Bus stops on cycle lanes pose threat to life and limb in Kingston upon Thames

THIS week’s blog features engineer John Meudell who explains  why he is highly critical of the attitudes of the planning and highways engineers building cycle lanes in England. 

His accompanying photographs of recently constructed cycle lanes in Kingston upon Thames illustrate the dangerous short comings we have become familiar with over the years. 

Do Kingston's cycle lanes even comply with government guidelines which call for a minimum of 3 metres width for a two-way cycle lane?  These two-way lanes look very narrow in the photographs, with  barely enough room for approaching riders to pass in safety. 
And that's before we add bus stops into the equation!

John Meudell,  loaded and ready for another big tour.

Unlike in The Netherlands where whole junctions get ripped apart and rebuilt from scratch in order to accommodate all modes, cycling infrastructure in the few places it does exist in the UK  has been  tacked on to existing roads and pavements and safety and convenience  compromised. The smart signage and distinctive black surface with the symbol of a cycle  provides a false sense of security.

In Kingston there is real possibility of collisions between cyclists and bus passengers where bus stops are positioned on the cycle lanes.  

Kingston even admits to the dodgy construct on their website, where the cycle lane passes under the noses of alighting passengers. Kingston simply advise cyclists, bus passengers and bus drivers to be aware at these locations! 

Would they expect passengers to step off a bus onto a  main road?  At least they did get the cycle lane design right at one bus stop!

Meudell ponders how it is that dangerous facilities such as these get signed off as safe to use? Why are they built that way in the first place?

Yet this has been the trend in the UK for decades.

It begs the question, if the government were ever to fulfil our wishes to rebuild the highways to make them “safer” for cyclists are planners and highway engineers up to the task?

Personally, as a professional engineer, writes John MeudelI, I find the concept of pop-up cycle lanes highly concerning.  Given the safety critical nature of highways and the poor quality of current cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, even when developed (if not consulted) over a number of years the idea that, by someone sticking down a bunch of coloured traffic cones almost at random, the activity suddenly becomes safer and more convenient is bizarre!

I was horrified when I first heard the excuse “there haven’t been enough cyclists/pedestrians killed” when asked about road improvements for cyclists.  That was in the early 2000’s, albeit the guy who said it, a highways engineer, was being ironic at the time.  But, since then, the attitude has only got worse and the myopia systemized.

Coming from my background; i.e. munitions, hot and heavy steel; domestic gas, aviation, power and oil and gas engineering; industries where safety is of critical importance (and not only human life but financial safety as well) I find the general attitude of the highways industry, and its administrators, totally abhorrent. 

If anything the recent screw up over “Smart (duh!) Motorways” has reinforced that view, HE blindly pushing a capacity agenda with little grounded thought for the safety implications or their decisions.

(The introduction of smart motorways has led to an increase in serious accidents on some stretches, official research has revealed. An analysis of reports published by Highways England, the body that maintains motorways and major A-roads in England, showed that severe accident rates worsened after the hard shoulder was removed.)

Over the years I have had many conversations with the officials charged with transport planning and highways engineering.  Their attitude, combined with the complete lack of accountability of their profession, has convinced me that they will never “heal themselves” and it will require an outside intervention and change agent to achieve this.  Hence my long held view those things will only change with the creation of an independent Inspectorate of Roads, or similar organization, with full powers of sanction, to hold the highways establishment to account.

What is also concerning is the lack of any “sound of opposition” from pedestrian and cycling organizations on the subject of infrastructure safety. 

Recent Kingston schemes for cyclists have  been a shambles. Here are four different bus stop treatments within a kilometre of one another. Near the junction of Surbiton Road and Penrhyn Road. 

 We have this gem  with a little blue circular
sign on a post indicating

                      shared use beyond, into the bus stop zone! 

The telephone box! To get round it, pedestrians simply step  into the cycle path .

At least Kingston got this right, a sensibly configured arrangement.  

