I suspect some of the higher numbers are due to larger houses/households in those postcodes. When I have a bit more time it might be worthwhile calculating cars per person over 16.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Leith Walk to Ocean Terminal Cycle Route
(56 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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This would be a great sixth year studies geography project. Advanced higher in new money.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Really interesting and definitely helps counter the whole “selfish Lycra-clad minority” rhetoric even if the maths is not quite as simple as I hoped!
Posted 5 years ago # -
Last day to respond to this (you can choose to respond to purely the cycle route and not the LTN section so it's pretty quick!): https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/leith-connections/
It was getting some opposition but then a developer proposed a tall building and now the FB outage seems to have moved on to that...
Posted 5 years ago # -
Ah, the old "tall building" distraction technique. Classic!
Posted 5 years ago # -
@CycleAlex, thanks for the reminder. Consultation done.
Second week in a row I've overcome consultation fatigue to "do the right thing". Must be the spring air...
Posted 5 years ago # -
That was a slog, but its the most pertinent to me of any consultation yet encountered (particularly having been for a walk with children somewhere round Leith pretty much every day for the last year) so deserved the effort.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Consultation reports are up.
Cycle route: https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/leith-connections/results/leithconnections_fotwtoot_finalreport_v.3.pdfStrong support for improving walking/cycling. Majority support for the segregated route, removing parking and for closing/filtering Yardheads/Parliament Street/Sandport Place Bridge/The Shore/Coburg Street.
Right then, now that we've consulted I'm sure all opposition Cllrs will immediately support the scheme. Right...?
Posted 4 years ago # -
“now that we've consulted I'm sure all opposition Cllrs will immediately support the scheme“
After they’ve said that the responders were self-selected/biased/unrepresentative??
Posted 4 years ago # -
First part of the TRO process for this project has started. Designs: https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/30779/tro-21-22
Posted 3 years ago # -
Hmm. Doesn't give many specific numbers there, but based on a few of the "proposed X metre" features it seems like that bidirectional track narrows to less than 3m in some places. Also seems like they still have the 1960's school in charge of the designs, given the amount of "traffic calming" for bicycles.
I know we should just be grateful we're getting segregated routes, but they're eventually going to stop fannying about and just copy how things are done in the Netherlands right?
Posted 3 years ago # -
I don't really see the traffic calming for bikes you're referring to? Narrows at bus stops/junction but doesn't seem crazy.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Not crazy, just unnecessary IMO. Car-brained design assumes that people will speed if you don't design-in calming measures to stop them, and for motor vehicles that's true because you're encased in a sound-dampening two-tonne metal cocoon explicitly designed to cut off as much sensation of the outside world as possible and make you feel safe even at motorway speeds - people on bikes understand fine well that if they hit a pedestrian they're going to be as hurt as the ped if not more, and that understanding doesn't go away in the ~10m of a bus stop bypass. The people designing this stuff still have a mental image of "cycling" comprised of six dudes riding in a tight 2x3 pack in full lycra gear hunched over aero road bikes pelting along roads at 20mph+, and think if they don't fill urban cycle lanes with twists and turns and narrowings it's going to be carnage, grannies mowed down by the dozen, when the reality is most folk will be pootling along at 8-15mph and will slow right the hell down anywhere they see a potential ped conflict of their own accord, because they don't want to repaint the tarmac with their skin.
Also, recall that the designs for Leith Walk had nice smooth curves on them as well, and in practice what we got were hard angles that narrowed the usable track width even more than the plans dictated.
There's also the accessibility issue to consider - narrowing to less than 3m seems fine if your intention is to allow two slow-moving road bikes to pass each other, but throw in a dutch upright with wide handlebars, or a trike, or a handcycle, or a trailer with a kid in it and you have a situation where one direction of traffic is going to have to stop to let the other scoot past.
Again, these are a vast, vast improvement over the current situation, but they still don't feel like the plans of a city that is seriously trying to achieve a 20%+ modal share.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Doesn't look too bad. My main concern is over-engineering - which leads to additional costs. The 30cm-50cm "segregation" on the carriageway side is pointless. Simply dead space. They are too narrow to prevent dooring and do not seem to deter parking. They also require lots of extra materials and time to build. They aren't used in the Netherlands or Denmark - who know a thing or two about cycle lane design. Why not just have that as extra cycleway width? Would fix the issue @Yodhrin highlights regarding passing at narrow points.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“ The 30cm-50cm "segregation" on the carriageway side is pointless.”
They will however will allow bollards to be installed to deter pavement/cycle path parking, as I think we all know that will ultimately be necessary…
Posted 3 years ago # -
“will allow bollards to be installed“
Are they planned?
Posted 3 years ago # -
If by bollards you mean the kind of lane defenders that have been deployed for the SfP schemes then I don't reckon them to be particularly effective at deterring illegal/obstructive parking, at least going by what I've seen/encountered along Comiston Road and Lanark Road these past few weeks. The standard spacing seems to leave just sufficient room between two lane defenders for a determinedly obstructive car or van driver to neatly parallel park their vehicle against the kerb between them (and of course with no regard for the actual parking restrictions on the relevant stretch of road, as indicated by the DYLs).
Posted 3 years ago # -
I mean is anything ‘planned’?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Ahead of construction starting, I went out on Friday morning to capture the route on film for some 'Before' footage, to be able to hopefully later split-screen the route when completed.
The council's Roadworks doc has a TBC start date of 23rd September; the Scottish Road Works Online portal still says (as it has for some time) 21st October.
