Gyratory traffic schemes, extended one - way systems etc

A bunch of motorcyclists regularly protested against (I think) parking charges in Westminster by doing laps around the roundabout just South of Trafalgar Square. It completely fucked traffic in the area with only twenty or so of them.

Yeah they had engines, and probably looked scary.

If a bunch of hipsters tried that, it would be a massacre. Haha

No seriously we could try something like that, but wouldn't that just be like Critical Mass?

@tom/fasih yeah we could easily get something together, using twitter etc RIGHT NOW.

@Joe
Yes the one way around New X G was those streets I think, now removed.

Tge Grange Road works don't really offend me but west bound is not finished, I noticed a drain cover right where cycles are exoected to leave the carriageway... duh.

From my work I have seen a great deal of political will for getting rid of the Aldwych gyratory, from all quarters of the City of London (planning, transport, built environment, economic)

It would appear tis a matter of funding.

Underlined seem to contradict each other don't they! Politics IS money.

Not strictly true.
Not everyone in local politics decision making has hold of the purse strings.

Oliver /Charlie LCC where are you?
they are a throwback to another era indeed.
ones around the periphery especially dodgy I agree with you Skully

^Oliver and charlie are too busy campaigning for the removal of gyratories to read this thread. Join LCC skully and campaign...
(I love gyratories, where else can I take people to teach them advanced cycling skills?)

Vauxhall freaks me out more than Wandsworth - too many exit and entry points, so you get reckless bastards driving hard on the gas, changing lanes abruptly to save a few seconds of time or "beat" the lights. Wandsworth you can just pick your lane and go with the flow (if you're quick). It's no good at a moderate pace.

This is why I hate Wandsworth, it can only be ridden quickly.

i hate the funny little roundabout that isn't a roundabout outside sainsburys HQ in Holborn freaks me out as nobody except the cabbies know where you are supposed to stop, i changed my route so i can approach it from Holborn viaduct not hatton garden

Holborn Circus, Mr Smyth. Yes it's not clear what the priorites are and where you should wait.

Not in the same league as most gyratories though.

What's the diff btw. gyratories and RABs?

Yeah they had engines, and probably looked scary.

If a bunch of hipsters tried that, it would be a massacre. Haha

it work for Blackfriar, safety in number and all that.

Oliver /Charlie LCC where are you?
they are a throwback to another era indeed.

Oi! Neither Charlie nor I are throwbacks to another era. :)

This is true, however campaigning from a cyclists point of view would probably be in vain, as most of the big gyratories in london have "cycle bypasses" already, no matter how inadequate/stupid they may be.

Not true, Tom. We got Shoreditch made two-way in 2002/3--this kick-started the uptake of cycling around Hackney, simply because people could go straight on from Hackney Road to Old Street--that's all it took (like most anti-gyratory schemes, it wasn't returned to two-way completely). My first campaign resulted in getting rid of the strange pseudo-roundabout at Shacklewell Lane/St Mark's Rise (which was a major left-hook hazard and Hackney's only cycling crash blackspot) and replacing it with a much better junction design. More recently, we persuaded Hackney to return the completely redundant roundabout at Hoxton Street/Pitfield Street/Hyde Road/Whitmore Road ('the Britannia crossroads') to a crossroads (work in progress, as east-west rat-running still needs to be addressed).

We're currently working on Stoke Newington, although this will require Mayoral support, which is currently not forthcoming. It will happen, though. Further afield, our colleagues in Lambeth LCC secured major changes to the (still very patchy) Vauxhall Cross redesign some years ago.

Campaigning for two-way operation is very worthwhile and two-way operation brings enormous benefits. People tend to be very worried at first (there is a huge, ingrained fear of change in London) but once they see the benefits, no-one wants to go back.

Still a lot of work to do! All help welcomed.

^Oliver and charlie are too busy campaigning for the removal of gyratories to read this thread. Join LCC skully and campaign...
(I love gyratories, where else can I take people to teach them advanced cycling skills?)

When we're done, you'll have to teach Level 3 outside of London. :)

By the way, we tend to say 'returning gyratories to two-way operation', not 'removing' them; it's strange how much of a difference that makes, as people have an automatic negativity filter, and 'removing gyratories' almost implies that they're a bit of an asset.

What's the diff btw. gyratories and RABs?

Not every gyratory is a roundabout, but every roundabout is a gyratory. That's about as far as agreement on the terminology goes; many people use 'one-way system' as the most general concept, and 'gyratory' is often felt not to be understood and to be too abstract. I tend to use 'gyratory' or 'one-way system' only for non-roundabouts and 'roundabout' for roundabouts, which is really a fairly roundabout way of saying that I call a spade a spade.

