Options

I have been asked by many people to describe how the road closure would work and I have to answer: I don't know.
There are so many possible permutations for closing off the streets that I wouldn't be able to go through them all.
Many people told me that they didn't vote for the petition because of this uncertainty.
'How long will it take me to get my car out onto...' was a common one.
I didn't post these options because it would be to easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of details rather than look at the broader picture (a successful tactic for Better Together in the referendum).
But here are a few:

Option 1:

Option 1

This one has the eastern section of Inveresk, southern part of Dalrymple, and the Mansfields being accessed via Newbiggin and Newbiggin Brae.

Option 2:

Option 2

This one is more of an even split. It creates a safe crossing for the school at the bollards outside the entrance to 130A-L and a possible one way loop around Mansfield Avenue, Road, part of Dalrymple and Mansfield Place. It would vastly increase on-street parking giving commuters an option where to park their car for the morning drive into work.

Option 3:

Option 3

This one creates a closed loop giving all drivers easy and quick access to the Mall or the High St.
It would increase travel time for driving east. On street parking would be increased.
This would be my favourite.

Option 4

Option 4

This would give quick access to the High St. and The Mall.

All of these options (and there are many more) are given to highlight the possibilities.
I am assuming that he council would proceed with the idea for a roundabout at the south side of the bridge which would allow those exiting from Dalrymple/Mansfield quicker access to the east if  Inveresk Road is closed for them.

The best option by far would that using a smart barrier at either end of the current set up. This would allow access for residents only without the inconvenience of having to go on to the Mall or High St. in order to proceed east as I mentioned in some of the options above.
it would be expensive: but a lot cheaper than buying a bus depot and running a new road through it.

The Council's Plan

As we all know, the council has no intention of taking active measures towards the already horrific levels of traffic coming through Musselburgh.
Here are a few of their potential that have filtered through to u:

Plan A:

Plan A

I think this is the more likely plan. It will help those at the west section of Inveresk Road from the junction with Dalrymple to the existing bollards. This will get rid of the Tescos parkers but may increase the numbers parking for the health centre. It will eliminate most of the dangers inherent at the junction of Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road.
It will not tackle the unsustainable levels of traffic wending their way through the rest of Inveresk/Dalrymple which is going to increase in coming years.
The MOVA traffic lights system will be installed to help increase the traffic flow.

 Plan B:

Plan B

This plan was mooted by a well kent councilor.  It is designed to accommodate an ever increasing load of traffic on Inveresk/Dalrymple. Again, the idea that traffic should be reduced rather than increased seems to be a laughable notion in the transport department.
This particular plan may have sounded good at the golf club bar but...

Plan C:

Plan C

This option is, in all truthfulness, the one most indicative of the detachment of the council's thinking
and any reality. This option should have been kept locked in a box at transport HQ and the councilor who proclaimed it as a valid future development should have been fitted with a mute button.
There are so many things wrong with the idea of opening up Inveresk Road in this manner that I believe it to be a red herring: the council acquiesce to the demands of residents to appear conciliatory and 'listening' whilst they quietly increase the traffic burden on the adjacent roads.

Bad Junctions Parts 1 to 3

Junction 1: Newbiggin and Inveresk Road

Junction of Newbiggin and Inveresk Road

This junction just a minutes walk from Musselburgh Grammar School's entrance is staggering inept:
a wide compound radius curve which gives buses a smooth corner also allows motorists to take this corner too fast. Pedestrians take their lives in their hands to cross here. There is rarely a quiet moment with which to cross. The photo above shows the view from the west side of the crossing which is akin to a chicken run. Given that there is no bus service that runs along Inveresk Road, the corner on the west side of this junction is unreasonably wide.
Hundreds of school pupils use this junction each day.

The view at the pedestrian crossing point  is
very limited on the east side. Car drivers aren't under any obligation to slow down due to the wide turning radius. There is a pedestrian crossing at the junction of Newbiggin and Pinkie Road but this is not useable if you are travelling along the south side of Inveresk Road towards Pinkie.













