Yellow Line Removal

I received this from John Richmond:

Changes to the Controlled Parking Scheme

I have received a letter from the council (actually, Tina received and passed it on to me). I've attached scans of the pages below. If you click on the pages they should zoom in (albeit probably a bit slowly if you have a slow internet connection).

Yellow Lines

John Richmond has sent me a list of the spaces he can make for us:

AMENDMENTS TO ZONE 8 PARKING BAYS

ROAD	PROPOSAL	BAYS
Warrender Park Road o/s 102	Remove 2m double yellow lines west of Spottiswood Street and extend residents parking.	-
Warrender Park Road opp 115-119	Move City Car Club parking bay eastwards. Move public parking bays westwards. Introduce residents parking bays between residents and City Car Club bays.	+2
Warrender Park Crescent opp 1	Extend residents parking bays westwards.	+1
Warrender Park Crescent opp 5	Extend residents parking bays eastwards.	+3
Warrender Park Crescent opp 9-11	Introduce 10m residents parking bay.	+2
Warrender Park Crescent o/s 12	Extend residents parking bay.	+1
Warrender Park Crescent opp 13	Introduce 10m residents parking bay	+2
Warrender Park Crescent o/s 20	Extend residents parking bay eastwards.	+1
Marchmont Street o/s 14-15	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+3
Marchmont Street o/s 5	Introduce public parking bay.	+3
Warrender Park Terrace o/s 1	Extend residents parking bay eastwards.	+1
Marchmont Road o/s 11	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+1
Marchmont Crescent o/s 21	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+1
Marchmont Crescent opp1	Remove double yellow lines and introduce 10m residents parking bay	+2
Roseneath Place o/s 19-21	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+2
Meadow Place o/s 12	Extend residents parking bay southwards.	+2
Meadow Place o/s 10	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+1
Roseneath Terrace o/s 30-32	Introduce 10m residents parking bay	+2
Roseneath Terrace o/s 3	Extend residents parking bay eastwards.	+1
Argyle Place o/s 41	Extend residents parking bay northwards.	+1
Argyle Place o/s 31	Extend residents parking bay southwards.	+2
Argyle Place o/s 30	Change double yellow lines to single yellow lines.	-
Argyle Place o/s 28 and o/s 17	Extend public parking bay northwards and southwards	+2
Roseneath Street o/s 1 and o/s 7	Extend public parking bay eastwards and westwards	+2
Roseneath Street o/s 8	Extend residents parking bay eastwards.	+1
Warrender Park Road o/s 6 and o/s 14	Extend residents parking bay eastwards and westwards.	+1
Warrender Park Road o/s 18	Extend residents parking bay eastwards.	+1

PROPOSALS REQUIRING RELOCATION OF CONTAINERS

ROAD	PROPOSAL	BAYS
Marchmont Crescent opp15-17	Investigate moving refuse containers from west to east side of road, adjacent to steps to Roseneath Place (SfC – Murray Black)	-
Marchmont Street o/s 4	Extend residents bay northwards. Depending on relocation of refuse container.	+2
Marchmont Crescent o/s 1	Extend residents parking bay northwards. Depending on relocation of refuse container.	+1

PROPOSALS NOT CONSIDERED FEASIBLE

ROAD	PROPOSAL	BAYS
Chalmers Crescent	Introduce residents parking bay – not sufficient space available.	-
Warrender Park Road Adjacent to school	Introduce residents parking bay – guardrail, not considered possible on road safety grounds.	-
Warrender Park Road o/s 153	Introduce residents parking bay – shops, loading required	-
Whitehouse Loan o/s 1	Introduce residents parking bay – hotels, loading required	-

PROPOSALS ALREADY PROCESSED

ROAD	PROPOSAL	BAYS
Warrender Park Road o/s 102	Confirm that single yellow line is to be removed and residents parking bays are to be extended eastwards.	-
Marchmont Street east side	Confirm that public parking bay is to be removed and residents parking bays introduced.	-

