“a newly built connection taking you all the way to the city centre“
Any route in mind??
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
A701 "Relief Road"
(115 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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Any route in mind??
Nothing specifically, but any decent, contemporary, joined-up-thinking, competent transport professional should be able to find/repurpose one.
Why do I get the feeling this kind of professional does not exist?
Posted 3 years ago # -
@neddie - I like your thinking. The Scottish Government's 2021-22 Programme for Government committed to the creation of routes like the one you have suggested, stating:
Establishing an active freeway network for Scotland, comprising local networks within towns and cities and connecting settlements and major destinations with high quality, safe routes.
Slightly less clear how they intend to actually make these happen though.
Posted 3 years ago # -
On second thoughts, why settle for bus-only?
This should be a tram route all the way to the city centre, with a park & ride at the Midlothian end and a parallel active travel route.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Only if they build the active travel part first, otherwise it will be a decade or more waiting on the tram lines to get built.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Good point @Yodhrin
Posted 3 years ago # -
I like the Fantasy Midlothian Think Big angle. Thanks neddie, Yodhrin et al.
Alas, what we will end up with is Think Small Business As Usual Midlothian. I think you all know that, deep down somewhere.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I mean, yeah of course. This kind of speculating is basically Fantasy Football for urban infrastructure nerds :P
Posted 3 years ago # -
“This kind of speculating is basically Fantasy Football for urban infrastructure nerds“
Yes
But WHY??
Why is four wheels, mostly empty, the only model in town AND the one that HAS TO BE PROVIDED FOR???
Forget Climate Crises, this just should no longer even be the optimum ‘business as usual’ way of getting people around.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I think it's time for a campaign to broaden roads generally so drivers can get to their next jam faster. People living on Lanark Road (for example) should have the urban motorway they crave - four lanes of traffic and no on street parking at all (!)
@Arellcat hits the nail on the head with the spurious claims of 'improve traffic flow/ reduce congestion'.
None of these new developments being built should have gas heating and driveways should be for small e-cars only. A covered bike shed for each property of course with a high qaulity joined up path into the city - like the 'home zones' found in some places.
New roads should have access charge - number plate recognition to bill users for the environmental costs incurrred.
Posted 3 years ago # -
There is a social housing complex in Juni Green where veitch’s nursery used to be. Nice flats. To get one you had to not have a car. Hahaha. Huge range rovers parked on the pavement.
The range rovers never get ticketed. For pavement parking
The people who lied about not getting a car get to keep their house.
This is not Nam. there are rules.
Posted 3 years ago # -
When it comes to pavement & illegal parking, we’re not only in ‘Nam, Dude, we’re in Khe Sanh
Posted 3 years ago # -
This scheme is required to facilitate more sustainable travel along the existing A701
To be more sustainable we have to build a new road - honest!Posted 3 years ago # -
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it".
Posted 3 years ago # -
@crowriver, yes this is the logic that allowed Glasgow Council to run. The M8 through Cowcaddens, destroying a community.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Anyone go to the online event yesterday?
There's now a virtual exhibition here, with an opportunity to provide feedback: https://www.a701reliefroad.co.uk/virtual-exhibition/
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yes, I did. It was two hours long and there were a lot of questions. I asked six, two of which were kind of answered in the greater pool, and one which was answered directly. It was rather a projecty managementy presentation, with a lot of this-is-the-planning-process stuff that at least eventually made sense as the session progressed. I didn't write any notes, so this is just from memory.
Twelve routes had been whittled down to six, and all account for historical, environmental, topological and geological features, which is why none of the proposed routes is very straight. There are two burns, two landfills, steep slopes, protected woodland, historic and listed buildings, and bat and badger populations.
As I expected, expansion of housebuilding is the root of it, and Midlothian has a desire to 'increase' 'capacity' by offering an additional route to connect the A702 and A701 and divert drivers from the congested Straiton section. The link road is A702 to A703, and the relief road is A703 to A701.
Traffic counts show that the Old Pentland Road is not heavily used – which I could have told them myself – and that the A701 and A702 are. Traffic modelling was done on pre-Covid levels, but current counts show traffic has reached 85–90% of that, so they aren't performing any redesign on that basis.
Tellingly, though, cycling and walking didn't get anything more than a passing mention for nearly an hour.
