@chdot, yes, the sight lines from Sciennes onto Summerhall were vastly improved by that work. Corner radii still too generous, though.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Suggestions for other pedestrianised spaces
(53 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Ah, not walked it since that work, must try it (always annoyed me).
Posted 9 years ago # -
Google Satellite shows old view, StreetView new!
Posted 9 years ago # -
No. of (major) car free areas by country league table (from Wiki) - for reference Edinubrgh is listed with the Royal Mile stretch and Rose Street, which combined counts as major) - thoughts on why the Scandinavians and Dutch are so far down? Just cycling culture is better so no need?:
60
US of A30
France26
Switzerland22
Germany20
Italy16
Canada15
Spain14
UK (Scotland 1, though I'm starting to suspect this list cos what about Glasgow?)13
Poland
Australia9
Portugal
Argentina8
Netherlands7
Greece6
Belgium
Croatia
Mexico5
Austria
Russia
Sweden4
Brazil3
Denmark2
Bulgaria
Finland
Hungary1
Chile
ColombiaPosted 9 years ago # -
thoughts on why the Scandinavians and Dutch are so far down?
I suspect cycling/pedestrian culture is one explanation. Also, street design - medieval roads are narrow and the streets are designed (brick paving, no pavement, little if any facilitation of driving) to suggest that they are for people rather than vehicles. And purposely using one-way streets/no entries to make driving across the centre of town the sort of thing that only an idiot would do.
As a result, the centres of, eg, Utrecht, Bruges, etc feel pedestrianised even when they aren't.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@WC: interesting, but as you say, what about Glasgow - Sauchiehall Street, Buchanan Street, Argyle Street for instance - they've got to count as at least one major pedestrianised area if not two or three.
Posted 9 years ago # -
A growing number of European cities are kicking cars to the curb. Loads of other evidence on the internet... ;-)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Yes, but "numbers", "evidence"? - UK politicians (mostly) aren't brave enough to just do it because 'it seems to work in other places'.
Even the footfall and 'how did you get here' stats for George Street aren't enough to get that pedestrianised!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Anybody noticed if these other pedestranised city's have a "grid" street pattern or are they totally unplanned as per Edinburgh?
Close a street in Glasgow there's plenty ways round. Close a street in Edinburgh there probably isn't an way way round.
In 2013 there was a plan to totally reorganise the streets around tollcross and Fountainbridge. Not sure what happened to it but that would have allowed more pedestrian space.
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/massive-city-centre-traffic-shake-up-approved-1-2154163New suggestion
Niddry Street or Blair Street. both are same one way direction from approximately the same place.
Cockburn Street - Jeffery Street being an easy diversion route
Posted 9 years ago # -
The whole of the city centre. Princes Street, George Street, Lothian Road, Leith Street. You want to drive from Leith to Brunstfield? Go to the bypass, go round, come back in again. Or cycle.
Posted 9 years ago # -
What fimm said
Posted 9 years ago # -
Indeed. Utopia is a nice place to visit :)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ha. If you're going to be radical, why not be properly radical? ;-)
I would like to actually make a map and have a proper speculate about what something like that would look like, sometime.Posted 9 years ago # -
Some clever software dude/dude-ess needs to make a version of SimCity that is not geared toward the grid-like and car-centric American idea of a city.
Posted 9 years ago # -
It should be within the realms of current computable possibility to present a computer with a map of a city where the population-per-door is encoded alongside road-width/turn-radius and so on and have it devise a road-direction and permeability plan to maximise access for the most people in the most rat-run-minimising way, closing off street-ends and limiting junction-direction-choice and so on to stop the wrong roads becoming de facto arteries, just to see what it looks like compared to the half-evolved/half-coerced layout we currently have.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Also, Holyrood Park; The Meadows; Bruntsfield Links; all the parks.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Nice bit of car-free road -
Oh, pedestrian-free too.
Posted 9 years ago # -
And so convenient when you need to cross that road! Grrrrrr
PS in the days/weeks before and after The F Period - what you might call the mantling and dismantling time - it's thick with HGVs, with vans weaving in and out of them at high speed, or trying to.
Yes, it would be wonderful if it were traffic free. As it is though it often has lorries and vans parked totally on the pavement, even outside The F Period. Hence the barriers?
Now if only those barriers could be redesigned to allow for people travelling east-west as well as north-south...Posted 9 years ago # -
@ cc are those barriers expected to be there for 4 weeks or just for get in/out?
Posted 9 years ago # -
They're there this week at least, and we appear to be in Peak F Period just now
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot What road is your latest photo taken on please? I just can't make it out!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Charles St. looking south to George Sq.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Once St. S. St. was a hip (perhaps hippy) shopping 'destination' (before that word was in commercial use!).
Would be so much better without cars - but wot about the residents...
Posted 9 years ago #
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