At our area committee meeting on 25th April, I had a motion in relation to the junction. In response, the Transportation Department showed us a redesign which involves removing one of the 3 eastbound lanes entering the junction in order to give more space to westbound traffic. It is an improvement, but there are some elements which still worry me. I have written a follow-up letter, below. I would welcome any comments or feedback.<\/p>\n
Dear Peter,<\/p>\n
Thank you for showing us the proposed redesign of the junction last week.<\/p>\n
In relation to the design, I have the following comments. <\/p>\n
I welcome the removal of one of the 3 eastbound lanes coming into the junction, to give more room for westbound traffic.<\/p>\n
I am concerned at the design including cycle lanes within an existing
\nlane. By the design shown, it is not possible for a car or truck to use
\nthis lane without travelling in the cycle lane. This seems to be the
\ncase northbound entering the junction on the industrial estate road and
\neastbound entering the junction on grange road. It seems to me that
\nthese could have 3 undesirable effects<\/p>\n
1. They are likely to encourage cyclists to stay left at the
\njunction. In fact, safe cycling requires that a cyclist travelling
\nstraight on should not stay to the left of the lane as to do so would
\nrisk a car or truck turning left across them. Safe cyclists will
\noccupy the centre of the straight ahead lane.
\n2. They may encourage cyclists to travel up on the inside of trucks,
\nwhich puts cyclists in a particularly dangerous position.
\n3. They may encourage motor vehicles to pass cyclists without moving fully into the adjacent lane.<\/p>\n
If there is a good reason for this design I would like to hear of it.<\/p>\n
I am also concerned at the width of the cycle lane over the bridge.
\nThe previous situation was a good wide hard shoulder. The new
\nsituation should not lead to any reduction in safety for cyclists.
\nThere is a tendency for a motor vehicle user to assume that it is safe
\nto pass a cyclist on a cycle lane as long as each road user remains in
\ntheir lane. This, of course, is not the case, but it is a consequence
\nof cycle lane design. Narrow cycle lanes (especially if associated
\nwith other narrow lanes and markings such as central hatching) can
\nencourage motor vehicle users to pass closer than they would otherwise
\nhave done. In this case, we are talking about a road with high levels
\nof HGVs, making safe passing even more important for cyclists’ safety
\nand cyclists’ perceptions of safety. The width of the lane was not
\nmarked on the plan. However, there is a tendency for road engineers to
\nincorrectly assume that a width of 1.5m is standard. In this case, a
\nwidth of at least 2m would be appropriate<\/p>\n
Is mise, le meas,<\/p>\n
David Healy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At our area committee meeting on 25th April, I had a motion in relation to the junction. In response, the Transportation Department showed us a redesign which involves removing one of the 3 eastbound lanes entering the junction in order to give more space to westbound traffic. It is an improvement, but there are some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}