Since yesterday, Dublin Street has been closed to road traffic between Dublin Street Lane North and Albany Street. Dublin Meuse is also closed at the Dublin Street end.
Both are likely to remain closed for the next 8 weeks while Scottish Water repair the sewer.
Failure of the sewer is thought to have been responsible for repeated subsidence in the carriageway. Contrary to local myth, a hole has not appeared in the former railway tunnel below.
In August this year, locals petitioned councillors about what they say is disruptive over-use of East London Street by HGVs and Lothian Buses. In response, officials have now compiled a report to go before the Transport & Environment Committee on 12 October.
Canonmills and neighbouring streets are an unsightly and trip-hazardous jummle.
So says Napier Bathrooms’ Johnny Bacigalupo.
This morning, he contacted the Spurtle with a photo catalogue of shortcomings, many of which he blames on Council neglect.
Canon Street
As I sat in Hata (5 Rodney Street), sipping a satisfying cortado, I witnessed a stand-off. Who would come out on top?
At the junction, two single-decker buses came face to face. One was coming up the hill and the other down, both wanting to make the tight turn onto Broughton Road.
[From the Scotsman, 16 January 1936.]
In a deputation to the Transport & Environment Cmte last week, the Community Councils Together for Trams Group (CCTTG) raised safety issues about the design of future public realm in Elm Row (east side, London Rd–Montgomery St) for pedestrians and cyclists.*
CCTTG (represented on Thursday by Leith Central Community Council’s Harald Tobermann and New Town & Broughton CC’s Mike Birch) describes itself as a critical friend of the Tram Project.
On Thursday last week, a tram reached York Place for the first time since 10 February – but just to test the newly reconfigured track.
Accompanied by dozens of tram contractors, the tram took the better part of an hour to inch its way from halfway along York Place to the current end of the tram line: a large planter at the top of Broughton Street. At points along the way, contractors measured the distances from the overhead line poles and the central reservation to crucial parts of the tram.
Twenty-eight people attended last night’s online meeting held by the Better Broughton group to discuss the future of Picardy Place.
Among them were three City Centre councillors: Karen Doran (vice-convener of the Transport & Environment Cmte), Joanna Mowat, and Claire Miller.
A new phase of work in the Trams to Broughton project starts on Monday, 11 October.
As before, one line of traffic will run towards Leith from York Place.
But instead of a roundabout, there will now be a junction to go left into Gayfield Square, straight ahead down Leith Walk, or right into London Road.
Traffic will NOT be able to turn right out of London Road along Leith Walk. Anyone wishing to access Leith will have first to turn left and go up round the temporary construction site at Picardy Place before heading north.
The pulley wheel shown in the photo here has emerged from recent tramwork excavations on Leith Walk.
Archaeologists will determine its significance, but to Spurtle observers it looks like evidence of the former cable-drawn Edinburgh tram system.
From 1899, it ran as far north as Pilrig Street, whereupon passengers would transfer to the more efficient electrically powered trams operated by Leith Town Council.