There was a very real sense that the design work to date, albeit not fully detailed at this stage, was done on the basis of drivers, motor vehicle counts and driving patterns, and active travel considerations were a) not included, and b) will be a specific subsequent exercise, to which 'we' should expect to be asked to contribute. By 'we' I mean cyclists, walkers and horse riders. It bothered me that cycling was put into the same basket as horse riding, which, unless I am very much mistaken, is not the popular form of transport it once was. In essence, though, 'watch this space' – that being the website.
The relief road will be 50mph, with one lane each way. It will be unpleasant for cycling owing to gradients, speed and width – but in an ideal world there should be no need to cycle on it in the first place.
We can expect:
- a roundabout on the A703 roughly where the blind bend is north of Bush crossroads.
- a staggered junction where the link road intersects Old Pentland Road. This may be an unpleasant manoeuvre on a bike, but they also said there would be a central area for crossing purposes. That smacks of A1-at-Torness design thinking, if you ask me.
- an upgraded junction on the A702 at Bush Loan Road, which has difficult sight lines currently. A new junction would probably be built to the north, and it may be a roundabout or may be simply an improved T-junction.
I asked about wildlife crossings being part of the environmental impact assessment. Culverts are the current thinking, for badgers mainly. The moving of setts isn't being discounted.
No-one from the team answered my question about the impact on cycling and walking safety and effectiveness of the relief road where it joins the A701 by the city bypass.
There were shared concerns about the safety of the Hillend 3-way junction. Midlothian more or less said, well, it's mostly the A702, and that's Transport Scotland's responsibility. TS has done studies on potential redesign and Midlothian hasn't seen them yet, but expects to build them into the detailed design.
My main concern with the Hillend junction is that the majority of the A702 northbound traffic is heading for the A720 westbound. It gets delayed at Hillend because of many people trying to exit the A703. This may become more hazardous for cycling if drivers preferentially turn left from the A703 onto the link road to the A702, which would also have a roundabout. Cycling up that link road will be hard work and the A702 will be unpleasant just to mitigate the hazard at Hillend. Midlothian cannot be ignorant of this set of risks, because it was raised during the first round of SfP measures (most of which never happened).
The wider context, of road building, latent demand and house building, in the climate emergency was not discussed at all. "You've got to build houses, so you've got to build roads" was the gist of it. Not building anything is not an option.
Posted 3 years ago # -
"You've got to build houses, so you've got to build roads"
Pretty much sums up the attitude in most of this island, not just Scotland, everywhere.
Hell. Hand basket. In a. Going to.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Thanks, @Arellcat.
I understood that the University was also pushing quite hard for it, in order to increase the capacity of their Easter Bush campus. The whole project is in the "Innovation" section of the city deal (rather than the more obvious "Transport" section). Was this mentioned at all?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yes, UoE's expansion of Bush was mentioned once I think, in the same sentence as house building.
Posted 3 years ago # -
So, all the people who live in the new houses will work at Bush - no need for extra road space?
Isn’t that how it’s meant to work??
Posted 3 years ago # -
"I understood that the University was also pushing quite hard for it, in order to increase the capacity of their Easter Bush campus. The whole project is in the "Innovation" section of the city deal (rather than the more obvious "Transport" section). Was this mentioned at all?"
Surely they intend the journey requirement of any increase in capacity to be satisfied by public transport and active travel like good, science-aware citizens, right?
In which case, neither of the existing Lothian bus routes would use this new road - the 15 goes via Hillend and the 37 goes through Loanhead town. And this road and the general increase in traffic it will induce will make Easter Bush an even more unpleasant and dangerous place to cycle to on existing routes.
Posted 3 years ago # -
"Surely they intend the journey requirement of any increase in capacity to be satisfied by public transport and active travel like good, science-aware citizens, right?"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! No, no. Public transport and active travel are for the little people. No innovation researcher worth their salt is going to put up with second class status while travelling to their vitally important job. They absolutely must be able to take an extra armchair, a sofa, entertainment system and a couple of tonnes of steel and glass along with them. Everyone knows that.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I understood that the University was also pushing quite hard for it, in order to increase the capacity of their Easter Bush campus.
What UoE was prevented from doing in the 1960s is now being pursued in the 2020s. It's easier to buy and build on fields than it is to knock down tenements in a city.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Posted 2 years ago #
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