"Most people won't see anything wrong with it."
I'm inclined to agree that most people wont even notice the glaring spelling errors. ;-)
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Scottish Govmt announces £10m for pop up cycle/walking lanes
(3661 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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Is that the nursery between Dovecot Park and Kingsnowe Road?
A parking bay for four cars is shown on the plans immediately opposite. Would it be more helpful if those were on the east side of the road?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Before covid when it was normal to take the bus, we still never took the bus to nursery because the thought of crossing the road (at the existing island) gives me nightmares. I doubt many people would be happy to do it even with one lane each way given the volume and speed. I bet it would add months or years to put a signal crossing in though (then there's ample parking on the side road down towards the railway station).
Just to be clear, I still think this scheme should go in as proposed, personally. It could move tens of thousands of journeys to active travel and you have to consider the impact of all the traffic fumes and tyre particulates right next to our kids anyway, so there's some pros and cons even for them.
We usually cycle but going via the WoL or canal adds 10 minutes each way at least, and WoL having no street lights is mostly out of bounds in the winter months for personal safety, so we'd be more likely to cycle there if the scheme went in, even though we'd still have to handle the narrow stretch from Juniper Green to the crossroads with two pre-schoolers.
Posted 3 years ago # -
> the thought of crossing the road (at the existing island) gives me nightmares
Hearing this kind of thing is so depressing - and next to a nusery! The usual assumption with these things is that "residents will object" but this kind of sentiment makes me wonder if a lot of them might actually have very positive feelings towards any scheme that might make the road more civil.
You'd hope that crossing a narrower, 30mph road would at least be a bit easier even without a proper crossing. It's quite a blind corner there isn't it? I remember when I was little my mum refused to use the junction to the railway road when driving as it felt too dangerous.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Sadly @Jonty many residents park on the street making the two lanes at 40mph one lane only at 40mph. Also Mrs Garto often undertaken when she is doing 40mph. ALso the join between the two lanes is a rivulet you do not want stuck in. THe crossings that nobody uses are islands that narrow the road at 40moh and pre-Covid slightly further back at Gillespies there was a lot of mad parking as no lines and people then took bus in to town.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I'm all too familiar with the danger rut. My strategy on a bike down there tends to be - quiet times, outside lane, aim for the speed limit. I've never gone up...
Posted 3 years ago # -
Maybury Road had a pedestrian crossing added in a matter of weeks after Cammo Walk was shut. It would definitely be worth pushing for one at other locations if they seem suitable.
@Hankchief had a nice series of videos with people trying to cross the road prior to the crossing going in.
Posted 3 years ago # -
That evening news article is just a farce.
You'd think that everywhere floating bus stops have already been built (in the UK and overseas) that everyone using them is getting mown down. The evidence for that is conspicuously absent.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I live between Slateford and Colinton Roads, and I head out Balerno way a lot. Despite Lanark Road being the direct route, 99% of the time I would go via Craiglockhart & Colinton Glen, sometimes swinging onto the residential Craiglockhart Rd along the way. Examining why this is:
1) the dreadful Lanark Rd surface, especially bad at climbing speeds. Unless a full resurfacing is on the cards, the game's a bogey for me.
2) the 40mph speed limit - this is being addressed, so that's good
3) the preceding junctions (Chesser/Glenlockhart Rd/Longstone), none of them bike-friendly. By the time one has negotiated those, any directness advantage has disappeared. Might as well just take the extra ascent out of Colinton.
I also rarely see other bikes on Lanark Rd. Many will be on WoL by that point, I guess. TBH I think sorting other routes (Colinton Rd even) should have been more of a priority.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Murun in pre-Covid times the commuters like me have to take their bikes down the A70 and it is not good. WoL path s fab but muddy and dark. At the moment I am commuting round Clubbiedean and back. I wait until the Shingle Grand Design at Currie before coming back on to the WOl path. As this is where the Ultitrec surface starts. Not sure it has any bounce anymore but the 1 km of drainage ditch sure make that difference
Also see Red Road up to West Kip was a blast at lunchtime and surface holding out again dues to massive culverting operation.
