@hankchief is a glutton for punishment.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Scottish Govmt announces £10m for pop up cycle/walking lanes
(3661 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
-
@Frenchy: (wrt pavement parking) The legislation was passed, but won't be in force until (supposedly) Spring 2021. Before that, Transport Scotland need to issue guidance to councils on how enforcement, exemptions etc. should be done, and CEC need to come up with a plan for actually doing it. Don't be too surprised if that Spring 2021 date gets pushed back.
That sounds depressingly like a re-run of the sorry tale of the pavement parking ban in the Road Traffic Act 1974: during the years that followed various excuses were offered for the continuing failure to enable Section 7 of the Act, reaching a nadir in 1985 with: "the need to avoid new demands on public sector resources," i.e. basically: "can't be bothered". The relevant section of the 1974 act was then quietly repealed in the Road Traffic Act 1991.
Any excuse that it's "too difficult" would seem to be fairly comprehensively undermined by the fact that pavement parking was successfully made illegal in the whole of Greater London in the same year that the ultimately doomed section of the RTA 1974 was passed. If it can be done in one of the busiest and most densely populated cities in the country*, it ought to be possible to do it anywhere. IMO the only "difficulty" is created by that faction of the drivist lobby which seeks to defend their non-existent right** to leave their vehicles wherever they see fit - preferably as close as possible to their intended destination - regardless of any inconvenience it may cause others.
* To my shame, I got a ticket for parking on the pavement once myself, way back when I inhabited a small, insignificant corner of the Great Wen.
** "Remarkably, there is apparently no legal right in law to leave a vehicle, or any other private property on the highway." Link
Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #
-
I need a drink.
Posted 4 years ago # -
You've earned one!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Why is the cyclist scared of safer streets?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Why is the cyclist scared of safer streets?
Presume they're scared it'll make traffic worse on surrounding main roads.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@frenchy like drumbrae and that big roundabout? Could it get worse?
Posted 4 years ago # -
@HankChief
i missed the end - did they burn the witch ?
Posted 4 years ago # -
This change in East Craigs is going to cause absolutely carnage. While I appreciate we want to get more people cycling and walking than driving, the changes being proposed, which are in part (according to @HankChief, if I recall correctly) to supposedly stop using the area as a rat run, are instead going to make it significantly harder for residents to get in and out of the area when using a car. It’s going to push all traffic which can currently use 5 different roads to exit the residential estate on to one road, and on top of that, reduce the number of lanes for that exit from two to one.
The strength of feeling against this from people who actually live in the area and can see how it is going to affect them is extremely high. If you don’t live in this area, you won’t realise how it’s already hard to get out at the best of times. If you live on Craigs Road, for example, you can’t turn right on to Maybury Road... so you have to take a detour through the Drum Brae, increasing traffic on that road and the roads to it. That’s just one example. The changes being forced through will make this dramatically worse.
I just don’t get the reasoning behind this. I understand the theory, but what is actually happening won’t actually deliver the value that people are being fed by the council.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Kenny - I know we have had this debate in the past so I won't repeat it. I'm.not totally wedded to the specific proposals but keen to trial something to see the true impacts.
My frustration with tonight (and the recent past) is the debate moving away from the real issues (unnecessary short car journeys, pollution etc.) and onto process / hyper local/specific challenges.
Lesley acknowledged that they had done a lot of the work already, associated with West Edinburgh Link project - just not the consultation bit and they are paying for it now...
Maybe starting with the broad aims of a LTN and then asking how to deliver it would have been better. Who knows. Its hard to see how it wouldn't have been watered down to pointlessness though.
Interestingly, the proposal at Featherhall left in (for variety of reasons) a convoluted way through the block rather than a single in/out and this was instantly picked up as forming a new rat run in opposition to the proposals.
Posted 4 years ago # -
If you don’t live in this area, you won’t realise how it’s already hard to get out at the best of times.
@Kenny i can only quote Aleister Crowley from the Book of Lies published in 1912 where he clearly states that THE WAY OUT is also THE WAY
i suspect he was primarily referring to anal sex but nonetheless, you might reflect on the general thrust of his jib
Posted 4 years ago # -
I need a drink.
