Bedford turbo roundabout - it is done

Pete Owens
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Pete Owens »

Again, as was the case with Bedford, the cycle safety scheme is the modification to the carriageway (NOT the segregated stuff added as an afterthought). And here there simply is no question of it being a scheme for motors dressed up as a cycle safety scheme. Continental geometry certaily does impose constraints on motor vehicle capacity - which is the reason UK traffic engineers are so reluctant to adopt it.

Continental geometry featured in "Cycle Freindly Infrastructure" back in 1997, and many of us have been campaining for it for years. We have a lot of roundabouts in Warrington where the design could make a huge difference, but unfortunately the engineers are frigtened off by the limits to capacity (even if that capacity is far in excess of the actual volume of traffic using a particular junction). It is good that they have managed to implement this scheme before the motor lobby managed to scupper it, as they did at Bedford.

Putting cycle tracks round roundabouts is a very dangerous idea as it creates multiple conflict points where cyclists cross the paths of motors as they cross the entry and exit arms of the roundabout.(though it is not quite as bad as painting absurd orbital cycle lanes) This is particularly severe on UK geometry roundabouts as they are designed for high speed. The reason why continental geometry roundabouts are so much safer fror cyclists than UK ones is exaclty the same reason that they are so much safer for pedestrians. It is entirely due to the tight geometry controlling vehicle speeds and absolutely nothing to do with placing cyclists off the carriageway, which is the normal UK practice for cyclists and universal for pedestrians.

And for those calling for "proper segregation": At grade segregation is not geometrically possible at roundabouts (or indeed any priority junction). To understand why take a piece of paper and in a red pen draw a circle in the middle then draw 4 red lines extending from the edge of the circle to each of the 4 edges of the paper - this represents the road nertwork from which you are hoping to be segregated. Now with a green pen attempt to draw a continuous line from the bottom left hand corner to the top right without coming into contact with any of the red lines - this is your "properly segregated" cycle path.

To see the danger of orbital cycle tracks in action take a look at this BBC video of the TRL trial. The drivers know they are being observed so they are on their best behaviour. They know they are in a trial of cycle infrastructure so they know to look out for cyclists. It is a simplified arrangement, with no distractions, pedestrians, heavy traffic, busses and so on. All the cyclists are also on their best behavour, riding very slowly and carefully (fortunately as it turns out). And yet even in an afternnon of filming - scroll the video forwards to 2 minutes - it is a good job she had her wits about her and was covering her brakes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22350776
It would be really good to see a re-run of that trial with cyclists riding on the carriageway.

Also, it makes no difference in terms of safety, whether an off-carriageway cycle facility is separated from of shared with pedestrians. The danger comes from the multiple conflicts at the unavoidable road crossings that are common to both. The design would be better without the cycle paths - and indeed without the narrow cycle lanes on the approaching roads
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by [XAP]Bob »

It's easy - what you do it BREAK the red lines - by giving the green line priority as the red line crosses it - for capacity sake this is best done a full car length away from the inner circle.

This is another <insert your own choice of expletive> up of cycle funding money being used to produce a motorist centric junction.
Last edited by [XAP]Bob on 21 Oct 2014, 10:37am, edited 1 time in total.
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reohn2
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by reohn2 »

Pete Owens wrote:.......The danger comes from the multiple conflicts at the unavoidable road crossings that are common to both. The design would be better without the cycle paths - and indeed without the narrow cycle lanes on the approaching roads


I'd say the danger comes from the bloody mindedness of a significant element of the UK driving public,and a similar element of the UK cycling public too.
Time and again motorists try to push me aside or cut me up,close overtake me,etc,etc just to get to the next set of traffic lights where(in the urban/town heavy traffic environment) inevitably I'll pass them again them as they sit in the jam.The lunatic and dangerous antics these people will get upto to get in front of a bicycle beggers belief and IMHO it's that attitude that needs to be addressed.

Frankly the UK motorist has got his/her own way without much fear of the law intervening,we are currently stuck with a lawless road culture of might is right,until that's addressed we're stuffed IMHO.

Every time I drive and ride in mainland Europe I'm amazed how relaxed and courteous road users are toward each other and more so to the vulnerable road user,only to return home to a pathetic mess of attitude of oneupmanship and bullying pettiness,it truly is pathetic to witness and demeans us as a society.
IMHO it's borne out of a society so self obsessed with climbing to the top of some imaginary pile(of crap)with me myself I at the centre/top and not seeing themselves as part of a whole that can't go any faster than the next TL/jam/island/hold up on an over crowded road system near to gridlock.

