CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

George St cycle lane

(297 posts)
  • Started 9 years ago by wee folding bike
  • Latest reply from spytfyre

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12…10

  1. wee folding bike
    Member

    I had a few hours in Edinburgh today while BikeTrax were transplanting bits of Bromptons.

    I went for a wee spin around town to look at the Union canal, trams etc.

    I had a go on the bike lane in George St. Is there a neat way to get off the St Andrew's Sq end?

    It looked liked you can't get from the square to Princes St anymore. I went down a lane behind Jenners which was blocked by a taxi picking up from a hotel.

    On the plus side I won a doughnut in Meadowbank McDs and BikeTrax had the transplant done by the afternoon.

    There was someone in the shop looking at a nice new shiny Brompton when I picked up well worn frames. I hope I didn't put him off.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  2. wingpig
    Member

    At both Hanover St and St David St you have to know the sequences and watch the lights from a long way off if you want the bike lane to have any advantage. You can still turn right into South St David St to Princes Street but it's a bit narrow where they're building anew on the corner.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  3. dougal
    Member

    On the plus side they've got little concrete blocks with "no cars/motorbikes" signs at the path entrances now(/again).

    Posted 9 years ago #

  4. chdot
    Admin

    Meant to post yesterday -

    Only ones I actually noticed (don't do the statue shuffle!)

    Posted 9 years ago #

  5. wee folding bike
    Member

    It looked like a straight lane which disappears at the junctions. Collisions tend to happen at junctions and this lane has made the junction more complex.

    It was fun while it lasted.

    I almost hit a bus too as I hadn't noticed I was in a right turn lane (to the road in front of Waverley which is closed) and the bus seemed to assume I wouldn't be there which was reasonable I suppose. His lane disappeared at the junction.

    I guess the new traffic light with a horizontal row of lights is a tram thing.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  6. Arellcat
    Moderator

    It looked liked you can't get from the square to Princes St anymore.

    The offical ways are either South St David St and turn left or right, and play cat and mouse with buses, or if you want to get to North Bridge, take the cobbobbboobobbley West Register St which dumps you at the ignored and mostly unhelpful yellow box near the east end.

    Those little concrete blocks are tightly placed and quite good at scraping the bodywork on a torpedo; I preferred the bollards. It was fun while it lasted.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  7. Edinburgh Cycle Training
    Member

    The council chap told me "proper" bollards couldn't go in, because they may impede/damage modern fire engines.

    Are those blocks low enough to allow fire engines to pass over? They look pretty big in these photos.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  8. kaputnik
    Moderator

    An earlier thread confirmed the fold-over bollards couldn't go in as they foul the snow chains stored under modern fire engines. The light-weight bollards they put in had a combination lock that the fire brigade and others could use to lower them. There's no reason a heavier-weight bollard couldn't have that too.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  9. unhurt
    Member

    I still don't understand the tram-specific traffic lights - am I just dim?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  10. wingpig
    Member

    _

    Stop, tram, stop.

    |

    Go, tram, go.

    \

    Go, bearing left, tram.

    /

    Go, bearing right, tram.

    /\
\/

    Erm.

    Page 7

    Posted 9 years ago #

  11. kaputnik
    Moderator


    Trams also have a "." signal which is "stop if it is safe to do so". Not sure they use a diamond? The speed restrictions for trams are in a small, diamond-shaped sign.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  12. unhurt
    Member

    /\
    \/
    Some type of tram gymnastics, presumably?

    And, cheers. Though I'm not sure why I get so worried when i can't understand them as I am not a tram and presumably shouldn't obey the tram lights anyway...

    Posted 9 years ago #

  13. wee folding bike
    Member

    Why does a tram need a bearing right/left sign? It's not like you can steer them.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  14. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @WFB because there will be a signal directly before it passes a set of points, to let the driver know how they are set.

    It's not like you can steer them.
    As the Chipwrapper informed us.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  15. wee folding bike
    Member

    I didn't know they went up and over the hill, I thought they stopped at St Andrew's Sq. I was quite surprised to find tracks in York Pl.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  16. Fountainbridge
    Member

    Haven't seen the new bollards. Will take a wee wander tomorrow.

    I'm guessing the concrete blocks can be easily pushed out the way by a vehicle if they really need to pass - like a fire engine or ambulance.

    Against a plastic bumper on a car - no chance.

    Also betting their cheaper to replace when they're damaged.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  17. wingpig
    Member

    "...Though I'm not sure why I get so worried when i can't understand them as I am not a tram..."

    If you can see the signals they sometimes explain why the pedestrian-crossing trigger you just pressed isn't doing anything, or why your arm of the junction is being ignored.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  18. wee folding bike
    Member

    This was me yesterday. There are no bollards where I turned into the lane.

    At 6 seconds there is a strange thing on the right of the picture. Looks like a ped crossing button but it's facing the cycle lane. There are caution lines after it but no traffic lights linked to them as far as I can see.

