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.