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It is when there is inadequate transport infrastructure and the 'dash for growth' everyone is cheerleading will mean endless car dependent suburbs, I don't think anyone can say Edinburgh is a good example of transport planning (even the trams are absolutely awful to use thanks to poor signal staging and shared corridors where motorised traffic takes priority) so to replicate that seems distinctly unwise.
Now I am willing to be proven wrong, but I'd say less than 5% of urban expansions in the last 40 years have done anything to tackle car dependency and the other 95%+ have gone out of their way to exacerbate it.
I'm not going to argue that the UK is a beacon in sustainable development, but development in a city is generally going to be much better in this respect than development anywhere else. If there's anywhere that has the right basis for achieving it (as well as the right mindset) then it's surely somewhere like Cambridge.
I'm not sure where you've got the idea that Edinburgh is some kind of car-dependent hellscape - as with any city, there is much room for improvement, but close to half of households don't have access to a car, the bus network is the best in Scotland and public transport/cycling modal share is comparatively high. It also has a centrally-placed railway station with fast and frequent services to key places like London and Glasgow. The tram has reserved or restricted ROW pretty much all the way into and through the centre from the west and enjoys signalling priority throughout, the only major shared section being the lower end of Leith Walk. It was partly built to support major housebuilding in Newhaven.
I've been to Edinburgh enough times to disagree there - it is a car dependent hellscape in most of the city. The cycle lanes are often terribly designed and counter-intuitive; Leith Walk became a meme for this. Princes Street is choked with buses and is deeply unpleasant as a pedestrian and the trams get stuck at every set of signals along there - talk of signal priority is a laugh, it's faster to walk in the city centre than travel across it by tram thanks to mistimed signals. The radial routes are hardly exciting other than a few bus lanes which don't really get things ahead of the queues because they still dump buses into the same traffic before a signal stop line without having priority signals. Much like Manchester, Edinburgh does a lot of self-congratulatory publicity but the reality does not match the hype.
Even where the use of private cars is concerned, Edinburgh can lead to some very strange experiences.
More than once I've driven through the city on Sundays, and been the only person driving in the part-time bus lanes which (at least back then) could be used by any vehicle outside the prescribed hours shown on the signs.
The phenomenon of drivers not using part-time bus lanes when they are permitted to do so is not unique to Edinburgh, of course, but I've never driven past so many people* sitting in one lane without using the other when it's perfectly possible to do it without incurring a fine.
*Except when crossing the border from Italy into Switzerland, when I passed about a hundred cars one time, because nobody else realised that they could use the lane that I used. You'd think, with all that time spent bored in a queue, some people might look at the signs? But no...
It is when there is inadequate transport infrastructure and the 'dash for growth' everyone is cheerleading will mean endless car dependent suburbs, I don't think anyone can say Edinburgh is a good example of transport planning (even the trams are absolutely awful to use thanks to poor signal staging and shared corridors where motorised traffic takes priority) so to replicate that seems distinctly unwise.
Now I am willing to be proven wrong, but I'd say less than 5% of urban expansions in the last 40 years have done anything to tackle car dependency and the other 95%+ have gone out of their way to exacerbate it.
I'm not going to argue that the UK is a beacon in sustainable development, but development in a city is generally going to be much better in this respect than development anywhere else. If there's anywhere that has the right basis for achieving it (as well as the right mindset) then it's surely somewhere like Cambridge.
I'm not sure where you've got the idea that Edinburgh is some kind of car-dependent hellscape - as with any city, there is much room for improvement, but close to half of households don't have access to a car, the bus network is the best in Scotland and public transport/cycling modal share is comparatively high. It also has a centrally-placed railway station with fast and frequent services to key places like London and Glasgow. The tram has reserved or restricted ROW pretty much all the way into and through the centre from the west and enjoys signalling priority throughout, the only major shared section being the lower end of Leith Walk. It was partly built to support major housebuilding in Newhaven.
I've been to Edinburgh enough times to disagree there - it is a car dependent hellscape in most of the city. The cycle lanes are often terribly designed and counter-intuitive; Leith Walk became a meme for this. Princes Street is choked with buses and is deeply unpleasant as a pedestrian and the trams get stuck at every set of signals along there - talk of signal priority is a laugh, it's faster to walk in the city centre than travel across it by tram thanks to mistimed signals. The radial routes are hardly exciting other than a few bus lanes which don't really get things ahead of the queues because they still dump buses into the same traffic before a signal stop line without having priority signals. Much like Manchester, Edinburgh does a lot of self-congratulatory publicity but the reality does not match the hype.
Recent developments in Cambridge are better than the old DB32 nonsense most places still chuck up but it's still extremely rudimentary and still favours car ownership despite efforts to discourage it. The stuff out on Newmarket Road is still miles from a truly liveable neighbourhood concept and this level of progress is inadequate to sustain 150,000+ homes no matter how anyone spins it.
Hrm - I think perhaps I only disagree with you in a relative sense. Every locality has transport flaws and you are understandably brutal in pointing them out. But I think new development is naturally going to be more sustainable now, and easier to make more sustainable in the future, if it's done in a city or large town as opposed to tacked on to villages or at the edge of suburbia as is being done now. No cities are perfect locations for this, but it has to go somewhere. What's the alternative - paying the Netherlands to let us build all our new dwellings there?