    You can see me getting confused at the St Andrew's Sq end then deciding to go east.

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Flash Video

    Posted 9 years ago #

  19. wingpig
    Member

    You refer to the Hanover Street Button Monument. It does nowt. The stop line just beyond it is governed by the lights across from it, though initially there were no functional lights visible from the stop line. If you watch the lights heading east you can nip between cycle lane and one-way road to either catch the one-way-road's green or the (opposite point in the cycle) green for the cycle lane, obviously two-way. No such lane-switch advantage when going west, but as the sequence is simple and clockwise I usually dismount, walk across to the island across south Hanover then re-mount if there's more than a stage left before the westbound bike lane's green.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  20. wee folding bike
    Member

    East bound the lane sent me into a kind of no man's land. I was forward of the ASL and it's not clear what lights, if any, would tell me to stop or go.

    It's quite possible that I missed something.

    I like the wee wedges at the end of the car spaces. That might have stopped the management using a lamp post for the same purpose a few months ago.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  21. Fountainbridge
    Member

    Full set of photos of the new George street bollards and signs - https://flic.kr/s/aHsk9uSw6n

    Some of the blocks already appear to have been moved though.

    And it didn't stop one van driving along the road the wrong way. Van subsequently ignored by parking warden

    150411110653IMG_0949 by fountainbridge, on Flickr

    Posted 9 years ago #

  22. SRD
    Moderator

    "A new set up for cyclists will be introduced in the city centre in September when the current trial comes to an end. This will be a conventional one-way layout not alongside the kerb but sitting in between two lanes of traffic. This means that there will again be two lanes of traffic on each side of George Street as before, with a central one-way cycle lane."

    http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2015/05/cycle-lane-changes-to-be-introduced-on-george-street/

    this just gets weirder and weirder...

    Posted 9 years ago #

  23. chdot
    Admin

    "this just gets weirder and weirder..."

    I think that might be an understatement!

    "with a central one-way cycle lane."

    So they are removing the statues??!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  24. wingpig
    Member

    "Now that the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) is coming to an end the council has to decide whether to keep any elements of it, and they have decided that while the street will revert to two way traffic with parking along the central reservation they will retain a cycle lane here."

    The current single-but-angled strip of parking, rather than a return to double-thickness end-to-end, if there's to be space to a purported cycle lane? Even if the rubber bumpers are kept there'll still be half a street where parking entrance-exit manoeuvres are performed in the alleged cycle lane, if the cycle lane is "central" in relation to the whole street, unless they intend some sort of improbable

    north footway
    ----------------
    all eastbound traffic
    ----------------
    eastbound cycle lane
    ----------------
    all eastbound traffic
    ----------------
    central parking
    ----------------
    all westbound traffic
    ----------------
    westbound cycle lane
    ----------------
    all westbound traffic
    ----------------
    south footway

    arrangement, presumably accompanied by signs at each end asking drivers of particularly wide cars to breathe in and think themselves narrower...

    Posted 9 years ago #

  25. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    WT actual F???!?!?!?!?

    You can just imagine the conversations.

    "Yeah, it's not really been a success because drivers still drove in the lane, and not all cyclists wanted to go odd ways around statues to flip sides."

    "Cyclists, never happy."

    "I know."

    "Ah well, if drivers are going to drive in it anyway let's just go back to the way it was, but we can bung a pointless cycle lane on each side so that our total mileage remains the same."

    Yeah, I'm sure drivers will stay out of the cycle lane if they're allowed in it, or to cross it."

    "Absolutely, and cyclists will feel completely at ease and unexposed by being put in a lane in the middle of two lines of traffic."

    "Perfect."

    "Success!"

    "Another glass dear boy?"

    "Don't mind if I do."

    Posted 9 years ago #

  26. Min
    Member

    I am hoping that is just some sort stick-end confusion by the writer of the article? Please?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  27. kaputnik
    Moderator

    The notion that there can be 2 lanes of traffic on each side of George Street is a cobblers one - the kerbside "lane" is always used for delivery vans, taxis and other wheeled obstructions exercising their magic parking lights privileges. I assume the "cycle lanes" will be painted in such a manner to always be under the defacto kerbside waiting bays.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  28. Claire
    Member

    I just read this on Twitter. Apparently there are proposals on the Cooncil website regarding this, but I get all consultation emails from them and it's not arrived in my inbox.

    I'm not sure where the Edinburgh Reporter got the info from as so far they've not provided any links to the source. I am also hoping it's incorrect!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  29. kaputnik
    Moderator

    There's nowt on the TROs page yet; http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20016/roads_travel_and_parking/263/view_or_comment_on_traffic_orders

    Posted 9 years ago #

  30. chdot
    Admin

    Too early to be a TRO.

    Posted 9 years ago #

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