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.
No-one can accuse the Council of rushing out measures before the pandemic. Years have been spent consulting, explaining, re-consulting and so on. Yet the same spurious arguments get trotted out every single time by "concerned residents", whose only concern appears to be their own convenience.
Sometimes the siren voices just need to be ignored.
@morningsider, you not on any Facebook or WhatsApp local community groups? You really get an insight into how the retired baby boomer kind works
"Rushed out" was the right way to do it, in the same way other emergency temporary road changes are, e.g. for burst pipes, gas leaks, repairs, etc. Imagine if pavement repairs couldn't be carried out without full consultation and buy in from people who claim the repair isn't necessary and/or park in the space pedestrians will be temporarily routed.
The full public debate/discussion can come later.
“whose only concern appears to be their own convenience”
Indeed.
No vision, no awareness that not everything will be like ‘before’ and far too little understanding that many things not only will be different but might be better.
Sometimes the siren voices just need to be ignored.
Siren as in the singers whose enchanting voices lured Odysseus, or as on a police car/ambulance?
Does anyone know if the new bike lane markings on Craigmillar Park Road are going to have blocks and wands installed?
@AIMC - the plans certainly showed them, yeah.
From link
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Tollcross Town Centre - cancellation of the planned pavement widening work on Earl Grey Street, to allow for southbound cycle lane markings.
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What does this mean?
Interesting cycle today on bits of segregated infra Bollards. Starting east of Gillespies X Road the stretch at the Tower Nursery which had become a bit of a park and ride before Covid has had a paint job. A bike lane hugs the kerb and the parking floats to the right.. We will see if that works. If it does watch out for passenger doors being flung open.
Lanark Road has lots of traffic cones suspending the parking down near the canal in anticipation of Bollards. The killer turn on to the WAR has a stretch of bollards then on past Victor Paris. Fair bit up to borough Muir. Then at Sciennes the entire road is closed (initially with busy parking but then right at the school the spaces are empty as the road is closed. Bikes can get through.
Bike Station was quiet.
After Cameron Toll it was bollards all the way through the Inch to my destination at Liberton
Seemed to work well with normal saturday traffic. The bike had a lot of glaur on it as the segregated lanes are manky.
We should all adopt a stretch and clean it. Like the people of Northern France/Belgium do with the Pave en route to Roubaix.
@gembo - good bit of research. Bollard alignment is variable - particularly at streets where you have a choice of a right turn. Ponton St is great example of a bike lane only suitable for bikes going left. New or less confident riders are used to keeping left but others will naturally go wide at junctions otherwise they can't turn right safely. I have seen a few cyclists just use the bike lanes and dismount or use pavement at junctions until they resume again. So they do 'work' in the sense they encourage people to take a bike with them.
Was down on Leith Walk and roads and shared pavement were 'hoaching'. That pavement path beside tramworks had a few children and families using. Many more walking and a few on e-scooters. Roads had a more hostile feel today - maybe frustration of nowhere much to go on a Saturday?
I have seen a few cyclists just use the bike lanes and dismount or use pavement at junctions until they resume again.
I presume this is meant to be a variation on that which doesn't require cyclists to dismount:
Have to say I didn't use that when I passed that way yesterday. I think it's supposed to allow right-turning cyclists to have a head start on traffic from Greenbank Crescent to proceed across to Braidburn Terrace when the lights change. I'm a tad skeptical given that there's often a reasonable number of cars waiting to turn right into Braidburn Terrace from Comiston Road, which then stream through when the lights change and probably wouldn't appreciate or even notice bikes arriving from their left (which is usually the worst side for observation by drivists anyway).
I've not had problems previously turning right from the crown of the road as normal, but maybe I'm just sufficiently assertive to feel comfortable doing that. I'm not keen on the opportunity the new markings give for gammons to advise me that I have to use them so I don't get in "their" way.
Basically, I don't think it adds anything to cyclist safety (as you say, if you really don't want to do the right turn on the road you can dismount and wait for the pedestrian light) and in fact looks more like yet another sop to drivers of motor vehicles which could all too easily end up being used as yet another excuse to browbeat active travellers.
