https://kevinlang.mycouncillor.org.uk/2017/09/06/silverknowes-roundabout/
Painted cycle lane round the edge of Silverknowes Roundabout anyone...
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Silverknowes Roundabout - Danger Alert
(155 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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new cycling lanes on the roundabout to better protect cyclists and drivers
OK.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Hey now. It's important to protect drivers from feeling in any way responsible for driving so as not to flatten more vulnerable road users.
Posted 6 years ago # -
It looks to me like there is room.......for best practice.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Someone has been looking at the continent and failed to notice kerbs instead of paint.
This sort of peripheral 'lane' was once on the roundabout at the bottom of Broughton Street.
No longer.
I thought CEC had learned it wasn't a good idea.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Kerbs and cyclists having right of way at all the exits!
Posted 6 years ago # -
From link -
"
The works were consulted on and approved before we were elected.
"
Really??
Posted 6 years ago # -
From that post - it's a little worrying that the council can decide to resurface and make changes to a roundabout like that without councillors (or indeed the public) being aware. If there had been any form of consultation they would have been told about the danger of bike lanes like that, and it might even have been an opportunity to consider continental geometry if not a full-blown Dutch roundabout (which is still quite hard to implement using UK road practices)
Good post here on what makes a Dutch roundabout work so well in great detail by a UK highway engineer http://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/ive-seen-things-you-people-wouldnt.html
Posted 6 years ago # -
Was going to post this yesterday but couldn't find right thread!
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is insane! How the hell do you turn right safely?
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is also contrary to the existing Cycling By Design guidance (https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/14173/cycling_by_design_2010__rev_1__june_2011_.pdf - pp 96-7)
Actually I was surprised how not-bad the CbD guidance on roundabouts was, considering it was written in 2010. Yet to see a roundabout that actually conforms to their design for a compact roundabout
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ignoring the stupid cycle lanes for a minute (I hope they aren't going to claim that comes from the 10%)
a new traffic island on Lauriston Farm Road to assist with pedestrian crossings
If that is their aim why don't they include zebra crossings just like the ones on Silverknowes parkway? In fact why aren't they on all 4 roads.
Given the new crossings should there not have been a TRO for this? They seem to use that as an excuse as to why they can't put them in elsewhere.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Having look at the diagram and the website, are we absolutely sure this isn't a satirical / alt news page ?
It's crazy/unnerving/flabbergasting/etc that anyone with the authority to make these sort of changes doesn't realise this is unacceptable.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Thanks @sallyhinch, now I've got sucked into reading Cycling By Design. There goes my evening...
Posted 6 years ago # -
even better, it's being reviewed, so if there's anything you think should be changed in it, now's your chance ...
Posted 6 years ago # -
acsimpson - you don't need a TRO for a pedestrian crossing. Section 23 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 allows a local authority to install one, as long as they consult with the police and give public notice of the proposal before installing it. TROs are for all the other stuff, parking and loading bays, yellow lines etc.
As the cycle lanes in this scheme are advisory, there is no need for a TRO for those either.
I would guess that this is the result of a council officer who wanted money to make changes to the roundabout and, seeing the pile of cash available for cycling schemes, shoved in the cycle element to get their hands on the dosh. I could be wrong, of course.
Posted 6 years ago # -
How the hell do you turn right safely?
Not sure about safely, but you are supposed to go all three way round the outside of the roundabout. The Highway Code says somewhere that cyclists can do this at any roundabout.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Morningsider You allude to something that I've suspected, namely that a bit of cycle stuff is thrown in, no matter how rubbish, so that the cycling funding can be raided in order to do other stuff. Do you think that happens? And if so, how can the transport budget be interrogated by the public to try to make sure that all cycling spend goes on cycle facilities?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Beyond belief. I've emailed my councillors and fired off a tweet to David Key.
What's going on with these non-existant consultations? The world's biggest no-brainer in D Mains park gets the usual time wasting treatment, yet this [expletive redacted] gets waved through without a proper consulation. Actually really quite miffed.
