Cycle routes through the back streets of the Grange is great; I cycle that way myself whenever I can't face the QBC. Far less traffic, lovely quiet roads, brill. What I don't understand is the lack of similar blue bikey signs on the QBC itself. However, it's early days for these suddenly-appearing signs; maybe in a week or two it'll all become clear.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Thoughts on the Quality Bike Corridor
(168 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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cyclistsinthecity (@citycyclists)
22/07/2012 11:32
Great idea. Lambeth council dropping promo leaflet & map thro all local doors for cycle route 3 Clapham to WaterlooPosted 12 years ago # -
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London SE1 @se1
Boris Johnson has just told @SkyNews his Cycle Superhighways are "purely indicative" and cars can stray into them if they want.
"Posted 12 years ago # -
Plenty room for wider lanes in some places -
Posted 12 years ago # -
Two items of QBC news this morning!
1. A blue and white sign has gone up on Mayfield Road northbound just near Relugas Road. Looking vaguely like this (sorry no camera on my old phone):
The Meadows
George Square
City Centre
(quiet route)
/---
\---George Square
Pollock Halls
City Centre
(direct route)
/\
||
||... with distances too.
2. A pair of traffic wardens were on Causewayside this morning, one with a speed gun and the other a notebook. A bit south of Majestic Wine. Does this mean that the police force is enforcing the 20mph limit? *gasp* I take it all back if so.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Also they will be starting to work on the pavement around the Mayfield Road/West Mains Road junction. That corner of the corner of the KB campus will be fancied up by the Uni soon and apparently there will be a toucan crossing.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think the traffic wardens are cooncil run are they not? Glad to see them speedgunning either way.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Traffic Wardens are part of the Police. Parking Wardens/Enforcers/Services Operatives are cooncil contractors.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Ergo traffic wardens can enforce double yellow parking; double parking; speed limits etc. - Blue Meanies can enforce parking bays.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Ah okay. I didn't realise there were two different kinds. How do you know which is which?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Park you car in a parking bay with out a pay and display ticket and see which one appears from no where to give you a ticket :D
"Real" traffic wardens typically have yellow high vis and "Police Traffic Warden" on their jackets. Parking attendants usually where darker colour and have a blue band to their hats.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Hmm. I'll have to pay more attention to traffic wardens then.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The polis wardens tend to look, somehow, more authoritative. They're also rarer. I think their hats still have the yellow/black chequerboard around them as well.
It's an odd distinction really. Thinking on it the meanies can do you for yellow lines as well. I got a ticket once on a double yellow, 5 minutes inside my flat I was moving out of (so loading) at 11pm - I paid up, I knew I shouldn't have parked there, but I enquired as to why the hordes of double parked cars there didn't get tickets, and got a reply that that was a police matter and so the meanies couldn't give tickets for that.
I resolved at that point to double park from then on on the basis that a police traffic warden was less likely to wander by (though one Christmas Eve, about 10pm, I was leaving my flat, then thought to text my mum to let her know I was leaving, and a police car rolled by, wound down the window, and told me to move on as I was causing an obstruction (which I found odd as he had pulled alongside me, and a car coming down the other way was still able to pass as well)).
Posted 12 years ago # -
I think their hats still have the yellow/black chequerboard around them as well.
Indeed. They tend to look smarter as they wear a more traditional uniform and belt, rather than the urban assault jumpsuits and combat utility vests preferred by their beat colleagues (I think Sgt. Quentin said all the kit weighed in at a couple of stones).
Only parking bay and yellow lines are decriminalised to the cooncil wardens, so they can't do anything about double parking, pavement parking etc. The man who came to fix my door buzzer told me that he generally works by double parking everywhere as his jobs were generally 20-30 minutes at the front door so he just double parks outside and in the unlikely event the Police show up he can just move on before a tow truck arrives.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The only time I've ever seen my street blocked by double parking, the culprit was.... a police car. (The driver may have had a good reason for parking as they did, I don't know. All I know is the street was blocked.)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Given that this is the reason that the cycle lane in Marchmont Road is such a pain (full of double parked cars, even though there are parking spaces), we should have the council contractors issuing tickets for that too; only difference would be that if you double park, you get double the fine. (Actually, my alternative idea needs no enforcement; illegally parked vehicles would not be insured)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Obstructions across the 'new' top of MMW are back this morning.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@mgj The same Fringe-poster-substrate Heras barriers as before or something new? Might wander over...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Just took a look. there is one square barrier out to edge of cycle path, and another squashed quadrilateral above that that looks like it was the one that was moved.
