CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

PGR

(24 posts)
  • Started 8 years ago by UtrechtCyclist
  • Latest reply from chdot

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  1. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    Pedestrian guard rail (metal barriers between the pavement and the road) is almost entirely bad. It causes pedestrian congestion, makes drivers drive faster, forces peds off their desire lines and kills cyclists by trapping them against it every time they get left hooked. There's a good document on PGR by TFL.

    Edinburgh has masses of pedestrian guard rail. Googling this I found that there was talk of removing lots of this back in 2012, there's a Scotsman article and some preliminary council policy.

    Removing PGR is cheap (136 pounds for removing a section in London according to this FOI request).

    Does anyone know what's going on with the council policy, whether there's a plan for reviewing and removing more PGR? Lesley Hinds spoke at a recent spokes meeting and suggested that the decision not to reinstate PGR on princes street after it was taken down for Hogmanay last year happened just because she suggested it to one of the neighbourhood teams, which seems to say that there's no systematic approach to this in the council.

    Removal of PGR is surely the easiest and cheapest thing the council can do to improve our public space for pedestrians and cyclists, it would be great to accelerate things if we can.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. cb
    Member

    Also discussed on here in relation to the Councils Active Transport Action Plan.

    See this thread:
    http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=1453

    The link to the ATAP in the first post doesn't seem to work any more (I get Access Denied), but the other refernced thread has links to the Spokes and chdot hosted versions.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    So Edinburgh has had policy to remove PGR since at least 2010... The ATAP is great, as always it seems the council has very good policies but getting them implemented is difficult. I've only been here for nine months though so perhaps I'm being harsh, has there been significant removal of PGR since 2010?

    The good news is that the form for evaluating whether PGR should be removed has on the first page 'is the guardrail considered obviously redundant without further investigation', if so then the long form doesn't need to be completed. I think I shall focus my efforts on finding ten pieces of guardrail that are 'obviously redundant' then hopefully someone can walk round and sign the demolition orders in an afternoon.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. SRD
    Moderator

    Yes, in ATAP, so formal policy. Worth asking for an update on progress?

    Some has come down, but not enough.

    As post above says, seems to be up to neighbourhood teams, so dependent on their proclivities.

    I've asked for some removal and not had any joy.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    Did you get any reasons for guardrail not being removed SRD? Did they do an assessment and decide it was necessary or did they just not have the time/inclination to do the assessment?

    I had to google proclivity to see what it means, always appreciate it when someone improves my vocabulary!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. SRD
    Moderator

    @utrechtcyclist ;)

    The one bit that I had a serious discussion about was considered to be too close to a school gate.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. earthowned
    Member

    I know PGRs are bad, but they are pretty good for locking your bike up in the absence of proper facilities!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. cb
    Member

    I know PGRs are bad, but they are pretty good for locking your bike up in the absence of proper facilities!

    Well the ATAP does say:

    "It is recognised that in some locations guardrailing is utilised as cycle parking. The assessment procedure for removal of guardrailing will take into account these locations and replacement cycle parking will be
    provided to cater for existing and future demand."

    (Which probably means that when they remove 100m of railing they will stick up a cyclehoop on an awkward pole next to a street bin).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I know PGRs are bad, but they are pretty good for locking your bike up in the absence of proper facilities!

    Thought - old PGR to be cut into bike-sized sections and installed around town as austerity bike racks. Would be much more preferable than some of the ridiculous novelty bike racks that are to be found, particularly at supermarkets.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. earthowned
    Member

    I've often wondered why supermarkets have such bad racks!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. wingpig
    Member

    I seem to recall that the Great Junction/Consistution/Duke Streets and Leith Walk junction was one particular site which was going to be inspected for railing-removal suitability, but had got so used to avoiding it during the remodelling works that I've not been through it enough since to have noticed if it still has railings or not. Easter Road/Duke Street/Lochend Road still has great lengths of railing keepy pesky pedestrians back from the road mouths and the narrowing barriers on the island in the middle of one of the roads the Broomhouse path crosses have certainly been added since the official principle of not installing barriers willy-nilly was stated. Lothian Road/Shandwick Place/Princes Street has retained all its barriers during the recent re-paving works. Princes Street itself is the only major site of mass railing removal that I can think of and that started happening (on the north footway) well before 2010.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. neddie
    Member

    Leith St has PGR all down the centre which makes it hard for pedestrians to cross.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. kaputnik
    Moderator

    which makes it hard for pedestrians to cross.