This cycle lane is an accident waiting to happen, every time a bus stops and disgorges passengers onto the cycle lane. Last year I was on a bus which pulled up here. The driver opened the doors and a young woman stepped out - straight into the path of two kids doing about 15kph. Fortunately, they reacted instantly and missed her completely. But the kids' mother on her bike, had to swerve and brake hard and nearly fell.
All but one of these bus stops rely exclusively on the reactions of pedestrians, cyclists and bus drivers to  keep each other safe from conflicts created by the  highways engineers and the safety inspectors responsible.
........................................

John Meudel C.Eng MIMechE,  is a professional engineer and former deputy chairman of the CTC. (Cyclists’ Touring Club, now rebranded as Cycling UK).

Trained  initially  as  an  engineer  he has  extensive  international experience,  in  both  private  and  public sectors, holding senior positions within the DTI, in London, and Royal Dutch Shell in Malaysia, UK, the Netherlands, Brunei and Sarawak. His early career included spells with Rolls Royce, British Steel and Royal Ordnance plus, over the years, extensive work with voluntary organisations.

Since leaving industry and moving into research his focus has increasingly turned to transport planning, integration and development, along with aspects of community involvement, most specifically in relation to non-motorised user issues.

 

Cycling UK plead with transport secretary Schapps

The time is fast running out to build on the increase in cycling since lockdown, say Cycling UK, who have written to transport secretary Grant Schapps urging him to fulfill the government's promise to fund the national cycling and walking plan.

This from Cycling UK…….

With only a week until parliament rises for its summer recess on July 22, Roger Geffen, Cycling UK’s policy director, said he was concerned that many of the proposals announced by the government in May, including publication of a national walking and cycling plan, have still not been delivered. Cycling UK believes that if action is not taken soon, a golden opportunity to build on the increase in cycling since lockdown began could be lost.

Mr Geffen welcomed the action taken so far, including £250m in emergency active travel funding (EATF), the first £45m of which has recently been allocated to allow local authorities to rapidly reallocate road space for cycling and walking.

However, in his letter, he points out that a promise to deliver a national cycling plan in early June has not been kept, and no further announcements made on when it might be coming.

This anguished call for action to fund cycling  has become a regular pantomime in which Cycling UK plead for government to fulfil its promises, in this latest case,  to  fund a multi-£billion national cycling plan.

Not that I view Cycling UK as pantomime characters.

Cycling UK are a serious outfit who, over many years, have presented many sound reports on the benefits to be had from making the roads safer for cycling.

Each time the government promises action and fails to deliver.

It’s the government ministers refusing to take the issue seriously who have made this into a pantomime. But there’s nothing funny about. You might leave with tears streaming down your face, not of joy, but from sheer despair at the utter stupidity of the brain dead. 

We must hope that Grant Schapps, Transport Secretary, will break tradition this week and respond positively to the plea from Cycling UK, the national cyclists’ organisation.

And not  turn a deaf ear, like previous ministers.

Soon, we Cycling UK members can expect letters asking us to write to our local MPs to bring pressure to bear.

It’s the same story every time

And nothing has ever happened.

Government agrees to the excellent reports setting out why the roads need to be made safer and how cycling can benefit the health of nation and they promise the earth.

Then do nothing. Why? Because for some reason known only to themselves, they appear not to want to encourage too much cycling!

Happens every time.

Here are a few previous examples of government inaction.

Get Britain Cycling Report, 2013. 

This excellently presented report was presented by their own, the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group. It was endorsed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron who then refused to give it cabinet backing but instead passed the buck to local authorities who neither have the funding nor, in many cases, the political will.

Between 2013 and now, the Government has tinkered with pushing forward a national policy for cycling and walking, the intervening years punctuated by urgent reminders by campaigners to get on with it.

There was talk of a cycling and walking strategy in 2016, with all sorts of piss poor figures being bandied about: £64m to encourage more cycling (2017); a pitiful £6.5m to boost cycle ambitious cities (2018).

When you consider that Manchester needs £1.2 billion to build their 1800 mile network you will  understand that a national cycling strategy won’t be going far on the few £million the government talks about.

One of the best/worst examples of government duplicity came way back in 1996, when the historic national cycling strategy was launched by the Conservative Party to great fanfare but with no funding.

It was useless anyway, because a cycling strategy on its own can’t possibly work without strategies for other transport modes as well. And Britain has never had a transport policy, never mind an integrated transport policy.