You made it home safely then.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Kenny So you can appreciate the aims, but don't seem to have an alternative plan for how to achieve them. Making car journeys harder is exactly the point of them. You seem to be imagining all of the traffic using the new route, whereas what really happens following these schemes is that people drive less.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I wonder how much of the resentment comes from the fact that there are only a couple of LTN being planned.
If all of the various estates were doing the same it mightn't be so bad. I know round me all of the estates are rat runs one way or another, Broomhouse skips a busy set of lights, Carrick Knowe connects Broomhouse Road with the far end of St John's Road avoiding several traffic controls, similarly Broomhall. These should all be closed.
I was too young to know if there was any complaints when they closed Robs Loan but I do remember that went from a dangerous busy road to a place where I could ride my bike overnight. Then again all the residential streets round there are cul de sacs so maybe not much of a fight.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Steveo - I think this is part of the problem.
A lot of my neighbours turn left onto Drumbrae and then immediate right into Templeland to work their way around the north of Corstorphine using residential roads.
Arguably, those roads have more through traffic.
Posted 4 years ago # -
It’s an intractable problem.
Keep shifting proposed LTNs away from the current scene of protests and another lot will spring up.
If Templeland/Caroline Terrace/Hillview were filtered (which would be easy) then it would stop ratrunning but there would be a group of residents who would find a reason to object based on their own inconvenience.
The Craigmount proposals have issues, but they are supposed to be an experiment which can be modified. The pursuit of perfection and absolute consensus stops everything.
Posted 4 years ago # -
From what I can gather, the problem is mostly rat-running traffic on Craigs Rd, past the High School. (There may be other rat runs, e.g. Craigmount Ave). This is only set to get worse with new housing developments going in.
Most of the vocal complainants live in E. Craigs Wynd i.e. they have the furthest to travel by car to avoid the new bus gate when entering or leaving. Or, they live in nearby Buightlins (already an LTN, and not part of this scheme) and they are using Craigs Rd as a rat run.
I must admit, it’s an odd place for the council to trial an LTN. I imagine for people who bought houses in E. Craigs, part of the attraction was easy access to the trunk road network - A8 / A90 / bypass. Some people are wedded to driving & their first thoughts are “I must drive to work (maybe to Glasgow / Livingston, so I must buy a house with good access to motorways“, regardless of any detrimental impact on their children, or other people who’ve lived there for generations.
My feeling is the council should have piloted the first LTN somewhere with already poor access to the motorway / trunk road network, like Leith / Granton, etc.
Posted 4 years ago # -
An LTN in Leith is also in the works.
The plans for East Craigs also existed already as part of the West Edinburgh Link project, so it was easy to bring forward.
Posted 4 years ago # -
All was quiet so I closed computer and watched Inception with No1 son. No love is greater Than agreeing to watch Inception with No1 son.
Then the debate kicked off.
Anything that inconveniences drivers (and the person who is also a cyclist) is resisted.
The idea is to nudge people to stop using their cars for local journeys.too many people want to get into a car at their house and drive directly to their destination and park outside it. Baby boomer entitlement features in this,
I see the point about people choosing to live in East Craig’s because they want easy access to the M8 but then more and more people want that too So for example in Balerno it was a small village and farmers fields and then an estate was built and people moved out to the countryside. But now Roseberry is selling all his fields and everywhere is housing. The original white settlers don’t like that.but can’t see that the same applies to them.
On consultations I refer to The Skelf. They consulted for 5 years and then when the wasteground Was taken over the local dog walkers complained the6 had not been consulted.
During Covid 19 lockdown all things were possible as driving wasn’t happening. Now the school run is on and the 4x4 are out in force.
To actually change things You have to be radical. Nudges unlikely. Watch the baseball film Moneyball It is not about baseball it is about systems change.
So if I lived East Craigs and had a school run given I do not drive I would change the bedtime routine. All devices downstairs by 10 o’clock. Mum and dad too. Everyone up and at em early and a nice walk to school. This is also resisted. The commute tipping point in Balerno is 7.45a.m before that the roads are quiet after that rammed as everyone gets up at the same time. To use the one road out of the village. The school has had flow as a concept since before Covid so you can drift in 20 mins before kick off but needs to go earlier to encourage the early birds.
Having a car makes you lazy and crave extra minutes in bed. Go to bed earlier and get up earlier you then have the day to yourself.
