Scottish Parliament Information Centre briefing on LTNs:
https://spice-spotlight.scot/2020/10/07/low-traffic-neighbourhoods/amp/
TL; DR - call down, it looks like they work fine.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Scottish Govmt announces £10m for pop up cycle/walking lanes
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Posted 4 years ago #
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Significant damage\vandalism to seperating wands and bases Ferry Road westbound from Pilton Drive to Crewe Toll observed at 5am today.
About 20-30% of bases ripped from tarmac and even more wands pulled and scattered directly across path. :0(Posted 4 years ago # -
I collected up a pile of 30 wands from behind the wall of Old Dalkeith Road. I had plans for them but I think the cooncil must have recovered them.
Started a new pile. It has four wands at present.
Posted 4 years ago # -
This is the sort of thing that makes me really <rule2> angry:
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/opinion/2020/october/as-we-work-to-make-change-happen-let-us-talk-about-feeling-safe
After a particularly difficult week, our Director of Urbanism, Daisy Narayanan reflects on how crucial it is for our public discourse to be civil and our online and physical environments to be safe, if we are to make meaningful change.
...
An anonymous Twitter account, known for their relentlessly vitriolic posts, had shared photographs of me (or someone they claimed was me) cycling at night, along a street close to where I live.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@fimm
That person merits a short stay in Her Majesty's guest house.
Posted 4 years ago # -
In a rare reversal of roles, Corstorphine Community Council has been accused of being “hijacked by anti-car activists” because it did not give full unequivocal support to the East Craigs anti-LTN campaign.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Daisy is a good egg. The twitter person is a venal coward.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The ant-LTN crowd are becoming increasingly extreme. Getting close to ant-vax, ant-mask, UsForThem levels of zoomerism.
Posted 4 years ago # -
England, but pretty sure it's similar, or even worse, up here. Certainly judging by how busy the roads are with cars, just about anyone who has one seems to be using it.
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...the survey, which was conducted between May and July, also underlined how far cycling lags behind car use. Only 3% of those who travelled to work the previous day had gone by bike, compared with 72% by car.
Further evidence that people’s expressed intentions may not match the daily reality appear in the latest DfT data for actual transport use. Cycling activity had climbed to more than double pre-pandemic levels on several weekdays in May and June, and was almost four times higher at weekends. However, levels of cycling in England have now fallen significantly below 2019 figures on four of the last 10 recorded weekdays.
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Posted 4 years ago # -
Posted 4 years ago #
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Just as well St Andrew's hasn't just had an influx of new residents from all over the world.
Posted 4 years ago # -
They CAME IN CARS FRENCHY. CARS.
Posted 4 years ago # -
There might be 150 parking spaces on Market Street alone. There could be 1000 parking spaces in the town centre.
They took away 70 of them. 70.
EDIT: Don't like the phrasing "took away" - they replaced them with temporary footways.
Posted 4 years ago # -
My brother lives in St Andrews and said it has been unbearably busy for the last few months with daytrippers and pavements have been overcrowded. He has been avoiding the main streets because of it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Traffic analysis of A702 corridor:
While traffic on Comiston Road is 10% higher than the pre-Covid baseline, 17,063 vehicles per day, compared with 15,448 vehicles per day, the increase on the A702 corridor is far smaller than the amount of traffic previously recorded using Braid Road; 9,486 vehicles per day.
The overall level of traffic on these two corridors is 32% less than pre-Covid levels. This means that the general level of traffic which has returned to these corridors (68% of pre-Covid) is less than the level across the city (80-90%), suggesting that the closure has achieved a level of traffic reduction/ evaporation.
It is considered to be a significant risk that re-opening Braid Road at this stage would induce additional journeys by car, thus adding to the overall level of traffic in the area.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Average journey times on Comiston Road (according to Google Maps "leave now" data) are essentially unchanged since July (when I started checking) as well.
A journey from Fairmilehead crossroads to Tollcross and back again now typically takes 20 minutes instead of 19 in July.
Posted 4 years ago # -
This needs to be widely publicised -
“
suggesting that the closure has achieved a level of traffic reduction/ evaporation.
It is considered to be a significant risk that re-opening Braid Road at this stage would induce additional journeys by car
“
Posted 4 years ago # -
the closure has achieved a level of traffic reduction/ evaporation.
There will be people who used to bus it into town and are now driving, but there will also be people who used to drive into town and are now not doing so at all. Would be interesting to see it broken down by day, in case things like churches having moved to services held by Zoom/Skype/etc. are contributing to the traffic reduction.
"introduction of a one-way street (except cyclists) on Braidburn Terrace has significantly reduced through traffic in the Hermitage Drive/ Braid Avenue/Midmar Drive area."
I've only used Braidburn Terrace a couple of times since lockdown, but I found the one-way thing quite unpleasant, with drivers basically not caring that it's two-way for cyclists, and prioritising themselves on the green for turning right from Comiston Rd into BBT while the cyclist has to wait for a gap and then go wrong line around the barrier.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Arellcat
Every time. Every time I emerge from there there's a late right-turner coming at me. Have faced all of them down so far.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Regarding improvements to the WoL, I agree fundamentally that fixing the road would be better if you could only have one improved (e.g for most local journeys, people will not cycle down to the path and tackle the stiff climb out e.g. at the Cala mill homes). I think it's a false comparison though, both could be improved.
Especially with the new perspective of having young kids, I think it's too easy to dismiss the value of improvements to the WoL, especially street lights.
