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.
The message should be that excluding motor vehicles makes the spaces more pleasant and people will spontaneously start to flock to them without the need for organised activities.
...And also give comfort to shopkeepers and local businesses that the absence of cars will not lead to an absence of customers, and instead will have the opposite effect. That seemed pretty evident in the shops I wandered into (and the Jolly Judge).
It's gone global!
Waking up this morning to see Edinburgh’s Open Streets being discussed in Auckland, Hong Kong, Boston.. just shows the universal nature of people-friendly places and shared aspirations across the globe. #OpenStreets #collaboration @880CitiesOrg
I really wasn’t a fan of the mixed cyclists and pedestrians. It was all a bit manic, and very hard to navigate through. It would be impassable most summer weekends and every day during the fringe.
This is not the fault of the cyclists or the pedestrians, and anger from those ignorant of street design is bound to be directed at ‘the other group’ and not the space. Ped + bike shared space simply doesn’t work for anyone once there’s a threshold of people in an area that was passed on Sunday for sure.
It was *intimidating even to me* to be passed on foot by the large photoshoot group including Lesley and Daisy, they flowed by on both sides and I really didn’t know what to do other than stop, turn around and wait until the final rider went by.
It's perhaps understandable that there might be bigger than usual crowds while they try to make it a "big thing" in itself.
(To be honest, I'm genuinely surprised at the slightly over-egged amount of publicity that the council managed to spin for an area little bigger or longer-lasting than the average demo or parade through town («waves at PoP pandas»), but all to the good for when it gets properly bigger and better.)
I'm not so sure that, in the long term, they should really try to organise a large number of activities, but more let things just happen more organically/naturally, and then there will be less crowding and more of an experience of people getting to enjoy the city centre as part of normal life (which means less pressure and less potential conflict between people walking and people cycling too).
(It would still be good if folk could counter the anti-cycling comments on the council's Facebook page, however.)
The 21st century norm is of course entertainment and distraction at all times.
So... in closed parts of streets it would be obligatory to have a street show or something else to show 'something is happening'.
But... people may have to re-adjust to streets that are just quiet. Businesses already on streets don't really need imported competition. That happens enough at festival.
Yes, cycle ped mix reminded me of St Malo. Although cars were allowed in to hotels when we were last there over ten years ago.
Open Streets thread for June 2nd
Well someone has had fun doing this, but it’s neither news nor very useful!
Many of those photos which the Evening News claim to be "Copyright: other" are quite clearly copyright Google Street View.
Do they have an appropriate licence to republish those images, I wonder? You would think that a newspaper would have a good understanding of the importance of properly acknowledging and respecting copyright…
They should at the very least be attributing it to Google! EEN could probably argue that the words they publish might approach the boundaries of news so fair dealing would likely apply. Still requires attribution though...
Ahh good old 4 pager. Because of how Ad-serves work this means that for the 4 adverts on each page, they get to reload the ad-serve 4 times if someone makes it to the end. That means that if 1000 people view all 4 pages they get to charge the advertising platforms for 16000 served adverts, despite the fact that most of the ads were served to only 1/16th of the numbers of people.
So I got advertised a CRM I already use at work by Google Ads. I've been served that ad 12 times across the three pages I looked at (and they may have it reloading in the background to serve it more than once while you're on the page) so the CRM will have paid google for at least 12 impressions, to the same person on the same article, and I'm already a user of their product.
EEN gets paid per placement so they're delighted. The entire internet is a sham and essentially a pyramid scheme.
Anyway, looking forward to taking the bairn out to explore the streets on Sunday - here's hoping for good weather.
It’s not been well advertised, but Candlemaker Row will be closed to vehicles this Sunday from 10am-4pm.
https://twitter.com/edinburgh_cc/status/1135982080125558784?s=21
Last Open Streets before the festival is today!
Yes. Not able to go but we have provided an e-trike to try and address concerns of those not able to balance two wheels and with less strength in legs.
Been a bit on Twitter about this - trike is in Grassmarket for demos. Is actually a lot of fun to ride.
Pootled along briefly myself - very pleasant as always, and no traffic chaos to be seen except on Forest Road, where there are no closed streets.
Anyone know why there's no open streets in August and September? I would have thought that the festival period would be perfect for open streets?
For the festivals period there is "Summertime streets" instead, covering a slightly different area (adding Cowgate, the eastern part of the Royal Mile between the Bridges and the Netherbow port only (sort of)).
Cowgate mental at festival good that the cars will be banned. Map looks slightly complicated but aside from the royal mile that is always closed Cockburn Street and Cowgate also being reclaimed for much of the day. Candle maker Row is a funny one as the buses are going up it. Buses going up that narrow street was one of the first things I was amazed about in Edinburgh in 1987. Second thing was no cafes open on a Sunday (Glasgow had more lenient Sunday’s opening or more heathens?)
The Summertime streets are to be "vehicle free", however it isn't clear if what was actually meant was "motorised vehicle free", or if responsible access by cyclists was truly being suspended.
Robert
Good news everyone!
Cyclists will be permitted to access locations that will be restricted to motor vehicles during Summertime Streets.
So that probably means that the vehicle free streets mapped will be just motorised vehicle free streets.
Of course, cycling down the Royal Mile at peak festival will still be daft, slow or both...
Robert
Walking round today I was told to keep to the pavement on what appeared to be an 'open street' Victotia St.
I asked the fluorescent clad woman why this would be advised.
"Because cars may come round corner quickly".
I replied "is the street not pedestrianised?", noting I was not alone in not keeping to pavement with a lack of vehicles both moving and parked.
Her answer was "why would that be?".
I replied that many cities have such streets - she wasn't persuaded that this was the case.
Turns out though she was working for a film company. They had tanker at bottom of road in pedestrian friendly Grassmarket as they maybe need wet and drab weather. Today's been not much use as far too bright!
https://flic.kr/p/2hp6P9m
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