You Can't Polish A Turd...

November 19, 2014, 12:12 pm

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Not a very professional post title I know, but attempted turd polishing is everywhere and besides, it is one of my favourite sayings which I use to counter some of the management-speak cobblers often used to justify public realm schemes.

A couple of trees which might help reduce speeds when they get a bit bigger, plus they look nice in a relatively quiet side road.

First on my faecal-flossary hit list; doomed to my smallest Room 101 if you will, is the street tree. Now I am not some evil destroyer-of-trees, I love trees. Especially fruit ones. Especially if I can ferment the fruit!

Trees can transform a street from a concrete jungle to a minor oasis. They can be used to visually narrow a street (to slow drivers) and on the whole, trees seem to make people happy. Street trees do have a service life like any other kit and so they need to be the right tree. They need replacing from time to time and sometimes, they might need to come out to allow something to be built.

My ire is not with the tree, but the people behind turd polishing projects which try and take an urban motorway, stick a few trees in and then call it a "City Boulevard" in an attempt to suggest the route now has importance as a "place", rather than for movement. I am not against planting trees in this kind of place per se, but to try and suggest the route is anything other than an urban motorway is disingenuous.

The Mayor of London has been sticking in a few trees in recent years as part of his 2012 election manifesto. As the 5th point out of 9 of a "plan for a Greater London", planting trees was more important than transport (8th). Why do we want more trees I hear you scream? Well, there is a helpful set of reasons which I suppose are fair aspirations on their own, but given the number of new trees involved it really does seem to be window dressing to me. Tackling climate change by planting a few trees is as ridiculous as spending £30bn on a 22 mile tunnel around the Capital - I guess the Mayor likes to present schemes to specific audiences, depending on their views.

You also hear about schemes to "greening the <insert name of massive road>". These schemes try and use trees and other landscaping which are the "low hanging fruit" which can make streets more liveable (my own bullshit wording). In reality, it is about smearing a veneer of green space over what remains traffic dominated toilets where nobody would want to sit eating their lunch watching the lorries thunder by.

The Embankment in Westminster with the traffic turd flushed away for one magical day a year.

Then we have "special events". Take the Ride London Freecycle. Please don't get me wrong, it is a cracking day out with the kids and it gives a glimpse to how a city could operate. 

The problem is that it is just one day a year, with temporary road closures trying to polish the turd which is cycling in Central London. The elephant in the room (now doubt fouling himself) is that with things like this we are trying to kid ourselves that cycling is for everyone in our cities, when in truth, once the road closed signs are thrown back onto the lorries, you are on your own (so long as you have your wits about you of course).

Paint makes it better.

How about 20mph speed limits? What could be wrong with those? Again, I am a fan and I would love them to be the default in urban areas. In the last few months, I have cycled around the City of London quite a few times and recently, most of it had a 20mph speed limit imposed. Do I feel any safer now? Of course not. The City has gotten out its road marking crews and tried to paint the turds into slowing down.

I am sorry, I also have to have a pop at other places looking to impose 20mph limits in this way. Unless the nature of the streets are changed, then we are still asking people to walk and cycle around heavy traffic (flow and size). Have you seen York Way on the Islington-Camden border?

We might get there in time if more urban areas adopt a 20mph speed limit in the absence of leadership from the Government; and if it becomes the norm. However, many places with this limit are still awful, despite the trees.

Well at least they are not cycling on the footway, this is a single surface shared-space after all. Mind you, nobody is having a picnic where the traffic is running.

Next, how about some multi-million pound, grand-master, stool-shining? I bring you Exhibition Road (yes, London again). 

If the traffic wasn't there (and it kind of isn't at one end which has restricted movements - pun intended!), then it would be a great setting for the world-famous museums. Instead, it remains a traffic-choked Central London rat-run and car park for the lunatics who run private cars slap bang in the middle of a city of 8 million people. If you walk up the street, the footways are crowded and people don't "share the space" with the cars, lorries and buses, unless they are feeling particularly brave (shared space will be a future post).

Finally, we have Seven Dials in London's Covent Gardent. This is almost one of my favourite London places at the moment. Interesting shops, a layout to give a road safety auditor stomach cramps, 300 years of history and a great atmosphere. It is almost one of my favourites, but it is ruined by black cabs and delivery vans pelting through the space, heedless of the pedestrians milling about. There are also the parking bays around the area which take up space which could be used so much more effectively (note the car-shaped bike rack which uses parking space more efficiently).

In this case, the turd polishing is more subtle, it is the way in which the place is celebrated as a wonderful place to visit while conveniently ignoring that it is yet again ruined by the people driving through it - I am not referring to the people who need to be there to make a delivery, but the rat-runners trying to avoid the traffic-choked main routes of Theatreland.

It is almost a nice place.

Turd polishing happens at so many levels and in so many ways that you could probably apply the concept to any argument to make your point. In my case, I am trying to show that the common denominator is that we are always trying to hide or ignore the fact that so many of our urban areas are utterly ruined by (often through) traffic. If it is an arterial road, then perhaps we need to accept it for what it is and either provide alternatives for people to avoid it as pedestrians and cyclists, or do a proper job and change it for ever by giving people real protection from traffic.

If we have traffic choked residential streets or places like Seven Dials, the answer is not to slap down some 20 roundels on the road and hope for the best, it is to filter out the through traffic in conjunction with a lower speed limit.

All too often we think that a bit of fancy paving and some trees will do the trick when it won't. Of course you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

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Sigh

November 24, 2014, 11:52 am

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Even with the polish from last week's post still barely dry, there came a funding announcement from Transport for London for some "bright ideas to radically improve London's streets".

This is the Mayor's "Future Streets Incubator Fund" which was announced in March to the tune of £1.8m. Read the full details for yourself, but the concept was:

From ideas such as temporary public plazas to pop-up street sporting activities, the 'Future Streets Incubator Fund' will help convert more of London's streets into spaces where people can socialise and interact.

There will also be a focus on creating new, greener spaces, boosting sustainable transport, testing new street layouts and alternative ways that roads and streets can be used.

The Mayor and TfL are looking for creative pilot scheme submissions from local boroughs, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and community groups in order to award the substantial funding over the next three years.

The idea seems to have come from the Roads Task Force which provides an update in its report from March of this year (p17).

Now £1.8m is small beer for the Mayor when compared to the wider budget he controls and this is funded at £600k per year for three years, so relatively modest. Funnelled through TfL, we can surely look forward to some real transport innovation;

The fund will champion innovation and will be a great way to temporarily try out new street layouts using low-cost measures.

The full TfL webpage can be viewed here, but the details are rather sketchy and so I will reproduce them below. Before I continue, there are a couple good ideas (in my humble opinion of course), a few which have been done before in the UK (so where is the innovation?) and some appear to be complete cobblers (yes, in my view of course, you are welcome to disagree).

As more details emerge, then I may well have to change my mind, but today, I call it as I see it. One other thing to note is that these have not just been punted in, the process involved organisations giving outline details to TfL so that feedback could be given before they were invited to formally submit bids. In other words, TfL considered the proposals to have merit before the bids were made. 

So, at last, I get round to the schemes - descriptions in italics, my comments underneath each one.

Simultaneous Green

In partnership with the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

A continental-style simultaneous green signal for cyclists will be trialled [sic] using advanced technology. The junction will detect the presence of cyclists before giving them a dedicated green light in all directions during which they can cross along their desire lines.

Well, it will be no surprise that I welcome this, but why it wasn't included on TfL's off street trials, I will never know. We don't get know if this will be at a "live" site or as another off street trial somewhere in Richmond. There is no detail on whether this will be as part of protected cycle lanes or a pre-green fudge from ASLs. It seems a bit random as this would not be a borough which springs to mind for being at the cutting edge of cycling. Still, they have now massively raised my expectation, so let's see where it goes.

The Bounceway

In partnership with Architecture for Humanity.

The Bounceway will be the world's longest urban trampoline. This iconic and inclusive new public space in the heart of London will boost fitness and fun, and provide a novel form of transport where the journey is the main event. The trial will be part-funded by a crowdfunding campaign set to launch in late 2014.

Pardon. What the hell is this? "A fun and novel form of transport"? TRAMPOLINES ARE NOT TRANSPORT. Seriously, TfL, what the hell are you doing? Do I really need to criticise this? I found this link after a bit of delving - it has a link to Architecture for Humanity and so I reckon this is the concept. Perhaps this is intended to be a public art idea to promote discussion, but there is no way this should in anyway linked to a TfL-run transport project. Nonsense.

Flexi-lane

In partnership with the London Borough of Bromley.

A flexible lane using intelligent road studs and dynamic signs will switch between loading bays, parking and a bus lane throughout the day. The trial will allow road space to be used more efficiently and the road studs will monitor traffic flow to help improve road reliability.

Well at first glance it seems reasonable. But wait. We can already do this. Bus Lanes can be part time and we can put parking and loading bays in them to be used outside of bus lane operational times. OK, there may be something new here, but it looks like a solution looking for a problem.

Colourful Crossings

In partnership with Better Bankside.

An artist will bring graphic designs to pedestrian crossings and the carriageway on Southwark Street in Bankside. The crossings will show how art can change people's perceptions and use of junctions and bring the street to life.

You what? How can "art change people's perceptions and use of junctions"? Looks like an entire barrel of special polish to me. Southwark Street needs more than graphic designs at crossings and junctions, believe me.

E-permits

In partnership with the City of Westminster.

E-parking permits will communicate with sensors embedded in disabled resident parking bays to provide better, more targeted enforcement of parking regulations and ensure kerbside access for Blue Badge holders. E-permits have the potential to be used in other types of bays to improve parking management across the Capital.

You have to giggle really, it is no surprise that Westminster has a parking scheme! What is interesting is the blurb confirms that the idea is not innovative as the concept has been used elsewhere. I assume the idea will use road sensors which detect parked vehicles along the lines of the scheme Westminster already runs. In this scenario, I assume the sensor will detect the permit holder's vehicle using a tag in the vehicle. If a vehicle without a tag parks, then enforcement will be alerted and they can turn up and nick the offender. But, why can't they just get on with it for their disabled residents now? 

Parklets

In partnership with Team London Bridge and the London Borough of Ealing.

Parking bays will be repurposed to provide amenities such as seating, canopies, greenery and cycle parking. These living spaces will give streets a cost-effective makeover and improve the environment for pedestrians and cyclists.

Well, cycle parking in parking bays is old hat. It has been done by Hackney and elsewhere, plus others are looking at the idea. Change parking bays into seating and parklets? There is no innovation here, we can move kerb lines now.

School Streets

In partnership with the London Borough of Camden.

Streets around three schools will be closed at both the start and end of the day to promote healthy, active travel and make walking safer and easier for children. The trial will encourage people to make small changes to how they travel and has the potential to make streets more lively and fun.

I think Scotland might get there first with its parking ban, although this idea seems like a ban on driving. Not sure there is much innovation here as this is a similar concept (I guess) to play streets. We have had these for years and there are quite a few schemes in London already. I assume that this will be a series of roads closed, perhaps as "pedestrian zones" during specific times of the day. The interesting thing here will be whether residents are also banned from driving though these streets as well or if problems get shifted elsewhere! Yes, might be an interesting one to watch!

Tunnel Vision

In partnership with the Brick Box.

A blighted underpass will be transformed using interactive new lighting design and resilient, low-maintenance technology to improve safety and security for pedestrians.

This mob have form (assuming I have got the right people of course) - their website talks of a temporary scheme in Thamesmead, although I guess this must be a permanent way of dealing with a "blighted underpass". Which underpass and why is it blighted would be my first questions. I suspect that the answer is not to shine lights at it. 

Sight Line

In partnership with the London Borough of Islington and the Royal College of Art.

Improvements will be made to road work barriers to help visually impaired people navigate around them. Features include tactile arrows, high contrast signs and real-time digital location information.

OK, this is interesting and could be really helpful to many users trying to get through roadworks. I just hope they realise who will be installing temporary barriers as they don't always get it to perfection!

Cloud Consolidator

In partnership with the Fitzrovia Partnership.

An online purchasing system will be introduced to reduce the number of freight vehicles by combining common orders and deliveries for local businesses.

I am not sure if this is particularly new as deliver consolidation schemes were being looked at for the Olympics. However, the idea makes sense as it could be cheaper for the individual businesses and reduce lorry movements. I await the scheme with interest.

So, there you have it. The Mayor and TfL have run out of ideas and so after an exhaustive search, we have the cream of London's transport and streets ideas. To be fair, there are a few which are worthy at first glance and might go interesting places.

The trouble is, these sort of funding streams bring the showman designers out of their rubber-coated rooms. Then we get trampolines suggested as modes of transport. Sigh.

The Fall And Fade Of The Municipal Engineer

December 5, 2014, 11:21 am

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I have some technical posts in the pipeline, but they are taking a little bit of time. So, this week, a bit of navel-gazing I am afraid.

I have been doing my current job for nearly 10 years, which is the longest period I have ever done one job. Of course, local authority highways work is so varied, there is always something new going on. Next summer, I will have been in the industry 20 years and the one constant has been change which of course serves to keep life interesting.

Over the years, I have been lucky enough to work in various areas of civil engineering and I am a civil engineer foremost; highways being a more recent specialism which has its lineage in municipal engineering. The municipal engineer was the unsung hero of the civil engineering world. Mainly working in local authorities, they worked day in and day out on what could sometimes be routine, never for the money and never for the glory. The municipal engineer could turn their skills to a variety of schemes from roads, to drainage, to coastal defences, to water supply, to public health, to waste management. Doing a good job was the main source of satisfaction. Sadly, the municipal engineer is fading from society.