There's never been a more apt label than the sick man of Europe when applied to the UK road user IMHO.
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mjr
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote:Again, as was the case with Bedford, the cycle safety scheme is the modification to the carriageway (NOT the segregated stuff added as an afterthought). And here there simply is no question of it being a scheme for motors dressed up as a cycle safety scheme.

I'd agree with that, but:
Putting cycle tracks round roundabouts is a very dangerous idea as it creates multiple conflict points where cyclists cross the paths of motors as they cross the entry and exit arms of the roundabout.(though it is not quite as bad as painting absurd orbital cycle lanes)

I'd say cycle tracks around roundabouts move the conflict points that already exist for cyclists using roundabouts. Sometimes that's good but often it's bad. Again, I agree about orbital lanes if we mean the same thing by them (BBC videos don't play on my browser).
And for those calling for "proper segregation":

I think that's a quote of no-one involved in this discussion, isn't it? It doesn't really help to make up positions an then argue against them. (EDIT: As a result of a twitter conversation, I now see that this is a repost of a comment Pete Owens made on a local blog that I read http://cambridgecyclist.blogspot.com/20 ... 8013152633 but even there he's deliberately misquoting "properly separated" so that the segregation bogeyman can be invoked.)
The design would be better without the cycle paths - and indeed without the narrow cycle lanes on the approaching roads

I agree with that, but I also think it would be better with full cycle paths - which of full paths and no paths is better depends on the location and my experience of riding that road makes me feel that full paths may be better there if nothing else changes (such as traffic law enforcement, speed limits, traffic volumes and so on). The current design seems to be neither one thing nor the other with neither road nor path as safe as for cycling as it should be, which is basically the same problem that I forsee in Bedford.
Last edited by mjr on 21 Oct 2014, 12:31pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Psamathe
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Psamathe »

reohn2 wrote:I'd say the danger comes from the bloody mindedness of a significant element of the UK driving public,and a similar element of the UK cycling public too.
Time and again motorists try to push me aside or cut me up,close overtake me,etc,etc just to get to the next set of traffic lights where(in the urban/town heavy traffic environment) inevitably I'll pass them again them as they sit in the jam.The lunatic and dangerous antics these people will get upto to get in front of a bicycle beggers belief and IMHO it's that attitude that needs to be addressed.

Frankly the UK motorist has got his/her own way without much fear of the law intervening,we are currently stuck with a lawless road culture of might is right,until that's addressed we're stuffed IMHO.

Every time I drive and ride in mainland Europe I'm amazed how relaxed and courteous road users are toward each other and more so to the vulnerable road user,only to return home to a pathetic mess of attitude of oneupmanship and bullying pettiness,it truly is pathetic to witness and demeans us as a society.
IMHO it's borne out of a society so self obsessed with climbing to the top of some imaginary pile(of crap)with me myself I at the centre/top and not seeing themselves as part of a whole that can't go any faster than the next TL/jam/island/hold up on an over crowded road system near to gridlock.

There's never been a more apt label than the sick man of Europe when applied to the UK road user IMHO.

+1
It's like everything [in UK] is a mad rush, can't wait a few seconds and prepared to risk injuring/killing somebody just to save literally a few seconds.

Forcing people to slow down a bit would be a good idea even apart from making life safer for the vulnerable road users.

Ian
reohn2
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by reohn2 »

Psamathe wrote:+1
It's like everything [in UK] is a mad rush, can't wait a few seconds and prepared to risk injuring/killing somebody just to save literally a few seconds.

Forcing people to slow down a bit would be a good idea even apart from making life safer for the vulnerable road users.

Ian


And with the chances of ever having to answer for their bad/dangerous/aggressive driving slim,or should they be caught,the penalties severe enough to make them think twice before repeating such behaviour,also slim due to a non existent police presence,we have the perfect environment for abuse of the law and the 'might is right' attitude so rife on our roads.
Not to mention police forces that don't take vulnerable road user abuse serious enough,if at all.
A gangsters paradise prevails and will do so to a greater or lesser extent until something is done to prevent it.
Example,in the three weeks spent in France in various towns and cities I saw three people using mobile phones whilst driving two of which were stopped,and I was looking for evidence.I can count thirty in very short order at in the UK

The only bit of bad driving I witnessed was by me,when technically I was in the wrong but I wouldn't have risked overtaking a car and caravan on a tight radius r/about in the way the driver did who I cut up :oops: .
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SA_SA_SA
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by SA_SA_SA »

It is surprising this roundabout had not been mentioned in Cycle.

Has anyone written any letters to the Editor?
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Penfolds11
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Penfolds11 »

Psamathe wrote:
reohn2 wrote:There's never been a more apt label than the sick man of Europe when applied to the UK road user IMHO.

