CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years 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.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
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The Association of Train Operating Companies has published a 'Cycle-Rail Toolkit' containing guidelines to help railway managers and local authorities make it easier for passengers to combine cycling with rail travel.
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The actual "toolkit" is here (pdf).
Pretty good, I have to say. Clear, with a wealth of information and even diagrams showing cycle parking specs.
Let's hope the TOCs read it...
Let's hope the TOCs read it...
It has supposedly been written with the input from several TOCs. But it did strike me as very Englandcentric, indeed, Londoncentric; Scotland is mentioned only by way of one photograph of cycle storage inside a carriage: nothing about Waverley, and how not to put all your cycle parking as far away as possible from the main concourse when refurbishing a station. Mind you, the document does hint that 'best' practice (aka Dutch) is to have your cycle parking outside the station itself.
Nice to see some acknowledgement that people do ride non-standard bikes. Section 4.6 mainly concerns itself with electric bikes (weight) and people with trailers. Tandems get one mention, cargo bikes one mention, trikes and recumbents apparently don't exist.
The diagrams at the back are good, and fall fairly well into line with the numbers I like for spacing and size. But there are just three pages dedicated to taking bikes on trains, and one of those (the Tube-alike map) seems there only because SouthWest Trains sent them a really pretty looking case study!
Problem with Haymarket, Queen St & Waverley, is that a high percentage of passengers go through the limited number of "extra wide gates", cyclists, prams, wheelchairs, season ticket holders.
Leaving the narrower "standard" gates largely unused. Not including,that at Haymarket the extra wide gate is next to the main door.
Yes, that is a bit annoying.
Do season ticket holders not have the ability to use the standard gates? I.e. do they not have a swipey card?
At Stirling Station the extra wide gate operates with a card reader and as such hardly anyone uses it.
At Haymarket you have to take your season ticket out of its little folder and feed it through the gate in order to go through the standard gate. Or you can just wave your season ticket at the person at the wide gate.
At Waverley you need to feed the wide gate as well as the normal ones, and I assume that we're getting that kind of gate at Haymarket too, with the upgrades.
On the subject of the toolkit document, I did like the bit where they say "don't install pretty-looking but useless cyclestands because people either won't use them, or will use them in ways you don't expect". To be honest, people who want to take bikes on trains are inconvenient to the TOCs. They'd rather you left your bike at the station - hence the emphasis on good, secure bike parking over taking bikes on trains.
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