Bedford turbo roundabout - it is done

[thirdcrank]

I've found this evaluation by the person who (AFAIK) proposed the scheme:-

Union Street roundabout
Turbo-style roundabouts – the future?

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-institu ... k_lingwood

It's some 45 pages of pdf but don't be put off by that, it's mainly pretty pictures and little of substance and at least there's no gloating about candy and babies. There's absolutely no detail about how the original plan morphed into what was delivered, other than that the motorcycle lobby group didn't like the raised dividers.

My query about the facilities for cyclists crossing the road seems to be answered in the pics on pp 33-34 in that there are none, although the road markings of the zebra seem to be unconventional and appear to have been altered since installation, but there's no explanation of whether that was the result of some testing of a crossing for cyclists or just a cock up by the white lining team.

There's a rather sad picture of a group of small children wheeling their bikes over the crossing all wearing helmets: it's stretching the language to term any of this as being cycle-friendly.

I've checked the CyclingUK www for any recent comment, - and this is subject to anything that gaz may unearth - but there's nothing since the "muddling through" blog comment linked towards the start of this thread.

But, at least the CTC/Cycling UK was consulted. What more could anybody ask?

[mjr]

Presumably still using cycle funding money as agreed to and approved by the CTC/CUK ?

Yes, as far as I know, although it's a stretch to call it "approved by" - I think Sustrans were the lead consultee and it was pretty clear that the majority of the consultation group were going to agree to spend the money regardless, so really that left dissenters with two options: walk out or try to get the least crap ones funded in preference.

[SA_SA_SA]

Does the 2016 cycle crossing beside the zebra* work like a zebra, a cycle lane with priority over road traffic, or a plain crossing (cycles must give way to traffic but can use crossing pedestrians as shield ) ? Surely signs need to make this clear? Any local users?

*page 34 seems to show the layout of diagram 1001.5 in http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016 ... le/14/made where it sounds like the cycle part is legally a bit zebra-ishy .

Like thirdcrank I am also interested in actual local experience of the effect of their buildout solution (which seems interesting but did it work?) .

[mjr]

Does the 2016 cycle crossing beside the zebra* work like a zebra, a cycle lane with priority over road traffic, or a plain crossing (cycles must give way to traffic but can use crossing pedestrians as shield ) ? Surely signs need to make this clear? Any local users?

Parallel crossings work like a zebra. We've got some in King's Lynn and they're fairly low traffic (across a one-way street and the entrance and exits of the bus station) but seem to work without special warning signs.

We've also got some zebras on the edge of town that you have to cycle across to use certain cycle tracks (no footway or cycle track alongside the road on one side) and motorist compliance is poorer than at the new parallel crossings. I doubt that all the zebra-jumping motorists know that cycles didn't formally have precedence at them, so I suspect it's partly that the Parallel crossings look different enough to make them pay attention and not treat them like red lights and just keep on motoring through them.

Looking at the Bedford roundabout, there seems to have been two slight injuries to cyclists nearby in 2015 (index references 2015405BA0059 and 2015405BA0890 if anyone wants to look them up), both in collision with cars. All cyclists are recorded as being on-carriageway. One car was leaving the roundabout as the cyclist continued on it, with the car's nearside colliding with the cyclist's offside. The other car was entering the roundabout when its front collided with the nearside of the cyclist who was also entering the roundabout (odd?). So neither seems to tell us much about the safety of the far-off-the-desire-line crossings.

[SA_SA_SA]

....
Parallel crossings work like a zebra. We've got some in King's Lynn and they're fairly low traffic (across a one-way street and the entrance and exits of the bus station) but seem to work without special warning signs.....(

Thats interesting, because it seemed to me that too treat something like a zebra it would need to look like one... Hmmm. I wonder if cyclists using it know that their parallel path has zebra-ish properties.

[mjr]

....
Parallel crossings work like a zebra. We've got some in King's Lynn and they're fairly low traffic (across a one-way street and the entrance and exits of the bus station) but seem to work without special warning signs.....(

Thats interesting, because it seemed to me that too treat something like a zebra it would need to look like one... Hmmm. I wonder if cyclists using it know that their parallel path has zebra-ish properties.

