Picture always helps. Will send this on to cooncil.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Broomhouse Path
(242 posts)- Started 11 years ago by chdot
- Latest reply from steveo
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Posted 10 years ago #
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@kaputnik Great picture! I'd suggest that the 'internal usable width' should actually be the measurement between the crossing-signal-post (foreground left) and the opposite railing (foreground right). Reason being that this is the [real, actual] gap cyclists and pedestrians have to squeeze through when arriving at the island.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Perhaps also an indication of how much space two pedestrians take up when passing each other. (Let alone two bikes - this is supposed to be a toucan crossing after all.)
Posted 10 years ago # -
It would be handy to get a few models (pedestrian and bike) to take some "in use" photos. Good idea.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Could have done it last night. You could see the problem just caused by one bike and one pedestrian. I entered the traffic island heading West just as a pedestrian entered the other side, heading East. We both stopped, looked at each other, both realising there really wasn't any practical space in the constricted island bit for both of us at the same time.
Got it sorted after a second or two of 'after you ... no, after you ...'. Pretty hopeless solution, though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
If two bikes with double panniers try to pass each other, there's a good chance we'll need a crowbar and a crane to sort out the mess...
Posted 10 years ago # -
Is this crossing actually a 'toucan'? I noticed last night that the crossing lights show only a pedestrian symbol - with no bike symbol (unlike the other Broomhouse Path crossings).
Perhaps the intention is that cyclists dismount to cross - although a couple of dismounted bikes trying to use that narrow central island isn't going to help matters.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Is this crossing actually a 'toucan'?
Now you mention it, I checked this morning and was surprised to find it's not!
It should be, it replaced a Toucan, but it's no longer!
Yet another thing to complain to the council about in my email...
Posted 10 years ago # -
Marvellous. Just Marvellous.
Model. Cycling. City. TIE.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@kaputnik - don't be silly, it's not wide enough for a cyclist to ride across...
Robert
Posted 10 years ago # -
Thanks to Uberuce for pointing it out to me, I've been getting to the Broomhouse path from Balgreen Road next to the Jenners Depository - what a beautiful piece of smooth asphalt, if only all paths / roads were like this... Sigh!
Anyway that takes you up and over the tram bridge before zig-zagging across the tram lines and heading along the original path where you then have 2 roads to cross before getting to the farce that is the South Gyle access crossing (one of the aforementioned crossings has an interminably long wait if you've just missed the Toucan green phase), however the tram line itself crosses these roads via bridges. These bridges would appear to have enough of an apron that you could cycle over them.... Can you? Has anybody done it? You would have to cut across the grass to do so. I've not checked but would the same also apply to the South Gyle Access bridge? Is this eventually going to be joined up to the section from Balgreen to give a cycling "Autobahn" to / from the Gyle area?
Given the number of people that work in the Gyle area, I'm just surprised that more effort hasn't been put into making non-motorised access to and from this area easier? ... In fact it almost appears to have been designed to be as inaccessible as possible by non-motorised means given the speed of the roads, volumes of traffic and poor infrastructure provision for active travel!
Posted 10 years ago # -
Twinspark, you can't use those bridges. Suspect the existing ones too tight for a path, but no excuse for the one recently built at south gyle access.
I will still get home from edinburgh park before car drivers tomorrow night though, so its not all bad.
Posted 10 years ago # -
You can't cycle those bridges, although most of them actually have a maintenance footway on each side. So it's not as if another 2m was needed each side, a metre would have done it!
I think chdot took a photo of me cycling over one of the bridges not long after the tramlines were laid on one of our "inspection" tours.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'm no engineer...but would it be possible for them to retrospectively fit some sort of cycleway to the side of those tram bridges?
Naturally it would have been vastly simpler if they'd just made the bridges a metre wider, so this is firmly in the 'doh!' category.
The argument that they were under extreme pressure by that point to save all possible cash doesn't stack up because they built it on the new diagonal bridge nearby and built a huge long stretch of brand new path as well.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"The argument that they were under extreme pressure by that point to save all possible cash doesn't stack up because they built it on the new diagonal bridge nearby and built a huge long stretch of brand new path as well."
Don't think 'cash saving' was a factor.
That bridge was 'necessary' as it crossed the railway. Though as there is a 'perfectly decent detour' I was really surprised that it was planned.
The other bridge 'possibilities' were always regarded as 'pointless' as bikes could just cross at the lights.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"would it be possible for them to retrospectively fit some sort of cycleway to the side of those tram bridges?"
Yes, but a simple self supporting structure would probably be easier and as cheap to install - but there's no 'need'/money.
Posted 10 years ago # -
there's no 'need'
Sort of true until recently, but now that we've determined that the crossing at South Gyle Access has been downgraded from a Toucan to a pedestrian Pelican crossing, cutting the cycle path in two at the busiest junction with no way for cyclists to (legally) cross, there is arguably a need for something...