It is still possible to get from cycle lane on road, over dropped kerb, onto MMW cycle lane to the left of the stone pillar.
But this path should obviously have some white paint marking it out.
Posted 12 years ago # -
They're moving it against the fence! It is.unfolded and currently encroaches neither on pavement nor path!
IMAG0410 by wingpig, on FlickrA bloke with the look of a uni servitor about him is currently using one of the workmen's phones to speak to their boss. Something about ownership of the bit of grass behind the (permanent) fence, on which one panel of Heras has now been lain.
Two cyclefuzz just went past.
Non-fence-moving guy has wandered off.
Looks like we'll end up with six panels against the wee fence, possibly fewer...Posted 12 years ago # -
Of course, whilst the fringe poster thingee may be off the cyclepath, punters reading said posters will presumably have to stand slapbang on top of the path to peruse them.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Today's routine blockage of the Quality Cycle Corridor
- white transit van MV54 WLL, just outside Hua Xing supermarket
- YE06 HZT "Speedfresh Exotics" lorry, delivering to Hua Xing supermarket
- Hua Xing supermarket van, delivering to Hua Xing supermarket
Posted 12 years ago # -
It is no better and no worse than it ever was. Not sure that any serious money has been spent, and if it has, then I am uncertain what it has been spent on, a few red chuckies as far as I can tell.
Resurfacing of the road has been piecemeal over the years and there are still areas that need it doing very badly. Outside of the Dick Vet and all along that section until you get to just before where the Bike Station is, has been crap for years, and the pavement is also absolutely awful too, and I feel for the pedestrians. In fact the best bit of the whole route is the section where the Bike Station is, beyond it is not great and the amount of traffic that you have to contend with is awful, as well as lots of traffic lights where you get completely squeezed.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Agreed. I walked [bike out of action] along it today at lunchtime, both ways, and despaired at how many vans and lorries were on double yellow lines. There seems to be no law enforcement on the QBC at all. Certainly the Hua Xing supermarket people seem to direct all delivery vehicles onto the double yellow lines even when legal parking is available a few yards away. Presumably they know fine well that they can get away with it. Whether the road just isn't policed, or whether someone has been indulging in the grand old Embra tradition of brown envelope passing, I haven't a clue.
Feeling very downhearted. Is this the best we can do? How many lifetimes does it have to be before this sort of route and thinking is routine here?
Posted 12 years ago # -
In my opinion, this is EXACTLY why they won't put in some form of segregation / protection on the lane, i.e. kerbstones, as the council secretly tried to pander to the "cycling lobby" by wasting money on paint and red tarmac, while not upsetting the motoring / white van / taxi lobby by preventing their accepted practice of operating their businesses from double yellow lines.
Cyclists are distinct from motorists in that they want roads only for one purpose - getting places. The motorist wants the road both to get somewhere and then to park on it once they are there.
I saw a great picture on Twitter yesterday (from US) of a bikehoop in the middle of the freeway, with a bike locked across it, with caption along the lines of "you wouldn't like a bike parked like this any more than we like a car parked across a bike lane".
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago # -
Probably OK now.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The reduced protection of the lane at the island is close to our flat. Really hard to understand (there's less room for traffic to pass cyclists safely, so the safety lane is made *smaller*? Who on earth thinks up these things?)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Probably OK now
Unless you want to lock more than 1 bike to the Sheffield stand...
Posted 12 years ago # -
I didn't have my phone as I was just popping to the shops, but I've noticed that the signs at top of Argyle Place for the QBC diversionary route are misaligned.
If you were coming along Sciennes in direction of Marchmont for instance, the sign tells you to turn left for KB after you've gone past the turning. It's on the right hand side of the road also, which makes no sense as why would you be looking for direction signs on the wrong side of the road? It suggests more like it you've to go up Marchmont Crescent than hang left into Chalmers Crescent. Coming down Chalmers Crescent, the "straight ahead" sign indicating you down Argyle Place is parallel to the direction of travel so you can't read it as you approach it!
You can see the spraypaint marking on the ground for the signpost, so it's clearly been planned by someone. It's also clearly not been planned or tested by anyone who's ever ridden a bike along the route.
I'll try and get some photos for the Flickrgroup soon.
Posted 12 years ago #
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