Ah well. Fifers can always head to Dundee, St Andrews, or Dunfermline for a bit of Chrimbo shopping.
As for LivD, meet somewhere mutually convenient? Alloa? Linlithgow? :-)
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Avoid FRB tomorrow
(404 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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@LivD The Nationalrail website shows Scotrail as having NO service on Christmas Day. From previous experience I would guess that traffic will be quite light on the 25th so the detour via Kincardine shouldn't be too bad. But check nearer the day!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Need somewhere that we can cook some sprouts... Oh well we'll just have to hope that some trains are added nearer the time. :)
Posted 9 years ago # -
If the FRB's troubles interupt the supply of sprouts....well even crypto-fascism can have a silver lining.
I'd rather eat a hot water bottle than a Brussels sprout.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Re Scandi bridges - I was in Sweden, in Kalmar, which is near Osland, an island that is now bridged. No cycling on the bridge - you had to get a cycle ferry. Considering it's very flat & there were good-looking cycleways it did seem a strange omission. (I wasn't on a cycle - just looking into hiring one.)
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Transport minister Derek Mackay has admitted he does not know whether Scotland will be able to cope with the closure of the Forth Road Bridge despite “exceptional steps” to ease congestion.
"
Strange thing for a politician to say (IF he did).
Posted 9 years ago # -
I don't believe they contribute anything to the load either, but who knows what machinery, vehicles, cables, whatever other equipment will be lying about whilst they complete the work.
Where should the onus of safety lie in that situation, would we have peds / cyclists sign a disclaimer on the way over?
I'd be very surprised if the work site is permitted to be unsafe just because they've told the public to stay away. All previous work done on the bridge has been done without impacting bike use, including all the cable work that happened when I used to commute over it myself.
When Scotrail don't have spare capacity, you'd think being able to displace a carriage or two onto bikes would be an opportunity worth taking, but this is just one of those situations where incentives aren't well aligned.
If Amey was being charged for every diverted journey, you can be sure they'd be running a huge "cycle lane open for business" ad campaign, but as it is there's no advantage in it for them to let people cycle across, so (from their perspective) why should they? The longer it's shut to everyone the easier their lives are.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"If Amey was being charged for every diverted journey"
That sounds like an ideal recipe for shoddy corner-cutting work if ever there was one.
Frankly I'm really surprised at all these people who think they should have rights to access what is basically a construction site.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"what is basically a construction site"
Yes and no.
'Normally' vast amounts of work has gone on with relatively minimal disruption to all traffic.
Now a big problem has been identified that is also a problem in other parts of the bridge which will (all) have to be fixed.
BUT I assume they will deal with the first problem first - both to concentrate resources and learn from the mending process.
SO, most of the bridge will not (need to) be a construction site. I'm sure there have been plenty of times when it would have been 'convenient' to shut the whole bridge. This time they tried to shut one carriageway but realised it wasn't enough - presumably because of the volume/weight of traffic, rather than 'so they could leave their equipment lying about'.
So it would seem rather easy to allow bikes and pedestrians to use the path on whichever side isn't being worked on.
BUT
If that happened there would be a lot of pedestrians (as well as more bikes than usual!)
'Ideally' bikes should be allowed on one of the carriageways (safe for emergency vehicles). The cost of allowing this - cones, supervision or bike shuttle would be small compared with the current costs and should be cost effective - reducing the need for train/bus capacity (or at least making journeys more pleasant for those using them) plus any amount of weasily figures for 'efficiency saving' of avoiding the long way via Kincardine.
BUT...
Posted 9 years ago # -
One of guys at the Bike Works suggested that access is all down to insurance.
This structure has a visible failure and the insurance extends to whole bridge. The insurer would raise premiums 'quite a bit' to cover this as that is what they do with 'unknowns'.
Therefore public liability isn't covered.
Contractors and emergency vehicles are.Posted 9 years ago # -
"Therefore public liability isn't covered"
That could well be 'the reason'.
Would be simple for them to say so...
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
MINISTERS have admitted that gridlock on roads heading into the Capital may be inevitable after closure of the Forth Road Bridge – despite taking “exceptional steps” to ease congestion.Transport minister Derek Mackay MSP and travel operators said the situation was “fluid” as they unveiled a raft of measures to enhance public transport links and pleaded with commuters to consider car-sharing, working from home or avoiding peak times.
"
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/forth-road-bridge-gridlock-inevitable-1-3968502
Posted 9 years ago # -
"gridlock on roads heading into the Capital may be inevitable after closure of the Forth Road Bridge"
Indeed, I bet Newbridge was fun this morning.
