Finally! Pedestrian cam :)
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
A pedestrian on Princes St
(165 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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I knew the wait for pedestrian lights was bad.
BUT
"One hundred metres in 6 minutes"!!!!!!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Its always been pretty bad, hut I think the phasing of the lights along Princes Street has got a lot worse since the trams started running. Bad for pedestrians, and also for buses around St Andrews Square. The whole area often gets completely clogged up which makes bad air pollution with further hegative impacts on both pedestrians and cyclists.
Posted 9 years ago # -
How the buses are not all clean-fuel now I've no idea. How can we even begin to argue that the buses can be the answer rather than trams when the noise and air pollution coming out of those behemoths is absolutely frightful.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Nicely done SRD. Really shows up the stupidity of wait times for Pedestrians in the city centre.
Posted 9 years ago # -
not my video! just sharing it. didn't realise the embedded version wouldn't show the maker's channel. tweets as @unclekempez
Posted 9 years ago # -
How the buses are not all clean-fuel now I've no idea.
Would cost millions to replace LB's entire fleet with hybrids. They have done a lot though: No.1 service is run on hybrids entirely, as I think are some others.
Not all buses run by Lothian Buses, of course.
Posted 9 years ago # -
the phasing of the lights along Princes Street has got a lot worse since the trams started running.
IMO the problem is not the trams, but the "need" to cater for general traffic on Princes Street. Only relatively small sections free from cars, lorries, etc. All the roads that cross Princes Street, plus traffic from various junctions going east or west.
Get rid of that lot and Princes Street wouldn't need very many traffic lights at all!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Is it possible that whoever it is that controls the timing of the lights has not made any changes since cars etc were banned from Princes Street etc? As the video shows, there is virtually no traffic coming off/on Princes Street, so you have to wonder why peds don't have 2 minutes to walk across, followed by 15 seconds for cars?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Finally! Pedestrian cam :)
Actually this was my bike camera that we detached for the day! I found it while unpacking one of the boxes that came over from Holland that are still all sitting on my bedroom floor.
We took this at about 4.30 yesterday, dread to think what it's like at midday. We talk a lot about how the bike infrastructure here isn't as good as that of Holland or Denmark, but to be honest the pedestrian experience is even worse.
I don't think routing all of the buses down Princes street was the right decision, but I guess this decision was made a few years ago and isn't so easy to change. The situation could be partially remedied by pedestrianising Frederick street and Hanover street, this would also have the benefit of removing all the junctions along Princes street allowing the traffic there to flow a bit.
I think there's a case for having a pro-shops campaign for greater pedestrian priority in the centre of town, next time I have some energy I might try to get one started.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"I think there's a case for having a pro-shops campaign for greater pedestrian priority in the centre of town, next time I have some energy I might try to get one started."
The problem is many of the shop owners seem to think you need cars for people to shop. They stopped cars from going down George Street a few years back, big bollards and everything.
Shop owners complained it meant people couldn't shop, and others said it left the street with 'no atmosphere' (?!?). It's a strange mindset, but was also demonstrated on the redesign of Leith Walk. Massive wide street into which a two way segregated cycle lane could easily be incorporated, but we had to retain the car parking otherwise no-one would buy anything from the shops on the street and it would be the end of life as we know it.
Mention banning cars from the city centre on the Evening News comments section (though I recommend you don't), and within minutes someone will be asking how easy is it to get a fridge home on a bike or the bus. The blinkered thinking, and the pandering of the council to that blinkered thinking, is frustrating and depressing.
But yes, in short, I'd agree and say that pedestrians probably have it worst of all in the city centre (your video makes it wonderfully clear that walking is the dominant transport mode on Princes Street!).
Posted 9 years ago # -
The reality these days seems to be that most people buy big box items at out-of-town shops, not city centre ones, or online, or, if they make it into the centre, they get John Lewis or whoever to deliver the big box so that someone else gets the fun of hulking it up 3 flights of stairs (or wherever).
I do think it's useful for people with disabilities to be able to get close to the shops they're interested in, but since Princes St has been closed to cars (legal ones anyway) for years without seeming to have too massive an impact, I am sure that the rest of the centre could cope. And an improved pedestrian experience can't be bad, surely?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Oops, apologies for mistaken credit!
As the video shows, there is virtually no traffic coming off/on Princes Street, so you have to wonder why peds don't have 2 minutes to walk across, followed by 15 seconds for cars?
Yes yes. That is all they need to do. Makes perfect sense.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Pedestrians can cross if no cars coming dont have to wait for the crossing unless busy.
Posted 9 years ago # -
That is great if you can get a good view all around you and are able to run or brazen it out if you get it wrong. Not so great if you can't.
