CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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Spurred on by @mummycycle posting this complaint about crossing times for QR9 over the A8 Glasgow Road by the old Jaguar garage, I set up a Strava segment to measure my times.
As a complete fluke, I have done it northbound 100 times.
Crossing times (inc 0.2miles distance):
25th fastest = 2m 00s
50th = 2.25
75th = 2.42
Typically Sat morns with light traffic
We can do better than this for signed Quiet Route 9.
Will become even more important when the Craigmount Steps get converted into a ramp.
2:30 to travel 0.2miles is an average of 5mph.
I'm assuming your normal speed is (conservatively?) ~10mph.
So you spend ~75s waiting to cross.
I keep meaning to post in the other thread about pedestrian lights. I think this crossing has been changed recently to make active travel harder by always making you wait and prioritising pollution.
Although not on the QR Network Barnton is even worse. Following the safe green man route rarely takes less than 6 minutes.
The crossing of Harry Lauder Road at Fishwives Causeway/Telferton takes what seems an eternity. Given the relatively light pedestrian/cyclist traffic using it, it should probably come on immediately!
After reading this, I wondered if this was why crossing Gilmerton Dykes Street at Moredun Dykes Road took so long sometimes, and decided to test it.
It took 30s for the lights to change when I tried on a reasonably busy evening, and changed almost immediately when I did it this morning, when there was no traffic.
30s seemed to be the cut off, as there was still traffic coming when the light changed then, so this case probably isn't that unreasonable, although I'd like a lower maximum cutoff.
On a similar note, I've recently had problems cycling through some junctions at night, as they don't cycle the light sequence until they see a car coming or someone pushes the pedestrian crossing button. I've ended up pushing the pedestrian button and cycling through on the green man phase.
Response from CEC
"Stand-alone crossings placed on 40mph roads must, for safety reasons, operate with some form of vehicle detection (vehicle actuated mode)...
At this location, the maximum vehicle green time is 25 seconds and the minimum is 7 seconds"
Anyone know where I can find the relevant regulations...
"Stand-alone crossings placed on 40mph roads must, for safety reasons, operate with some form of vehicle detection (vehicle actuated mode)...
The ones at the gyle do my head in. They only change when there is a gap in traffic large enough to stroll across any way; at 1630 the lights often won't change as there is never a gap in (stationary) traffic.
Not sure if I buy saftey, maybe partly but probably more the great Traffic Flow.
The one across the Western Approach Rd takes a very long time to change and seems subservient to the God of Traffic Flow.
"Stand-alone crossings placed on 40mph roads must, for safety reasons, operate with some form of vehicle detection (vehicle actuated mode)...
At this location, the maximum vehicle green time is 25 seconds and the minimum is 7 seconds"
I don't know what question you asked but I'm struggling to think of an question which that answers.
Does the first paragraph mean that the green man wont change immediately after the cars are shown red as the computer needs to check that there are no cars about to jump the light?
Does the second paragraph mean that the car light cannot change for 7 seconds after the button is pressed? I fail to see the relevance of that as the drivers should be reacting to the traffic lights not pedestrians.
Or does it mean that a second green man can come on 7 seconds after the previous one ended? Which I doubt it ever does.
Or does it mean that the maximum time someone should ever have to wait after pressing the button is 25 seconds? Which seems unlikely, but would need a stopwatch to check.
What it certainly doesn't mean is what it actually says ... the maximum vehicle green time is 25 seconds and the minimum is 7 seconds.
"Under vehicle actuation:
a) The minimum time will start at the commencement of the vehicular green and should normally be 6 seconds but is adjustable up to 15 seconds to suit unusual site conditions.
b) The maximum time will start at the commencement of the minimum time on roads where the 85 percentile speed is 35 miles per hour or less and at the pedestrian/cyclist demand for other roads.
c) The maximum time should normally be set to 40 seconds or less. This may be adjusted for site conditions up to 60 seconds.
d) It will terminate subject to a pedestrian/cyclist demand either at the end of the minimum time, when a gap is detected in traffic (gap change) or on the expiry of the maximum time(forced change).
e) The extension times for vehicles will be determined by the type of detector system used(see Table 2)."
So I think it is saying that
1) You have to wait at least 6secs after pressing the button regardless.
2) because it is a 40mph road you then have to wait longer - anything up to 40secs (or 60secs in exceptional circumstances)
Why can't they link each leg together so that you don't have to wait another 25secs...
1) You have to wait at least 6secs after pressing the button regardless.
If I'm understanding this (and I'm very not sure that I am), this isn't *quite* true.
The whole thing's from the point-of-view of motor traffic (surprise, surprise), not someone pushing the pedestrian button.
So if the sensor sees a car coming, it maintains a green light for at least 6 seconds. If it doesn't see a car coming it is presumably in some sort of "standby" mode (which will naturally be a green light for motor traffic). That means that if there is no traffic coming, the light should change in less than 6 seconds.
Does that make any sense?
That makes sense and explains the 'under vehicle actuation' heading at the top.
If it doesn't see a car coming it is presumably in some sort of "standby" mode (which will naturally be a green light for motor traffic)
A rather nice exception to this is the crossroads of Gilmore Pl and Viewforth, which during night time hours sits on all-red until a demand is registered.
@Klaxon - do they recognise cyclists?
I noticed this morning that the pedestrian lights on Clifton Terrace (which had been u/s while the sewer works were going on) take a very long time to change. Certainly long enough for a very safe gap in the mid-morning traffic to occur way before the light changed.
AFAIK they're not on a quiet route, but they are almost directly opposite the side entrance to the station, and on the other side of the road there's an eastbound bus stop just yards to the right, and a taxi rank the other side of Rosebery Crescent to the left, so one might expect that there would be a reasonable number of pedestrians wanting to go that way for a good part of the day. (I actually have a vague memory of being beaten to the last taxi on the rank there a few years back, by someone who decided to take their chances amongst the vehicular traffic rather than waiting for the green man).
Went this way for the first time at the weekend. Got lucky and didn't need to wait very long for the lights to change once I'd pushed the buttons, but it really is a pain to get within arms reach of the buttons whilst riding a normal bike, let alone a tandem or cargo bike.
Oh yes the lights by the Jaguar dealer take an age but at least there is lights also crossing is not so important as on both side of the road there is shops further down. On the bridge from heriot watt to Edinburgh by the big round about over bypass there is no pedestrian light and there is nothing on the heriot watt side of the bridge not even a Tesco’s metro
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