Addendum: Sports Centre Car Park Entrance

Sports Centre Car Park Entrance

This inept piece of engineering I think summarises the indifference of  the road designers to pedestrians. When I write indifference I am being kind.
This is outside a major school and all those crossing this entrance step blindly out into the road. I have witnessed so many near misses here. There is a bus stop and the road here widens to accommodate it: this allows cars to turn into this entrance from the Newbiggin Brae direction at speed. All-round vigilance is a requirement here.

View from car park

The designers of this junction have done a marvelous job in creating a blind junction when exiting the car park. There is no visibility either to the left or the right.











Junction 2: Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road

Junction of Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road Looking South

This junction rates highly on the ineptitude scale: there are so many levels of almost gratuitous design neglect and incompetence that I could write an essay on it.
Here is a list:

1. when turning right from Dalrymple Loan into the west section of Inveresk Road you do so blindly. 
2. cars turning north from Inveresk Road into Dalrymple Loan always cross the white lines and do so with limited vision of oncoming traffic. I am a cyclist and turning right (as above) has resulted in many near misses with every complaint to the police resulting in abject apathy.
3. the crossing connecting the south west end of Dalrymple Loan with the pavement outside the entrance to 130K-L Inveresk Road (basically follow the double lines you see in the composite image above) is excessively and unnecessarily wide. Many schoolchildren cross here in the lunchtime run to The Caprice for their daily intake of lard and carbohydrates.
4. cars travelling to the west end (Tesco's end) of Inveresk Road to park will not indicate or slow down creating a danger for any pedestrian. A child was recently injured here which prompted the council to act and install bollards outside of school Lane to raise visibility for pedestrians and motorists: note the council did not act to reduce the speed of motorists, the volume of traffic or provide a pedestrian crossing, they merely gave pedestrians the better chance to observe the speeding cars. 
5. speeding cars heading towards Tescos along the west section of Inveresk Road from the junction of Dalrymple Loan hit a narrow point below the tree creating a danger area outside school lane
6. cars travelling southwards on Dalrymple Loan invariably will take the corner too fast resulting in the incessant destruction of the walls outside number 100 Inveresk Road.
7. crossing this junction in any of the possible permutations is dangerous (see the gentleman crossing in the composite image below). Sometimes the road is safest when there is a log jam.

Junction of Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road Looking East and North

 Traffic backing up onto Pinkie Road is now increasingly common.

 Junction 3: Dalrymple Loan and The High St.

Junction Of Dalrymple Loan and The High St.

This junction features on my list as it summarises everything that is wrong with the road transport policy. This junction represents the complete capitulation to the weight of traffic coming through Musselburgh. It has been designed to minimise standing traffic at the High St. (due to pollution concerns) and has resulted in the caging-in of pedestrians on all sides and the danger of staggered pedestrian crossings where traffic is halted on one side of the road and travelling at full speed on the other. I have witnessed many near misses at these staggered junctions.
And this is going to get worse.

The corner here at The Caprice is too small.
Priority (as always) is given to the car and when just two or three pedestrians congregate here waiting to cross, the pavement gets blocked forcing other pedestrians to walk out onto the road and around the corner.
Children spill out onto the road at lunchtime when queuing for their chips, luckily cars are slowing down or stopped by this stage when travelling towards the high St.

A Typical View On Any Day

Bad Junctions Parts 3 to 6

Junction 3: Mansfield Avenue and Inveresk Road

Junction of Mansfield Avenue and Inveresk Road

This is an unfeasibly wide junction that that allows cars coming from the west to turn into Mansfield Avenue without a significant reduction in speed. This creates a bit of a chicken run in the morning as there is a primary school entrance at the north end of Mansfield Avenue. The speed humps are utterly ineffective at traffic calming unless there is a car coming in an opposing direction.
Pedestrians at other times of the day have to remain aware.

Junction 4: Mansfield Place and Dalrymple Loan

Junction of Mansfield Place and Dalrymple Loan

Another unfeasibly wide entrance which gives all the benefit of the doubt to the driver. Cars parked on the angled section (as seen above) reduce visibility. Cars parking on the pavements in Mansfield Place are a chronic problem which the council is unwilling to deal with. There is little possibility of pushing a pram along the pavement on either side of Mansfield Place.