My recent working life has been a series of restructures as my team has been moved between departments and bosses. We lost many staff in 2010 as a direct result of Government cuts and we are at the start of the next round which will be even more swingeing and I am not sure the public understands what is at stake.

I have a chart from April 1973 showing the structure of the Borough Engineer & Surveyor's division for my authority. There were 124 staff, mostly technical, but with a small administration team (and that doesn't include the direct labour workforce). 40 years later, there are now about 25 of us - I say "about" because there is always some turnover of staff and it is a bit of a guesstimate with some jobs. 

In those 40 years we have had privatisation of water which means the drainage department ended up with Thames Water; but the shrinkages have been a result of cuts (all Governments to take blame here), a gradual dilution of technical functions, outsourcing, restructures and redundancy/ retirement - the annual Christmas lunch has more former-employees than current staff! 

Municipal engineers used to run things in local government as the council-owned built environment was (and probably still is) the largest public asset and rightly or wrongly (when we think of some of the road schemes built by local authorities!) there was professional leadership and focus, but this has changed. Professional managers, generic job profiles and competency frameworks are now the order of the day. 

Engineers are being replaced by service managers and customer relationship specialists (the IT Crowd really is spot on). The public can no longer pick up the phone in the brave new world of shared services, multi-borough contact centres, self-service and on-line systems. OK, these systems are there to save money, but people often just want to chat to someone about their issues.

My authority is not unusual. I speak to people around the country and the situation is the same. There are some places which have invested in their staff, but many have not and it is no wonder that many consultants are staffed by ex-local authority people and indeed, many started by ex-local authority people. We have large consultant-contractor consortia which suck in staff as they are able to offer attractive packages and adapt to the market whereas local authorities simply cannot complete, more so in an austere environment. We also have lots of people working through agencies because they cannot work for less, foregoing benefits such as sick leave and a pension.

My industry is also suffering from a huge skills shortage. The collective civil engineering and construction workforce is aging and people don't want to come into the industry. Civil engineering graduates go into better paid sectors (student loan repayments being a big issue), we don't have enough apprentices and so the skilled labour we need to physically do the work is not there. Against the backdrop of the Government re-announcing all of the this construction work, I wonder where they think they are going to get people from (thank goodness for the EU!)

But, as I start to sound like my bosses from years ago, who also yearned for a rose-tinted past, I have to remain positive. I still have a job, I have interesting work and I work with some great people. But, just let me shed a tear every so often as the municipal engineer fades into a warm and comfortable long sleep. One day, we will be back, to sort out the mess like we always have done.

Driven To Distraction

December 12, 2014, 12:24 pm

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This has been simmering with me for some time - the thorny subject of advertising on or next to the public highway.

Two things prompted me to post about this subject (putting off technical posts again!). First was an enquiry at work from our planning enforcement team about an illuminated digital advert billboard. I cannot give any more details because of possible action. Second,  I received a news email from Transport Network regarding a deal between Edinburgh City Council and JC Decaux on maintaining the city's bus shelters and other street furniture.  According Transport Network, JC Decaux get advertising rights in return for a 10 year deal.

It is also reported that a "30 metre digital moving image advertising screen over all four lanes of the main road from Edinburgh to the city’s airport" is planned which has got the Institute for Advanced Motorists concerned about driver distraction.

I am happy to be shown wrong, but I believe the location in mind is the A8 Glasgow Road, near the airport. There is a planning application available for viewing and the proposal is to have huge digital advert displays on the roundabout junction with the A270, under which the A8 passes. In other words, these advert displays are entirely aimed at the occupants of vehicles on the A8, many of whom are driving.

Consultant, WYG, have provided a technical note on highway safety in support of the application (plus an appendix). The note suggests that on the approaches to the site, drivers are subject to a wide variety of visual stimuli (buildings, adverts on buildings etc) and at the place where the proposed adverts would be, drivers will have already passed lane destination gantries and will have moved to their correct lanes before the adverts are seen. They also do some casualty collision data analysis and conclude that there is no current safety issue at the location.

WYG then considers the safety impacts of the adverts and concludes there are none because there are only two manoeuvres where drivers would see them (passing under the roundabout and leaving the A8 off slips, where they would be slowing down and the adverts would be out of direct line of sight). They consider a roundabout in Manchester with an identical casualty rate before and after a big advert was installed. The Manchester site is an entirely different junction and WYG do not explain why they have picked that particular site. Of course, this is up to the good people of Edinburgh and their elected officials, plus WYG are doing the job they have been paid to do.

Highway authorities have a general duty under S39 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to promote road safety. It is a general duty because it does not prescribe. An action against an authority for failure under S39 is unlikely to succeed and I am not aware of any successful cases (m'learned colleagues might have some interesting examples). However, if a local authority (also being a highway authority) actively promotes something which is designed to attract the attention of drivers (by entering into contracts, even with civil indemnities), can that be right?

Of course, advert panels of all sizes are everywhere and perhaps I am over-reacting. Many towns and cities have deals with advertising companies in return for bus shelters and other kit, but in this climate of savage cuts, I do wonder how objective people will be in approving these huge advert displays?

There is very little research on the impact of roadside advertising and coupled with the fact that driver distraction is under reported, it is very hard to determine exactly what linkages there are to collisions. If a driver is involved in a reportable crash, would they really want to admit to the police that they were distracted? What does seem to be an issue is the emergence of animated video adverts. The Transport Research Laboratory did some (simulator) work for Transport for London in 2007 and the conclusions were that drivers:

• Spent longer looking at video adverts
• Glanced at video adverts more frequently
• Tended to show greater variation in lateral lane position with video adverts
• Braked harder on approach to video adverts
• Drove more slowly past video adverts

This report was on TfL's old website, but annoyingly I cannot find it now, although I am sure I downloaded it - if I find it, I will update this post with a download link. What is interesting is TfL is now actively promoting advertising all over its network, including roadside hoardings. In TfL's policy, there is a single reference to safety, although it is pretty vague;

In the case of digital media, the advertisement must not pose a health and safety risk as a result of flickering or other visual imagery. 

TfL is worried about people being distracted on its network, but only if they are 11 - 14 years old and not driving.

Adverts on the highway require planning consent. In the case of TfL, the planning authority will be the London Borough (and City) and even if a proposal is agreeable to TfL, the local authority can reject it on material planning grounds, including impact on highway safety. However as can be seen from the Edinburgh case and in countless cases up and down the country, the outdoor advertising industry has the resources to employ consultants to prove their scheme is safe either at planning application stage or at appeal.

Risk is subjective, but human physiology less so. The faster someone is moving, the less they are able to take in and at a critical moment, an advert board (especially large, brightly lit and animated ones) may be the thing the eye hones in on rather than other more important things such as a stationary line of vehicles ahead, people crossing the road, cyclists, traffic signals and so on. 

Advertising is big businesses and the players are falling over each other to get our attention so we become aware of their clients' brands. Outdoor digital advertising is worth £214 m in revenue in the UK. Some of this will be in private areas, not seen by drivers, but clearly, there are vested interests in selling roadside space. You only need look at the trade body's website to see the images of massive adverts by the side of big roads being heavily featured.

Let is be very clear. Advertising is designed to attract people's attention; the more people the better. Big adverts placed by the side of busy roads are attractive to those advertising because many people pass them and see them. A significant number of those people will be in control of vehicles and other people around them are relying on those drivers to pay attention. Not sure I need to add anything else, other than the damn things ruin the visual amenity of our streets (although granted, there might not be much amenity on an urban motorway!)

A Beer, Bivalve & Bicycle Beano In Bruges

December 15, 2014, 12:31 pm

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So this year's Jolly Boys' Outing took me and some of the guys from work to the UNESCO World Heritage Site which is the medieval city of Bruges, the capital of the West Flanders province of Belgium.

I will be honest, we were there for the beer, but have camera, will snap and I thought it worth ticking off another European city which does cycling better than much of the UK - a conclusion I made on the coach when we were on the motorway heading into the city! I came to this conclusion at a point on the E403 where we went under a bridge which carried a cycle route over the road and onto a protected cycle way.

The cycleway (which seemed quite new) followed the E403 right into the city and I caught glimpses of priority over side roads, gentle chamfered kerbs, cycle tracks behind parking bays and cycle traffic signals, there were also 30kph zones on side roads. I also saw some less good things like Advanced Stop Lines and advisory cycle lanes on busy roads (but hey, who's ticking items off a list).

In the journey from the edges of the city to the coach park, I had seen many of the features one comes to associate with a place which is giving space for people to ride bikes and with no lycra, hi-vis or helmets to be seen; plus people of all ages (which goes without saying).

After a short walk, we were inside the city walls and it was canals, public squares, narrow streets and a few boulevards. Traffic was permitted, but was one-ways and limited access. 

Possibly because the place was packed, there were quite a lot of temporary road closures and so although the odd vehicle needed to get through, it was generally safe and at low speed. There were a few busier roads, but nothing really of note. We did the usual tourist things such as moules and frites (mussels and chips), shopping for chocolate and of course tasting lots of local brew. 

No, we didn't cycle (surely a reason to go back for a long and less beery weekend), but cycling was everywhere. Some infrastructure was old, but there seemed to be a lot of new stuff and obviously, the city has decided to continually upgrade as the newest was really some of the best I had seen.

Bruges was also very walkable and because it is such a tourist attraction, there has been a conscious decision to prioritise the pedestrian over a great deal of the city. In larger squares, cycle routes were picked out in the vernacular cobbles which was subtle, but provided guidance (although the cobbles might be a chore in places.)

Cycle parking was available in spades. A combination of huge areas set aside for cycle racks and scattered parking places was order of the day, although a little different to the humble Sheffield stand! 

Some stands held bikes by the handle bars with the front wheels off the ground and some by the saddle post with a little hoop for a lock to go through. I am sure someone will be able to tell me, but I assumed that the idea was to keep the bikes held in place while pannier bags and baskets were being filled.

So there you have it. An interesting city which gives you a flavour of how cycling can be prioritised. You can also view infrastructure of different ages and I guarantee that when I end up going back (as I will) the older stuff will be brought up to a modern standard.

We often hear that in the UK, many of our historic cities cannot be made accessible for cycling because the streets are too narrow. Well, we have bypasses (to keep through traffic away) and arterial roads alongside which we could build proper cycle tracks. We can limit the access to core areas to all but essential vehicles. We can use park and ride to leave cars on the outside of city centres and we can give pedestrians priority. It's not rocket science and I can drink to that!

The Predictable & Lazy End Of Year Roundup

December 27, 2014, 1:32 pm

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As 2014 comes to a close, I predictably and lazily offer my review of the past 12-months. It has been a mixed bag, but always interesting and sometimes frustrating. Here we go.

January

As a way of blowing away the cobwebs after the Christmas excess, I took the kids on the Dangleway and wondered if public transport was for profit or people. I then opened up the traffic signal pie with a first slice looking at signalised crossings which generated some interesting debate in the comments section. 

Next, I had a whinge about the stupid SkyCycle scheme for London, the first of a few moans about the ideas of Showmen Designers. Then I raised the issue of barriers (the literal ones) to walking and cycling. Finally, it was a look at Scotland's daft "Niceway Code" which went off to the knacker's yard fairly quickly.

February

First up, was a little report on a presentation I gave at a local school travel conference where most people agreed that they would cycle to school if only we provided proper infrastructure. The middle of the month was more solemn when I joined Stop Killing Cyclists at Ilford, East London, to remember Kevin Lane, the first cyclist to be killed on London's streets in 2014. Then it was the curious take of the West Dunbartonshire ramp, a short post about access to buildings.

March

The start of the month saw a long technical post about road closures and the associated traffic orders. The second slice of the traffic signal pie came next, looking at the SCOOT system which is being rolled out across London. In my next post, I wondered how campaigners and engineers could work together to a common goal.

Away from the technical, I gave my first thoughts on attempting the London to Surrey 100 later in the year, swiftly followed by one of my favourite posts covering surfacing materials. Remember kids, machine-laid 55/10 HRA is rather nice!

April

The first post of the month was about where clutter on our streets comes from and how we can reduce it, plus, how I took on BT over an advertising panel in an unauthordox way and won! Next, was a short moan about the annual ALARM survey showing road the road maintenance backlog in England & Wales going from £10.5bn to £12bn in a year.

I then posted about the highlight of my year, the birth of my third child, Poppy, where I wondered how my mobility would change when pushing her in her buggy and in fact, covered it in my next post! 

May

The month got off to a ranty start where I decried the lack of Government leadership in providing decent guidance for designing for walking and cycling which has lead to all sorts of organisations going it alone and with varying results. This led nicely into election time where I explained that I was voting for #space4cycling and covered the main topics of the campaign and trailed the London Cycling Campaign's Big Ride, with photos of the event a week later.

The politics of cycling continued in my next post and then to round off the month, I got the hump.

June

The summer started with a short post on Permit Parking Areas, a little known way of introducing permit parking with the minimum of street clutter. The rest of the month was taken up with three posts review the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain's AGM and Gathering in Brighton & Hove. Part 1 included floating bus stops, Part 2 looked at some street layouts and Part 3 looked at a cycle track. Looking forward to the 2015 AGM!

July

My first post of the month looked at Eric Pickles MP making it up as he went along, followed by a pop at David Cameron. 

Next, a technical post about protected junctions and simultaneous greens, with a view on how they could work in the UK (you read it here first!) in the third slice of traffic signal pie. I then ranted about a "customer" I dealt with and their 1,500 metre drive, rounding off with how beer (and other) deliveries can continue with protected cycling infrastructure.

August

The month started with a glorious Ride London FreeCycle, followed by the London to Surrey 100 (well, 86) through Hurricane Bertha where I was named "The Hybrid Hero" by a drunk! 

