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news
Leith Walk cycle lane (Allasan Seòras Buc, Twitter)"Moronic" much-ridiculed zig-zag cycle lane now blamed as cyclist injured by shallow kerb crash
An Edinburgh pensioner has warned the city's now-infamous Leith Walk cycle lane is a "disaster waiting to happen" after he suffered a suspected broken rib and other minor injuries after hitting a shallow kerb.
The city's council says the lane is currently closed, with barriers and signage in place notifying the public, and will not be complete until early 2023, but John Kerr does not believe it will be any safer when officialy open and the "terrible design" could cause someone to be seriously injured.
The 69-year-old told the Edinburgh Evening News he flew over the handlebars when his front tyre clipped a shallow kerb on the side of the infrastructure that was the butt of many jokes when pictures of the "moronic" bizarre zig-zag design emerged online earlier this year.
"I landed on my head but thankfully I was wearing my helmet. I've got an ache in my wrist and it's definitely weaker and I think I might have a cracked rib. I'm not seriously injured but someone might be if this keeps happening," he said.
"It [the shallow kerb] doesn't seem to me to have any effective purpose other than to unseat cyclists. It's a disaster waiting to happen."
Edinburgh's Leith Walk. New build cycle lane on the widest street in the city. pic.twitter.com/ijZ29NpzTy
— 𝙾𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛 (@overlandertheb1) March 1, 2022
Back in April, SNP councillor Lesley Macinnes said criticism of the path, which features sharp bends and obstacles such as lampposts, is "premature" as construction is still ongoing.
And while the council says the route should not be used by cyclists currently, Mr Kerr and cycling campaign group Spokes have said the signage is inadequate.
The injured rider said using the lane seemed the "obvious thing to do because it took us away from the traffic and the tram tracks" and signage advising to the contrary was "not evident".
He also does not think the infrastructure will be any safer when officialy opened due to the variable kerb height that Edinburgh Evening News reporter Neil Johnstone says has been designed in line with the city's Street Design Guidance and is to clearly segregate the cycle lane from the pavement and offer clear ground level detection for visually impaired pedestrians.
A local trader who saw the incident told the local press he has witnessed similar crashes in recent months as cyclists "cannot see" the shallow kerb.
"I don't know what boffin they have employed to design these cycle lanes but it's not working," he said.
"When things are up and running and cars are buzzing about the place, it's only a matter of time that a cyclist will fall of his bike and go into the line of traffic. That is a certainty."
"It is a real shame that people have to suffer accidents like this as a consequence of poor design," Spokes cycling campaign group member Ian Maxwell added.
It is far from the first time the Leith Walk cycle lane has appeared on road.cc. Back in June a rider promised us "you'll never forget your first time" using the route and provided the video below as proof, in which the shallow kerb (and other heavily criticised features) can be seen.
Almost 20 years and £1bn+ in the making, you'll never forget your first time on the Leith Walk strategic cycle corridor. pic.twitter.com/JGq7FGsgUp
— Dave McCraw (@david_mccraw) June 18, 2022
Then in October a cyclist shared footage of them narrowly avoiding a collision when a lorry driver mounted the bike lane and parked in the much-criticised infrastructure.
Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.
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48 comments
The council muppets who put these plans in place should be sacked. They are clearly anti-cycling.
And in 10 years or so. They'll be forced to spend more and rip it out for a progressive solution to overwhelming sentiment in favour of clean and healthy transport options (aka cycling). A sentiment which is already visible. But the muppets choose to look the other way. FFS!
Au contraire! From our perspective maybe... but while there are indeed a significant - and sinister - "anti" group I think the majority are supportive and some are incredibly pro-cycling (for the UK).
However this is within a council* and a population which are at least as motor-transport-addicted as the rest of the UK. I thought we had already started "change" in Edinburgh. However the consultation responses to fairly minor covid-era tweaks (like making a route outside a school - a blessed primary school! - a no through route) were lots of people shouting "off with their heads!"
