I never said I was worried.
I'd be more inclined to drag the bairn along it if it were less boggy and more likely to cycle up it then back down rather than just going up it, stopping to scrape the mud out of my brakes with a twig then returning via the road.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Upper WoL path...
(76 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Steveo - I think wingpig makes good point about fast descenders, though they do that in the mud too. Can be a bit hairy at times if out with the kids, but mostly fine.
The Torduff route is a complete bramnmer. Would be icy at times. You take the top road past Harlaw Reservoir and continue on eastwards until it peters out a farm (at the top of The Poet's Glen no less). you then go behind the farm cottages, quite broken terrain for a bit then you come on to a tarmac road. For the quite gentle climb up to Harlaw from Balerno it is virtually all descent. you can take it right back down to Colinton and back up WoL Path or if commuting Colinton Rd I suppose? Someone told me about Craiglockhart campus cut through but never done it.
Good news the Blinkbonny to Woodhall Road path has been widened. There is much talk of the bridge at former Splash bathroom warehouse on the WoL path at Juni Green becoming access for emergency vehicles etc but so far has come to nothing.
Lymphoy Road is open access for bikes and walkers / joggers. THe east end of it at Currie Kirk had disintegrated due to water erosion but was being fixed - there were cones for a while at Lymphoy House itself. Also of note on this path, much loved by night time cyclists, the little enclosure where the small stone coffins of antiquity were found.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Ahh yes, the covenanters graves. Very interesting little site for a visit :-)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Oh I know! And I agree that a cycle route that is uncycleable is useless - but I wanted to point out that there IS a please don't tarmac the countryside argument to be made, and I do feel it's easy to say oh this is an NCN route and therefore (commuter) cyclists use of it should be the priority, forgetting that other people use and value it too.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I wonder how the council considers this route. Are they aware that it suits a particular type of cyclist and that other might be better served by other routes?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Mud so bad right now that it doesn't suit any sort of cyclist or walker.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Was quite a big operation to put the whin dust down. I remember saying to the navigators laying the path, this will all be washed away by next winter. It does make you slow down coming out of the tunnel. You would think there was a midpoint between mud, clay substance more suited for wrestling in and tarmac. Sometimes after a lot of water has washed the surface you see what looks like solid rock, the next day the mud has covered this over.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Steveo - I think wingpig makes good point about fast descenders"
So we blame the road if people misbehave? Aren't we then back to dualing the A9 argument?
Not improving a route because some people can't be trusted seems to be most ridiculous argument for inaction.
Sorry guys this would seem to me to be one of the easiest wins to encouraging cycling and walking in Edinburgh.
Saying its rural is a bit daft, its no different from the NEPN and yet most of us have no difficulty using that and doubt any of us would have jumped up and down when that was tarmacked. There is an actual mud path running parallel for much of the length of the WOL path which is more than the NEPN had when it was converted.
Posted 11 years ago # -
you get a lot of horses too. And a secret half marathon. I think it has a very diverse number of users. we all agree something needs to be donme about the current surface and that the previous improvement was a disaster darling
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I wonder how the council considers this route. Are they aware that it suits a particular type of cyclist and that other might be better served by other routes? "
The point I was trying to make by this was that the council perhaps needs to classify the cycle facilities that it has. Plans for developing new facilities should be based on priorities for these different classes. I suspect (maybe wrong) that it is just the overall quantity (length?) of facilities that is measured if that.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Oh I know! And I agree that a cycle route that is uncycleable is useless - but I wanted to point out that there IS a please don't tarmac the countryside argument to be made, and I do feel it's easy to say oh this is an NCN route and therefore (commuter) cyclists use of it should be the priority, forgetting that other people use and value it too.
I don't agree with the conclusion that - because this is a National Cycle Network route - then cyclists have priority over other users. However, I do wonder about the point of an NCN route that is no good for cycling (and not much fun for walking either).