Posted 10 years ago # -
"there is arguably a need for something..."
YES!
A crossing with so much time for peds and bikes that motorists demand a cycle bridge!
Posted 10 years ago # -
Have you noticed the two rows of studs in the road on the left hand side (St Auggies/Forester's High side) which seem to indicate a 'bike' lane from the island to the pavement?
Hilariously badly-done: they're not parallel and get much closer together as they go across the road. They obviously ran out of studs too as one of the rows just stops part-way across. Not only that, but if you were to follow the 'lane' between the studs, it looks like it takes you into the full-height kerb instead of the drop-kerb.
Does anyone actually inspect the quality of work carrried out these days? (I realise that this is probably a stupid question as the answer here is obviously 'No').
Posted 10 years ago # -
I cycled the Broomhouse Path from Bankhead Drive to Balgreen yesterday evening.
The crossing at South Gyle Access just beggars belief. What a waste of space! The railings really hem you in, and highlight more than ever before the design philosophy that pedestrians and cyclists are simply a nasty irritation.
There are a bunch of tactile flags that are still the wrong type. I counted three or four separate installations, mostly along the Broomhouse stretches, and they were all horrible slidy things with recent leaf mulch and squelched-in mud.
And that bit where the cycle side of the path, just after a lovingly installed "shared-segregated path!" bollard, becomes blocked by all the equipment cabinets is just hilariously bad.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Arellcat - yes, all your points are 100% valid and comprise part of the rich tapestry of my daily commute !
I think that 'crap infra fatigue' has now set in for me, as I now just take avoiding or mitigating action (e.g. using the 'not quite close enough' crossing at Fords Road to avoid being squished crossing Gorgie Road)
Posted 10 years ago # -
Arellcat - you forgot to mention the pointless bollards installed at various locations along the path in the last year (originally big plastic hi-viz/reflective things, recently replaced with slim, near-invisible black ones).
It used to be a reasonable path and all we ever had to complain about was the perennially flooded underpass by Edinburgh Park Station.
The tramworks & path 'improvements' over the last 3 years have totally ruined it by adding unnecessary obstacles along its length.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I hate that path now as I find it a bit tricky going over the flags and usually slow down to less than walking pace. If I am out that way I usually stick to the road as i feel it's safer. Well done edinburgh council!
Posted 10 years ago # -
I don't know, it all seems like a lot of missed opportunities to me. My personal opinion is that it wouldn't have cost any more to do things "right" for the existing pedestrians and cyclists who use this path to get to the Gyle area, along with what I assume is a large untapped potential (given the number of people that work in that area) of people that would / could engage in active travel?
If it was 1 or 2 little "mistakes" I could write it off and be optimistic in thinking it would get fixed however it just appears to be a litany of ineptitude. I said before about the crossing with the interminably long wait... If you're heading East that's after pressing the button for the crossing... The buttons for which are either down Saughton Road on the pavement if you stay on the bike side or involves crossing to the pedestrian side and blocking the pavement (and being on the "wrong" side when the lights finally deign to let you cross. If this was the1950's some of it would be excusable however surely with computer modelling and visualisation it is not beyond human kind's wit to virtually walk / drive / cycle the designs before they become plans and then physical reality?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Lights have now appeared at the Balgreen Rd end of the path for the new crossing. Not operational yet, they are still under wraps.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"crossing with the interminably long wait"
It takes me the same time today to travel to/from work as it did before the tram people messed with the infra.
Back then, I used the road - prefer the path for various reasons.
Some daft decisions, no question, but let's not get carried away.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I spoke to a worker doing something to the lights at the Balgreen end of the path - he said the new lights ought to be up and running towards the end of next week.
Shame it looks like it's just a Pelican though; no attempt to aid cyclists coming off the cycle path to integrate back onto the road.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Met a trams contractor trying to get into the substation at the end of the path, both getting irritated trying to convince the other to go first. I wanted him out the way so I could concentrate on the ice at the other side of the junction he becuase he'd stopped at the end of the bus lane to facilitate my crossing.
Posted 10 years ago # -
This morning there was a mini-digger being unloaded onto the path from a Transit/trailer combination which was completely blocking the path at the Stenhouse end. Fortunately in a weird way, the traffic had conspired to completely block me getting onto the path anyway so I was on the road (ended up doing the cycle on the right-hand-side and nip onto the next pedestrian crossing maneouvre to get on).
At least they had a broom and were clearing up the muck that the digger had left in its wake.
There's still a big gravelly, muddy mess outside Saughton House. I must re-clarence that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Word to the wise regarding the Stenhouse end of Broomhouse Path: lots of gravel shards, chips and general road surface debris across the full width of the path c.11:00, coming out of the chicane.
Didn't stop and didn't see any obvious culprits but it looked suspiciously like part of the road had finally been beaten into submission by the weight of the traffic along there and had exploded onto the path.
Posted 10 years ago #
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