So those "doing cycling" at the council definitely seem like wild extremist cycle-nazis to a significant chunk of the population. It's always difficult to gauge and there were allegations of "bussing in protest" but seems to be some truth that there are large numbers who'd rather make their children run across the road than apply traffic calming!
* Predict and provide, we need to build more houses so we'll need lots more roads and a bypass upgrade, how will we balance the budget without turning off too many life supports? Oh and we splurged another x billion on more tram...
Isn't that a bit like when people say that the when encountered individually, the citizens of <country name redacted> are really nice people but when you encounter them as a group they are <a bit foolish>.
I can see why they want to maximise pavement space between the laybys, I expect those boarded up shops see a lot of footfall.
They don't board themselves up, you know
That used to be a flourishing Bentley showroom that did, before the cycle paths came...
Q on the Design Guidance.
AFAIC Edinburgh street design guidelines, which seem to have a crazy scope creep as they include specs about the amount of recycled uPVC to be included in uPVC windows (which regulation belongs somewhere else), are dated 2022 yet include no requirement for segrehated cycle track width.
Yet LTN 1/20 says 2m wide min for this route, and 1.5m absolute minimum. 2.0m could be met afaics by simply absorbing the zig-zags into a wider cycle track.
Does LTN 1/20 extend to Scotland, or is it just E&W, or E?
Is there an element of "we must show Scotland to be different" in this? Or just the Council being 'must be invented here' divots?
(I can't pretend that my council - Nottinghamshire - are better, yet.)
See "existing constraints" note from Moist below.
I'm not aware of anywhere that (any of) this is binding. Still far too much "guidance" and we all know that people already know quite enough, thank you. Especially Important People!
hammer meet nut...
Exactly, thats why in my longer post below I had standards and guidance in italics. None of the guidance is binding. if theres a legitimate justification for not complying with it, then it'll probably get approved by the client as being unavoidable.
LTN 1/20 states it covers England and Northern Ireland.
I think the equivalent for Scotland would be "Cycling by Design" which does specify minimum and desirable cycle track widths (Table 3.7: https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/50323/cycling-by-design-update-2019...)
Cycling by design - yes - but still all described as "guidance" (although this may just be a style thing, but...). And it's noted that "Unless stated by the local roads or planning authority, Cycling by Design requirements should be used as the primary reference for cycling facilities." So we've "do it how you like" baked right in to the document!
There definitely is "conspiracy" - by some interests to avoid any change / reduction in motor vehicle space. However I think "cock up" or rather "best endeavours" would explain the state of affairs anyway.
For widths, I suspect that the "absolute minimums" recommended here function like the absolute
minimummaximum speed limits (sorry). So there's an anchoring effect where at best people are going to adjust upwards from the minimum, but "mustn't be lower than the minimum" is the key focus. End result...DMRB specifies that the "absolute minimum" width is limited to 100m sections in special circumstances. Not sure about LTN 1/20.
6m max length for footways/cycleways - absolute min width is supposed to be at pinch points only. Think theres a 20m stipulation somewhere - can't remember off the top of my head.
It's notable that the road doesn't have a slalom turn every 10m... it's almost like some people have an agenda against cyclists.
It's a cycle superhypeway! So just like the motorways for cars, they built in some turns to keep the cyclists alert. Unfortunately their calculations showed that the average cyclist would be moving at 4.5 miles per hour - or should be, for pedestrian safety.
Snark aside I believe the truth is as OnYerBike and Moist Von Lipwig say and I've written before. 1) This space "has to be" both a "place" and a traffic artery for buses and now trams - so function is already compromised to start with. 2) There are lots of individual requirements, some historic, some financial / infrastructural e.g. drain access, utilities, bin space, some "necessary" parking, bus pull-ins (to be out of the way of the tram), pedestrian crossing geometries (because they have to cross several lanes and the tramlines). 3) Everything else was laid out first then the footway and cycle tracks were drawn in. Just like we always do. 4) They made sure that the individual details were in line with the LTN "guidance".
So we adhered to the letter of the rules and missed the spirit. Here's how to do it instead (video from this article).
