CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years 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.
@Chdot :
"
Hidalgo's anti-car plans... The city went and just did them and they became popular after the people got to experience them.
"
I am reminded of that Madrid mayor who (according, I think, to a Guardian article 5 or 6 years ago?) installed their cycle lanes almost overnight, minimum consultation. Interesting sidepoint was that he did opposite of Edb - the infra was deliberately made as permanent as possible to make removal by subsequent administrations harder.
“they became popular after the people got to experience them”
Whether that’s the people who objected or everyone else is probably unknown.
And it doesn’t matter...
Does anyone know of a central source for all the plans?
CEC don't host anything so the Spokes list is as good as you can get I believe: http://www.spokes.org.uk/documents/members-campaigning/edinburgh/edinburgh-covid-schemes/
Mentioned to Adam on twitter about hosting on the CEC website, perhaps worth dropping an email to Lesley about? https://twitter.com/AvGeekAlex/status/1280408595201490944
We all knew/suspected it, but depressing to have it confirmed:
Cars take up over a third of the space in Scottish cities
A longer and better article in today's I newspaper, but I couldn't find it online. Choice quotes:
"Green spaces, public transport and cycling infrastructure were 'extremely lacking' and 'appear to be of relatively low priority'."
"The research shows a depressing dependency on the private car."
Can't see East Craigs on the Spokes site
I've dropped a note of support for the East Craigs project. I've also forwarded it to ACH and the local LibDem councillor letting them know that I'm not currently planning on supporting them again until they stop chasing the loudest noise.
Robert Aldridge has of course also missed the point that there is no drop off facility at the front of Craigmount. It is all double yellow lines.
There is however a back entrance which is accesible from Glasgow Road and even under these proposals would allow for cars to drive round the block. It's just unfortunate that it has stepped access.
Did I read somewhere that previously announced projects couldn't be worked on with the Covid-cash? Could that be why the stairs can't be fixed with it?
“until they stop chasing the loudest noise“
Nice turn of phrase, though I do wonder if they are making the noise and can’t hear anything else...
I took a pre-work walk around the various 'closed roads' in Old Town this morning. As far as I saw it, the actual closures are still limited to a few metres of Waverley Bridge leading up to the junction with Princes Street and a few metres of the High Street between Cockburn Street and the Bridges. Vehicles are still free to drive most of the way along Waverley Bridge to park and/or gain access to the underground parking, which is open once again, to drive down the High Street and Cockburn Street, and to drive up Victoria Street. There is certainly less traffic due to lack of through-traffic near the actual closures, but the level of danger is possibly actually greater now, especially on Waverley Bridge with drivers turning in the road, potentially without looking properly, to escape...
I had a walk around the area too and unfortunately, since not enough drivers respect pedestrian zones, I don't think Victoria Street will work that great while maintaining that gap for disabled/emergency access.
A thought I came up with was to reverse the oneway on Grassmarket, put a no entry/hard closure at West Bow/Grassmarket and use the bollards on the west side to control access. No request button there so bollards would need to be fixed open/closed at the set loading times.
A702 plans now on the Spokes site: http://www.spokes.org.uk/documents/members-campaigning/edinburgh/edinburgh-covid-schemes/
Have a look at this nonsense - "A one-way pedestrian system could be introduced to encourage pedestrians to use the junction like a roundabout, with walking direction one way." Merchiston CC should self-combust from shame and cravenness.
Warning: may contain nuts (Nick Cook)
@Murun - Jo Mowat saying sensible things.
“
Mr Doig says the removal of parking spaces along Bruntsfield and Morningside Road is helpful to widen pavements for physical distancing but adds that more short-term parking will be needed in side-streets nearby. “Otherwise customers will be deterred if no parking is available and go online or elsewhere.”
“
Yeah well, all about ‘balance’ of course.
No crisis, no expectation of/desire for change.
So, these are "closed streets" in the same way that advisory lanes are "cycling infrastructure".
I'm starting to think this is really some city-wide art installation, in lieu of the festival, rather than an attempt to remodel our streets to cope with the effects of Covid-19. May I bold enough to suggest the title "Futility".
@Stickman Jo Mowat used to be one of our councillors where we used to live, always seemed very good and (relatively speaking) interested in representing local people and issues rather than banging a party drum. Of that party, she and Mark Brown seem to 'get it' though how that melds with a party group which chooses Cook and Webber as transport spokespeople is a very great puzzle.
@Murun - I agree. I think she is the most effective of any councillor when it comes to asking perceptive questions and scrutinising decisions, which should be the role of an opposition. Too many councillors in all parties indulge in party name-calling.
Reading Cllr Aldridge's article, and thought I'd look up the data on how folk commute between East Craigs and South Gyle.
It's a distance of roughly 1-3 miles, depending on exact addresses (and I'm not sure about the boundaries used for "East Craigs" in the data).
For East Craigs North to South Gyle:
8 people commute by bike
34 people commute on foot.
45 people commute by bus.
152 people commute by car.
For East Craigs South to South Gyle:
No data for cyclists (which means it was 5 or fewer).
48 people commute on foot.
