Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chichester

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MikeF
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Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chichester

Post by MikeF »

West Sussex County County is spending £210,000 on a scheme to repaint cycle lanes and "put in state-of-the-art sensors and flashing signs to warn motorists of the presence of cyclists in the cycle lane."!!! https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/news/mexican-wave-of-flashing-signs-for-northgate-to-keep-cyclists-and-drivers-safe/

Warn motorists of the presence of cyclists in the cycle lane!! - good grief is it not expected they might be there? :roll:

I don't cycle this roundabout, but I know it from driving to Chichester and even as a motorist it's very badly designed, and I can see the problems for cyclists. The video even illustrates how bad the system is - and will be.

A "‘Mexican wave’ of flashing signs for Northgate to keep cyclists and drivers safe" is the heading on the website. Keep drivers safe? from cyclists?

WSCC will no doubt hail this as a great success to show how much they are spending to encourage cycling :(


The worst thing is that hard won money for cycling has again been misspent. It's all very well campaigning for money to spent on cycling, but without safeguards as to how how it is spent campaigning is worthless.

Edit figures
Last edited by Graham on 29 Mar 2015, 8:48pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Chicheter identified in the Title
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horizon
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by horizon »

No road closures are necessary and minimal impact is expected for motorists.

The cycle lane will be closed for the next two weeks and cyclists are encouraged to look at other routes.
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Pyranha
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by Pyranha »

Isn't that pretty poor - bikes are expected to give way at each exit in case a driver wants to use 'their' road? Obviously that's one way to avoid left hooks - make them the cyclists' fault. At the same time make the gyratory inconvenient so that cyclists avoid it if possible - so many problems solved in one go. I think I would be tempted to keep out of the bike lane and expect to be treated like traffic, rather than an encumbrance.

I also like that it says that the road will not need to be closed for the works, but the bike lane will, and that cyclists should find alternative routes during the work - perhaps, hoping they'll not return?
Phil Fouracre
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by Phil Fouracre »

Sad and depressing, what is the point?
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reohn2
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by reohn2 »

Phil Fouracre wrote:Sad and depressing, what is the point?


The point is to keep cyclists out of the way of real traffic,after all they're only bikes :?
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Postboxer
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by Postboxer »

It would be easier to make the road narrower and paint the cycle lane right down the middle.
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Graham
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by Graham »

Pyranha wrote:Isn't that pretty poor - bikes are expected to give way at each exit in case a driver wants to use 'their' road? Obviously that's one way to avoid left hooks - make them the cyclists' fault. At the same time make the gyratory inconvenient so that cyclists avoid it if possible - so many problems solved in one go. I think I would be tempted to keep out of the bike lane and expect to be treated like traffic, rather than an encumbrance.

The current cyclepath is around the outer perimeter of the roundabout.

At each exit, to proceed around, the surface-coloured cyclepath is ended with a Give Way broken line. When clear of exiting motor traffic the cyclist may proceed to the next section.

I never use that cyclepath - just stay in the normal carriageway and progress as normal.
Use of the cyclepath absolutely demands obedience to the road markings. To disobey them would be foolhardy - bringing the cyclist into direct conflict with the motorists' reasonable assumptions of priority on exit as designated.

I'm wondering here if West Sussex County Council's intention here is to run the coloured cycle lane across the exits and give priority to cyclists crossing the exit. That would account for the sensors and flashing warning signs.

If it is not WSCC's intention to give priority at the exits to cyclists then it sounds a formalisation of the subordination of cyclists - at great additional cost.

Whichever way it is, give me Presumed Liability any day. Change the driving culture, rather than engineer around it.
tatanab
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by tatanab »

Graham wrote:At each exit, to proceed around, the surface-coloured cyclepath is ended with a Give Way broken line. When clear of exiting motor traffic the cyclist may proceed to the next section.

I never use that cyclepath - just stay in the normal carriageway and progress as normal.
Use of the cyclepath absolutely demands obedience to the road markings. To disobey them would be foolhardy - bringing the cyclist into direct conflict with the motorists' reasonable assumptions of priority on exit as designated.
The markings, without coloured lane, were put in something like 30 years ago and more. I recall it well. In those days traffic was lighter and I never used the cycle lane because it puts me in danger having to wait at each exit and hope that Mr Motorist can put his finger out to flick his indicator switch. If I lived there today I still would not use it. It is not compulsory to do so.
VanDriver
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted??