I'm not going to argue that the UK is a beacon in sustainable development, but development in a city is generally going to be much better in this respect than development anywhere else. If there's anywhere that has the right basis for achieving it (as well as the right mindset) then it's surely somewhere like Cambridge.
I'm not sure where you've got the idea that Edinburgh is some kind of car-dependent hellscape - as with any city, there is much room for improvement, but close to half of households don't have access to a car, the bus network is the best in Scotland and public transport/cycling modal share is comparatively high. It also has a centrally-placed railway station with fast and frequent services to key places like London and Glasgow. The tram has reserved or restricted ROW pretty much all the way into and through the centre from the west and enjoys signalling priority throughout, the only major shared section being the lower end of Leith Walk. It was partly built to support major housebuilding in Newhaven.
I've been to Edinburgh enough times to disagree there - it is a car dependent hellscape in most of the city. The cycle lanes are often terribly designed and counter-intuitive; Leith Walk became a meme for this. Princes Street is choked with buses and is deeply unpleasant as a pedestrian and the trams get stuck at every set of signals along there - talk of signal priority is a laugh, it's faster to walk in the city centre than travel across it by tram thanks to mistimed signals. The radial routes are hardly exciting other than a few bus lanes which don't really get things ahead of the queues because they still dump buses into the same traffic before a signal stop line without having priority signals. Much like Manchester, Edinburgh does a lot of self-congratulatory publicity but the reality does not match the hype.
Even where the use of private cars is concerned, Edinburgh can lead to some very strange experiences.
More than once I've driven through the city on Sundays, and been the only person driving in the part-time bus lanes which (at least back then) could be used by any vehicle outside the prescribed hours shown on the signs.
The phenomenon of drivers not using part-time bus lanes when they are permitted to do so is not unique to Edinburgh, of course, but I've never driven past so many people* sitting in one lane without using the other when it's perfectly possible to do it without incurring a fine.
*Except when crossing the border from Italy into Switzerland, when I passed about a hundred cars one time, because nobody else realised that they could use the lane that I used. You'd think, with all that time spent bored in a queue, some people might look at the signs? But no...
I've noticed this odd phenomenon too, which is especially surprising since all the lanes were controversially standardised to the same part time hours some time ago. I was always told, back when the times were a bit more inconsistent, that you'd fail your driving test for failing to use the bus lane when appropriate. However, while there is much progress to be easily made by using the right lane at the right time, perhaps this proves Bryn's point that a lot of them just give up, or have parked vehicles in them, or dump you at the lights, requiring you to muscle back in to the lane you want, and are therefore universally avoided by some motorists.
Bryn666 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 15:45
I've been to Edinburgh enough times to disagree there - it is a car dependent hellscape in most of the city. The cycle lanes are often terribly designed and counter-intuitive; Leith Walk became a meme for this. Princes Street is choked with buses and is deeply unpleasant as a pedestrian and the trams get stuck at every set of signals along there - talk of signal priority is a laugh, it's faster to walk in the city centre than travel across it by tram thanks to mistimed signals. The radial routes are hardly exciting other than a few bus lanes which don't really get things ahead of the queues because they still dump buses into the same traffic before a signal stop line without having priority signals. Much like Manchester, Edinburgh does a lot of self-congratulatory publicity but the reality does not match the hype.
Even where the use of private cars is concerned, Edinburgh can lead to some very strange experiences.
More than once I've driven through the city on Sundays, and been the only person driving in the part-time bus lanes which (at least back then) could be used by any vehicle outside the prescribed hours shown on the signs.
The phenomenon of drivers not using part-time bus lanes when they are permitted to do so is not unique to Edinburgh, of course, but I've never driven past so many people* sitting in one lane without using the other when it's perfectly possible to do it without incurring a fine.
*Except when crossing the border from Italy into Switzerland, when I passed about a hundred cars one time, because nobody else realised that they could use the lane that I used. You'd think, with all that time spent bored in a queue, some people might look at the signs? But no...
I've noticed this odd phenomenon too, which is especially surprising since all the lanes were controversially standardised to the same part time hours some time ago. I was always told, back when the times were a bit more inconsistent, that you'd fail your driving test for failing to use the bus lane when appropriate. However, while there is much progress to be easily made by using the right lane at the right time, perhaps this proves Bryn's point that a lot of them just give up, or have parked vehicles in them, or dump you at the lights, requiring you to muscle back in to the lane you want, and are therefore universally avoided by some motorists.
Also bus lanes are delineated - not just in Edinburgh but universally - by a thick solid white line, the same marking that is used for hard shoulders on motorways. This screams "keep out", and I think I understand why drivers - who won't always have clocked the times of operation for part time bus lanes - prefer to stay in the main traffic lane even when they could be using the bus lane. Perhaps a broken line - not the same as a normal centre line, but distinct from the unbroken line currently used - could indicate part-time availabilily? I've got quite used to being alone in using a part-time lane near me outside its hours of operation, but I shouldn't be in that position. We understand the difference between single and double yellow lines in respect of parking, so why not something analagous for bus lanes?
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Chris Bertram wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 13:48
We understand the difference between single and double yellow lines in respect of parking, so why not something analagous for bus lanes?
I wouldn't count on that! I've definitely heard of people who just think (indirectly signed) single yellow lines are double yellow lines where you're less likely to get a ticket for some reason, without ever having thought about why that might be.