The only man to dream up an integrated national transport strategy was Labour’s John Prescott in the 1990s but because he wanted to cut back on car use he lost his brief and his white paper was torn up.

The Tories, however, are totally responsible for the current impasse.

Can Schapps snap them out of it?

POPPING BACK TO TRAFFORD AND REIGATE

BBC’s World at One last Thursday featured Manchester’s cycling Czar Chris Boardman and  MP for Reigate Cristopher Blunt to explain why pop up cycle lanes in their respective areas had been cancelled only days after installation. (see previous blog).

Boardman said the Trafford facility taken out was only a short section of a 3.5mile cycle lane – the longest in the country, he claimed – and it was done because it was found to be unsuitable for that location. No problem, he said.

As for Reigate,  Mr Blunt also claimed that the placing of the cycle lane on the High Street had also proved to be unsuitable. He was asked if he supported the installation cycle lanes in general and he replied “yes” – through clenched teeth, it sounded like.

 A local cyclist has told me that the Reigate High Street is dominated by through traffic – it is on the A25 - and a cycle lane on the High Street was therefore unlikely to reduce the impact of local traffic which wasn’t so high on that stretch of road. Alternative routes for cyclists to access the High Street exist.

Meanwhile, a quarter of the 16,000 mile national cycle network has been “declassified” because these supposedly quiet roads shared with motor traffic have now  been declared unsafe for cyclists by Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity. Many of the shared routes were not fit for purpose from the outset.

Black day for cycling as six councils reject pop-up cycle lanes

Here we go.

"Councils put brakes on cycling schemes in England after backlash"...says The Guardian today (July16).
The report tells how six councils have cancelled cycle routes funded by the government, as part of their £250 million emergency active travel fund.

This you will recall was as much to do with encouraging people to cycle to avoid using crowded public transport and the risk of catching the Coronavirus, as  to help prevent traffic pollution levels from rising again, after they had fallen dramatically during lockdown.

The six councils who have cancelled cycle routes are: Ealing, Wandsworth, South Gloucestershire, Trafford, Portsmouth and Surrey.

Trafford?

That’s Manchester, which has huge plans for cycling, the best in the country, as my recent blogs have reported. What’s the problem in Trafford?

I dare say we will find out.

Apparently, a number of Conservatives have campaigned against these pop up cycle lane plans, including Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, who lobbied for Surrey county council to remove a cycle lane on Reigate High Street, three days into the planned three-week trial.

He claimed the road was already a “bottle-neck”. 

Now let’s not jump to conclusions and immediately blame the anti-cycling motoring brigades who have friends in high places. Well, not yet, not for a few more paragraphs!

Maybe the placing of the cycle lanes had not been thought through, as is claimed.  

Cycling lanes on our road! Taking road space from our motors!

Correction, your motors. I don’t have one.
The best thing really is simply to flood the roads with cyclists - critical mass style - going about their rightful business as they have every right to do. 
No one objects to more and more cars! So they cannot logically object to more and more cycles, or horseriders for that matter, using the highway. Slow everything down, deter the buggars from driving about and poisoning the air.
They are not motoring roads.

But OK, maybe the pop ups weren’t thought through, perhaps there were other roads where pop up  cycle lanes would have been more suitable, like cul de sacs. 

Why this sudden reaction instead of at least giving them a chance to see how they worked over a trial period?

Did  councils simply put blindfolds on and walk up to a  map and stick pins it, and then say that’s where they’ll go?

Of the cycle plans for Ealing, the local MP said the plans are well intentioned but the scheme was badly thought through.

But if it turns out that the car mad society and the taxi drivers’ organisation -  for whom we all know the roads were made for in the first place  – are behind this, well, then, that wouldn't surprise me.

For in the same story, The Guardian reports 
that eight out of 10 Conservative politicians in London objected to proposed new cycling infrastructure comprising 83 cycle routes between 2013 and 2019.

They included councillors, MPs and members of the House of Lords. Not just the high and mighty but residents associations were seen as likely to oppose cycling schemes, too.
Schemes aiming to make us a healthier nation and reduce pollution and congestion.