+1
It's like everything [in UK] is a mad rush, can't wait a few seconds and prepared to risk injuring/killing somebody just to save literally a few seconds.

Forcing people to slow down a bit would be a good idea even apart from making life safer for the vulnerable road users.


+1, er I mean +2.

What is the point of introducing Dutch style of cycle network without importing the Dutch mentality of driving that works alongside it?
Pete Owens
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Pete Owens »

mjr wrote:
And for those calling for "proper segregation":

I think that's a quote of no-one involved in this discussion, isn't it? It doesn't really help to make up positions an then argue against them.

... and then within the same post ...
mjr wrote:I also think it would be better with full cycle paths
Pete Owens
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Pete Owens »

[XAP]Bob wrote:It's easy - what you do it BREAK the red lines


If you mean creating four culs-de-sac which all stop short of the roundabout thus preventing any motorised access to the junction would indeed make segregation possible. But then it would cease to be a junction.
- by giving the green line priority as the red line crosses it - for capacity sake this is best done a full car length away from the inner circle.

But that is not segregation. You are still left with an area of conflict (or rather eight) where streams of traffic cross each others paths. This is an inherently dangerous arrangement (indeed it is to avoid this danger that the roundabout will have been put there in the first place). You can understand how difficult this is when cyclists are expected to give way as they have to notice whether vehicles coming from behind might be about to turn accros their path. Changing the priorty doesn't solve the problem, it just transfers it to drivers who now have to decide whether cyclists in their blind spot are about to turn across the carriageway.

The Dutch road safety institute (SWOV) studied both arrangements and found that giving cyclists priority doubles the risk of crashing.

This is another <insert your own choice of expletive> up of cycle funding money being used to produce a motorist centric junction.


So which specific features of continental geometry to you concider "motor centric"?
Is it the reallocation of carriageway space to pedestrians?
Is it the reduction in motor vehicle capacity?
Is it the perpendicular, single lane approach arms?
Is it the tight radii on entry and exit?
Is it the single lane circulating carriagway?
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mjr
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote:
mjr wrote:
And for those calling for "proper segregation":

I think that's a quote of no-one involved in this discussion, isn't it? It doesn't really help to make up positions an then argue against them.

... and then within the same post ...
mjr wrote:I also think it would be better with full cycle paths

No part of which is a call to segregate. If you think it is then you are misunderstanding it. I suggest that is wilful because it is easier to defeat an imagined dystopia than the actual alternative being put forwards.

Anyway, two collisions in the first week or so in Cambridge but let's watch what happens next.
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Pete Owens
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Pete Owens »

mjr wrote:
Pete Owens wrote:
mjr wrote:I think that's a quote of no-one involved in this discussion, isn't it? It doesn't really help to make up positions an then argue against them.

... and then within the same post ...
mjr wrote:I also think it would be better with full cycle paths

No part of which is a call to segregate.

This gets more surreal by the minute.
Last edited by Pete Owens on 25 Oct 2014, 5:13pm, edited 1 time in total.
reohn2
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by reohn2 »

Law abiding citizen to politrickian ''it's about the police force''
Politrickian ''yes''
Citizen ''we want one''
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by Tonyf33 »

Just having a look at the latest 2013 incident stats and the quoted bit should have been something that these idiotic planners should have being taking notice of...
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/advice/ ... tsheet.pdf

"The second most common contributory factor attributed to cyclists was ‘cyclist entering the road from the pavement’ (including when a cyclist crosses the road at a pedestrian crossing), which was recorded in about 20% serious collisions (and over one third of serious collisions involving child cyclists)"
That doesn't take into account the 'failing to look properly' which is the highest yet in an incident/collision on these types of death traps you can be absolutely sure that's how the old bill will report it when little johnny gets moshed as he tries to cycle over the zebras :evil:

So known problems that are massively contributing factors to death and serious injury of cyclists but the mentalists carry on building/designing crud like this that makes matters even worse..you couldn't make it up :twisted: king 'tards
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Re: Bedford turbo roundabout - BMF wades in

Post by TonyR »

[XAP]Bob wrote:It's easy - what you do it BREAK the red lines - by giving the green line priority as the red line crosses it - for capacity sake this is best done a full car length away from the inner circle.


Easier said than done. Drivers are supposed to give way to pedestrians when turning into a side road. How many do? A big problem with the Bloomsbury cycle track in London is drivers without priority turning across it without stopping. And its not solved in Europe either. A Finnish study concluded that the problem of drivers not giving way was insoluble by any infrastructural means. Driver education was the only route but if you're going down the driver education route there are many better ways of doing this.
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