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.
There's a white car parked in (what used to be) the disabled bay outside the Natwest at the moment, displaying its blue badge. Hopefully not a blue badge abuser (TM, Half Man Half Biscuit).
Should they not be a blue badge abuser TM, then this is another fine example of folk spoiling it for everyone else.
Wow. St James Centre won't reopen until 2020. Five years to build !
was a joy to cycle along at 10.30 am this morning
even went round the second roundabout heading east in same way as first one as the red light is quicker if you are a car so I bumped over and bumped back.
did notice three boxes delineated for parking cars, maybe outside Waterstones or similar.
Those bays were put in post Princes Street tram works pre cycle route. From a discussion on twitter no vehicles should be using the pedestrian areas - including the marked bays.
If there's a blue badge holders forum I guess they're having a similar discussion about lack of disabled parking in the city centre.
Fountainbridge - Blue Badge holders can park pretty much anywhere in Scotland, including on most single and double yellow lines. They can also park in pay-and-display bays for free and, obviously, disabled persons' parking places. The creation of segregated cycle lanes shouldn't really have any impact on disabled drivers.
Okay, I know I shouldn't question your knowledge on these things Morningsider....
But if they've got to drive over a segregated cycle lane to get to the space, isn't driving over that lane still an offence? Fr'instance, does having a blue badge allow you to drive along a pavement? So the parking itself is probably fine, but the act of getting there not?
I'm totally fed up with blue badge holders who insist on parking on double yellows, even when there is a parking bay right next to them. Obviously they think they should leave those spaces for others, but they don't consider that there are reasons not to park on corners etc
Cases I am thinking of have blue badges parked in them every day.
I've asked CEC for (various things but including) clarification on vehicles that are being driven on the cycle lanes on George St and whether or not in its view this is verboten.
Only in Britain could we be having a discussion on whether it is permissable to drive cars in a segregated cycle lane.
Those daft 2-tier planters have to go. Constantly dodging stealth pedestrians emerging from behind them and they pretty much block the view to the left (or right, depending on which way you are heading) at each junction.
I swithered between George Street and Queen Street this morning, going for the former again on the grounds of not having great acceleration on the sparebike.
The current cluttery mess has ended up vaguely approximating one of those Naked Street things (except through increased mess rather than decluttering), except that it's pedestrians and cyclists who are acting ultra-cautious as they're not sure where they're supposed to go or allowed to be rather than motor vehicles going on tippy-toes in case they squish something.
I've got used to looking ahead at both sets of Hanover Street lights when going east in order to work out whether it's worth switching tracks, but going west it's either press-the-ineffectual-button-and-wait or -dismount-and-walk. I waited, then squeezed around the front of the car over the box junction whilst two eastbounders squeezed around its front.
WC - you are right. It is an offence to drive down a segregated cycle lane, even if you have a blue badge. I did say that earlier:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=12983&page=19#post-175808
Does anyone know how deliveries 'work' in other cities/countries?
Is it just that there are rules - eg 8pm to 8 am (only) - which are enforced?
Shouldn't the council have erased the parking bay paint as part of this?
George Street is now a bluddy mess with kak, obsolete bits of street furniture, old festival crep, and other detritus including some hilarious wee trees powered by multiple banks of generators that you could run a nuclear bunker from!
My hamster brain says bulldoze the lot and start again! Whit a ferking mess! This street should be a beautiful boulevard of pomp and circumstance, not a dumping ground! Hoping the cricket genius can do better than the present shower!
I'm going to stick up for the Council on this. It was done as an experiment and they "only" spent £100k on it. You can imagine the fuss if they spent more, then abandoned it at the end of the year long test. The last time they messed with George Street it was a complete disaster.
I'm really not sure what will happen at the end of the experiment. I've seen very few cycles using the route and it hasn't delivered the promised extra pedestrian capacity (it's reduced it). I've heard the restaurants have complained that it's been a mess. The street looks a mess with all the abandoned bus shelters and posts.
And todays van photo
Has it reduced pedestrian space? As far as I'm aware none of the pavement space has been taken away?
I do wonder when most people are using the lanes as well - I'm generally only along in the mornings, about 8.30ish, and usually see 4 or 5 other cyclists using it. Though the other point to raise on cyclists not using it is that it's not necessarily that this piece of infrastructure itself is terrible, but rather that the connections to it are awful. It would be a shame if the conclusion was cyclists aren't using it, therefore we need to scrap it; rather than, cyclists aren't using it, why not? (hence 'trial' from which we can hopefully learn).
p.s. I quite like the lit up trees....
p.p.s. however I did advocate once upon a time this being a beautiful continental style boulevard free of any cars, like most other European big cities have somewhere, and of which the rest could be envious of given the light and the architecture and the simple grandeur of the place. But hey, it's an arterial road!
