@Stickman - Crewe Toll lane will have wands apparently....
Where'd you see that? They're not in the plans...
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Scottish Govmt announces £10m for pop up cycle/walking lanes
(3659 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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Posted 3 years ago #
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No sign of anything about arterial routes, I take it?
Until they start carving out road space on a continuous basis along the A8, A90, A702, A701, A7, A1, etc this will just be tinkering, pure and simple.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@PS
That's it exactly. No consultations, no investigations just cone off a lane of every radial route out to the bypass or the sea.
Posted 3 years ago # -
£5m to spend on temporary active travel infrastructure is great. My main concern is CEC probably hasn't spent £5m on new, high quality active travel infrastructure since CCE began. I know plans are being prepared. Plans are always being prepared. I know our politicians are committed to active travel. So were the last administration...and the one before that.
Forgive me for being pessimistic - I genuinely hope I am wrong and that our streets are about to be brought to life. Experience tells me that it may be otherwise.
The fact that the Council seemed to be spooked right at the start and fell into a default "consultation mode" is a worry. The fact that action to date is on streets where literally no-one is inconvenienced is a concern. The plans that have been announced to date are piecemeal and again focus on what is easy to do, rather than creating a coherent network. The fact that not a single pavement has been widened is astonishing - even grotesquely narrow pavements such as those on Morningside Road.
Traffic has more than doubled from its lowest point in lockdown (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conference-24-may-2020). The first easing of lockdown happens in two days. Traffic levels are only going one way. Lets hope it isn't too late.
Posted 3 years ago # -
The plans…focus on what is easy to do, rather than creating a coherent network
Yes. I realise Cllr Macinnes has announced that they will be announcing something soon, but it did seem to me that the initial actions were designed to interrupt 'traffic' as little as possible, and that CEC is deeply held to the notion of The Car, even when for those glorious few weeks there were almost no cars.
It points towards the same inability that humans have to plan long term. "You think Covid is bad? Wait till you hear about climate change." Our collective, hivemind thought process simply cannot comprehend a city three, six months from now in which cars do not dominate, because they always did before and that's what the people like. We know that's what they like because that's what they all do. My drivey colleagues have cars that have not moved in two months. Yet all the talk about "planning for reopening our buildings" simply betrays the same thinking, that we have to get back to the old normal, in which people have to get up at 6am to drive to work because you can't get parked otherwise, and because it's too far to cycle and buses are too slow and too expensive.
We've had nine or ten weeks to rewrite the city travel handbook. Someone has the shiny new notepad ready to use. Someone had a pen, but the ink had dried up. Someone else did have have a pencil, which they've lost. The map on the wall looks great, but someone in another city borrowed most of the drawing pins and the ones that are left have bent spikes. And the pinboard the map is attached to is too firm anyway.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I keep trying to write a post but I keep deleting it and starting again.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Misses out the BP/Ford mind control/bribery
Posted 3 years ago # -
Ricky Ross losing his <rule 2> on Twitter about some alleged ninja cyclist he nearly drove over during the (currently very limited) hours of darkness. Getting it tight in return
Posted 3 years ago # -
@IWRATS - same here. That was about my fifth attempt - not that it really expresses how I feel. Quite hard to really pin down my thoughts on this - without sounding like Malcolm Tucker.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Crewe road south and old Dalkeith road t get lanes next month?
Victory Chimp just posted new suicidal lane in Belfast
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Morningsider
Good to know. Thanks. I swung between Malcolm Tucker, Chris Morris and three-year old me crying because I didn't get a biscuit.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Believe it or not
Things could be worse in Ed/Scotland
Posted 3 years ago # -
I know it and that cycle lane is not 2-way. It is a farcility, though.
Posted 3 years ago # -
old Dalkeith road to get lanes next month?
Be interesting to see what happens. Official 'pre-virus' plan replaces the bus lane at pinch points, swings from one side to the other multiple times via beg buttons, is too narrow and has no priority over side roads.
Might get used uphill, never downhill.
