Poynton regeneration scheme

Mark1978
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Mark1978 »

That all works fine until BMW drivers use it then there will be mass carnage.
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RickH
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by RickH »

Mark1978 wrote:That all works fine until BMW drivers use it then there will be mass carnage.

I just had another look through the video and even the BMWs I spotted seemed to be behaving themeselves! :D

Richard Mann wrote:I'd be interested to hear whether it works for less-assertive cyclists.

The only bikes I spotted were (1) on a rear rack, (2) a bunch of roadies and (3) a guy cutting across from the pavement (13:57; blink and you'll miss it).

While looking through again I thought I'd have a look for bikes - there are actually 1 or 2 in quite a few after shots, 'ordinary' cyclists just mingling with the traffic & going about the same speed. In the before shots of Poynton I only spotted 2 bikes - waiting at the lights on both occasions. I wouldn't have enjoyed riding through before & I'm one of those mad/brave/fast (in short bursts) enough to be OK in those sorts of conditions.

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Richard Mann
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Richard Mann »

I watched it again, and I think this is a full survey of the cyclists:
05:20 - on pavenent
06:24 - on crossing/pavement
08:50 - on pavement (I think, certainly not in primary position)
10:16 - on pavement
10:23 - on road (hi-vis / helmet / ?female)
10:31 - on road (hi-vis)
11:00 - on pavement
11:08 - bunch of roadies
11:13 - cameraman
11:47 - on road (lycra, but no helmet)
13:57 - on pavement then road

There's also some raw footage on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uD05uvWm5U

It looks OK if you don't mind lots of things moving at upto 15mph, or are happy to use the pavement. I'm not convinced it'd work with higher pedestrian/cyclist density.
Pete Owens
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Pete Owens »

Mark1978 wrote:That all works fine until BMW drivers use it then there will be mass carnage.

Since the junction has been up and running for nearly a year now - with a road that busy leading to a part of Cheshire known as "the Surrey of the north" then there will have been many thousands of BMWs passing through.
Geriatrix
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Geriatrix »

Pete Owens wrote:
Mark1978 wrote:That all works fine until BMW drivers use it then there will be mass carnage.

Since the junction has been up and running for nearly a year now - with a road that busy leading to a part of Cheshire known as "the Surrey of the north" then there will have been many thousands of BMWs passing through.

Poynton isn't unique in the implementation of free space scheme, it's been implemented elsewhere, Kensington for example, and deemed successful. There has always been a question over its ability to scale, which is where Poynton comes in because it was implemented at a busy junction.

The fact that it introduces uncertainty in the motorist is a point that is always raised but it should be noted that this is one of the principals on which free space works. By raising uncertainty you slow things down and increase vigilance/caution without negatively impacting on journey duration because stopping time is reduced.
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Pete Owens
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Pete Owens »

Indeed, it is the uncertainty that is the key to its success which is why it goes against the grain of the traffic engineers who's entire career has been based upon control and regulation and predictability. What they fail to take into account is human nature. Every feature they introduce supposedly as a safety measure to make the roads more predictable is treated by motorists as a performance enhancement - so they can drive faster.

This goes beyond shared space schemes - it applies to seat belts and helmets - to cycle lanes and paths - to pedestrian cattle pens - to lane markings. It is why zebra crossings are safer than pelicans. It is why they now deliberately reduce visibility on the approach to roundabouts.
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PaulCumbria
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by PaulCumbria »

Geriatrix wrote:Poynton isn't unique in the implementation of free space scheme, it's been implemented elsewhere, Kensington for example, and deemed successful.

Poynton IS unique in the extent to which shared space ideas have been introduced - it is light years ahead of the Exhibition Road scheme in that sense. To see other schemes as radical as this you have to look overseas.
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Graham
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Graham »

Pete Owens wrote:Indeed, it is the uncertainty that is the key to its success which is why it goes against the grain of the traffic engineers who's entire career has been based upon control and regulation and predictability. What they fail to take into account is human nature. Every feature they introduce supposedly as a safety measure to make the roads more predictable is treated by motorists as a performance enhancement - so they can drive faster.


