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Showing posts with label traffic calming. Show all posts

Contraflow Signage

Earlier this year, Cambridge Cycling Campaign succeeded in winning local council support for the setting up of trial "cyclist contraflow" signs in parts of Cambridge. And as one of Darlington Cycling Campaign's members pointed out to me today, Cycling England has been encouraging all cycling towns to make one-way streets two-way for cycling.

Here in Darlington we have already asked officers on a number of occasions to consider this. One area where this is perhaps more urgently required, however, is at the Duke Street exit of the Pedestrian Heart. Here, cyclists who leave the town centre are confronted with a particularly narrow road outside the Coop Bank, a road that is designed to be one-way for motorised traffic.

This picture shows the view from outside the town centre. This evening, on my way home from the station, I was cycling out of the town centre on this stretch when I noticed a car accelerating towards me and beeping his horn (at 8pm in the evening). He seemed in a great hurry. The reason soon became clear. He screeched to a halt before I was able to exit the narrow road into Duke Street to tell me off for cycling "the wrong way down a one way street".

Having obligingly opened his car door to tell me so, I hung on to it in order to inform him that, in fact, he was entering the Pedestrian Heart, an area in which cycling is allowed both ways. But this was not enough for my car-centric friend, who clearly believed he had the right to speed into the pedestrianised Skinnergate because the bollard had been lowered.

Clearly, there is an education job to be done here. And what better way than to introduce, as is the case in many other countries, contraflow signs on one way streets. The usual safety "experts" will of course argue that "for safety reasons" this just cannot be introduced. But why is this deemed so unsafe, and ONLY in the dear old UK? Because we continue to pander to bad motorist behaviour, rather than developing an expectation of care when driving in built up areas. Contraflow cycling contributes to this.

Look again at the picture above, and you can see a so-called "flying motorcycle" sign. This is supposed to signal a road that is two-way for cyclists, but not motor vehicles. But how many motorists understand this? Especially when there are time restrictions which run out in the evening.

Perhaps more pertinent in this case is the question - why do motorists, other than commercial vehicles loading and unloading, require access into Skinnergate at all? Their only possible destination is a couple of hundred yards from this exit anyway. Would it not make sense "for safety reasons", and indeed to save the NHS some money by encouraging a bit more walking, to simply keep motorised traffic out of the town centre altogether?

Simple Logic for Cycle Infrastructure

Netherlands-based Mark Wagenbuur has recently uploaded several new videos, one of which shows those situations in the Netherlands where you have cycle paths vs. those where you do not:

The logic is simple and obvious - the greater the amount and speed of motorised traffic, the greater the need for safe and high-quality cycling infrastructure. David Hembrow explores this logic further with a recent post on his blog.

But behind this policy lies a wider approach to urban planning. Residential streets are designed for residential use, and road planning ensures that rat-running, the scourge of many of Darlington's streets, is simply not possible.

A few examples of this have appeared in Darlington, notably on the Haughton cycle route on Brunswick Street. But this is the exception rather than the rule for residential streets. Developing a cycling culture in Britain requires town planners and politicians to consider urban development more holistically. Cycling cannot simply be bolted on to an existing plan. Rather it needs to be an integral, and contributory factor, in a wider vision for residential streets, urban mobility, and the place of motorised traffic in our living spaces.

The opportunity is now there for Darlington, and other UK towns, to adopt just this approach, with Local Transport Plan 3, which will frame future transport thinking until 2025, now under consideration. But rather than being scared off by the excellent standards of infrastructure apparent in David and Mark's videos, local authorities in the UK would do well to look again at the example of Bremen in our own film, Beauty and the Bike. In Bremen, levels of cycling are high (25%) despite very patchy standards of infrastructure. Here, cycle paths were first installed in the 1970's, at a time when traffic levels - and infrastructure build standards - were generally much lower than today.

But behind the development of cycling infrastructure even then was a policy of urban planning that recognised where and how motorised traffic should be organised. The infrastructure pictured here also includes a ramp across every side street that slows down turning traffic, and gives priority to cyclists on the cycle path. Moreover, these side streets all have 20mph speed limits, are typically one way for motorised traffic but two way for cyclists, and lead to nowhere for through traffic.

The double concerns of everyday cyclists in the UK - poor infrastructure and motorist behaviour - mirror perfectly the wider perspective that has lain behind core urban transport policy in this country. Thankfully, a debate is now opening up that questions this. As this post is being written, Lynn Sloman is speaking in Darlington on the findings of a report commissioned by the Department for Transport to independently quantify the results obtained by the three Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns; Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester. Her excellent book Car Sick offers a way forward for de-motorising our urban centres. Cycling Campaign members are there to meet her.