Posted 3 years ago # -
ODR is uphill in both directions, though ;)
Posted 3 years ago # -
Which part of Edinburgh isn't? Good point though - can't imagine using the lane for the drag up from RIE up to Kingston Avenue if that strands me on the wrong side of the road for the swoop down to the Cameron Toll roundabout.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Walking two abreast on the narrow pavement last night and got The Fear that a passing car was going to hit me as it took the corner a metre away at 40mph.
I have lost my urban insouciance.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Was chatting to (I kid you not) a used car dealer down at the allotment this afternoon. He says things were very quiet during lockdown until last weekend: he sold three cars on Saturday, and another on Monday.
He reckons folk are getting sick of leasing cars - paying every month and not being able to use it. So buying decent second hand ones instead. I wondered aloud if this was maybe folk who normally go by bus or train getting ready to go back to work...
Portobello Road and London Road noticeably busier today: almost back to "normal" but not there yet.
Posted 3 years ago # -
The DfT has sent another extraordinary letter telling English councils to get on with it or they lose the funding and it gets reallocated where it will be used quickly. Key points:
- Schemes need to be started within 4 weeks of getting funding and completed within 8 weeks or the money gets taken back
- filtering of main roads (or side roads if sufficiently direct) for pedestrians/cyclists and creation of low-traffic neighbourhoods
- barriers and planters are to be used for speed, nothing elaborate to be funded
- anything that doesn’t meaningfully change the status quo in favour of pedals/cyclists will not be funded(I saw a screenshot of this, trying to find a direct link to the letter)
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Stickman no doubt this is something that Scotland will choose to be different on
Posted 3 years ago # -
And the Torys who reside up here will continue to support Boris but not push for it here.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Here’s a link to the screenshot of the full letter:
https://twitter.com/aseasyasriding/status/1266116934514376707?s=21
Posted 3 years ago # -
Sustrans having sarcastic online seminars now:
We're delivering a series of online events to collaborate, discuss and share examples of temporary infrastructure in response to Covid-19. As LA's respond quickly to make it safer to walk, cycle and wheel, we're providing opportunities to share knowledge.
The first talk taking place today features speakers from @Edinburgh_CC, who will share their approach to delivering temporary infrastructure in #Edinburgh. We'll be sharing the talks with LA's and statutory bodies that missed it, so keep an eye out! #SpacesforPeople
https://twitter.com/sustransscot/status/1266297715777957889?s=21
Posted 3 years ago # -
“
Edinburgh has got to the consultation stage; which means it won’t happen. They’ve been at the consulting stage on a cycle path project for 13 years for one stretch extending Roseburn for heaven’s sake! Sadly, for the residents of Edinburgh, myself included, it seems we have a council paralysed by paperwork and procedures, and a desire not to offend anybody so they do nothing for anybody either.
I feel for the campaigners; they’ve tried so hard, for so long, and they were so optimistic that, with the new directions from Westminster and Holyrood, we might get somewhere. I feel it too. Now I feel that familiar disappointment and that dark, sinking, feeling.
“
https://blythestorm.com/2020/05/16/making-the-most-of-lockdown/
Posted 3 years ago # -
I am a little more optimistic. Where does she get 13 years from? The Roseburn stretch on the CCWEL has been about 5 - appalling I know, but not 13.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Maybe getting mixed up with the Meadows-Canal plan?
Prediction: we’ll get a few more isolated street closures, some removal of parking outside some larger shops and a lot of share the road signs.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Stickman - have you alerted Guinness World Records, must be a possibility for the shortest seminar ever.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Could Sustrans not start with folk from TfL or TfGreaterManchester, y'know, where there's some evidence of delivery? Or are they restricted to solely contemplating Scottish navels?
Posted 3 years ago # -
It's wholly inappropriate for this process to have a charity as a crucial element in delivery.
The staff involved in the current T-shirt design competition (I am not making this up) should stay, those with knowledge of on-street delivery should go to Transport Scotland and train new teams to do cycle infra.
Posted 3 years ago #
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