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.
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Three Leith councillors have asked a committee to make the controversial low traffic neighbourhood in the area permanent.
For over a year, short stretches of road and parts of junctions have been closed as part of the Leith Connections urban mobility scheme
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Leith CC taking it upon themselves to do their own non-representative survey, complete with biased and leading questions.
Versus the council’s professionally carried out representative survey, done under MRS guidelines.
Guess which one the gutter press pick up on?
Wonder who in Leith CC has the ulterior motive ?
How you can help:
The Council is about to decide whether to make these changes permanent.
The decision on what will become permanent and what will be undone will be made by the Traffic Regulation Orders Sub-Committee on the 18th February.If, like us, and like most people in Leith, you think the Low Traffic Neighbourhood has been a big success and should be made permanent, please email the Councillors on this sub-committee, in your own words to ask them to make the scheme permanent. You can write to all the Councillors on the sub-committee
Instructions here:
https://rd8993.wixsite.com/liveable-leith
Just had taxi driver tell me it is the modern heavy buses causing the potholes. I gave my opinion that this was keech but. He seemed to think the potholes are in the bus lanes. We then were able to observe a constant flow of traffic on A71 and M8 into Edinburgh. None of it in the bus lanes.
Well
Electric buses are heavier.
Damage related to axle weight.
Most vehicles are heavier than they used to be (esp per passenger).
In spite of ‘policies’ there are more of them, going further.
I’m sure you remember ‘tarmac waves’ at bus stops, not potholes as such, and less of problem so some things get better!
‘Potholes’ are caused by ‘traffic’ - volume/speed/weight.
Also ‘no money’, decades of lack of ‘stitch in time’ interventions.
Plus ‘utility companies’ and their rights to dig trenches, and their inability to ‘reinstate’ adequately, and lack of checks/enforcement.
And the ‘weather’.
And politicians hiring machines to ‘fix the problem’, then running away to Westminster.
Taxi driver not wrong, just not predominantly right…
Something that blew my mind is that because road damage is proportional to the axle weight to the 4th power, one extra passenger who gets on a bus makes the bus cause so much extra damage that it would be less damaging if they were driving in their own SUV.
So out of the many great arguments for getting the bus, road wear is not one of them.
What road wear does 100 SUVs with a single occupant cause compared to one bus with 100 occupants?
Please do write in to save the Leith LTN. The antis are out in force, and even the Community Council put together its own dubious poll to try and manipulate the results for their own ulterior motives. The CC poll contained leading questions and was non-representative. Compared to the Edinburgh council professionally conducted, representative poll, done to MRS standards, that showed 76% in favour of the LTN
The Volvo Enviro400XLB used by Lothian Buses weighs about 11,000kg empty, spread over 3 axles. It can carry 100 people, each of whom weighs the European industry standard 70.8kg.
The axle load when empty is about 3,667kg, and when full, 6,050kg - or rather, increases by 23kg per person onboard. A bus with one passenger plus the driver would have an axle load of 3,714kg.
A Kia Sportage with the nice drivedrain weighs 1,600kg, spread over 2 axles. It can carry 4, maybe 5 people. So its axle load when empty is 800kg, and when full of 4 people, 942kg. Although we need at least 25 cars to match the bus, the load isn't increased per axle: it's distributed proportionately along the road, although I suppose it would be cumulative as one car after another passes the measurement point. 100 driver-only cars would each have an axle load of 835kg.
So, 25 full cars would weigh 47,080kg across 50 axles (that is, 942kg per axle) and 100 driver-only cars would weigh 167,080kg across 200 axles (that is, 835kg per axle again).
The road stress is the ratio of one axle load to another, raised to the fourth power. With the driver and a hundred passengers in the bus, and just the driver in each car, the ratio is 6050 to 835, or 7.25:1. Thus the full bus causes 2755 times the stress to the road surface as one car, which is a) terrible, and b) fairly self-evident. But we need 100 cars to carry that many passengers (whom we assume can all drive and all have access to a car!). To put it another way, one car would have to be driven repeatedly the best part of three thousand times over the same bit of road to put the same stress through the surface. Or, each of the 100 cars would have to drive 28 times over the same piece of road.
Fully loaded, the ratio is 6050 to 942, or 1701:1 - still pretty poor for the bus, if we ignore the road space needed by all those cars, and if the road surface was perfectly elastic and in perfect condition. The 25 cars would each have to be driven 68 times over the same piece of road to put the same cumulative stress into the tarmac.
We could theoretically smoosh all the cars into the same space so that two axles carried the whole weight.
25 cars would be 25 x (1600 + 4 x 70.8) = 47,080kg, or 23,540kg per axle. In this instance, we have bus:car ratio as 6050 to 23540, or 1:3.89, thus 229 times the road stress from 25 cars compared with one bus.
100 cars would be 100 x (1600 + 1 x 70.8) = 167,080kg, or 83,540kg per axle. Then we have 6050 to 83540, or 1:13.8, thus 36,354 times as much road stress compared with one big bus.
I think.
The bottom line is as common sense might suppose:
* The torque of an electric motor isn't really why trolley buses often had two rear driving axles, it was so that they could be made longer than the original regulation 28 feet for two axles, and thus carry more people.
The extension of this argument is road capacity. How do buses and cars compare in terms of passenger-km (or pax × speed), if the total stress on the road surface was equal for each mode over a fixed period?
