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'Improvement Action Plan Meadowbank to Northfield' presentation: Tue 7 June, 6pm @ New Restalrig Church—all welcome.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Improvement Action Plan Meadowbank to Northfield' presentation"
(26 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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Any hint at cycling being factored into this plan? That would be a fantastic route passing lots of shops, stadium and access to the park.
Posted 8 years ago # -
This is my area, community council, ward etc. I'll go along and see what's what and raise the spectre of cycling improvements :) It is just a big, nasty main road just now, which gets worse beyond the stadium where all the rat-runners to/from the park join up with London Road.
Posted 8 years ago # -
P.S. don't suppose you have the original tweet for that, chdot? So I can retweet it. Also it might help me remember to go...
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago #
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I cycle along here quite a lot to my allotment. Not too bad going east: bus lanes plus a painted cycle lane for much of the route make it a bit less stressful. I prefer to go via Craignentinny heading west though, just too much stress battling with traffic on the road without much in the way of bus lanes or cycle-specific paint to help fend off motorists.
Rather typical that cycling hasn't even been considered. A bit odd too given that London Road is quite busy with cycling commuters from Meadowbank eastwards.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I believe Northfeild and Willowbrae CC had some involvement in this before the CC was dissolved last year. Not entirely sure why it was dissolved, but it got quite nasty by all accounts. Shame, as they were quite active and useful really.
Anyway, the previous chair of the CC is looking for prospective members to re-launch at the CC elections later this year. If anyone (@kaputnik ?) interested in getting involved, his name is Geoff Pearson and he's sure to be at the meeting.
Posted 8 years ago # -
There's another meeting about this coming up.
Invitation!
The Craigentinny and Duddingston Neighbourhood Partnership would like to invite you to a meeting about the new Action Plan to improve the area between St Margaret’s House and Craigentinny Avenue. The meeting is being held in the Art Building (formerly St Margaret’s House) on Tuesday 27 September 6.30-8pm and we are grateful to Edinburgh Palette for hosting it.
The Action Plan aims to:
• recognise the area as home to many people
• reduce the impact of traffic and make life safer for pedestrians and cyclists
• to improve the appearance of the area
• make it a more attractive area for shoppers and visitors
The Plan has ideas about improving road junctions, giving pedestrians safer routes, removing ugly and unwanted street furniture and giving the community a greener, cleaner place to live.
The first two projects are:
• remodelling the Meadowbank Terrace/London Road Junction – starting soon
• tackling street clutter – an ongoing task
Come and talk to the Plan authors, to the Councillors who will oversee the programme and the POLO Group which will be progressing the Plan day to day. It is your community and this is the first of regular discussions to gather your views.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"reduce the impact of traffic and make life safer for pedestrians and cyclists"
This would be very welcome. I wonder how they will achieve this, other than the following:
"remodelling the Meadowbank Terrace/London Road Junction"
"improving road junctions"Maybe I'll try to make it along tomorrow...
Posted 8 years ago # -
Did anyone go to the earlier one? Will it be a drop-in style where people can arrive between 6:00 and 8:30, or a 2.5hr presentation?
Posted 8 years ago # -
"a 2.5hr presentation"
Good grief I hope not. I presume some element of presentation at the start though?
Posted 8 years ago # -
The width of the A1 + Portobello Rd makes Princes St to Portobello probably the easiest corridor in the city to run a nice 3m path down the entire length of one side
Posted 8 years ago # -
Noted. I will pop along after bedtime duties completed.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Well that was interesting.
Will draft a brief report on this, and bung up some images of the plans, which currently consist of "low cost" taming of junctions. More in a bit...
Posted 8 years ago # -
Since I arrived late, I'll wait for your report before commenting.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Well, here is the link to the Street Audit & Action Plan for London Road and Portobello Road, which I have just laboriously typed into my browser, and got to work:
Please feel free to peruse, critique, etc.
Without going into too much detail, my summary observations are as follows.