Junction 5: Mansfield Road and Dalrymple Loan

Mansfield Road and Dalrymple Loan Looking South

Mansfield Road and Dalrymple Loan Looking East

Due to the conifers blocking all views this is certainly a blind corner when approaching from the north. This is dangerous for pedestrians unless crossing close to the line of the road.













The sharper corner on the north side of this junction means that cars have no option but to slow down. On such a busy road this (this has led to some near misses when inobservant drivers, following too closely, nearly tail-end me when I turn in).

Pavement Survey 1

I pointed out the narrowness of the pavements( in pavement survey part 1).
Here I deal with how convoluted and corrupted they are.
The worst section of pavement in the Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road is on the south section of Inveresk Road between numbers 138 and the entrance to 130K-P.
There are twenty ingress points for vehicles along this stretch, distorting the pavement to such an extent that makes it difficult to use with a pushchair or mobility scooter.
Walking along this stretch in winter when the pavement is frosted is too dangerous.
Here are some samples of how angled the pavement is (incidentally a gradient of more than 8% for a sustained climb would put it in a category 1 climb in Le Tour De France).
I like to keep things in context.

Inveresk Road (South section from entrance to 130K-P to Newbiggin)

House Number                                              Max Gradient (Degrees)

138                                                                       9
136 (east entrance)                                               9
138 (west entrance)                                              6
134 (east entrance)                                               7
134 (west entrance)                                              7
128                                                                        7
124                                                                        7
122                                                                        6
110                                                                        6
102                                                                        5

Along this section of pavement there were twenty such ingress points the worst being in the Newbiggin end. This is one of the reasons that those in mobility scooters will choose to drive on the road. It is not a comfortable journey if you have a buggy and children tagging along.
There were three pavement drops for pedestrian access.


Inveresk Road (North from number 95 to Newbiggin)

There were no significant gradients and only three ingress point for cars.
There were three pavement drops for pedestrian access.

Dalrymple Loan (East Section)

House Number                                              Max Gradient (Degrees)

20 (southern entrance)                                           9
20 (northern entrance)                                           9

There were other ingress points with minor gradients i.e. police station.
There were four pavement drops for pedestrians at the junctions of Mansfield Road and Mansfield Place.

Dalrymple Loan (West Section)

There were no significant gradients on the car ingress points i.e. the church, Caprice car park, etc.
The only pedestrian pavement drops were outside the Caprice restaurant and the junction with Inveresk Road which had a maximum gradient of 8 degrees.

For reference:

Tour de France Climb Categories

Pavement Survey 2

The pavements on Inveresk Road and Dalrymple Loan are at times so convoluted, banked and plagued by parked cars and vans that it makes walking along them a difficult experience for everyone. Pushchairs and mobility scooters have to deal with some rather excessively large inclines (for the benefit of the car users who park in adjacent driveways) which poses a real danger next to this busy road.
This is a common daily sight:

For some reason van drivers seem to think it is preferable to block the passage of mobility scooters and prams etc than hinder the traffic on the road. The police are aware of this problem but rarely take action. The forthcoming legislation at the Scottish Parliament which will outlaw this selfish behaviour seems to be sufficient for the police to turn a blind eye.






Another of many:

On this occasion I was given he rather curt response of 'We're only going to be here for a few minutes', which is the standard response in this procedure. An hour later they may pack up and leave only for another vehicle to arrive.
This one was so tightly parked that no buggy or pram could navigate through. Van drivers seem hardened to the pleas of pushchair and mobility scooter users. They don't budge and get aggressive and paranoid.






But the worst aspect of this section of pavement is the weekly, or at worst twice weekly dancing with the wheelie bins: you know, the bit where you have to shoogle and shimmy with the bins to get them out of your way and resume your journey along the pavement.
At its worst, even with optimal bin placement - an art not yet fully mastered by the binmen, there was only 62cm of useable pavement which is barely the width of a standard adult male.
Now imagine having to walk along a convoluted, inclined pavement lined with poorly placed bins next to a road that carries 5,500 cars a day with two small children tagging along - maybe also pushing a buggy and you get a sense of the sheer level of cynical neglect that seems to be embedded in the transport department.
These are trunk road levels of traffic slicing through densely populated residential streets containing two major schools and a sheltered housing complex.
All demands for pedestrian crossings, traffic calming and every other kind of safety feature have been denied by a council all too aware of the inherent problems that have existed for decades. The council, in their obsession to keep the traffic flowing, have ignored all demands for a safer street ( Dalrymple and Inveresk) in order to allow a convenient route into Edinburgh for the residents of Tranent, Haddington, Gullane, Port Seton etc who can't be bothered using the A1.

