CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 14years 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.
Has The Times had a change of editor since 2012?
It was The Times that ran the "Cities Safe for Cycling" safety campaign after Mary Bowers – one of its own – was all but killed by a HGV driver in 2011. Make London safe for cycling, but Scotland can go boil its head, no doubt.
"Congestion part of a city's identity"?
Just like obesity, breathing issues and premature death is?
If those are vote winners what hope is there?
Closes 28 Jun 2019
Get your responses in - even if to only say you support it...
(It’s GREAT).
Make Edinburgh GREAT (again?)
Okay - a few highlights from a lightning quick skim of the huge amount of documents.
The scheme is in three phases:
Phase 1: All our old favourites - CCWEL, Meadows-George Street, George Street, Rose Street, Picardy Place (!?), Charolotte and St Andrew squares and the roll-out of e-hire bikes.
Phase 2: Designing the Phase 3 projects.
Phase 3: Closure of the following streets to vehicles: Bank Street (except buses and taxis)
Candlemaker Row (except bus)
Cockburn Street
Forrest Road
High Street between North Bridge and St Mary’s Street
Lawnmarket (expect coaches in the short term)
Victoria Street
Waverley Bridge
Reallocation of traffic lanes:
Cowgate
The Bridges corridor
Calton Road
Johnston Terrace
Lothian Road
Morrison Street
Ponton Street
West Approach Road
Princes Street
Charlotte Square
St Andrew Square
Lauriston Place
Junction improvements
Cycle route linking CCWEL and Meadows via Lothian Road.
Also bus priority, redesign of routes, city centre hopper bus. Changes to on and off-street parking.
It all looks good (although the devil will be in the detail of individual project designs - which aren't available now).
My main concerns are a lack of firm budgets after Phase 1 and the ability of the Council to deliver this, given past experience.
The Bank St bus gate needs to be implemented immediately, as this will take out a huge proportion of cross-town through-motor-traffic.
Hey, it may even make George IV Br pleasant enough for most people to cycle without the added bonus of segregated lanes...
Yeah - I would really like to see a restrictions-first, public realm later approach. A few bollards is a lot cheaper than putting down kilometres of fancy paving.
I'd start by making the Princes Street/Mound/Hanover Street junction a dead-end for private motor cars and taxis.
I understood The Mound would be buses and taxis sadly.
Why we need to consistently bundle taxis in with public transport is an enduring mystery,
Great plans, detail needs some tweaking but yes yes yes. If it can get the votes in council, and if they can somehow figure out how to pay for it, and if they can get organised to deliver it. (The curse of being a realistic optimist)
Build safe facilities, and they will come.
However, in the wider sense, we won't see large modal shift away from cars until we also tackle the problem of ringing the outer city with large shopping centres with masses of free parking. If they must exist, they need to be accessible via safe cycling facilities too.
So as ever, it's not just a transport problem, it's also a city-wide zoning/planning challenge, and that needs a long term plan.
I don’t mind taxis as a concept - for example if you are a game old stick and still like to get out and about but are a menace with your driving then hire a cab to go from your house to the shops.
Obvs not good when the game old stick is driving the taxi
Again i would love it if out of city centre places like kinnaird took the drivers and the city centre was the place for cyclists to shop.
I did cycle to Hermiston Gait for breakfast items the other night just before 10, it is I think more accessible by bike than car.
I like these plans and yet something tells me even if they are passed given they are 10 years off, building them will meet much resistance. I mean a small stretch where three shopkeepers park their cars has taken years of our lives to get not very far
Even from the initial diagrams, I can see conflict designed in. On GIV bridge the bi directional cycle lane is on the West side (why does it need to be bidirectional?) but by the time it gets to the Mound its a narrow dangerous lane (for descending) on the East. How will the crossover be done? Its like the Meadows all over again, switching sides for no good reason and building problems. How are we going to persuade people to commute by bike if the cycling facilities are designed for 4 mph tootling alongside pedestrians rather than 15 mph commuting? These lanes look no wider than those that go from Stenhouse to the Gyle, where cyclists cant pass each other - are there measurements?
mgj - there was a discussion about this on another thread. The upshot being - we all agree with you. I think there are details about lane widths in there somewhere.
