CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

Totally mental traffic tonight

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  1. gembo
    Member

    Queued from cowgate to Balerno. Caused by closure either on WAS slip road or slip road to bypass. - according to a chap I was chatting to in shandon and by a couple of very small holes with temp traffic lights one at shandon and another at Currie.

    Once through the actual blockage you did get hundreds of yards of empty road until you hit the next jam.

    Last section was done at speed. Had a guy on my wheel who overtook me but was stopped at lights next to my house. Think he might have been pulling me up for jumping the lights to get in front of him but in fact I was just going in to my house.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  2. kaputnik
    Moderator

    George Street, Picardy Place and London Road were all a big jam of buses at odd angles between lanes with cars filling in all the gaps between therefore preventing anything from moving. Much filtering and winding around them required just to get through.

    Dark seems to have made a big change. Much aggressive racing manoeuvres to the next lights still to be seen though.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  3. crowriver
    Member

    Aye, the wee bit of slightly chillier weather we had the other day seems to have increased the drivist count on the streets. I guess folk don't fancy walking in the chillier, dark air, even to bus stops. Cycling? Aye right.

    The driving is getting more aggressive after dark too, especially when the roads do free up a bit. Lots of rat run racing going on in side streets off Easter Road as drivists try to avoid the traffic lights at the top. Very nasty to navigate these streets on a bike between about 5pm and 7pm. Fine during the day or later on mind you.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  4. paulmilne
    Member

    The wrong kind of darkness?

    Who could have guessed that this sudden change in light would have happened just at this time of year. Impossible to account for these sorts of random environmental happenings.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  5. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I had a particularly tough ride home today. I also think it might've been this sudden darkness that's done it for people's patience. You get the feeling everyone is driving around, gripping the steering wheel for grim death and stabbing the accelerator out of uneasy frustration.

    Just been out for an hour on the motorbicycle, since the Mossmorran flare was quite photographable, and had a look at the roadworks on Leith St. What a palaver to negotiate!

    Posted 9 years ago #

  6. gembo
    Member

    You also find that a little bit of rain can also produce gridlock. I was in a school first thing yesterday, then another school so when I arrived at work the bike racks were stowed out. But about 17.15pm when I was heading home, the racks were deserted. All bikes went home early too?

    Imagine being a traffic modeller and being asked to come up with why the city is in gridlock? You mean apart from. There are too many cars within the city?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  7. wingpig
    Member

    I left the motor traffic to it last night and NEPNned home. I was getting tired in the late afternoon so didn't fancy being near grumpy tired drivers in the dusk, though there was still one who tried to sneak around to my right on the Haymarket track-crossing.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  8. fimm
    Member

    The traffic has been queuing on the Gorgie Road back as far as the 5-way junction for a few weeks. Yesterday we had a new variation, where the queue was on Ardmillan Terrace.

    Fortunately it is easy to filter on Gorgie Road, because of the bike lanes. And I think that the bad traffic has meant that fewer people are parking opposite the shops where the chippy is.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  9. Stickman
    Member

    Imagine being a traffic modeller and being asked to come up with why the city is in gridlock? You mean apart from. There are too many cars within the city?

    Get rid of the bus lanes, roundabouts, bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, most traffic signals and increase the speed limit. Then cars will be able to travel at their natural speed and we'll attain the nirvana of free-flowing traffic.

    /EEN commenter logic

    Posted 9 years ago #

  10. crowriver
    Member

    No, what Edinburgh needs to do is to get rid of all these medieval and Victorian streets, and build six lane motorways through the centre of the city, with spiral off-ramps. and flyovers to avoid at-grade junctions. Replace all these old slum dwellings with futuristic high rise tower blocks, palaces of modern living, to free up space for parking.

    /1960s town planner logic

    Posted 9 years ago #

  11. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Totally mental traffic this morning, too. I have never, ever seen vehicles queued all the way up Oxgangs Road North, from Colinton Mains to Redford Road. It was so bad I changed my ride to work and went around the other side of Craiglockhart.

