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Broomhouse Rumblestrips - Bollards to all that

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  1. Nelly
    Member

    Ok, another couple of belters. This laughable bit of infrastructure is immediately west of Makro junction.

    Is it just me, or is this.......wrong

    Posted 10 years ago #
  2. Charterhall
    Member

    That's appalling.

    The work of plebs.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  3. Uberuce
    Member

    I now await with even more apprehension the results of the work just the corner there, going onto South Gyle Access.

    Unless I've been strikingly unobservant(which is not a big 'unless') it looks like you'll have to dogleg onto the pedestrian island there and make two separate crossings.

    I think the logic is that this makes a cheeky dash across the pedestrian red more dangerous, so no-one will do it ever again. The fly in the ointment is that it makes waiting for the lights like a good little Pavlov doggie over twice as tedious as a cheeky dash across the red.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  4. Nelly
    Member

    Bruce, yep - I dont think it will be bad if clear, but wouldnt try a wee dash if there were any peds as the central island looks quite tight for more than a bike width.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  5. shuggiet
    Member

    That's an unbelievable piece of infrastructure on one of the main cycle arteries to Edinburgh's largest 'business' area.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  6. Uberuce
    Member

    Unbelievable yet not in any way surprising.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  7. Nelly
    Member

    Reminds me of that photo of a chinese motorway with a house plonked in the middle !

    Posted 10 years ago #
  8. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Actually I think a crossing with a central island will be better for dashes across against the red, because you only need to have one direction of traffic clear, and there is some place safe to wait in the middle while you wait for the other.

    That cabinet, on the other hand, is appalling. And on brand new path too. I'm reporting to Clarence.

    The Edinbugh Trams cabinet-placement decision making tree must be interesting reading. They could have put the cabinets alongside the lamp post, or even better behind it in the earthen strip, but somehow they chose the middle of the cycle path!

    Posted 10 years ago #
  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Also emailed complaint to the trams address and tweeted at Lesley Hinds and Andrew Burns.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  10. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Look at the pedestrian side tactile slabs. Are those not cycle slabs? The spacing of the ribs looks like the wider type for bicycle tyres, rather than the narrow spacing required for peds.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  11. cc
    Member

    Thanks. I've now also reported those amazingly placed cabinets to the Clarence system.

    I'm reminded of the Cycle Facility of the Month for October 2012. I wonder if the Sighthill Cabinets could become May's starring entry?

    Posted 10 years ago #
  12. Uberuce
    Member

    @Arellcat: yep, that's the basis for my theory that there's enough slabs to do the whole path properly, but they just plonked them down PP PP PP PP CC CC CC CC rather than CP CP CP CP CP CP CP CP, if that makes sense.

    I don't know what the South Gyle Access to Edinburgh Park stretch is like, but most of the rumbles from Stenhouse to SGA are knackered, partly from freeze/thaw but mostly from tramworks vehicles driving over them. While they're repairing them, they could rearrange the slabs, perhaps?

    Posted 10 years ago #
  13. Nelly
    Member

    The only unblemished slabs are those next to edin park underpass. It is definitely due to massive vehicle damage.

    Back on cabinet topic, even in the most "point and shoot" work environment - surely someone must have had the good sense to say "er, this cannae be right". Which means someone at more senior level said "aye, this is the standard for joined up edinburgh cycling infrastructure".

    Posted 10 years ago #
  14. Focus
    Member

    My suspicion is there were no precise guidelines where to put the cabinets so they plonked them where they happened to find it most convenient for them. If anyone actually engaged a brain cell and realised the placement was stupid, they probably decided it wasn't worth the hassle for them to call a superior and get advice on what to do. Selfishness abounds where transport is concerned.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  15. Nelly
    Member

    Focus no, the cabinets have always been there, they have constructed the widened bike/ped path round them.

    Sensible solution would be to move them.

    Might be simple solution, but shouldnt have happened in this order.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  16. Focus
    Member

    Thanks for the correction. It's a long time since I've been out that way. In that case yes, they definitely should have moved them. Surely it wouldn't have been a big job. There's almost certainly enough play in the cables to allow a move so it would just be drill, fresh concrete, move. Ridiculous it wasn't done. Now, even if they do move them following complaints, we can probably look forward to a bad patch-up job over the vacated space...