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I wonder how the council considers this route. Are they aware that it suits a particular type of cyclist?"
The type that doesn't mind getting covered in crap?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Definitely don't think that it being NCN means cyclists have priority. but it does suggest that it ought to be fit to cycle. and it's really not.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't blame roads when dingbats drive dingbattishly thereupon; it's likewise not the fault of the cobbles under the bridges on the canal when someone goes over them too quickly to turn or stop safely.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Whenever these things get discussed I try to imagine a proposal to do the reverse somewhere else.
If the council proposed digging up NEPN or the Innocent to make it mud like the WoL that would presumably be popular with runners and so on just the same (reclaim the country from tarmac etc). Is it significant that 'we' decided to make these suitable as cycling routes for all abilities rather than keep them as wilderness?
A70 definitely didn't feel that friendly. I didn't have trouble but I was only on it after 7pm and going into town. I can't imagine putting kids on it in peak time.
Sometimes there is a definite asymmetry - we can't really harass the council to clear the surfaces of the tarmacced paths and simultaneously tell them it would be unsafe to tarmac others.
Personally I'd have thought it possible to make some kind of really good quality canal-style gravel surface rather than tarmac per-se.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Not improving a route because some people can't be trusted seems to be most ridiculous argument for inaction."
Just in case anyone thinks I said or implied this as my name appears quoted earlier in the reply, I didn't.
I was quite pleased when the Lochend path (which isn't quite in My Back Yard but which can be seen from my back window, unlike the WoL) was improved from mud-with-embedded-gravel to mostly-smooth-tarmac as it makes the dogs' eggs much easier to spot and avoid and makes it easier to push a laden pushchair.
The upper WoL used to be stuffed with smoky steaming trains and big clattery mills so it's not as if applying a smoother or more reliable surface to the gravel/mud path takes it to never-before experienced levels of desecrated rurality. It's partly the fact that some of the path-edge bushes are much bushier than they'd have been in the WoL's industrial heyday that make it perhaps wise to simultaneously introduce things which might help dissuade people from attempting to sweep around a narrow (but temptingly smooth and grippy) bushy-cornered bend they can't see round too whooshingly.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Or horses' eggs! I have to admit, I can see why dog walkers on the WoL might not be that conscientious when there are huge piles of much bigger dung lying everywhere :o
Posted 11 years ago # -
"we can't really harass the council to clear the surfaces of the tarmacced paths and simultaneously tell them it would be unsafe to tarmac others"
Really? If they're completely different types of paths in different locations with different users and different layouts?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Just in case anyone thinks I said or implied this as my name appears quoted earlier in the reply, I didn't.
Sorry didn't mean to implicate.
Posted 11 years ago # -
one problem with the current muddyness is that there is often only one negotiable bit of the track, so cyclists (and walkers) can't easily pass each other, without one lot stopping, or one going into the very squelchy bits (with risks of falling off for bikes). an improved surface would widen the ridable surface and presumable cause less conflict?
Posted 11 years ago # -
@anth - surely that's a bit circular?
As all three are of the same type (former railways) presumably the Innocent or NEPN would be really quite similar to WoL in terms of users, uses, layout and so on if treated in the same way.
Because they are not treated the same way, obviously the users and so on are now different. I would never suggest taking my neices out on the WoL path, unlike the Innocent or NEPN.
I daresay "muddyizing" the Innocent would rapidly cause to become like the WoL is now. Perhaps not so many horses...
Posted 11 years ago # -
"As all three are of the same type (former railways) presumably the Innocent or NEPN would be really quite similar to WoL in terms of users, uses, layout and so on if treated in the same way."
Well that's the thing, I'd say they're not the same at all and would remain used in different ways. From my experience the WoL path when you get out to the muddiness is much more a leisure destination in its own right with little criss-crossing paths and so on; NEPN and the Innocent are more ways to get to places.
Not sure why it's a 'circular' argument to say that places that are very different are treated differently? I might be missing something there?
