No plan will ever seem perfect to everyone - and I just wanted to pitch in to echo what @crowriver said.
Folk internally in Greener Leith are having approximately the same debate as on this board - i.e. yes it can be better but what's on offer now is a massive step forwards. So what's the appropriate response?
I wanted also to point out a couple of things that aren't immediately obvious from the pdf's. In the latest draft Leith Walk has been narrowed fairly substantially in the new design with about 5 George Street style zebra crossings added.
This will have the effect of slowing traffic right down and improving things massively for pedestrians. In effect it will mean a de facto 20mph zone.
It will also design out many of the dangerous double parking problems that beset the street.
It's also worth noting that the dangerous left feeder lanes on the northbound travel have been removed. This will make it easier and safer to cycle down as less crossing of traffic lanes will be required.
Early on the consultation process it became clear to me that achieving full length segregated cycle lanes would be a difficult case to make because it would require taking space away from pedestrians as well as motorised vehicles.
Whilst I'd still like to see mandatory lanes instead of advisory lanes (ideally inside the parking), an explicit 20mph limit, and at least a painted "buffer zone" to minimise the risks of dooring, on the northern bit of the street, the proposed lanes do already avoid many of the pitfalls seen with the QBC.
The design is a compromise, between business uses, pedestrians, cyclists and motorised transport - but the balance is one that seems to me to be a far better fit with the kinds of things that the wider majority of people said they wanted.
The segregated lane will kick in where the gradient steepens and where the number of buses starts to increase too.
The devil is in the detail. How will people cross from the two-way bike lane where it ends at Annandale Street? But I reckon these details can be ironed out, and they should perhaps be seen in terms of an emerging vision, albeit messy one, for the city centre.
Long-term there may be scope to connect the two-way bit proposed on Leith Walk to that which has been mooted on George Street. Confident cyclists may not use it - but something like that - in my view - would certainly lower the perceived risk of cycling into the city centre for many who currently wouldn't dream of it at present.
At this stage, what's more important is persuading the Scottish Government to release the cash to get rid of the roundabout and everything else. They're less likely to do it, if there's a vocal group - however small - of folk criticising these new designs wholesale and rejecting them out of hand.
So yeah, a quick plea to be constructive in your criticism. It finally feels like there's a possibility of some sort of common ground...
posts
