CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
Well done to ALL posters
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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Edinburgh’s transport vice-convener and cycling leader Jim Orr said it was a model which should be copied here.
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He said most of the right things yesterday, but he also said (well several people agree that's what he said even if he didn't quite mean it) that there would be no bike lanes on Leith Walk.
Roibeard might have asked him what he actually meant -
DON'T READ THE COMMENTS!
For the love of God, and the sake of the children! DON'T READ THE COMMENTS!!!
It is the Evening News Website Comments.
"DON'T READ THE COMMENTS!"
Always good advice...
Fortunately few of these people bother to contact their councillors - then they wouldn't be anonymous.
Heh - I comment occasionally via the EE or Scotsman pages.
I'll read them - it's always a good idea to find out what folk who have diametr^W diameter^w opposite points of view are thinking
The comments are actually not so bad. Just the usual "but, what about hills?" nonsense.
As for the council's position on Leith Walk, what they seem to be saying "yes, let's try segregated lanes, but not just now."
Jam tomorrow, anyone?
Yep, Jim Orr was really saying "no segregated cycle lanes, bar something at the roundabouts" - we can now see what he meant. He took the simple line "there's no money" and wondered if I was a member of Greener Leith (no, just a member of the public, despite the name badge...).
He then excused himself as he needed to be elsewhere, although "elsewhere" seemed to mean anywhere that wasn't talking with Robert...
However, I managed to then wrangle a meeting with Councillor Hinds herself - I'm not entirely sure how this came to be, but did involve a (deliberate) misunderstanding of a forwarded email...
She was already talking about taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the remediation and volunteered that the budget has gone from £3m to £5.5m by going further than simple reinstatement, although clearly from the plans this is mostly for resurfacing of carriageway and footway.
Again, the line was that there was no additional funding available, so I presented the New York report and asked what was a higher priority in Edinburgh, that would generate a better Return on Investment than improved walking and cycling on Leith Walk? She didn't have a broad answer, instead speaking of broken paving slabs in her constituency.
My question (not Lesley's) is also one of priorities - is the Leith Walk opportunity going to be a better investment than other planned cycling infrastructure in the city?
IMG_1322.JPG by chdot, on Flickr
The conference also had this interesting slide...
Tilburg/Den Haag decided to build a few iconic, Rolls Royce cycle routes and achieve a big increase in cycling whilst keeping car use roughly constant (against a national increase).
Delft tried the "Edinburgh" approach, joining up existing routes to make a network, which didn't increase cycling as much, but also contained the national car increase.
Groningen cut the city up into quarters and made it impossible to drive from one to the other without going via the bypass - cycle routes remained direct. Think of it like extreme filtered permeability!
It may be worthwhile sacrificing some network joining up for the sake of an iconic route.
Of course, I'm just speaking for myself, the campaigning organisations may not wish to sacrifice their hard won local improvements for the sake of something that won't help them directly.
However, flagships don't just have a local impact, they also set the standard against which other ships are measured, and eventually they become the norm...
Robert
(Who doesn't live, work or cycle down Leith Walk much!)
PS Lesley also said that the wide median strip down Leith Walk isn't negotiable as they'll need that for the trams in the future...
Robert
Rofl! Glad to see the trams project hasn't killed the councils sense of humour...
Roibeard - thanks for this. I would be intrigued to know why the trams require a median strip down a road with no tram lines, particularly when that mediam strip will be torn up in the unlikely event that the tram lines are ever built.
Do Councillors ever question what their officials tell them? I am tempted to assume that transport officials are taking bets on what they can get away with telling Councillors. That can be the only explanation for some of the more "unlikely" answers people have been receiving recently.
Morningsider you mean like that game call centre staff play of betting who can get the most unlikely word in to a call...
I am intrigued as to what they think that median strip would achieve for the trams. Unless they want it as a tram stop like the one on Princes St. that would be a death trap on (the current) Leith walk.
"I would be intrigued to know why the trams require a median strip down a road with no tram lines, particularly when that mediam strip will be torn up in the unlikely event that the tram lines are ever built."
Yes this is all something of mystery - though I suspect LH is misunderstanding things.
At present various median strips have traffic lights at the end, so it's not a case of having a continuous 'lane'/road width available for other things.
Yes - IF tram ever got down LW it would be start again time.
CEC is paranoid about spending money that could be seen to be a 'waste' (hollow laugh)).
The carriageway resurfacing has a notional life of about 7 years - there will be no trams in that time.
I'm fairly confident that there will be plenty more utility trenches though - in spite of the whole 'moving utilities for the tram' process.
I think it's fairly likely that the segregated cycle lane northbound between the roundabouts won't happen.
Having to stop at Union Street, will stop any 'experienced' cyclists from using it and any inexperienced cyclists with still be avoiding LW/Picardy generally.
Traffic lights can be suspended between buildings or from poles placed in the footway, pedestrian phases of crossings can be extended to allow for traffic islands to be removed (possibly against best practice advice - but that is aimed at increasing traffic flow, not improving the pedestrian environment). The funds spent on building a redundant median strip could be better used building kerb segregated cycle tracks. Am I mad - is it really that hard for the Council to understand this? There isn't really a lack of money - just political will.
"Am I mad - is it really that hard for the Council to understand this?"
Probably well aware of the 'war on the motorist'....
Having to stop at Union Street, will stop any 'experienced' cyclists from using it and any inexperienced cyclists with still be avoiding LW/Pcardy generally.
Depends who has priority - if CEC had anything remotely like best practice in a world class cycling city in mind the cyclelane would have priority so cyclists wouldn't need to give way at Union Street.
Of course, as this 200 yard stretch would be the only such segregated cycle lane in the city, it's questionable whether motorists would observe this priority (or even notice it if the main signifier is the slightly lighter than normal tarmac red chip tarmac).
"Traffic lights can be suspended between buildings or from poles placed in the footway"
That would cost money they haven't got/don't want to spend.
"is it really that hard for the Council to understand this?"
They seem to get things when it's explained to them - but the officials are working on the 'this is the budget' and 'we want to propose something that councillors will approve'.
"There isn't really a lack of money - just political will"
Absolutely.
BUT there is still a genuine consultation - it's vital that people who want something different take the time to comment.
I've already suggested that they fix the road surface, take two years to plan something better, find the money and implement it WITH 20mph.
This didn't go down well with some people.
Aye.
They could.
They won't.
There could be plenty of money. They're just resolutely opposed to doing anything which will inconvenience car drivers. (Or should that be private hire car drivers?) And they're far too stupid to see that getting rid of car domination is the one thing which will transform Edinburgh into a wildly more successful and prosperous city.
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