If we were to take the roads as an example, should the road round the back of Arthur's Seat to Duddingston village be a wide, fast route like the Western Approach? They both carry commuters after all, the cars are the same, the layout with not much residential stuff around is the same... But they're very different 'kinds' of routes.
But as I say, seems fundamentally you think the WoL route is the same in most aspects as the NEPN and Innocent, and I don't. So we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Posted 11 years ago # -
But if the WOL were "upgraded" would it not then be used to "get places" like Balerno to town? They're only different because they're considered different they're all old railway lines used to get people/stuff places, its not like the WOL line only took you to a theme park.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"But if the WOL were "upgraded" would it not then be used to "get places" like Balerno to town?"
Perhaps more than now, which would be to the detriment of it being used as a leisure venue as it is now, hence the need to treat them differently...
NEPN and the Innocent were upgraded into travelling routes from not much more beforehand; the WoL path became a leisure option, so would be changing from that and making it a less attractive option. Yes, we can go back to the historical use and say "well it was a transport route then, so it should be now" but how far back do you go?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Another extension - surely you can't complain about plans to upgrade the Holyrood Park road to dual carriageway if you want to tarmac all of the WoL route to turn it into a cycle superhighway... ;)
Posted 11 years ago # -
How often do travelling uses and leisure uses really conflict?
The canal is busy around office closing times, the NEPN is mostly empty "off peak". Would it really be to the detriment of people going for a quiet walk to benefit the people who currently feel they need to use Lanark Road, especially going up?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm not sure how far out people are thinking, but isn't quite a lot of it very wide - so wide in fact that half could be left untarmacked thus suiting almost everyone!
Also I've been thinking about the not-concreting-over-the-countryside argument, but I think if we can get a load more people onto bikes, there'll be less demand to dual 100s of miles of road - which is a much greater level of concrete etc... so I'm now swaying towards voting to tarmac the path. At least sections closer to town - especially the muddy bit near the bridge etc. Or gravel? Does that work??
Vaguely related: A while ago I heard word of someone trying to get some gravel + path across this bit of field boundary http://goo.gl/maps/VNmCq not sure how far its got - but I think they were going for a guerilla-style flash-mob-infrastructure plan...
Posted 11 years ago # -
Another extension - surely you can't complain about plans to upgrade the Holyrood Park road to dual carriageway if you want to tarmac all of the WoL route to turn it into a cycle superhighway... ;)
Ah but, there are safe alternatives for drivers to take apart from the park. For cyclists the alternative is a route with >30mph speed differential where drivers are proven to act like idiots plus its up a steep hill which would put me off were I just getting back on the bike. :D
Posted 11 years ago # -
I was in Balerno at lunchtime today, on the homeward leg of a DIY audax. I've ridden the WOL path with my son, but didn't even consider it today as we've had a lot of rain lately. I just went Lanark Road, turned right to Colinton, across the flyover (WOL path visible below), kept going then down Colinton Road and on via Polwarth. Traffic was pretty light so it was no problem, wouldn't fancy it at peak drivetime. There's an alternative quiter route via the suburban streets which cuts out a deal of Colinton Road, I have used this with the tandem taking son to Bonaly.
To avoid Colinton Road into town you could make use of the Oxgangs to Greenhill Village route (which is generally how I get back to Morningside from Colinton)
I used to go this way in 1991 when I commuted by bike from Morningside to Balerno. All on roads: I had no idea the WOL path existed, and I'm guessing it was pretty much impassable on a bike in those days anyhow.
Posted 11 years ago # -
NEPN and the Innocent were upgraded into travelling routes from not much more beforehand; the WoL path became a leisure option
Another thought occurred to me on the way home. Since the 60's Leith Walk (Drive) has been a high throughput car centric road, surely it would be to the detriment of car travelling if its focus were to change so many years on? ;)
Posted 11 years ago #
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