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The Sustrans proposals for Picardy Place/Leith Street

(868 posts)
  • Started 6 years ago by crowriver
  • Latest reply from crowriver

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  1. McD
    Member

    Picardy Place work is due to start end of March and the main aspects of it be completed by end July before the Festival embargo and inline with the completion of Leith Street closure.
    There's been no mention of RSOs or TROs - surely they are needed?
    Spokes meeting with project team re "tweaks" to the design - hoping to publish suggestions this pm. Living Street have shared theirs.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. Morningsider
    Member

    Frenchy - this from a paper for the full Council meeting yesterday:

    The programme for delivery of the Growth Assets is as follows:

    Public realm at James Craig Walk - Completion – July 2019;
    Public realm and tram proofing works at Picardy Place – Completion – November 2019;
    Junction improvements at Leith Walk, Leith Street and York Place Completion – April 2020; and
    The Energy Centre – Completion – April 2020.

    Details:http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/56045/item_83_-_edinburgh_st_james_growth_accelerator_model_gam_-_update_on_progress_and_approval_of_new_financial_limit

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. crowriver
    Member

    "Living Street have shared theirs."

    Reakky? Can't find hide nor hair of them and their web site appears to be down too.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. unhurt
    Member

    And yet it is mysteriously inevitable.

    Failure to ask the right questions and failure to imagine a future materially different from - or better than - the present. An apathetic abdication of responsibility for shaping that future.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Former Tory MP Lord Patrick Cormack, said his evidence was that his cab journey from King’s Cross station to the House of Lords now took longer, adding that all the peers he spoke to believed bike lanes were to blame.

    The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to observe it in action? This of course is the thinking behind the Picardy Place trans-wasteland express lanes. Can't hinder members of the Taxi Driving Community.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. Frenchy
    Member

    The Palace of Westminster is approximately 2.5 miles from King's Cross station. If Mr Cormack is concerned about how long that journey takes him and the pollution his journey causes, he should consider making the journey by bike.

    Cycling that journey would take him about 20 minutes, even on a big heavy bikeshare bike, and going slowly enough to avoid sweating. According to Google Maps, it'd take 30 minutes to drive.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Hypertension Accelerator Model.

    Well done CEC.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. McD
    Member

    @crowriver
    Living Streets Edinburgh Positioning Paper

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. McD
    Member

    Not managed to tidy up Spokes "Tweaks yet. Hopefully in the morning, but any suggestions welcome.
    The Living Streets position is generally supportive of our proposals - ie quality active travel infrastructure.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. Stickman
    Member

  11. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    The trees that will be cut down are unable to be re-planted and will be recycled for biofuel.

    The trees will be burnt.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  12. chdot
    Admin

    Even when major developments do go ahead, the public consultations on the detail often seem to be pre-empted by deals previously struck between the authorities and the developers. A prime example is Edinburgh’s new St James development, another scheme aimed at luxury shopping and hotel accommodation for wealthy visitors, which has led to a bitter row over the reconfiguration of Picardy Place, the big adjacent road junction. Despite consultations, the council voted, in the end – with many councillors claiming they had no choice – for an old-fashioned 20th century-style scheme that ignores the site’s potential as a living urban space served by excellent public transport, and confirms its status as a giant, fume-filled traffic roundabout.

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/joyce-mcmillan-scotland-s-cities-are-turning-into-theme-parks-1-4686241

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. paulmilne
    Member

    Really, they ought to be replacing the entire gyratory with a tree filled park. Planting a couple of seedlings for every full-grown mature tree is small compensation.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    They ought to be replacing the entire gyratory with a tree filled park

    Maybe next century?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. paulmilne
    Member

    @iwrats true, by next century our whole civilization will be stuttering if not sliding backwards, not only trees on Picardy Place but grass growing through the cracks in the carriageway.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  16. Morningsider
    Member

    From a quick swatch at streetview, I make it roughly 30+ trees at Picardy Place (near the cathedral and the Sherlock Holmes statue). Bets on there being 60+ trees on the gyratory island - plus the tram stop, tram lines and "pavilion"?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  17. unhurt
    Member

    The replacement trees will be elsewhere so noone can see if they're hastily bunged in and unsuitable for the location a day left to die / get vandalised to bits in their wee plastic protective tubes. Tree planting doesn't necessarily imply future trees.