In which case, let me just say, well done, what a fabulous bunch you all are.  Really wonderful.  Keep on being absolutely splendid. May you all choke on your own exhausts.

Cyclops - unique breakthrough in junction safety

CYCLOPS, a unique road junction design which segregates cyclists and pedestrians from traffic was launched in Hulme, South Manchester last Thursday.

It will allow cyclists to approach from four ‘arms’ which converge onto an orbital cycle track completely encircling the junction.

Depending upon signal timings, it will be possible for cyclists to make a right turn at the junction in one manoeuvre. They can also filter left without signal control.

It is the first ever junction in the UK designed with the safety of vulnerable road users in mind, with separate paths for cyclists and pedestrians. And it was designed by Transport for Greater Manchester engineers.

A key element so far as motor traffic is concerned is that drivers experience less delay at Cyclops than at many other conventional junctions. 

Cyclops?  -It stands for “Cycle Optimised Protected Signals”   not the one-eyed monster of Greek and later Roman legend –the Cyclopes!

I must admit to feeling a little excited by this breakthrough in road infrastructure.

The junction before...

The junction now

Could this kick start the long overdue cycling transport revolution in Britain? I like to think so. There will be as many of 30 Cyclops junctions across Greater Manchester in the quest to become the first UK city with a cycling and pedestrian network across all 10 boroughs.  
This is the 1,800-mile Bee Network, the brainchild of Manchester Cycling Czar, the Olympic champion Chris Boardman, and Mayor Andy Burnham.

Designers of the Cyclops junction, TfGM Engineers Richard Butler and Jonathan Salter, were tasked with overcoming the flaws in existing UK junction designs, to consider how to make the junction work for all modes.
 “The main difference between this junction and traditional UK junction designs is that cyclists are offered an alternative safer route around the junction,” Butler and Salter explained.

Transport for Greater Manchester engineers Richard Butler, Jonathan Salter and Project Manager Dave Stevens.

With the Cyclops design …“They are no longer required to position themselves on the nearside of the lane, allowing vehicles to pass on their offside which is often the cause of so-called ‘left hook’ incidents, where cyclists going ahead are struck by a vehicle turning left from the same lane.”

The design has been applauded by experts nationally and internationally, with the approach being adopted in Cambridge, Lancashire and even Ottawa in Canada.

The next CYCLOPS will be at Newport Street by Bolton Station.  Chris Boardman, cycling and walking commissioner for Greater Manchester said, “Crossing busy junctions on foot or by bike can be a complicated and scary experience and is often a huge barrier for people travelling by foot or bike, and having to navigate a number of these can make them opt for the car.

“Particularly right now, as we’ve seen cycling trips up by 34% and cycling and walking trips now counting for 33% of all journeys in Greater Manchester, this junction design will make journeys easier and smoother for those doing their bit by cycling or walking, without impacting negatively on any other modes. This design is simply genius and I’m not surprised to see other places already adopting the approach.”

*Manchester last week received £21m government funding to put in the temporary measures to make cycling and walking safer, as called for  by government to get people moving again as the Coronavirus lockdown is eased.

Comment………..

The brilliance of Cyclops is that it puts vulnerable road users on an equal footing with motor transport, without causing additional delay to precious drivers!

Don’t delay drivers! That has been the golden rule of transport planning since the 60s when private car ownership began to soar.  To encourage this government ministers decided that drivers must be able to drive where they want, when they want to, and without delay.

So it was that roads were laid out with one thought only, to process motor traffic quickly. There was rarely a thought for pedestrians and cyclists. Which is why, for instance, on those few cycle tracks built alongside main roads, there is no right of way across side roads or provision at junctions. And why more recently, sharp turnings into side roads have been pared back so vehicles do not have to slow down too much, putting pedestrians at greater risk.

Roundabouts were designed to process traffic speedily, creating a potential nightmare for cyclists. There must only be minimum delay to motor traffic,  it was decided.  which is why to this day pedestrians using traffic light controlled crossings on high streets see the green man turn red often before they are three quarters the way across.  

This is the way it has always been and most likely why getting the needs of cyclists included in transport plans has proved so difficult. Which is why Cyclops could be a winner, an equalizer, you could say.