. . . so they can drive faster and/or think even less about the safety of other road users !!!
thirdcrank
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by thirdcrank »

It seems to me that unfamiliarity/ uncertainty can only help to a limited extent without further reinforcement. One example of what I'm getting at is the apparently experimental nature of the scheme: the longer it remains, the longer the the locals have to become familiar with it and devise their tactics and the more the project is copied elsewhere, the greater the number who will become familiar with it. I think it's worthwhile remembering that the success or failure of any scheme is measured - at the official level - on the assumption that if a certain %age comply then that's OK. This is at the back of the self-enforcement principle. What it fails to recognise is that the %age who don't comply largely consists of the Toad-of-Toad-Hall brigade. (Since safety also is measured by casualty reduction, we are still in victim-blaming territory.)

I'll suggest that technical solutions cannot work in isolation: they need that further reinforcement. ie some sanction against those who go "poop-poop" and bash on regardless. Reduced visibility at roundabouts may make many take a bit more care, but that's by no means universal; as I'm always posting, there are plenty of drivers who are sure of their ability to see around corners.

It seems to me that this is a fundamental feature of trying to use our legal system to foster more care and consideration.

IMO this goes right back to the provision of roadside pavements. IIRC it was CJ who first pointed out (to me at least) that they were first introduced as a way of enabling pedestrians to keep out of the mire. No matter, the result has been that they mean that the kerb represents the limit of any safety for pedestrians, and even that is being eroded. Pedestrian crossings have been mentioned and they are an example of what I'm trying to say. In the Crank v Brooks case so often quoted on here, a driver "was in collision with" a pedestrian who happened to be pushing a pedal cycle. The case got as far as the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court before what most would see as common sense prevailed. Countless drivers "in collision with" pedestrians in the vicinity of pedestrian crossings advance the defence that the pedestrian was not on the actual crossing and so, by implication, was fair game. All those zig-zags were painted as the result of stats 19 booklets showing that the area of the road on either side of a pedestrian crossing was exceptionally dangerous for pedestrians. IMO it's a tribute to survivors' justice and the difficulty of proving something like that to the criminal standard of proof, especially when the enforcement authorities have more or less stopped trying.

I'll suggest that this is why the hierarchy of solutions may work in The Netherlands, where the reinforcement comes from a legal system which does not treat pedestrians and other vulnerable users as cannon fodder.
thirdcrank
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by thirdcrank »

Was it something I said?

I was trying to add to the discussion, not to kill it off. :oops:
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7_lives_left
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by 7_lives_left »

Thirdcrank,
I don't disagree with anything that you said, you are accurate as ever.

Just to show that there is nothing new under the sun, here is a junction on google maps not far from where I live that has two abutting roundabouts. I doubt it carries as much traffic as Poynton but at peak times this junction has long tailbacks on all four the approach roads. It also differs from Poynton in that there is alot more street furniture. This junction is known as Hazlemere crossroads. It has had this road layout for more than 30 years, since before I moved into the area. I have been told that in the long distant past when it was a taffic light controlled junction, the tail backs and delays were horrendous and the dual roundabout were seen as an improvement. It can be tricky to cross when on foot.
Pete Owens
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Pete Owens »

Drivers respond to the environment they find themselves in. The uncertainty in shared space schemes is not due to unfamiliarity but to the absence of any marked priority - and will remain when they have traversed the junction many times. Shared space environments are actually very common in the UK. Think of busy supermarket car parks for example; families with small children will casually push their trollies through a busy space shared with significant motor traffic. Drivers do not tear through them - however familiar they may be - because they need to take account of what everyone else is doing.

On the other hand roads are designed to the same instructions (the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges) whether they are high speed roads and motorways or urban high streets. The same rules of priority and predictable layouts that are needed to facilitate high speed long distance traffic are used for urban streets with the entirely predictable result that drivers continue at speed though busy areas used by people. This is not that they are being particularly careless it is that the infrastructure, layout, and rules of the road encourage that behaviour. When a through road is given marked priority, and white lines used to simplify the environment and a driver gets a green light then the rules of the road say that it is everybody elses responsibility to keep out of the way - effectively removing the duty of care from the driver.

The proponents of shared space are most certainly NOT of the victim blaming - "reduce casualties number by driving pedestrians off the road" mentality. Quite the opposite; the schemes are proposed primarily to bring life back into public spaces, improve the local environment, and increase the business at local shops. They see pedestrians happy to cross the road at ease and wherever they want as a measure of success and improved safety as a bonus. They have to fight tooth and nail with highway engineers (victim blamers to a man) who see all the conventional highway engineering paraphernalia (the lane markings, cattle pens, signs, traffic lights and - most critical - marked priority) as essential safety measures. Every scheme will fail when they are subject to a safety audit (which is actually nothing of the sort but simply a check that it complies with conventional standards) and the successful ones tend to be where strong political leaders manage to resist most of the compromises that the highwaymen will insist on.