Then, a post about the Mayor of London's flawed consultation on new river crossings for motor vehicles, followed by a technical post on the value of the Road Safety Audit process. To end the month, I covered the misguided Guide Dogs survey where their credibility (and that of the London Cycling Campaign) took a bit of a knock - we have a lot in common of course.

September

I started the month with an account of my own Cycle to Work Day, followed by a moan at large destinations designed to attract car use. I then thought about the wider benefits of the proposed north-south and east-west cycle superhighways in London, followed by a rant after a hard week at work. The month ended with some discussion on the publicly available DfT traffic data.

October

After a sunny safari in Southend-on-Sea, I looked at the impact on Government cuts on highway maintenance (it will get worse) and rounded off with an open letter to London's professional institutions asking them to support #space4cycling and the proposed cycle superhighways in London.

November

First, some navel gazing with my 100th blog post which I followed with a critical look at a stupid idea of a Greater London Authority Member to turn off traffic signals in London (with research and everything) - still no response from him! I then covered the reannouncement of the £15bn road building programme for the UK.

More solemnity followed with the astounding Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence organised by Stop Killing Cyclists. I then had another pop at Showmen Designers who liked to polish turds and even with the polish still damp, TfL published a list of schemes to be funded through the Future Streets Incubator Fund. It included a bloody trampoline, which has since dropped off the list!

December

The month started with me contemplating the demise of the local authority municipal engineer who may be the last line of defence in trying to stop mass advertising on the roadside (well, a losing battle anyway). As the year drew to an end, I went on a wonderful day trip to Bruges which is streets ahead in providing for cycling compared to most of the UK.

So, dear reader, thank you for sticking with me for another year. If people didn't read this blog, I wouldn't produce it and so it is heartening to get so much feedback both within and on Twitter (where I spend too much time). 

I would like to give special thanks to the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, not only for involving me in its AGM this year, but also for keeping me inspired where cycling infrastructure is concerned and for including me in the weekly blog roundups. I should of course mention Highways Magazine which has given me a more traditional spleen-venting platform in my articles this year.

I would also like to mention Stop Killing Cyclists and CyclingWorks who have different approaches to campaigning, but who are working hard to try and improve conditions for those who cycle in London. I have also met lots of interesting people this year and I hope to meet more in 2015.

I will round off with a thank you to the long suffering Mrs Ranty Highwayman who puts up with my hours of typing to meet stupid self-set deadlines and me stopping to take photos of "interesting" infrastructure.

See you in the saddle!

Looking Forward

January 4, 2015, 10:48 am

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Last week's post was a lazy and predictable round up of my 2014 and this week is just as lazy and predictable: things I am looking forward to in 2015.

Infrastructure

For those of us in London, we are waiting to see what the outcome of the consultation for the Mayor's North-South and East-West cycle superhighways will bring. I hope they go ahead as consulted, as even with flaws, they are the projects to show what can be done in the UK. I know other places have been quietly getting on with it, but like it or not, the London bubble is high profile and this will really raise the game. Of course, they could be massively watered down and this will be a huge blow.

Closer to home, I am working (with others) on a couple of modest little projects which should at least see the light of public consultation in the next several weeks. For those who know me, they will understand why this is such a hard slog, but as I often say, the small, local wins are just as important as the large in helping to make the bicycle a normal transport mode; make no mistake, it is about infrastructure and changing streets as far as I am concerned. Despite practice from around the world, we just can't seem to push on with things that work here.

I am also going to try and spend more time on walking issues, which was something I spent a fair bit of time looking at before I got interested in cycling infrastructure. Expect to see posts on zebra crossings and shared space in the coming weeks!

Politics

We have a general election on 7th May where I hope the chickens come home to roost. It has been 20 years this summer since I left academia and headed off into the world of Civil Engineering; specialising in the highway design and construction in the last decade. An interest in the politics of transport has always been there, but now more than ever. 

We currently have a government which nobody voted for (argue semantics if you like) and who are systematically dismantling our public services and this includes both the public sector and mass transport - and I don't mean private motoring! That is not so suggest that the previous government were that much better and the current opposition has already fallen back on the old "war on the motorist" cobblers because they perceive it to be populist. Interesting times as they say.

Writing

I have really enjoyed writing this blog and more recently, my column in Highways Magazine. I am hoping to revisit some of the issues I have written about with the aim of producing some standalone guides which may be useful - there might even be some collaboration to be had - who knows!

I am also working with others on something a little more formal, but can't talk about it just yet - watch this space as ever!

Of course, feel free to suggest topics for blog posts, some of my favourite issues have been suggested by others and it gets my brain working!

Riding my bicycle

Yes, I will be starting my 5th year commuting to work by bicycle on Tuesday. I will also be trying to do as many site visits as possible by bike and I will be getting out to look at new street layouts as often as I am able (they give me lots of blog material of course). I am also looking forward to getting out with my family on 2-wheels in the coming year (logistics depending!).

So, I enter 2015 with optimism (which will probably take a kicking as the clock ticks by). See you in the saddle (and perhaps on foot a little more!) 

Parking Mad

January 5, 2015, 5:51 am

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I know I give the impression that I am not fan on the Conservatives, but they do spout some nonsense when it comes to transport-related matters.

This week, I thought I would return to the musings of the Greater London Authority Conservative Group (yes, sorry, London-centric again). Last year, I criticised Richard Tracey's paper on switching off traffic signals (I never did get a response). I will now take a look at Andrew Boff's paper on parking at London's hospitals "Pay and Dismay - Parking at London Hospitals". 

Boff is leader of the GLA Conservative Group, deputy chair of the GLA Health Committee and a "Londonwide" member of the assembly. I don't know, but I assume the "hook" for the paper was from the health side of his GLA activities. As ever, please read the paper for yourself as I am an armchair critic and I don't expect agreement with my own personal views - but at least have a think about the issues (experiences may vary outside of big cities).

The paper is relatively short at 4 pages (of actual text), but it goes straight to the point in the introduction;

Many London hospitals now have special parking schemes for Blue Badge holders, patients undergoing cancer treatments, dialysis and other on-going conditions, but for the patient or visitor attending on an irregular basis there are no such concessions. While it is true that because of the lesser number of visits involved, the overall expense is correspondingly less, hospital parking charges, even for occasional visits, can prove onerous particularly for those on limited incomes such as pensioners and the unemployed.

Where hospitals have a pay-and-display car park system, the problem is exacerbated by visitors overpaying because of the fear of overrunning appointments or the unknown waiting times in Accident and Emergency departments. A parking charge of £3 for one to three hours, such as that levied at Barnet Hospital[1], may not seem extortionate but taken in the context of the Basic State Pension of £113.10 per week it amounts to quite a large proportion of the £16.15 per day that the pension provides.[2] 

So, we have the automatic assumption that everyone who goes to hospital drives - although I think the title of the paper rather gives it away. Actually, the paper is not an objective analysis about parking at hospitals, rather it is about the cost of parking at hospitals, the unfairness of pay and display parking and the lack of public parking spaces.

where there is some uncertainty about how long an appointment will last, the safest choice for the patient is to overpay; if the patient has not paid for sufficient parking and their appointment time overruns, they will be unable to top up the payment and may incur penalty charges. This can prove costly and unfair. The situation is the same for patients and those accompanying them to Accident and Emergency departments. where waiting times can be long and impossible to calculate. Pay-and-display systems are inherently unfair as they encourage people to pay more than they need whereas a pay-on-exit system would mean that people will only have to pay for the time that they have actually used.

Actually, for those parking at a hospital (and indeed any off-street location), pay-on-exit is an easy way charging for time (nobody needed to patrol and check tickets) and of course you don't have to guess how long you will be somewhere. Yes, I have some sympathy for the approach in terms of car park management and certainly, that's how my local hospital charges.

In terms of charges, some examples are given;

There are links in the paper to the hospitals quoted, but they all state that parking on their sites is limited and people would be better off using other means. It is always impossible to have a discussion with anyone about hospitals without using anecdotes and I will be no different here. On travel costs, my son had a couple of appointments at Moorfields Eye Hospital last year (nothing serious, thankfully). The hospital is just off City Road, just inside the London Borough of Islington and it is nowhere I would even think of driving to.

His appointments were at 10.30 which gave just enough time to get there using an off-peak railcard (Zones 1 - 6). Last year the railcard was £8.90 for me and £3.60 for him. The same fare is now £12 for me and £6 for him, although I need to get to grips with the capped fare (which is only for adults of course). So last year, a trip to the hospital with my son was £12.50. The same journey will be £18 this year (I think the capped adult Oyster rate is 30p less - £11.70 a day off peak). Already, parking for a hospital appointment starts to look like good value for money.

We did have the option of our local (regional and out-of-town) hospital which is a 4 mile journey, but appointments were months away compared to Moorfields. I would (and have) cycled to our local hospital myself, but not with my son, the roads are too dangerous. Our options would have been to drive, get the bus or walk-train-walk. Driving would have been relatively easy, but unless the appointment was going to be at a weird time of day, then the place would have been full up and we would probably have had to park elsewhere and walk. 

Actually, bus would have been favourite as we have a pretty direct service into the hospital which we can get 3 times an hour with the stop a 2 minute walk from home. My son travels free on the bus with his Zip Card and I would have paid £1.45 each way on Oyster or contactless card (now £1.50). So, a cost of £2.90 by bus compared to £3.60 for 2-3 hours parking at the hospital. Of course, I happen to be able to get a direct bus. 

Being a regional hospital, there are people needing to get 2 or more buses to the hospital which rather racks up the costs (although there is a £5 one day bus and tram pass which you need to go and pre-purchase). If you are elderly (one group Boff is concerned about in his introduction), you get free public transport anyway with a Freedom pass (subject to certain restrictions it must be added).

Car ownership in London varies between inner and outer London, but there are an awful lot of people who will not even consider parking costs because they don't actually have a car (reasons of course vary). TfL suggests that 46% of households don't have a car (2011/12 figure on p2 of the link). Plus, having a car in the household does not necessary mean all people in that household are able to drive it either because of lack of licence or it is used by one member of the household and simply not there for others to use! (actually, read the TfL note, it is interesting).

I did have a couple of exchanges on Twitter about Boff's paper and it was suggested that in the case of an emergency (potentially seriously ill child as an example) that being able to rush someone to the hospital by car is clearly an advantage. Of course, I would be the same if my car and I were available at the time of the emergency (and I know people can be reluctant to call an ambulance), but what if there were no car and driver available?

Boff goes on to look at parking for staff at London's hospitals, suggesting that many workers get subsidised parking. He alludes that spaces reserved for staff is a subsidy (yes, it can be) and that as the parking is cheaper for staff than punters, then it is subsidised (which it is based purely on the difference between what staff and punters pay). He doesn't actually suggest how much a car park space "costs" and whether staff use covers the costs (if they are charged). Of course a tarmac square is cheaper to maintain than a multi-storey car park. He essentially suggests that staff parking should be reduced in favour of providing more and cheaper parking for patients and visitors.

It is a loaded point of course, taken as land costs, each space could be "worth" thousands on the open market (if sold as part of a developable lump of land). It could be that a hospital sells off a car park for a one-off income hit, although at the prices charged (if going back to the hospital and not a company), the income should more than cover the cost of maintaining and "replacing" the space. It could be that the land is better used for more services on the site, rather than parking. There is an argument, the, that all those not driving to hospitals are subsiding those that do (in addition to the external costs of motoring).

Of course, there will be staff who work unsocial hours and live where they cannot get to work by alternatives (no/ poor public transport, dangerous roads for cycling, long distance from work) and I don't mean to wish further problems for people who may not be well paid or have personal circumstances which lock them into their travel patterns.

For those visiting people in hospital it can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive, no matter how they travel (plus the worry about the person they are visiting of course). If it is to visit people in inner-London hospitals, they will be saddled with the high cost of public transport, especially if they are coming in from outside London. In outer-London they may be able to find a parking space at a hospital.

So, what are the recommendations of the paper?

1. London hospitals that use a pay-and-display system in car parks should move to a pay-on exit system. This would avoid overpayment by car owners unable to calculate exactly how long their visit will last and also reduce the stress associated with delays to out-patient appointments. In the case of parking payment machines malfunctioning, this would decrease stress for those fearing missed appointments as a consequence of delays while finding alternative machines or other payment methods. Pay-on-exit systems would also be fairer, as people would only pay for the time that they have actually used.

2. London hospitals should examine the possibility of siting some car park payment machines inside adjacent buildings in order to reduce the possibility of vandalism and to serve as a back-up for payment when machines inside the car parks are broken.

3. London hospitals should look to increase the proportion of car parking spaces that are available to patients and visitors, and pass on any reductions that they are able to make as a result of the increased supply of available public parking spaces.

4. London hospitals should work with Transport for London to produce robust staff travel plans to reduce car usage, including measures to promote public transport, car sharing and other alternatives. These travel plans should include measurable targets and be regularly monitored, with the results published on the hospital’s website. Hospitals and Transport for London should also examine where it would be possible to provide additional public transport links to hospitals in order to reduce car journeys by patients and staff.

Groundbreaking stuff.to be sure. Central London is well served (possibly overserved in some locations) by public transport and so the only recommendation which even sniffs at the answer is (part) of the fourth one. Travel plans are all well and good, but unless, cost-effective, safe and reliable alternatives to the car are provided, then how will people make the switch? This applies to any workplace. Those on the highest salaries will continue to pay for parking and those who cannot afford (and have no alternatives) can be damned - not the way to run staff relations.

Hospitals and Transport for London should also examine where it would be possible to provide additional public transport links to hospitals in order to reduce car journeys by patients and staff.

