The words "too late" spring to mind.
However YES!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Broomhouse Path
(242 posts)- Started 11 years ago by chdot
- Latest reply from steveo
- This topic is
sticky
-
Posted 11 years ago #
-
Snowy, I dont understand why you would want to use the carded overpass unless you are in a car going to the M8 or bypass?
Surely access to herm gait and other cyclable routes only makes sense via the underpass - or am I missing something?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Nelly, I guess it depends which part of EP you are in. I usually go over the carded overpass, because in general that's a quieter and quicker route to Bankhead Dr, rather than use the traffic lights at Lochside view or pedestrian routes to get to the underpass. It also means I can make a last minute impulsive decision to go up to the canal via Gogar Station Road...
Posted 11 years ago # -
We have offices in the crescent and the avenue - I may test your route tomorrow, but pretty sure I would stick to the underpass - as snowy says, too many loonies trying to use the road as a racetrack.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Cycle/cycle rumblestrips a-gogo. Watch out for the deep excavations, in this case of my ability to surprised by anything they do now.
And here's Edinburgh's newest piece of traffic-free infrastructure; a delightful half-dozen metres of shared-use pathway, easily wide enough for dog-walkers, cyclists and pedestrians. Well, dogwalkers or cyclists or pedestrians. One at a time. Slowly.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Response I got (last week) from Trams regarding Broomhouse Path.
> Thank you for your email regarding the cabinets on Bankhead Drive.
These cabinets are traffic signal cabinets for the junction housing all the traffic signal loop hardware. These are existing cabinets which were previously in the verge, however the new footway/cycleway has been built around them.
Consideration was given to moving these cabinets, however, this would require the recabling of the whole junction which was not part of the tram contract. The recabling of this junction would be a responsibility of the road network team and therefore could not be undertaken until tram works are complete. Until or if this option is considered, the cabinets need to stay in their current position.
It's a response, and interesting to see that they considered it, but decided to pass the buck, despite being presented with the perfect opportunity to move the cabinets as the junction was (and still is) being remodelled.
I replied politely pointing out that the new path does not go "around" the cabinets but directly through them!
I'll pass my thoughts on the matter on to Lesley Hinds.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Don't worry the council is on the case -
"
The Council's Capital Coalition wants Edinburgh to become a Cooperative Capital where public services work better together"
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20234/cooperative_capital/1851/cooperative_capital
Posted 11 years ago # -
Round and Round the Calamitous Cabinets the Council's Cooperative Capital Coalition Cantered.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@kaps
I got a tweet today from @Edinburgh Trams saying ;
"These were existing cabinets and can be moved to a better position later"
They also responded to my whinge about the crossing island at Makro:
"We're limited by the width of the Network Rail bridge here, there are two lanes of traffic in each direction plus the ped crossing...so theres insufficient width to provide a wider island unfortunately"
Posted 11 years ago # -
Went round the EP Station/Cultins Road area recently -
http://www.everytrail.com/trip_pictures.php?trip_id=2083833&code=
UPDATE
Posted 11 years ago # -
"We're limited by the width of the Network Rail bridge here, there are two lanes of traffic in each direction plus the ped crossing...so theres insufficient width to provide a wider island unfortunately"
Why do they need an island here anyway? There's wasn't one before the path was re-routed and if it hadn't been staggered then the narrowness wouldn't have been a problem.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Nelly, they can't count. There's 3 lanes in the southbound direction as the bus lane has been re-instated.
Agree with Aken - there never used to be an island here, so why bother addidng a new one? (I reckon it's to allow traffic lights to be phased to provide more green-light time for motorised traffic.
Posted 11 years ago # -
kaputnik: "Round and Round the Calamitous Cabinets the Council's Cooperative Capital Coalition Cantered"
The mistake people make about the Council is to assume that it is a cohesive entity. Corporate Services might portray it that way in their publicity material but from a Departmental perspective there is almost no interdepartmental communication or collaboration. Everyone hates Social Work because they have the biggest budget and work to their own set of guiding principles. Recreation is everyones favourite but is tiny and getting tinier because almost nothing it does is a statutory provision. Corporate Services are supposed to provide marketing, web services etc. to all departments but have a one-size-fits-all approach. Thousands of your city's digital photographs were lost within the last two years because the department holding them couldn't afford the storage which they had to buy from the ICT provider (BT).
Posted 11 years ago # -
"couldn't afford the storage"
Were they being overcharged?....
Sounds like Flickr would be cheaper!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Overcharged by a factor of about four I think. The awful thing is that they could afford the storage if they had gone out and bought it on the high street. But that wasn't allowed so the photos were deleted and the existing storage re-used. The guy was seriously pi**ed off about it.
