Bikes, bus stops and pedestrians

When I reported on my conference- and museum-visit to Vienna a few weeks ago, I spared you my little moans about the terrifying system of cycleways that criss-cross the city -- terrifying for unfamiliar pedestrians, that is. I assume that the locals have internalised the different significance of the red and green tracks, because despite the speed of the passing bikes I didnt actually see any ordinary walkers mown down. But for the averagely observant stranger the whole pavement network fely close to a death trap. The picture above is a case in point, where you will see the pedestrian symbol caught between bikes going in different directions. In other places you would be dutifully following the 'walking person' sign, only to discover that it changed apparently without warning into a superfast bike highway.

Now, as an habitual cyclist, I am in principle dead keen on bike lanes. But the problem of turning roads never designed for the purpose, at least not at the present volume of traffic, into convenient and safe spaces for cars, bikes and walkers is never quite as simple as it seems -- as I've just discovered in my own street, where the local council has just installed a 'wide-enough-for-two-bikes' cycle lane down one side of the road.

 

At first sight, there is much to applaud here -- even though this is not at the top of the list of the most dangerous roads in Cambridge (which you can see in an appendix to this document , it is only on one side of the road and the lovely new cycle lane actually comes to an abrupt halt just where the going gets really rough for those on two wheels. You might now be able to bike in this far from Girton side by side on a slightly raised surface, but soon you will be faced with a much less desirable single track, which -- 500 metres down the road at one of the nastiest junctions in town -- is simply interrupted for about 10 metres, so that cars can cross from one side of it to the next, before blithely picking up again on the other side. What the hell cyclists are supposed to do at this point,I haven't a clue.

All the same, some improvement might be better than nothing you might say. But there are some uncomfortable unintended consequences of the new scheme, which includes a system of 'floating bus stops', where the bus stop is on an island and the cycleway runs between the island and the pavement (as in the picture above). What this means is that cyclists do not get held up behind buses stopping to pick up passengers. What it also means, as I hope you'll be able to see from my rather murky photo, is that cars trying to turn right now not only have to watch out for two lines of oncoming traffic at different speeds (bike and cars), but worse the cyclists are actually partly concealed by the bus shelter from drivers waiting to make the turn by the arrow -- and that hardly makes it safer for anyone.

 

 The other problem is pedestrian access to and from the bus stop. You now have to cross the cycle path to get to the stop, and the cycles are coming down the road at quite a lick -- and, as again I think you can see in the picture, they are not very forciby warned of the likelihood of pedestrians crossing. There is a warning, but I am not sure if it is enough to stop some slightly slow, elderly passenger getting mown down before too long. The defence is, I believe, that very soon, just like the good burghers of Vienna, we will get to internalise the new arrangements which then won't be dangerous at all and will have created better conditions for cyclists. I hope so, but I am not 100% confident.

To return to the theme of another recent post, this is not "Prof raps cycle lanes". The Prof's usual method of transport is on two wheels, thank you very much, and there is nothing she woud like more than safer cycling. She is also sure that the people working in the local council want that too. But she cant help thinking that we need some more imaginative or radical thinking than simply trying to squash new lanes that won't quite fit into highways never intended for them. One of the next proposals for a neighbouring road involves cutting down the nice trees that give it its character . . . hang on a minute....