Not true, Tom. We got Shoreditch made two-way in 2002/3--this kick-started the uptake of cycling around Hackney, simply because people could go straight on from Hackney Road to Old Street--that's all it took (like most anti-gyratory schemes, it wasn't returned to two-way completely). My first campaign resulted in getting rid of the strange pseudo-roundabout at Shacklewell Lane/St Mark's Rise (which was a major left-hook hazard and Hackney's only cycling crash blackspot) and replacing it with a much better junction design. More recently, we persuaded Hackney to return the completely redundant roundabout at Hoxton Street/Pitfield Street/Hyde Road/Whitmore Road ('the Britannia crossroads') to a crossroads (work in progress, as east-west rat-running still needs to be addressed).

We're currently working on Stoke Newington, although this will require Mayoral support, which is currently not forthcoming. It will happen, though. Further afield, our colleagues in Lambeth LCC secured major changes to the (still very patchy) Vauxhall Cross redesign some years ago.

Campaigning for two-way operation is very worthwhile and two-way operation brings enormous benefits. People tend to be very worried at first (there is a huge, ingrained fear of change in London) but once they see the benefits, no-one wants to go back.

Still a lot of work to do! All help welcomed.

Very interesting (I live in these parts you mention). Is there somewhere to read more on the theory etc behind by why gyratories are dangerous for cyclists?

What campaign organisation are you part of?

Where did the shoreditch one used to route you?

Thanks

If the few I have to deal with are representative, they tend to be very wide (4+ lanes) which causes drivers to act like they're on a motorway and drive aggresively with no consideration for slower more vulnerable road users. Hard acceleration, unindicated lane changes, rushing red lights and so on. The scale is out of step with the environment (urban).

Very interesting (I live in these parts you mention). Is there somewhere to read more on the theory etc behind by why gyratories are dangerous for cyclists?

There's loads to read. :) It's not just a question of road danger; gyratories (and all one-way streets) also reduce cycling simply because of the inconvenience. In some ways, that's the bigger question. Crashes are a secondary outcome, a symptom, of that.

We put it under the heading of 'permeability': 'Maximum route choice, minimum diversion' for cyclists. 'Route choice' for short.

http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/permproj.htm
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/permeability.htm
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/shoreditch.htm

(The Look Both Ways domain linked to in the above has expired, unfortunately.)

If you're interested in crash stats, they're easy to come by. Here's a recent Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/jul/21/london-gyratories-cyclists

The Wikipedia article on roundabouts gives you some references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Roundabouts_and_cyclists

There are still other problems with roundabouts, e.g. the long detour for pedestrians, the poor visibility across the junction, that you can't cross the street, the lack of activity in the centre of the junction, which is where the focus of interaction should be (all meaning that commercial activity never thrives around roundabouts), etc. It's just appalling urban realm design, all undertaken for the sake of a desperately stupid idea that modernity would mean that we'd all be driving everywhere in the future, since walking and cycling are bad and free energy would be neverending. Increased road danger is only a small part of the bigger picture, albeit of course the most immediately concerning one.

What campaign organisation are you part of?

The London Cycling Campaign (LCC), more specifically the LCC in Hackney.

http://www.lcc.org.uk/
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/

Where did the shoreditch one used to route you?

It was one-way clockwise, i.e. turn left at Hackney Road, go down Shoreditch High Street (four lanes of one-way motor traffic), turn right into Great Eastern Street, arrive at the Foundry junction after a long detour.

I prefer roads in towns/cities when they are left like they were designed to be used (i.e. 2way grid pattern streets with back streets etc). I feel that last few years even small towns have been thwarted by overly complicated expensive schemes to 'manage' traffic, but what they actually seem to do is bottle neck all the traffic from all the different grades of roads into one way systems where drivers then feel they have to step on the loud pedal to claw back some of their wasted time.

My vote is for returning streets to how they were originally built, with the odd traffic light where REALLY needed + ped crossing etc. So many places now you'll be at an empty deserted street @ 3am waiting at a needless red light for minutes for no good reason.
Having backstreets allows some traffic to take short cuts, and the rest use a broader array of streets.
All my local towns/ cities have very quickly (less than 5yrs) gone from pleasant places to drive/ walk/ cycle around to traffic riddled hell holes that I now just avoid completely, thanks entirely to bad planning/ road re-design.

This aimless droning rant was brought to you by BrickManIndustries, rambling on forums for a future with no change whatsoever.