Our new local Round 3 projects have different incomprehensible slaloms where the ped section crosses the cycle track and back like a paper chain.
The only valid reasons I can see are 1 - Bus stops, and 2 - Having the footpath run by sections of parking.
Otherwise this is just unnecessary conflict / danger.
I wonder if the HSE can be engaged?
Surely in that case if the LA was hassled, they'd suddenly discover the hierarchy of hazard controls and use the most effective one - remove the hazard e.g. the cyclists!
It is stated "it's designed in accordance with the city's street design guidance".
Why does our fair city decide to make up (badly) its own guidance? Why not adopt national or indeed international standards that are proven to work?
Because for the most part, they don't even exist at that level.
The majority of design standards that exist are not for low speed (<50kph in design terms) urban environments, the DMRB which is the UK road design bible is for trunk and principal road >50kph. There are elements of it that are adaptable for urban design, but what mainly exists for urban are guidance documents such as Manual for Streets etc that have some things you treat as standard and some things that are open to your interpretation given the project context.
Local Authorities have their own standards because they like things all the same (ie all the same road typeshave the same width, or construction, or materials etc) it removes a patchwork element if all people bulding things in their domain are working to the same rule book, rather than putting their own spin on a selction of documents. Also makes maintenance easier.
Most of the time the local guidance is just directly copied from manual for streets, guidance on the use of tactile surfaces etc. Its a nightmare when an L.A. doesn't have one. Especially when it comes to standard construction details.
There are exceptions such as LTN1/20 that are the national ones you follow, but they are very much the exception.
But that is the point, the LTN1/20 standard DOES exist and should be used by ALL councils as the reference for any cycle infrastructure design, regardless of the 'local' preferences. Maybe there will be situations where they are forced to deviate from the preferred design due to space limitations, but at least they would be starting from a decent position.
Oh they do follow it. Despite all appearances to the contrary, most L.A's are quite proactive behind the scenes on that front.
And if you went and checked all the individual elements of this cycle track (dimensions and gradients and arrangements of tactiles and signage etc) I'm 99% sure you'd find it does comply with LTN 1/20. Where it doesn't, will be down to the 'existing constraints' relaxation that is IN LTN1/20. Unfortunately the end result here basically manages to fail at least one of the 5 principles.
Won't the slaloms become dangerous when it gets a bit icy?
Old news! Here's a man of the cloth demonstrating how to do it on a much older facility. (EDIT - who apparently learnt on the infrastructure they had in the Netherlands. How things come around!)
It'll be great for curling too although it will need a backstop...
If construction has started, critism isn't premature, it is overdue.
I've not been there for several weeks now but IIRC there was a low kerb marking the boundary with the pedestrian zone. I can't recall whether they were the 45 degree angled ones (good) or just low ones with rounded tops (not so good). I do recall some parts where there were features protruding unnecessarily which looked like you could catch something on.
Much is fixable, but not the silly slalom layout. Not helped at all by the "we only do straight lines, not curves" cycle track. Plenty here that you won't see in NL...
The fundamental issue though is despite being "the widest street in the city" it's another "but the street is too narrow!" It's the familiar UK conflict by having a "place" (so lots of people walking, pausing...) which is also a "road" e.g. an important artery for through transport. Neither purpose will be served well.
The reasons behind many of the individual compromises and awkward detail can be understood. Doesn't change the fact that if we could only decide what single main function transport infra in space was for we wouldn't have to make them in the first place.
I haven't been up to Embra since these were put in but my niece lives off the walk and says she avoids cycling along the new lane because it's so crap.
The few times I've had to take that route since it was installed, I ignored the path as clearly not fit for purpose.
She'd be as well cycling along McDonald Rd and then using the network from there to get to Scotland St I think.
The cyclist said "I landed on my head but thankfully I was wearing my helmet". Perhaps someone should tell him the good news
Is that the good news that falling off is within cycle helmet design limits? Again, having infrastructure that has been approved by an adult is more important than getting people to wear helmets.
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