The 7P's philosophy comes to mind...
P1sh poor planning promotes p1sh poor performance!
LOL - and not confined just to transport projects!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Tram debate
(57 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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Have to say, haven't yet experienced the 'rail groove crossing' problem yet, but I'm on more than 2 wheels and they're 'chubbies'!
Rumour on the street is that tram loose ends are being tidied up ready to 'hoof' BB back to Jairmanee!Posted 13 years ago # -
I have to admit that the replacement of the Roseburn path with something even less useable than the Union Canal towpath is one of my biggest objections.
Segregated facilities almost never work, but in the case of a genuine grade-separated cross-town expressway like the Roseburn (or Innocent) we have something that works, that is massively used, and can never ever be replaced.
I think supporting it over the option to put the trams on-road and serve the Western was was insane.
Posted 13 years ago # -
don't take away my Roseburn path....
pretty please...Posted 13 years ago # -
Rumour on the street is that tram loose ends are being tidied up ready to 'hoof' BB back to Jairmanee!
the edinburgh park to stenhouse stretch has been tidied, and all work stopped but no where near finished - still seems one bridge short
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think it is about time that the whole thing was given the bye(eee). Time for the whole debacle to end. Stop wasting any more money, time, effort, thinking, well everything about the flaming non-running/never-will-be-running tram. Fill the tracks with a T-shaped rubber track filler and let us get on with normality. Sheesh. Let's move on to the next REALLY, REALLY, big waste of money... a NEW FORTH ROAD BRIDGE!!
Posted 13 years ago # -
a NEW FORTH ROAD BRIDGE!!
got to get more cars moving betwixt Edinburgh and Fife somehow or another. Or the world might end. Or something.Posted 13 years ago # -
the edinburgh park to stenhouse stretch has been tidied, and all work stopped but no where near finished - still seems one bridge short.
I spent an hour or so out at Edinburgh Park at the weekend and had a long look at the big tram bridge. If the trams aren't going to happen, please can we use the bridge and the cleared route to get to the other side of the A8? Pretty please?
Actually, anywhere they were making a tram route they should have paralleled with a cycle route. Trams get mobility priority. Trams use rails, and rails like flat ground. Cyclists like flat ground. But all we have is a load of muddy torn up land, two huge bridges spoiling the view, and our flagship street is now twice as dangerous and just as noisy.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I'd love to see it used as a cycle superhighway into the Gyle / Edinburgh park. Considering the 1,000s of people who work here, the Edinburgh Park management people provide absolutely zip in the way of facilities. They own and maintain a large number of the roads (not sure which ones exactly), but South Gyle Crescent is certainly a no-go zone and any bike parking is provided at the discretion of tenant companies. The current cycling "access" into South Gyle / Edinburgh Park is as follows;
* The flooding E&G railway underbridge at the foot of Cutlins Road. Theoretically joined to the off-road cyclepath from Broomhouse but tram works doing their best to get in the way. Or a short trip up/down the Cultins Road from the canal that is busy with lorries, cement mixers, white vans, construction traffic, deliveries to the Hermiston Gait stores and Royal Mail kamikaze postmen. From here you're on a narrow, unsegregated pavement mixing it with sleepy workers going to/from Edinburgh Park Station. If you want to cut right at the bottom past HBOS / Lloyds you've got a couple of sharp and tight right-angle turns and then find yourself on a road blocked by a barrier and having to do some risky pavement and kerb work to get back into the traffic.
* By road via South Gyle Station, but you have to mount a segment of pavement (it's signed as the cycle route) across the road to prevent cars using it as a rat run and then you have the challenge of the high-speed roundabout at the intersection of South Gyle Broadway / Crescent
* By road onto South Gyle Broadway from Bankhead. Not a huge amount of fun as the junction is a proper bottleneck with busses, cars, lorries and taxis all vying for position and the exit buslane had been suspended for about 2 years (thanks to tram works)
* By road from the Gogar Roundabout. Enough Said.
* By pavement through Gyle Shopping centre
* From the A8 "cyle path". Involves walking or riding the bike broadside across the Bypass (both directions) and the South Gyle access road, then finding a way to negotiate your way off the pavement and back onto the road in the correct direction.
* Across the ploughed field to nowhere, over the haystacks or farming waste invariably dumped across the right of way and through the tunnel full of construction waste. Then have to mount some pretty severe kerbs if you want to use the footpaths (not sure if that's technically alloweD) and avoid having to go round the full length of the perimeter road
* From Gogar Station Road, the overbridge across E&G railway line down a badly and very roughly surfaced access road, alongside the Gogarburn in the culvert under the Bypass. Again it's either up the big kerb or round the permiter roadSo basically - the road routes are dangerous and in fast moving, busy traffic with constricting junctions. The "cycle" routes are just p*ss poor and each and every one has a number of big ticks in the fail box.
Now I've written that, I feel a photo-essay coming on!
Posted 13 years ago # -
I feel a photo-essay coming on!
