I might be a pessimist - but I'm quite sure that we'll have bad accidents involving cyclists once the cycle lane opens. The uphill exits onto Leith St are way too sharp angled, too narrow and flanked by a kerb. Just waiting on the first cyclist getting his/her pedal caught and falling into fast moving traffic. Plus, the lane is bidirectional and you might have cyclists coming downhill to your right when you try to exit right.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Picardy Place lanes taking shape
(527 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Went through tonight was rammed with buses.
Was then undertaken at some speed going down Broughton street by young chap on bicycle without lights. Wearing black hoody.
He did apologise. Several times.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Leith Street all backed up due to a works van sitting in the box junction on the gyratory. They have not thought this thing through.
Also a guy on a Brompton actually using the goose-neck path to access Leith Walk. No idea where he'd emerged from to make that a coherent manouevre.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #
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Oh my days the gyratory was empty as I approached from Leith Street heading for Leith Walk.
Now, let's see if anyone can guess what I encountered at the traffic lights facing Broughton Street in the right turn lane.
I defy you to guess.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Someone coming up the wrong way? I've seen it happen at least once, exactly there.
Posted 4 years ago # -
A red light immediately in front of you but a green straight-on light on the repeater on the corner of Broughton St, unless you went through after they switched off the repeater this morning?
Posted 4 years ago # -
@jonty
Spot on! Black Ford Fiesta. It's time drivists were tested, licenced and insured etc etc.
Guy U-turned into the Broughton Street lane as the bus behind me hooted and flashed him into submission and then tried to turn right down Picardy Place before thinking better of it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Noticed on Saturday the lights at the top of Broughton St have an advance green for cyclists, but on the main lightheads rather than on the poles as I recall the Leith Walk ones are. Am sure the tested/licensed/insured drivists (who fail to see one-way and no entry signs) will be fastidious in waiting their turn.
Posted 4 years ago # -
All the Edinburgh bike lights are on the main light heads and I've no idea why when lower mini-signals are permitted and used in London.
They're almost completely useless going to/from Kirk Brae as the junction is so big that they couldn't put them on the repeater lights as they're too far away and would just look like green lights, so they're only on the head that you can't actually see from the ASL without craning your head back. Mini lights would have been perfect there.
Compliance does seem OK though, generally.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Cycled up to top of Broughton Street then walked with bike through crossings to outside John Lewis on Thursday.
Everything about the new layout and the muddled, cratered temporary layout during works suggests it was planned by someone who actively hates people on foot and on bikes and wishes they would all just Rule 2 off. No idea how you'd navigate the surfaces and incredibly narrow ped spaces using a wheelchair or mobility scooter.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I thought I might have been getting the hang of it but evidently not. I thought that going in primary in the left-hand lane up from London Road would put me in the correct position to go around to York Place, but this doesn't work if you get pushed into the right-hand one by a bus sneaking through on your left and going up Leith St but doing so by first going into the York Place lane.
I manage to use the St Leonard Street/Rankeillor St lane despite the narrow width and sharp angles as I'm still trying to make sure I'm making use of it, but still have no idea whether any of the directions in which i regularly cross Picardy Place will be supported by any of the island wigglepath options.Posted 4 years ago # -
I can't find a safe way from Leith Walk to Leith Street. Especially now the taxi rank cum loading bay in the middle of the gyratory is in play. The speed mismatch with the motors is too high.
Not sure I can face the humiliation of the gutter junction thing at the south end of the pavement path either.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Detour via London road and Calton hill?
Posted 4 years ago # -
"I can't find a safe way from Leith Walk to Leith Street."
There's literally a segregated bike lane for that journey, once you're past the nightmare of London Road roundabout. Okay not officially in use, but unofficially very much in use by many cyclists. Dumps you back in the road at Calton Road junction but still useful for avoiding the gyratory completely.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@crowriver
You're kidding, right?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Went round the hell-scape for the first time this morning.
Wow! It is properly bleak. Like a full-on motorway-scale junction, but in the middle of a World Heritage city.
All it needs now is for some random bits of motor-related debris (bumpers, wheel trims, door-mirrors, glass) to collect in the pedestrian guardrail sections, along with a sprinkling of that "motorway" grey dust, to make it complete.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Like a full-on motorway-scale junction
With a loading bay.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Previously...
Note the driver of the Jaguar Mk1, proceeding down a snowy Leith Street, didn't bother to clear his rear windscreen first.
