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This is an example of a Toucan crossing that isn't implemented correctly. It lacks three of the four 'jug handles' on Southway that are required for cyclists to move from the carriageway onto the footway to access the crossing and back (if desired) to re-enter the carriageway after having crossed.
You can often read the scheme's history from a simple look at it. This one would have started by the bus authority wanting a bus stop there (perhaps to access the hospital?). However, there was no way of implementing one without losing a general traffic lane on Southway eastbound because of the acute angle between Crouch Street and Southway. This is why the decision was taken, probably welcomed by residents of Crouch Street, to install a modal filter at the junction and then embed the bus stop in it. Further west, where the 'corresponding' westbound bus stop is, that 'problem' didn't arise, as Lexden Road (as the A1124 is called there) is narrower (but to a traffic engineer that also means the bus stops can't possibly be located opposite each other).
Obviously, a crossing was needed, and for some reason (perhaps because the Crouch Road-Hospital Road connection was on some local 'cycle network' map (it looks that way)), it was decided to make it a Toucan. They would have tried to avoid that, as Toucans officially require longer signal phases than Pelican crossings, but I expect that the crossing time was kept pretty short, anyway.
Do you know if Hospital Road was filtered before this scheme or only later? It may have been an older anti-rat running measure. I'd suspect this, as it doesn't look as if a Toucan crossing was planned for at the time. In that case, the bus stop people probably only had money for the crossing and the northern side of Southway, and they thought everybody would be able to muddle along until the next slice of funding became available. That would have been quite a few years ago, traffic engineers would have moved on, few if any complaints would have been received, and lots of other priorities have since taken over ... :)
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Oliver Schick
@Colonel_of_Truth
There's a toucan i cross every morning on my commute that, as far as I can tell, leads to nowhere. In the view below, you can see the cycle path resumes on the right after the zig-zags. It means leaving the crossing halfway across and joining the road which doesn't feel like it should be the right way to use it but it's how I ride it. The path after the crossing is no cycling, the ramp straight ahead is for wheelchair access and there's no indication anywhere that bikes are permitted on it.
https://goo.gl/maps/d5fQJipkus62
e: in any case it fails the guidance from the Department for Transport