Now with added annotations and light musical accompaniment
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Stenhouse to Balgreen path
(91 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
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Great! Was trying chunks of this a few weeks ago and there were still barriers. Will check this very soon. I suppose they'll put in those awful vertical for cyclists, horizontal for pedestrian slabs which I find chuck me off balance.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Thanks to Algo for pointing out I put up the wrong video. Here's the right one;
Posted 10 years ago # -
Excellent with music. Where did you come off the track? Name of street?
Posted 10 years ago # -
That's Balgreen Road.
Posted 10 years ago # -
It's just a shame that they couldn't build a cycle path along the whole length of the tram-way into town!
Posted 10 years ago # -
Splendid music, K.
<RP accent> "Look at her go. A hundred miles an hour! And all her passengers in complete luxury too."</RP>
The path is so close to being ready to go.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Coxy - indeed. For what would probably have been a few hundred thousand more in a multi-million budget (rounding error) it could have been brilliant. I wager the useless, artistic "shelters" [sic] and other stainless steel platform furniture comes in significantly more expensive than that.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Tried this out on Tues - fabulous! Deceptively fast too. It wqas fenced off just beside the golf course, but just cut around the fence.
Last night the same fence was up, along with another wider fence further along that needed a walk halfway across the tramlines to get around. Workie leaning up against his van gave me evil looks - I was tempted to ask why they didn't have a sign up at the Stenhouse end warning that the path was closed, rather than letting me cycle the length of the path to find that the last 20 metres or so were blocked off. However, given the way he was looking at me I suspect the answer would've consisted of some choice abuse rather than a rational discussion!
Posted 10 years ago # -
In response to an email, the Tram people have advised that this path should be completely open by mid November (no specific date given).
Oh, and that the dug up and relaid bit was due to substandard initial work by the contractors on those sections, hence the need to ruin the path...
Posted 10 years ago # -
Thanks BenN. I notice that the fences are up one day, down the next. Think there's a game of fence and mouse going on between the workies and also the local dog-walkers who seem to be making most use of the path.
It's confusing at the Balgreen end also as there's nothing to indicate you can't go up that way.
I'm not in the habit of moving fences on building sites, but perfectly happy to ride around them if the fence doesn't extend beyond the path.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The fences have been moved aside again so tonight I had a clear run all the way to Balgreen Road. Maybe this time for good?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Fencing moved and the path fully lit! Fingers crossed thats it open for good.
Probably does need a barrier/gate/fence/chicane near the balgreen road exit to stop the inevitable bampot sailing down the ramp straight onto the road and under a motor.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Still not opened up the link to the pink hill railway yet or put in the (I assume) toucan crossing on balgreen road.
Still nice though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The more I use excellent bits of infrastructure like the new bit of path, the more I get annoyed that they didn't bother putting the cyclepath over the other new bridges. They built new bridges anyway, so why not make them just 2 meters wider? There's tons of room. Last night I got hit with waiting the full sequence at all 3 sets of lights along the way..such a waste of time when there was an easy answer.
Normally I'd assume penny pinching, but they built the dedicated new link bridge to Balgreen, and the other additions would have cost a fraction of that. It really makes very little sense to have not done it.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Looks like the connection between the Pinkhill Railway path & Balgreen Rd might now be open.
I watched someone go through there (but didn't follow)
Also there is a (old/new?) path parallel to Baird Dr & the active railway between Balgreen Rd & the WoL path. It would make a nice off-road link, but it seems fenced off at both ends. Doh!
Posted 10 years ago # -
I used that path this morning to get into work, and shiny it was too. I didn't use it on the return because it is a bit of a detour. However, using it westbound means I don't have to straddle the road to make the right turn into Ford's Road.
Snowy: +1.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Yep, Balgreen Rd is now connected back to the gravel part of the railway path. I went through there this morning.
One thing to watch - there is a trench been left about 1ft wide and 5" deep where the Tarmac meets the gravel. You'll need to slow to almost a stop to traverse it. Watch out for it at night as that part of the path is unlit.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Also there is a (old/new?) path parallel to Baird Dr & the active railway between Balgreen Rd & the WoL path
This is new, built for construction traffic I suppose, I think I posted pictures of either end somewhere on another thread.
It would be nice as a new path, although it pretty much parallels Baird Drive, which is fairly quiet and the driveway to the south of the railway, both of which link up with the WOL paths.
What is clear though is that there would have been plenty of space here too to run a cycle path parallel to the tramline over wider bridges.
What will be interesting is to see what is going to be done at the toucan crossing.