This was in fact a meeting of the Neighbourhood Partnership itself, which I had not realised. The Street Audit and Action Plan was the main event but there were other bits of the agenda I felt awkward sitting through as I don't actually live in the Craigentinny & Duddingston area, but just a tiny bit west of it. Still interesting (for me). There was a brief introduction by the chief environmental architect on the project, then we worked in small groups to feed back on the plans.
Everyone was polite and tolerant, which was positive. A number of people spoke up in favour of safer cycling routes and this was good to see. However I did feel at times the atmosphere overall was slightly self-congratulatory and complacent. While this was a public meeting I got the impression the assembled councillors and officials are used to getting things done without too much fuss. This approach could be a problem if any determined opposition to the plans materialises (of which more in a moment).
The plans themselves are principally about 'place making', trying to reduce the dominance of the motor vehicle on these roads which are after all residential streets too. Overall I feel the proposals are an improvement on the current situation and I support them. From "our" perspective they might seem unambitious, i.e.. no segregated bike lanes, problematic pinch points left in place, and so on. However the work on junctions is commendable. There are plans for bike parking and so on too.
The approach will be phased and a bit piecemeal (see PDF) and there are some ideas/sketches which are speculative on the part of the architects. No technical evaluation/testing (e.g.. traffic modelling) has been carried out yet on the proposals.
I did note with mild concern a lady of a certain age (some might describe her as a stereotypical Tory matron but I wouldn't be so cruel) who was at the same table as the chair of the Craigentinny CC. She piped up about that table being "not sure" about slowing down traffic on the road: "this is the A1 after all". Also she prefaced her remarks by expressing surprise at how few people in the area knew of the plans and argued for greater "community involvement": probably entirely correct, but I think we've heard similar comments from certain parties regarding Leith Walk and Roseburn, which became more and more strident (shrill even) as time passed. So there was an inkling there that not everyone fully supported the plans, indeed some might be sceptical, even prepared to galvanise opposition if they don't like the look of them.
Some points our table made included concerns that pavement build-outs at junctions will simply become opportunities for pavement parking; concern that there was no explicit provision for cyclists at junctions (other than presumably ASLs as currently); the need to remove diagonal parking from Portobello Road as it is a hazard for cyclists and other road users; suggestions to remove traffic islands/refuges and replace staggered crossings with single phase (again Portobello Road).
One thing about this meeting that was heartening was the presence of a young boy of primary school age who presented his group's findings and was very articulate in arguing for safer cycling on the roads "so that children and grown ups can feel more confident". It was also good to hear the local Fire Service rep argue for "clearly defined" cycle lanes to avoid cyclists having to mix it with very large buses. It seems the fire service are asked to attend road traffic collisions, and presumably this experience leads him to believe cyclist safety is very important.
I'll leave you to make your own minds up on the proposals. What I would say is that if you live in Meadowbank, Craigentinny, Duddingston, or surrounding areas such as Abbeyhill, Portobello, please engage with the consultation process on this. Also if you travel on this road by bike, on foot, on public transport, or by car please feed back your views. You can find contact details for Craigentinny & Duddingston NP here:
http://www.edinburghnp.org.uk/neighbourhood-partnerships/craigentinny-and-duddingston/
Posted 8 years ago # -
"she prefaced her remarks by expressing surprise at how few people in the area knew of the plans"
Indeed! -
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FINAL DRAFT 15.05.16
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Posted 8 years ago # -
Need to be very wary of where any new trees are planted so as to not compromise future potential routes. Quickest way to shut down a new cycle lane is by saying 'mature trees would need removed'
McDonald Rd has been landscaped in such a way Lewis Richie in a more roundabout way said to me 'no chance' to redesigning the current layout - because of the trees. Item 4.02 proposes replicating the McDonald Rd layout exactly on Portobello Rd with tree protected parking lanes and cycle lanes on the outside.