I was also trying to read Crash by JG Ballard again recently. It is almost impossible and yet vital. Jim’s tenet is people like driving and crashing cars and killing young children because it gives them a sexual thrill.
We certainly are addicted to our cars.
Posted 4 years ago # -
This sounds like opposition to the CCWEL squared and cubed, as far as the heated opposition goes. Respect to HC for facing the fire a second time.
Posted 4 years ago # -
It we want to stop Craigs Road being used as a rat run, stop people turning left on to it from Maybury Road. That’s all you need to do, surely, including to deal with the concern about the new houses being built. It isn’t used as a rat run any time other than morning rush hour (and I’m not even convinced I’d call it a rat run at that time, having lived here since 2002, but I will defer to @HankChief’s view on that one).
If we want to get more people to cycle, make it dramatically easier. That path through the high school with steps at the end? Get rid of the steps. Drum Brae uphill? I do that (did, before lockdown) every day and it’s terrifying, and I fly up it pretty fast, but still get close passes because cars get impatient. Cycling through the main road past the White Lady etc? Also terrifying for anyone other than very experienced cyclists. So devise routes to do it (I am not a road planner, so despite the suggestion, I can’t come up with a solution). Don’t make things dramatically harder for people who need to, for example, travel from Craigs Road to, say, Oxgangs every day. Yes, wouldn’t it be amazing if everyone cycled such routes, but alas not many people have access to showers and facilities to do so.
Posted 4 years ago # -
On the rat run thing, stopping certain routes leads to other routes appearing.
Measures to stop rat runs do need to include measures to stop people using their cars at all. Not just seeking new and more circuitous rat runs.
Hence my idea about getting up earlier. Change your life, be the change you seek.
I was astonished everyday before lockdown as I filtered by hundreds of my neighbours stuck in a long queue of traffic from Balerno to Gillespie X Road. All single occupants of big cars.
People will tolerate this everyday instead of changing their habits because they are addicted to their cars
See also Dave Brennan’s route into Glasgow.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Kenny - it would be interesting to see the data for the number of vehicles / timing to compare that to other known "rat runs" (Roseburn Gardens, Kaimes Road, Holyrood park etc.) Which would help us be more precise.
I know from planning they do assessments of the number of peak journeys each new house is likely to create, maybe that can be used to calculate the 'local' traffic.
We do live in a high car ownership/usage area (probably one the highest across the city), that would benefit from less journeys being taken by car. How we do that is the debating point.
I completely agree with you about sorting out some of the surrounding roads/routes as well. It's been 6 years that we've shouted about sorting the steps :(
Then chap who called out the difficulties of cycling locally principally being on Maybury/Glasgow/Drumbrae had a point.
It's also worth considering that journeys starting in East Craig will impact other neighbourhoods that they travel to/through. Trying to reduce the traffic at source is ambitious, but may be more impactful than trying to do it at a destination as people will happily set off on the assumption they will find a parking space and then spend ages circling their destination (or parking on the pavement).
One thing that has just come to me from your suggestion of stopping the left turn off Maybury is how do Bughtlin residents get home? Saying it impacts them getting to Corstorphine is fine, but it can't impact them getting home.
Posted 4 years ago # -
"Did 1000 people turn out to condemn the ScotGov Exams fiasco or record on Health Care? Do Black Lives Matter or starving Asylum Seekers? No, West Edinburgh only concerned with Council’s vain attempt to save the planet!! Pathetic! Ashamed of my city."
https://twitter.com/KarenKeil1/status/1299653777465769985?s=19
(Former Local labour Cllr)Posted 4 years ago # -
WHAT DO WE WANT? MORE POLLUTION! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!!!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Against space and against people. And against the causes of space and people.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The good thing about stopping up a rat run like Craigs Rd is that it can “break the chain” of surrounding rat runs. The surrounding rat runs in this case could be the Hillviews and the Corstorphine Hills, north of St John’s Rd.
When one link is broken, the entire chain of rat runs becomes far less attractive & traffic on surrounding rat runs actually drops too.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“When one link is broken, the entire chain of rat runs becomes far less attractive & traffic on surrounding rat runs actually drops too.“
Ah yes but...
‘East Craigs isn’t a rat run’
(Might well be the source of the rats)
‘We don’t care if other areas are better off if these measures go in’
Posted 4 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