"But hey, it's an arterial road!"
So some said - but it never really was, and certainly isn't now.
Would be best without the tat and the parking and any traffic.
Might be hard to shut the Mound - Dundas Street route, but the rest??
"Hoping the cricket genius can do better than the present shower!"
For anyone who didn't get that reference -
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/cricket-chief-to-lead-city-centre-bid-1-3631777
I'd agree on the Mound - Dundas route, keep that open, one crossing, we can deal with that (especially if it's properly pedestrianised and the walkers have priority / longer green cycles). But yeah, some courage could have seen something wonderful (and with more space the clutter would be much less).
If Glasgow can pedestrianise Sauchiehall Street, we can surely pedestrianise George street.
And yes I agree the route goes from nowhere to nowhere.
This is what I meant by a reduction in pedestrian space. Basically anywhere they've put one of these shed things the usable pedestrian space has been reduced. Outside LeMond you'll often see a queue of people trying to get past. Similar point outside Standing Order.
He doesn't entirely seem to be on Twitter -
https://mobile.twitter.com/roddysmithceo
Though his new employer (the planter company) is -
https://mobile.twitter.com/EssentialEdin
Ah. Yeah, hadn't spotted that (was walking on George Street at lunchtime today, but managed to avoid walking on either of those bits so blithely assumed the rest was the same - sorry about that!).
I used George Street for the first time today and was actually surprised how nice it was. I was coming from the end of the canal so got to Charlotte Square via EICC -> Rutland Square -> Stafford Street -> Melville Street -> Randolph Place and thought that was perfectly acceptable, more so than going down Lothian Road. I was also surprised how easy it was joining St Andrew's Square where I nipped down North St David Street before joining Queen Street breifly then onto Dublin Street. All of this route was virtually traffic free.
I was going to Broughton Street initially before coming back to George Street to then head up the Mound. The return route via Dublin Street and North St David Street was again perfectly acceptable to me.
The only issue I had in all of this was other cyclists treating the cycle lane as their own motorway and not being considerate to pedestrians when they clearly had right of way.
I'll be first to admit I'm quite comfortable cycling in traffic so this is why I can see this as an improvement on what was there previously. I'm not sure how I'd feel about my kids trying this route by themselves though.
Looking at chdot's photo above, this nicely illustrates a real bugbear of mine. If you are turning left from Charlotte Square onto George Street, the desire line of a turn with a nice radius is blocked by a wall of planters (which conveniently largely block the view of any pedestrians behind them). So you have to make a slow, 90-degree turn (with cars up your rear) between that planter and the sunken metal utilities cover (space of about a foot-width of badly cracked tarmac). You can't go round the other side of the cover because of the bollard and the likelihood of there being an oncoming cyclist behind it.
"got to Charlotte Square via EICC -> Rutland Square -> Stafford Street -> Melville Street -> Randolph Place"
Nice route -
http://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/43095524
Probably should be signposted...
"If you are turning left from Charlotte Square onto George Street"
Yeah, not helped by the bollard.
Turning right (ie coming from Lothian Road/ Princes St.) is probably worse - especially for anyone not fast/confident (OK if not vaguely 'traffic savvy' you wouldn't be there anyway!)
At what point do you get over to the right of two lanes of northbound traffic??
(Can't find pic!)
At what point do you get over to the right of two lanes of northbound traffic??
Quite. I generally go round the corner from Princes Street in the right hand lane in a very primary position, and sit in it all the way to the turn. But as you say, some "traffic savvy" is required as otherwise you've got a big queue of traffic sitting on your saddle trying to encourage you to go faster/get out the way.
"...Rutland Square -> Stafford Street..."
"'Nice route'"
AHEM. I think you mean Rutland Square > Coates/Atholl Crescent (going west) > Shandwick Place > Stafford Street, if the "no right turn" sign out of Rutland Square is to be believed...
AHEM. I think you mean Rutland Square > Coates/Atholl Crescent (going west) > Shandwick Place > Stafford Street, if the "no right turn" sign out of Rutland Square is to be believed...
Nope, I pushed my bike across at the pedestrian crossing on Shandwick Place.
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