CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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Restoration work on Brighton Place in Portobello would cost �1.5m and take three years, the council says.
Historic cobbled streets in the Capital face being smothered in tarmac under cost-cutting measures aiming at boosting the city’s flagging bank balance.
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Porty Community Council are running a consultation on various resurfacing options for the setts on Brighton Place
Form: http://www.portobellocc.org/brightonplace.php?ref=cce
Poster: https://twitter.com/portobellocc/status/560916774078541825
Thanks Wangi - I filled this in and opted for option 2. It looks to me to be the most appropriate option and the best value.
The surface is currently a major hazard to all two wheeled users, as well as pedestrians crossing the road. The restoration work is long overdue.
I also suggested that consideration be given to a permanent permeable barrier under the railway bridge allowing passage of cycles, emergency vehicles, buses and taxis.
Cheers
Colin
I hate the cobbles, I find them impossible to cycle on. Here's hoping this actually happens...
Most of the older streets in Edinburgh have an inch or two of tarmac over the setts.
Given the number of pot holes you can still see the setts below. During the tram works the layer of tarmac was skimmed of Shandwick place and for a brief while the street was entirely cobbled.
OK to keep the setts in a historical architecturally important area, but Brighton Place is hardly that. Waste of money putting down a 18th / 19th century surface.
Only 17 listed buildings along it...
Living two minutes from the street, and cycling it often, the surface is currently abysmal, but I'd be all for the retention of setts.
EDIT: 15 (didn't notice the last two were down south). For a short street that's quite a lot of listing, mainly good examples of Georgian architecture, with the church being stunning/ugly, depending on the view of buildings that look like Thunderbird 1. All in all my point simply being it can't be claimed at all that the street is architecturally unimportant!
If residents are indeed "wedded to their setts" then there is a simple way to deal with all this fuss and bother - let them top up the cost of laying a modern surface (paid for by the the council) with their own money.
There are lots of things I would love to have other people pay for, but sadly this doesn't seem to happen. There are even things I would personally pay for that aren't allowed (fixing the dreadful so-called "historic" parts of the canal, for instance).
I like the setts but I miss them out via Christian Path and Windsor Place. Getting rid of them on the basis that they prevent cycling sounds a bit like the argument that's allowed cars such regrettably free access.
Anyone interested in the quality of work produced by council contractors should come see Thirlestane Road, which was redone five or so years ago. The students vote with their wheels and use the pavements. Setts and cycling not really compatible.
The main problem with Brighton Place isn't the setts, it's the bad subsidence. The road is not just bad to cycle on, it's bad to drive on; it's like a poorly maintained farm track (but with setts). Thus option 3 is useless, as the existing severe depressions in the road will be filled with tarmac for about a week before it all starts coming up in big lumps. Options 1 and 2 are a matter of taste. I expressed a preference for option 1 but with the comment that vehicles tend to go dangerously fast for the width of the road so I'd prefer that it either be permanently closed or that parking on it should be completely banned.
Someone on one of the Porty FB groups declared that it was 'impossible' to go at 30 on the road due to the surface. Which for anyone who has walked, cycled or driven along it is obviously completely wrong, people can, and do, go 30 and faster. Hate to think what it's doing to their pounded suspension...
Yes, it's impossible to go at 30 if you care about your vehicle's suspension, anyway! Or about the safety of those your vehicle may unpredictably bounce towards as it hurtles over the holes.
When I drive a car along that road I go at 10-15mph at most.
(and when I cycle I use the excellent Christian Path).
Thanks for the feedback.
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A CRUMBLING road in the Capital is to be resurfaced with asphalt rather than setts after councillors upheld community fears over cost, safety and disruption.
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Speaking after the decision, Councillor Lesley Hinds, transport and environment leader, said: “We’ve gone with what the community council have told us.
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“
We’ve gone with what the community council have told us.
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That's convenient (cheaper too...)
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@CllrNickCook: I'm glad Transport Committee saw sense today and voted for popular community option @portobellocc https://t.co/gBdVS816gO
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An outbreak of common sense at the City Chambers. The setts are dreadful on Brighton Place.
I was in a lift today and pressed two lower buttons in error then the correct floor (tricky lift, the ground floor is five and the first floor is Seven). I had to use charm and possibly quark and strangeness to avoid being garrotted by someone upstream in this thread
http://www.portobellocc.org/pccpn/2018/04/26/brighton-place-sett-reconstruction-update-26-april/
"To facilitate active travel:
It is proposed to introduce a 1.5m strip, from the kerb, of flat-top setts along the full length of the northbound carriageway.
It is proposed to introduce a 1.5m strip, from the kerb, of flat-top setts from Rosefield Place to the railway bridge on the southbound carriageway.
Whilst we accept that cyclists will have limited access to the flat top sets on the southbound carriageway due to parked cars, this will future proof the street if it was proposed to introduce an east-west cycle scheme using Brighton Place.
A further improvement to cycling in Brighton Place will be to introduce an island near the entry to Christian Path. This will provide cyclists with additional protection when making the right turn onto the Christian Path on the northbound carriageway.
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So once all the flat top setts have been destroyed after a decade of being parked on by heavy vehicles, we might get a chance to use them?
Bonkers council, as per
What a spectacular waste of money, and the finger of blame can be pointed at cyclists. Not in my name; if any adjustment is to be made, it should be to remove or tarmac over these (and all other) setts. Setts are not really compatible with bikes (see Thirlestane Road for example, a criminal waste of £1m plus, that threatens my fillings every morning).
The flat-top setts at the High St/Bridges junction have held up well under a massive burden of buses and lorries. If these new ones are laid properly (ay, there's the rub), they should survive a few years of parking and still be OK to cycle on.
“The flat-top setts at the High St/Bridges junction have held up well under a massive burden of buses and lorries.”
Yes, very impressive.
Seem to remember a lot of effort went into the laying and the layer below.
Also involved epoxy.
The ones on Howe Street seem to be bearing up well too.
a lot of effort went into the laying and the layer below. Also involved epoxy.
I strongly doubt they will go to that much effort on Brighton Pl. and even if they did, the expense would be enormous.
Surely it would be cheaper to provide a segregated flat topped cycle lane to start with, to keep heavy vehicles out?
@neddie I strongly doubt they will go to that much effort on Brighton Pl
My understanding is this will be the whole shebang - rerouting utilities and laying a concrete trough to bed the setts into. This is why it will take 60 weeks and cost so much.
Brighton Place carries three bus routes, maybe 8/hr in each direction during the day, so it had better be good.
More buses than that.
Plus the magical mystery 69.
Mmm, thar is a strange one -
The detail is in what is built UNDER the road surface NOT the upper layers.
This is what you dig down at least 3 metres to put in when you plant trees along the side of the road to get roots going down and not making the surfacing heave
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/978/41710786372_48baa1bf25_m.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/867/27882496068_ca63933c96_m.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/822/39175150200_c18fa142d4_m.jpg
and this is what a properly laid road looks like after 160 years with minimal maintenance and no utility company digging it up and not reinstating it correctly - notice how water sheds from minimal camber into self flushing gulley & flat top setts, as deep as they are wide, and laid with a tight bond, and tar-sealed joints, have maintained a smooth running surface, that accommodates movement by fractional variations between each element - but with the tight bond the setts cannot rock, & fall out to form holes.
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