While my eight-foot invisiblebike is cumbersome, at least I can stand up and haul it over a kerb or somesuch, if not perhaps a locked gate or Sustrans barrier. There are a few handcycle riders in Edinburgh, and they will undoubtedly have a real problem accessing the Gyle area safely.
The trams haven't made Gyle cycle access worse per se, but ... no, actually they have. End of story.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Just noted "kamikaze" Royal Mail postmen (I take it you mean drivers) and ask the question... "is it a pre-requisite to be completely devoid of any sense, and have the inability to adhere to speed restrictions, read your speedometer, to become a RM driver?" They do hurtle about at an alarming rate without due consideration, and the post is still late!! (BTW - I used to work for RM - and cycled to work, and was not a van/lorry/pantechnicon driver) :-P
Posted 13 years ago # -
"The current cycling "access" into South Gyle / Edinburgh Park is as follows;"
So many options! Lucky you!
Actually, I think there is another route from South Gyle Station that follows the path on the south side of the railway and eventually dumps you out into one of the Gogarloch streets from which you can get to the Gyle Centre.
I was shown this route once (east to west) then tried to follow it again a few months later (in the other direction) and found it almost impossible to find again.Posted 13 years ago # -
So many options! Lucky you!
And not one of them is currently much more than a joke!
Actually, I think there is another route from South Gyle Station that follows the path on the south side of the railway and eventually dumps you out into one of the Gogarloch streets from which you can get to the Gyle Centre.
I've just checked the google satellite and so it would seem. News to me! Looks equally like it runs into the shopping centre too. Whether it's just a footpath or designated mixed use I will have to investigate. I've cycled through Gogarloch nearly every work day for last couple of years and I'd get lost this evening if I strayed off my usual beat. It's one of those warrens of twisting culdesacs so beloved of housing planners trying to achieve an optical illusion to defy how many identikit houeses they are really tring to squeeze in
Posted 13 years ago # -
We took the 35 to the airport today, and were fairly appalled by the cycling provision. Noticed every cyclist we saw was in hi-viz.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"I think there is another route from South Gyle Station that follows the path on the south side of the railway and eventually dumps you out into one of the Gogarloch streets from which you can get to the Gyle Centre."
http://edinburgh.cyclestreets.net/journey/342572
Actually it goes to the road round the car park.
Posted 13 years ago # -
As a Nu Leither I have to say I'm V. P O'd with the fact its not now going to get to the shore. Leith Walk business have been hammered for years by the building works and will now get nothing from it.
Plus, i think the whole Leith/Newhaven/Granton area was one that could have really benefitted from the trams.
Instead we complete the link to the airport which pretty much blows any 'green' credentials out of the water.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Bananaman: as an ex-leither (and unfortunately still a property owner near a proposed tram stop) I could not agree more.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think there is another route from South Gyle Station that follows the path on the south side of the railway...
Yup, already discussed here a wee while ago. Quite a good route actually, until South Gyle Road dumps you out next to Meadow Place Road.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I just read the Guardian article on Helsinki. Forget the trams, let's have that underground vacuum based rubbish disposal systems.
Reasons for tram:
*It's a massive infrastructure project, everyone loves those.Reason for awesome underground trash moving system
*It's a massive infrastructure project, everyone loves those.
*It would solve the problem we have with the bin men.As you can see from my analysis trams have one supporting reason, while the cool trash system has two - that's 100% more than the tram system. And as the trash system is just a hugh packet switched network I'm sure we could adapt it to move people too. So no need for the trams.
Cool underground rubbish magic please. Pretty please.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Interesting comparison, but the author kind of glosses over the fact that the Helsinki tram has been there since it was re-established in the 1970s - it's much easier to expand something that's already there than it is to start from scratch and it's much easier to keep the punters on board with the scheme if it's already being used as the principal means of public transport (rather than a static tourist attraction on Princes Street.) Maybe in 40 years Edinburgh will have forgotten about all the faff we've been going through for the last few years and might look back and have lots of
tram linesoff-road, segregated cycle super-highways and be planning to add more.Posted 13 years ago # -
TIE have admitted that the tram will only get built to St Andrew's Square.
I say admitted - the contractors are saying they will only build it to Haymarket..
Posted 13 years ago # -
Yeah more headshaking quotes -
"
"They [the contractor] don't want to go further than Haymarket because they don't want to get on to any on-street sections."
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Posted 13 years ago #
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Cracks show on Princes Street tram tracks
MORE cracks have appeared in the tram tracks on Princes Street.
New evidence has emerged of Tarmac surrounding the tram lines beginning to disintegrate and the rubber lining becoming deformed.Basically reporting what was already common knowledge for months...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Taken this afternoon. Would have been cheaper to stick them down with gaffer tape, would probably have been just as durable as whatever the substance they ended up using...
Posted 13 years ago # -
The subsidence-like decay to the left is slightly more worrying than the tearing on the right...
Posted 13 years ago #
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