What is missing from the following pictures?
Can you suggest how this new path might be improved?
Best suggestion gets a chance to experience the LB tandem, trike or 'bent of their choice. Test riders can check them out on the path shown here.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Meadows Place improvement. Golden Bollard Award.
(42 posts)-
Posted 14 years ago #
-
little chains between each bollard to prevent the bikes getting thru the gaps. Is that fur shop still there?
Posted 14 years ago # -
Hadn't though of chains. That's a good one - increases expense of job with no gain to functionality! Excellent.
Fur shop has gone and is now a flat rent bureau.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Exempting myself from competition since I have already had a ride on the tandem but I can't resist suggesting one of those bendy plastic tunnels like this one, perhaps a few hoops suspended at different heights and finally a big bag of Winalot for every rider who completes it.
(do you still get winalot?)
Posted 14 years ago # -
I tried out the new crossing en route to work this morning. Can someone tell me why a formerly straight crossing now involves multiple steering moves and a sort of chicane? (Or is that a daft question?)
The kerb and ramp gradients are nicely done, I must admit.
LB: they're not actually bollards. They're bases in readiness for 22 "Cyclists dismount" signs.
Posted 14 years ago # -
"Or is that a daft question?"
It's daft that it has to be asked.
The 'answer' may seem dafter -
Work done "to enable bin lorries to reverse down Meadow Place and pick up the bins".
Posted 14 years ago # -
So LB was right after all! Cyclists really do come lower down the list than wheelie bins.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Wasn't quite sure what the problem was when I saw LaidBack's photos (above).
So he showed me - East to west needs some markings (and really some bollards removed.)
Maybe the plan is to move bins onto to new flat bit to make way for another parked car?? Like the one in the movie???
Posted 14 years ago # -
Oh that is simply 'marvellous'. I note from the photo as well that the cycle part of the shared path is on the right hand side (or left as you're approaching these bollards).
Technically speaking moving over to use the ramp is illegal because you're then on the footpath!
Posted 14 years ago # -
"Technically speaking moving over to use the ramp is illegal because you're then on the footpath!"
Depends what (if anything) has been done to make it legally a footpath (access legislation notwithstanding).
The 'segregated path' section of the previous layout only lasted a few feet - the rest of the path to Argyle Place is shared use. (There used to be barrier/gate/'pram trap' - remains visible.)
Posted 14 years ago # -
The ramp is off to the side, without a sign saying that section is shared use, and is bordering a road, so is a footpath in terms of the Highways Act and so not part of the new access legislation...
It really is a pedantic technical point, but again something that the powers that be won't have thought of in the slightest.
Posted 14 years ago # -
LATEST NEWS
White lines are coming 'soon'.
One bit of the Council has asked another to re-align the bollards.
(NOT as a result of CCE Forum - some parts of Council are trying to get best for bikes...)
Posted 14 years ago # -
It's OK to drive over a footpath, just not along it (this is how you can drive/cycle up onto your own driveway without requiring a shared use designation outside every house).
However, it is an offence to ride on the wrong side of a segregated shared facility. Interestingly the path alongside Melville Drive has always been an anomoly, at the Meadows Place end it is signed as segregated, but the give-way markings at the Argyle Place end are on the pedestrian side(!). Coming from the west there is actually no cycle designation signage whatsoever.
Posted 14 years ago # -
You're allowed to drive over a path to 'access parking'....
Posted 14 years ago # -
p.s. and as the link shows (he said, relying on his own research and writing) the legal right to drive over a pavement is only for that, to 'drive', not to cycle...
It's an oddity.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Just realised I've blown my cover as 'Sue Rider'...
Posted 14 years ago # -
Technicalities of legalese and statutising aside, I don't expect any cyclists to be cautioned for using the pavement 'the wrong way' as it were. It's a commuting route sufficiently well used by cyclists that, left alone in its current state, would become self-governing anyway. In a tarmacked environment, the creation of desire lines is more from cyclists than walkers, and vice versa.
I don't like to be criticising CEC every step of the way, but ... half-finished or half-developed urban modifications seem to be the standard way of doing things nowadays. 'Ok pal, just get the tarmac down and the bollards put in. We'll worry about details later. Those cyclists should be glad they've got anything at all, they can make do.'
Posted 14 years ago # -
Oh I'll admit I doubt anyone is going to go for the technicality (though the students in my link probably thought that too - if they knew the law around it). But it just smacks of the greater and greater lack of any forethought.
"Those cyclists should be glad they've got anything at all, they can make do" is pretty much right!
Very model cycling city...
Posted 14 years ago # -
Bizarre that I am pointing this out given my off piste proclivity but if no one else is getting the golden bollard can I have a shot on a recumbent tandem if Laidback has such a thing, my mate who came off at speed and is partially paralysed could go on the front.
Posted 14 years ago # -
I went home this way yesterday to check it out - it really is madness!
All that was needed to close off Meadow Place was the installation of two lines of bollards, one at the existing 'give way' line and another just uphill of the end of the pedestrian/bike crossing. That's it!
Instead, they seem to have actually re-aligned the cycle path just to add a couple of bends, and rebuilt two sections of garden to block off the old route. What on earth were they thinking? Didn't Spokes or anyone else see plans before this went ahead?
I'd be genuinely fascinated to know how much the closure has cost, compared with the cost of installing two simple rows of bollards. Perhaps good FOI request material?
I was caught a little unprepared (can't see David's video here at work) and ended up riding across the 'wrong' side of the bollards and over the pavement on the other side. Obviously it will become car parking so more obvious in the fullness of time.
If they dig up and realign the east side of the pavement (tarmaccing over the grass) it might end up OK, or potentially just dig up the bollards and stagger them to align with the existing path, but otherwise it's a bit of a pointless loss of cycling utility.
Typical Edinburgh? We are spending £500m+ on a tram line to reduce the number of buses from 519 to 500, after all...
Posted 14 years ago # -
gembo can I have a shot on a recumbent tandem if Laidback has such a thing
I'm afraid I don't. You are the winner so far though!
I only have what is on my web site.
Was expecting someone to give the bollards the Danny McAskill test. Is is possible to do something with them stunt wise? Could they form part of a bike sculpture in his honour? Or could they be modified to provide bike parking where no-one wants it?
I do like the chain idea though! It's the kind of thing that streetscape would approve of too.
Posted 14 years ago # -
FWIW I've put together my little video of going home that way (may take a few minutes to process).
Really I can't understand why they didn't just put down two or three bollards at either end of the existing constriction - we are supposed to be in a major recession here!
[url=
Posted 14 years ago # -
Thanks for all the posts on this subject. I'm now going to announce the winner on another thread...
Posted 14 years ago # -
I will get a nice photo of Argyle Place - they put in the "removable" red/white barriers when they originally closed Princes St for the trams in case traffic was too heavy for Albyn Place - Queen Street etc. But they were never removed - killed the cyclist route through .
Posted 14 years ago # -
"I will get a nice photo of Argyle Place"
Do you mean Moray Place?
Posted 14 years ago # -
Not that I could possibly condone such action, but in the vein of Guerrilla
GardeningPainting, wouldn't it be nice if the bollards weren't so stark in their black livery? One of them ought to be painted gold, for a start.Others could be dressed up like a traffic cone, or a bowling pin, or with spiral reflective vinyl like a helter-skelter, or with lovely wood- or marble-effect paint.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Shame I liked that 'rat run' was always handy if you were turning right onto melville drive.
Posted 14 years ago # -
Posted 14 years ago #
-
Now the white lines are there
Posted 14 years ago # -
Er, so now it's cycle only????
Posted 14 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