    Then the traffic down Wester Hailes Road was massively queued as well, because of so many vehicles using the Calder Road - mainly heading out of town or cutting across towards Makro. Traffic management on the Calder Road is pretty poor because of the way the roundabouts consistently disadvantage cross-traffic.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  12. paulmilne
    Member

    @crowriver, Google "Abercrombie Plan Edinburgh 1949" for what were real post-war plans to do just that.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  13. chdot
    Admin

    Was in the window of Morningside Oxfam on Sunday. Not there now.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  14. Charlethepar
    Member

    'Curious Scotland' by George Rosie has an entertaining chapter about Edinburgh's close brush with urban motorways.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  15. crowriver
    Member

    @paulmilne, I'm well aware of it thanks.

    Glasgow did not escape such plans, hence the entire city centre exceeds safe pollution levels...

    Posted 9 years ago #

  16. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Not there now.

    Is that because you bought it?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  17. gembo
    Member

    Great cycle along the ever brilliant braid hills road into the last of the light and then along green bank up through firrhill round to colinton and only hit the totally mental traffic tailing back from the hole the Scottish gas networks dug last week and have left with temp traffic light. Such a long tail back for a small hole but then bikes can get up the side. So we can get through.
    firrhill

    Posted 9 years ago #

  18. chdot
    Admin

    "Is that because you bought it?"

    Actually

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    No

    Posted 9 years ago #

  19. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @gembo

    "the ever brilliant braid hills road"

    Get thee an off-road capable bike and you can access the even better trail network around Braid Hill.

    Do not be tempted to descend into the Hermitage à la Simon Parker as you'd have too much fun.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  20. Fountainbridge
    Member

    Time to resurrect this

    ringroadmap-1024x649 by Paul Fountain, on Flickr

    Posted 9 years ago #

  21. crowriver
    Member

    After the installation of my benevolent dictatorship, I'll only sanction the inner ring road if it is built entirely underground, using tunnels. That goes for the "other proposed motorways" too. Oh, remove all the junctions, except for one entrance/exit to the west. Motor vehicles banned from city centre streets topside between 7am and 10pm. No ventilation for the tunnels allowed: we don't want all those fumes belching out into the city, thanks Then all the single occupant cars can drive merrily round and round in circles at whatever speed they like until the single occupants get bored, tired, or succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning and crash into one another's vehicles.

    As this will all be happening underground the rest of us can walk, cycle or utilise public transport in the peaceful fresh air topside.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  22. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    Every time I see those inner ring road plans, I have a little internal giggle while wondering which of today's sacred cows will come to be ridiculed in a similar fashion in 50 years' time.

    6-lane expressway instead of Rocheid Path? - why, no problem. At least they planned a tunnel instead of levelling Donaldson's - clearly not complete Philistines...

    Posted 9 years ago #

  23. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Civic Survey & Plan For The City And Royal Burgh Of Edinburgh (1949)

    "

    http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=107695262&postcount=11

    Posted 9 years ago #

  24. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Here's one I made earlier:

    https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zqDz6Gfa_PjA.kNpbsipiUIx4

    Posted 9 years ago #

  25. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Edinburgh’s never-built inner ring road

    "

    http://www.gcat.org.uk/blog/?p=682

    Posted 9 years ago #

  26. cb
    Member

    At the old Broughton High School the windows on one side of the building were installed with no ability for opening as it was expected that there would be a motorway outside before long.
    At least, that's what I've heard anyway.

    "the ever brilliant braid hills road"

    I only realised quite recently that it's actually Braid Hills Drive. It's only "Road" at the western end.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  27. acsimpson
    Member

    Lost Edinburgh posted this picture on facebook today:

    https://www.facebook.com/lostedinburgh/photos/a.681358185255201.1073741826.162922127098812/999462786778071/?type=3&theater

    I think we're lucky this didn't happen to Princess Street and Queen Street gardens too.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  28. chdot
    Admin

    Hmm

    Must admit I had never thought about what had been there before.

    Presume land was 'owned' by Edinburgh Corporation.

    Queen Street Gardens private - jointly owned by people who value as gardens.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  29. kaputnik
    Moderator

    All part of the grand plan for that area including pulling down Poole's Synod cinema for a never-built Scottish opera house?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  30. chdot
    Admin

    Ah yes that previous symbol of a 'proper city', an opera house.

    More recently it's been a tram (system).

    One day it will be widespread pedestrianisation and decent cycle infrastructure...

    Posted 9 years ago #

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