Unless there are fewer cars the city will remain horrible regardless of tinkering with pavements and cycle tracks.
So which cars should we remove? Poor people's cars, socially useless people's cars or the cars of people unwilling to sit in gridlock?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Cameron Toll to Bio Quarter
(76 posts)- Started 4 years ago by HankChief
- Latest reply from CycleAlex
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Posted 4 years ago #
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@toomanybikes. You're right. I have used the Innocent to Meadows route a few times from Teviot when going to Portobello and Duddingston.
Mostly though I go between Teviot and RIE/Bioquarter starting from George Square. General route being down St Leonards, Dalkeith rd, across the roundabout and up Old Dalkeith Rd. The segregated lane on St Leonards actually makes my life more difficult as a cyclist. If I use it I have to stop and get off it after a tiny section. If I don't use it I get cars passing very close. I cycle that route every few weeks and I can't recall ever seeing a bike on that stretch of segregated lane.
Back in 2003, living in Cardiff I went to a meeting about cycle lanes given by the chap in charge. Someone asked about why some of the new painted lanes were only 5 meters long. He said very proudly that whenever the road was dug up that the contractor had to paint a cycle lane on the replaced surface. This way he was gradually connecting the whole city without having to pay anything. He said this with great pride. That has always stuck with me.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“This way he was gradually connecting the whole city without having to pay anything”
Now there’s a plan -
Encourage utilities to dig up everywhere and paint lines.’
BRILLIANT
Posted 4 years ago # -
- Force utility companies to create segregated cycle infrastructure.
Deliberately destroy utilities so they need to be repaired.
Profit.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@toomanybikes I've heard of punishment passes for not using these lanes
Yup - my friend who works at the Royal Infirmary obviously doesn't use them when she's heading for Dalkeith Road, because they go into that road with the car park on it, and not up the main road. She regularly gets honks and points at the cycle lane when she's heading to work.Posted 4 years ago # -
You can’t judge whether cycle infra is used or not by whether it looks “full” or “empty” (compared to full or empty for roads)
Efficient transport looks “empty” (e.g railways, bike lanes). Inefficient transport looks “full”
As a family, we use the Meadows / Innocent link all the time & we would not make journeys to the Commie & Portobello by bike *at all*, were it not for the link
Posted 4 years ago # -
@neddie, good point though the meadows like most roads is busy at rush hour. Most roads not busy after rush hour? Meadow also quieter.
I was on a half day yesterday and headed out canal towpath at 2pm. It was deserted. No one on WoL path either until Currie
Posted 4 years ago # -
I use the path on Old Dalkeith Road /St Leonards twice a day. Hard to gauge how many other people I see on it, useful link one way or another even if it should be extended down the whole road.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I use the path on Old Dalkeith Road /St Leonards twice a day. Hard to gauge how many other people I see on it, useful link one way or another even if it should be extended down the whole road.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Answers to above questions from one of the consultants (paraphrased):
Can the roundabout on Lady Road be disappeared?
Can the Cameron Toll roundabout be turned into a T-junction?
No plans to improve the rest of the Liberton Road junction at the same time (Reduce number of lanes, un-stagger crossings etc.)?"We've not really looked at those - our brief has just been to design a cycleway from Cameron Toll to the RIE. We've done some modelling of the gyratory, and don't think there's much scope for removing traffic lanes."
Will it be quicker to cycle on the path or the road from ODR to Lady Road?
"Can't say yet, at this stage we've just been looking at the layout, and seeing what is physically possible."
Why can't this go as far as The Wisp?
Why can't this go as far as KB?"Not in our brief, but we've mentioned the need for that to SESTran."
What would need to be removed in order to have 1.5m wide undirectional lanes?
"Political will and funding to move the wall back."
Why isn't there priority over side roads?
"We had that at Lady Road originally, but the council weren't happy with the idea of motorists waiting on the roundabout."
Would cycleways on Gilmerton Road be a better priority than on Old Dalkeith Road?
"Not in our brief, but we think Gilmerton Road's on the council's radar too.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I guess a lot of that is kind of predictable, but disappointing.
Either they should give the consultants a brief to fully protect all movements at major junctions, or just package up 'build a South Edinburgh cycling network over several years' and give that to a consultants, or figure out what they need to do to bring this all back in-house.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I had already pretty much concluded that my consultation response would be 'Please save the money this would cost for a serious project when the political will for that exists.'
Loosing the bus lane for sub-standard infrastructure just isn't worth it. This scheme won't shift modal share.
Given @Frenchy's post I think I'll go and see Lesley MacInnes and ask her directly not to implement this scheme. Enough's enough - the consultant spaffing needs to stop (typed the consultant ironically enough).
Posted 4 years ago # -
Loosing the bus lane for sub-standard infrastructure just isn't worth it. This scheme won't shift modal share.
