I have this back from the council re Eastbound Queensferry Street at Ryans Bar:
"The traffic signals which permit "local buses" to proceed in a westbound direction on Hope Street, past Ryans Bar, are a temporary measure designed specifically to accommodate Lothian Buses’ Service 47. The reason for the facility and the reason it is restricted to bus-only is quite involved, so please bear with me.
While the tram-works diversions were in operation, Lothian Buses took the opportunity to re-route their Service 47 on a trial basis … they took the service off Princes Street and put it on Lothian Road. This has been a great success, so it is to be retained.
However, under the new junction layout, buses cannot turn left out of Lothian Road — it wasn’t being considered at the time the tram design was undertaken — so a revised, post-tram, design will now be required. This will take time to develop and implement, not least because it will require a new Traffic Regulation Order, so a stop-gap measure is required in the meantime to facilitate the re-routed Service 47. That is the Hope Street contraflow arrangement.
At the moment the signals on Hope Street come up every cycle. While that works just now, it will not work when tram is operational as there simply isn’t the capacity in the West End junction to allow the signals to be called every cycle. So loop detectors are to be installed on Hope Street (this will be undertaken shortly) which will mean that the Hope Street signals will only be called when needed, i.e. each time a Service 47* bus arrives at the stop line.
In summary, there are two key points to note about the Hope Street situation:
1. The current arrangement is temporary and the intention is that the Queensferry Street/Hope Street junction will eventually be returned to its pre-tram-works configuration, i.e. Hope Street will revert to one-way eastbound only for all traffic; and
2. Junction capacity requires that the temporary Hope Street signals be called as few times as possible, i.e. generally only every fifteen minutes, per the Service 47 schedule, but noting that a very small number of Citylink buses also use the facility. Bicycles, and indeed taxis, cannot be facilitated in the circumstances.
So in the short-term I am afraid there is nothing which can be done to accommodate westbound cycles on that section of Hope Street. However, my colleagues in the Strategic Planning Cycle Team are looking at further improvements across the city centre and they are aware of the issue at Hope Street. Options for a shared-use footway/cycleway and crossing facility will be considered as part of that work."
.......Would be great if they could work something out - the cobbles are shocking...
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