I wonder if there is a mechanism to 'safeguard' just as the tram routes and various off road but undeveloped corridors are.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@crowriver thanks for the summary, seems I missed most the cycling talk. I was somewhat disheartened when I realised the dedicated cycling facilities were on the draft plans as advisory door zone markers.
I spoke with the councilor at the end to highlight how cycle lanes like that don't get families cycling to Holyrood Park, etc. I got a feeling he was sympathetic to what I was saying but saw it as too ambitious.
I was also left wondering just how much influence this group has and whether it'd be more fruitful engaging with the council cycling team.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Apparently, according to some folk at the meeting, the council are not keen on the tree planting idea anyway, because of all the utilities to be found under pavements these days. Tree roots, messy things that they are, get all tangled in the various cables and pipes. How dare they sit there, making oxygen for us to breathe.
Anyway I should have mentioned that for transport and safety issues, these are apparently within the remit of the Environmental Forum of the Neighbourhood Partnership, and comments from tonight will apparently be "passed on". The EF meets on 1st November*, and despite not being a resident of the local area I'm minded to attend, just in case those comments are mislaid somewhere in the intervening period...
* - Tuesday 1st November at 6.30pm, Northfield Community Centre. Just in case any local residents have concerns about the safety of vulnerable road users and might wish to see the proposals enhanced in this regard.
Posted 8 years ago # -
A bit surprised that bollards are singled out as there 'for no reason' as they will only have been funded in the first place to solve a pavement parking problem.
They're not the prettiest things I do agree.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"I was also left wondering just how much influence this group has and whether it'd be more fruitful engaging with the council cycling team."
Well the rhetoric from the chair of Craigentinny CC at the start (he made a brief address) was to dismiss the idea that "the council" were doing this, rather that it was "community led". Make of that what you will!
I didn't hang around at the end, my feeling being that it was more important to get comments accounted for in the minutes if at all possible. Outside while unlocking my bike I did speak to another cyclist (a local resident who apparently works in the council planning department), and he seemed to think the plans hadn't moved on much since the last meeting. We also briefly discussed how anything more radical, like taking away significant space from motor vehicles (of which he was in favour) might quickly become "political" (my usage).
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Klaxon, indeed our table did try to point out that the proposed designs might lead to an epidemic of pavement parking, supported incidentally by the young boy who said there was a big problem with builders parking on the pavement on his street...
The emphasis thus far really does seem to have been prettifying the place, decluttering pavements, etc. Notice how Living Street's model of Street Audit has been used: primarily a pedestrian led agenda, with some, but not many concessions to cyclists.
If "we" want cycling further up the agenda, more cyclists will need to engage, preferably those who live in the Neighbourhood Partnership area or close by.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Our routine wasn't over until 20 to 8, so I wasn't able to make it along, but thanks to Crowriver for the represent and also the above summary.
In theory I'm in the Duddingston & Craigentinny CC area, although being exactly on the border of it I'm not entirely sure I "feel" part of this area. Perhaps it needs placemaking!
Posted 8 years ago # -
@kappers, I'm only just outside the neighbourhood partnership area: technically I'm in Leith NP area but right on the south east edge of that. Literally a railway line, one tenement block and a side street divide me from the Craigentinny/Duddingston NP area. Anyway as I cycle on London/Portobello Road fairly regularly I felt justified in turning up.
One difference between this process and the Roseburn or Leith Walk ones is there does not seem to be a cohesive, organised group of "local traders" taking part. Indeed there were comments that the business owners (and to some extent residents also) along the road seem fragmented, isolated and without a sense of community. Hence as you hint, the need for place making...
Oh apparently (according to a Cllr) Northfield & Willowbrae CC nominations were 'oversubscribed' so it is back up and running again as of now. If anyone lives in the area, and you're looking for meetings to attend... :-)
Posted 8 years ago # -
Well the "improvements" were delivered a while back. Anyone else cycle round Meadowbank area? Think things have improved at all?
Posted 3 years ago #
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