Here are some sample pavement sections taken on bin days:

Inveresk Road (South Section)
                                                              Width Of Pavement        Useable Pavement


Outside entrance to 130A-L                        143cm                               80cm
Outside entrance to 130K-P                        150cm                               80cm
Outside 100 Inveresk Road                         155cm                               85cm
Outside 138 Inveresk Road                         150cm                               80cm

There seems to be  consistent pavement width with an optimum of between 80 and 85cm of useable pavement space: in practice it is usually much smaller.

Outside entrance to 130 K-P. See the bad junctions post.













Inveresk Road (North Section)
                                                             Width Of Pavement             Useable Pavement

Outside entrance to 121                              134cm                                  62cm
Outside 95 Inveresk Road                          150cm                                  80cm
Outside 93 Inveresk Road                          138cm                                  68cm

This section of pavement leads from the junction of Dalrymple Loan towards Newbiggin. It is the narrowest, most dismal stretch of pavement and one where pedestrians are most vulnerable.

 
Outside entrance to 121 Inveresk Road

                                                         
Outside entrance to 121 Inveresk Road looking east towards Newbiggin. this is the narrowest section of pavement. there are 5,500 cars ply down this section of road every day. There has been absolutely no concession towards pedestrian safety.







Dalrymple Loan (East Section)
                                                              Width Of Pavement        Useable Pavement

Outside 30 Dalrymple Loan                         146cm                            80cm
Outside 20 Dalrymple Loan                         146cm                            80cm
Outside 18 Dalrymple Loan                         136cm                            60cm

This southern section of Dalrymple Loan is the most deceptive not because the pavements are a whopping 136cm (reduced to 60 cm with wheelie bins) but because cars reach their optimal speed before having to brake for the corner. this makes it a rather more dangerous place to cross with children.

There are signs here, invisible to pedestrians but visible to drivers, which read 'Please Speed'.










Dalrymple Loan (West Section)
                                                              Width Of Pavement        Useable Pavement

Length of road.                                            155cm                            85cm

The west side of Dalrymple is the most consistent in terms of width with little variation.
Car drivers tend to be at their fastest on Dalrymple. There is nothing in the way of them other than pedestrians who dare to cross.


The widths of  Inveresk Road and Dalrymple Loan tend to exceed the 6.2m I measured roughly outside 95 Inveresk Road which was the narrowest I could find. Measuring the widths of these roads is a job fraught with difficulty. The random sample I did on both Inveresk Road and Dalrymple Loan tended to be around 6.5m.

Petition

Please sign the petition.

5,000 cars, lorries and buses ply through Inveresk Road/Dalrymple Loan every day.
10,000 new houses will be built in the next ten years.
The traffic will only get worse.
The council are being negligent in their duty to protect pedestrians and residents from the
danger, noise and pollution.
There are two schools straddling this road.
There are no safety features for pedestrians along any part of Inveresk Road/Dalrymple Loan. None.
The pavements are narrow and convoluted (article coming) as the traffic comes thick and fast.
It took a tragedy for the west part of the Inveresk Road to be closed and made safe.
I shudder to think what the council's price will be to make the whole road safe.
We have to do this ourselves.

You can access the petition through this site here

 http://www.invereskroad.co.uk/

or directly through the East Lothian Council website here

https://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/forms/form/198/inveresk_road

It is free for any to sign whether young or old.
You don't necessarily have to be a resident of Inveresk Road to sign: it is open to all.
All that is required is your name and postcode.

Thank you.

Traffic Statistics for Inveresk Road

There is a site freely available to the public for information concerning traffic flows through certain streets.
I've spent the evening delving deep into this useful site published by
the Department of Transport

http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/cp.php?la=East+Lothian 

and I've managed to extract some interesting datasets for the Musselburgh area.
Here is a pdf explaining the datasets for those who wish to dive in:

http://data.dft.gov.uk/gb-traffic-matrix/all-traffic-data-metadata.pdf

Data Collection Points

 1  Inveresk Road

Here is the average daily flow data for Inveresk Road from 2000 until 2013.

