CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure

The West End is Horrible

(61 posts)
  • Started 6 years ago by I were right about that saddle
  • Latest reply from dessert rat

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  1. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I had cause to cross the West End north-south and east-west today. God it was grim.

    Buses nose to nose, road surfaces crumbling, angry 4x4 drivers and worst of all I've no idea how to get left at the bottom of Lothian Road. Is it even legally possible any more?

    Heading back I was hemmed in by buses on Princes Street on the now wet tram tracks. Hyper vigilant like I was in a combat zone. Hard work for a fit, assertive and experienced rider like me so unthinkable for the old, the young and the vulnerable.

    We really have made a mess of the centre of Edinburgh. It doesn't work for anyone.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  2. jonty
    Member

    This is the way the taxis use to turn left, I think (or that section of the WAR that has a bike lane.)
    https://goo.gl/maps/VhJb3JVSXPL2

    Posted 6 years ago #

  3. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I used to do the WAR and then Canning Street. Is that still an option? Took a bit of courage-screwing to take the outside lane on the WAR sraight from the junction. Suicidal any other way on a bike.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  4. edinburgh87
    Member

    I go South-North (and back) through Lothian Rd every day on my commute in from Bonnyrigg. It's almost tolerable pre-7am but Southbound on Lothian Rd at 5:30 invariably puts me in a foul mood for the evening.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  5. Frenchy
    Member

    Not somewhere I am regularly, but pretty sure Canning St is still an option.

    Left at the bottom of Lothian Road is most safely accomplished by going across the pavement in front of the Huxley. They put dropped kerbs in to facilitate this, but never actually made it an explicitly shared use space.

    However, I've just realised that both Lothian Road and Shandwick Place are designated as Core Paths. This, I think, makes cycling (responsibly) on the pavement legal. I think.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  6. gibbo
    Member

    @iwrats

    "Hard work for a fit, assertive and experienced rider like me so unthinkable for the old, the young and the vulnerable."

    I think that's a pretty good summary of cycling in the city centre - and why the "10% target" is such a joke.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  7. minus six
    Member

    lets not mince our words

    this city is a cesspit

    oversubscribed, vulgar

    the challenge is to love it anyway

    i'm not up to it

    Posted 6 years ago #

  8. gembo
    Member

    @bax, certainly busy now but in the fortnight after the festival but before the students come back it is quite nice.

    I don't cycle west end though.

    I had to go to Glasgow from craigmount high this morning. Took about ten minutes on bike, strong tail wind. Was great. Caught earlier train even. Meeting on hotel near Strathclyde uni. Has all doors locked after 5.30pm to keep out the locals.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  9. minus six
    Member

    Has all doors locked after 5.30pm to keep out the locals

    Aye but

    Truth is there's more happening around Charing Cross than in the whole of Edinburgh put together

    Edinburgh had a moment in time, but thats long long gone

    Somewhere, deep down, a voice is telling you thats true

    Posted 6 years ago #

  10. gembo
    Member

    Used to leg it from the halt bar to the ritz at Charing Cross as it was open until 11.30pm when all weegee pubs shut at 11. Except the Bon Accord also open until 11.30pm and also at Charing Cross. Charing Cross was the late night happening place even back then in 1987.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  11. minus six
    Member

    where we go from here is anyone's guess

    yet i have faith in youth to reclaim the night

    they've been trying to steal it from us since the year dot

    Posted 6 years ago #

  12. minus six
    Member

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

    Posted 6 years ago #

  13. gembo
    Member

    @bax were you getting your haircut in sweary Jim's last Saturday? There was a guy in the chair proposing the Edinburgh is finished view.

    There will be a survey soon putting Edinburgh at 1st or 2nd in Uk. Will never change as Edinburgh is tiny wee place but with excellent transport links locally and internationally. Has close proximity to lovely countryside, beaches etc and you can walk through the Georgian theme park built on slavery with just a pang of guilt.

    When I listened to th track above I had come through from thinking I was cool in Glasgow because I went to the Sub club. Edinburgh had no good night clubs. I hear Hive is now the best in Scotland. Edinburgh had no coffee shop open on a Sunday except the place at top of Victoria street with the drippy ceiling. I was used to going to Nico's on sauchiehall street and thinking I was cool.

    As the sometimes great Wayne Coyne of the flaming lips said There is no virtue in always being cool

    Posted 6 years ago #

  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I fell in love with Edinburgh as a small child from looking at a grainy black and white aerial photo of Arthur's Seat in a geology textbook in my parent's bookcase.

    I was enchanted by the idea of a city with a mountain growing in the middle of it and I still am.

    There are better cities but all the ones I know would grind you to bits, where Edinburgh just sits on top of the wardrobe looking down on you like an aloof and slightly absurd Presbyterian cat.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  15. gembo
    Member

    @iwrats, nice analogy. Could you insert Presbyterian? Either Presbyterian wardrobe or Presbyterian cat?

