton Street is really quite a wide street. You'd need to reduce the on-street parking but there's already no parking during rush hour, so you wouldn't be taking away residential parking.
There may be some persuasion required of shop owners who will fear the loss of passing trade (and loss of convenient loading/own parking), but there are a lot of side streets that you can park in, and the positive incentive of making Broughton Street a people-friendly high street rather than car-centric through-road would surely help ease the pain.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Sorry I haven't been able to comment for a while.
Thank you for all the comments. I won't respond to them all now, but just to say, in the design process, it is often the case that there are many iterations or cycles before people can be happy with the final result.
That being so, it obviously doesn't need to be perfect the first time around. One day, Broughton Street will become a people-friendly high street, of that I am certain. But it might not happen for ten - fifteen - twenty - thirty years, so until then, we have to make the best of what we have.
(Reading that again, it sounds a bit patronising - sorry about that.)
@ morningsider I am not having a go at anyone in particular, but I have been doing this for about twelve years, and I hear a lot of the same thing over and over again.
I am practicing maths with my sister's children at the moment, and the youngest comes along with the attitude that she can't do this, or that's too difficult, and so on. Before she's even started, she has already decided that it won't work because of this or that or the other.
So it's a general attitude that I am critical of, not any particular individual or organisation.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Simon - sorry if my comments have upset you. I am not trying to be negative. I genuinely think your plan is an interesting proposal.
However, it is a matter of fact that the Council are the roads authority for Edinburgh, they are the only body able to make the Traffic Regulation Orders required for your proposed cycle network and they are the only body with a budget to do so.
There is no way round this. If you want to see progress then you have to work with the Council.
Good luck with working on your plans.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"...a series of concentric rings..."
~ kaputnikThe WoL/NEPN serves three distinct purposes (or four, if there's something along it you need to to go/from): a non-motorised bypass avoiding the city centre for (north-)east/(mid-)west through traffic, a non-motorised sneak into sort of almost the city centre and a way of reducing the maximum gradient from Shore to Roseburn. It's (presumably/hopefully) borne out by trip analyses as an example of something where extra distance is borne for the sake of eased travel.
"It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses."
~ Mr Prosser, via Douglas AdamsBypasses can bypass many things: congested centres but also steep gradients, displeasing surfaces or convoluted routes.
One would never want to sacrifice a safe-and-pleasing-to-cycle-through city centre on the grounds of the existence of adequate bypasses, but neither would one want a city-centre-bisecting cycle/ped-friendly route to have the same sort of pinch-pointed limiting-step-ism existing city centre motor-junctions exhibit. There will always be journeys where there is no need or intention to go via the centre, where the number of right-angles required to travel through a grid-system network could make the journey appear deceptively long and/or cumbersome (potentially offputtingly-so) for the less keen.
Particularly where there are co-incidences of motor-prioritisation and steep hills, a few well-placed lightly-sloping curves or diagonals might be as/more attractive as a car-free-but-straight-up-the-hill route, where the road surfaces are available.
Are there any sort of data suggesting the maximum tolerable diversion distance for getting to the top of a hill by going up gently round it rather than straight up?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Posted 10 years ago # -
Like many on this forum I seem to thrive on the fact that the allocated zones for cycling have obstacles / aren't always easy!
Unfortunately this manifests itself with CEC getting away with access ramps etc that are barely big enough for a single pram, let alone the 15% modal share they wish to see.
Dublin St falls into the 'least worst' option from what I can see. 'Least worst' is a long way from good though. I imagine that many will push there bike up the last bit where the slope is certainly greater than other streets (ie you wouldn't put LRT buses up there by choice).
As Min says.... where else can we cycle? The answer of course would be on the commercial streets. These could be bus and cycle corridors with cars only in these for access. Cycling has to be faster and that won't be achieved by placing it on longer tortious badly maintained routes. It's no accident that the highest bike usage is near the Meadows.
if you look at the forcible closure of through routes that the t••• caused then it could be done. If only a fraction of the budget of that project had been used in creating joined up cycle routes and more pedestrianised streets.
There are signs of hope - the Meadows link to the Innocent Railway being one.
Simon - I appreciate you'll get a lot of crossfire here as people are passionate about not making the mistakes of the past.
DdF and Spokes raised the prospect of improved cycling routes with the builder of the t*** years ago but this was squandered - resulting in the patchwork fixes we now see at Haymarket and other places. Despite this cycling numbers have increased to become a 'growing nuisance' in some parts of the media. The challenge is to make it mainstream in a society that still believes roads are only for cars.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Morningsider, thank you for clarifying your position.
Of course I understand that it would be necessary to work with the authorities. However, just to say that in 2006 a consortium of five London boroughs agreed to study the feasibility of a low-engineered high-density network. A bid was submitted to TfL for £60k. This was rejected "in light of the views of the London Cycling Campaign".
If that bid had been accepted, it is possible that the network would have been extended throughout all of the London area. It is also possible that this network would have been much further developed.
But no, it was rejected, and the upshot of it is that almost nothing has been done for cycling during the intervening years. Yes, there is the CS2 extension, but that has as much to do with the Olympics legacy as anything (plus the fact there was spare capacity on this stretch of the road).
Most of the CSHs are basically just rebranded versions of the LCN / LCN+ (London Cycle Network). Only one bit, from Morden (Wimbledon) to the Elephant and Castle is genuinely new.