If you cross on a bike from the new path, what do you do? Swerve right onto the road? Or will the bit of pavement leading to Baird Drive become shared use? That sounds typical Edinburgh.
What about the railway underpass? Is there space for a segregated path through there? Maybe not a school start/finish times.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Are we sure there is going to be a toucan crossing on Balgreen Road? If so when?
Past by there and while there are the dotty squares built into the pavement and road marking, there doesn't appear to be any other signs that it is imminent.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've noticed that on the continuation of this route towards Edinburgh Park, more than one example of incorrect signage, whether due to neds or just poor execution:
Unless neds have gone to the bother of switching with signs from further along the route, this looks like poor execution. The first denotes the (re-)start of the path from the toucan crossing and the second is immediately after crossing the entrance to the Novotel, so there was no segregation immediately before it anyway.
Posted 10 years ago # -
You think this is bad? In Dalgety bay the path from the train station leading to the centre has bikes on right, peds on left. after 150m it swaps over to bikes on left, peds on right!
I think these signs are a standard layout though. I never read the sign literally, and instead look to the white painted markings to see which side the cycles go on. On the Fife coastal path there are small plastic bollards in the middle of the path. They have this standard sign on both sides, so going west you would expect to see cycles on the south side of the bollard, but going east the cyclist half of the sign is on the north. I just read the sign as shared use, proceed with caution.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Focus the signs around Edinburgh Park station are a confusing mish-mash of contradiction. Council not willing to look at any of this stuff until the trams stuff is all compelted and the paths are "adopted" by then. Until then only pester-power directed at the trams seems to work, usually with only token results.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ DaveC
But do the signs at least match what's painted on the paths? Here it contradicts in the first instance and then switches without any lane markings in the second example.
(I always seem to have trouble getting my resized images to show up correctly on here, hence text being cut off.)
Posted 10 years ago # -
I think these signs are a standard layout though. I never read the sign literally, and instead look to the white painted markings to see which side the cycles go on.
But do the signs at least match what's painted on the paths?
Focus' photographs show the "Segregated route for use by pedal cycles and pedestrians only" (TSRGD Diagram 957). There are right-handed and left-handed versions to suit the sides that peds and cyclists must use. To install otherwise is, to this signage pedant, sloppy and inattentive.
Diagram 956 is the "Unsegregated route for use by pedal cycles and pedestrians only".
Interestingly, TSRGD states for the segregation:
"
16.15 Where a route is divided into separate parts for the use of cyclists and of pedestrians, segregation may be achieved using the continuous marking to diagram 1049 (150 mm width) or by the raised profile marking to diagram 1049.1 (see figure 16-4). The latter is more easily detected by blind and partially-sighted pedestrians. Alternatively, separation may be effected by the use of railings, a difference in level, or by the use of contrasting coloured surfaces(direction 33).
"So blind-friendly is actually "best practice" then?
Posted 10 years ago # -
@ Arellcat
A self-confessed signage pedant you may be, but I certainly don't think it's pedantic to expect the signs to echo what the route actually dictates. How would it be if a "Give priority to oncoming traffic" sign:
was facing the wrong way? Much as I disagree with peds being allowed to use the cycle half of a segregated path whilst we must use the cycle half, it's just opening things up to needless conflict if the cyclist is being instructed to use the wrong half.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I rode along this yesterday. It is really good, 100 times better than the rest of the path along to Edinburgh Park station, which is the traditional shared use path rubbish of lamp posts, telecoms boxes, too-tight spaces crammed between railings and wall, peds walking on the bike side of the line, loss of priority at junctions and those bloody yellow plastic signs in the middle of the path to warn you you're on a shared path, which, because the path is narrow, become a hazard in themselves...
Signage is woeful in places too, and the non-continuous nature of the infrastructure means you come off the east end of that nice new path then have to guess where to go next, follow your nose to Murrayfield and end up on a puddle covered and mud caked section of the WoL path.
Posted 10 years ago # -
But that end of the cycle path isn't a cycle path: it's clearly a road for drivers of maintenance vehicles to reach the transforming apparatus for the tram OHLE.
So there's no need for them to provide a Toucan crossing for whingeing cyclists, because it's a road junction. Easy peasy. That the sight lines under the bridge are appalling, and that southbound traffic turning from Saughton Drive into Balgreen Road removes all priority for cyclists trying to get to/from Baird Drive and massively increases the danger, is simply out of scope for Trams.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've been that way a few times now and always press the button, to hell with them...
Posted 10 years ago #
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