On the way down (and back up again) I also filmed both ways of Roseburn Park, CCWEL, and Picardy Place / Leith Walk. All of which (along with the below) I have been putting up on the sort-of-neutral-territory 'Edi Cycle Infra' Youtube channel.
Because of the council's inability to build the whole of a named route at once, the films are split into FOTW to Dock Street, where the protected infra they're about to build gives up, and Dock St to Ocean Terminal, which will remain in traffic until the Leith Connections Phase 3 work is funded and built providing segregated lanes from Seafield to Ocean Terminal and beyond (Hawthornvale?).
(With apologies for how jangly bakky is with the lockride / padlock over setts)
Posted 1 year ago # -
There was an update on Leith Connections a couple of weeks ago - https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/cycling-walking-projects-1/leith-connections/9
Construction work will start this autumn on the new walking, wheeling and cycling route between
Foot of the Walk and Ocean Terminal. The first phase of work will be on Great Junction Street,
Henderson Street, Sandport Place and Dock Street. Alongside safer cycling facilities connecting
south towards the city centre, this new route will also:
• provide new signalised pedestrian crossings on Great Junction Street
• improve pavements
• install new soft landscaping areas
• make permanent changes to the temporary arrangement at Sandport Place Bridge
• make Yardheads and Parliament Street accessible for motor vehicles only from Cables
Wynd
Posted 1 year ago # -
Video update:
For the first time, I've been able to do side-by-side comparison videos of a route once it's been built, with before and after footage; this has meant a couple of bits of slowing/speeding the older footage to match up locations, but I think the results are pretty decent.
I also have quite a good blooper real from a previous attempt at filming the new route (I decided the angle was too low, and re-shot after the opening event) - but includes some good 'teething issues' / feedback opportunities for the project team. Will post here when I cut it together.
If you want to see the full raft of footage the uncropped and realtime journeys are all on the Youtube page.
Posted 1 day ago # -
A slightly
unhingeddifferent perspective on it from the always cheerful Cllr Whytethe bits of cycle lane that are used only assist the young fit middle class and their modern day “servants”, the takeaway delivery riders on e-bikes. This is truly a scheme created by the middle-class in left-wing political parties for the middle class few, not the many.
Posted 1 day ago # -
[Response preemptively redacted due to copious, rule-breaking yet highly accurate verbiage]
Posted 1 day ago # -
Obviously I won’t be agreeing with what he has written, but I’m SHOCKED at how incoherent it is!
Maybe there is a case for AI…
Posted 1 day ago # -
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Issues:
1] FOTW - westbound vehicles blocking the cycleway (0m18s, 0m55s in video) by crossing the junction when Great Junction St is not free to move into. This happened twice - in the first, earlier clip I moved around the vehicle and in the second clip I stayed put and pulled to the side to let other cyclists pass who fancied their chances (as I was trying to get a 'clean run' for the video!). I had to wait a full signal cycle to cross as a result.
Potential solution? Yellow junction box painting, even if this is only ahead of the cycle crossing. And, while I'm writing wish lists that will never happen, enforcement of poor driving?2] FOTW - arguably more dangerous - vehicles green light to proceed from Leith Walk is timed to show at the same time as the cycleway green. This puts advancing cycles into the path of left-turning vehicles!
Potential solution? Time the cycle green signal so that it's a good twelve seconds or more ahead of cars moving ahead.3] FOTW - the crossing angle (0m26s in video) from Leith Walk to the Great Junction St cycleway is extremely awkward. To head west, I need to begin by turning east, head across and then make an acute left turn into the cycleway. The 'no entry' for cars makes this fairly murky to look across at and comprehend.
Potential solution? It does feel like there could be a tweak to put entry to the cycleway section closer to the pedestrian crossing. A right-angle is still not ideal, and admittedly I'm on a long and non-standard cycle (which is a decent test case, really).4] Bottom of Henderson St (1m37s, 1m53s in video) - the delivery driver in the HGV appears to be making deliveries to Heron, on the corner. He has likely reversed into the cycleway thanks to the generous unkerbed gap facilitating a crossing here.
Potential solution? Ideally any larger unkerbed space would have a bollard on the end (a la London Rd, Lasswade Rd) to prevent this kind of incursion. The other possibility is that he has bumped over the kerb; some of this comes down to enforcement but I would hope there's monitoring of particularly loading infractions where possible.5] Henderson St into Great Junction St (2m8s, 2m23s in video) - in both clips here, westbound traffic is still waiting to turn from Great Junction St into Henderson St as it hasn't managed to before the light has turned red. In the second clip the highly necessarily tactical urban utility vehicle comes pretty close to hitting me - with his window open, he recieves some arguably restrained advice from me.
Potential solution? Signal timing adjusted to halt eastbound traffic and wait 10s before releasing cycles to cross, or have a right-turn filter for westbound traffic headed into Henderston St.1, 2 and 5 are at the very least points of friction and for the latter two are real and present danger at these locations, as they stand - but hopefully there are tweaks that can be made here to avoid collisions.
Posted 1 day ago # -
I loved that stretch when i went down it to Browns the other week. I mean i can see you would be in trouble if you tried to follow it in the. Way it was designed but I was on the pavement to avoid lights at the start But for the rest of it one Friday lunch time nice and quiet. Agree beer lorries etc will be a pain to look out for same as in Cowgate etc
Posted 1 day ago #
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