Well yes, good point. Except this is exactly what happens now (did he speak to TfL?). The provision of "additional public transport links" is a proxy for buses (nobody is planning railway stations at hospitals) and a great deal of work is put in to get bus routes into or near hospitals. As with any planning, this takes time and often has to align with operator contract renewals. Diverting buses into hospitals is an issue for those going on somewhere else and so route terminations in hospitals might be the answer, although this needs space for bus stops and stands - repurposing of car parks anyone?

No, what we have here is a narrow issue paper coming at a much wider problem with no sophistication. The solutions are, as ever business as usual, and this means thinking about and providing for those with access to cars, rather than providing for mass transport. When people such as Boff start campaigning for free Oyster credit for those with long-term medical needs (rather than free parking); for protected, direct, pedestrian and cycle routes serving hospitals so those who are able travel under their own power can and perhaps a stop to NHS closures and sell-offs (and out of town hospitals) so more services can be provided close to where people live and where they can get to; then I might start taking papers as this more seriously.

As ever, the right of (polite) reply is available and I will be tweeting the link to this post to the GLA Conservatives in case they would like to add more - and I mean something of substance, rather than this being an issue raised by constituents, I want facts and figures. If you have any other current transport thinking from other GLA groups, I should only be too happy to give my opinions ;)

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Boozy Floating Unloading

July 31, 2014, 12:46 pm

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It turns out that the British Pub & Beer Association is concerned about protected cycle infrastructure because of the effects on HGV deliveries.

In its written evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee Cycling Safety Report 2014-15 it states (among other things);

Segregated cycle lanes already cause particular issues for pub deliveries. Manual handling of bulk beer containers such as kegs and casks (as specified in current Health & Safety Regulations) ideally requires the delivery vehicle to be sited at the kerb-side outside the premises. Physically segregated lanes prevent this access and in some circumstances, bulk containers must be wheeled across the cycle lane which poses a further risk to both cyclists and delivery drivers.

There are already significant restrictions imposed on delivery vehicles, including the enforcement of permitted delivery times (night time deliveries are not allowed), access routes and parking restrictions. Whereas it may be desirable to separate road users to protect those considered more vulnerable, further restrictions could seriously hinder the ability to deliver to pubs, particularly if this were to prevent deliveries during busy trading periods, i.e. lunchtimes. Imposing such restrictions could also lead to increased, inefficient journey times as all deliveries would be squeezed into a shorter time window. This in itself would lead to wider congestion issues.

First, thanks to Carlton Reid for posting the link on Twitter which got my brain working! Now, people delivering beer are not the only ones to have to shift heavy weights and I am not going to single out the BPBA. I am a beer fan and so I would hate to see the flow of the amber stuff stemmed, so what can be done?

At the time this popped up on Twitter, I posted a couple of sketches. First, we have a layout which is very similar to our (now) old friend the floating bus stop, which I referred to as a "floating loading bay" - remember where you read this term first!

Like the bus stop, the cycle track bends behind an "island" which can be used by the delivery driver to offload goods onto. In my sketch I have thoughtfully provided a reinforced pad onto which a beer barrel can be dropped (onto a portable cushion carried on the lorry. For a pub, this of course only works if the barrels can be rolled into the basement doors.

The thing that makes me smile is that the BPBA is worried about stuff being wheeled across a cycle track - well, with a floating loading bay, those delivering can pause and think before they roll. Presumably, the drivers check for pedestrians before rolling a barrel across the footway into gaping opening in the ground? Of course, everyone else uses a tail lift and delivery cages and of course a floating loading bay would work there too.

What if there is less space available? Well, where there is a narrow kerbed protection strip, the simple answer is a gap and a dropped kerb up onto the footway behind. In fact, there are various permutations of both which will do the job.

So, a physically-segregated cycle track does not prevent deliveries, it all goes back to good design and thought. There is of course the debate to be had about times of day for deliveries, size of vehicles and direct vision lorry cabs. However, in terms of the compatibility of deliveries and protected cycling, it is a red herring and can be designed for. Of course, a traffic lane may have been taken away to provide a cycle track and a loading bay might be an issue at peak times, but loading bays can operate at whatever times we decide.

King Street, Hammersmith. Image from Google Streetview.

I was going to leave it there, but last weekend, I was on a long training ride in a loop around London and lo and behold, I saw something very interesting on King Street, Hammersmith, where my second sketch had been built!

A funny location as the main road has been made one way with a protected contraflow cycle track. But, the principle is there and certainly deals with the problem. So, another excuse ticked off then!

Not The Hole Story

January 14, 2015, 11:10 am

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Potholes are always in the news somewhere, but they are merely a symptom of much wider problems with UK infrastructure and that is sweating our assets until they collapse.

Tomorrow is (15th February) is National Pothole Day (#NationalPotholeDay) over on Twitter) organised by the lovely people at Street Repairs which is has a website and app which allows you to report (yes) potholes and other street defects, and why not. You can also follow them on Twitter @StreetRepairs and Facebook if that's your bag. A big Hat Tip to Mr Pothole for alerting me to the event!

Right, plug over, back to the post. You don't need me to tell you what potholes are, but suffice to say, they are symptom of the state of the UK roads. I am also not getting into the debate about who pays for the roads as the answer is clear - we all do; and we all pay when they are not maintained properly and someone gets a claim paid out.

At least for individual council's, the road network is their largest asset. The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) process valued the country's highway network at £275bn (p209) in 2012/13, although public infrastructure assets are thought to be undervalued by some £200bn and so the figure for the highway asset will be higher. We also have the current ALARM survey which puts the road maintenance backlog at £12bn for England and Wales, but this is just carriageways and doesn't count footways or bridges for example.

Of course, these figures are often educated guesses (with a lot of work to get to them) and so we cannot be completely sure, but clearly, we have allowed an extremely valuable asset to deteriorate through decades of neglect and underfunding. An exercise in work had us value the replacement cost of our entire network at a trillion pounds (digging out and completely rebuilding).

Everyone who travels on the highway network will have their own ingrained locations for road defects on their regular journeys (and if you travel on two-wheels, it is pretty important that you are not thrown off - engine or leg powered alike). The term "pothole" is a proxy for poor surface conditions and there are many theories for the origin of the term - I like the idea that it comes from potters nicking clay from dirt roads to make pots, but who knows for sure. Roads have a history of eons and you could do far worse than reading Carlton Reid's Roads Were Not Built for Cars which has a great history on road construction from animal trackways to more recent times.

For modern roads, we are concerned with supporting the loading from vehicles. We have relatively weak subsoil upon which we (scientifically) pile layers of different materials which get comparatively stronger, thinner and more expensive as we head up to the road surface. For example, a basic residential road is likely to have a layer of pretty course crushed rock, brick, concrete or other materials being relatively cheap. On top of this, a more finely graded layer of crushed rock (up to 75mm in size) and then 2 or three asphalt layers, with the most expensive and thinnest layer being the surface course (concrete is also used of course and also composites of concrete with an asphalt overlay).

I am using fairly general terms here and so for much more detail on everything, I highly recommend the Idiot's Guide To Highway Maintenance for everything you could ever need to know on the subject. The layers of a road is collectively referred to as the "pavement" which shouldn't be confused with the popular term for footway (in the UK, sidewalk elsewhere). The job of the pavement is to conduct the loading from millions of standard axles (a design parameter) down into the subsoil.

For other areas, such as footways and cycletracks, we don't generally need to worry about traffic loading, but the thickness of the "pavement" needs to take into account the methods by which they will be constructed and maintained. In my experience, people are reluctant to construct footways and cycle tracks thick enough and they end up moving and settling with the ground - they need to be as engineered as the bit vehicles are driven on. In terms of "damage" to roads, it is the HGV which does the most - pounding the layers of the pavement. Cars don't do a great deal of damage, but they wear out the surface and of course people walking and cycling don't cause any appreciable damage.

The greatest enemy to the highway engineer is water and we go to great lengths in getting it off the road surface and away. In some cases, we use sub-surface drainage to keep water away from the engineered lower layers of the pavement. Water is a funny substance. You can't compress it and when it freezes, the volume of the solid (ice!) is about 10% greater than the liquid. For roads, this is a problem. If water gets into minute cracks in the road surface and freezes, the expansion will start to fret the edges of the cracks, making them larger and therefore letting more water in. 

The delightful term "mud pumping" is another failure mechanism whereby water in cracks (and joints in the case of concrete roads) displaces fine particles from the underlying pavement materials and the action of the traffic above compresses the road surface (by a small amount). As the road is compressed, the water is squeezed and forced out of the road, carrying fine material because water is not compressible. Over time, the action of the traffic and water can create voids underneath the road surface and we start to see a break up. 

The mechanisms can work together of course and in the case of asphalt layers ("tarmac") if they are not properly bonded, then water slides in between the layers and the traffic action helps to life the surfacing. There are many maintenance issues, but keeping highway drainage clear and free is extremely important. If the water is not draining away, it is helping to destroy the road. If the road surfacing has not been laid properly and puddles are collecting, that is helping to destroy the road - resurfacing to the same levels won't deal with the problem. 

One of the big problems we have is that road drainage is often split between several responsibilities. In urban areas, the gullies and pipes to the main sewer will be managed by the highway authority and the sewers by the sewerage undertaker. In London (for example) this will be the boroughs as highway authorities and (mainly) Thames Water. If the gullies and highway drains are clear, but the sewers are not, we will get flooding and this is a common cause of complaint from local authority staff who know "their" bit is clear.

In rural areas, we can still have highway drains and sewers, but we will be dealing with ditches along the sides of roads in many cases. The highway authority has the right to drain into ditches and to maintain them, but it is quite common for roadside ditches to be part of field drainage with the landowner having responsibility for cleaning. The old fashioned job of "lengthsman" was a highway operative who patrolled a patch undertaking all sorts of minor works which prevented larger problems. For drainage, it could be something as simple as hoicking out something blocking a ditch or clearing grips (little ditches to let water run into bigger ones). Of course, government cuts have seen the demise of this important local highways person.

In trying to keep water out of the surface, we can resurface a road completely which will provide new "waterproofing" for the lower layers (the surface also provides skid resistance for vehicle tyres, especially in the wet). We can surface dress (hated by many bicycle riders) which uses a bitumen binder to seal the surface, prevent oxidisation of the materials below and to provide grip with chippings. Actually, if designed and installed (and cared for afterwards), surface dressing remains an important maintenance technique - it is not surfacing on the cheap as often reported, it is something different.

Of course, if a road becomes so damaged that it is not safe to use, we have powers to place weight restrictions and eventually close it for safety purposes. That is the nub for me really. I have been in the highways game in one shape or form for nearly 20 years, starting out in maintenance as it happens. Maintenance is the Cinderella of highways, but there is tremendous skill and ability out there in keeping our crumbling network together. But miracle workers we are not. Like any maintenance work, if we don't keep at it, then our assets start to break up, we need to invest in our people (both training and paying them fairly) to get the best out of them. 

Despite the promises and the continued funding announcements, are roads are failing with local roads failing most as authorities struggle with the huge level of cuts being made. For our roads, the humble pothole is just the tip of an underfunded iceberg.

Thinking Outside The Box

January 20, 2015, 12:46 pm

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While catching up on Facebook last night, I came across a link posted on the Stop Killing Cyclists' page relating to a box junction in Hackney which, according to a story on the website of the London Evening Standard, "rakes in almost £1m each year".

I reposted the link on Twitter with my rather flippant take and with my tongue (slightly) in my cheek (hey I only have 140 characters). There were a couple of responses which had little sympathy for those being caught out and a reporter from the invited views by email for the letters page.

The offending yellow box is outside Homerton Fire Station on the A102 Homerton High Street, a road controlled by Transport for London. A yellow box outside a fire station is pretty important I would suggest and yes, there is a camera being used for enforcement. 

Now, I confess that I don't often read the papers, although I do pick up quite a bit online. I certainly don't write letters to the papers as the letters page is normally guaranteed to send me whirling off in a rage at other people's stupidity (yes, it is arrogant I know). But, I was up early and had a few minutes to kill, so I put fingers to keyboard and wrote this and emailed it in (I have added a couple of links which might be of interest which were not in the email). I don't know if my letter reached the paper and it is not on the website at the time of posting this, but here goes;

"Yellow boxes are a symptom of motor-traffic congestion and the selfish attitude of some drivers who think their progress is more important than that of other people; and in this case, the London Fire Brigade. Yellow boxes are provided to keep traffic flowing and if someone "accidentally" rolls into one, then they are driving too close or not paying enough attention.

In a crowded city such as ours, we should question the sense of many who choose driving in these congested areas, accepting of course there are people who need to drive (and I put the London Fire Brigade way up the list). As long as the restrictions are properly and lawfully deployed, the majority of us should not lose any sleep over people getting caught out - I would rather that than someone dying because a fire engine was stuck.

There may be a wider debate to be had about the level of fines (which are set by London Councils' Transport & Environment Committee on a city-wide basis), although my view is that they have to have a deterrent effect and penalties for more serious offences are nowhere near high enough. All those crying foul can of course raise the issue with their local councillor or GLA member who can ask if that yellow box is really needed, but it requires personal effort which is in short supply these days.

So, moan and whinge about getting caught all you want, in the bigger picture of things, there is not much sympathy for you and in the case of a yellow box outside a fire station, it is because there are some journeys which are far more important than yours."

The Evening Standard's story also has a little film to go with it with the usual talking heads who take a hostile view (on the whole) to the yellow box and one of the people interview clearly hasn't a clue about how yellow box junctions work. There are also comments at the end of the story which miss the point in my view.

Of course, I always like to dig deeper. The story reports that after a Freedom of Information request;

"between 1 February 2013 and 31 January 2014 TfL issued 14,412 penalty charge notices from the camera, collecting £989,533 - an average of around 40 motorists fined every day and a daily revenue of just over £2,700."

