Edinburgh Council looking into anti-skid coating for tram tracks

I remain sceptical that any retrofitted "anti-skid coating for tram tracks" will work. Short of coating the rails with diamond grit, but magic diamond grit that somehow avoids being pulverised by the constant passage of steel tramwheels over said tracks, this seems unlikely to work. I suspect this is wishful thinking and will doubtless be rewarded by an expensive contract to a snake-oil salesaman who will walk away with good money for something that won't work and likely can't work.

I believe the advice should have been: Think it through carefully, before deciding upon a tram-system. Not apparently: install tram system first, then try and find an expensive and difficult retrofit to solve easily predictable problems.

Of course, the logical solution is to route cyclists away from tram tracks and only allow cyclists to cross the tracks only at perpendicular angles. No magic froo-froo dust required.

Why do they not address the real problem. The gap next to the rail!

Surely you could put in some high density rubber which sits at, or just below the level of the road and will only compress when a heavy tram rolls over it. It removes the gap when cyclists are there but deforms out of the way when trams come along. Problem solved?

Another issue is the layout, as others have already pointed out. 

The last issue, is why have trams? Can they not bring back trolley buses? Give them dedicated lanes just like trams, but no need for rails.

Please read what @nnahler writes. I also grew up in a city with tram tracks all over the place, wondered what the problem was and thought it must be the self-rigtheous speedy fraction of the cycling fanatics. But when you actually cycle along there you see why falls are almost inevitable. Please don't comment without actually having seen the road layout in person.

The problem is that the road lanes cross the tramlines several times at a shallow angle, so you have to swerve left and right all the time, while you often have aggressive taxi drivers and (at Haymarket) lorry and car drivers on your tail.

If the tram lines weren't there, the road layout would require you to take the lane and remain in the centre of the lane. With the tram tracks, that's not possible, so you get dangerous overtakes all the time.

At Haymarket westbound, the tram comes from the centre of the road and leaves to the left, while the road has a right bend. It's one of the main arterial routes with really heavy and fast traffic. So you have to look backwards to make sure nobody's trying to overtake you while you cross the tracks while following the right bend and making a little swerve to cross the tracks at a better angle. Quite a complex maneouvre, and it's not surprising even many experienced cyclists crash.

Another hotspot is Princes Stree eastbound at Haymarket Bridge, where the left lane is the straight ahead filter lane but many taxis use the right lane (turn right) and still go straight ahead. The left lane then merges with the right lane which has the tram tracks in it, and the pavement creates a pinch point. So you have to cross the tracks at a very shallow angle but at the same time make sure there isn't a taxi trying to overtake at the pinch point. Again quite complex, having to look backwards and forwards at the same time while changing lanes.

@KnightBiker The person on that video is not one of the people sueing the council, he made that clear several times when the grumpy old commenters in the local rag with a long-held grudge against everybody rambled on about how cyclists should all be banned and how nobody ever fell in the 1950s in the old tram tracks.

I agree that the person in that video isn't handling the situation very well, but that's not the reason why hundreds of others have been in danger.

Well seeing the youtube video doesn`t change my mind, i grant you guys that it`s not a pretty road design but it`s still similar to young dogs trying to run on water covered in green vegitation (don`t know the english name for that) , after doing it once the dog in question will remember forever. Also the design isn`t all that disimilar from some situations in amsterdam, although it is generally better for cyclist as a whole, and for feeling pressured by cars to hurry yourself past these tracks in an unsafe way: as a cyclist you have the right to take safe lines, cars should have a little patience. 

(and as @Ronald mentions: everybody in amsterdam uses bikes, from old lady`s to kid`s - no problems what so ever)

i was a little short through the curve in my comments of puposfully claiming but essentially: as a road user this is really your own resposibility, it`s really not impossible to cross these tracks in a safe way, even when wet. Putting all the blame on the council is really blatently undervalueing your own resposibility as a road user.

I live in Edinburgh and I have not fallen victim to the tram tracks yet but also don't cycle,often in those areas.

As a child I grew up in a German city, Kassel, with a huge tram network.

When I first heard of people crashing on the Edinburgh tram lines, I also thought, how stupid, can they don't realise that your skinny wheel,gets cubit in the tracks when you cross them under a shallow angle?

That was until I rode from Princes Street to Haymarket for the first time. The road layout at several places, squeezes you out between the tram line and the curb. You have to,either cross under a shallow angle or swerve into traffic, risking being overrun by a bus. Then the tram line crosses the bike lane(!) under a shallow angle in a right bend. Again, you either end up in the tram line or swerve sharply out of the bike lane into traffic, not something following motorists can expect.

The design is madness and nobody thought about cyclists. They should have checked in Amsterdam, Karlsruhe, Kassel or many other places with a team network and large number of cyclists.

What.

I think the stooges defending shit Council planning should apply for a job at Edinburgh Council.

Ronald wrote:

Amsterdam has tram rails absolutely everywhere, and a rather abundant number of cyclists...

Either Amsterdam must have a dedicated cyclists fallen from tram rails hospital, or it has much better cyclists...

The situation in the video at Haymarket is also common in Amsterdam... We know to take care rather than ride like an idiot

It's also possible that the conditions are not identical in Amsterdam and Edingburgh. What with their being different countries with different road-conditions and different cultures. Tram-lines might be laid out differently at critical locations, or roads might have fewer other pressures for cyclists to worry about (like fast moving cars coming up behind), for example.

So, though I know nothing about Endinburgh, I'm not taking your word for it that any accident is due to people not being as elite and macho as you.

Amsterdam has tram rails absolutely everywhere, and a rather abundant number of cyclists...

Either Amsterdam must have a dedicated cyclists fallen from tram rails hospital, or it has much better cyclists...

The situation in the video at Haymarket is also common in Amsterdam... We know to take care rather than ride like an idiot

Two things:
1. Isn't it the gap for the wheel flange that takes cyclists out mot the slippy rail?
2. How are they ever going to make rails grippy with a surface that will survive tram wheels for more than a fraction of a second?!

And now cyclist don`t have their own resposibility in traffic? These tram tracks are already there when being crossed and it`s a matter of physics that your wheel can get caught when not properly angled when crossing. In amsterdam you don`t hear these complaints while trams and cyclist co-exist in the same spaces. Also most trams have a catch-system so you could not be caught underneath a tram. People who try to claim for this instance of accidents are crazy and i wouldn`t be surprised if they do it on purpose in an american claim and sue everything and everyone culture.

If anyone hasn't cycled in Edinburgh any time recently..

best keep it that way. The place is run by a special breed of halfwit. They have a reverse meritocracy for Council positions.