Post by VanDriver »

tatanab wrote:... If I lived there today I still would not use it. It is not compulsory to do so.

I'd likely join the flow of traffic as I'd feel safer and I'd be able to get on rather than wait and give way. The scheme is going to encourage some drivers to believe that they have - not only at this giratory but on the roads in general - priority over cyclists.
Last edited by Graham on 29 Mar 2015, 9:22pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Quoting corrected.
snibgo
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by snibgo »

Oh dear oh dear. Techno-gadgetry to inform drivers that there are cyclists about. And when the techno-gadgetry fails, the driver has the perfect excuse for driving into a cyclist. This is an amazingly stupid idea.

From the video, it seems a very car-friendly gyratory. Very large radii for the motorists enable them to speed around. Cyclists are expected to always give way to the important people, who are in cars.

The order could be inverted. Most space would be given over to cyclists who always got a clear run, with motorists always having to give way to them. The roadworks could leave the junction open for cyclists, and motorists given helpful information on finding alternative routes.
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by Vorpal »

It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that the injury rate for cyclists is due to a crap design. :evil:

Or that signs don't do anything to prevent the conflicts. :roll:
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661-Pete
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by 661-Pete »

I cannot figure out how any oversized roundabout aka 'gyratory', constructed usually by imposing one-way flow on existing streets, has actually improved the traffic flow. Can anyone convince us that, for instance, the notorious Vogue Gyratory in Brighton has done just that? Or any other such construct, anywhere in the country?

If we're talking roundabouts, I am very much more comfortable with small roundabouts where one can see all the vehicles on the roundabout at any one time. That makes it far easier for the cyclist to judge whether it's OK to venture onto the roundabout itself, inserting him/herself into the normal traffic flow round it. Certainly I don't find any problems with negotiating such a roundabout.

Of course it is possible for the highwaymen to screw-up over a perfectly normal roundabout, for example a newish one in Haywards Heath which I've posted about before. But there's little increased risk if you ignore the 'infarcestructure' on the pavements and traverse the roundabout normally. The main danger is that hostile motorists, seeing you not on the infarcestructure, may execute a 'punishment pass'. Which on a roundabout would be extremely dangerous. I just hope every motorist I encounter has more sense.

I'm not familiar with this part of Chichester, but it seems to me that the problem lies in it being a gyratory in the first place. The problem is that all vehicles circulating on a gyratory are going to turn left at some point. That's an awful lot of left-turns, hence an awful lot of chances of a left-hook. The 'give-way' markings, I notice, favour users of the main carriageway against cyclists on the cycle lane, and I can understand why. Understand, but not condone.
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snibgo
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by snibgo »

661-Pete wrote:I cannot figure out how any oversized roundabout aka 'gyratory', constructed usually by imposing one-way flow on existing streets, has actually improved the traffic flow.

I have no solid information, but I can imagine how they might.

When a conventional (Tee or crossroads) junction carries one road with most traffic, and one or more side roads with give-way, a roundabout gives people coming out of the side-roads a chance to get out. The larger the roundabout, the more opportunity to tune the road layout to give "straight-through" ease to some directions, and sharper curves to slow down other directions. Through this, all motorists can use the junction at the same speed, which eases merging and queueing, and maximises throughput (motorists per hour).

And the larger the roundabout is, the greater the speed at which it can be driven across, which motorists love.

But a junction that also carries cyclists should (IMHO must) meet other criteria. I want all vehicles to travel at the same speed, say 10 mph. This means slowing motorists down, heavily. It needn't mean reducing the throughput (motorists per hour) but will of course increase the time for the motorists' journeys.


Encouraging cyclists to ride on the left naturally increases the risk of left-hooks. Reducing the speed of motorists to that of cyclists, and having all road-users in the same lanes, is a better solution. Best of all, in my view, is to re-engineer so cyclists have priority. If that means bollards all over the town, so be it.
TonyR
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by TonyR »

Don't know why they don't go the whole hog and put Cyclist Dismount signs at each entry to the gyratory.
nez
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Re: Best Farcility of the Year?? £210,000 Wasted?? Chicheste

Post by nez »

There are a couple of roundabouts in Colchester where the design is so dangerous for cyclists I just get off and become a pedestrian.
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