If the few I have to deal with are representative, they tend to be very wide (4+ lanes) which causes drivers to act like they're on a motorway and drive aggresively with no consideration for slower more vulnerable road users. Hard acceleration, unindicated lane changes, rushing red lights and so on. The scale is out of step with the environment (urban).

Exactly right. In a way, of course, people are on a motorway there--or at least on what was built of the motorway. It's unbelievable today, but the plan last century was to start with constructing massive junctions (as that's where 'traffic' gets its knickers in a twist the most) and then widen lots of streets by knocking down tens of thousands of houses. More than fifty houses were apparently demolished to build the Lea Bridge roundabout, not to mention Brooke House, Hackney's saddest post-war loss:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Clapton#Brooke_House
http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/brookehouse.html

overly complicated expensive schemes to 'manage' traffic

Spot on, the idea that you have to 'manage' 'traffic' is at the root of the problem here. What people mean by this is either to accept present levels of motor traffic and try to make everything else dependent on current levels of motor traffic, or to increase it and make everything else dependent on the 'requirements' of future, higher levels of motor traffic.

recently near me (Cumbria/Lake District/Northern Wastelands, delete as appropriate) they have been spending UBER bucks (around £1m per roundabout FFS) on improving roundabouts.

Now, their version of improving roundabouts on local A roads (which by measure stick of the rest of the country are generally pretty much deserted) is to expand each one into a 2/2.5/2.75/2.85/2.995 (but never 3) lane roundabout, but instead of lanes, they just have dashs on the ground, and traffic lights, lots of them, and on 24/7 burning up electric.

Each they have improved never more than 1-3 cars queued to get onto the 'bout at any time of day (and generally never any traffic thats worth raising an eyebrow about) to hellish waits for nothing, followed by green light and several near misses per experience. (Because people cannot figure out the marking & lights & non-round roundabouts).

Yesterday was about 2ft from death. Gone onto roundabout on bike on way home, lights red, me in left hand lane going straight on, traffic from behind went green, one car middle lane same direction as me steamed right through lights red for me and nearly hit a car coming on somewhere else, 5seconds later as I was reeming from that near squashed experience was 2ft from being hit by a lorry (fixed body) turning left behind me going at least 40mph.

So, last time I wait for red lights on that excuse for a roundabout.*

*isn't the point in them traffic constantly moves?

There's loads to read. :) It's not just a question of road danger; gyratories (and all one-way streets) also reduce cycling simply because of the inconvenience. In some ways, that's the bigger question. Crashes are a secondary outcome, a symptom, of that.

We put it under the heading of 'permeability': 'Maximum route choice, minimum diversion' for cyclists. 'Route choice' for short.

http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/permproj.htm
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/permeability.htm
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/shoreditch.htm

(The Look Both Ways domain linked to in the above has expired, unfortunately.)

If you're interested in crash stats, they're easy to come by. Here's a recent Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/jul/21/london-gyratories-cyclists

The Wikipedia article on roundabouts gives you some references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Roundabouts_and_cyclists

There are still other problems with roundabouts, e.g. the long detour for pedestrians, the poor visibility across the junction, that you can't cross the street, the lack of activity in the centre of the junction, which is where the focus of interaction should be (all meaning that commercial activity never thrives around roundabouts), etc. It's just appalling urban realm design, all undertaken for the sake of a desperately stupid idea that modernity would mean that we'd all be driving everywhere in the future, since walking and cycling are bad and free energy would be neverending. Increased road danger is only a small part of the bigger picture, albeit of course the most immediately concerning one.

The London Cycling Campaign (LCC), more specifically the LCC in Hackney.

http://www.lcc.org.uk/
http://www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk/

It was one-way clockwise, i.e. turn left at Hackney Road, go down Shoreditch High Street (four lanes of one-way motor traffic), turn right into Great Eastern Street, arrive at the Foundry junction after a long detour.

Thank you for the information Oliver.

Good to have you here Mr Schick. I appreciate the distinction you make about terming it 'returning to 2 way traffic'.

I'm glad you could elucidate what I was alluding to in starting this thread.

@hippy I would say that gyratory is a large roundabout, often not round, often with anomalous rights of way variations, with buildings in it: a large system rather than an mere traffic obstacle.

Great thread. I must agree about how much better new cross is since it's become 2-way.

I can remember seeing plans for gower street and tcr both going 2 way, with most the traffic on tcr. The aim was to improve ped (ie loads of students) safety on gower street. I'll have a search and see if i can find it.