Scottish Infrastructure

[jamamafegan]

Hate the classic attitude of “it won’t work here” or “nobody will use it, waste of money.”

Trams will always be a success because they are better than buses. Buses are shite. The success of the borders railway is not a surprise to me. People in this country will use railways if they are readily available to them - which is why I think more stations must be opened on existing lines and old lines must be reinstated. It’s quite baffling how an SNP government, given how intent they are on cutting carbon emissions and improving transport, haven’t made more moves on this front.

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

I've not much experience of The Netherlands, but in Denmark bikes work far better than they ever will in Edinburgh for three reasons:

1. Geography. Edinburgh is hilly as f**k you can't just slowly roll away when the light goes green if you're facing a 10% incline. People just won't be fucked with that.

2. Existing infrastructure. Danish cities have loads of wide boulevards where you can forego a lane of traffic for some bikes without much issue. Edinburgh mostly has narrow roads. Also, UNESCO cobbles.

3. Weather. Edinburgh is fucking windy and often wet.

 

1 hour ago, DiegoDiego said:

1. With Copenhagen levels of uptake you don't have your own space to get up a hill as there are hunners of pissed off folk behind you trying to get past. For the cost of an ebike you might as well use an ebus or ecar.
2. Fair point, but as has been mentioned further up the thread, with Edinburgh people want to go all over the place from every direction so it's not an easy task.
3. I've lived in both Sjaelland and Edinburgh. I'd take a Copenhagen winter over an Edinburgh one any day. The wind in Edinburgh is funneled up its main thoroughfares due to narrow streets and topography. It'd be a rare day I'd leave the bike at home due to weather.

Perhaps I'm projecting, but I think you're underestimating how little the general public enjoys cycling uphill against the wind after a day at work. Couple that with the phenomenal rate of unfit "at risk" adults and you could chuck all the money you'd like at the problem and still never get close to Copenhagen's numbers. Lack of infrastructure isn't what's stopping students from cycling from Marchmont to Chambers Street, people just don't fucking want to.

I'm all for more people cycling but that's not where the big gains will be made in Edinburgh over the next twenty years.

1. I think hills are over-stated as an obstacle, ebikes are coming down in price and you can get a zero interest loan for them. You get decent ebikes for a grand so you can't compare that to a car. The reason more aren't sold isn't because the demand isn't there, it's because the kind of people who would buy them wouldn't cycle on our roads while they're this dangerous. If you've ever come up Leith Walk on an ebike you'll know that it removes the issue of Edinburgh's hills pretty much entirely.

2. Edinburgh may have tighter roads than Copenhagen, I wouldn't know, but it's definitely not tighter than Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam, Gouda or any number of historic Dutch cities. And tbh I don't think Edinburgh's roads are narrow at all.

3. As Ginaro says, it rains more in Amsterdam than in Edinburgh, it's colder there in winter and it's windier too. I know that's not the perception but it's a matter of fact - whatever is stopping us from cycling more, it's not weather. And research from Dutch and German towns and cities shows that, the better the infrastructure the less the dip in bike use when the weather is bad, to the point where the effect is negligible in most of the Netherlands.

 

Having worked there for 20 years I think there's massive pent-up demand for cycling in Edinburgh and if they put in a serious network of segregated routes there would be an explosion in use. I think it would increase tenfold in a handful of years. It's absolutely that kind of culture and it's the perfect size.

[GordonS]

2 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

Cars, trains, buses, trams, cycles why don't you build some canals while you're at it?

Bloody Dutch have cornered that market too. They've just turned a motorway into a canal: 

 

[tamthebam]

I'd be happy to see segregated cycle lanes in Edinburgh. They have a temporary one in Leith Walk and I saw some boot walking on the cycle side and I thought that would annoy me if I was a cyclist as much as cycling on the pavement annoys me.

[strichener]

18 hours ago, GordonS said:

 

To put the numbers in context, at an average 20,000 passengers a day it's more used than the Aberdeen by-pass, which carries 13,000 vehicles per day.

 

I am not sure of the equivalence here, appears to be the case of apples and pears.  Based on your figures, a higher proportion of cars use the by-pass than people use the trams.