Yes, the maths is spot on, but of course it is all averages and so I would lay odds that most fines are at busy times as when it is quiet traffic is moving! Minor moving traffic offences (which I think covers yellow boxes) is set at £130. The average fine based on the figures is £68 a time and so this indicates that the vast majority of people are paying the fine without argument and quickly as there is a 50% discount (£65) for quick payment.

The other bit of interest for me is that as the street is the A102, there is some very convenient traffic flow information available from the Department for Transport (site 8064) and the count point is really close to the fire station! In 2013, there was a total of 20,853 vehicles a day at this location. This is estimated and averaged, but in the one direction the yellow box operates, we are talking 10,426 vehicles a day. 40 fines per day are being issued which is less than 0.5%. Clearly, 99.5% of people driving past the fire station manage to keep it clear. Yes, I know I am using not getting caught as a proxy, but it puts the whole thing into perspective and I for one am entirely comfortable relieving these people of their cash to help fund other transport projects!

Under Siege

January 28, 2015, 12:41 pm

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Imagine for a minute, that you run your own business as a sole trader. Imagine that your chosen business is under threat by "the powers that be" because the conditions under which you operate are being changed. Imagine also, that the specialist equipment you have spent a small fortune on is obsolete and your regulator will be changing the rules so you have to invest in a new set of equipment.

If I were a cabbie in London, I would be a bit worried and possibly quite annoyed at the moment. The Mayor of London has decided to press ahead with the North-South and East-West cycle superhighways and diesel engines which power the taxis are helping to ruin our health and so controls may well be on their way. Not only that, there is competition to contend with and so perhaps we might forgive them for being prickly.

I have been inside a black cab twice. Once as a punter years ago and once "on the job" going round with the local LTDA rep to look at what improvements could be made to some taxi ranks. My other experiences with black cabs have been when riding my bicycle or walking. This has varied from the drivers being utter tools by not giving me room when overtaking or bullying when I'm crossing the road to being the absolute height of courtesy. Do you know what, yes, they are people too!

In the last day or so, we have had rumblings from the LTDA (Licenced Taxi Drivers Association) that they might be seeking a judicial review on the Mayor's decision on the cycle superhighways. Unsurprisingly, the LTDA don't have much sympathy from many people who cycle in the Capital. Their Chairman, John Thomas, went into a demented rant back in March last year with this gem spotted by Cyclists in the City - have a read, it really is entertaining. My favourite bit (naturally) is this;

"the ‘experts’ in traffic, who are so cycling centric that they are blind to the consequences of their actions. Or is it that they just don’t care?" 

Really? I think 'experts' in traffic have been anything but cycle-centric for decades which is why our urban areas are just hell-ridden traffic sewers. I am pleased to report that bit by bit, my profession has woken up from its slumber and is rubbing its eyes. 

The LTDA has form of course, in this 'expert', 'scientific' observation, they were able to conclude that 53% of cyclists ignore red lights or that 'marshal law' was imposed in London for "Ride London" in 2013. Yes LTDA, we get it, you don't like cycling or people who ride bicycles and are happy to lump us in a group. Over on Twitter, I did my own little bit of gentle baiting, including calling for a boycott of black cabs. Actually, I was being daft, I don't use them. Perhaps some of the big businesses who supported the superhighways might rethink their custom?

In the final analysis, I don't really have an axe to grid against the cab trade as a whole; after all, I am the first to moan about being lumped into this group called "cyclists" (see above). I think the LTDA are being stupid and if I were a member, I would be questioning their motives. Cab drivers don't have anything to fear from providing for cycling and they are attacking the wrong targets. They should be questioning why we allow unrestricted (Congestion Charge acknowledged) use of private vehicles in the centre of our City taking up valuable capacity.

Taxis provide a service to people who are willing to pay for it (and it is not cheap) and for people who rely on them for their mobility as they are unable to use buses or other modes. This does not have to change and I cannot see people switching from black cabs to bikes. But, things are starting to change and those who cannot adapt will ultimately slide the way of the dinosaurs, possibly into a diesel-chocked tar pit.

Why Did The Zebra Cross The Road?

February 7, 2015, 8:26 am

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I like zebra crossings. They allow pedestrians to immediately gain priority of traffic and are far more flexible than traffic signals. This post is about where we are now and where I think we should be going with this British Institution.

The World's most famous zebra crossing at Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, London. It is poorly lit, has no tactile paving and the dropped kerbs are not great. But, it has its own webcam!

This idea has been hanging around for so long in my head that things are changing in zebra crossing design, but I will come back to that briefly later. 

The inspiration came from the humble Belisha beacon which celebrated its 80th Birthday last year - have a read of Wikipedia for more background. They are named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the transport minister who introduced them at crossing points marked with metal road studs. 

Zebra crossings as we would recognise them didn't appear until 1951 when stripes were added to make the more conspicuous. For a detailed history, check out the brilliant CBRD website and we are indebted to Living Streets (previously known as the Pedestrian Association) getting them introduced in the first place. One important point to make about Zebra crossings is to get priority over traffic, people are actually meant to step onto them (easier said than done!).

So, let's kick off with the law. As usual, we have primary (acts) and secondary (regulations) legislation governing what we can do and Zebra crossings are no exception. S23 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act gives traffic authorities the power to establish pedestrian crossings on their roads (S24 gives similar powers to the Secretary of State for his roads - i.e. trunk roads). S25 of the Act gives power of the Secretary of State to make Regulations governing pedestrian crossings. We have to publish proposals and people have the right to object to them being placed.

The regulations which cover pedestrian crossings are the snappily titled "Zebra, Pelican & Puffin Pedestrian Crossing Regulations and General Directions 1997". (Northern Ireland has 2006 Regulations). For those worrying about Toucan crossings, don't they are essentially modified Pelicans or Puffins (same applies for Pegasus crossings for equestrians). Anyway, this is about Zebras.

A zebra crossing with an island and a central Belisha beacon is taken as two separate crossings.

Other relevant law will be the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 (as amended) which covers the traffic signs and road markings associated with Zebra crossings. Later this year the ZPPPCRGD1997 (!) will be absorbed into the TSRGD (2015) which makes a bit of sense in my view (and I will post about it then).

In terms of "official" guidance, there are two things which can be referred to;

• Local Transport Note 1/95"The Assessment of Pedestrian Crossings"

• Local Transport Note 2/95"The Design of Pedestrian Crossings"

A word of warning. Although these are current Government guidance documents, they are almost 20 years old and so not a reflection of modern thinking, although the assessment document does try and get designers to consider sites on their merit and approach schemes logically. The design document goes into more detail on the general design and layout considerations for pedestrian crossings with specific advice for Zebra crossings.

At this point I need to remind you that guidance is not law and one is free to depart from it, so long as the legal provisions are met. In short, this gives rise to quite a lot of flexibility in how Zebra crossings can be laid out - far more than some of my peers would have you believe. For practitioners, it is good practice to keep a design note on the whys and wherefores, especially if you are going a little unconventional.

The humble Belisha beacon

So, what constitutes a Zebra crossing? First, it is the Belisha beacon. The size and colour of the flashing globe is regulated (along with the flash rate). The beacon mounting height is regulated and so are the black and white stripes on the poles.

Then we have road markings. We of course need the black and white stripes on the road (the black normally being the road surface) which have their dimensions regulated along with the layout, number and length of the zig-zags (known as the "controlled area"). We also have stop lines and crossing studs (painted or metal) to think about. Schedule 1 of the ZPPPCR1997 gives the ranges.

One other thing to consider is the often thorny issue of tactile paving. Now, it is not specifically a legal requirement, but with the provisions of the Equality Act 2010, highway authorities need to ensure that new schemes are accessible and this includes substantial maintenance work. 

Your basic zebra crossing tactile paving is red, with a row of two tiles at the dropped kerb and a "stem" 3 tiles wide which ideally runs to the back of footway to blind and partially-sighted people can find and orientate themselves.

Tactile paving is there to guide people with visual impairment to the crossing point and is needed because of the need to provide flush crossing points for the benefit of people with reduced mobility. Guidance on the Use Of Tactile Paving Surfaces suggests that the tactile paving should be red to denote a controlled crossing (i.e. pedestrians control traffic by stepping onto the crossing).


Even though red is the recommended colour, the guidance also refers to the need for a colour contrast. It is more relaxed in conservation areas as some urban designers and others don't like tactile paving full stop and red brings them out in a rash. I also have it on good authority that this guidance is being revised, but there is nothing out for consultation as yet. The guidance also refers to trials of an embossed "Z" on the post to assist blind and partially-sighted people distinguish from a signalised crossing, although I have never seen this "live" myself.

The tactile paving should be 'L' shaped. As one stands by the crossing, the 'L' will be upside down with the 'stem' on the right hand side along with the beacon. The arrangement is to hint at people which way the traffic will be coming from as they start to cross and for a two-way road the "L" shapes won't be a mirror image across the centre of the road (it remains the same on a one-way street). Where Zebra crossings go to islands, the recommended arrangement of tactile paving is given too.

A zebra crossing may be put on a road hump (flat topped!), but other humps are not allowed within the controlled area (zig-zags). In this photo, we also have the beacon globes mounted around the posts, light-up stripes on the posts and the post has high level lighting.

We are also allowed to put the zebra crossing on a road hump (flat topped speed table) which can help slow traffic and make the crossing flatter for users and we can put refuges in the middle of a crossing making, sometimes making it a two-stage non-staggered crossing (and you can stagger them if you really must, but this is relatively unusual). We are also able to light crossings, have the white stripes on the beacon posts light up (not flashing) and mount kit in all manner of creative ways.

So having read all of the above, my suggestion is bear the fact in mind that there are some things we have to do when designing zebra crossings, but they are very flexible so we can start with the basics. Pedestrians want to cross on the desire line and that should be our starting point. All too often zebra (and other) crossing are placed where people won't use them and are then funnelled with miles of guardrail to force them to be used.

This image (from Google Streetview) is a classic example of a zebra crossing where the guardrail probably cost more than the crossing itself. I say probably, because I cannot remember - this was the first zebra crossing I built*, but in my defence I didn't design it, I worked for the maintenance team at the time and we installed schemes for the traffic team. (*yes, 'I' didn't physically do the work, but you know what I mean!).

This crossing, on Link Road, Canvey Island, Essex, was installed around 1996 and (from memory) it was to help school children cross this busy road. There must be well over 100 metres of guardrail to keep the kids penned in, although once they are beyond the guardrail goodness only knows what they would do.

Many years after this crossing I am still involved in their design, but fortunately, I think I know what I am doing now (well, let the users be the judge of that I suppose). On guardrail, I am at the opposite end of the spectrum these days and I would generally not design it into a scheme. One exception for Zebra crossings would be where they are closely associated with a school pedestrian entrance as there are often crowds of people milling about who could knock a smaller pedestrian into the road. In this situation, I would offset the crossing from the gate by a few metres so the guardrail protects people immediately at the gate.

When we look at desire lines more generally, crossing a side road can be an issue for people and although unusual, zebra crossings can be placed across the entry to the side road. The photo above is a panorama of the Abbey Road crossing (to the left) and its sibling across Grove End Road. LTN 2/95 recommends;

Another side road zebra at St. John's Wood High Street, note that no zig-zags are present on the right hand side. The Regulations require a minimum of 2 markings and so this crossing does not strictly comply with the rules. The buff coloured tactile paving does not confirm to guidance on colour. I wonder if the designer  recorded the reasons for these issues?

Crossings on a minor road should not be sited very close to a ‘GIVE WAY’ or ‘STOP’ line. Generally the nearer the crossing is to the major road the greater will be the distance to be crossed. Drivers of vehicles turning into the minor road need time to judge the situation and space in which to stop.

So you can put them on a side road and being close to the junction might be better than tucking them away from a desire line and visibility point of view in any case. On the main road, LTN2/95 recommends;

Crossings should be located away from conflict points at uncontrolled junctions. This will give drivers an adequate opportunity to appreciate the existence of a crossing and to brake safely. The ‘safe’ distance will depend on the geometry of the junction and type of side road. However, a minimum distance of 20 metres is suggested for a signalled-controlled crossing and an absolute minimum of 5 metres for a Zebra crossing. It is suggested that the distance be measured from the position of a driver waiting at the give-way line of the side road. Where it is impossible to obtain a ‘safe’ distance, consider banning turning movements towards the crossing or make the side road one way away from the junction.

Silk Street in the City of London. Near a funny roundabouty thing, but seems to work OK. The bright band of lights around the Belisha beacon globe are by Zebrite and are really bright even during the day.

Many zebra crossings are well away from junctions, but where put near one, putting too far away can mean that again, people might not use it. For me, visibility and traffic speed are the issues and if the latter is too high, we can put the crossing on a hump or reduce traffic speeds other ways. A crossing in the wrong place is at best a waste of money and at worse could lead to drivers who expect people to cross on a zebra crossing missing someone crossing a little further away (and that is not excusing a lack of driver attention).

Zebra crossings can be placed near roundabouts (both kerbed and mini) although they should be kept away from any flares out to multiple lanes as there is more to cross and multiple lanes are risky (more on that later). I would set a crossing back from the give way line of the roundabout to allow vehicles to leave the roundabout circulation area, although in tight situations with mini-roundabouts, it might not be possible.

A test layout at the Transport Research Laboratory with added cycle lanes/ tracks.

With larger layouts, it might be worth leaving space for a couple of vehicles and the greater the gap, the better the visibility between pedestrian and driver as the crossing is square with the direction of the road. Of course there is a balance to be had with pedestrian desire lines here.