16 people commute by bus.
150 people commute by car.
Combined modal shares (being generous and assuming 5 cyclists for East Craigs South):
2.8% cycling
17.9% walking
13.3% bus
65.9% car
I just don't understand how any politician can look at those numbers (and I presume Cllr Aldridge has seen them at some point) and not throw their weight wholeheartedly behind fast, radical interventions to shift the balance from driving towards active travel.
EDIT: Data from here.
Jo is definitely the best City Centre councillor after Claire Miller, although she has yet to reply to my Tweet following up from changing my Twitter picture to the 'E'.
@frenchy, how are the data collected? I know for sure that my commuting habits aren't among them, and in fact for my village there is just a single bicycle commuter listed. One!
Not sure how to compare it with car driving journeys, which are the overwhelming majority, but 141 'no fixed place', 85 to Straiton, 47 to South Gyle, and so on down the list. People are bussing it at least as far as the Meadows, mostly to the East End or the West End.
“I just don't understand how any politician can look at those numbers (and I presume Cllr Aldridge has seen them at some point) and not throw their weight wholeheartedly behind fast, radical interventions to shift the balance from driving towards active travel.”
I presume you’re being mildly ironic.
‘The majority (assume voters) drive, so I’m on their side.’
No attempt at leadership - just like most politicians.
@Arellcat - it's from the 2011 census, but it only shows "flows" with more than 6 people.
So for your village, there could well be 5 people cycling to each of (say) Craigmillar, the Old Town, and Musselburgh - but these won't be shown.
(I think there's actually 10 commuters shown for your village, rather than just one.)
One of the objections to segregation along the wester hailes road from A70 road to Calder Road is floating bus stops being a danger, and causing delays. With regards floating bus stops is there any reasonable examples of where this is not an issue?
(the other objection is about if the bypass get's blocked then all the cars flood down there and will get backed up if there is a cycle lane. They already get backed up all the way via Bridge Road in Colinton so not sure why they're worried it will be any worse on the one day a year it happens)
Floating bus stops are very safe for most people. The other option is to have the cycle lane go in between the bus stop and the bus, which is clearly (to me, anyway) even more dangerous.
Some vulnerable pedestrians will have problems with them, though. The RNIB has expressed concerns, for example. The best option in temporary schemes like this is to ensure that the crossing of the cycleway has clear priority over the cycleway (by making it a zebra crossing). This is what the council is proposing to use for some (maybe all) of the floating bus stops on Wester Hailes Road, so there's clearly scope for this to happen.
@sallyhinch says that in France, they are starting to put in controlled crossings of the cycleways, which is what we should be aiming for in future permanent schemes here too.
While not strictly "bus stop bypasses", here are some examples of bus stops which are isolated on islands of varying sizes with varying levels of crossing to access them:
Clerk Street
Craigentinny Road
Elm Row
Ferry Road 1
Ferry Road 2
Pennywell Road
Waterfront Avenue
They're all fairly large islands with plenty of room for waiting. Are people concerned that the bus stops will be so busy that the island becomes full and people are hurried to cross while the bus is waiting?
It's more that crossing a cycleway is intimidating for some people. Bikes are pretty quiet, so blind people can't tell if there's someone coming towards them, so just have to take the chance that if they step into the cycle path, cyclists will have seen them and stop for them.
Kerbs are in all the way up the mound now - quite a good width. Makes the corner coming up to Market Street rather tight for buses though so hopefully the bus gate does go in.
Saw a couple cars drive the wrong way up against the road closed signs. Found it interesting that the rear two seemed to be turning around but just went for it once the first did.
Research by TRL into perceived safety of bus stop bypasses in London, which aimed to establish if the presence of a zebra crossing over the cycle lane increased safety, concluded that:
A majority of both cyclists and pedestrians felt either ‘safe’ or ‘very safe’, both with the uncontrolled crossing (75% and 58% respectively) and zebra crossing (74% and 68%)
I find these complaints hard to take seriously - crossing a cycle lane is inherently safer than crossing a road. Floating bus stops have been used in London for a number of years now and there is no evidence of a spike in pedestrian/cyclist collisions. I suspect this is just another way to oppose cycle infrastructure under the guise of "safety issues" - as though requiring cyclists to travel around stopped buses isn't a safety issue in itself.
@Frenchy - a bike is quiet whether it is on the carriageway or a cycle track. Visually impaired people take much the same risk of being hit by a cyclist when they step out onto a road as a cycle track. I'm not aware of an epidemic of cyclists riding into visually impaired people either on roads or cycle tracks.
I understand that this may be an issue around perceived safety, rather than actual safety. The use of zebra crossings at a bus stop bypass seems a reasonable compromise in most places - with signal controlled crossings in areas with highest bus numbers. Best not to design in conflict and for cycling infrastructure to accommodate the needs of all street users - but attempts to hold cycling infrastructure to standards not applied anywhere else are, in my opinion, anti-cycling.
"I find these complaints hard to take seriously - crossing a cycle lane is inherently safer than crossing a road."
50% of the time you have to cross a main road to reach a bus stop.
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