These were big files; uncompressed about 40-50MB each.
Posted 11 years ago # -
This sort of "corporate services" internal "provider of choice" nonsense isn't restricted to the council. We're hamstrung with the same set of misguided flavour-of-the-decade management and organisational structures in the "state-owned private sector". It defies logic and is almost impossible to work out who does what, reports to who and is responsible for what. I guess that's the idea?
We're also locked into the same sort of dreadful contracts with "preferred contractors" that promise the world, deliver nothing and charge us well above off-the-shelf market rate for the priveledge.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Does anyone know if there are any plans to do any more to this "crossing"? I don't think my tyres will cope...
Edit- image link hasn't worked, if anyone can figure out what is wrong, please give me a shout!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"if anyone can figure out what is wrong"
It's not an image link.
"Does anyone know if there are any plans to do any more to this "crossing"?"
Presume so - it will link to Cultins Road underpass, but not to Cultins Road itself sensibly!
Posted 11 years ago # -
My assumption is that they've deliberately left this crossing unfilled at the moment to stop people using it and to deny access to the otherwise perfectly serviceable bits of path on the other side, thus forcing a lengthy and unnecessary detour through the inadequate link at the station
Posted 11 years ago # -
Ah, good point about the "image" link, I copied the wrong one, oops...
Thought it was a bit odd that they had removed the fencing in this area, I would expect that the crossing will be put in later but thought it was odd to fill in with stones now when they'll just have to remove them to do the work.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
Dave H (@BCCletts)
12/06/2013 23:55
@John_Jamieson @CyclingEdin PedeSTRAIL units. Job that size in a couple of hours (normal heavy rail work team). May be waiting track tamping"
Posted 11 years ago # -
Pleased to report that the quagmire on the path outside Saughton House offices was being attacked with brooms and a pressure washer this morning after a couple of weeks of Clarence reports, Twitter exchanges and emails to various places.
This mess, which was hazardous enough on its own, was between two sets of the (incorrect) rumble strips and was now beginning to freeze over to boot, making this section of the path very hazardous to navigate.
The mess of mud, water, grit and larger stones was entirely caused by the Trams contractors, who had been using the grass verge both as a layby and as vehicle access to the tramstop. There is no layby, dropped kerb or vehicle access to the road here, so every time they drove across they were churning the verge into mud and spreading it ever further across the path. The ruts in the verge were then filling with water and flooding the path.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yay! My back wheel did an alarming slide to the right on that last week and I nearly came a cropper.
I also had the curious experience of being hit by a big gust of wind the other week whilst going over these rumblestrips and sliding sideways.
Has anyone brought up the concreted 'access' further along the path to the workies 'compound' that's now been removed? I'd love to see that removed and the tarmac path restored.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm pleased to report that the path was indeed cleaned, the damaged verge infilled with substantial quantities of gravel chips and the whole verge coned off.
I'm not surprised to report that by this morning that the cones had been parted and a workies van had driven across the verge and was parked up at the tram stop. Unsurprisingly it had excavated a large amount of the loosely packed chips back across the path.
The trams contractors really are p**s-take merchants. I'm going to compose a sharp email to them over lunch asking them to clarify if this is permanent vehicle access for the trap stop (in which case they must construct it to this standard), temporary access while it is fitted out (in which case they must put down appropriate temporary matting to protect the verge) or not required at all (in which case it must not be used).
Posted 11 years ago # -
They also keep cracking the rumblestrips by driving over them along the path. I've reported a few and had them replaced over the last 8 months, but I suspect they'll need replaced again by the time the trams start running.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@threefromleith the whole lot will be getting replaced once the Council adopts the path as they are the wrong sort (blind awareness, not cyclist). But council won't touch it until tram works have finished as it's not an adopted path and they won't do that until it's all complete.
So in the mean time we have to put up with it being used as a building site.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Anyone asked them recently about when the crappy crossing at Makro will be finished?
I am happy to send my 6 monthly tweet / email, but am losing the will to live over the nonsense responses.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Who do you email? I'll do it if you want. I had over 3 years of to-and-fro emailing between the Council, Edinburgh Park Management and Network Rail trying to get the underpass flooding sorted out, but since that was resolved I've got a bit more time to spare ;-)
It'll be a nice change from trying to get the cooncil to sort the sinking section of the Shore which, for almost a year, has been making every flat in my stair shake and crash about every time a vehicle hits it....
Posted 11 years ago # -
Council won't touch it.
Posted 11 years ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.
posts
