CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Consultants: If you're not part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
I don't particularly see the issue with the 'Certificate of lawfulness of proposed use or development' though. Surely the Active Travel team are able to walk down a floor to planning and ask if it's needed.
TRO/RSO designs are now available: https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s23757/Item%207.2%20-%20ECCT%20meadows%20to%20George%20St%20with%20appendices.pdf
Of note:
New segregated link along Teviot Place
New bus gate on Market Street in addition to Bank Street
Wider pavements and general public realm improvements now included on Market Street
Cycleway is now on the west side of Hanover Street to allow a far better angle for crossing the tram tracks
The tram track crossing looks pretty good. Hopefully the light phase is frequent enough.
Good that they're restricting Market Street, outside the station is chaos for everyone and a really bad introduction to the city. The one way option - defacto forbidding u-turns - is very good too. Unfortunate if there isn't a contraflow lane though.
Really good that Forrest Road will be controlled by bollards.
With the caveat that the downhill lane is still too narrow - mitigated by the fact that traffic will be reduced on the main carriageway, and it will be easy enough to hop back onto the lane at the foot of the mound - I am actually quite optimistic about this.
I assume there will be even less traffic crossing N/S with Market Street restricted than initially modelled meaning they can cut down further on the cycle time there.
Given the lane widths are generally 3.25m and the bus usage on the Mound I don't think there's a huge amount of extra width to be found for the cycleway without reducing pavement widths. I doubt that'd go down well with Sustrans/LS etc.
They'll need to start reserving against the cost of the first head-on collision on the Mound. Can you imagine having the dowhill riders within touching distance as you grind uphill? Only a matter of time until there's contact.
I will not be visiting this facility.
WOW WOW WOW!
That's actually pretty good, given the constraints. Can't find much to fault it.
And they've even widened out a section of the Mound (earthworks!) to accommodate bikes. Incredible! So good.
They taken tonnes of space from motors for bike lanes!
Also great that there is a proper protected route along Teviot Pl, connecting the University.
Interesting new traffic lights on the blind Bank Street corner - that should help in relation to what is often a surprise as you go round it. They'd better enforce a "don't even think about parking" bit on that stretch round the bend on North Bank Street. Maybe give the bars and shops there a trolley to use from a sensible loading bay away from the corner?
I appreciate the number of ASLs and bikes painted on the road (ie, in addition to the cycle lane). It should help legitimise in some people's eyes using the road to descend, rather than risking a close pass in a confined bikelane.
what is often a surprise as you go round it
Never gone round that anywhere but just inside the centre line. Never seen that space unoccupied.
Nobody else find the Mound design terrifying?
@IWRATS - A concern I share, but thinking about it, I'm wondering how comparable the likes of Middle Meadow Walk, Leamington Walk and the Barnton Avenue path are. None of them have the 90 degree bend of the Mound, of course.
I can cycle down each of them at over 20mph, which is roughly the speed Strava says I reach at the bottom of The Mound. And, without getting my micrometer out, I think each of them is roughly the same width as being proposed. But I can't recall ever having a safety issue on any of them (and I hope none of the people I've passed would disagree).
Which suggests to me that it either wouldn't be a problem (i.e., folk cycling downhill on the cycleway rather than the road will just naturally slow down) or that careful design of the cycleway could solve the problem.
What width is the upper MMW cycleway? You can usually get up to a fair pelt down there but it never feels that bad. I do restrict my speed a bit more there than down the Mound but I don't feel like that's necessarily a bad thing.
@Frenchy
Well time will tell. I find those plans very hard to read.
The council absolutely refused to engage with me on the subject, as the bidirectional lane had been picked as the only viable option.
Northbound I don't much care as I can take the whole lane at speed with ease, but southbound it's the risk of head-ons in the cycle lane or the inevitable aggression using the road. I may have to use the Bridges instead, we'll see.
Tory councillor Joanna Mowat objected to the proposal in the current scheme for revamping traffic flow in George Street to have a two-way segregated cycleway on one side of the street because it flew in the face of the symmetrical design of the New Town.She said: “George Street is probably one of the finest set pieces of urban architecture in the world.
“I would ask, even at this stage, we solicit a design that has cycle lanes running on both sides of the street to preserve the symmetry.
