“Safe, efficient, and easy to use”: Cycling junctions “keep everyone protected with no impact on drivers” says Active Travel England, amid hysteria over “chaotic” new layout with 36 traffic lights

A week after a new cycling and walking-friendly roundabout in Cambridge was criticised by one local driving instructor as “chaotic” and “too distracting”, with residents claiming that the layout was responsible for increasing congestion in the area, Active Travel England has released a new video defending the design, arguing that it is “safe” and “efficient”, while having no impact on motorists.

According to the executive agency responsible for cycling, walking, and wheeling in England, CYCLOPS (Cycle Optimised Protected Signals) junctions, the second of which has recently been installed in Cambridge, and other signalised junctions, provide cyclists and other vulnerable road users with a segregated route across an otherwise intimidating and potentially dangerous intersection, “keep everyone protected”, and are “easy to use”.

This month sees the completion of the final phase of a £31.9m safety improvement scheme on Cambridge’s Milton Road, where 90 cyclists were involved in collisions between March 2013 and April 2018.

Launched in 2022, the Greater Cambridge Partnership, a collaborative body in charge of the scheme made up of local businesses, the city and county councils, and academics, says the project “aims to improve public transport, cycling, and walking infrastructure to make these sustainable travel options a more attractive alternative to the car”.

Improvements have included the installation of continuous protected cycleways and footpaths, 14 new Copenhagen crossings to provide priority for cyclists and pedestrians, other footpath and cycleway upgrades, a new CYCLOPS junction (the second of its kind in the city) at King’s Hedges, and a new signalised roundabout linking Milton Road with Highworth Avenue and Elizabeth Way.

> “You’ve really got to expect the unexpected”: Driving instructor says “chaotic, distracting” new roundabout with cycle lanes, 36 traffic lights, and coloured surfaces has “too much to look at”

It’s the latter two of these – focusing on offering segregated routes for cyclists and pedestrians at busy junctions – which have caused consternation among some locals, who argue their plethora of lights and different surfaces are “distracting”.

For instance, the upgraded roundabout layout, which according to the Greater Cambridge Partnership accommodates “different users of Milton Road to ensure everyone can move freely and securely in buses, cars, on bicycles, wheels, or on foot”, has been variously described as “Blackpool Illuminations” and the “birthday cake roundabout”.

Last week, Cambridge-based driving instructor Sue Papworth told the BBC that the roundabout’s “complicated” layout was causing congestion and a “lot of anger” among locals.

“There are too many distractions by way of traffic lights,” she said. “We’ve now got cycle lanes that are going both ways round the roundabout [and] because of the confusion you’ve really got to expect the unexpected.

“We’ve got a signalised parallel crossing that allows people to walk and cycle across the road separately, special paved and coloured surfaces that separate the crossings, and it’s just too distracting. There’s too much to look at.”

And earlier this year, the new CYCLOPS junction on the Milton Road, which was completed last month, came in for ridicule in the national press after the Greater Cambridge Partnership released a YouTube tutorial detailing the layout, prompting the Daily Mail and Telegraph to describe the junction as “so confusing that council bosses have made a video guide explaining how to use it”.

The city council’s Conservative group also blamed the junction for “causing chaos for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers alike” and potentially leading to “extra confusion”.

However, in an apparent bid to counter the hysteria currently surrounding the new road layouts in Cambridge, Active Travel England has released a video-based defence of its CYCLOPS junctions, featuring footage of them being used by cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists alike.

 

 

 

 

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“Have you spotted a CYCLOPs junction recently?” the government body posted on social media on Thursday.

“They’re safe, innovative, efficient, and easy to use. They work by separating pedestrians and cyclists from motor traffic, keeping everyone protected. Smooth turns for cyclists, with shorter crossings for those walking and wheeling, all with no impact on drivers.

“By separating people walking, wheeling and cycling from motor traffic, we can make routes safer and easier to use for all road users, just like this one in Cambridge.”

According to Active Travel England’s own guidance, “protected junctions, including CYCLOPS junctions, are increasingly being implemented to entirely separate the movements of all modes of transport within the junction.

“This approach reduces the likelihood of conflicts and simplifies the operation of the junction into fewer stages, resulting in a more efficient traffic flow.”

> Cycling junction could reduce conflict and optimise traffic flow... but council inundated with complaints on Facebook about "road tax" and lost parking

However, Cambridge isn’t the only place where their implementation has proven controversial.

In August, Leicestershire County Council’s plan to introduce the county’s first CYCLOPS junction, “reducing areas of conflict” and “optimising traffic flow”, was met with a vocal backlash from an outspoken portion of the community who inundated the local authority’s Facebook post about the project with comments about “road tax”, it being “a waste of money”, and concerns that car parking spaces could be lost.

And in January, driving instructor Ashley Neal – who uploads videos to his YouTube following of 150,000 subscribers, often tackling topics concerning cycling and cyclist safety – echoed those concerns about expenditure, claiming that the new CYCLOPS layout in St Helens was an “absolutely awful waste of time and money” and “utterly pointless”.

While he was very positive about the junction from a motorist’s perspective, calling it “super straightforward” and “dead simple” to use, Neal expressed much criticism while cycling across it, largely due to the “ridiculous” wait times, regularly in excess of two minutes at traffic lights.