"Trams should replace cars, rather than people cycling": Fears new tram route will be built on popular active travel path

Cayo wrote:

The Roseburn Path isn't just a recreational route, nor just a local commuting route, but also a significant off-road section of the route between Edinburgh and Fife, and a number of people commute that distance from Fife. For example, Inverkeithing (just north of the Forth Road Bridge) to Princes Street is about 13 miles, and currently most of that can be ridden off road (or on segregated infrastructure within the city).

It is and their are - but this is extremely unlikely to figure in their thinking. I'd be surprised if a single tram-cars-worth of people do that. I'd draw their attention to the fact that this breaks the active travel link to the entire North west of Edinburgh (two branches of the paths) - indeed to exactly those they say they're providing for with the tram.

... only ... I think they're essentially deaf to everyone on tram. Or at least there's a measure of "bunker mentality" due to all the problems and criticism this far.

Cayo wrote:

After all, the object is to get people out of their cars and to reduce congestion and pollution , isn't it?

It doesn't seem to be just about moving people, it doesn't seem to be about road traffic reduction. The concept of a tram network in Edinburgh's perfectly good but after the original plan disintegrated odder and odder choices seem to be being made.

Councilor Scott Arthur was explicit in a video that running the tram along the path was in part promoted by the flak they got from "disruption" - some caused by the CCWEL. To me that (and the tram shenanigans) would suggest a rethink and getting a team together - with more external advice, perhaps from somewhere they are genuine experts in trams - who are more competent. Not hiding the bungling where it'll only piss off walkers and cyclists...

Chris RideFar wrote:

It always makes me a bit sad when I ride on a bike path that I can see used to be a train line, because I would prefer that there were more trains, that are used by more people. I don't mind riding on the road, personally.

Indeed. And good for you.

Unfortunately the politicians chose to favour driving - and (after some initial pushing) the people were sold on it and so we got mass motoring on the roads instead.

We're continuing to miss a trick in the UK by failing to join up public (rail, bus) and private transport.  Not that public transport is frequent or reliable enough, or good value for money (always judged relative to the car, sadly) either.  And chicken and egg again - we don't build cycle paths to transport hubs or install enough safe cycle parking there because people don't cycle to the transit points, because...

Yep, a lot of the route is wide enough to have trams running alongside the bike/pedestrian path.

OldRidgeback wrote:

Yep, a lot of the route is wide enough to have trams running alongside the bike/pedestrian path.

Well in the parts where it isn't surely the tram drivers can get out and push!

Aren't you worried your wheelchair wheels might get stuck in the rails?

Wheelywheelygood wrote:

Trams sound like a brilliant idea 

Trams are merely a variation on trains and we don't have train tracks running along the roads for very good reasons, battery trolleybuses are a better idea.

Pros and cons BUT as I understand it the key benefit of light rail / tram is speed / capacity.  So lots of people boarding a single vehicle and by multiple doors.  Trolley buses just don't cover that.

Of course - that is only where are certain you have need for that capacity...  In many places that may be questionable.  But for a busy urban environment trams could end up "holding up the traffic" far less.  (Of course - that's also a bit backward because the routes should be engineered to prioritise trams, them being potentially much more efficient movers of people than cars or even buses).

The downside of trams (apart from killing cyclists) is lack of flexibility, once you have put in the rails (at enormous cost) then the route is fixed, regardless of any changes to requirements. Battery trolleybuses can be re-routed more easily as long as part of the route still charges the batteries. I'm not sure why a bus can't be designed with more doors, I've seen them with doors at the front, in the middle and at the back but never all at once for some reason.

Well - bendy buses!  (There have certainly been issues with these ... but they are also still used).

I'm not a particular flag-waver for buses or trams (there are definitely fans of the latter).  However while there are a whole series of pros and cons to each the capacity advantage appears to be decisively with the tram.

... of course - that is always dependent on how many people actually use it (a question in Edinburgh)!

It's possible to make tram tracks more dangerous (see Edinburgh) or apparently less so (see ... pretty much everywhere else).  All on-street motor transport - tram or bus - is potentially dangerous.  FWIW I've heard the "fixed path" of trams cited as reason why they are safer than e.g. buses / trolleybuses to operate around people on foot as if you're not standing between or close to the tracks you *know* they can't hit you!

