So 3 miles is considered walking distance nationally, but 2 miles in walkable Edinburgh?
I think at a national level it's 2 miles for primary schools and 3 miles for secondary schools, but there's a caveat that the route must be "safe".
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Sheriffhall Roundabout consultation etc.
(212 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Anyone fancy a half price hamburger...
Posted 4 years ago # -
“
And he said the capacity required at the roundabout would not have changed dramatically. “The assessment that was done took into account the full Shawfair development and we’re nowhere near that.”“
Really?
So a roundabout with traffic lights would cope with current bypass traffic flow?
(Not that current levels are a good idea.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
I'll see your hamburger and raise you a diverging diamond:
Posted 4 years ago # -
I can at least see where the cost comes from in the grade separated design. That appears to just continue the bypass through a slightly bigger roundabout for £70m...
On a separate point, diverging diamonds are just cool.
Posted 4 years ago # -
On the diverging diamond:
The one above appears to be handling the journeys of around 100 people. But look at all the space it takes.
Imagine how many medium-density houses, offices and shops you could fit in there on a 'people scale'. It could be an entire mostly-self-sufficient suburb of what, a 1000, maybe 2000 people, with little need to drive...
Posted 4 years ago # -
'Muricans must really hate roundabouts to come up with that insanity.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I can imagine that diverging diamonds aren't very 'drunk driver friendly'
I mean what could go wrong?
Posted 4 years ago # -
They’re quite an interesting design, the one pictured is a bit ginormous though - a more regular design is here: https://youtu.be/5gLxlXamhgY
Has some interesting safety features as it can significantly reduce the number of conflict points versus a regular junction. Only really used for busy US interstate/freeway/whatever malarkey.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I think DDIs have higher capacity than roundabouts, particularly when signalised. They often replace them in less roundaboutphobic countries.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I wish I'd known that traffic planning was a job when I was small, but there weren't really any big/signalled roads where I lived, except the tidal central lane through the middle of Lincoln where they only had three cars' width to work with between buildings. When I was learning to drive we had to go eighteen miles to get to somewhere big enough to have a roundabout.
Do problems with roundabouts stem from insufficiently equitable turn-taking when they're not signalised or trying to fit too many roads on them, causing too many lanes at each approach (also allowing for more temporary vehicle storage and shorter (but no less full) queues)? Too many lanes on the approaches mean the lanes are relatively narrow which is a problem if the directions to be painted in those lanes have long names.
I've quite liked the few roundabouts I've driven or navigated round in France, where the signs were clearly indicating which thing each exit was for and which things were further round, but without strict lane-markings around them so that you could keep a bet-hedging central position until reaching the correct exit and be less likely to have to commit to going wrong and correcting later after using the wrong approach lane.Posted 3 years ago # -
If you are on the roundabout in France you have priority?
I spent a camping holiday in Brittany when I was 18 with some Royal Marines. At 5pm the marines on holiday would carry the chairs from the Creperie out to the roundabout on the edge of town to watch the French tackle the roundabout, they found this a very entertaining thing to do.
Posted 3 years ago # -
So much for ‘SNP/Green deal’ - see above.
“
She said: “The deal struck between the Greens and the government is clear – we won’t see more unnecessary road building in Scotland. So I am very surprised to see council leaders seem to be ignoring the government and carrying on regardless.
“
Presume SNP will say ‘local democracy/will of the people’.
Posted 3 years ago # -
My understanding is this is just the Council voicing an opinion on whether it should go ahead; the actual decision is for Transport Scotland/Scottish Ministers to make.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Not “The Council” as such - coalition of councils.
Only CEC against?
Is this UK money?
Allocated to projects that if they don’t happen won’t be spent on alternatives?
(Not that that would a good reason for going ahead!)
Posted 3 years ago # -
The SNP/Green deal includes “ We also agree:work on other trunk roads projects and programmes under construction, design, development or procurement will continue …”, so they have agreed to continue work (however unnecessary) on much more road building where some design or development had already started.
Posted 3 years ago # -
As part of the A720 trunk road, the Sheriffhall roundabout is the responsibility of Scottish Ministers. Funding for the flyover scheme is part of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region deal, to which the UK and Scottish Governments have committed £600m each.
The deal has been signed by both Governments, various councils and someone representing higher and further education establishments. I assume the deal could be changed with the agreement of all the signatories, but reckon no-one would really want to touch it.
Sort of has the smell of Picardy Place about it - everyone would "love to do something about it" but, you know, our hands are tied...
Posted 3 years ago # -
Imagine how many potholes the Tories could fill if they voted against this!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Not sure they want them filled, less to complain about…
Posted 3 years ago # -
This kind of long process is exactly how the status quo prevails. Given the long standing SNP "infrastructure investment pipeline", put in place a decade or more ago by the now retired Alex Neil, there's probably very little that can be cancelled. Inevitably design work will have started or even been completed on A9 dualling, various bypasses, etc.
All that the new Green ministers can do is tinker around the edges with whatever baubies are left over, the vast majority of the budget having been already committed to new road schemes. Which I imagine suits the SNP, Tories, Labour and Lib Dems just fine.
The roads industrial complex trundles onward, unstoppable for the foreseeable. In a word, hegemony.
