CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

Open Streets

(51 posts)

No tags yet.


  1. chdot
    Admin

    (Couldn’t find recent thread)

    Special guests on the day will include Scottish and British championships-winning cyclist Lee Craigie and Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Chris Boardman, who is now cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester.

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/open-streets-edinburgh-list-of-what-s-on-as-old-town-goes-traffic-free-on-may-5-1-4919997

    Posted 4 years ago #
  2. davecykl
    Member

    Has anyone seen much (any?) publicity for this?

    I was actually about to start a thread myself, as the first I had seen about this was a post on the Spokes Facebook page yesterday. (Obviously I knew that these days were starting this summer, but I didn't realise that the first was this weekend!)

    It seems a shame if the Council is not making much effort to publicise these, but maybe they want to start (very) gently with the first one and then see how momentum builds from there?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  3. HankChief
    Member

    I've seen quite a lot of advertising for it, so maybe it has just passed you by.

    I hope it will be a success.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  4. Klaxon
    Member

    Today

    Posted 4 years ago #
  5. LaidBack
    Member

    Streets open to pedestrians and cyclists quite modest. From 12 till 5 (1 to 5 in some media).
    Grassmarket, Victoria St, then Lawnmarket to lower Cannongate. New St, Niddry St, Blackfriars St.
    Not really a circuit for cycling although I hear that e-bike try outs will be on Victoria St.
    Kim from edfoc will be handing out progs. Mrs LB is going to a Tai Chi demo at St Giles.
    Idea is that future ones will 'open' more streets.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  6. Rosie
    Member

    I couldn't make it to Open Streets. There is a full chorus of Hallelujah on my twitter stream, so it looks like it was a success.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  7. gembo
    Member

    Happening next month too, and July then Free for all of the festival. that is the small but significant leap forwards.

    In Alistair Moffat's book Hidden Ways he describes the first closure of the high street to motors. He did this from the original Fringe Office holding a bit of string. A work colleague of mine held the other end. He describes her in his book as his lovely assistant. I hope they are still friends.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  8. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I went for a long run instead and my legs are creaky but oh joy that looked good.

    Very middle class maybe?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  9. chdot
    Admin

    Thing that surprised me most was how much UK wide news coverage it got (radio and tv).

    Posted 4 years ago #
  10. Rosie
    Member

    @chdot - yes, on The World at One.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  11. gembo
    Member

    Slow news day?

    Very middle class certainly.

    Back in the day we had a lovely chap as our concierge. Prem. He cycled as it was the cheapest form of transport for him. We still,occasionally bump into each other and he has better contract now. I am not sure he is still cycling.

    For many cyclists in Edinburgh this is not the factor that makes them cycle (cheapness)

    London I think has more people cycling from necessity

    Not all middle class ghetto. The free just eat bikes seem to be getting places At the moment.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  12. chdot
    Admin

  13. chdot
    Admin

    “Very middle class certainly.”

    Wot

    The event or the fact that it was in the BBC?

    Central Edinburgh is probably fairly middle class. The tourist probably are too.

    Are you saying Open Streets should be tried elsewhere too?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  14. Rosie
    Member

    As Edinburgh is very middle-class, that seems fairly appropriate.

    That's positive coverage from the Evening News. Good picture opportunities? A notion that other fine cities like Paris and New York do this kind of thing? That the motorist martyrs are not the only Edinburgh citizens and that younger people are less likely to own cars?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  15. gembo
    Member

    The event middle class. The BBC middle class too of course.

    The idea is to extend it, to roughly the flodden wall?

    I'd then go beyond a bit to Holyrood park/palace, Lothian road, meadows, Newtown

    The tipping point is Sunday into Monday. They could have done it on the bank holiday today if XR had timed stuff better (e.g. Their first strike was on a holiday up here etc)

    Great start, hopefully can gain momentum.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  16. jonty
    Member

    Holyrood is always shut on a Sunday so maybe they could have open streets on a Monday and include the high road? Would be nice.

    High Road drivers have been pretty reasonable recently but increasingly numerous. Doesn't help with pacing the climb through the kick up before the Loch.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  17. EdinburghCycleCam
    Member

    I'm annoyed I missed this, being out of Edinburgh for the weekend. I was living vicariously through Twitter instead.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  18. gembo
    Member

    @edinburghcyclecam don't be annoyed, go next month

    Posted 4 years ago #
  19. EdinburghCycleCam
    Member

    @gembo Oh, I definitely will - but the first one is the most "special" :)

    Posted 4 years ago #
  20. chdot
    Admin

  21. gembo
    Member

    Is that Boardy heading up to the castle?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  22. chdot
    Admin

    Looks more like down to Holyrood.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  23. gembo
    Member

    Ah yes I see the moray house crossing now. This was yesterday when street closed to motors then

    Posted 4 years ago #
  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Did we decide if Edinburgh's middle class or not? We could agree to disagree or get our extended families to engage in a mass brawl with baseball bats that is mostly just shouting.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  25. Rosie
    Member

    @IWRATS We could be slightly chilly to each other when we accidentally meet in the garden centre.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  26. LaidBack
    Member

    Event seemed very tentative. I walked down quiet Victoria St around 1pm with Mrs LB and met @Hartscyclery @klaxon and others.
    Graeme had cycled his Gazelle Cabby in with a Gazelle e-bike slung across front. Demos started and much hilarity when first try out on our Nihola e-bike resulted in chain getting wedged on inside of 34t ring. Not customer's fault of course, rear hanger may have been bent.
    So had to head over to LB to get chainwhip, lock ring tool, spanner, chain tool and powerlink. We used them all - thanks Graeme for procuring extra leverage from scaffolding connector!
    To speed things up I brought over our Hase e-trike which means that the excuses of 'I have no balance and I can't sit on a saddle' were taken care of.
    One woman cycled up Victoria Street with arm half in a sling. Hula staff had a go. A junior Forup cycled up which was amazing as trike was a bit big! Meanwhile the upright e-bikes x2 and Urban Arrow had plenty of try outs up and down street. Of course people had to be careful as was all shared use. A few cycling families tackling it too although without a safe getting into town route they were obviously experienced types.
    Some great pics from Andy Catlin.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  27. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @Rosie

    Agreed. Perhaps you could object to my application for planning permission for a summer-house?

    Posted 4 years ago #
  28. Stickman
    Member

    “Event seemed very tentative”

    I hope that the purpose of the Open Streets days doesn’t get lost in trying to cram as much as possible in to them. The message should be that excluding motor vehicles makes the spaces more pleasant and people will spontaneously start to flock to them without the need for organised activities.

    Ultimate goal of these should be to show that huge areas of the town can be closed to through traffic without any adverse effects.

    Posted 4 years ago #
  29. davecykl
    Member

    That's a great photo of "some normal bloke on a bike" a few posts up-thread! :-)

    Posted 4 years ago #
  30. davecykl
    Member

    There are sadly quite a few anti-cycling comments on "The City of Edinburgh Council" post on their Facebook page about last weekend's open streets event, if anyone feels minded to add some more positive comments.

    Posted 4 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply »

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin