CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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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.
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Well, the consultation is on Monday in McDonald Road Library, 1000-2000.
As such I intend to cycle down the Walk, and back up, as a bit of a recce.
I shall be leaving Wellington's statue (outside Register House) at 1715, and then will be leaving Queen Victoria (Kirkgate) at 1740 for the return leg.
I won't mind if others decide to simultaneously cycle down and back up to prepare for their contribution to the consultation.
Robert
Well, the consultation is on Monday in McDonald Road Library, 1000-2000.
As such I intend to cycle down the Walk, and back up, as a bit of a recce.
I shall be leaving Wellington's statue (outside Register House) at 1715, and then will be leaving Queen Victoria (Kirkgate) at 1740 for the return leg.
I won't mind if others decide to simultaneously cycle down and back up to prepare for their contribution to the consultation.
Robert
(Re-posting due to bbPress hiccup)
I'd be up for that. Rode down Leith Street and between the roundabouts last night and it really is ridiculously hairy.
Brave! I'll give it a go too.
Quite a topical incident from last night around 18.45.
Every day I cycle up Broughton St, over Picardy Place and turn right on to London Road. So as soon as I get past the top of Broughton St, I'm in the middle lane for Picardy Place roundabout then right hand lane for London Road. Usually no problems as it's all downhill and quite often behind a bus.
Last night I was heading down towards the London Road roundabout, bang centre of the lane, when some absolute cretin in a red van overtook me on the outside. I think he was mostly in the hatch markings next to the central reservation. AND he was on his phone.
Id - That's awful. It's the usual mentality of "Must get past the cyclist" and ignore what's in front of them. Going down into Blackhall from the Mary Erskine School I used to regularly be doing around 30mph (35mph if I pushed it) and yet would still be passed by cars... best day was when the police were at the bottom of the hill!
Back On Topic - The plans are basically a re-hash of the existing with a few minor tweaks and hopefully a nice new road surface. Leith Walk given its width should be one of the easiest in the whole city to build in the Dutch / Danish style with proper segregated lanes - maybe pavement, cycling provision, bus lane, parking (needed on both sides for the length it does? - most people can cross roads), normal lane?
One of the things I pointed out on the survey was that cyclists and pedestrians spend money in shops too. In fact have studies not shown that cyclists tend to be better educated and have more disposable income? Leith Walk does have interesting shops - in part I know this because on the bike it is dead easy to hop off and go inside to spend money (the shopkeepers seemed to take my money in return for their goods despite me being a lowly cyclist!).
I would have thought that if Edinburgh is aiming to have a cafe culture, Leith Walk with its wide pavements would be ideal for people sitting out. The Council could plant trees / shrubs. Maybe we could have petanque (? French bools) "pits" etc. etc.
Whole thing at present seems to lack vision.
I don't know about better educated or more income but certainly when you're walking or cycling, you're taking your time and you're able to stop whenever you like and pop into an interesting-looking shop or cafe. Plus a street that's pedestrian- and cycle-friendly and not so choked with motor vehicles is a much nicer place to be. So people go there more.
They've found in the Netherlands and in the USA (*) that building decent cycle-friendly infrastructure makes the takings go up substantially in the businesses on that street. And I was hearing this morning that takings have gone up in the Grassmarket after the recent people-friendly makeover there.
(*) and probably in other places too that I don't remember offhand
There is lots of evidence that making paces pedestrian and cycle friendly is good for the local economy, the trouble is this is not what the traffic planners think of, they are only interested in how many vehicle movements they can push through the system. The other problem is that the councillor have a tendency to think that 60% of the population preffer to drive, when in reality only 15% do. We need to write to them, tell them we want safer conditions for cycling and this includes separated cycle lanes on Leith Walk. Tell them you want to be able to cycle there without taking your life in your hands, and that you want to be able to take your kids with you.
I had a planner tell me that there is no reason why families would want to cycle down Leith Walk. So effectively saying families visiting business in Leith should only go by car or bus. This is so wrong.
Is anyone planning to blog about Monday's ride? If so, bung me the URL before teatimish today and I'll add it to the blog roundup on the Embassy site.
Took an afternoon ride down to the docks.
Not that many shops open but solid parking on both sides of LW - and some double of course.
Still don't understand why council imagines there's no room for cycle lanes 90% of it is very wide.
Right at the bottom is -
Bet the new residents there would like a cycle lane all the way uptown.
Even on the narrow bit of Constitution Street there's room for a painted lane on the east side outside the parking. There are plenty of signs saying -
There are even slightly fake looking 20mph signs at Baltic Street but didn't see any at the LW end.
Nice list from Greener Leith on what they think should be done (even comes with a take-along list for people to take to the consultation session tomorrow)
I could probably get to Macdonald Road Library via the NEPN about 6ish. Coming via Princes Street / town not very desirable for obvious reasons. I rode Leith Walk last Wednesday night and the experience is still seared in my mind.
I'll be hobbling on over after work (6ish).
I should have check my emails before PY on Friday. When I did so afterwards I found I had a pretty lengthy response to my email to my SNP councillor from Jim Orr. The gist of this is:
- No decision has been reached by the Council for a final street layout for Leith Walk and feedback on the proposals will be used to help inform a final design, to be reported to the Transport and Environment Committee on 19 March 2013.
- The proposals in the preliminary design for the entire corridor are informed by stakeholder feedback and previous consultation exercises, and can be delivered within the budget of £5.5 million that has been allocated for the project.
- It has been proposed that maximum impact can be gained by trying to significantly improve the safety of cyclists at Picardy Place / London Road.
- All proposed cycling specific and cycle friendly elements of the preliminary design conform to the design approach for a cycle friendly city as outlined in Edinburgh's Active Travel Action Plan.
- [In response to my comment that full segregation would help with bus traffic flow] Proposals for bus lanes to be shared with cyclists on Leith Walk are consistent with the shared bus lane use established across Edinburgh.
There's a two-layered blocker to securing a proper continental-style solution on LW.
1) CEC has a limited vision of what it can achieve and this vision has been codified in the Active Travel Action Plan.
2) There's only a £5.5m budget. A full bells and whistles redesign of LW is seen as costing more than that so it isn't regarded as achievable. Instead we get an unsatisfactory, although admittedly well-intentioned, redesign of the most dangerous section.
The problem with point 2) is that without a full length redesign I doubt you'll encourage an increase in cycling on LW. You certainly won't get to the position where parents are happy for their children to cycle on it.
I wonder if there is any room for a flexible approach to this - say 6 lanes of tarmac, but apply paint, cones, street furniture etc to provide a lane of two way cycling, parking, bus north, car north, car south, bus south? Then when the tram is extended (har har) you just need to adjust the paint job? I suspect not, because that won't conform with CEC's street design guidelines or somesuch.
@PS I think your 2 points encapsulate much of the 'problem'.
ATAP isn't set it stone - and probably not written with LW in mind at all.
Money is definitely an issue - or perhaps more strictly budget(s).
This is largely regarded as 'transport' with some thought for street furniture and rationalising these -
Until there is more money I would resurface the road (as planned) make the bus lanes wider (though not the two buses wide I think is planned in places 'to enable buses to overtake more easily'.
Play with on-road paint to create bigger ASLs, lead-in lanes etc. and MONITOR their effectiveness.
Sort out the parking. This may be adequate -
and might be being enforced, but double parking certainly isn't
Double parking even on a Sunday
If there's any money left I'd spend some on tarting up the shop fronts (this has been done in various parts of Edinburgh).
THEN plan for some significant improvements to encourage cycling that would coincide with a 20mph limit on LW/Constitution/Great Junction Streets.
In the meantime persuade LB to have a voluntary 20mph limit as in Manchester - and previously on Princes Street.
I would also look carefully at the bus stops and probably add some more so that all the buses don't have to queue for a single one on most stretches.
I would also get some buses to stop at fewer stops.
Imagine an X22 that only stopped at 1/3 of the stops (not just on LW) significant reduction in journey time and reason to encourage more people to use PT - also it should result in more trips/capacity with the same number of buses/drivers.
Don't forget, the consultation is today! I have dowloaded the list of points from Greener Leith, which make a lot of sense. I'll be heading down to McDonald Road this afternoon.
I doubt I'll be able to get out of work before 5.30, but will head down at that point.
Highly recommend getting down to the consultation - they have the plans (current layout and new) all laid out in a line which makes it very easy to comment.
Spoke to a couple of officials (not politicians) and contributed my 2p on various aspects. My gut feel was that cycling isn't considered a priority - too low volume VS other modes (although I pointed out the circularity of not fixing an unpleasant street because not many people use it).
I'll have a more detailed set of thoughts up on the site soon, but in the meantime - they have good free biscuits & hot drinks... you know what to do!
I really want to go, but quite worried about 'yellow alert' re freezing and ice after 6pm.
Ice & snow - in a taxi you go (with bike) generally good success rate - working to deliver 100% certainty and formalised service.
This was instruction for Tartan ride participants if they felt unhappy about riding home post Ceilidh on Friday
make the bus lanes wider (though not the two buses wide I think is planned in places 'to enable buses to overtake more easily'.
Bus lanes, as long as they don't have too many buses in them, make great 'sort of segregated' cycle lanes. Hugely wide, no cars and no parking! Roundabouts and horrible right turns? Well, um, hmmm.
David Hembrow wrote an intruiging article about how the Dutch do roundabouts for cyclists:
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/09/every-roundabout-in-assen.html
"although I pointed out the circularity of not fixing an unpleasant street because not many people use it"
It's amazing how often that one comes up.'Not many people use it so what's the point'... Well, erm, it might mean more people will use it? It's an argument I've seen a few times in EEN comments, so it should, rightly, be seen as laughable.
I'll try to get there sometime after 17:00 with my opinion as a combination local-ish buggy-wielder, unwilling occasional motorist and usual cyclist. How do these things work regarding passing comments to the organisers? Are they all standing about waiting for people to interpose themselves, are they sitting expectantly at a desk with a notebook and red pen or do they shopassistantly approach people who are standing scowling at the plans?
One of my main points I would like to make to this consultation the Council has demonstrated how miserable and disfunctional their attempts to include cycling in the time honoured fashion of a patchy breadcrumb trail of red chips and paint really are with the QBC. If they cannot do proper, segregated cycling in a wide, straight road (currently 6 lanes wide including the car park) with a wide pavement on each side, a central reservation and no major cross-junctions apart from at the top and bottom then how on earth do they intend to ever move cycling forward in Edinburgh.
The council wants to develop the Leith Docks area, regenerate it and get lots of people living and working down there. If they don't think and plan ahead and build direct, safe and convenient infrastructure in now, then it will end up like the other new developemnts and be car havens with token cycling and public transport gestures.
kaputnik - my thoughts exactly. The thing is, there is money to re-pave the footways with grey slabs the length of Leith Walk - why do this when it is much cheaper and easier to tarmac it and spend the cash on something useful (i.e. cycle lanes). It's not as though these slab are things of great beauty or make it easier to walk.
Why focus on nonsense "streetscape" issues at the expense of real improvements. You could re-pave Leith Walk with exquisite Japanese silk and it would still be four lanes of traffic plus car parking. It's never going to look, smell or sound good with the current layout.
The council does seem obsessed with putting in those horrible paving slabs at enormous expense which rapidly become cracked and uneven.
Why?
Do they have some sort of "deal" with the supplier?
"Are they all standing about waiting for people to interpose themselves"
Sort of.
Quite busy.
Those slabs are a pain, the edges seem to fill with water when it rains and if you step on a loose one you end up with mucky water up your legs and over your boots.
I made strong representation about how bad the London Road roundabout is for Pedestrians and all the council staff who live down here totally agreed. The best solution is also the best one for cyclists - a t-junction.
Didn't seem worth crying about dedicated cycle lanes or a total re-partitioning of street space when their budget is a drop in the ocean, really.
going to head there now.
On the subject of repaving and such aesthetic improvements, Corstorphine community council got a big load of money and repaved St Johns Road and did some fancy ornamental wallwork and engraved signs. And guess what? It's still a horrible road that nobody would choose to go and do their shopping on and noone in their right mind would sit at a pavement café. Complete waste of money.
I was down there at around 4pm. It was fairly busy, the officials were all chatting to folk. I did hang around to see if any would become free but it didn't happen so I didn't manage to speak to anyone as I didn't have all day. Instead had to make do with filling out a printout of the online survey, and a comments sheet specifically for the consultation day.
The consultees seemed to be in two camps: cyclists in various bits of cycling specific gear, and men in suits - I presume business people or paid lobbyists?
Anyway, seeing the plans in their entirety, apart from the things we have already discussed there a few things that stand out:
- no visible reduction in the number of parking/loading bays.
- A number of new pavement build outs which force the on-road cycle lanes out into the traffic further.
- Creation of traffic islands and 'dog-leg' pedestrian crossings, presumably so you have to cross in two movements, thus easing traffic flow.
- No cycle lane at Elm Row, though the car parking, and exit to London Road are kept as is.
Overall, it's very much just a 'refresh' of how Leith Walk works at the moment, with a few piecemeal, incremental 'improvements' for pedestrians and cyclists that don't go anywhere near far enough.
I'm not at all convinced the consultation will change that, I'm afraid.
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