No-one has any issues about George Street being improved, we are beyond the point where people are arguing about the parking.”
But she said the issue of where the cycle lanes went was important and an issue on which people had strong opinions.
“We are at risk of cultural vandalism,” said Cllr Mowat, who represents City Centre ward. “We risk real reputational damage.”
Presumably Cllr Mowat hasn’t visited George Street since 1786.
Might need to start putting "Cycleways should be unidirectional in order to preserve the symmetry of _____" into all our consultation responses now.
George Street, Old Dalkeith Road, South Gyle Crescent...
Think she must have read some letters from some of the gammon at the earlier consultations. If they were that fussed about complete symmetry they'd need to change the side of the road vehicles should use on one half of it.
Symmetry is the new parking.
It is April 1st.
Actual George St thread:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=12983&page=37#post-320995
Can anyone parse the proposed trajectory for a cyclist coming from Lauriston Place and going past Forrest Rd? It seems that both the turn right onto Bristo Sq and the straight on to Lothian St are facilitated by the ‘main’ segregated lane on the north side, but the continuation of the eastbound lane past Forrest Rd seems to indicate such cyclists are not expected to do a dogleg onto it; but then the eastbound lane kind of peters out into the bus stop/loading bay with no real facilitation of either a right turn or of continuing on.
Have the Teviot Place proposals ever been consulted on before? I think they're new, but I don't see any discussion in the report about them.
Does anyone know why they've put the cycle lanes on the north side? It seems to get in the way of the bus stop and loading and be hard to access, as piosad says. If it was on the south side it might even get to continue uninterrupted if the area masterplan to replace the Potterow flyover ever happens.
What width is the upper MMW cycleway?
Got my micrometer out when I passed today. I made it ~3.5m at the bottom, and maybe 4m wide at the top. So wider than the Mound proposals, but close enough to make me think it'll probably be fine.
Fingers crossed @Frenchy.
As a result of severe boredom, I ran through the plans again. I actually quite like the switched sides on Hanover St, lets you use the road downhill in both directions before joining the cycle lane uphill. Some oddities I noticed/rambling:
Seems odd to just ban the left turn from George IV to Chambers St. I would imagine a separate cycle phase would still be needed if right turns are permitted.
Yellow box at Candlemaker Row, potentially unnecessary? Due to the short distance between both sets of lights, further reduced by the yellow box, I can imagine the remaining drivers blocking the cycle crossover at Forrest Road when the lights are red at George IV/Chambers St. Although syncing the lights well here would mostly fix this.
9.72m long ASL on Market St. A world record?
The cycle lane doesn't appear to be raised at mini-zebras which seems unusual.
The pavement is actually reduced by quite a bit outside the National Museum. Could the on-road cycle lane here be removed to add some extra pavement width?
The junction at Teviot Place is just odd. If you're coming from the uni and want to head to MMW, there's give ways with the actual stop line earlier on Forrest Road. Like @bacam mentions, the south side seems like it would be a simpler solution. Plus a wide 1.5/2.5m buffer wouldn't be needed since there's no bus stop/loading.
Market Street: I believe there was some controversy over the taxi rank here. Why not swap the taxi rank with the large loading bay to bring it closer to the station?
Got my micrometer out when I passed today.
Previous work on the subject here, in case it's helpful:
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=16360#post-219145
CycleAlex: without looking at the plans again I suspect the loading bay is intended for taxi drop-off.
Would be reasonable to use double yellows instead, as taxis are permitted to drop off on those anyway, but perhaps that's not very intuitive.
Apparently that date isn’t correct and it should be started in 2023. Full update due to be published early October…
A TRO! Finally! https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/30436/17-september-2021
It all looks good. Bus gates on Bank Street and Candlemaker Row. Time to hope for a lack of controversy...
When was the CCWEL TRO first published again..?
fingers crossed extremely tightly for this one
@CycleAlex - I have a feeling we will see the words "FLOATING BUS STOP" lumbering into view.
That said - lets make the job of Council officials and councillors wanting this to progress easier and all send emails supporting the proposals. Details at:
I know messages of support have no legal standing in the TRO process, but that does not mean they have no influence. Councillors need to know people support this.
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