The principal figure that stands out is the extent to which bicycle use has plummeted in the years 2000 to 2013 with a particularly large drop in 2007 as vehicle use reached its peak.
The large number of buses and coaches can be attributed to the many minibuses and the occasional
LRT bus either seeking a short cut or just lost.
HGV use of Inveresk Road has almost halved in the 2000 to 2013 period from 103 to 66.
This is still 66 too many.
Car numbers peaked in 2007 with 5422 cars per day but the overall trend is still up from the 2000 levels.

2  Inveresk Village

 

This extract shows a similar reduction in bicycle use in 2007 compared to the previous year as traffic levels peaked in the mid 2000's.

The data is similar to Inveresk Road with traffic levels peaking around 2007 but with an overall year on year increase from 2000 to 2013.

3  Racecourse

Traffic levels are almost double that of Inveresk Road as can be expected for the main route into Musselburgh for commuters from the coast. Curiously the overall daily traffic numbers have reduced slightly from 2000 to 2013.

I'm not sure if the huge increases and reductions in bicycle numbers in all the datasets can be attributed to cycle clubs changing their routes for variety or to avoid the ever busier roads.

4  Brunton Hall

This data shows an overall decrease in daily vehicle usage of the North High Street by over 1,600 from 2000 to 2103 with a large increase in cycle users from 2007 to 2013.

5  Edinburgh Road

A significant number of bicycles use this stretch of the road just prior to the Brunstane Burn with a small decrease in traffic levels from 2000 to 2013.

6  The Mall

The presence of Tescos on the Mall accounts for a large amount of traffic but there is no breakdown in the data for this. Cycle use has increased significantly with the opening of the larger store although car and taxi numbers have remained similar to numbers for the smaller store.

Please sign the petition...

Please sign the petition.

You can access the petition through this site here

 http://www.invereskroad.co.uk/

or directly through the East Lothian Council website here

https://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/forms/form/198/inveresk_road

It is free for any to sign whether young or old.
You don't necessarily have to be a resident of Inveresk Road to sign: it is open to all.
All that is required is your name and postcode.

Thank you.

Why I Wanted A Petition...

This was a wet morning in January earlier on this year but the scene is quite typical.
This corner will feature in my countdown of weird and downright dangerous corners
in Musselburgh. There are no brilliant corners as they split in '93.





I shall post more videos showing speeding traffic, poor parking, bad pavements, badly designed junctions, chip cartons, dangerous driving, and pedestrians running for their lives - oh and seagulls, lots of seagulls.

This is a picture of Dalrymple Loan at the Caprice restaurant taken in October 2010 before the improvements. No concession was made to pedestrians other than the introduction of tactile paving. The lamp and sign posts combine to make the current junction cramped and congested.

Dalrymple Loan.

The proposals for this junction are for MOVA traffic lights with possibly a roundabout at the three-way junction between the Mall, the High St. and the bridge with a staggered Puffin crossing for the benefit of pedestrians. This traffic management system is designed to increase the flow of traffic.

MOVA explanation here

https://trlsoftware.co.uk/products/traffic_control/mova

The relevant extract from the Musselburgh Interim Report Transport Appraisal is here

Extract from MIR

The link to this Pdf is here

http://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/downloads/file/8870/mir_transport_appraisal

This is not a bedtime read.

All of the modelling scenarios result in large increases in traffic through Inveresk Road with   longer queues of standing traffic at the caprice junction and the concomitant increase in particulate and CO emissions.
More on this in a later blog.

Road Casualty Incidence Map 2000-2010

Here is a link to the ITO site which has compiled all road traffic incidents involving death or injury
into an interactive map.

http://map.itoworld.com/road-casualties-uk#lat=55.939480188634725&lon=-3.048777925510394&zoom=11

 It can be a bit unwieldy on older computers (mine especially) so I have included first a screenshot of the Longniddry, Cockenzie, Prestonpans and Musselburgh corridor. This is followed by a screenshot showing a closer look at the centre of town focusing on Dalrymple Loan and Inveresk Road.