And now we've been asked to consider a new network ... more direct routes have been omitted from this design because why? Because it is too difficult to "introduce" these routes into the network? From an engineering point of view, not really; but from a political point of view, almost certainly. The wails of protest from campaigners would be deafening. Not good enough! How is my 78 year-old grandmother expected to use this? And so on.
So yes, we need to work with the authorities, as you say. And that means helping them trying to achieve their goals over a realistic time-frame.
Posted 10 years ago # -
You can't single handedly impose a cycle network on a city
...unless you're the mayor of Bogota
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ LaidBack How right you are to say that cycle campaigners are passionate! Personally I wouldn't have it any other way.
You say that people are keen to avoid the mistakes of the past, but don't forget, the 'network first' approach has never been tried in the UK before (at least, there isn't a town or city that has a functioning, comprehensive, city-wide cycle network).
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Simon.
A lot of your network routes seem to follow main roads - hardly surprising, as the 'main roads' are the network for cars. Indeed, planners often locate 'places people go' next to main roads.
So it seems we already have a network, it is just not suitable for bicycles.
Wouldn't the simplest thing to do be to overlay the new cycle network on the main roads network? i.e. Simply put a segregated cycle route on every main road, and make the minor/local roads pedestrian/cycle friendly. Job done!
(I can't think of anywhere that a main road goes, that a
cyclistordinary human being would not also want to go)Posted 10 years ago # -
@ edd1e_h
Wouldn't the simplest thing to do be to overlay the new cycle network on the main roads network?
You're absolutely right. And when I look now at the bits that are missing, all I can see are the main road sections and not much else.
However, given a choice between a quiet route and a main road route, I prefer the quiet routes (and I know a lot of other people feel the same way).
In the case of London (on which I have spent massively more time) those main roads which have been included are there mostly because there is simply no alternative.
Over the years, I would expect more and more main road routes to be developed. Concurrently, the back street routes would not be so heavily used. Such is the evolution of a cycle network.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ edd1e_h
So it seems we already have a network, it is just not suitable for bicycles.
Please explain your thoughts on this in greater detail.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"This was rejected "in light of the views of the London Cycling Campaign"."
More info/explanation please.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ Simon
Please explain your thoughts on this in greater detail
I think you only need to read the threads in this forum to see why the existing road network is not suitable for bicycles.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ Simon,
Intrigued by this and yourself, is this a hobby or are you a traffic/road planner on the real world? This sort of exercise should be done working with Spokes and the Council otherwise it will reamin a pipe dream.
Some suggestions;
Dundas Street going North is a lot easier than south. Likewise Broughton Street and Dublin Street. For heading south (upslope) Broughton Street or Leith Walk are good the others have spped issues when changing lanes.
Clermiston Drive onto Drumbrae Terrace is good route, also Craigmount Grove, Craigmount Grove North, Craigs Gardens provide a quieter/shallower alternative to the northbound Drumbrae climbPosted 10 years ago # -
@ chdot
In 2006, the flavour of the day was the LCN+. But it wasn't working. Progress was virtually non-existent.
In 2010, after the LCN+ programme had been terminated, I called TfL and asked them to give me a single example of the LCN+ working well, and had the phone put down on me. Bearing in mind as well that something like £200m was spent on this scheme.
In 2005, Darren Johnson (Green Party) wrote a report saying that unless there was a change of gear in the LCN+, it wouldn't happen. The feeling of the London Cycling Campaign was that a much denser, lower-engineered network would divert resources and attention away from the LCN+.
The LCN+ was described in 2002 as "a slimmed-down high-profile 'spine' network of cycle priority routes", and was very much the LCC's 'baby'. Like an older hatchling in the nest, the LCC wanted (and got) most of the food.
@ edd1e_h
I think you only need to read the threads in this forum to see why the existing road network is not suitable for bicycles.
I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a very good answer.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ 559 I am what you might call "an enthusiastic amateur". As I have said before, I have completed about ten cycle network designs throughout the UK (including Cambridge, York and Bristol).
I will check out your ideas for route changes. Many thanks. Regarding the suggestion of working with Spokes, do they not use this forum then?
Posted 10 years ago # -
"Regarding the suggestion of working with Spokes, do they not use this forum then?"
(Obviously) all members of this forum are here as individuals.
One of the key Spokes people does post, most don't.
Some CCEers are 'ordinary' Spokes members some are not.
Posted 10 years ago # -
the existing road network is not suitable for bicycles.
I'd agree, because there is a presumption of motorised traffic in the design, and the drivers of the motorised traffic are:
1) Ignorant of the characteristics and vulnerabilities of people using cycles
2) Convinced of their own superior driving ability and right to make progress regardless of other road users
3) Quite prepared to bully, scare or risk injury of more vulnerable road users
4) Fallible, yet in vehicles and on roads that protect them from such fallibility - the vehicles and roads are not yet designed to protect more vulnerable road users from those using heavy vehicles.
I'm an advocate of applying health and safety experience to road safety, and whilst it is possible to educate and enforce to improve safety, inherent safety is the least risky approach - removing/reducing the source of the risk (don't store barrels of poison if you only need a pinch) or insulating people from that risk (make sure the barrels are locked up out of the way of inadvertent access).
If you want proof of points 1-4, the regular posts will help, although I'll settle for the assertions at the moment.
Robert
Posted 10 years ago #
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