Drivists gonna drive.
Posted 4 years ago # -
In their defence, the snow looks quite fresh and the car doesn't appear to be fitted with rear windscreen wipers!
Posted 4 years ago # -
As well as the loading bay, the bus stop outside St Mary's will add to the fun when a bus wants to go into it but finds it blocked by a Post Office van. It's not even big enough for the two buses it's presumably supposed to hold when one of them is a giant three-axle 'enviro' 400 Xtra-Long Bus.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@IWRATS,
"You're kidding, right?"
If you want to "take the lane" going uphill on the gyratory or on Leith Street that's your choice. Personally I prefer to remain unmaimed by impatient drivists wielding speeding lumps of metal and glass in a random manner.
The London Road roundabout is still a conundrum if coming from Leith Walk. I usually try to avoid it completely travelling south. If coming from London Road I will dismount and walk my bike to the segregated lane: I find this more calming than riding the roundabout uphill, where there is a constant fear of being crushed against the guardrail outside the new bookshop by some drivist who is sipping a frappucino, or staring at their mobile device instead of watching out for cyclists trying to filter.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Sounds like there needs to be a site visit with Cllr Macinnes, Spokes, Living Streets etc.
Anyone want to organise?
Posted 4 years ago # -
You'd need more life energy than I possess to engage in the early stages of the next redevelopment of Picardy Place.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Maybe the next PoP should plan to be held at this much promised ‘new public space’?
Posted 4 years ago # -
A PoP at PiP would definitely be a good thing.
One thing that particularly annoys me about it is that all the green plant cover that used to exist around the old small roundabout, shielding people from the maelstrom, and making the streets alongside actually feel quite "human", has been removed.
Now we have something that's just all-encompassingly grey, and it's just horrid and dead.
There needs to be a row of trees on the west and east sides, as well as some planters to add more greenery and further "shield" human space from dead space, and there's surely space for a couple of rows on either edge of the southern Leith St island as well.
I'm thinking we (and surely all the organisations with an interest in urban design would be interested in taking part?) could turn up and all "plant" individual plant pots where there should be plants.
The north side of Picardy Place is the worst: it used to be quite pleasant and entirely shielded from the traffic, now it has 3 lanes of tarmac hard up against it, and for almost all of the length only 2 of them are needed (there are a couple of loading spaces at the west end, the rest is all double yellow lines, but with a huge hatched area in the middle serving absolutely no purpose).
Instead, the footway should be widened out after the loading bay, some long planters installed to provide some shielding and separation between people and the road (there would probably even be space for a cycle lane for most of the length), and the middle/left hand lane realigned to only move over to the left much nearer the traffic lights at the east end more sharply (it's a 20 mi/h zone after all, it doesn't need motorway slip road angles of divergence) to maximise the people space and minimise the tarmac. I'm thinking that some people not arriving by bike could bring some of those long narrow windowbox planters so that
wesomeone could lay these out on the road to show the desired new kerblines in advance... ;-)Posted 4 years ago # -
There's a proposal either somewhere here or in the PoPstream for something here at PoPtime with people holding signs beside the segregated bike lane, starting with "WELCOME TO THE SAFE SEGREGATED LANE", continuing to "WHOOPS MIND OUT FOR THE PEDESTRIANS AND THE PARKED COACHES" and ending with "SORRY BACK INTO THE MOTOR TRAFFIC WITH YOU NOW VIA THIS NARROW TWISTY UNPRIORITISED EXIT CHANNEL" where the lane ends at Greenside.
Posted 4 years ago # -
At the first consultation the representative of the Golden Turd told me their agreement with CEC precluded any change in the Picardy Place layout for a decade post-completion.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@wingpig Hmmm, not 100% sure abut that when there are surely easy (non-TRO) tweaks that can still be made, with the help of friendly Councillors?
Misuse by coaches? Easily solved by a line of bollards or, my preferred solution, long narrow planters betwixt the cycleway and the roadway to make obstruction simply not possible.
Glaikit footgoers? They will get used to it: «dring, dring!», just give them some time.
But, yes, the "merging" (ahem) and squashing together of people on bikes and on foot, and the [rule 2] exit at the mediocre Greenside Row junction deserves full criticism.
I think it would be better to acknowledge/praise what has (mostly) been got right, and reserve criticism for the parts that are dreadful.
Posted 4 years ago #
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