Zebra crossings should be a minimum of 2.4m wide, but can be up to 5m wide where pedestrian use is high and with approval (by the Secretary of State) up to 10.1m in width. They should be square across the road where possible and zig-zags are normally 8 markings (with the configurations prescribed). This can be reduced to 2 markings or increased to 18 (and markings reduced to 1m in length) and zig-zags apply the "controlled area" rules within them. The variation in length and number of zig-zags is often used to start or end them one side or another at a side road foe example. Paragraph 10 of Schedule I of the Regulations state;

Given that that at least 2 markings are required, the St. John's Wood High Street example in the photo above is technically unlawful. It is sometimes argued that a Zebra crossing in the spirit of the rules is fine which would "clear" the St. John's Wood High Street example, except S10 of the Regulations state;

To omit zig-zags completely (i.e. the controlled area) is pushing it a bit, although there is an argument that the layout of the St. John's Wood High Street is clear enough and there are loads of examples of this layout. I would be inclined to leave that to the courts! There are more niceties of the rules, but I shan't bore you any more.

The visibility of a Zebra crossing is important in terms of drivers being able to see pedestrians and pedestrians being able to see vehicles. LTN2/95 suggests that with a speed of 30mph, the forward visibility for a driver should be 65m (absolute minimum 50m) and at 40mph, 100m, (absolute minimum, 80m). These are measured 85th percentile speeds rather than the speed limit given how some people choose to drive. 

The visibility is a guide, but if the measured speeds are 35mph and above, design with caution and if they have reached 40mph, then a Zebra crossing is not appropriate in my view and speeds need to be reduced, or a signal-controlled crossing provided which can adapt to higher speeds. When designing, I would also want to make sure that drivers can see people approaching a crossing or waiting to cross and so as a rule of thumb, I want to have a clear view to the rear of the footway, or at least 2m back from the kerb on a wider footway.

Warning signs may be provided in certain cirumstances, although to be honest, we use too many. The sign on the left is the UK sign for Zebra crossing ahead, while the sign on the right is a Danish version (with many around the world looking similar). I think the sign on the right makes more sense, but it means something different as outside the UK, many mix stripes with traffic signals.

A pretty basic spotlight and pretty crappy it is too.

Lighting of Zebra crossings is important and is covered in LTN2/95. Practically, people waiting to cross and actually crossing need to be seen by people driving when it is dark. If the street lighting is very good, then no additional lighting is needed - the example above of Silk Street has no additional lighting (although I haven't seen it at night) and often city centres will be fine, although glare could be an issue in affecting the vision of people driving.

Away from the bright lights of the city, or if a higher level is needed to compete, then specific lighting is required. It is often the case that the Belisha beacon has a spotlight attached to do this extra job. Frankly, they are awful and should no longer be used. They might illuminate the waiting area, but rarely do a good job of lighting the crossing.

The Zebra lighting is on top of a 5m lighting column. Most street lighting manufacturers have their own "zebra" versions of common luminaires

The modern approach is to use lighting which illuminates the vertical of people waiting and crossing, rather than the plan which normal street lighting provides. Using clever optics (known as "linear beam spreaders" - thanks Jono Kenyon!), modern Zebra lighting is great. To keep clutter down, the Belisha beacon can be mounted on an ordinary lighting column which is then given the Zebra paint job.

There are many ways the Belisha beacon globes can be mounted. Given that I have endorsed high level lighting, you are faced with two options; first, they can be mounted on brackets and second (and rather funkily) the globe can wrap around the post.

The product I have used for years is the Midubel, by Simmon Signs. I have nothing personal to declare with the company, I have just found their products to be excellent in the years I have known them, plus their customer service is second to none (they will even teach your street lighting contractor how to fix the kit). You don't have to centre-mount the beacon, but it just looks tidy.

This Zebra crossing has illuminated posts helping to show the crossing against a backdrop of vehicle headlights and shop fronts

High level lighting in action (with vertical optics) nicely lighting this Zebra crossing, complete with centre-mounted Midubel globes.

As mentioned above, I am not a fan of multi-lane Zebra crossings. Apart from the width that people have to cross, if traffic is busy, then one slow moving lane can mask people stepping out into a lane with faster moving traffic. I realise that people approaching the crossing should be aware of this and slow down to anticipate pedestrians, but they don't and so I think multi-lane approaches are inherently dangerous. Even with free flow of traffic, the first driver might stop, but if the second one doesn't, you've had it.

This does bring me onto the tricky issue of pedestrian refuges placed within a Zebra crossing. These are used for two reasons. First, so that people can cross in two halves. As with multi-lane approaches, a slow moving lane in one direction can mask people crossing and a refuge deals with that problem. Second, on busier roads, a refuge can be less of a hold up to drivers which means a pretty flexible layout can be provided.

Just awful. 3 lane approach one side, 2 wide lane approach on the other, a narrow stagger and kerbs which are not flush. This is Winston Way, Ilford, East London. From Google Streetview.

A multi-lane Zebra crossing, Victoria Embankment, London.

The problem is that pedestrian refuges need to be at least 1.8m wide in order to be accessible for all users (otherwise there is not enough space for a mobility scooter user or people with buggies) and the refuge island can create pinch points for those riding bikes on the carriageway.

You can squeeze the carriageway down to about 3 metres which means that people riding bicycles cannot be overtaken (but those cycling become a rolling road block), although some drivers try, or you can have the carriageway at 4.5m to allow overtaking, but it feels close when you are on the bike. The answer is that in conditions where people need help to cross the road, it is likely that people cycling need protection from traffic. 

Cycle Superhighway 3, Cable Street, London

There is no cheap answer here; something which helps walking can make things hard for cycling. On the flip-side, when we accommodate cycling, we can make life more difficult for pedestrians. Cable Street in London carries Cycle Superhighway 3. It is a bidirectional cycle track running next to a one way street. It is narrow in places, but a pretty decent bit of cycle route. 

The problem is that the zebra crossings make life more complicated for pedestrians who have to content with traffic and two-way bikes; every time I use the route, there are often people riding through, heedless of people trying to cross. Yes, driver compliance at crossings can be poor too and we are dealing with bad behaviour by people, rather than by the mode they are using. It is a compromise as there is often not enough space to provide a decent refuge.

In Bristol, they are trying something a little different on Baldwin Street, using stripes of block paving to hint at pedestrian priority over a new bidirectional cycle track. Thanks to Maidstone on a Bike for the photo - there is more on his blog. This is not a zebra crossing and personally, I do have some concerns about the outcomes if either a person riding or a person walking assume they have priority at the wrong moment.

The "hinted" crossing is an attempt to give priority to pedestrians. Given that this is next to a Puffin crossing, it is reasonable (in my view) for pedestrians to think they have priority over the cycle track. I do wonder what people with visual impairment would do here as the tactile paving "stem" extending to the rear of the footway is there to guide them to the push button on the crossing.

The layout has come from the frustration that we don't have a cut-down version of the zebra crossing just for cycle tracks. We can build a full-sized zebra crossing such as this one under test at the Transport Research Laboratory, but they are messy.

In this case, we end up with the full complement of tactile paving and beacon posts creating physical and visual clutter. We need to just be able to put the black and white stripes down as they do elsewhere in the world as is well discussed by Mark Treasure of the As Easy As Riding A Bike blog. Zig-zags are not needed as people won't be parking bikes on the approaches to block views. I am still a little concerned about the impact on people with visual impairment and so we will need tactile paving as guidance. To be honest, this is an area beyond my expertise and there definitely needs to be more work and discussion with users on the subject - it is just we have never really done it and we are all learning.

This is pretty good, all of the basic components and with a speed table to slow vehicles and give a level walking surface.

Zebra crossings are not just confined to the highway, they are ubiquitous in cars parks everywhere, marking a "safe" route for pedestrians. Quality varies and of course, they are not subject to highway law, although get it wrong and people can be killed.

I have designed a couple in my time and I think as long as the stripes and the Belisha beacons are there, along with tactile paving and a flush kerb you are there. In a car park, zig-zags are not really needed and I would hope speed and visibility are not issues - as ever, good basic design principles apply.

The problem I find with these "private" Zebra crossings is that they are often poorly laid out and poorly detailed with the usual being a lack of flush kerbs at the crossing point. As with highway authorities, operators of retail parks are required to make reasonable adjustments to assist all customers in line with the Equalities Act 2010 and in a new build, there is no excuse for duff work. Of course, retail parks are there to attract people by car and pedestrians are often an afterthought, even though the car-borne customers complete their journey through the car park by foot!

We are currently waiting for the Traffic Signs & General Directions 2015 to be enacted. One of the proposals in last year's consultation, was to create a "cycle Zebra" which is essentially the creation of a parallel cycling crossing next to the stripes of the Zebra which is reserved for pedestrians.

Partly because this is a post about Zebra crossings for pedestrians and partly because this layout is new (there has been a couple of schemes with similar layouts) I am not going to spend time on it - a subject for another day.

Yes, I like Zebra crossings because of their flexibility. If by a railway station, hoards of people in the morning and evening can get priority over traffic where a signalised crossing would hold people up on busy footways waiting for a green man (or they will just ignore it). At the same kind of location, during the quieter times of the day, there are no traffic delays, but people can just turn up and cross. Their design and location need a lot of thought and when being built, attention to detail is everything.

Carry On At Your Convenience

February 13, 2015, 12:18 pm

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Why is it that some people put their own convenience above others? I am sick of seeing people parking on the footway because they are too lazy or ignorant to think about those who need to get past.

Whether it is someone popping into a shop and will only be a couple of minutes, a parcel company driver deciding that the footway is fair game, or a tradesperson trying to get their van as close as possible to the front door of the property they are working on, our streets are plagued by these people. 

Stop being so bloody selfish and park properly and yes, you might need to plan your journey better, park round the corner or do the job at a different time of day. Fools.

Why can't you deliver at a quieter time of day, or use the rear entrance?

Are you happy with that bit of parking?

Park round the corner and walk round you lazy sod.

Motorways, Metrolink & Manchester

February 20, 2015, 7:48 am

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OK, it's the modern equivalent of sitting through someone's holiday snaps, but a recent trip to Manchester had me thinking - much to the irritation of my family!

No, I cannot switch off and to be honest who wants to when it comes to how our infrastructure works (or doesn't). Or it might just be me that finds it all so interesting. We had a long weekend in Manchester to see people and to see some of the city where part of my family once lived. I am not going to give you the full account you'll be pleased to know, just some transport thoughts.

A spookily empty M1, north of the crash.

We took the car and it was an awful morning on the way out. With fatal crashes on both the M1 and M40, we switched to the 'A' roads and ended up going through the city of the roundabouts which is Milton Keynes before rejoining the M1 further north. The M1 crash involved a coach hitting a car stopped on the hard shoulder. As the coach driver was arrested, one does wonder if the driver was confused about whether or not the hard shoulder was in use as a running lane at the time under the "smart motorways" project. I have never been a fan of the concept, especially as in some locations, it is hard shoulder running and in others, all lane running with no hard shoulder - one could see the confusion.

I don't have to drive all that often, but for long journeys with all 5 of us, it is the only economic solution. Trains are crazily expensive and cannot compete with the £60 in fuel for the round trip (yes I know, insurance, tax, depreciation etc). There was the usual congestion around Birmingham, complete with the M6 set up to encourage use of the M6 toll (we didn't). We went round Manchester on the M60 to visit a friend just outside Rochdale and then we headed to our hotel near Manchester Airport and got hopelessly lost in the city.

Avoiding the left hook. Image from Google Streetview.

As we found our bearings, I recognised a little bit of cycling infrastructure at the junction of the Mancunian Way and Fairfield Street. The layout is on the eastbound (Fairfield Street) approach to the junction where people riding bikes can leave the main carriageway and go into a little protected pocket (known as a "jug handle" due to its shape) and then on their own green signal (parallel to a pedestrian crossing) cross a two lane left turn slip road to avoid left hook. Once across, people are deposited into their own little protected "ahead" pocket where they continue east along Fairfield Street.

The reason I (very geekily) recognised the layout is that it appears in a very old "Traffic Advisory Leaflet" - TAL8/89, the earliest available online (I am not sure if it was the first one ever though). From what I briefly saw, the layout is identical today as it was in 1989 (aside from new bollards). The advantage to the layout is clearly that left turning traffic can be avoided. The staging of the signals has the cycle green coming in automatically when left turning traffic is held. The disadvantages are that there is never a clear run through the junction and the turns are a little tight. Of course, the main issue is that this is a single item in a location which is completely hostile to mass cycling anyway and so will probably remain an interesting historic curiosity.

The junction of Sir Alex Ferguson Way and Trafford Wharf Road. No signals here for people on foot or bike.

Anyway, that was the journey there. The next day, we took in the Trafford Centre and dropped Ranty Junior off for a trip around Old Trafford with his grandad. The rest of us walked from Old Trafford to Salford Quays which was quite pleasant (although I imagine match days get a bit busy). We walked along Sir Alex Ferguson Way and onto Trafford Wharf Road. The area is a business/ industrial park with wide roads to match. There were cycle tracks on both sides of the roads here, but they had breaks at every little access point and mixed with pedestrians at crossing points. 

At 1.6m wide, the footway on the left is a bit narrow as is the cycle track on the right at 1.9m. With the carriageway as wide as this, it could have been very good.

The footways and cycle tracks were paved in contrasting materials and were in fair condition, but they were let down by poor dropped kerbs (often not flush) and there were signs of tree root damage. It was a Sunday lunchtime and we didn't see many people, so I can't say what it was like during the week. The layout could be tweaked (through maintenance) to give a stepped cycle track and to improve crossings - it could be really good.

On our third day, we wanted to leave the car at the hotel and get into the city centre by tram. Other than a ride on a tram in a living museum, none of us had actually been on a tram proper and we had the perfect chance. The first problem was getting to the tram stop closest to our hotel which was at Manchester Airport Station - about two miles away. This was not a journey we could make on foot with children (one in a baby sling) and we didn't really want to pay for a cab. Luckily there was a bus and even more lucky we got picked up close to the hotel (although even luckier than that, frequent was not a word to describe the service!).

