CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years 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.
@PS
Yep
I think 'we' - to the extend that there is a 'we' and that that 'we' are 'cycle campaigners' need to think hard about this.
I think 'we' (as people who want to make things better for people who live here - some of whom want to ride bicycles) ARE getting somewhere -
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Cllr. Andrew D Burns (@AndrewDBurns)
10/03/2013 12:45
@CyclingEdin @SRDEdinburgh @MayorofLondon @nelly0168 @LAHinds Still work in progress:
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The major flaw with the QBC is that it was aimed at existing "cyclists", people who would ride anyway. If Edinburgh wants to be a modern European city with people riding bicycle as transport having a modal share of >20%, then they have to look to the people don't cycle as transport now (but do in modern European cities) and start providing for them.
It is not rocket science and nor is it expensive if carried out in conjunction with existing redevelopment work such as Leith Walk. It does how every require political will and leadership, something which is sadly lacking at the current time.
"It does how every require political will and leadership, something which is sadly lacking at the current time."
I use part of the QBC to cycle to work. I consider myself to be a fairly confident and assertive cyclist but parked vehicles, speeding cars, drivers overtaking at islands, drivers stopping in red boxes, poor road surfaces and old road markings that need removing makes my short cycle unnecessarily stressful. Sciennes cycle to school day, as you can see from chdot photographs experienced parked cars, buses, cars not adhering to 20mph and the result was a less than pleasant experience. Red Range rover insisted on overtaking at traffic island. Well done to the parents and children who participated.
http://cyclingschools.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/cycling-the-qbc-to-sciennes
Could the lady on the ebike who overtook me on the left hand side on QBC last week please think again. Often overtaken by other cyclists but don't expect it from the inside. If I'd moved even slightly to the left there would have been a nasty collision.
@AIMC there's a 'rubbish cycling' thread you might like to contribute to! Agree, undertaking can be disconcerting.
First picture looks a bit like Causewayside -
http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/quietways-if-you-want-to-know-what.html?m=0
Meanwhile this is how Edinburgh does road closures -
P.s. it's tram legacy.
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Theo (@earthowned)
10/03/2013 19:42
@LAHinds @greenerleith It will be sad if Leith Walk is designed anything like the QBC.
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Lesley Hinds (@LAHinds)
10/03/2013 20:18
@earthowned agreed
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@chdot Nice DS Safari though in your pic. Dont know that one; might be the Fruitmarket Gallery director's car.
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Over 75% of respondents thought the Quality Bike Corridor [QBiC] had improved cycling conditions – but the great majority of those felt that it could have been a lot better.
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http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/2013/04/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
It is better - in the same way that having two chips for your dinner is better than having one chip.
Just don't expect to be able to use it on a Sunday, or in the evening or, indeed, early in the morning.
Don't you mean 'having six chips is better than five'?
I could only get two. There was a van parked on the rest.
@AKen or during the day (lots of parked cars and vans in the cycle lanes) or during the rush hour (lots of parked cars and vans in the cycle lanes, except when the leader of the council is cycling with you). And then there's the large stretches without any cycle lanes, and the invisibility of the lanes to drivers, and, but we won't go into those.
I didn't get round to commenting on here, but I had my first experience of the QBC a few weeks ago when I went for a spin between Arthur's Seat and Observatory Hill a few weeks ago.
I joined a Salisbury Place and rolled south. For the entire length it was all a bit "meh" - some decent on-road cyclepath, with the opportunity to use ASLs at points (IIRC, I chose not to due to paucity of queues), the cycle lane largely observed but at one point occupied by a plumber's van as they took out someone's bathroom suite, some nice surfaces, a hint of red stone showing through, but nowhere near enough to be obvious in anything but the driest and brightest conditions (and when you were specifically looking out for it).
However, the real WTF moment came at the King's Buildings junction where I wanted to turn right into West Mains Road.
I must have missed whatever indication there is for what you're supposed to do (is it head onto the pavement on the left and wait for the lights to change to go across diagonally?) because I ended up in the usual turning right position in the middle of the junction but suddenly felt very exposed. I guess it was something to do with the road markings, but it suddenly felt unsafe to be standing in the junction space between two streams of cars. I'm normally reasonably comfortable waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic, but this felt wrong.
Can anyone enlighten me as to what is going on at this junction?
