As the campaign material of a local New Town councillor said: "Find Edinburgh solutions to the challenges Edinburgh faces rather than doing it like other places - Edinburgh is unique and our solutions should be too."
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
The Sustrans proposals for Picardy Place/Leith Street
(868 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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Stickman - so the gyratory will simply be painted over what is already there and liberally sprinkled with chicanes? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick again.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Find disingenuous official slogans to genuine Edinburgh problems."
Posted 6 years ago # -
I see Leith Street is now closed off further down, preventing through access to Calton Road to cars and cycles.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Yes, I actually dismounted yesterday and pushed across the pedestrian path yesterday!
Took photos but my card decided to corrupt them!!!
Posted 6 years ago # -
As the campaign material of a local New Town councillor said: "Find Edinburgh solutions to the challenges Edinburgh faces rather than doing it like other places - Edinburgh is unique and our solutions should be too."
Dearie me. So there are no other historic European cities with a mixture of ancient narrow wynds and later broader streets, with a castle on a hill smack in the middle and stuffed full of historic buildings. That's about every European city fit for a weekend break.
Posted 6 years ago # -
& city transport solutions are not like types of whisky, with 100 choices of subtle flavours. Roughly, you lean to Los Angeles, or you lean to Amsterdam. You have five modes of transport - walk, cycle, tram, bus and car. You prioritise one over the other.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Rosie but perhaps our historical streetscape really is completely unique - uniquely suited to motor vehicles and nothing else? Some kind of Edinburgh magic?
Posted 6 years ago # -
You don't expect residents of the New Town to actually have to rub shoulders with the Hoi Polloi? It's absolutely essential they are allowed to drive anywhere beyond the immediate vicinity, for decency's sake.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“
But there is now concern that, under the new designs, there would no longer be room in the junction’s central reservation to house a new home for the arthouse complex.
Conservative councillor and economy spokesman John McLellan said it was clear the Filmhouse had been desperate to move for years but that any hopes for a move to Picardy Place would likely now have been dashed.
He said: “The Filmhouse is a much-loved institution and anything which helps it develop and maintain its place in the cultural life of the city is a good thing.
“
Right.
So, ‘Edinburgh’ needs to support a multi-laned roundabout so that Filmhouse can move there??
Maybe put where there are all the ‘might not need’ car parking spaces - might actually be a beneficial attraction for the St. James’s development.
Posted 6 years ago # -
MacLellan expands on this in his weekly
rantopinion piece:"Bicycle lobby" gets its usual airing.
Posted 6 years ago # -
From last link -
“
The Filmhouse concept was not ready to be revealed when the traffic plan was published in September, but given there had been a consultation, plans had been agreed, and contracts for the road alterations signed there was no reason to think the agreed lay-out would not go ahead.
“
So, bad plans can’t be improved because someone had an idea they weren’t telling anyone about?
But maybe this isn’t really about film/art -
“
The latest plan also involved the funky Dutch-based hotel operator, citizenM, with its ambient multi-coloured lighting in every room controlled by a “mood-pad”.
“
Posted 6 years ago # -
This rubbish just keeps on coming.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Stickman
That is absolutely unhinged.
Posted 6 years ago # -
No idea why Filmhouse wants to move, but if anyone is really interested in this sort of thing -
“
It involves a new home near the Omni Centre multiplex to create a new hub for cinema, along with the movie theatre planned for the new St James Centre. Being close to the site of the studios used by Victorian photography pioneer David Octavius Hill and just up the road from the Portrait Gallery it could develop into a focal point for the visual arts.
“
might be better to notice the proximity of the Traverse, Usher Hall, Odeon and (just up the road) the Cameo and Kings - and improve the Lothian Road/Tollcross ‘pedestrian experience’.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"No idea why Filmhouse wants to move"
It may be that the building is too costly to maintain, doesn't have room for expansion etc.
Alternatively, the Board may have been convinced that a move to a new shiny glass and steel building is what all arts venues need and they wouldn't want to be left behind and their names will be engraved on the new building for posterity ... just sign the cheque here please...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Is there not a lovely 1930s cinema currently seeing service as a pigeon coop in Newington?
Posted 6 years ago # -
I wonder how the community councils in the area feel about being told to shut up about their concerns by a councillor from a completely different part of town?
Posted 6 years ago # -
Ah, Mr MacLellan is a Tory councilor. In that context the article is actually quite sane.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@IWRATS: not just any Tory councillor - a former editor of the EEN no less.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“Picardy Place has become a battle-ground between development and investment on one side and a single-issue pressure group on the other”
The “single issue pressure group” of course being those pushing for three lanes of traffic on each side. Anyone with half a brain can see that there’s your issue.
Maybe MacLellan is on our side (or maybe he’s cleverly written the article to appear to be on all sides)
Posted 6 years ago # -
Filmhouse has been wanting to expand/move for a few years. Previous suggestions had been an expansion into Festival Square or full relocation to the yet to be developed wasteland at Fountainbridge. This is the first I have heard about Picardy Place. It sounds like a poor idea and reminds me of the BFI IMAX in the middle of a roundabout near Waterloo Station, although I believe that does at least have underpass access.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Normally not a fan of expansion into public spaces, but Festival Square is such a howling wilderness I'd make an exception.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Disregard this Fake News propagated by "senior" Cllr McLellan.
Here's the important bit:
---
A council spokesman said: “The response to the latest phase of the consultation on Picardy Place has been excellent, with close to 800 residents and representatives from various interest groups taking the time to attend our drop-in sessions or have their say online. This feedback is currently being collated and will be used to inform the final designs to go before a special meeting of the transport committee on January 25.”
---
"used to inform the final designs"
So are they going to drop the gyratory then? Doesn't sound like it.
Still time to e-mail councillors on the transport committee before 25th...
Posted 6 years ago # -
Festival Square is such a howling wilderness
Where else will the citizens assemble to sit on beanbags in their anoraks at lunchtime to watch Team GB win the next Olympics on a giant telescreen but Bladerunner Square?
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Festival Square is such a howling wilderness"
Or Ceausescu Plaza as we used to call it in the early nineties.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"Then there is the impact on investors behind the whole regeneration project, now bewildered and questioning the reliability of the council’s deal-making. It’s hardly the kind of reputation an international city wants to project."
So perhaps the Council shouldn't make deals that fix designs for key parts of city infrastructure before they share those proposals with the people who'll actually be using them?
Nicely worded to depict an all-powerful cycling / Green lobby who have the council in thrall. And the REAL victims here are the poor confused & vulnerable investors swept hither & yon by currents they can't control. (Obviously investing ought not to involve risk on the part of the investor.)
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Iwrats, @crowriver
Ooh - both of those placenames will be formally considered for use when I'm running Edinburgh as my personal fiefdom.
ETA: though, maybe assuming a bit that there will still be a Team GB by then?
Posted 6 years ago # -
“
The Filmhouse was unavailable for comment.
“
Posted 6 years ago # -
“Where else will the citizens assemble to sit on beanbags in their anoraks at lunchtime to watch Team GB win the next Olympics on a giant telescreen but Bladerunner Square?”
Posted 6 years ago #
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