CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

It's the noise I hate...

(24 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
  • Latest reply from Min

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  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    It's probably the reason I love going to Skye every year - the noise of the city is really starting to bug me. Or to be more precise, the noise of the motorised traffic in the city.

    Yesterday lunchtime I was on another waxwing hunt, staking out the berries between Dean Bridge and Orchard Brae - but in the end I carried on down into Dean Village and along the Water of Leith. There's a major source of frustration in catching a snippet of birdsong, only to have it drowned out by tyre noise rumbling past. And it's just utterly constant. You can't here ANYTHING beside a road like that.

    And I know it's a main road, but even going down into Dean Village there was a car came past every 30 seconds or so, completely spoiling the display being put on by some long-tailed tits.

    I realise many people NEED to use a car, and that in a lot of cases what is actually needed is a decent public transport system (let's be truthful here, we're not going to get everyone on a bike in Edinburgh), but by god there are too many cars on the roads out there.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. Smudge
    Member

    It's one of the reasons the Water of Leith walkway/old railway is so nice, a combination of being down in the valley and the water noise drown out the ever present vehicle noise.
    It's a bit like light pollution, you sometimes need a break from it to realise how bad it is :-/

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. Claggy Cog
    Member

    Walking along the North Downs way, there is the omnipresent rumble from the M25. I used to try and imagine it was a river I could hear, and not a river of noise caused by rubber on tarmac and engines! My neighbours around here all have those movement activated spotlights or just leave their porch lights on all night, why? Light pollution confuses the bird population as well as being annoying for people. It is even worse when the Christmas decs come out, a few doors up is akin to Blackpool illuminations every year. Bah humbug!

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. kaputnik
    Moderator

    5AM train up to Bridge of Orchy. Glorious summer morning. Bright blue skies, sunshine and not a breeze in the air. Strike off up Beinn Dorain. Not a soul around, got the mountain to myself and I'm up by about 10 in time for a breakfast of cheese and jeely pieces and something hot out the flask. Pose for some silly pictures at the summit with the gorilla pod then go to find a seat to scoff my reward. Sit down.
    NYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

    The beauty and tranquillity of it all completely ruined by the endless stream of high-powered superbikes speeding their way up the A82, 2,000 feet below on the valley floor. RAGE!

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. cb
    Member

    And possibly, just possibly, worse than the motorbikes are the jet skis. Loch Lomond and Loch Earn are two places to avoid for this reason.

    But I'm with Anth on the whole constant car noise thing being a complete pain.
    It's a negative side to the car that is hard to measure/quantify so probably doesn't usually get 'counted'.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. steveo
    Member

    I generally wander along the canal at lunch time just to escape the constant noise from the traffic around the top of lothian road.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. recombodna
    Member

    We do have some of the best motorcycling roads in the the country............. sorry folks....... I do love my motorbike I'll try and ride it when none of you are in earshot.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. Min
    Member

    Yes I hate the noise too and you can't escape it in the central belt since the roar of motorway (or dual carriageway) traffic is always audible once you leave the city. And the racket in London was unbelievable. It was really hard to sleep and that wasn't even a particularly busy road.

    I always think that people who live alongside, say the A9 have the worst place to live possible. They have all of the awful noise of living in a city* and none of the conveniences.

    *Except for the noise of drunk people screaming and throwing up I suppose.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  9. splitshift
    Member

    I agree, I live in a smallish village, mostly all I can hear at night is the sheep in the feild across the road........normally ! Grangemouth has a habit of unexpectedly flaring at 2 in the morning ! the entire sky goes red orange, and flashes and pulses. If ever you fancy getting close to that, travel to grangemouth golf club car park, you can barely talk over the noise, the heat is very noticable and the ground seems to vibrate ! Its totally safe though !
    My own personal fave place is knoydart, loch nevis,you can go for days and never see another soul ! No roads, occasional land rover track, wild goats deer etc etc etc. Just dont tell anybody or they will all want to go ! RAF sometimes do fast jet training here but I quite like that ! Real silence and real dark, cant see your hand in front of your face dark ! Once saw a beached jelly fish up there, was over 6 feet in diameter ! Also once saw.... I could go on for ever, second thoughts,no its horrible, dont go there,leave it for me !

    Posted 13 years ago #

  10. Min
    Member

    Too late! You could also try Rum, there aren't any roads there. Although there are a few Landrovers on the island I only ever saw them carting stuff from the ferry to the village though I'm sure you'd meet them on the tracks eventually.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  11. Smudge
    Member

    One of the most common comments about my motorbike from non-motorcyclists is "gosh, it's very quiet" (or words to that effect).
    In the same way motorists fail to notice the ten cyclists at the lights but remember the one RLJ (and qed "all cyclists break the law"), we tend not to notice the motorcycles with legal exhausts, just the illegally noisy ones.