    Some edinburghers hide their vast personal wealth (accrued from some form of slavery) behind the famous reserve.

    Whereas some weegees hide the abject poverty they live in around say Garthamlock, bargeddie, barmulluch, easterhouse, the drum etc by buying outre clothes from Ichi ni San (saw Eddie Mair from radio 4 in there once wth his mammy) or The Warehouse (saw Steven Campbell the artist in there once wearing tweed suit and holding baby in his arm with head in palm and legs at shoulder) and promenading

    Posted 6 years ago #

  16. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @gembo

    Would you like to be my CCE editor? Nice idea. Done.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  17. crowriver
    Member

    "this city is a cesspit

    oversubscribed, vulgar"

    That's because at this time of year "London" or rather a subset of that city descends upon fair Edina and thoroughly ruins it for the locals. In addition the number of tourists from overseas seems to have skyrocketed this year: maybe the weak Brexit pound has tempted everyone and his/her tour guide to come up to Edinburgh? Certainly the city's the busiest I can recall, and there's been busy years before.

    Also maybe Edinburgh's just becoming more like everywhere else: it's happening to lots of cities around the world, they're all becoming somehow the same...

    OTOH I can't think of anywhere else in Scotland I'd rather live...

    I can recommend taking in some festival shows (maybe EIF official stuff, rather than Fringe) and it might just restore some faith in the point of having this crush of folk inflicted upon us every summer.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  18. Edinburgh Cycle Training
    Member

    I cycle through the city centre most days. Regularly Princes Street/Shandwick place/ Haymarket.

    Often Canning Street/WAR/Lothian Road. Often West Port/Grassmarket/Cowgate

    I mostly love it. Very rarely hate it. I still regularly marvel at my city's beauty despite living in it for over half a century now.

    I think I took that for granted before cycling through it became a regular thing.

    I know some things are bad and ugly, and most of that is because of the council or the Uni, but I probably just get used to that and increasingly find it easier to see the big picture.

    I still get bothered by rubbish stuff as much as I always have. i think i get over them more quickly now.

    I don't envisage me not enjoying my commuting despite the weather, poor infra, poor driving etc.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  19. LaidBack
    Member

    This is the busiest I've ever experienced for tour guides doing mass guiding.
    Edinburgh Airport had 1.4 million passengers in July. (Locals included of course)
    Johnstone Terrace is slow moving procession of coaches in morning interspersed with Rabbie's type mini buses.
    The Lawnmarket is free for all assortment of tank traps, vehicles and people with selfie sticks. It's Edinburgh's most driven and walked on not quite pedestrianised st.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  20. Rosie
    Member

    My airbnb guests are telling me that it's crazy out there at the moment.

    I stick to Roseburn and Fountainbridge. Not much different there.

    I'll venture Festival way at some point.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  21. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    To be clear my dismay was with the West End, not Edinburgh. The council need to decide what the west end is for and make it work for that function.

    There's no room for all parts of the car, bus, tram, ped, bike, van, lorry nexus.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  22. AKen
    Member

    I work on the High Street. On the way to Boots for a sandwich, I watched a jazz band, some fiddlers, a man juggling knives whilst up a ladder, in his pants. On the way back, I watched a man in a Stetson playing a moothie whilst cracking a whip and a couple of Japanese girls doing a jokey magic act.

    I like the festival.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  23. gembo
    Member

    @aken, what was he doing with a ladder in his pants?

    Posted 6 years ago #

  24. AKen
    Member

    Who knows? Strange sights are commonplace when the festival comes to town. :-)

    Posted 6 years ago #

  25. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Tried the WAR-Canning Street shuffle today, but it is illegal due to short one-way no cycles stretch. Attempt to dodge it and you are fired back onto Dewar Place.

    Legal route may be Rutland Square to Canning Street. Will try tomorrow and report back.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  26. jonty
    Member

    You could try going "straight" on through then turning left on to Charlotte Square, then down the lane to Queensferry Street and Melville Street.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  27. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Tried the Rutland Square wriggle but that doesn't work either due to Coates Crescent now being inaccessible.

    I think they really do expect you to go right and into Charlotte Square. I'm not doing that due to it being stupid and also a well-founded fear of death on the tram tracks.

    Looks like the Mound and George Street, if George Street is cycle-permeable is it? Rose Street?

    Posted 6 years ago #

  28. Chug
    Member

    What about using festival square and then the bridge to Rutland square? Sometimes busy though as it's narrow. Also no right turn at the end of canning street (unless you're a taxi)

    Posted 6 years ago #

  29. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Chug

    Nice, but I think I'd just be swept back to Morrison Street.

    They seem to have designed pavement cycling across to Frasers into the city. Conflict designed in on purpose or more likely by mistake and sloth.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  30. Chug
    Member

    Ah. Probably right for n to s. I was thinking south to north. My error.

    Posted 6 years ago #

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