Where are you seeing the cycleway on the west side? Consultation designs show it on the east side all the way from GIV to George Street. 3 metres wide. https://meadowstogeorgestreet.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Meadows-to-George-Street-Concept-Designs-George-IV-Bridge-3-of-4.pdf
Their reasons for bidirectional:
• Offers better opportunity to improve pedestrian and public spaces on west-side with areas of higher demand. [Including Greyfriars Bobby]
• All crossing points controlled and safe
• Reduces conflict with pedestrians and bus stops – by
positioning on single side only
• Main loading activity on west side
Frankly I agree with their points, I can imagine unidirectional lanes being a nightmare on the west side in August. Although, I’d prefer unidirectional lanes down The Mound.
I’d prefer unidirectional lanes down The Mound.
A bi-directional lane on the Mound inevitably means a 25-30mph head-on collision between a downhill and an uphill cyclist.
For me, the question is "How do we approach a city centre transformation?" Yes, there needs to be compromise and the needs of a broad range of users need to be accommodated. Yet the list of reasons for having bi-directional lanes is just so timid. I would respond:
1. Move Greyriars Bobby, it's in a poor location next to a kebab shop. Why not move it somewhere people can gather, away from people moving around by whatever means, including other pedestrians.
2. Make the streets safe and the need for controlled crossing points reduces.
3. Floating bus stops are not dangerous - unless the Council are happy to endanger people on Leith Walk, Roseburn etc.
4. Control loading - many premises on the west side can be serviced from the Cowgate and Victoria Street.
At least start with grand plans and then tweak them. What might these plans look like after another round of consultation, TROs/RSOs etc.
@Morningsider - move Greyfriars Bobby are you mental?
Absolutely barking.
Replace it with a statue of Greyfriar's Boaby; see how many people want to rub the end of that.
Actually, probably even more...
@CycleAlex; I was possibly misremembering them from the front page of the Evening News rather than these designs.
I guess like all of us, I'd like to see the Council committing to enforcing parking regulations as part of this with the very clear guidance that first time offenders get a fine, second time towed, third time crushed.
At least there is a kerb in the designs between the cycle lanes and the pavement, so some of it has improved from previous iterations.
4. Control loading - many premises on the west side can be serviced from the Cowgate and Victoria Street.
This should be a first step across the city centre - I went down the Mound yesterday and the inconvenience/conflict for cyclists and bolshie driveriness caused by one car parked up in the cyclelane in front of the Whiski (sic) Rooms was something else.
Replace it with a statue of Greyfriar's Boaby
Quality content that has gone unremarked. I've started sculpting.
this Boaby thing is a recent invention
Strategy was due to be approved today, until the Tories moved that it gets debated at full Council.
Simple electioneering by the Tories. They know the full Council will approve the City Centre Transformation (as it is supported by the SNP, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems). I imagine they want every non-Tory councillor to vote for it, so they can claim at the next election that only the Tories stood up for the hard-pressed motorist when confronted by the prospect of "cars being banned from the city centre and hard-working families taxed for parking outside their home."
bEST TO REMND ANY TORY WHEN YOU SEE THEM THAT tHEY ARE getting frantic down there, they are the cats in the bebop hats and THEY ARE LIVING IN THE PAST. THey have no cAre for the future none whatsoever
iwrats has been beaten to it (geddit)
@Murun - oh please can someone put out the alternative Boaby Boaks merchandise. I offer this concept for free and expect no royalties.
http://drscottarthur.scot/2019/09/13/we-cant-let-the-car-lobby-stop-the-city-centre-transformation/
I watched the webcast. It’s a shame that the Tories sent two stand-ins without the depth of knowledge on transport projects to vote on such a major strategy paper.
I thought Daisy showed, as always, remarkable patience when answering their questions.
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