[LongTimeLurker]

17 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

Hate the classic attitude of “it won’t work here” or “nobody will use it, waste of money.”

Trams will always be a success because they are better than buses. Buses are shite...

It's mainly a question of capacity on that. Buses are fine for a large town, but the advantage of trams in a larger city is that you can move a lot more people that way during rush hour. Princes Street is already pretty much maxed out on what's readily doable with buses. Greater public transport usage will require trams in the decades ahead because Edinburgh has an expanding population and heavy rail is maxed out due to how many trains can enter Waverley through the tunnels involved. 

Apparently there's plans or at least aspirational proposals for tram lines eventually extending over the Forth Road Bridge into Fife using the line out to the airport, to Musselburgh using existing railway alignments into Leith docks from the east then hooking up with the Newhaven extension, and out to Penicuik as an extension to the originally planned line south from the city centre that got axed for funding reasons but is still being protected for future implemetation in planning terms. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[DiegoDiego]

Extending the team network beyond the city boundaries would be great. A friend of mine worked on the original campaign to promote the trams and said they really struggled to convince people of the benefits.

A painless, smooth tram from Fife terminating in Leith would be an excellent alternative to bus or train and would be the perfect use for the old road bridge.

Midlothian has been long neglected and good connections from Edinburgh to somewhere like Bonnyrigg would be great for Thistle fans when our clubs inevitably pass each other on the way through the leagues.

[welshbairn]

If the tram's as slow as it was when I took it from the airport not long after it opened, there won't be many people taking it from Fife.

[craigkillie]

16 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

Hate the classic attitude of “it won’t work here” or “nobody will use it, waste of money.”

Trams will always be a success because they are better than buses. Buses are shite. The success of the borders railway is not a surprise to me. People in this country will use railways if they are readily available to them - which is why I think more stations must be opened on existing lines and old lines must be reinstated. It’s quite baffling how an SNP government, given how intent they are on cutting carbon emissions and improving transport, haven’t made more moves on this front.

They are not intent on cutting carbon emissions, they are intent on seeming like they want to cut carbon emissions.

[101]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

If the tram's as slow as it was when I took it from the airport not long after it opened, there won't be many people taking it from Fife.

It can go at 50mph along saughton way and now there's a new speed limit that is as fast as you can drive in say a taxi along the A9000 and then into Edinburgh

[Shandon Par]

20 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I'd be happy to see segregated cycle lanes in Edinburgh. 

Steady on PikW Botha!

Edited January 17, 2021 by Shandön Par

[LongTimeLurker]

5 minutes ago, 101 said:

It can go at 50mph along saughton way and now there's a new speed limit that is as fast as you can drive in say a taxi along the A9000 and then into Edinburgh

Think the argument would probably be that the railway stations for South Queensferry, Rosyth and Dalgety Bay aren't necessarily in the best locations to attract passengers as the main lines involved weren't built with commuters in mind and there is a significant demand for commutes to the west end of Edinburgh as well as to Princes Street. Think that will take a few decades to happen though.

[101]

11 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Think the argument would probably be that the railway stations for South Queensferry, Rosyth and Dalgety Bay aren't necessarily in the best locations to attract passengers as the main lines involved weren't built with commuters in mind and there is a significant demand for commutes to the west end of Edinburgh as well as to Princes Street. Think that will take a few decades to happen though.

I agree that Dalgety bay and Rosyth should have a shuttle bus to the station in the morning and at night. Probably lump duloch in with that

[DiegoDiego]

I agree that Dalgety bay and Rosyth should have a shuttle bus to the station in the morning and at night. Probably lump duloch in with that

Nah, that's where the cycling infrastructure should be going.

[tamthebam]

6 hours ago, Shandön Par said:

Steady on Pik Botha!

Pik (whose nickname came from the Afrikaans for Penguin) was thought of as a liberal in the National Party. Served in an apartheid government but later served in Mandela's government.

You're probably thinking of PW Botha (no relation), the SA President before De Klerk and a git.

Incidentally Peeky Boaters is not the Cambridge equivalent of Peeky Blinders.

[Shandon Par]

21 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

Pik (whose nickname came from the Afrikaans for Penguin) was thought of as a liberal in the National Party. Served in an apartheid government but later served in Mandela's government.