LTP3s around the country really have to decide - is cycling going to continue as a bolt on to car-centric urban transport policy? Or is it time for the UK to begin the long process of de-motorising our towns?

Councils should be given greater powers to create designated streets that favour cyclists over cars, a national inquiry has concluded.

'Active communities: cycling to a better quality of life' is the report of an inquiry held by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) and Cycling England.

This report has found that transport regulations should be reviewed to give councils greater control over cycling routes to get more people out of their cars and onto their bikes.

Councils would be able to design the street to favour cyclists while also making it accessible for cars and pedestrians.

For every car driver converted to a bike, the UK economy saves around £400 a year through reduced medical bills, congestion and pollution, according to research conducted by Cycling England.

The inquiry report - downloadable as a PDF here - also calls for every public building to be an exemplar to encourage cycling, for example by implementing storage facilities and bike loan schemes.

LGiU Centre for Local Sustainability policy analyst Gemma Roberts said: "Councils should be given greater control over cycling routes to ensure more roads are made cycle friendly. We need to make it easier and safer for people to cycle.

"Local authorities need to take the lead and make cycling a priority in their communities," she said.

"But the efforts to promote cycling do not stop with the council. We also need the professional and political backing to invest more heavily in cycling so we can really tackle some of the wider issues communities face, such as obesity, climate change and congestion."

Shared Space in Drachten Revisited

Last year two members of the Cycling Campaign visited an example of Shared Space in Drachten, Netherlands. You can see our original post and video here.

Since that visit, the Space's designers have posted an assessment of its impact on YouTube. Here it is. Some highlights stand out, when considering its implications for Darlington:

*It is a roundabout where 22,000 vehicles daily pass by. I wonder how these numbers compare with, say, the Victoia Road/Grange Road roundabout, where a solution for a cycle crossing is yet to be implemented?

*We have no queues anymore.

*The interaction around the roundabout - meeting each other, greeting each other. This refers to how car drivers and cyclists relate on the roundabout. Imagine!!!

After the overnight in Sneek, a wet morning's cycling to the town of Drachten, comparable in size with Bishop Auckland, and with a Shared Space project on its inner ring road. Ten miles out from Drachten, the road - and cycle path - are closed for road works. What do we get instead? This specially constructed, temporary diversion for cyclists. This was in a small village, and it even had a nice lady at the end of it to stop traffic so that we could cross a busy road.

The Shared Space concept is one that is gaining increasing support across Europe. In Drachten, the project is based on the removal of traffic lights on the busy inner ring road, and their replacement with roundabouts, and junctions like the one in this video.

A bit like a zebra crossing for cyclists and pedestrians, but without the beacons! We used the crossings ourselves without a hitch, but what we noticed was that a routine was established by cyclists whereby they signalled their intention to cross with a wave of the appropriate arm, and local car drivers were waiting for the signal. In other words, local customs had developed to deal with uncertainty.

The one car that failed to stop was a Polish-registered vehicle. The cyclist in question, however, was alert to the possibility and probably stopped in time when he registered that the Polish driver was dreaming rather than looking. This, we conclude, is the hub of the problem. Like Poles, most British car drivers also currently dream in these situations, safe in the assumption that they have absolute right of way.

How can we change such behaviour to something more appropriate to urban driving? After so many years of motor dominance in our urban spaces, we are still trying to develop cycle routes in towns like Darlington on the assumption that the motorist should not be disturbed. Yet in contradiction, there is now said to be a hierarchy of traffic modes that puts the disabled, pedestrians and cyclists above motorists in terms of priority.

This theoretical commitment now needs practical application to tackle the major barrier to urban sustainable transport development - British car driver behaviour. Rather than run away from the issue, we badly need politicians, local and national, who will show leadership, and start the long haul towards more considerate - and aware - urban driving.

Cycling in Europe 4 - Friesland Surprises

You sometimes forget when visiting a country like the Netherlands that it is made up of towns, cities, regions, each with their own unique identities. Crossing the 30 kilometre dyke on the Ijsselmeer reminded us of this fact.

South of the dyke is Holland proper, not to be confused with the rest of the Netherlands (cf with use of "England" for "Great Britain"). North of the dyke is Friesland, a largely rural area famous for its cows.

