It's not worth lobbying about for sure. Very little is... life is too short to fight a battle about something that we can just ignore.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
CEC and chicanes
(230 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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When buggy pushing I usually use the cycle side, particularly if the buggy occupant is asleep.
Posted 9 years ago # -
+1 cb
The tactiles are a total pain in the proverbials when you're pushing a sleeping child in anything that has small wheels.Posted 9 years ago # -
The problem with all this tactiles stuff is it's just wasting the extremely limited cycle budget instead of doing what they need to be doing which is building new paths/routes.
If we had a 3bn budget, then yeah, do the tactiles nonsense & gold plate the edges. But with only 1% we need to do things on a shoestring.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"gold plate the edges"
Then we'll know 'cycling' has arrived!
Posted 9 years ago # -
I found out recently from Edinburgh Council that the tactile paving is aligned the way it is (across the path for pedestrians, along the path for cyclists), because, apparently, cyclists prefer not to go over the bumpy across-the-path strips, so will naturally stay on the correct side.
That's a great idea, but I HATE riding over the along-the-path strips. If you're at even a slight angle, and it's wet, you can lose it.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@bdellar, that info from the cooncil would appear to be lacking in veracity. Cyclists maY prefer smooth Tarmac to grooves perpendicular to travel. However the grooves that are parallel to travel would send anyone skiting.
Thus the perp grooves help the non existent blind people to know they are sAfe from speeding cyclists and that they won't take. Skite on those killer parallel tiles.
Where is the cycle hack when you need it to come up with a way of slowing down speeding cyclists that speeding cyclists and non speeding cyclists can cope with.
No chicane I don wanna go insane (curly wurly to anyone who gets that musical reference)
Posted 9 years ago # -
bdellar, here is the 1998 DETR guidance:
Page 76:
"
On the cyclist side, the surface should be laid with the bars running in the direction of travel (Figure 29 page 75). This arrangement was chosen because it was felt the rumble effect created by the transverse pattern would deter cyclists from entering on the pedestrian side.
"When CEC builds a footway, or a shared segregated cycle path, it is required to mark it up with the correct tactile infrastructure according to design standards that have been developed over decades of testing. There is still no evidence of TRL's historical design consideration of what happens with bicycle tyres on tactile flags covered with wet leaves or ice. I don't think it would help much if the cyclist tactiles were given a high traction coating, because it would still get covered by mulch.
Posted 9 years ago # -
It is pretty obvious that the DETR never trialled the surfaces to see which one was the most off-putting to cyclists. Research? Nah!
Posted 9 years ago # -
The design of the tactile paving was conceived around 20 years ago, when a great deal of change for accommodating disability in transport and the wider world was taking place. Around the same time I was involved with integration of cycling with Public Transport, and meetings with DETR (as it was then) Fred Offen was in charge of the CLT3 Cycling team, and was doing tests with TRL on the tramline paving specification.
I think Arellcat's note This arrangement was chosen because it was felt the rumble effect created by the transverse pattern would deter cyclists from entering on the pedestrian side. displays the way that DETR Mobility Unit through ignorance or arrogance simply decided that they knew best (a detail which I suspect may still exist given the way that there is an insistence that wheelchair spaces on trains are inviolate and not for use of any luggage, bikes or even other passengers*)
The testing was essential to establish the MAXIMUM height for the ridge and the CORRECT profile since this was a recovery of a flawed decision taken, as far as I am aware without actually consulting cyclists or those specifying the surface quality of carriageways. It equally did not for that matter, properly think through the issues for wheelchair users, as well as those on foot with wheeled shopping trolleys, suitcases, and baby buggies, almost all of whom will move over to the cycle side of the tactile paving to use the easier to pass over longitudinal ridge paving, rather than the transverse ridges, which are safer to cross and less of an issue for cycling over. Basically the Mobility Unit, DiPTAC - or whoever decided on this specification, when drafting the wider standards for tactile paving messed it up, but having committed to the arrangement has left us with a massive (but not impossible) task that to date as deterred action to to correct the mistake.
Note that there was extensive testing to get that profile as safe as possible. Striking a longitudinal ridge or even a small, short, vertical irregularity with a cycle or motorcycle tyre presents a major risk of bringing down the rider. Similar testing also set the standards for the rumble strip white lining where thermoplastic road markings are moulded with small raised elements - note that where cycle traffic is likely to cross those sections where rumble strip lines are used, then the moulded profiles should be omitted for that area.