How do the ratios compare if everyone only ever walks, wheelchairs or cycles?
What about an ex-Zedify bike (they are up for sale BTW) with a Carla trailer - that’s 3 axles and 5 wheels, right?
Well, for example when I ride the GSD unladen it causes 16x more road wear than when my better half rides her road bike, but a modest EV causes >100,000x more damage than the GSD so it's very much a question of perspective.
1000 cyclists per day for a whole year is roughly on par with a modern car being driven past in one direction on a single day.
The surfaces of segregated bits of road where i use them [lanark road] Not deteriorating. There are other issue if crud and not being gritted but the actual surfaces abide.
The damage from one utility repair or tree root is surely far greater than anything inflicted by even the heaviest bus.
By comparison how many buses equate to a single HGV?
Dear Liveable Leith supporter
LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE LEITH LIVEABLE NEIGHBOURHOOD
With less than a week to go until the future of the Leith Liveable Neighbourhood is decided, and with the community council posting a misleading blog encouraging opposition to the scheme, the future of safer streets in Leith lies in the balance.
CAN YOU HELP?
Now is the last chance to email the councillors who will make the final decision and urge them to vote for safer streets. Please take a couple of minutes to explain in your own words how safer streets have improved your life and why you want them to be made permanent.
You can more info on how to do this, including a list of the councillors to contact and their email addresses, on the Liveable Leith website:
https://rd8993.wixsite.com/liveable-leith
Thank you for taking action for safer and more liveable streets in Leith!
CAN YOU JOIN US ON THE DAY?
The decision on the future of the Liveable Neighbourhood (also known as a Low Traffic Neighbourhood or LTN) will be made by the Council's Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) Sub-committee on Tuesday 18 February. Council meetings are open to the public, so some Liveable Leith supporters will be attending to watch the meeting (and give councillors a big round of applause if they make the right decision).
The meeting starts at 10am on 18th February at the City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh. It might be a good idea to turn up a couple of minutes early. Full details on attending a council meeting can be found here: https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/councillors-committees/attending-council-meetings
We hope to see you there!
Thank you for all your action to make Leith’s streets safer and more pleasant for everyone.
Regards,
Liveable Leith
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Reminder:
Come show your support for Leith’s LTN on Tuesday 18th Feb, outside City Chambers at 8.30am
Bring your banners! The brighter and more colourful, the better!
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https://bsky.app/profile/edcriticalmass.bsky.social/post/3lid7kxi5jk2v
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A very clear response from London Fire Commissioner, Andy Rowe to a question at Fire Plenary last week from Emma Best AM about the impact of LTNs on fire brigade attendance times.
"We genuinely couldn't find any evidence of LTNs doing anything to our overall attendance times".
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https://bsky.app/profile/carolinerussell.bsky.social/post/3lif45ootw223
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I’m absolutely delighted the Leith Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) has been made permanent today. This is the right decision for Leith, and will help to lock in the traffic reductions, safer streets and cleaner air that this scheme has already delivered.
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https://bsky.app/profile/chasbooth.bsky.social/post/3lih5onex6s2m
I'll take good news wherever I can get it at the moment. Thank you to the Councillors who voted in favour of this.
Plus an actual decent article from Ian Swanson / EEN, instead of the tosh he published previously about the same matter:
Great wee protest today, supporting the Leith low-traffic neighbourhood, ahead of the council decision on it.Outside the City Chambers, Edinburgh
https://bsky.app/profile/blackfordsaferoutes.co.uk/post/3lih5j4jpic2g
IW, ‘but I’m a cyclist too’, won’t be happy -
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Readers with longer memories know that this goes at least as far back as the days of David Begg with his expensive Greenways and the first road closures in the city centre. Installed without a budget for future maintenance and paid for by pillaging the road and pavement repair budget, Greenways may have helped some bus routes but also began the backlog of road repairs we see today.
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Looking at the photograph in the article, I don't think te buses are the problem.
It's worth bearing in mind that before the northern and western flanks of Glasgow's inner ring road were built, the city centre was hugely congested, and that was in the 1950s and 1960s. Glasgow was absolutely set on reducing traffic volumes in the city, and it's why Sauchiehall St and Buchanan St could be pedestrianised.
Since Edinburgh's only attempt (the western link road that would have connected Hermiston with Lothian Road) was barely built, and escaped the inner ring road nonsense almost entirely, and since we got rid of all the trains, buses and a few trams are all we've got. I don't think we need to give car driving too much room.
Can we maybe just celebrate the win, instead of resurrecting Tory puff pieces from 3 weeks ago?
We do
But usually worth knowing the context/history
On to the next issue, remembering the ‘drag’.
@neddie. AMEN.
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Thank you so much to everyone who came out on yet another freezing morning to back the Leith LTN! We had great engagement from both councillors and passers-by. Today's win is a great step forward for safer streets and a sustainable future!
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https://bsky.app/profile/edcriticalmass.bsky.social/post/3liiegkh7is2a
An unrelated Facebook page I am on Edinburgh Past and Present waded in yesterday I thought Here we go as I had to cone off a towpath facebook. Page as full of gammon roaster drivers. However, the Edinburgh Past and Present was very balanced and more like a myth busting contribution on LTNs. So not the Living Streets Edinburgh Roaster either.
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