It's in between the beacons so I'd guess so. Also, cyclists seem pretty good at modulating their approach speed to meet gaps in the traffic, so there are fewer standoffs that walkers suffer, scared to tread on the crossing for fear motorists won't stop, but motorists scared to proceed for fear that the walker steps out.

[thirdcrank]

It seems to me that if something is being done experimentally (even if the idea of providing for cyclists is bread-and-butter stuff in some more advanced countries) then it's important to learn from it, even if the results are not what you hoped for. Here, there were two quite separate things, joined only by their connection with providing for cyclists: the so-called "turbo" roundabout design and the attempt to provide for cyclists in conjunction with unsignalled pedestrian crossings - zebras. You don't need to be Einstein to know that combining two experiments like this is unlikely to give clarity to the results. Even so, there's no obvious attempt in the report in my link to draw any conclusions at all which might help future cycling provision.

From the perspective of cycle campaigning, it just seems to confirm what we knew already: no matter what the message from the people employed to provide for cyclists, when the big misters who provide for motor traffic get hold of it, they will provide primarily for the motor traffic, with anything for cyclists being marginal, and only to the extent that it does not interfere with their overriding priority.

Those big misters will also have confirmed what they knew already: no matter what they get up to, nobody is going to make any noticeable fuss.

Finally, when the anti-cycling lobby are moaning about the money spent on cycling farcilities, the entire 300 grand or whatever it was will be in the accounts as £££ spent on cycling, even though it can't all have gone on erecting a few shared-use signs.

[Pete Owens]

I've found this evaluation by the person who (AFAIK) proposed the scheme:-

Union Street roundabout
Turbo-style roundabouts – the future?

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-institu ... k_lingwood

It's some 45 pages of pdf but don't be put off by that, it's mainly pretty pictures and little of substance and at least there's no gloating about candy and babies. There's absolutely no detail about how the original plan morphed into what was delivered, other than that the motorcycle lobby group didn't like the raised dividers.

In interesting presentation - it looks like I was being overcritical of the designer; the modified design didn't simply ditch the lane dividers, but used other features to try to achieve the original aim of the scheme (ie reducing speed). This is explained on page 23 - the extended kerb with the build out prevents drivers taking a racing line through the junction.

The key slide is page 40 which shows that even the compromise design has been successful in reducing vehicle speeds to around 14 mph.

[thirdcrank]

... Parallel crossings work like a zebra. We've got some in King's Lynn and they're fairly low traffic (across a one-way street and the entrance and exits of the bus station) but seem to work without special warning signs. ...

My own experience of traffic signs more generally (and every part including the paint of a zebra crossing is a traffic sign, of course) is that everything is OK until something goes wrong eg somebody is injured and then the legal niceties form the basis of decisions on megabucks in compensation. Once upon a time, there were prosecutions for failing to give precedence to pedestrians, but that's a distant memory.

We know that a cyclist wheeling a bike across a zebra is a pedestrian (passenger on foot as was) and that there's nothing other than Highway Code advice to stop a cyclist riding across, although they would have no precedence. Part of the reason for pedestrians being advised not to cross near a crossing - on the zig-zags - is that statistically, it's a very dangerous place to cross (IMO, that's the result of survivors' justice but it's what the stats say.) It seems important to me, therefore, that we need to know the precise legal standing of this type of crossing, and what priority, if any, given to cyclists, bearing in mind that the type of cyclist most likely to use a shabby shared-use farcility may not be an experienced rider.

I'd appreciate being pointed towards the regulations which enable this type of crossing, and if they are linked higher up the thread, sorry.

PS I see that the plans submitted appear to have bog standard zebras and I've forgotten to mention that the picture gallery shows some strange things on the cyclists' bits including a the pole for a belisha being slap-bang in the middle and the dropped kerbs seeming to ignore some of the cycling bits.

PPS

I've found this from TfL but I cannot find a date.

