St Andrew Square

St Andrew Square
South St Andrew Street has been closed to south-bound traffic, including cycles, undoing the good practice at Dublin Street. This means that cyclists are expected to make a right turn across two tram tracks whilst chased by motor vehicles, which of course is a recipe for being dismounted. The cyclist has to choose between keeping on the left and praying that those behind don't go straight on anyway (which of course will be true in the case of a tram), or using the poorly implemented, obsolete ASL to take the lane and make the angle of crossing the tram track very shallow. In short, this is a dangerous mess, but it is brand new. It also means cyclists have to take a lengthy detour to cover the 100 metres or so to Princes Street. It should be obvious that there was more than enough space here to do this correctly, and allow cyclists to go straight on. That is in fact what I did, and judging from Google Street View, I'm not the only one to choose to do that. Incidentally, there was a tram coming the other way, and I didn't even come close to conflicting with it.

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