    The current trees, while nothing grand, are one of the few nice things about that corner of Picardy Place. Good luck to any island replacements - maybe they'll plant something that thrives in pockets of high pollution?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. Frenchy
    Member

    Has anyone measured how long it currently take to traverse Picardy Place in various directions on foot/by bike?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  19. chdot
    Admin

    “if they're hastily bunged in”

    I remember a back green improvement in Tollcross.

    Trees planted, some died not long afterwards.

    Turned out they had been planted in the plastic bags they arrived in!

    Posted 6 years ago #
  20. ih
    Member

    Is it said anywhere that these 2 for 1 trees will be planted in Picardy Place?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  21. crowriver
    Member

    I heard an apocryphal tale of Glasgow's Public Works dept. teams planting hunners of trees along a grassy verge in the late 90s.

    Gaffer came along to inspect the job a few days later: the saplings had been planted upside down.

    So, rip them all out, more saplings ordered, do it right second time. Twice as much work for the lads, but at least they'd something to do.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  22. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    My old man used to teach tree planting. The annals of municipal tree mis-planting are deep and wide.

    He was especially taken with one on the Meadows planted at the apex of a wind funnel without unwrapping the root ball. Swiveled over like a ball and socket joint so they attached hawsers to it.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  23. sallyhinch
    Member

    London planes might survive as they're famously adapted to poor air quality. Unfortunately they're also completely unsuitable as city street trees because they want to be enormous. They're magnificent if they're allowed to fulfil their destiny, rather than being turned into pollarded lollipops

    Posted 6 years ago #
  24. acsimpson
    Member

    will be recycled for biofuel.

    Is that what they call burning these days.

    Think I'll start recycling plants for food rather than cooking then.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  25. Frenchy
    Member

    Has anyone measured how long it currently take to traverse Picardy Place in various directions on foot/by bike?

    Happened to be passing today, so I tried to do this.

    Took me 15 minutes to walk round the roundabout twice (once clockwise, once anticlockwise). Total distance around 900m to 1km, so average speed around 3.8 kmph. My normal walking speed is around 8kmph, so I spent roughly eight minutes waiting to cross. at junctions.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  26. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Something wrong with my computer. Ctrl+F "gyratory" No results found.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/11/how-build-healthy-city-copenhagen-reveals-its-secrets-happiness

    Posted 6 years ago #
  27. unhurt
    Member

    Wrong search. I think the Danish for "gyratory" is katastrofal dumhed.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  28. unhurt
    Member

    In related news, I had to go to Cosmo (enormo-buffet from hell) today for an early lunch (I didn't pick the venue). The pavement area outside the Omni is MUCH more pleasant with the reduced traffic due to Leith Street's closure. ALMOST feeling like a space you might want to linger in. Bike racks were full too.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  29. DrAfternoon
    Member

    Tree replacement should be on a mass rather than unit count basis, or at least photosynthesising surface area.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin

    Emma said: “Our city has beautiful parks and green spaces but it’s also vital to protect the trees on city streets keeping nature alive and our spaces lovely places to live.

    “These add a lot of green character to our local area – important to have in the city, are healthy, well established and are habitats for wildlife.

    “It’s disappointing to learn that so many will be cut down.

    “Whilst some are being replaced we’ll still lose the biodiversity of the area and new trees will take time to establish.

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/campaigners-make-bid-to-save-meadowbank-trees-from-the-chop-1-4687454

    Posted 6 years ago #

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