A tram. Nice.

We bought a combined bus/ tram ticket on the bus using cash (remember that London?) and as we arrived at the airport bus stand, the driver told us which stop we should use for the return journey - yes, Arriva's chap was excellent. 

We then found our way to the Metrolink station (or is that stop) and hopped aboard a modern tram at a brand new station which only opened at the end of last year.

The signal to the left of the green means that a tram may proceed ahead.

As we headed towards the city we went through back land areas (some of which were old, long closed railways) and along streets, the tram did its job. On-street, traffic signals were set up to detect oncoming trams to give priority accordingly and progress was as you would expect from good public transport.

Cycle parking at a tram stop.

I did note that bicycles were not permitted on the trams, not even folders, although parking hoops and secure lockers (for a fee I assume) were provided by tram stops. We found the trams crowded in the evening peak (it was a Monday after all) and so full-sized bikes would be a pain for other passengers, but I would have thought that folders could be accommodated and full-sized off peak as with the Docklands Light Railway and some of the Underground in London.

Informal shared crossing of the tram line.

One other thing I noticed on the newer sections we travelled on was the amount of shared-use cycle tracks and Toucan crossings which had been built along the line.

On the sections between residential cores, they probably worked fine because of the lack of pedestrians, but in the busier areas, there wasn't enough space provided. A great deal of money has been spent on building this network and on the airport section, relief roads have also been built and so sadly, cycling has been given its usual bolt on which doesn't suit walking or riding a bike. There are also on-road sections where cyclists are advised to run between parked cars and the trams - certainly not for mass cycling.

As a service, we found the Metrolink system to be wonderful, even to the point where a I tweeted a smashed window on our tram which got an almost instant reply with staff on scene very quickly. We swapped lines a few times and rode up and down which is great entertainment for the kids and gave the adults a rest from walking round the shops. We also went back to Salford Quays on the tram and it was rather reminiscent of the experience in London's Docklands. We eventually went back to the airport and our bus was a 5 minute wait. This was also lucky as the next bus wasn't for another hour!

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Tricky Tactiles

February 28, 2015, 6:41 am

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It's been an interesting and varied week for me (that's why I like being an engineer), but I am posting about one thing on my mind; the tricky subject of tactile paving.

Blister tactile paving - this one at a zebra crossing.

Tactile paving is ubiquitous on our streets, although those of us in the game and some users are the only people who know what it is for. I was at a workshop with Urban Design London earlier this week where we spent the day talking about tactile paving (living the dream!). 

We were fortunate to have Dr Kit Mitchell with us who was involved in the original research into using tactile paving when at the Transport Research Laboratory - specifically blister paving which is the square grid pattern of "bumps". It was proposed as a way of dealing with the important issue of providing flush kerbs at pedestrian crossing points. Of course, with flush crossings comes a significant safety risk for visually impaired people and so something was needed to show that people were at the edge of the footway. The blister paving was born. It is not a panacea as the blisters can be painful or uncomfortable for some people to walk on - the I'DGO information sheet on the subject is well worth a read.

Theory and practice are often different.

These days we have managed to land ourselves with 7 types of tactile surface/ paving which are often used incorrectly and potentially dangerously! "Guidance on the use of tactile paving surfaces" is the current design guidance which has been in place since 1998 and I would recommend that it is read and digested by designers and campaigners alike as it gives far more detail than I will here. 

The guidance is not without its problems as the layouts tend to be "perfect world" with "real world" examples of how one should cut tactile paving flags properly to fit curves. Maintenance is mentioned, but there is no practical information on how tactile paving should be laid - this would be good for designers, installers and maintainers (more on that later).

There is no legal duty to provide tactile paving, but given the need to ensure our streets are accessible to all as implied by the Equality Act 2010, it should definitely be used where visually impaired people are likely to be walking towards dropped and other flush kerbs at a road edge. There are other layouts in the guidance each giving a slightly different message and certainly, some uses are also of real benefit in terms of the safety of visually impaired people.

I have mentioned the square-grid blister paving which is used wherever people might be crossing the street and the kerb is flush with the road - it could be at a dropped kerb (ramp) or where the road (or a cycle track) is brought up to footway level. Blister paving should always be provided in pairs as we are sending the message to people with reduced or no vision that they are about to enter a road. For zebra crossings and signalised crossings, red blister paving is normally used and normally in an 'L' shape as in the first photo to indicate the push button being on the right for a signalised crossing. The "stem" which runs away from the crossing at right angles is to assist people in locating the crossing position. At other crossings (uncontrolled), a colour contrasting with the surround paving (other than red) is recommended, although people often use buff or light grey. 

Corduroy paving used at steps by the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, London. The row in the foreground is at the top of the steps, but there is none at the bottom which leads into the road. In the distance, there is corduroy top and bottom. In this layout, there should be two rows (800mm) as people can miss them when stepping over.

Next we have the "corduroy hazard warning surface" which is a series of "bars" with round tops. It is intended to mean "proceed with caution" and is best used at the top and bottom of steps, but is also used at the bottom of a ramp leading up to on on-street "light rapid transit system" (trams etc), to warn that people are about to walk onto a railway platform, at railway level crossings and where a footpath joins a shared-use (unsegregated) cycle track. You can see why blister paving would be dangerous here!

Off-street platform edge at Cannonbury Overground station. It is the single line of buff paving.

We then have platform edge (off street) blister paving (to be complicated) which is used to warn of the platform edge at railway stations. The blisters are offset in each row to form a triangular grid (rather then the square grid used for crossings). Only laid in a single line, this paving is used a white platform edge line and often a yellow line back from the edge. There is less risk of people stepping over this type of paving (so 800mm not needed) as people in a station will be taking care to find the edge.

From inside the tram, we can see the row of lozenge- shaped bumps for the LRT tactile surface.

Following the rail theme, we next have a similar approach for railway stations, but this time we have "lozenge" shapes for on street LRT stops (trams etc). It is different from the off street blister paving because these stops are on the street and the railway blister could confuse people into thinking they are about to cross a road. However, as with railway stations, visually impaired people will be there by choice and so one row is needed.

Old Shoreham Road, Hove. Ladder is to the left for the pedestrian side and tram to the right for cycling. A bit confused here as people are entering a bus stop area which is nominally going to be shared.

The 5th type of tactile paving has a series of flat-topped "bars" on them (similar to corduroy) and is used on shared-use, segregated cycle tracks. When the bars are laid across the line of travel (known as "ladder"), this shows the "side" for pedestrians, giving a rumble to people cycling over them. When laid with the direction of travel (known as "tram", this indicates the cycling "side", although the bars can catch bicycle tyres, worse when they are wet. The paving is used at the start and end of these segregated tracks and as repeaters.

A raised delineator strip on CS3 at Beckton.

The ladder and tram paving is used with the 6th type of tactile paving - the raised "delineator strip". It is essentially a small kerb or even a raised road marking (to the same dimensions) used to help visually impaired people to keep to the pedestrian "side". Of course with protected cycle tracks (stepped, or kerb-separated) the ladder/ tram and delineator are not needed at all!

Guidance path surface - from the guidance!

We finally have the "guidance path surface". Used in the line of travel, this paving type is easily confused with tram and indeed corduroy; but the shape is slightly different. It is intended to help visually impaired people navigate open spaces where building lines or kerb lines are not available by either following the paving or for cane users, using the ridges to follow with their canes. It doesn't often get used, but could be useful to guide people at public transport interchanges for example.

I have briefly set out the "official" advice on using the different types of tactile paving, and clearly, there is lots of room for confusion. As I mentioned at the start that I was at a workshop and it was to discuss in general terms what people thought was good and bad about tactile paving. Having engineers, urban designers and visually impaired people (plus some groups representing them such as Guide Dogs) was a great idea as I think everyone learnt a bit that day. 

There was some discussion on "non-standard" use of tactile paving for level surface (shared space schemes) which mark a nominal edge of footway to assist visually impaired people. For example, Exhibition Road in London uses corduroy paving. Of course, being a shared space scheme, one questions the need to demarcate anything as all users are meant to be sharing, right?

I will be blogging about shared space in the future and so in the case of Exhibition Road, I will simply state that groups such as Guide Dogs were extremely concerned about the concept (and remain concerned more generally), although the Royal Borough of Kingston & Chelsea belatedly engaged with those with concerns and did some testing. Personally, I am not convinced.

Oxford Circus, London. Note the tactile paving cut to follow the curve of the kerb.

There was also discussion about some proposed changes to the guidance which the Department for Transport will consult formally on soon. This included the following points;

• Flexibility to allow the back of a row of blister tactile paving to follow the curve of the dropped kerb (for crossings), rather than being straight, although the paving would need to be 800mm deep to make sure visually impaired people don't step over it.
• Replacement of the requirement for blister paving at a controlled crossings (zebras, signalised) to be red, with a requirement for at least a 50% contrast ratio with the surrounding paving
• Introduce a requirement for the boundary between carriageway and footway to be demarcated with tactile paving wherever they are at the same level

The first point in theory reduces the amount of paving area needed and in terms of how a street looks, follows the less is more idea without impacting on visually impaired people. I suppose this is fine if the paving is well-detailed and installed, but it will introduce more cut pieces of paving which are notorious for failing - a view expressed by quite a few people.

The second point is driven by aesthetics to some extent, although red tactile paving surrounded by red paving doesn't give contrast. Many people (including users) felt that contrast and the 'L' shape (when it should be used) was more important than the colour; frankly, if users are happy, then so am I.

The third point would cover any flush kerb situation. I suspect it was primarily driven by shared space schemes not providing some kind of demarcation between the "footway" and "carriageway" (which is oxymoronic), but would apply to speed tables and dropped kerbs more generally. I sometimes see speed tables which are poorly designed or installed which are flush, but with only a small area covered by blister paving (not necessarily on the desire line). Shared space issues to one side, this is a good idea.

An Israeli push button - note the arrow on the top showing the direction of travel.

There was also a discussion on a suggestion to add a tactile arrow to the push button boxes to show the crossing direction with an example from Israel being given. Finally, there was a suggestion to provide a rotating tactile cone on push button boxes when used on both sides of signalised crossings (convention is only to provide on the right hand side). Although users are using the 'L' shape to find the push button, on wide crossings, if people found the push button on the left, why not have a cone. Seems to make sense to me. These part of the discussion prompted concerns that too many staggered signalised crossing are difficult to navigate by visually impaired people and straight through crossings were preferred.

We then spent some time debating how tactile paving is used with cycling schemes. Many people felt that mixing people walking and cycling was not desirable and separated infrastructure was required which was a bit difficult to get away from when the discussion was about using tactile paving to deal with segregated and non-segregated shared-use cycle tracks. There was less consensus here and probably not worth going into detail about to be honest.

I will be looking out for the consultation by the DfT as I want to raise the need to provide some design guidance on detailing and construction to avoid some of the poorly built layouts which require constant maintenance. By this I mean giving practical drawings showing how to properly cut tactile paving units, how to avoid diagonal cuts (which get used when ramp gradients are not properly set up) and how to bed the paving units to stop them breaking up (lay on concrete or mortar on concrete, never sand). Happy paving!

Back To The Barriers

March 6, 2015, 12:20 pm

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I have covered barriers before, but there has been some more discussion on Twitter over the last couple of weeks and so I thought it might be worth revisiting the issue by way of a live scheme, warts and all.

My thoughts stem from a little job we did at work to build a short path from a quiet residential street to a shared-use unsegregated cycle track along a Transport for London trunk road. The scheme was a little bit of sideways thinking, coming from a request made by a local school for children with learning difficulties (many relying on motorised wheelchairs). The school often takes small groups of children to the local superstore to improve their life skills, but the route was quite long and the dropped kerbs in the wider estate poorly laid out or non-existent.

The problem we had (as usual) was a lack of funds and correcting many pairs of dropped kerbs just couldn't be done (of course, it is a sad state of affairs when money is always found for a parking scheme, but I will leave it there). One of my colleagues surveyed the area to see what was needed so we could make a funding bid, but it turned out there was a short cut over a grassed area to a hole in the fence separating the estate from the main road. We had an answer to the problem; remove a section of fence and build a proper path as it would provide a great short cut for the children, plus the cost of the path was a fraction of upgrading lots of dropped kerbs.

To give credit to TfL, they agreed to fund half of the scheme as it would improve access to a bus stop on their main road and we found the rest by nicking little bits from lots of other schemes. Yes, that is what our budgets are like now. We had to get permission from our housing department to build the path as it was on their land which might be developed in the future for housing, although (with agreement) the path is being dedicated as public highway using S228 of the Highways Act 1980 (a handy little piece of legislation!)

We decided from the start that we would allow people to ride bicycles along it as it would connect the residential road to the cycle track on the main road. Although not a state of the art layout (i.e. not a separate track) it would do a fair job given the space we were allowed to use and the meagre funds available. One other issue was that of safety (subjective really). We had this little issue gnawing at us and that was the potential for someone to overshoot the path and end up in the 50mph main road. There is no evidence that people actually do this of course (people don't go lemming on us at side roads for example) but look, we are trying to unlearn decades of thinking.

We were going to put a very short (3m) section of guardrail kerbside on the main road to allay our own worries and we were going to put some signage on it to direct people to local destinations. However, TfL decided against it (their network) but they wanted us to slow people on bikes down because of existing complaints about behaviour on the main road path. The compromise was a pair of staggered barriers. 