Posted 3 years ago # -
As if by magic, the EEN reports that all the Councils have agreed to press on with the Sheriffhall roundabout scheme. The Greens, SNP and Labour all seem to imply that this is in some way a bad thing, as though the decision has nothing to do with them.
Posted 3 years ago # -
It’s a variation of the story posted on Friday before the meeting which went into the print edition.
Key new bit -
“
And at today’s meeting of the City Region Deal joint committee, council leader Adam McVey admitted Edinburgh had been "nervous" about some aspects of the project and its impact on the city.
But he said here had been significant improvements on active travel provision and public transport.
"It has made Edinburgh less nervous about the scheme and where we do have remaining nervousness the commitment to work together as a region is really important," he said.
"We need a bypass that works and right now we have a logjam which causes quite a lot of issues. The impact of that is people taking routes that bypass the bypass and using residential streets in the city centre as a quicker route than the bypass.
“
I would be VERY surprised if he (or his officials) have looked at ways of addressing the issues without the new works (estimated cost £120m) OR looked at any measures that will be needed after (if) this happens.
(Not forgetting that all this is about a world were ‘climate change’ doesn’t exist/matter.)
Posted 3 years ago # -
“
Ms Forbes, Scottish finance secretary, was appearing at a session of the Scottish Affairs Committee this afternoon when she was asked about how much the Scottish Government had spent so far on city and region growth deals.
The deals are a series of projects taking place across six parts of Scotland, in partnership between the UK and Scottish Governments, with investment going in to areas such as medical research, public transport, and science.
“
Posted 3 years ago # -
The problem with the bypass is that it has a narrow entrance and exit, they need to blow up all of Barberton to create a massive entrance/exit and then all of Gilmerton round to portobello to allow exit/entrance. Otherwise the cars will have to queue.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Not sure your solution is viable, but the analysis of the problem is about right.
(And as I implied earlier, it’s now essential to reduce ‘traffic’ rather than facilitate/smooth it.
This is of course SG policy -
“
The Scottish Government has published its updated Climate Change Plan which contains new policies aimed at reducing emissions from transport, including an eye-catching new target to cut car kilometres by 20 percent by 2030.
“
https://www.cyclinguk.org/news/20-cut-scotlands-car-traffic-planned-help-meet-2030-climate-targets
SO
Presumably it’s all UKGov’s fault for offering “city and region growth” money??)
Posted 3 years ago # -
"Presumably it’s all UKGov’s fault for offering “city and region growth” money??"
Presumably the SNP would like their more green-minded voters, and the actual voters of their Green now-partners to think that.
But the fact is the funding for the transport bit of the Edinburgh & SE Scotland City Region Deal (funding £140m with £120m of it, plus overruns no doubt, being spunked on Sheriffhall) comes solely from ScotGov.
The only bits the UK Gov are jointly funding are R&D and Culture.
Posted 3 years ago # -
See page number 11 of their annual report
http://esescityregiondeal.org.uk/s/2019-20-Annual-Report-City-Region-Deal-updated-08-09-20.pdf
Posted 3 years ago # -
What I can't understand is why the supposed bigbrain political strategists aren't trying to at least make something positive(for them) out of this.
Like, I could understand somewhat if everyone involved feels trapped into going ahead - the awful mixture of bureaucracy with garden variety political cowardice that these big projects inevitably generate often means the only two options are that they get built or they fall apart in a spectacular and career-ending way - but if they had any real ambition they could be using this as an excuse/cover to introduce a proper traffic circulation plan for the city; sell the roundabout to green-tinged SNP voters with the circulation plan, and the circulation plan to everyone else with "well you're getting an upgraded bypass so journey times should improve!*"(*eventually, once the inverse induced demand pushes people towards other options).
Instead they just hold their hands up and grimace, so they look ungreen to the greens, too green to the motorists, and cowardly & indecisive to everyone else.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Cllr McVey was not very "nervous" about the deal when he signed the Heads Of Terms Agreement document in 2017:
Paras 15 to 17 cover transport. Please note, not a single mention of active travel.
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TRANSPORT
15. This deal will deliver major investments to ensure that Scotland’s capital and its region is served by world class transport infrastructure. The recently published SESplan cross-boundary study of the region has helped to show where transport investment will be most effectively targeted.
16. Partners will put in place a regional developer contributions framework which takes account of work being led by SESplan and the emerging findings of the jointly- produced cross-boundary study. These interventions and commitments, taken with the additional transport investment to enable the innovation and housing projects, will help ensure the region continues to grow and flourish.
17. Key commitments include:
• The Scottish Government will invest up to £120m to support improvements to the A720 City Bypass for the grade separation of Sheriffhall Roundabout.
• The Scottish Government will provide £20m investment to support public transport infrastructure improvements identified by the West Edinburgh Transport Appraisal, alongside investment from partners and the private sector.
• The Scottish Government commits to continuing to work collaboratively with the regional partners on identified regionally-led local transport investment priorities through the establishment of a Transport Appraisal Working group, with an agreed and mutually shared remit and proposed outcomes. Partners will have the opportunity to be involved in and influence the second Strategic Transport Projects Review.
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On the face of it, in recent statements on this deal Cllr McVey appears to have been economical with the actualité.
Posted 3 years ago #
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