You're probably thinking of PW Botha (no relation), the SA President before De Klerk and a git.

Incidentally Peeky Boaters is not the Cambridge equivalent of Peeky Blinders.

That's not bloody surprising, min.

[Lurkst]

Hopefully there are no plans to introduce "smart" motorways in Scotland. 

Who'd have thunk that getting rid of the emergency lane would lead to more people being killed?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/18/smart-motorways-present-ongoing-risk-of-death-says-coroner

 

[Ekhibee88]

On 16/01/2021 at 17:17, GordonS said:

I used it most days back in olden times when you actually went to work, you're right, it's definitely far from a white elephant. It's rammed in the evening rush hour and is really well used by folk who work at Edinburgh Park. The park and ride at Ingliston is very popular and it has really good connections at Edinburgh Park Station and Haymarket, though Edinburgh Gateway station is under-used. There are stacks of new houses being built at the Gyle and the tram is good for a lot of them too.

To put the numbers in context, at an average 20,000 passengers a day it's more used than the Aberdeen by-pass, which carries 13,000 vehicles per day.

Pushing it down to Newhaven will be a huge help and if any of the excellent plans to create a southside loop come to pass then it will be properly transformational.

The main transport problem in Edinburgh is that 9-5 office and retail jobs are spread all over the city (because of decades of bad planning and a failure to understand how cities work), instead of clustered in the centre like Glasgow. No public transport network can go everywhere, they work best when you have a lower number of higher-volume routes. Edinburgh needs to create a Dutch-standard cycling network, that's the best way for them to get folk out of cars.

I live just outside Glasgow and while Glasgow has a good rail network, if you don't drive its a nightmare getting anywhere other than the City Centre and the road to the City. East Kilbride is bad , with only two railway stations and poor bus links from them. Takes me 30 minutes to walk to the railway station !

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, Ekhibee88 said:

I live just outside Glasgow and while Glasgow has a good rail network, if you don't drive its a nightmare getting anywhere other than the City Centre and the road to the City. East Kilbride is bad , with only two railway stations and poor bus links from them. Takes me 30 minutes to walk to the railway station !

I grew up in Glasgow and for only 2 of my 25 years there we had access to a car. The rail network is brilliant and there are even some decent east-west routes in the southside. The bus network used to be good but it's shite now as soon as you get off the main drags, and it's much too expensive. Prices are ridiculous for a city with as much poverty as Glasgow - this is what happens when you end up beholden to First Group, and I'm still grumpy about Thatcher's bus deregulation.

Same as anywhere, routes in and out of the city centre are much better than around the town, but at least things are more centralised in Glasgow than elsewhere. I remember some long, cold waits for the 89/90 on a Sunday.

East Kilbride is a new town, and they're all built for cars. I don't know how that can be fixed - that's probably the kind of place where electric cars are more of an answer. Are the bike paths any use? One of the many mistakes in new towns is that the paths aren't alongside roads, so they feel unsafe after dark and a lot of people, especially women, won't use them. East Kilbride seems bad for that.

[Ekhibee88]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

I grew up in Glasgow and for only 2 of my 25 years there we had access to a car. The rail network is brilliant and there are even some decent east-west routes in the southside. The bus network used to be good but it's shite now as soon as you get off the main drags, and it's much too expensive. Prices are ridiculous for a city with as much poverty as Glasgow - this is what happens when you end up beholden to First Group, and I'm still grumpy about Thatcher's bus deregulation.

Same as anywhere, routes in and out of the city centre are much better than around the town, but at least things are more centralised in Glasgow than elsewhere. I remember some long, cold waits for the 89/90 on a Sunday.

East Kilbride is a new town, and they're all built for cars. I don't know how that can be fixed - that's probably the kind of place where electric cars are more of an answer. Are the bike paths any use? One of the many mistakes in new towns is that the paths aren't alongside roads, so they feel unsafe after dark and a lot of people, especially women, won't use them. East Kilbride seems bad for that.

Yes its great if you live close to a station, would be good to see some earlier and later services mind. Never rely on every 30 min buses to get to work. 

They took the bus away last year where I stay to get into town. Now a 20 min walk to bus stop! The bike paths near me are on the pavements.