The reason TfL has complaints about the main road is that the cycle track is shared-use (unsegregated) and quite narrow. The main road has two lanes in each direction and a proper cycle track in this case would require the loss of a traffic lane or acquisition of land. It is not at all busy with riders or pedestrians, but I can see how people would feel intimidated. The barriers are 2.5m from each other and 0.5m apart (as you look directly at them), as well as being set back from the edge of the main road path. In practice, I have no problem getting through with my bike and I was delighted to see (at a distance) a group of pupils passing without apparent problem today (all using wheelchairs); although we will still be seeking feedback when the scheme is complete (we are waiting for a new lighting column to be connected and the highway process to complete).

Yes, the barriers are perhaps there more to satisfy the concerns of those of us involved in the scheme and this continues to play on my mind. We will keep it under review and perhaps they can come out in the near future; a central bollard might be the answer here (there is one to the right of the path in the first photo we could shift). 

It's one thing to put in barriers to slow people down (I think our scheme is accessible to all despite the barriers), it is another thing to deny people access completely. If I cannot get through on my bike (the handlebars are touching the barrier in the photo to the right), then mobility scooter users and most wheelchair users will not get through (not to mention hand cycles and other bespoke bicycles). This style of barrier is often used as an attempt to stop motorbikes getting through, although it denies many people access completely. If the issue is anti-social use of motorcycles, then the police need to be brought in to deal with the problem.

We don't need to block everything up, we can stick in the odd bollard which will deal with the main issue and that is people taking cars through those places we have built for walking and cycling. Our collective designer brains need to change and we need to let go of these long held "solutions" to problems which probably didn't exist and open things up properly, our little path included. 

Have A Pop If You Must

March 14, 2015, 8:45 am

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As a local government worker you need a thick skin; working in a highways department, it needs to be like a rhino; and as an engineer, you may want to have a word with Tony Stark about an upgrade.

I have had to deal with some very unhappy "customers"* over the last couple of weeks who were annoyed with the service they were getting (or not which may be more the point for some). I have had shop keepers who hadn't bothered to respond to a consultation and were now upset that we had started on a scheme which included stopping people (potential customers) parking at a bus stop and them driving over the footway (where are we meant to park they cried - tons of space literally round the corner I said). 

I have had the resident who wouldn't accept that I wasn't there to complain to another transport authority on their behalf - they managed to email me to moan about the other authority, but couldn't use the email address I provided to moan direct. Then we have Mr Scattergun who emails everyone he can think of and when he doesn't get an answer the same day, sends another email complaining and we end up with multiple departments and people trying to answer when they really need to butt out and let me respond within ten working days.

Then I had the councillor who wanted to raise (on behalf of a constituent) concern that there was a signalised junction where people found it hard to cross because of a lack of green man, a narrow refuge and lack of gaps in the traffic. The answer of course is a redesign and green men on all arms, but the concern evaporated when the impact on drivers was also explained.

Next up was the complaint by email with a press cutting attached reporting on a collision with the person asking for my comments before they took it further. The complainant disagreed with a decision made a couple of years ago (bus stop again) and clearly wanted to make a fuss. I think my answer will be that they should take it further because that is their intention anyway.

Away from the the day job, the continual whining on Twitter about UK traffic engineers, well, continued (yes, I know there is an off button and I know a lot is probably justified). What would have crowned the fortnight would have been one of my neighbours having a moan about potholes, but at least I was saved from that!

OK, I will put my fortnight into perspective. People continue to get killed and injured on our streets because we have let them be engineered for cars. People still can't travel independently because there are no green men at junctions, buses cannot pull into the stop and people are scared to ride bikes - you know the list as well as I do.

So, have a pop if it makes you feel better, group-blame highway engineers if you must; but remember that underneath the exoskeleton of officialdom, there lies ordinary people and many of them are frustrated as you are.

At least I get to escape on two-wheels from time to time, even if it is just putting up official notices!

*perhaps people are customers, but it is still a stupid term. As if there is a choice.

Traffic Signal Pie: So Near, Yet So Far

March 20, 2015, 10:30 am

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I have covered stand alone signalised crossings before, but an issue popped up over the last few days which is worth airing in its own right.

Our story starts with a video posted by Matt Turner of the Great Gas Beetle blog showing a Puffin crossing within a large signalised junction in Sheffield which had recently been reworked (Streetview variously shows the old layout and works in progress). Before we proceed, watch the video for yourself;

When I first watched it, I couldn't work quite what the problem was, but clearly, people crossing ahead could see a green man shown on the Puffin display - a "near side" display (known as a Pedestrian Display Unit - PDU). The issue is that the green man is actually for the people using the crossing to the left (from where the video starts) with the ahead signal being on the right hand side of the crossing.

Puffin crossings, whether stand alone or within a junction have the PDU above the push button. When a green man is shown, you can cross - my earlier post went into more technical detail as there is pedestrian detection involved too. The push button is normally (but not mandatorily) on the right hand side as you face the crossing which is there for consistency for visually impaired people, but in terms of the PDU, it will normally be placed so it is on the side the traffic is approaching from and they are turned to if one looks at them, one kind of sees the traffic in the background.

In the Sheffield example, the crossing point in question has the PDUs on the approaching traffic side. The side the video is taken has the push button under the display (on the right), but for people crossing back, the PDU is in the left (as you cross) which is on the traffic approach side. For people crossing back, there is a push button on the right (for consistency), but also another on the left. Yes, it does all seem a bit confusing already. 

The video is taken standing on a triangular island from which three crossing emanate, all with various posts, PDUs and push buttons which, on the face of it, are kind of set out correctly with at least a push button on the right and PDUs facing traffic (where displays are on the left, there is also a push button). 

The underlying issue with the layout is that the triangular island is very small and so in terms of the "wrong" green man which is the subject of the video, it is positioned about the same (but mirror image) as the "right" display. Granted it is turned to face traffic, but as that traffic is coming through a central reservation, the "wrong" display is still very easily seen.

The original junction was laid out pretty much the same from what I can make out in Streetview, but the important difference is that it used to have far-sided signals (known as PedX crossings);

In the image above, pink blob and arrow shows where the video was taken. The yellow circles show the push buttons (both on the right) and the green circles show the old far-sided signals. The red circle is the push button for the crossing to the left as shown in the video.

With the old layout, the implication of someone pushing the "wrong" button is that they will never get a green man at the far-sided signal they are looking at. They might think there is a fault and cross in a traffic gap, although given that traffic will be stopped at some point (to let other traffic movements go), a green man would come in automatically. The "wrong" push button might still be an issue for a visually impaired people who may not appreciate the button being on the left. 

With the old layout, the triangular island is still small and so the "wrong" button is still in reach. The junction is very much laid out (was and still is) to maximise the throughput of motorised traffic and as is pretty much always the case with road layouts like this, pedestrians are given several crossings to negotiate, with very small islands to wait on. There are other layout issues, but I will stick to the signals issue.

Of the two layouts, although both poor for pedestrians, the old far-sided signal layout does not create the additional risk of someone mistaking the green man on the wrong signal as theirs. This issue has been debated on Twitter (well so far as you can) and it has been suggested that people should have been taught how to cross and where "their" green man is. I think that is nonsense because we are dealing with people who are fallible and besides, people don't always see official training on such things!

One of the big problems with Puffin crossings is that when they are busy, people not standing immediately next to the display simply cannot see the green man. Imagine this location is busy, some people won't see the red man, but they might see the green and assume they can walk out into live traffic. Where high numbers of people are expected, then a second, high level display can be provided, but it will never be as good as the visibility afforded by a far-sided signal.

There are good reasons to use near-sided signals and that is where far-sided signals could be confusing. The layout on the left is a two stage non-staggered crossing - essentially two separate crossings (Toucans in this case). 

If far-sided signals were used then there is the possibility (perhaps remote in this example) that someone crossing could mistake a green man in the distance on the second crossing as theirs. We can add louvres to the green men (so they can only be seen from the right position), but it is another maintenance issue and they just don't give the same clear view.

This example has a second set of higher level displays, but in reality it never gets that busy and so all in all, I think the right choice has been made in terms of the near-sided signals.

In this next photo (a 2-stage cycle crossing running parallel to a PedX crossing) it is possible to confuse the signal in the distance (circled) red as the signal for the first crossing. There is a signal for those cycling immediately at the crossing point, but it is up on a pole and so you are relying on the secondary signal circled in green. If the far away signal goes green, then again, we have a serious issue. 

The lesson from all of this is that we must always take care that the right signal can only be seen by the right people and this follows for those driving too - there is a phenomenon whereby people's eyes can settle into a particular focus where things further away get noticed before things closer, with signals and PDUs this is called "see through".

What do users think about near side and far side signals? There is some research from 2005 by Transport for London which looked at the views of people using Pelican (far-sided signals) and Puffin (near-sided signals). The conclusion (of quite a detailed study) was;

In summary, Puffin crossings are slightly more likely than Pelican crossings to engender a sense of safety among pedestrians. While neither type of crossing could reasonably be described as presenting any fundamental difficulties of use, Puffin crossings might benefit from a general review of the visibility of pedestrian signals. At some sites, provision of additional signals would solve the problem of obstruction by other pedestrians. Where this is not possible, it will be important to make sure that all Puffin crossings have audible signals as well as visual ones. 

Countdown

The study was only looking at stand alone crossings; as Pelicans use flashing green men/ amber traffic signals, they are never used at junctions, but it is a useful piece of research in terms of user experience. For a while, TfL was quite interested in using near-side signals for new schemes and upgrades of existing kit and even back then, they were years behind other parts of the country which seemed to have embraced near-sided signals already. Of course, TfL are now more interested in "Countdown" which goes back to far-sided signals with an additional signal which counts down the time left to cross when the green man goes out and before the red man is displayed and they have produced a study showing people like that system too! (a whole other discussion)

The DfT published (now archived) guide to Puffin crossings (near-sided signals). Appendix D sets out some of the other research and the flavour of the document as a whole was in favour of Puffins. Interestingly, there is a section on PDU positioning (p22) and it discusses using "reduced angle of view" PDUs where see through could be an issue. The photo demonstrating the point is from Sheffield City Council! Reduced angle of view is all about the optics in the PDU which can only be see from a narrow angle. From what we understand, Sheffield is looking to rotate the pole of the offending PDU. I am not sure if there is a reduced angle PDU or not, but clearly something needs to be done. I don't know if this will work or not, we shall see.

So, what can we learn from this? For me, it is all about using the right tool for the job and not having a rigid policy one way or another because each site we look at will have its own issues to consider. It is also about checking signal installations at every stage and especially when they have been switched on to make absolutely sure that nobody gets confused. We all need to remember that if there is any confusion, then it is the people outside of the vehicles who will always come off worst.

ALARM Bells Still Ringing

March 28, 2015, 2:28 am

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This week, the Asphalt Industry Alliance published its Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) Survey which showed that despite billions of pounds thrown at potholes, the carriageway maintenance backlog in England and Wales remained stubbornly at £12bn.

Potholes are the Government's favourite and utterly unsophisticated shorthand for the state of our roads and in some ways, their obsession with filling potholes has backfired. The media was quick to pick up on the story, but the reports were not detailed enough to do the subject justice and the hint was that local authorities had been wasting the money which was first announced in reaction to the spate of flooding and heavy rain which had played a significant part in the backlog rising from £10.5bn in 2013 to £12bn in 2014. The full ALARM report is well worth a read as ever and as AIA Chairman Alan Mackenzie states, it is a case of two steps forward and one step back. 

Now, don't get me wrong, money for road maintenance is very welcome to those of us working in local authority highway departments, but what is not welcome is huge sums being dumped on us in one go. Highway maintenance has always been the Cinderella of highways, and highways is often the Cinderella of local authorities in the first place. The poorly staffed maintenance guys work wonders with the little money provided and so large sums to be spent in short periods disrupt our ability to plan in the long term. This comes through in the ALARM report as interestingly, less authorities responded than they did last year which anecdotally at least, is an indicator of staffing reductions made by the Government's austerity cuts. Oh, and contrary to popular belief, contractors don't keep armies of staff in warehouses in case work picks up. We need long-term budgets so all involved can have certainty on levels of staffing and workload.

The Government has provided a map so that Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells can see where their hard-earned taxes are being spent and how money potholes are being filled. Potholes are a symptom of course, but dumping a pile of tarmac into them as an emergency repair is not the answer. Even if a first-time repair is undertaken, it remains a sticking plaster.

The positive news is that the structural condition of the road network is less worse than it was last year (less worse, because it is still a backlog), although Wales is not doing very well. I pick on this as this as a guide to the underlying condition of the network and perhaps a better long-term indicator;

On road user claims, London and Wales seem to be doing well compared to 2015, but England is struggling. It is hard to be sure why this is the case, perhaps some authorities are struggling to keep up with their statutory inspection regimes or don't have enough resources to fight claims.

Certainly, it is costing more in terms of staffing to deal with road user claims and perhaps this hints at the problem - the data is not detailed enough of course and so we only really have anecdote.

Far be it from me to praise the Government and I am not going to do so here! I will acknowledge that my industry has received more funding for maintenance work, but a chunk of it is being used to react to the problem - the local authorities are not wasting this investment, the Government is by trying to show how wonderful it is in getting potholes filled;

England and London are filling more potholes than before and Wales less. Great, so we can fill potholes! Is this an indicator that we are doing better, or just having more money to fill them than we did before?

We have a General Election coming up and so I have no idea what will happen to the funding post-May. The fear is that we shall have more cuts to public services and so we can throw as much money as we want at highway maintenance, we still need a well-trained, staffed and motivated workforce to delivery - I think AIA should add to this survey and ask about numbers, experience and qualifications of staff delivering the work and how much is outsourced. I think it would also be good if data is collected on the state of our footways, cycle tracks and bridges as the ALARM survey only covers carriageways.