    Look on the bright side, they are there for a minute or two and then they are gone, unlike the ridiculously loud garden mowers/blowers/hedge trimmers etc that get used for hours at a time...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  12. splitshift
    Member

    I agree about Rhum,lovely place, visited in the 80s with school,was terrified by a stag that breathed at me while walking round a bothy through the night ! Eigg was nice too but more vehicles seem to be there now. Canna and Muck were superb,but not easy access now, dont think camping is allowed.Great journy on an early morning ferry back to Mallaig or Oban, cant remember wich,sat above the bridge, behind a perspex name plate thingy, blowin a hoolie and green water over the bows, them were the days before health and safety !

    Posted 13 years ago #

  13. cb
    Member

    "Canna and Muck were superb,but not easy access now, dont think camping is allowed"

    Iona was another place that virtually banned camping.

    All that has changed now with the Outdoor Access Legislation. Responsible camping is fine.

    http://www.outdooraccess-scotland.com/out-and-about/recreation-activities/wild-camping/

    Posted 13 years ago #

  14. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Funnily enough, much as we love Skye, in the 7 years we've been going we've started thinking it's getting a bit 'busy'... :D

    Posted 13 years ago #

  15. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Canna and Muck were superb,but not easy access now, dont think camping is allowed

    I did the fieldwork for my Masters on Canna 3 years ago. Access is much easier now as there modern pier facilities at all the Small Isles and the new ferry Lochnevis has an intergral linkspan so can get the ramp down in all tidal states.

    The road surface on Canna is at best rough farm track.

    They are happy for you to camp (there's a coin-op shower for campers and yachtists) but prefer that you phone ahead to the NTS warden (Winnie) to let them know so they can advise where is away from livestock and farming / conservation work.

    Amazing place for birders. Saw my first reed buntings, corncrakes, tysties, stonechats, red throuated divers, whimbrels and white tailed eagles there. And by "saw" white tailed eagles you could have reached out and touched them they were so close. And I didn't have my camera to hand at that moment :(

    Posted 13 years ago #

  16. splitshift
    Member

    Now thats good to know ! If I could some of my cadets up there for a bit of camping that would be great, will deffo look into that ! thanks

    Posted 13 years ago #

  17. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Canna is indeed superb. It's not big, but that's great as it means you can walk around it in a day, but it's not so small that you don't feel like you are on the edge of the earth.

    My first proper induction as a cossetted 80s-90s city kid to what isolation means. No mains electricity (240v supply voltage from a pair of diesel generators around the main farm complex only), ferries only 3 days a week, no shop (order by phone from Mallaig and they'll put a box of groceries on the CalMac, no running mains water, no tarmac, a radio-link party phoneline. The bothy we stayed in still had gas filament lamps, heat from an old kitchen range and a propane bottle cooker.

    It did have a solar-charged car battery jumped up to mains voltage, with a power socket in the outhouse, so we could run an extension lead into the sitting room and sat in at night watching DVDs on a laptop...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  18. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    Hmm, it all sounds lovely but to reply to the OP, the thing that bugs me as much more than the noise is the car door slamming. Why do people slam car doors with such ridiculous force? And I have to agree with you kaputnik - one motorbike must be ruining the peace and quiet across twenty square miles.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  19. Smudge
    Member

    @Cyclingmollie "one motorbike with an illegal loud exhaust must be ruining the peace and quiet across twenty square miles. "

    Fixed that for you ;-)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  20. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    @Smudge: "Fixed that for you" Thank you.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  21. Smudge
    Member

    my pleasure, no offence meant or, I trust, taken :)

    Posted 13 years ago #

  22. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    Smudge: "my pleasure, no offence meant or, I trust, taken :)"
    No, of course not. For some reason I didn't realise that motorbikes must have to pass noise reduction tests just like cars. I know nothing about them. The only time I tried one I put it in a field.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  23. kaputnik
    Moderator

    the best motorcycling roads in the the country

    Speed limits are the same as all the other roads in the country but I have to say the motorcyclists who don't obey and treat the place like their own personal race course them let the side down badly.

    Of course, I only ever notice the speeding motorcycles as they are the ones overtaking you. The speed-abiding ones don't, so you don't see them! Everything going the opposite way looks like it's speeding due to the oncoming nature.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  24. Min
    Member

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

    .

    If you have 20 minutes

    this is a really good TEDx talk about the noise pollution coming from fossil fuel. And the guy used to be a bike messenger.

    Posted 8 years ago #

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