What immediately struck us as cyclists was the change in traffic treatment. Where previously we were given clear priority of crossing motor traffic - at side turnings, for example - in Friesland the approach is more tentative.

Crossings like the one in the picture ask cyclists to give way to car traffic - and car drivers take the hint by driving faster, and with less awareness of what is going on around them in much the same way as Brits.

The first major town we passed through after the dyke, Bolsward, proved to be typical of the region. Here, the town centre has a 30kph (20mph) speed limit, and little or no separate cycle paths. With cycling as popular here as in the rest of the Netherlands, the streets are loaded with brave cyclists and rather aggressive motorists - though thankfully far fewer than in Darlo.

The layout of Friesland roads became apparent as we continued on to Sneek. Small country roads typically have no central line, but instead are narrowed either side with non-mandatory cycle paths, to both warn motorists that cyclists may be round the next corner, and to give them less of a feeling of the open road. Here is one example.

Is this a chicken and egg problem? Does good behaviour follow clear traffic measures that give cyclists priority, or are such measures not possible where motorists are typically possessive about their road space? Perhaps the clue lies in the politics of the different regions, though little can be gleaned from the electoral arithmetic of the 2006 Dutch general election.

But it does make sense, that if strong political leadership is forthcoming, anti-social driving behaviour can be challenged. And what is clear from this experience is that national patterns of behaviour can and do vary. Darlington pundits take note - stop hiding behind the "we are British, we can't do it" excuse for inaction.

20mph and a Speed Management Strategy

Just as we learn that Portsmouth City Council are working towards a 20mph speed limit throughout their city, and just three months after Darlington Cycling Campaign's call for similar measures in our town were dismissed as too ambitious, I accidently come across a consultation process for Darlington and County Durham's Speed Management Strategy.

Naturally enough, the Campaign was not alerted or informed about this consultation process, and the deadline for responses is today, June 4th. One of the key objectives of the proposed strategy, which is billed to run until 2011, is to reduce the risk to vulnerable road users. Hmm, wonder if that might mean cyclists?

If anyone can manage in the next couple of hours, you can email comments on the strategy to traffic.management@darlington.gov.uk.

A petition is being prepared by residents of a Darlington street who believe an accident is imminent because of poor road markings.

Residents of The Broadway, off Yarm Road, in Eastbourne, have complained to ward councillor Ian Haszeldine that the absence of road markings at the busy junction with Yarm Road is a danger to road users.

The matter is compounded by extra traffic using The Broadway for access to Heathfield Primary School and as a shortcut for the industrial estates in Lingfield.

Residents are calling for the road to be made a 20mph zone, and for extra markings to keep the junction free from parked cars.

Heathfield School is one which has had good results in encouraging its pupils to cycle to school and it would be a shame if safety fears led to a decline in the numbers cycling to school, or if the school felt it had to discourage cycling as has happened at at least one Darlington school.

Ironically, the very thing which encourages cars to make use of this street as a rat run is also what makes it key to cycling in the area; it enables access to the Lingfield industrial estates without the need to ride on the large McMullen Road/Yarm Road roundabout.

Calls for traffic calming

There are two pieces in today's Northern Echo where residents of Darlington are calling for traffic calming and/or a reduced speed limit.

In today's Northern Echo is a letter representing the views of residents of Eastmount Road, Darlington, calling for traffic calming. (The letter is from a Hurworth resident, which is why the Echo have incorrectly added Hurworth to the letter.) Having been in contact with the letter writer, I understand that residents would be supportive of a 20mph speed limit being introduced on Eastmount Road.

OVER many months, friends living on Eastmount Road have expressed concerns over the volume and speed of traffic using this road.

They have suffered a number of incidents involving damage to property and vehicles.

The extent of the danger was tragically illustrated by a fatal accident on this road in early December.

Therefore, on their behalf, I contacted Councillor Nick Wallis, Darlington Borough Council's cabinet member for transport, to pass on their concerns in the hope that traffic-calming measures may be considered for the area.

This road is potentially a key link for cyclists as it connects both Haughton Road and North Road to Valley Street from which the town centre will soon be accessible without needing to ride on the ring road. It may also link with the Riverside Path, if this is extended past Magnet.

In view of the fatalities and damage to property on a residential street, its proximity to a play area, and its importance to the town's cycle network, it seems clear to me that Eastmount Road/John Street is a prime candidate for traffic calming and a reduced speed limit.

Update: ianh has posted Nick Wallis' response on the Town Liar forum