The example of two mini roundabouts is not remotely comparable except at the most superficial level of a rough figure of 8 outline. The mini roundabouts show all the features of conventional rules based highway engineering - and unambiguous priority markings. Pedestrians are left to fend for themselves having to wait for all traffic to clear before attempting to cross the wide flared arms of the roundabouts (apart from one arm where a zebra crossing is located inconveniently far from the junction and behind some "safety" railings that actually obstruct the entire width of the narrow pavement. Any spare space is allocated to motors (including the extra access road in front of the shops behind that very narrow pavement. There is white paint everywhere to regulate the traffic; there are arrows to tell drivers which way to go round the roundabouts, the centre discs are the regulation diameter permitted by the standard rather than a larger diameter that would be more appropriate for the location, white hatched areas to get them to line up properly, wide flared double lane approaches, bus laybays (it wouldn't do to have a mere bus slow down important traffic) and finally KEEP CLEAR markings. There are conventional bollards and road signs scattered round giving no indication of place. The carriageways are all very wide and virtually all the space in the main junction is allocated to vehicles, with pedestrians confined to the margins with no thought whatsover paid to how you might want to walk through the junction.

Now I am sure that the traffic engineers at Poynton will have seen the junction as exactly that (2 mini roundabouts) and they will have sought to impose all those rules, white paint, signs and clutter - To have put up railings to prevent pedestrians crossing dangerously near to the junction - To have used space to put in extra traffic lanes - To insist on wider lanes and so on. And all that would have destoyed the essence of the scheme.
thirdcrank
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by thirdcrank »

The broad point I am making is that traffic management alone will not change underlying attitudes, although I would agree completely that the traditional road layout encourages drivers to put their own progress first. The example of the supermarket car park is an interesting one because I would have used it to make the opposite point: although drivers have to drive more slowly there, they often still drive too quickly for the circumstances, bearing in mind the numbers of pedestrians - including children hidden from view by parked vehicles. If I were to be asked to provide an example of where selfish driving is all too frequent, I'd nominate retail car parks, especially when they are close to being full. (As evidence of what I'm saying, I'll mention that the "bad driving" offences were extended to include public places such as car parks in the 1988 RTA.) Another example would be motorway roadworks, where human beings at work are sometimes separated from the traffic by only a row of plastic cones. The only thing which will slow the traffic to even the relatively high speed of 50 mph is strict enforcement. IMO selfishness is at the heart of the problem: if it wasn't we wouldn't be discussing whether keeping drivers guessing contributed to safe driving.

I'm not saying that this or any other scheme is not an improvement. I do say that significant change will need a fundamental change in attitudes. I also say that even if the majority of people can be persuaded relatively easily, the small percentage who will not change (increasing quite sharply in individual circumstances when progress is delayed) need more persuading, but this is just at the time when traffic enforcement is being abandoned.

Reflecting on the consequences for the promotion of cycling, this is one of the reasons why things like the NCS have failed. These things are always led by the transport authorities, whether at the national or local level. They really do need a much broader commitment (see the reports of what's been said during the present parliamantary inquiry, and more to the point, which departments didn't even contribute.)
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7_lives_left
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by 7_lives_left »

OK, I get it, the Hazelmere crossroads example I posted isn't even remotely close to Poynton :) . Maybe it could be turned into a Poynton if they removed all the rubbish?

With regards to supermarket car parks, one that I am familiar with has lots of white paint showing one way only flows and giveway markings and sign posts marking no entry if you try to go against the flow. It's not unusual to see drivers ignoring the one way flows if there is a precious parking space that catches their eye. Would the supermarket do well to ditch all the paint and signs and just leave the parking bays marked?

As a cyclist and sometimes pedestrian, in a supermarket car park the thing I fear is reversing vehicles.
Geriatrix
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Re: Poynton regeneration scheme

Post by Geriatrix »

Pete Owens wrote:Drivers respond to the environment they find themselves in...

Nice post.
I'll nail my colours to the mast by stating that I like the scheme. There is however a danger that in wanting a scheme to work you become blind to its faults. It would be good to see objective data come out of the scheme to show how well it works (or not).
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled - Richard Feynman
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