Town planning and cycling a.k.a bad junctions

I thought we already had a thread for this but I can't find it. Here's some others:

http://www.lfgss.com/thread19968.html - Oxford Circus
http://www.lfgss.com/thread14302.html - How to design a city
http://www.lfgss.com/thread45007.html - Elephant & Castle ASL design
http://www.lfgss.com/thread69706.html - Blackfriars
http://www.lfgss.com/thread97876.html - Old Street RAB designs
http://www.lfgss.com/thread67462.html - TFL Network Operating Strategy

This is the one that Skully was talking about:

https://www.lfgss.com/thread72710.html

Highway Engineering and cycling a.k.a. bad junctions

Maybe bringing the threads into one place could crystallise some common things that are wrong with all of these particular junctions.

I've seen flowers a few times too many on the junctions of Clerkenwell Rd and Goswell Rd and St Johns St. My feeling in both cases is that if cyclists turn right offside to offside, to use car terms, they can't see if a car is squeezing up on the inside of one of the cars across them, and so go when they think it's safe when it's not. Equally cars go way too fast when squeezing as they're often trying to beat the lights. I suspect that's not a flaw unique to those two junctions, I just ride them a lot.

Anyway - can we come up with relatively general ways to describe the ways in which we think roads are dangerous? Maybe someone from TFL can then take our feedback and turn it into decent road design.

One thing I found very irritating is the traffic light timing.

There's a traffic light in Oval that changed too quickly, by the time you're halfway across the junction on a bicycle, the other traffic start giving way and honking at you for "jumping a red light".

I learned how to ride around gyratories without any problems at Swiss Cottage. It also greatly reinforced my determination to get rid of all of them.

I like that Gyratory I find it a real challenge. I hit it every morning, the trick is to fly down St Johns, jump both sets of lights a t the bottom without losing speed then you can filter right in between the speeding cars without any hassle as you are going 20mph+.
It's all in the timing

^ no hands?

I think a lot of problems are caused when the motorised traffic is allowed to spread out into two lanes, then inevitably back into one again.

This was very well illustrated when London Bridge had a reduction to a signle lane at the Southern end- motorised traffic was at a standstill as the drivers tried to merge, often forcefully.

If they'd been kept to a single lane all the way over the bridge I am convinced that traffic would have kept flowing, with fewer risks for everyone.

No the road surface is too bad. Which brings me onto Avenue Road, figuratively and literally. Is there any road surface so poor in London as Avenue Road? There are trenches running down the middle of it. Potholes everywhere and an insane cycle lane of doom which you'd need a screw loose to use.
Motorcyclists take umbridge at me not using it. Why the fuck would I endanger myself by cycling on the inside of traffic turning left and pulling out?
It's crazy

If they'd been kept to a single lane all the way over the bridge I am convinced that traffic would have kept flowing, with fewer risks for everyone.

I'll agree, the first couple of weeks will be neck-to-neck congestion before people adapted and either take other transport or direction.

I think Ken Livingstone created further congestion back when he was a mayor which encourage people to take different mode of transport instead.

This may be a repost but it is an interesting project. Not sure how it would work in Londons famous streets

http://youtu.be/-vzDDMzq7d0

Biggest problem is the island - cyclists will have to either hop onto the island to filter or stay in traffic.

I learned how to ride around gyratories without any problems at Swiss Cottage. It also greatly reinforced my determination to get rid of all of them.

It's pretty horrible at 7am now, when it's dark, there's no speed cameras and there are six lanes with three outs, plus buses crossing over from left to right. I use it to go to Paddington, so the bike section up to Adelaide road is of no use. Just clear signalling and more time looking over my shoulder than forward. Definitely an awful piece of infra.

It's shit. There was a vague plan to return it to two-way as part of the Superhighways proposals on the A41. I need to ask what has happened to that, but I fear it's probably off the agenda by now. :(

Current status according to Camden Cycling Campaign:

This has been twice through junction review but nothing agreed

http://www.camdencyclists.org.uk/about

I haven't seen this before and I'm very pleased that a start for such street planning has been made in the UK.

If only they could apply the same principles to junctions throughout London.

This may be a repost but it is an interesting project. Not sure how it would work in Londons famous streets

http://youtu.be/-vzDDMzq7d0

There's quite a lot of discussion of Poynton in the Shared road space thread. While it has its advantages, I've always been somewhat sceptical of the approach. At any rate, much depends on the context and details of each scheme, and depending on those it can work well or worse. There are definitely locations in London where it will be good. Hackney are currently pursuing such a scheme at Leonard Circus in Shoreditch, where it is highly suitable.

aldwych and the strand are still both needlessly horrible. The westbound section of aldwych has recently been changed to accomodate a new crossing and is now even worse than before.

This may be a repost but it is an interesting project. Not sure how it would work in Londons famous streets

http://youtu.be/-vzDDMzq7d0

See Exhibition Road and Seven Dials

Once a separate cycle lane (with a curb between it & the rest of the road) has been built, is it ever open to be removed?

Howland street (off TCR) feels incredibly poorly executed & I see near misses the on a regular basis. The pavement is very busy for peds so they all crowd on the cycle lane to cross or just don't look as they think it's still part of the pavement. Cyclists are forced up the inside of traffic turning left & if you choose to not use the cycle lane (as I do) cars try to into the curb. Then later down the road the cycle lane is trapped on the inside of cars coming up to another left turn.

Depend on the council, some feel they've wasted too much money on it just for it to be removed, and if there's no death causes by their layout, they'll likely to stick to the same answer.

Shame really, it created additional abused from motorists when you don't want to ride inside that deathtrap littered with debris.

(Some things are happening very slowly through the junction review process at TfL)

Tollington Road crossing Holloway Road is pretty challenging. Good location for Level 3 cycle training since to turn right on to Holloway rd moving from the bus lane you need to move over 3 lanes fairly fast moving.

The only set of lights I sometimes jump are the ones just before there near the Morrisons to make getting into lane easier in rush hour.

You see loads of cyclists filtering down the left to the front and then trying to get over to the right, seemingly surprised every day that there's no ASL at the front of the junction.

The mornington crescent area, Cobden Junction, is currently under review with a pedestrian friendly, cycle horror plan from the council and TfL:-

https://consultations.wearecamden.org/culture-environment/cobdenjunction

http://rachelaldred.org/writing/thoughts/no-going-dutch-at-cobden-junction-or-whats-wrong-with-asls/#Cobden

http://camdencyclists.cyclescape.org/issues/707-consultation-on-cobden-junction

Nice, we considered cyclists and then thought, fuck 'em.

There seems to be a bit of an obsession with creating very wide pavements at the moment.