Once Covid-19 is replaced by Covid 21 or whatever goi g back on dem roads is going to be terrible. Elephant in the room is of course the death of the cyclist on the Stretch of the A70 we are referring to - how long ago was that now? Early PoP had the man’s parents I recollect
Andrew McNicoll 2011 RIP
Posted 3 years ago # -
@MB I head out Balerno way a lot. Despite Lanark Road being the direct route, 99% of the time I would go via Craiglockhart & Colinton Glen...
I agree, although not as regular out that way as yourself. I find the climb up and down via Colinton just less stressful than ramping up through contested Slateford. Once on the Lanark Rd at Gillespies then you start to break free of the city quite quickly.
Posted 3 years ago # -
At Piershill on London Road today, I encountered more cycle lane blocking signs, and also stacks of traffic cones being "stored" in the lanes. I stopped and manhandled them out of the way and towards the road (this is where a bipod centre stand comes in handy). So the lanes are clear at the moment, though full of debris, chunks of car window glass, etc.
I still prefer the lanes to the main road for the most part, because the motor traffic is really heavy in the afternoons these days. Much worse than I remember it being pre-lockdown. Oddly it seems to subside quite significantly after 6pm. So, different working / shopping / "going for a drive" patterns than before?
The adjacent widened pavements are nearly finished, progress on this scheme seems to be happening now.
Posted 3 years ago # -
My "long commute" to Livingston was (and hopefully will be again) out the Lanark Road - I'm in Gorgie and so the choice was between that and the Calder Road - give me the Lanark Road any time.
Oddly enough I don't find climbing on the Lanark Road too bad though in regular commute time I would be going up there not long after 7am. I always found the Currie - Juniper Green stretch worse (but that could well be a timing thing).
My strategy coming downhill on the section in question has always been take the outside lane, go as fast as I can, and <rule 2> anyone behind me. On the upper section you can usually get into the inside lane for a bit, on the lower section (after the junction with Kingsknowe Road South) there's only one lane anyway as the inner one is always full of parked cars. The lower section is where Andrew McNicoll was killed.
I will be interested to see what I and people like me decide to do downhill when the lanes go in and the speed limit goes to 30. I can't see Mr fimm sitting in a bike lane hard on the brakes when he can do 30 in the car lane thankyouverymuch.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“I can't see Mr fimm sitting in a bike lane hard on the brakes when he can do 30 in the car lane thankyouverymuch.“
Personal (and rational) choice.
Of course some drivers will proclaim ‘and they don’t even use the bike lanes’.
Tough.
There WILL be people in the new lanes that wouldn’t otherwise be cycling on roads.
All the more reason to make the lanes - AND the bits where they end - ‘good’.
Also important that they become normal/better/permanent.
Posted 3 years ago # -
obiligitory:
they'd be better tarmacing the wol path than faffing with this road. I've never found it all that bad on the way up after Longstone and until Juniper Green where this runs out any way.
Only advantage this would have is making cyclist more visible as an advertisement.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“they'd be better tarmacing the wol path”
I agree.
But
Apart from objections from ‘need to retain rural character’ people (mostly concerned above the tunnel) - used to be a railway line... - a potential issue would be speed (of bikes) below the tunnel.
Of course not impossible to solve, just prolonged consultations.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I presume that getting cyclists off the WoL, leaving more space on it for pedestrians, is one of the goals of putting cycle infrastructure on Lanark Road.
Posted 3 years ago # -
that section - from about half way along the Buckstone shops and north as far as the end of the Pentland View bus stop box - is unchanged since before the new infrastructure was put in place (apart perhaps from some of the paint having been renewed and the dashed boundary to the cycle lane made solid).
Correction: the lines have been renewed but they are still dashed all the way down to the bus stop box. Given that there are wands between the Pentland View junction and the bus stop box, it's not clear why that section doesn't have a solid line. (The section further south is dashed in order to allow motor vehicle access to the parking outside the Buckstone shops, and access to/from Pentland View.)
Reference video recorded yesterday, complete with VW Passat driver who didn't seem at all keen on giving way to me until he belatedly realised that, no, I wasn't at all likely to stop and let him out:
Posted 3 years ago # -
The other issue with the WoL path is all the women who have been taught that being somewhere like that after dark is a guarantee of getting raped...
I'm in favour of not improving the WoL path for commuter cycling and getting cyclists onto the Lanark Road.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@ejstubbs - Yes - That's the section I mention up thread. I skip the four wands immediately after the Passat and rejoin after the fourth.