I got up a wee bit earlier at 5 today, and got an early train. Not much calamity on my journey, but I am close enough to start of route in both directions to get on. Will be nice to finish before 3 for the next couple of weeks though, more time with the wee one. :)
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot - yeah, why not say it? There's usually provision for pedestrians & cyclists dismount through what are essentially building sites eg the recent work on Russell Road.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I understand that the transport minister will be making a statement on the bridge closure in Parliament tomorrow. Perhaps people might want to ask him (via twitter or the like) to explain in this statement why the bridge is closed to cyclists and pedestrians. They could also encourage their MSPs to ask this question, if an answer isn't forthcoming.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
@BBCScotlandNews: Forth Road Bridge fault "only happened in last few weeks" says @DerekMackayMSP https://t.co/mbvxVfCGoP https://t.co/nj2V2pDwys
"
Posted 9 years ago # -
@Morningsider - where did you get that info?
Posted 9 years ago # -
It is interesting that the A985 has been made a bus and HGV only route, although of course have heard of bus lanes don’t recall hearing of any HGV only lanes before, but under circumstances I suppose it makes sense.
In respect to insurance if it is a case of insurance the Scottish government could choose to underwrite any additional loss above and beyond what the provides insurance would cover in respect to bikes and walkers.
Even on fairly mundane things such as car insurance, government can opt to effectively self-insure, with public interest and what not, really doubt the insurance would be a problem would be something a minister could rectify if had the will. If it claimed its insurance then would tend to think this would be an excuse for a lack of will on the ministers part.
I don’t know if it is insurance may be health and safety concerns or just convenience and not to slow the work down.
It is a shame that walkers and cyclists are not allowed. If cyclist were allowed now many people who had not cycled the bridge before may start now then the base level of cyclists likely to be higher even after the bridge open again to all, could be long term benefits in terms of getting people cycling the bridge and looking at different transport options etc.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Rosie - you'll just have to trust me on this one, and who wouldn't trust some random nutter claiming powers of clairvoyance on an online cycling forum.
Posted 9 years ago # -
An old friend of this forum has been on the BBC:
Neil Greig of the Institute of Advanced Motorists says it is going to be difficult for drivers, whatever attempts are made to minimize disruption following Forth Road Bridge closure.
He told BBC Radio Scotland: "They are doing as much as they can.
"The problem is the numbers: 11,000 extra car parking spaces, 6,500 extra rail seats - but there's 70,000 vehicles use that road every day."
Posted 9 years ago # -
@ Morningsider - Indeed, a highly reliable source.
However it's safe enough to ask people to get in touch with their MSPs IN CASE this comes up at Holyrood.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Speaking as another random internet nutter, I can offer nutter-number-one a character reference.
<grin>
Robert
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'd love to FoI that 70,000, but whilst it might be available broken-down by vehicle type I don't know that the levels of occupancy of each thereof would have been estimated/recorded.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@wingpig you don't need to FOI to get the vehicle type breakdown, as that's already published by DfT traffic counts;
http://api.dft.gov.uk/v2/trafficcounts/countpoint/id/74383.csv
Occupancy not estimated or recorded.
Posted 9 years ago # -
FRB car occupancy rates for 2006 available here (table 6.8) - only figures available that I can find, as they were collated for a one-off study.
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/report/j8512a-07.htm
No reason to suspect these have really changed since the data was collected.
Posted 9 years ago # -
That's a really interesting report, Morningsider. So much lovely data to play with!
Also:
"
Data on the use of the Forth Road Bridge by pedestrians and cyclists is not routinely collected by FETA. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that these modes do not contribute significantly to total cross Forth travel.
"Oh well.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ta. Pity the occupancy of the BusesCoaches can't be calculated/inferred - it would help dispel this whole car-centrism thing if they were able to say "affecting n people per day" rather than having to refer to vehicles as the end users. Mean CarsTaxis passenger occupancy of less than half per vehicle, though, which is what I was suspecting.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Given that the plan always was to carry out major works like these on the old bridge once traffic could be moved into the new (e.g., the expansion joints, and the now failed truss), the fact that they can't seem to allow cycle/ped access while doing such major works exposes the promise that cycle/ped/bus could use the old bridge as at best disingenuous and misleading if not an outright lie.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Cara Hilton MSP has posted on Facebook copy of questions she has put to Transport Minister, 1st of which is can it be opened to cyclists and pedestrians? Also asks about rail shuttle to Dalmeny.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Two things:
1) I've heard a lot on this thread about this hypothetical one-way system for Amey vehicles that requires both walkways to be closed for operations, but this ignores the fact that the live vehicle carriageways are closed to general traffic (but still open for emergency vehicles) - surely light Amey vans (which are probably all the walkways are capable of supporting) could return via the main carriageway freeing up at least one walkway for bikes/peds?
Also, does this look like a barrier Amey are planning for a lot of vehicles to pass through?
2) Regarding the possibility of bikes being allowed on the main carriageways - I would imagine the expansion joints (bad enough in a car) make this a very bad idea on a bike...
Posted 9 years ago #
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