Longniddry, Cockenzie, Prestonpans and Musselburgh corridor 2000-2010.

Compare the car, pedestrian and cyclist accident rate along the B1348 coastal road which runs through the north side of Longniddry along the coast towards Port Seton, Cockenzie, Prestonpans and Musselburgh along with the parallel B1361 to the relatively low car rate on the A1 route.
The prohibition of pedestrians and cyclists on the A1 obviously keeps the injuries confined to motor vehicle occupants and motorcyclists, but this road is engineered to cope with high volumes of traffic at speeds up to 70 mph. The council have admitted failure in not being able to keep edinburgh bound traffic confined to the A1.
The effects of an additional 8,500 houses from Musselburgh to Longniddry are still to be felt.

The Inveresk Road and Dalrymple Loan area 2000-2010.

The incident rate on the High Street reflects the high volume of traffic. The junction of Dalrymple Loan and the High Street is an accident black spot. The pedestrian accident rate on Inveresk Road and Dalrymple Loan would be considered acceptable enough by East Lothian Council not to introduce pedestrian safety features.

Petition For The Closure Of Inveresk Road To All Through Traffic

The petition to have Inveresk Road closed to all through traffic is active and can be
found here on the East Lothian Council website.

www.eastlothian.gov.uk/directory_record/243666/inveresk_road

It should open in a new window.
It seems that the petition is difficult to find in the East Lothian Council website.

A Quick Map History Of Inveresk Road

Fisherrow and Musselburgh 1776

This is the earliest map I could find which shows Inveresk Road with any great clarity. The Roman Bridge and the ford being the principal route for travellers crossing the River Esk. The spur leading to Inveresk Kirk is Church Lane, home to the bowling club and east entrance for the health centre.

Reform Act map 1832

The New Bridge has made the Roman Bridge largely redundant. The focus for development in Musselburgh is along the High St. and Newbiggin. 

From the OS 1893

The mill lead can be seen running parallel to the river. When the new Tescos site was being excavated the lead could be seen once again when the pavement running alongside the Mall was resurfaced and sections of concrete slabs that cover the lead were removed. The station can be seen sandwiched between the Roman Bridge and Musselburgh Wire Mill.

From the OS 1914

The significant change from the 1893 map is the presence of the Mall Park before it was consumed by the Wire Mill, which is continuing to expand. The Mansfield estate is defined but not yet constructed.

From town plan 1938

The Mall Park is still extant whilst the block outline plans for the  Mansfield and Kilwinning estates are visible. The tenements along the western side of Inveresk Road have not yet been demolished. The Playhouse cinema on Dalrymple Loan is now a large presence. You can find an image here along with several other defunct Musselburgh cinemas.

http://www.scottishcinemas.org.uk/scotland/musselburgh/index.html

Courtesy of the Luftwaffe 1944

An aerial survey from the Luftwaffe. You can just make out the Mall Park at the left centre of the image being consumed by the wire works. The original line of Newbiggin on the right is quite apparent.

From the OS 1948

The Wire and Rope Works have reached their peak. The closure of the railway line will see a large increase in industrial traffic along  Inveresk Road which unfortunately led to the death of a child forcing the council to erect bollards at the east end of Inveresk Road just prior to the northwards spur.

Current satellite image 2014

Tescos has now moved to its new site bringing with it a sizeable amount of traffic along The Mall. Parking for both the store and the health centre at the east end of Inveresk Road just prior to the northward spur has become a problem not only with speeding cars along a narrow road, and bad parking, but with westbound drivers not indicating when leaving the main route (the A6124) to access this parking. An accident several years ago forced the council to erect bollards outside the school entrance (St Michael's Avenue) which improved visibility for children and drivers.
One of the common complaints about the roads department is that it is reactive and not proactive: it will only instigate road safety improvements if a road is proven dangerous and it can only be proven dangerous by the death or injury of a pedestrian.
A friend who lives in Dunbar was told bluntly by an official that this would have to be the case for pedestrian safety features on his street. No-one is going to volunteer to sacrifice their child in this manner, hence this campaign.