1.5 Unsignalised ‘priority’ crossings for pedestrians and cyclists are a standard part of the ‘toolkit’ in many parts of continental Europe but are not authorised for use in the UK. These continental crossings are of shared-use or segregated types depending on the country and their standard layouts
(My emphasis

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/cyclists-use- ... ssings.pdf

[mjr]

The regulations are linked higher up the page but http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016 ... art/1/made is maybe the most useful page. Paragraphs 21-25 or so.

[thirdcrank]

Thanks for that.

22.—(1) The give-way line marking provided for at item 54 of the Part 2 sign table (and shown in the diagram at item 53) conveys to vehicular traffic proceeding along the carriageway towards a Parallel crossing—
(a) the position at or before which a vehicle must be stopped (“the stop position”), and
(b) a requirement to stop at, or before, the stop position, if a pedestrian or cyclist is on the carriageway, for the purposes of using the crossing, within the part of the crossing intended for (as the case may be) pedestrians or cyclists.
(2) Where there is a refuge for pedestrians or cyclists, or central reservation, on a Parallel crossing, the parts of the crossing situated on each side of the refuge or central reservation are to be treated, for the purposes of this paragraph, as separate crossings.
(My emphasis)

The bit I've highlighted is IMO particularly important as it cuts all the crap about precedence - which theoretically meant the zebra regs offered no protection against a driver passing very close behind a crossing user as precedence only means going first.

[mjr]

The bit I've highlighted is IMO particularly important as it cuts all the crap about precedence - which theoretically meant the zebra regs offered no protection against a driver passing very close behind a crossing user as precedence only means going first.

I think there was a distinct offence of allowing any part of a motor vehicle to enter the crossing area while it was in use, but as you say, the new phrasing is clearer and reduces doubt.

[The utility cyclist]

Cambridge is to receive it's very own 'turbo' roundabout shortly, http://road.cc/content/news/211156-camb ... roundabout one hopes that it won't be the abomination in Bedford but even still it's relying on the 'goodwill' of motorists to stop and give way to people on bikes in a very unfamiliar format and the speeds that motorists can travel through at will only serve to make it worse than currently.

I've ridden the Bedford 'turbo' and frankly I found it hateful, I would not be encouraged as a newcomer to cycling to use farcilities because it increases the risk of collision, numerically for right turns there are 4 crossings and a poorly angled rejoin carriageway path that again puts you intot he path of motorvehicles that are travelling in the same direction. So you have to stop 5 times, mingle with pedestrians when previously it would be give way once and then proceed. As discussed before, this is absolute turd!

The proposal for the turbo in Cambridge I would presume is on the back of this by TRL http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22350776 which I thought I remembered one of the forum posters here going on or was at least one of those that were used by TRL
That it still had a near miss in perfect conditions, riders wearing hi-vis, no distractions, all drivers instructed beforehand, low levels of traffic, during the day highlights the flaws in the design. Sadly it's the UK driver with their feeling of entitlement, arrogance, intimidating behaviour/attitude that don't want to do the basics/obey the law especially when it comes to people on bikes, turbo roundabouts and the abomination in Bedford just expose people on bikes to more risk AND dramatically slow you down.

[mjr]

How do you have four crossings for a right turn? I make it two in most directions: right turn into centre refuge, crossing one exit, crossing one entrance, right turn back onto carriageway.

Also, in theory you shouldn't need to stop to cross, but in practice you probably will because many motorists currently blast through zebras.

I agree with most of the other concerns.

[The utility cyclist]

On the Bedford roundabout there are two crossings for each road traversed, it is not a singular zebra crossing both lanes on each road thus 4 crossings in total. It's around 3-4 times the distance and at times I'd estimate 20x the actual time by comparison to going around on the road, as I said it's more dangerous cycling across these roads with the hope that motorised traffic will give way to you plus the poorly angled/not enough space 'on path' back onto the road.
In theory there is ZERO chance of being able to cycle through without stopping or indeed on the 'turbo' without slowing to barely walking speed, in practice it'll just be more rubbish that motorists ignore and near misses/collisions will occur or people on bikes will just not venture to use it/get off and walk.