    Impossible if you can't vault the fence.

    Lots of it at the top of the hill on all sides of the junction too, especially bad where the pavements are narrow.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. paulmilne
    Member

    It's annoying when there are roadworks and the PGR come out, and then get put back again! Like on Buccleuch Street at the pend through to St Patricks's square last year, along with the works around Summerhall that saw the PGRs out and back in.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    Saw a group of schoolkids vaulting the guardrail on Leith Street today...

    I read more of the council policies on guardrail today and they really are very good, in particular they took a lot of care to make sure that the assessment process for removing guardrail is fairly quick (based on the process in Hackney, rather than the old process for TFL which involved filling out quite difficult forms). It's just that the implementation is down to neighbourhood teams whenever they have the time/money/inclination. I shall start badgering south team about implementation in my area.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. Fountainbridge
    Member

    It seems some guardrails are being removed, and seems to be no longer council policy (as is bollards).

    Some removals in last year include the east and west end of Princes Street and also outside the Kirkgate Center at the end of Leith Walk.

    Sadly the removal of the ones at the West End of Princes street (outside Frasers) mean lost tourists can make it to the center of the road - but there's no break in the traffic sequence to allow them to complete their crossing.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    I wrote a blog article on this, it's very Newington based but they say it's always best to be small and local...

    http://unclekempez.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/pedestrian-guardrail.html

    If it has any effect then I'll probably get around to writing a city-centre follow up.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. neddie
    Member

    I think there was a cyclist killed (a neuro scientist) at
    the junction of Nicolson Street and West Nicolson Street (item 5 of uncle's blog) a wee while ago.

    Crushed between the PGR & a tipper lorry. Sad.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. neddie
    Member

    Some articles about the tipper lorry incident. Possibility that PGR prevented escape.

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/cyclist-dragged-under-wheels-of-lorry-dies-in-horror-accident-1-1258018

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7380814.stm

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. UtrechtCyclist
    Member

    That's really sad. I searched for the coroner's report but couldn't find it online, I don't know if there was one.

    It's not clear from the articles whether PGR played a role in that accident, but guardrail does regularly trap cyclists, for this reason alone it should be removed.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  21. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I searched for the coroner's report but couldn't find it online, I don't know if there was one.

    Coroners don't exist in Scotland.

    Deaths requiring judicial examination are reported to the Procurator Fiscal and dealt with by Fatal Accident Inquiries conducted by the Sheriff for the area.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  22. acsimpson
    Member

    I had the misfortune of travelling under fossil power across town this morning. Other than the queue to get off Melville Drive I was surprised at just how uncongested my route to Corstorphine was.

    I was also suppressed by just how horribly congested the pavement from Haymarket up Morrison Street is. why the council maintains 4 lanes of vehicles down here but put less than a metre of pavement in places including hemming it in with PGR is beyond a joke.

    The junction with Gardeners Crescent is especially appalling.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  23. ih
    Member

    My favourite PGR (not) is around the roundabout at Broughton Street, East London Street. The pedestrian crossings are so far along each road, you have to schedule additional time to walk through that junction.

    Does anyone know which team I should contact to ask for them to be removed? As long as they keep a short heritage section (Berlin Wall-esque) to lock one's bike to outside the Cask & Barrel.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  24. chdot
    Admin

    "Does anyone know which team I should contact to ask for them to be removed?"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/citycentreleith

    Posted 8 years ago #

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