    Posted 10 years ago #
  17. steveo
    Member

    If the cabinets are telecoms they'd have no chance of getting permission and BT would charge through the nose. But its not like those weren't there when the plans were drawn up...

    Posted 10 years ago #
  18. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Cllr. Andrew D Burns (@AndrewDBurns)
    06/04/2013 22:20
    @CyclingEdin @CllrJimOrr @LAHinds @SpokesLothian @Edinburgh_CC @EdinburghTrams Noted ... and thanks for the link - Lesley is pursuing this.

    "

    Posted 10 years ago #
  19. Tulyar
    Member

    @arellcat I think they may have switched the tiles the wrong way round - ratio of raised to lowered on cycle side should be 30:70 mm, should have scaled the picture with £2 coin - 30mm.

    You have a mains connection cut-out pillar (Lucy standard type) and 2 location cabinets, nearer one might be lights although it does align with BT m/h covers, and further could be BT or NTL?

    It's the bit under the ground that you don't see that gives the problem the cabinets will be sitting over a chamber built of brick or cast in concrete with ducts set in to the walls when it was built - probably running through along the main duct line along the footway so cutting out holes for ducts and running cables to a new chamber is a lot of work.

    Now if a road widening had delivered a cabinet bang in the middle of a lane, I suspect that a) the site drawings would have been very precise and identified this as a cabinet to be moved. 2) the cabinets would be shown in new locations on the construction plan.

    It was neatly summed up ny a local councillor, supportive of cycling and involved in transport, we need to get the roads sorted out for the (car) traffic with levels and transition curves, and then we bung in the the routes for pedestrians, and they can be sent pretty well anywhere, because they are so adaptable. So there you have it the priority is to design the around the severely limited 'mobility' of the motor vehicle, and rely on the adaptability of other modes in accommodating what they are left with.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  20. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I must check tomorrow if the sign on the lamp post is a shared/segregated path sign. That would be the icing on the cake.

    Looking at Google aerial images, the "problem" is immediately apparent. Previously there was a pavement following around the corner of the road and the cyclepath went straight ahead westbound, now underneath the tram embankment. So they have widened the pavement around the embankment to make it "shared" but they have widened it out underneath the cabinets, which previously I think were just on the verge.


    So they have removed a perfectly good bit of path and replaced it with an unsuitable dogleg. I'd say the onus here is on the trams project to have had the cabinets moved off the footway, at their cost, as it was they that had to relocate the path in the first place. They had to remove a significant amount of manhole covers built up in brick and concrete on the other side of the road here to accommodate the displaced cyclepath, so it's not as if they weren't prepared to make the effort on that side.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  21. Nelly
    Member

    @kaputnik - bingo.......but that presumes they give a monkeys

    Posted 10 years ago #
  22. Tulyar
    Member

    The cabinets are nothing to do with the tram as I suspected. They are for the traffic signals

    The Lucy cut-out pillar has been moved though.

    Just been to a meeting on Grunegleise (green tracks) for trams and the rep for the system used in Edinburgh was there. A very informative conversation about how the system in Edinburgh seems to deliver a finished surface substantially inferior to the same system installed elsewhere - and at a much slower rate of laying. Apparently they don't see anywhere near the same number of buses per hour running over tracks installed with this system elsewhere. Anyone got the figures? I think it's over 100/hr at peak times.

    Green track also seems to be all the right stuff for urban trams - managing drainage, absorbing pollution, regulating the climate, reducing noise and looking a lot nicer than naked ballast (which incidentally the green cover keeps 'clean' by filtering out the fine material that blocks the ballast).

    Posted 10 years ago #
  23. neddie
    Member

    I imagine that if you were blind, or partially sighted, and stepped on to the 'tramline'/cyclist side of the rumblestrip, you could quite easily go over on your ankle. It could be even worse for a smaller foot e.g a child.

    (Imagine the left side of your right shoe landing on a ridge and the right side landing in a trough, your whole foot would be at an angle that makes an ankle sprain more likely)

    Posted 10 years ago #

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