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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
"Princes St cycle lane slammed as a ‘crazy death trap' "
(33 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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You're looking nicely menacing there, Dave ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
I see the comments love-in is in full swing. So much hatred! Wow.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh oh they photographed you cycling the wrong way.......doh!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Deliberately avoiding reading the comments. Thankfully they spelled my surname wrong, so hopefully the anti-cycling hatemail and letter bombs will be returned to sender
Posted 12 years ago # -
Nothing you've not seen umpteen times before. Almost spambot in predictability and reality-impairment.
Dave, your troll-poking hatless'n'headphones plan worked.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I was intrigued to read the comments just now. Wish I hadn't. *sigh*
Posted 12 years ago # -
"A council spokesman said the new markings were not intended to create a cycle lane, merely make it clear that cycling was allowed."
Feeble obfuscation by a council apparatchik... or just plain and simple bullsh*t. You decide. Either way it assumes an intended audience with a collective IQ of <10.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Who would have thought. Apparently if I listen to the traffic and travel on Forth 1 while speeding along in the Astra, there's no issue, but if I'm on two wheels instead, my brain won't be able to cope and I'll cause a taxi driver to do an illegal u-turn without checking his mirrors.
The world is so simple :)
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Of course the space between the tram tracks isn't a cycle lane, it's far too wide!" unverified CEC comment.
Posted 12 years ago # -
A council spokesman said the new markings were not intended to create a cycle lane, merely make it clear that cycling was allowed
Is the council's intention to cover the entire road network in the city - excepting West Approach Road - with bicycle symbols to let us know we are allowed to cycle there too?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Ha! I think kaputnik has hit the nail on the head there, because I was starting to think the council's comment bordered on vaguely valid. Silly me.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Is the council's intention to cover the entire road network in the city - excepting West Approach Road - with bicycle symbols to let us know we are allowed to cycle there too?
Ah, kaputnik, you are truly a "glass half full" kind of person.
My somewhat more gloomy thought was more along the lines of "oh, so now we can only go where the cycle logo thing is.."
Posted 12 years ago # -
Following on from the Council's latest botched efforts, I thought this was rather amusing!
Posted 12 years ago # -
@gdm, PMSL!!!! Cheers.
Posted 12 years ago # -
This is the German solution. Took this photo last week while in Munich. -
Posted 12 years ago # -
Just cycled along Princes Street - what a waste of time. It is no more than a Public Transport corridor. Buses,Taxi's and Trams. By the time you are stopped at each set of lights you might as well get off the bike and walk, defeating the point of using the bike! I was being given the horn from a Lothian bus for stopping behind two other buses, dropping and picking up passengers, rather than travelling up the inside to get to the advanced cycling box. I think I will be avoiding this route from now on!
Posted 12 years ago # -
If you know what service the bus was on, drop an email to lothian buses (you could probably even just tweet them) and they can check the cameras. The drivers do get a ticking off when they screw up, and they'll be especially sensitive to suggestions that their drivers are making a death trap worse?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
Victoria Raimes (@victoriaraimes)
05/07/2012 14:15
Edinburgh folk who use Princes Street regularly: anyone willing to comment on an easy story ftor tomorrow's paper? Pls DM and/or RT. Thanks."
"
Crime reporter, Edinburgh Evening News. I also cover investigations - always keen for the chat. Run @edinburghpaper"
Posted 12 years ago # -
Daftness reigns in the council/contractors in a similar 'Colinton/Colington' sign matter. Victoria's looking for voxpops to go with a pic in tomorrow's paper.
Posted 12 years ago # -
tarmac jockey "This is the German solution." My impression of Germany was that it is a *much* richer country that Britain. Everything in the German streets that I visited was of better quality than here: gates, paths, pavements, fences, driveways. I don't think I was in an especially wealthy area (Lorsch).
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Tom, not really, it's just that like many European countries, they believe in sharing the wealth around a bit, and in investing in the public realm, infrastructure, etc. with good quality and high standards. Here we keep the wealth in the hands of a tiny few and let the public realm go hang if it can't turn a profit for private enterprise...
Posted 12 years ago # -
We all know the problems Spain has at the moment, but when I was there last month the quality of the roads and the public spaces was remarkable.
Virtually no bike lanes mind (Madrid).
Posted 12 years ago # -
Similar impression in Austria. We were staying in a castle. The walls of the modern extension were lined with modern replica halberds. In this country these would have been pressed tin. In Schloss Rosenegg they were assay marked. The only concession to safety (and sanity) was that the edges had not been sharpened.
That's where I saw cyclists crossing Austria from Germany into Italy, "credit card touring" each morning. And I've had a hankering to try it ever since.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Trambles map photoset now up.
Posted 12 years ago # -
That is frankly depressing... Word class cycling city...
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Word class cycling city"
As in - all words, no class (or action).
Posted 12 years ago # -
I went past there in the bus the other day, and having seen the markings in context the penny has dropped.
The "crazy cycing lane" is only on the bit of Princes Street between Lothian Road and the left turn to Charlotte Square. The markings are to show what kinds of vehicles are allowed to go straight on, onto the rest of Princes Street, while all the cars etc have to go left to Charlotte Square. I'm pretty sure that there were very similar road markings there before the tram tracks were put in.
It looks a bit odd because there are tram tracks in the way, but that it what it is for.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"It looks a bit odd because there are tram tracks in the way, but that it what it is for."
True, but it strongly suggests that the 'safe' way to cycle from Princes Street to Shandwick Place is between the tram tracks.
Posted 12 years ago # -
To be totally honest if you're going to have trams and buses running on Princes Street (and I'd personally rather the buses there than on George Street or Queen Street) then you can't fit a separated, two-way cycle lane in without taking away pavement space.
If you think that pavement space should be taken away, then fine, but I still maintain that they would be better served doing something dramatic and bold with George Street involving pedesrtianisation, even just for the middle two sections, and taking away parking in the middle, to be replaced by two-way cyclepaths.
It's just not going to happen on Princes Street, and I think fixating on that one street and the daft markings, loses us the opportunity to make calls for something so so much better because it gets into councillors minds that we want to be on Princes Street when, quite frankly, if it's as stowed out with buses as it used to be plus trams, I'd rather switch back to George Street thank you very much (which I also avoided when it was rammed with buses itself).
In fact, new thread coming up.
Posted 12 years ago #
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