AMENDMENTS TO ZONE S1 PARKING BAYS

ROAD	PROPOSAL	BAYS
Marchmont Road at Thirlestane Road	Extend residents parking bays southwards.	+1
Strathearn Road o/s 8	Introduce residents parking bays.	+2
Strathearn Road o/s 78	Remove double yellow lines. Move bus stop westwards. Extend residents parking bays westwards.	+2

URGENT! Avoid Some Streets in S1

Our ability to park in S1 is causing some discontent in a few streets there. The worst affected is Marchmont Crescent South. Please, avoid parking in that street at all and let your neighbours know, too.

There are some other streets where concerns are less vociferous but please try to avoid these as well.

• Lauderdale Street
• Spottiswoode Street
• Arden Street
• Marchmont Road

Jim Grieve and Eddie McDowell don’t want to enforce this yet and ask us to be considerate instead. We may find, though, that we won’t have a choice if we’re not careful. I think a prohibition will certainly be worse for us.

In my opinion, the problem is down to us not yet having shared use bays. They are very likely coming soon and that should free up more spaces for us so we don’t have to park in S1 as often. But, my worry is that until that goes through all the legal hurdles, we will give people in S1 the mistaken impression that merging with us will be bad for them. Even if they only think that due to a weird temporary situation, it won’t help us.

So, remembering that zone 8 permits probably stand out a mile to S1ers, please try to park in emptier streets – even if that means walking a bit further. Hopefully it’ll only be for a few months. Once the tough streets in zone 8 are merged into S1 the permits will all look the same and with shared use, too, all stress will vanish. We need to protect our long term goals.

Let me know what you think about all this.

Missing Streets Allowed to Park in S1

I’ve just heard from Eddie McDowell and Jim Grieve at the council that the missing streets have been given permission to park in S1!

The streets in question are:

• Warrender Park Crescent
• Argyle Park Terrace
• Sylvan Place
• Findhorn Place

Permit holders in those streets can start parking in S1 from today.

A letter will be sent out officially sometime next week. But since it is in effect from today, if you live in those streets, please let your neighbours know, too.

Thanks to Jim and Eddie!

There is a draft of the letter, here.

Car Tax

Not strictly parking related, but Mailin has drawn my attention to this petition to stop the new Tax As You Drive system where you'll have to buy a tracking device and will then be charged for every mile.

The petition is at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/sign

Looks like they needed 750,000 signatures to stop it and I think they have them.

Drivetime

I was interviewed today by Stephen Jardine from Scottish TV's Drivetime. They wanted to talk about the parking changes in Edinburgh. I'm not quite sure how much of an idiot I managed to make of myself - probably quite a lot! I'm not sure if I said anything that will upset anyone, bugger. Well, fingers crossed, eh? It was very interesting, I've never done anything like this before.

It's due to air on the 15th of Feb at 19:30 - though I wouldn't be surprised if I got edited out completely - I can't be the most photogenic of subjects :-)

Yellow Lines in the Biting Cold

This morning Marilyne MacLaren, Jim Grieve, John Richmond and I walked round the streets of Marchmont zone 8 looking where yellow lines could be removed to make more room for parking. It was baltic out there and I really must say how much I appreciate their time and effort on our behalf.

(From the left) Jim, Marilyne and John)

We found lots and lots of places where we can squeeze in more cars. Most of the ones on the list were agreed on and a few more that weren't on the list. There were some places we had listed which will be left to keep loading areas for local businesses and some for keeping visibility round corners and so on. On the whole, though, I think it will improve the situation quite a lot.

We'll have to wait a while for the places to get verified (John will go round and take measurements and so forth to get it all precisely). Then there'll be the statutory consultations which will take a few months, but soon :-) I'll keep you up to date if Jim or John send me the final list.

Jim also said that he hopes to be able to make decisions about the streets not included in the temporary measures within a month, maybe as short as a fortnight. I have my fingers crossed.