Posted 6 years ago # -
This is mad, a very bad idea.
Incidentally, it is probably what the Dutch would do in a place where there isn't space for a proper segregated roundabout (proper segregated roundabouts take a lot of space). I know a few roundabouts like this in Utrecht, e.g. just west of Willhelminapark .
But it helps that you have several thousand cyclists going through this roundabout every day and drivers who are trained to understand it. Don't think it's at all wise to put these things in Edinburgh.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Both Lesley McInnes and David Key raising this urgently tomorrow.
Posted 6 years ago # -
For a zebra crossing and a light controlled crossing you need TRO's to make the law on zig zag markings and stop lines enforcible.
'Elephant's feet markings do not require a TRO though
Posted 6 years ago # -
Is anyone actively in favour of advisory cycle lanes? I'd be happy to see them all removed as I can't think of one that improves the street it's on.
We could stop this kind of nonsense if we persuaded the council to stop laying advisory cycle lanes altogether. If we could demonstrate that there is no demand for them surely we could stop them being laid. Why would the state spend money on something nobody wants? Austerity and all that.
Unless of course the demand is from motorists?
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Is anyone actively in favour of advisory cycle lanes?"
Most people (bike riders and car users) don't know what they are.
I assume the one on Market Street is advisory, but it works.
Obviously the crucial thing here was the removal of parking, but without the lane vehicles would be closer to the kerb making filtering difficult or impossible.
There are plenty of similar places.
There are too many lanes where parking is allowed or not allowed but parked on anyway, without fear of enforcement.
There are too many that have faded to invisibility.
Etc.
The main thing about the Silverknowes roundabout ones is that they would encourage ignorant drivers to believe that bikes should only be in the peripheral lanes.
The real tragedy is that CEC thinks that keeping this roundabout is a good idea.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Is anyone actively in favour of advisory cycle lanes?
To partially play de'il's advocate, I think they have a few important roles:
Making a route more attractive to less confident cyclists. This might well be false confidence, but increasing the number of people cycling is an important step in improving safety. I find it plausible that advisory cycle lanes are an overall improvement to safety in that regard. If I'm cycling in a strange city, I will choose the streets which have cycle lanes.
They increase the prominence of cycling. Simply having people who are crossing the road or driving around town see cycling infrastructure (even if it is crap) reiterates that cycling is an option, and that there are cyclists around that they should be looking for.
Pragmatically, they are probably a necessary intermediate step between no infrastructure and great infrastructure.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Making a route more attractive to less confident cyclists.
My test case is Madame IWRATS. She has a bicycle and is totally nails but won't ride for transport.
Is this part of the process of persuading her that it is safe? I don't think so.
I suspect that it would be very hard to find a single person who had decided to start cycling because of pink paint or, even less likely, chuckies.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Chuckies last a bit longer than paint. Both show that we a re visible just, however, councils laying them down need to know they only just begun. We need to be sharing horizons that are not new to us but are new to them. We will never get to be on top of the world looking down on creation but everybody got ta start somewhere (this last cliche is not a capenter's lyric)
Posted 6 years ago # -
I can see that David Key's time & energy is going to get soaked up on the tonnes of low-level nonsense and stupidity like this and the Leith St fiasco.
(I'm not saying this shouldn't be stopped - it needs to)
He won't have anything left to create awesome cycleways and pedestrian space along the arterial routes which would really transform Edinburgh.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ned
You have nailed it
As with us developing our own plan and ignoring the aforesaid clunge
This is
What is to be done, as VI Lennon said
I Am The Walrus
Posted 6 years ago # -
"I can see that David Key's time & energy is going to get soaked up on the tonnes of low-level nonsense and stupidity like this and the Leith St fiasco."
Yes, but.
It's very unfortunate he has to do any of this, but he also needs to know these happen and in his new role find out why, and deal with the culture that makes them happen/possible.
And change that culture/ignorance.
Easier said than done of course.
Posted 6 years ago #
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