If you have two toddlers on the existing WoL path and you get a flat (especially if depending on a dynamo for lights!) or frankly just the everyday experience of travelling on the path, it's incredibly intimidating for them. You just drop into this inky dark pit for like 20 minutes or more, and you see maybe one or two dog walkers loom out of the night. Not happy times! For this reason we drive down the A70 to nursery much more often when the days are short than in glorious summer.
There's presumably something to the personal safety angle of lighting. If we didn't believe that, try proposing turning off street lights on other paths through the winter (Meadows, NEPN, the various other parks with lit paths like Craigleith etc etc). We can't credibly say that lights have no safety value on the one path where they aren't, but provide safety everywhere else in society...
Posted 4 years ago # -
I guess it's a debate about whether it's transport infrastructure or a leisure path. If it's transport infrastructure then yes, it should have a good surface and street lights etc etc. If it's a leisure path, then it's probably OK to say "just don't go on it when it's dark then" in the same way you'd probably not go into the Pentlands when it was dark either (and wouldn't think about asking for it to be streetlit). My point is that, at the moment, it absolutely is transport infrastructure and if people object to it being treated that way and want to "keep it wild" then they must accept alternative high-quality provision on main roads.
(There's also the side-point that it will presumably cost muuuch less and take less time to segregate the existing roads than to upgrade the WoL and, like the NEPN, still won't be as good at night as the main roads because of its scary seclusion.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
@arellcat: the cyclist has to wait for a gap and then go wrong line around the barrier
I flagged this to #edinhelp on 30th May shortly after the restriction was first implemented. Their response: "I will pass this over to the roads officer of that area to look into." Whether they actually did look in to it and chose to do nothing, or they haven't even bothered to look in to it, I don't know. But nothing has been done.
Heading northbound along Braid Road on Wednesday afternoon I found that the barriers at the mini-roundabout had been "adjusted" to block the wee snicket on the right (heading northbound) that allowed cyclists to continue on Braid Road, or turn right on to Hermitage Drive without having to go up on to the footway. You could still get through at the left-hand end of the barrier line but that put you on the wrong side of the barrier which blocks motor vehicles from entering Braidburn Terrace at that end, so you have to go around that barrier in order to be able to continue your journey northwards, or turn east:
The adjustment to the barriers looked pretty makeshift and I suspect it had not been done officially. If I hadn't been under a bit of time pressure I'd have stopped and had a go at moving them back in to a less obstructive configuration.
Maybe I need to noise up #edinhelp again about the west end of Braidburn Terrace, and take the opportunity to mention this to them at the same time...
One final point: given that, AFAIK, the one-way-only-for-motor-vehicles on Braidburn Terrace was in plan before lockdown started and the Places for People initiative got going, I am a little disappointed that it's still having to get by with little more than a few signs and a couple of rather jury-rigged barriers when new paint, wands, cycle defenders and other good stuff have been installed elsewhere. And indeed just a little way to the south on Braid Road proper footway build-outs and pedestrian refuges have been constructed.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yes, the "temporariness" of the Braidburn Terrace barriers is very disappointing.
I have witnessed a car enter from Greenbank terrace (which is of course allowed) to turn around in front of Greenbank Parish Church, drive up to the red lights on the right hand side of the road (thus blocking vehicles legitimately entering Braidburn Terrace) to turn right, when the lights changed, to go back down Greenbank Terrace..... they could just as easily and probably more quickly gone "round the block" via Greenbank Place - very bizarre!
Posted 4 years ago # -
I did hear second hand that at the recent Transport Committee meeting the transport officer responsible for the already scheduled Braid Road improvements including removing the mini roundabout, adding a pedestrian crossing, etc is being frustrated from progressing that due to the Spaces for People measures which is run by a separate team. Not sure of veracity as I haven’t watched the webcast but it does sound like classic council behaviour!
Posted 4 years ago # -
If there are problems with the Braid Road junction that haven't been addressed after a reasonable time after having been reported to EdinHelp, you should escalate to relevant councillors (possibly including Transport Convenor), as that should get things moving. I think it's always fair to give one reasonable chance for a response, and then escalate.
(In a former life I worked within (but not for) a council, and while ordinary letters (it was a while ago!) would be addressed in the normal scheme of things, letters from councillors arrived on people's desks with a sticky note "Reply within 7 days" attached!)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Another bit of tedious fact-based analysis from SPICe;
https://spice-spotlight.scot/2020/10/07/low-traffic-neighbourhoods/
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yeah but that is just facts and I want to argue against them at every turn because I want to park out side my house, park outside my business, drive where I want. But I won’t say this upfront instead I will use spurious arguments and demand consultations to the nth degree.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Petition against Lanark Road cycle lane. All about parking, again.
The proposals will:
a) Eliminate the ability of most residents on Lanark Road to park outside their own homes, and the ability of delivery drivers, carers and visitors to do the same. During the COVID pandemic, many individuals rely substantially on home delivery services because they would be at increased risk of infection by visiting shops in person. The present dual-lane nature of Lanark Road makes kerbside parking low-risk and beneficial for all concerned. The proposals will cause major disruption by removing such access.c) Create congestion on Lanark Road where traffic is currently free flowing by reducing the carriageway from dual to single lane.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Stickman - I like it, Schrodinger's parking. A condition where you can both park outside your home and not take up a traffic lane at the same time.
Posted 4 years ago #
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