With the through testing which included practical riding at sample profiles at an oblique angle, and with water/detergent lubrication to present a theoretical worst case, you would expect that valuable detail that can provide a greater understanding of why cyclists fall off crossing tram tracks, or road features such as dropped kerbs. Well over the past 10 years I've been trying to track down the reports and results with both DfT and TRL and no one can find them! Public money spent, important data captured and then ... lost.
It is very important to use the tactile ridge paving as specified in the handbook and by the Traffic Advice Leaflet, yet many contractors install the wrong design, and some suppliers insist that the wrong design they supply is the right design.
One detail that is as critical, if not more critical is the profile of that central ridge between the two sides. I have seen a neat precast concrete detail, complete with shaped end tapers, which can be introduced at intervals to allow water to drain away, and present a safe end face to any cyclists who strike the profile end-on - Samples on the Thames Path in Greenwich, and also on KGV bridge on Glasgow
*That wheelchair user provision often sees thousands of unused spaces being dragged around the country empty and not (in theory) available for other use - fortunately in the real world train and bus operators are more pragmatic, but the battle of the buggy vs wheelchair on the bus continues to the Supreme Court
Posted 9 years ago # -
This set is quite spectacular!
From StreetView
Side entrance to Liberton High (don't know if it's actually used).
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot - Side entrance to Liberton High (don't know if it's actually used).
Yes, that's used daily during the school opening hours (info from last academic year).
I tried cycling it a few times and gave up, instead resorting to the road.
Robert
Posted 9 years ago # -
"I tried cycling it a few times and gave up"
Bit surprised you can get a bike through that lot at all!
Must be hard when full of people walking to school!
So does someone from school unlock at start of day and lock at end or only open for 'main use' times?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I don't know if it is just the start and end of the day, or all day.
It's possible they don't wish pupils randomly sloping off via this entrance...
Robert
Posted 9 years ago # -
Half of one of the chicanes outside St Mary's on Leith Links has now been removed.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Having now tried cycling a bike with child through the Crawford Bridge chicanes (especially at the Albion Terrace end), it's so nigh-on difficult that I've taken this up as a pet cause to get changed.
Posted 9 years ago # -
But 'we' got it changed already!
Posted 9 years ago # -
it got spaced ever-so-slightly further apart.
It doesn't need such restrictive bollards at *both* ends, the Bothwell Street side is much flatter so put the restriction there (if at at all). The other end is just designed for stalling on.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
reggie tricker (@reggietricker)
07/09/2015 07:14
Thought for the day, Route 10 Portobello-Leith.http://pic.twitter.com/DNNpU5jYZj
"
Posted 9 years ago # -
I noticed an Edinburgh Council bin lorry on the Leith Links path last week. It also had to pull out onto the grass to get round the chicanes...
Posted 9 years ago # -
That's a striking desire line if ever I saw one! Great photo.
Why not just have a cycle path and a footpath parallel but separate there?
Like these paths in Munich - one's for cycling, one's for walking:https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@48.1270697,11.5748193,3a,75y,100.04h,75.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3nGLSiBGV4xM_STMQQPdxw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
(Pic doesn't work. Maybe chdot can fix it up? If not try https://goo.gl/maps/gLL36 this link.)
ADMIN EDIT
First link not a pic so doesn't work in IMG tags.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Indeed, parallel tracks are the way to go. And what's good for Leith links goes double for the Meadows. All that space, so few bicycle lanes!
Posted 9 years ago # -
I forgot all about this till recently but I noticed Arellcat done all the leg work for me ages ago.
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=12776&page=2#post-152884Who do you report this sort of thing to?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted two years ago and referring to two years prior to that.
This morning:
Posted 8 years ago # -
@wingpig I just noticed that the other day and let Chas know yesterday on Twitter.
Now if they can only replace the bollards at the other end of that street so that it's not used as a giant car park. It's still supposed to be closed to vehicles and as confirmed two years ago, the regulations put in to make it so are still in place. The original bollards were pulled out and chucked into the Water of Leith, allowing the cars to take the whole area over again.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Now if they can only replace the bollards at the other end of that street."
Tried http://www.fixmystreet.com ?
Posted 8 years ago # -
"The original bollards were pulled out and chucked into the Water of Leith"
Aye. That'll be part of the "cultural difference" cited as one of the reasons why segregated bike lanes would not work at the Foot of the Walk.....the culture of free-for-all anti-social illegal parking, in this case.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@frenchy Yes, plus getting my Green Councillor to look into it. We both got precisely nowhere - the council just didn't want to know.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Good News...
The very tight chicane blocking access from Corstorphine Bank Drive to Forrester Road has been dug up due to some nearby utility work.
Bad News...
Once they finished they replaced the chicane where it was :-(
Posted 6 years ago #
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