That is Edinburgh.
You can either turn right as you did (but not if you're in a car - the KB shuttle bus goes this way however) or you can wait for the green bike and ride across then (from wherever you please to wait, I think the idea being that you ride up onto the pavement and go from there).
There are a few junctions which allow you to cross onto pavement (Fountainbridge/Gardners Crescent, McDonald Road/Bonnington Road) with no markings on the pavement at all. So you ride across, get to a pavement, but... Then what?? Are you then allowed to ride on the pavement? For how long?
Until challenged?
I've recounted before how annoyed I was to be passed by a cyclist on the pavement near my old work. I eventually learned that this (3 feet wide) bit of pavement is actually a full blown two way cycle path plus busy walkway. Fife style!
The system is breaking down, basically. The thin end of the wedge has become the thick, etc.
@Dave - or you can wait for the green bike and ride across then (from wherever you please to wait, I think the idea being that you ride up onto the pavement and go from there).
I think officially you can't cross the solid white line on each roadway, so you need to go from a footway to use the combined cycle/pedestrian phase, so not quite "from wherever you please to wait". You're therefore not jumping a red light, rather bypassing it, in an an almost Dutch way...
Robert
IIRC there's an awkward wee indication painted on the road that you need to veer left onto the pavement to turn right, or stay on the road if you want to go straight on or turn left.
The real joy comes when you get the green cycle coming out of KB. You're meant to cycle across the crossing on West Mains Road, then onto the pavement, then round a tight little blind corner where the pavement is quite narrow, then launch yourself down a ramp onto Mayfield Road. I think only Chinese acrobat trick cyclists and Danny MacAskill would be happy pulling that off.
Everyone else cycles out of KB and straight onto Mayfield Road, which means they cut right across the path of people crossing Mayfield Road on the green man, which is awful.
Worse, if you're just innocently cycling north on Mayfield Road and come to that junction, the cycle lane plus vehicle lane just before the junction becomes just a narrow vehicle lane after the junction with no cycle lane at all - because that "launch ramp" has been built out into the road where the cycling space was before. So you have to either bunny-hop onto the pavement for a couple of yards before launching back onto the road, or man up and take the lane, elbowing the passing cars and lorries out of the way. Good luck with that.
This is one of a couple of places I can think of where the QBC design actually removed cycling space that was there before.
@cc - the bunny-hop northbound isn't actually required, as there is a convenient enough dropped kerb.
I know, as I've used that as an escape route where the "elbow cars out of the way" trick wasn't working... At that point, I considered risking an angular approach to the kerb was the lesser risk!
Northbound here has always been a bit problematic because of the left filter. You can't continue in the left lane to the straight-on ASL, or rather you do it only once, as there isn't a straight-on ASL!
I've seen a few northbound cyclists hooted or forced out of the way for daring to sit in the ASL after the left filter has appeared...
Robert
Latest development -
Looking south at West Preston Street -
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Just Another Cyclist (@justacwab)
07/03/2014 14:13
I don't like ASLs, but making them illegal to enter isn't the solution. @CyclingEdin @SpokesLothian @Edinburgh_CC http://pic.twitter.com/4JU8MMhYYc
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Previously (Google) -
The absence of the island in the middle of the west end of W Preston surprised me when I turned into it this evening almost as much as the flat surface.
Pity the cycle lane leads the left turning cyclist to a non-existent ASZ...
Might be another reason to add Magnatom's ASL flowchart - only use the feeder lane if you are absolutely sure there's an ASL at the end of the rainbow red brick road.
Robert
I wonder if they've made any more of that section between Bethany and Franco's double yellow? The filter lane is defunct under parked cars out of restricted hours but the traffic lights still give a green filter arrow at all hours, and cars whisk through the bike lane and bike box, bit unnerving to those standing astride bikes in the box!
My point (I'm @justacwab on Twitter) is that the motorist's stop line isn't dashed at the entry to the ASL box, so crossing the first stop line looks like it's also illegal for bikes (on red), thus making the box even more useless than usual.
The fact that these lights were replaced and the road resurfaced on the 'flagship' bike route without any improvement for cycling (where a left hook risk exists northbound and a traffic light bypass could be added southbound) says a lot about how cycling is viewed by the council.
At least the police vaguely clarified that cyclists can enter the stop box even if there's no dashed entry point.
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