Posted 9 years ago # -
what min said. seems to individualise the response. we've all been taught/institutionalised to see that behaviour as 'wrong' or at least 'not setting a good example to children".
what about if we organised some vigilante lollypop people to stand there and help folk across on the red man when there's no oncoming?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Congestion charge would work. If you need to buy a fridge, pay the £10 to bring your car in. The rest of the time, walk cycle bus tram etc.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'd love to know how many city centre businesses have actually sold fridges, washing machines etc. and had them taken away by a customer on the spot (not by later arrangement).
Sure there will be some. Suspect there will be hardly any.
With free delivery and a cast iron no quibble guarantee from i.e. Amazon, you literally couldn't pay me to drive into town and pick up a fridge from a physical premises. Other etailers are available etc.
Posted 9 years ago # -
An etailer, is that like an e-retailer?
Long time since I have seen anyone carrying a fridge from a shop to their vehicle. Grays of george street probably did sell fridges.
Not sure apart from John Lewis who deliver for free?? that there are any retailers selling anything in the town centre that you could not take on a bus.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Dunno why we're analysing the shopping payloads to death. People don't drive because their shopping is too big/heavy etc. They drive because they don't like sitting next to the great unwashed on public transport; they can listen to the radio/music/their sat nav warbling "turn left onto George Street now"; they have a big comfy seat, central heating, climate control and a drinks holder; they can smoke or even have sex in the car; cycling and walking looks like too much hard work and you might get wet or cold or knocked down by some driver following their sat nav warbling "turn left onto George Street now".
Posted 9 years ago # -
What? People have sex in their cars before or after they buy the fridges?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Doesn't everyone?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I can't cycle at the moment, and I can't walk very far, so my trips into the centre currently involve me driving to the closest appropriate tram or bus stop with free parking (about 1/2 a mile), getting public transport into town, shopping and coming back to the car at the aforementioned interchange. On one occasion recently my partner and I were elsewhere in town so he dropped me off near John Lewis (and parked for 30 mins on Albany St to grab a coffee together) and then I got a tram home-ish and was picked up again by him from the stop.
It would be so much easier if I could cycle, but despite the "door-to-door convenience" of driving into the centre, finding a parking space (and having to decide how long I want to park for and pay £££ for the privilege) and then driving home, I will stick with public transport thank you very much. And when we ordered a cot and travel system in John Lewis, they delivered it to home or we picked it up from the Comely Bank Waitrose a day or so later. Much nicer.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@livD, I shall take a punt and wish you well with the baby thing
@kenny -I tried reading JG Ballard's Crash but it is hard going. He does make the point about the destructive force of cars and how they appear to be linked to sexual aggression at the start and then on every page thereafter
Posted 9 years ago # -
@gembo thanks :) 3 weeks to go...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Cars and sex:
Ed Keinholz, "Back Seat Dodge '38", 1964
And of course "folk art" images like this (a relatively demure version here compared to much of the soft porn that's out there):
Posted 9 years ago # -
Also, over the years I've heard a number of anecdotes about what folk get up to together while driving. Certainly not abiding by the Highway Code and decidedly distracting, in my estimation. I'm sure you've all heard similar so I'll spare you the gory details.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I've had a bit of a think about how important driving is to the city centre. The city centre was visited by 163,359 people on Saturday 8 November (1) - the busiest day of that week.
There are 4082 off-street parking spaces in or around the city centre (2). The entire city has 12,577 on-street spaces, both pay-and-display and shared use between residents and visitors (3). Being generous, say around one quarter of these are near enough to the city centre to allow visitors to park and walk to the shops. That gives you around 7266 parking spaces in and around the city centre.
Assuming each space is used four times a day and each car carries an average of two people, then a maximum of
57,808 visitors to the city centre could come by car. This is about 35% of visitors to the city centre on the chosen date.Now, I've been absurdly generous here, as the off-street car parks generally run well under capacity at weekends and shared use bays tend to be packed with residents cars. The actual parking capacity/utilisation of the city centre is probably well under my estimate. I would imagine well under 20%.
Public and active travel are clearly more important to the city centre than cars. Much traffic in town is simply passing through, and is of no economic benefit to the city centre. Improving the pedestrian environment, cycle access, pedestrian/cycle access to the Waverley and sorting out the location of bus stops should be a priority for the council if it wants to help the city centre economy.
This need not have any real impact on vehicle access to the city centre. The off-street car parks and the vast majority of on-street bays are located around the edge of the city centre area. Radical road space reallocation in and around Princes Street and George Street should boost, rather than hinder trade and investment. I think you all know that though.
(2) http://edinburgh.cdmf.info/public/carparks/list.htm - I have excluded the park-and-rides and the Omni from the list.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"As the video shows, there is virtually no traffic coming off/on Princes Street, so you have to wonder why peds don't have 2 minutes to walk across, followed by 15 seconds for cars?
Yes yes. That is all they need to do. Makes perfect sense. "
I've said it before & I'll say it again. In the centre (St Andrew Sq to Charlotte St inclusive) the lights should default to pedestrian phase not motor vehicle phase.
Posted 9 years ago #
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