CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

St James Redevelopment

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  1. neddie
    Member

    st james redev by Ed, on Flickr

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. LaidBack
    Member

    Good photo showing the 'hole in the ground' @neddie_h
    Used the temp bike route today as was taking furniture to Betheny. Quite good and people wre using it despite the need to dismount at top.
    People were also on the path leaning over fence taking pictures of the diggery.
    Contractor had two road cleaners in action around Picardy.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. wingpig
    Member

    Brushwagons are spreading the muck around nicely.

    The creeping inconveniences at the dismount end have hit a new high: the pedestrian and cyclist access point is now 10m away round the corner on Wellington Place, rather than it through the cones directly opposite the bike bit.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. wingpig
    Member

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

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. chdot
    Admin

    Mmm

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. McD
    Member

    @wingpig I emailed craig.mcconnell@edinburgh.gov.uk who is project manager for the council on the 12th complaining about this. He asked for photos, which I sent. No reply - it's on my long list of things to follow up on. Would you be able to?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. wingpig
    Member

    I'll try. On the way down it the evening before another cyclist was asking a tabard-person what was going on and I overheard something along the lines of "it'll be like that for at least three weeks".

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. McD
    Member

    Unfortunately I don't think that the previous arrangement where cyclists were let out onto an uncontrolled arm of a signalised crossing would have passed safety standards - but it worked for me! The current arrangement is certainly sub-optimal.
    From the beginning Spokes had been pushing for safe exit and entry from the cycleway - they always seem to forget about connections!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. McD
    Member

    I'm being offered a meeting onsite with contractors to review on Monday and have asked more questions.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. wingpig
    Member

    It's possibly been recently exacerbated by the presence of extremely large and heavy trucks waiting to turn in from Waterloo Place (through the tabard-controlled concertina-fence) and blocking the route cyclists heading anywhere but east towards Regent Road would take. The patchy banksperson cover makes it very risky to head west in front of such a truck towards Princes Street.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  11. chdot
    Admin

  12. jonty
    Member

    Looks like a sensible bike gap has opened up at the top of Leith St again.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    Today

    Also quite a lot of water flowing onto path from site.

    May freeze some nights in next few days.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. McD
    Member

    Received this this morning from Dave Wylie "The Leith Street Manager" for the developers.
    "We opened up a section in the barriers onto Waterloo Place on Thursday evening. Whilst I do agree the arrangement was awkward the reason we had closed it off was our concerns with pedestrians attempting to cross this busy junction here and not using the adjacent signalised crossing. We still have these concerns but agreed to open a section for cyclists and monitor compliance."
    The gap is good for entering Leith Street, but I've asked for a convenient safe crossing for cyclists too - for those who prefer not to cross without the signals.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. chdot
    Admin

    Posted 6 years ago #
  16. Klaxon
    Member

    Work has started at the top of Easter Rd

    Hope it's restoring the old layout

    Posted 6 years ago #
  17. crowriver
    Member

    It is.

    I got a letter through the door earlier in the week.
    Will take three weeks!

    No mention of resurfacing despite a year's worth of much heavier traffic, including buses and loads of tipper lorries going to and from St James. So the dreadful cracked, troughed surface at corner of Montrose Terrace and London Road will be one to avoid.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. chdot
    Admin

    Oh the irony -


    Real estate giant Henderson, the firm behind the St James project, has embarked on a letter-writing campaign urging local residents to oppose the concert hall project due to its unsuitability for Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site.

    https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/war-of-words-after-heritage-body-backs-edinburgh-concert-hall-vision-1-4833316

    Posted 6 years ago #
  19. paulmilne
    Member

    Unlike their copper orange peel of a hotel. That fits right in.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  20. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    Good response!

    A spokesman for Edinburgh World Heritage said: “Mr Perry is clearly concerned about the views of guests from the new hotel down George Street and across the city. Our concern, however, is to protect the values of the World Heritage Site, including the extraordinary skyline so that it can be enjoyed by residents and visitors to the city alike.”

    Posted 6 years ago #
  21. neddie
    Member

    Picardy Place TROs:

    http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/download/2744/tro1864a_and_b_picardy_place_-_proposed_traffic_regulation_orders

    TRO/18/64A and TRO/18/64B

    Closing date 17 Dec 2018

    Posted 5 years ago #
  22. davecykl
    Member

    That's just ghastly...

    It'd be really good if there was a wiki somewhere so that we could pick holes in this very exhaustively and collaboratively, but for starters...

    That's a cyclist killzone at the eastern end of Picardy Place and Leith Walk, only one lane wide and with no cycle lane. Someone is going to get killed or injured there at some point, sadly guaranteed. They really do not seem to want anyone cycling down Leith Walk there at all, instead having to fart about with hairpin turns and a circuitous route to get on to (and back off from) a two-way cycleway that really would have been so much better as separate one-way cycleways on the appropriate sides of the road. (I really don't understand this current fetish for two-way cycleways: in some locations they can be of use, but if the street space is not wide enough to have two-way on both sides of the street, one-way is a more useful arrangement.)

    They seem to be building a staggered pedestrian crossing across York Place, with its island where the westbound tram track will eventually be. Why build something badly (and which deprioritises people walking) which you will only have to dig up and rebuild again later. Build it once, build it right: a straight through crossing.

    Likewise, the crossing at the west end of what will become the new Picardy Place tram stop seems to be building in conflict and awkwardness with what looks like a staggered crossing for cyclists coming southwards up Broughton Street.

    Does there really need to be so much road width consumed (and walking/public realm space lost) at the top of Leith Walk outside the Playhouse? Would it not have been possible for motor vehicles and trams to have shared (but turn by turn) use of the tram track space, with clever traffic signal timing for motor vehicles coming and up and down this block of Leith Walk, to stop the motor traffic flow and give priority to trams with a clear path through?

    90⁰ turns on cycleways with no turning radius? Awful. We're not 80s computer game characters, like other vehicles we need some space in which to change direction.

    And the worst thing is that this plan shows that if only they had nudged the new tram stop slightly northwards, it really would be entirely clear of the current street layout and they would either have been able to retain something like the current (fairly small and discreet, as they go) roundabout, or converted it into a t-junction, without any real loss of public realm space.

    (And what do they mean by "2 BLIPS", anyway?)

    Posted 5 years ago #
  23. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    With Picardy Place I'm tempted to just tell them to do their worst. Some kind of massive meat grinder that no one will dare to go near. Bring it on.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  24. DrAfternoon
    Member

    @IWRATS No deal Picardy Place!

    BLIPS I have discovered is that extra perpendicular bits of yellow that stick out onto the kerb, indicating loading restrictions. Don't see why the lines wouldn't just be double red.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  25. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @DrAfternoon

    Long time no post. You have a PM.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  26. unhurt
    Member

    I done a picture.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  27. chdot
    Admin

    Privatised already(?)

    Posted 5 years ago #
  28. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    They get to design it, CEC & Scot Gov get to pay for it through the ‘growth accelerator’. Disgusting.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  29. dougal
    Member

    @unhurt you are too much the artiste

    Posted 5 years ago #
  30. crowriver
    Member

    Legend on the download page:

    "Proposed TROs to amend traffic flows."

    Says it all really.

    "I'm tempted to just tell them to do their worst. "

    I think they heard you about 12 years ago. They haven't looked back since.

    Posted 5 years ago #

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