For me a really appealing solution is trolleybus. Easy to install and not as expensive as tram, brakes better than tram, not emitting pollutants like buses, cheaper than battery buses.

While individual trams might have a greater capacity than individual buses I can't imagine trams running close enough together (due to braking capacity) to beat a continuous line of buses running one after the other. As for trams "fixed path" wasn't this near you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbyV1kpnMm4 

Well, again ... I'm cautious about the trams especially when in an "Edinburgh Council" context.  But that one's a bit like blaming the house that the driver drove into (or a train).

I wonder if it was cats behind it again, like a previous one?

For "tram trouble" there's this tragedy but I think the biggest problem is the unsafe crossing designs (failure to properly design for, never mind provide for cycling) which have lead to many cycle crashes, including one in which a cyclist died (that link is to the Spokes page which has a great deal of material on the whole troubled tram saga).

Of course it still remains to be seen the final forms of plan the council would be willing to countenance looking at.  (Which is not the same as what they might decide to deliver of course.)

FWIW that route is my connection with town and to rail transport (Haymarket). It is much more efficient than on the road (no traffic lights, no waiting at junctions, hills and valleys are flattened out).  It's usually infinitely more pleasant even than the "nice new" cycle paths, because it's green space free from road noise and smells.

Effectively breaking it as planned will break what is (sort of) an active travel network*.  It'll cut less-problematic access for active travel between the West of the city and the whole north-west of Edinburgh.  There's no alternative route which doesn't involve busy roads, hills, a big detour or all of them.

Not only that but it will also render much less useful the still not quite completed "Roseburn to the canal" link which would have connected to the south west and other active travel links.

No, it's not perfect - it's shared space!  With occasional ne'er-do-wells, the usual broken glass and odd grumpy dog-walker.  But it mostly ... works.

* Politicians and planners in UK just haven't grasped that even though people mostly walk or cycle locally, those "routes" are not infinitely divisible.  And thinking about e.g. "city-wide networks for active travel" is the opposite of redundant.

chrisonabike wrote:

The council is (relatively, for the UK) forward-thinking on active travel.

I'd disagree strongly on that. Maybe true 10-15 years ago, but cities like Glasgow, Manchester, perhaps even Sheffield and Newcastle (north of the river anyway) have come from virtually a standing start and implemented much more usable infrastructure in that time.

Meanwhile Edinburgh has done what - CCWEL (which was fought tooth and claw), Canal-Roseburn underway (but vastly overengineered and potentially utterly compromised even before opening by these tram plans). Meanwhile how many times have relatively simple improvements like Canal-Meadows been redesigned, consulted on & generally spaffed the active travel budget without a single tangible action?

Hmm... I need to get out more?  It does depends who you're comparing to!  Yorkshire and Lancashire come to mind (not in a good way).

I've had the odd pootle around Glasgow but haven't been for a few years.  The others - I don't know.  (Greater) Manchester had a great vision - but not sure exactly how much has arrived and how does it actually connect?

Edinburgh is not great at all.  You're absolutely right that change has been glacial.  And it feels like we've "sat on our inheritance" e.g. the former railway paths - which were only done with the help of Sustrans.  And the tram folk seem to have been at best completely uninterested in cycling.

But - with CCWEL - the Murrayfield - Haymarket section is - just about - genuine cycle infra.  The Danes and even I think the Dutch would recognise it.  It goes down main routes.  Albeit not the most direct route from Haymarket to the West End.

Probably something like expanding the Covid-era "spaces for people" into a rough-and-ready Danish-quality-level network was a missed chance?  (Could have just upgraded the blocks / wands to concrete barrier?)  And of course the normal UK oversights: junctions, enabling multi-modal transport (compare the size of the - now grotty - cycle parking at e.g. Haymarket with almost any Dutch railway station) and ultimately recognising that humans travel socially.

Carior wrote:

As a side note - how many stops are they going to have in the park vs on the road near businesses etc.  Surely its going to be a bit more convenient to be able to hop off and nip into business x, y, z?

Which is exactly the point that nniff raises below (I think).