Would unidirectional lanes be worth the loss of the bus lane?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Why are we spending scarce AT money to design further schemes when there's a pretty big backlog of things that have already been designed? Meadows-Castle Terrace, Roseburn-Canal, Carrington Road, Holyrood Park-Ratcliffe Terrace, Easter Road all come to mind.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Would unidirectional lanes be worth the loss of the bus lane?
Good question. I dunno. Maybe, if they had priority over side streets and you could get into Cameron Toll and all that. And it was physically impossible to store a vehicle on top of them which is the other thing.
The present scheme is a free car park for the hospital.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Would unidirectional lanes be worth the loss of the bus lane?
Because south Edinburgh has has SFA in 30 years?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Would unidirectional lanes be worth the loss of the bus lane?
Because south Edinburgh has has SFA in 30 years?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Oh, also asked about the chicanes on the Bridgend-Craigmillar path and on the path between Glenallan Drive and Dinmont Drive.
They already had plans to replace the chicane at Bridgend with a bollard, but are going to look at getting the others removed as well.
Posted 4 years ago # -
How far back up Old Dalkeith Road do the queues generally get? It seems like they would have to be fairly long for the bus lane loss to have an impact.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@jonty very variable. Sometimes maybe a hundred metres past Bridgend. Mostly no queuing at all..
Never picked up how time correlated with queuing though
Posted 4 years ago # -
OK I have asked them not to build this until they're willing to;
1) Take space from cars not buses
2) Make the paths wide enough for side-by-side cycling
3) Make the paths continuousI have pointed out that the scheme prioritises the middle and upper classes over working people on the bus.
'Cycle campaigner opposes cycle lane' makes me a bit like the Roseburn Rasputin but hey-ho.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I went with segregated paths are good and all the rest is a bit shit sorry
Posted 4 years ago # -
I like the style of the visual mockups, makes it a bit easier to visualise than the engineering drawings that have been used previously. However, it is somewhat annoying that producing more designs is what the budget is being spent on rather than actually building stuff.
My biggest concern is on the first visualisation, with huge potential for conflict between pedestrians, bus passengers, and cyclists at the Craigmillar Park/Lady Road corner.Four key conflict points could be removed by relocating the cycleway to the inside of the corner, creating an area of pavement next to the road with the 2 bus stops and 2 road crossings. I have tried to show this in a quick edit:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0k4ofrdl7cuya1t/View%201%20-%20Design%20edit.jpg?dl=0 (not sure how to get this to show inline
Posted 4 years ago # -
Been thinking about the unidirectional/bidirectional argument here.
For a round trip between the Cameron Toll gyratory and the hospital, I think:
Unidirectional lanes would involve 10 uncontrolled side road crossings.
The bidirectional lane would involve 2 uncontrolled side road crossings.
Perhaps I just have Stockholm Syndrome from speaking to planning consultants too often, but that seems a pretty strong argument in favour of a bidirectional lane in this specific case. To be balanced, of course by taking the likely speeds of downhill cyclists into account.
The consultant I spoke to at the exhibition thing threw the figure of £250k into the air when we were discussing the cost of moving the wall back on the east side of Old Dalkeith Road to make more space for the cycle lane(s). If that's a realistic value it'd be well worth it, especially since the wall is falling down in places and, presumably, will need repaired at some point anyway.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“If that's a realistic value it'd be well worth it”
Would agree.
If it was a road widening...
However, suspect it might be a lot more.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@Frenchy
The wall got a few weeks of masonry repairs earlier this year.
I consider the path behind it to be 'mine' as I've cleared two fallen trees from it and run on it regularly. If the wall were moved I'd probably have to remake a large section of it but as a good citizen...
Posted 4 years ago # -
The problem with bidirectional lanes is that the council are only considering cyclists as using that one set linear route.
But this isn't how cycling works. Cyclists wish to be able to take a multitude of routes (in much the same way as drivers do), entering and exiting the route wherever they please.
A bidirectional route makes it much harder to join the route from the other arms of Cameron Toll roundabout (or indeed anywhere else along it).
The best solution would be to have a bidirectional cycle lane around the entire Cameron Toll roundabout, allowing cyclists to take the shortest route around it to their destination. That would be true cyclist (& pedestrian) priority. Take the space from motor lanes as necessary.
We don't need to continue with multi-lane junctions for cars - this is a climate emergency.
Better still (as others have pointed out), rebuild the entire roundabout as proper integrated transport exchange, with the South Suburban railway reopened in some form (e.g. tram/trains)
Posted 4 years ago # -
@neddie
Nicely put. I'll be making that point to Councilor MacInnes.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Nicely put.
Indeed.
I suppose some rethinking of wishing to avoid "uncontrolled side road crossings" is required (on my part). Cyclists can and will be coming into and out of those side roads too, of course.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Typically I might join the route at Lady Road/Craigmillar Park and leave to get my messages in Cameron Toll.
The downhill section of the road to the roundabout is best ridden fast and bold in primary in lane 2. Not for the faint-hearted. It would be awful if a cycle lane went in that didn't make the turn into a massive retail site safer and easier.
Posted 4 years ago #
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