I think the narrowing of the lane and general direction here is dangerous. One thing we always drummed in at Bikeability was that the more you were in the lane, the more visible you are to traffic emerging at junctions from an early stage.
Following the lane here makes you invisible to drivers until quite late, particulalrly as they don't have clear view of northbound traffic unless they edge out a bit......
Posted 3 years ago # -
The other issue with the WoL path is all the women who have been taught that being somewhere like that after dark is a guarantee of getting raped...
thats a fair point though the Granton path rarely feels particularly safe after dark either.Posted 3 years ago # -
I would say that assuring citizens' physical safety is a fundamental obligation of the state. Violence against women is one of the things that powerful men seem to find very hard to notice.
Posted 3 years ago # -
The mud and the darkness removes most people from the WoL path about now.
Occasional dog walker and husky sled drivers notwithstanding
Fixing the drainage ditches is the main success of the Ultitrec experiment
Leaving the hardcore for runners is fine by me if Sustrans fix the ditches
Posted 3 years ago # -
Notwithstanding safety concerns or the lack of good step/viaduct-free access to the WoL in Slateford, paving the entire length of the WoL path would probably be far more controversial (and expensive) than this, and probably harder to justify as a temporary Covid measure. And fair enough - why should we lose a bit of wildness to maintain some parking on the A70?
Having said that, it's possibly good thing to keep on the table as an 'either-or' to obstinate residents.
> thats a fair point though the Granton path rarely feels particularly safe after dark either.
A good argument for similar treatment on Ferry Road etc.
Posted 3 years ago # -
why should we lose a bit of wildness to maintain some parking on the A70?
thats a nicely put point actually.
Only thing I would say is that my problems with that road start where there is no action likely to be taken (Juniper Green onwards)
Posted 3 years ago # -
See above, keep the wildness of the former branch line to balerno, just clear the drainage ditches either side which is why apart from the two streams going over the line (the others are all historical and culverted underneath) the Ultitrec experiment has worked. It is not the bouncy surface. It is the drainage ditches
Posted 3 years ago # -
@twinspark: I think the narrowing of the lane and general direction here is dangerous.
As I mentioned before, with the exception of the wands, and a new lick of paint, this section is (unfortunately) unchanged cf pre-lockdown.
On the subject of wands, I do hope the orange and white ones will eventually get swapped for the cycle lane defenders that have appeared in Bruntsfield and elsewhere. They look like they should be a more effective deterrent to casual/premeditated abuse of the bike lane, even if the black and white pole turns out to be just as easily demolished/nefariously removed.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“keep the wildness of the former branch line to balerno”
I don’t think tarmac would fundamentally alter the “wildness”. Adding lighting might, but I don’t expect that is likely to happen.
“the Ultitrec experiment has worked”
Haven’t been up this section of the WoL for over a year, so I don’t know what the Ultitrec looks like, but it’s “a recycled pathway material produced from selected arisings from highway and maintenance works” - which sounds like a version of tarmac that might satisfy most people(?)
“just clear the drainage ditches either side”
As ever, decent drainage is the key to the usability and longevity of any path.
Once again I return to one of my perennials - revenue v capital spending.
The Ultitrec may have been capital (or a grant from Sustrans?), the rest is revenue for ‘ongoing maintenance’ which CEC (and presumably most LAs) have problems with - perpetually ‘no budget’ resulting in neglect which usually costs more to fix...
“
Ultitrec® (previously called Toptrec®)
“
P11 -
https://www.pathsforall.org.uk/mediaLibrary/other/english/86268.pdf
Posted 3 years ago # -
> Only thing I would say is that my problems with that road start where there is no action likely to be taken (Juniper Green onwards)
Totally fair - and this is the section for which the pave/segregate dilemma would focus minds the most, I think.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Just as the road narrows at Juni it is possible to cut down onto the WoL PATH some issues regarding the gated community notwithstanding. Going out to the west as a commute is preferable to heading East with all the traffic but Juni green is not a place that was built with wide or long cars in mind. The road does widen again but then narrow near the turn to currie hig( before widening again.
A very high density housing development right on the water where the tannery used to be is about to open. Will be traffic chaos
Posted 3 years ago #
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