Roads had a more hostile feel today - maybe frustration of nowhere much to go on a Saturday?
Traffic volumes round my way yesterday felt like they were equal to or even exceeded pre-lockdown weekday levels - certainly unusually busy for a weekend. And yes, the general mood seemed to be more akin to pre-lockdown midweek peak hours semi-aggressive. Yet during the week traffic levels have felt lower than pre-lockdown (though nowhere near as ghostly as during lockdown #1). I'd postulate that this may be due to the number of people working from home and therefore not commuting, but wanting to get out at the weekend when their work commitments are on hold for a couple of days.
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Even though we are back in lockdown again, it’s not like it was the first time around. The roads are busy. Maybe not quite as busy as they might be without a lockdown, but there is a significant amount of motorised traffic out there on the roads.
It’s not just that they are busy. As someone who has cycled for transport and leisure for a very long time, I think that there has been a marked deterioration in the attitude of some drivers in the past few months.
Drivers seem angry. Really angry.
When the schools re-opened in August, I went back to daily cycling on the school run. There has always been a minority of drivers who pass cyclists dangerously, who feel the need to shout abuse, and who seem to have a deeply ingrained hatred of those with whom they have to share the roads, and who seem to feel that people on bikes do not have any right to use the roads. In my opinion, this has got much worse.
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Nah. When the driving stopped during first lockdown we were able to cycle on quiet streets.
Returning to the roads after unlockdown 1 it felt very vicious. You then get used to it.
In the olden days of actual commuting If I ever took a fortnight off commuting the first day back if not school hols, always felt vicious.
My Saturday bimble into Edinburgh all on road but with segregated paths was vicious. This weekend, Most of my cycl8ng has been on Lang Whang, out with rush hour eg lunch t8me spin. Quiet.
Not denying mummysgoneacycling lived experience, maybe corstorphine even meaner than balerno I hope they are not activlely driving at her as they do to Dave Brennan.
Yeah, everybody's on edge. Combat zone out there.
Is there a dilution aspect to this?
I drive but like to think I do so considerately - this consideration extends to whether my journey is really necessary or could be completed by other modes, and therefore I've barely driven over the last few months. I assume plenty of people are like this to varying degrees but others are not, and those others are therefore likely to drive disproportionately more. Their driving may have even have increased given that the lack of congestion has probably made driving more generally pleasant.
So could the 'average considerateness' of drivers you meet have deteriorated even ignoring any change in the behaviour of individuals?
@jonty, that is certainly a believable hypothesis.
the recent hospitalization of an Edinburgh cyclist shows these [Spaces for People] schemes
Okaaaaay...
So we'll just conveniently forget about the 3 cyclists and a child that were killed in recent months where there were no SfP schemes?
Shame on you Derryck
He is campaigning to stop a safe cycle route on a road where a man was killed on his bike. His group only exists to oppose this. That’s the extent of their concern for cycle safety.
@Stickman
'Aonghas Mcintosh' quoted there is one of your tribe. Good lad too. Normally.
Good on Lesley MacInnes and Labour & Green colleagues presenting some vision and context why this is exactly the right time to change things.
Mrs LB and I were enjoying the expanses of Victoria and Cockburn St. Can still drive onto these if you have to but generally for walking. Vic St is two way now with access from top only btw
These pro-driving groups seem to anger quite readily it seems. They talk about casual indifference on the implementation of schemes - not to be confused with casual lack of attention resulting in 'casualties'.
From Andrew Gilligan:
Boris Johnson on cycle schemes last night: "The majority support them and we should crack on"
https://twitter.com/mragilligan/status/1356559263037087744?s=21
I despise Boris, except on this what should I do to resolve my cognitive dissonance?
Always refer to him as 'Alexander' or 'Mr Johnson'? I find this helps.
Or de Piffle
Work has started on Lanark Road, which raises the question of what Cllr Webber was talking about last week when she said people were parking in the middle of the road outside the nursery.
We've started to install temporary segregated cycle lane road markings on Lanark Road, which means you can get familiar with the new layout and begin to give space to cyclists ahead of the rubber kerbing and cylinders being installed.
https://twitter.com/edinburgh_cc/status/1356635017124937734?s=21
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