"First-of-its-kind" cycling roundabout will improve safety and reduce congestion, council promises... but outraged residents claim it will "undoubtedly disrupt our lives in significant ways" and "cause carnage"

"Should" - but  a) UK driving culture and ultimately b) humans.

Sustainable safety for the win again.  Work with the drivers we have and (slowly...) nudge them towards being the drivers we hope for.  We do that by making road rules and infra designs as clear, simple and "lazy, distractable, mistake-prone human-proof".  And also thinking about ways that some will still go wrong and minimizing expected harmful consequences (principle of "forgivingness").

This one actually seems to be the wrong infra design in an odd place.  Doing lots more *in* the town would seem to be the "low hanging fruit.  But of course that would attract far more "but disruption" / "but it's fractionally less easy to drive".  (I am not a local though - don't know the details of the area / how it is to cycle there / traffic flows etc.).  But as much of the design details as are shown don't look too bad when compared with the "best practice".

Tony W. wrote:

If all drivers adhered to the highway code, we wouldn't need traffic calming or anything else, drivers are their own worst enemy.

How's that going to come about?

Wouldn't need traffic calming for what, though? I don't believe that would see more people cycling. It wouldn't do much to improve the general issues with mass motoring. Probably wouldn't even keep cars out of houses...

https://cyclingfallacies.com/en/16/higher-standards-of-driving-would-mak...

Doesn't every driver pay road tax ?

No, keep up.

I can't tell if this is a joke or a serious question? Certainly most drivers believe they pay road tax but they actually pay vehicle excise duty. I mean £200/year, you couldn't even get a parking space for that much.

Circles wrote:

Doesn't every driver pay road tax ?

You may wish to bring yourself up to speed on current affairs as road tax was abolished in 1937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty

Circles wrote:

Doesn't every driver pay road tax ?

Every tax payer pays road tax. The trick is to spot that in the tax you pay, as road spending comes out of the general tax take.

As others say - the motor-vehicle-specific taxes (fuel duty, VED) are to do with pollution mainly (but will almost certainly be re-spun for electric cars - they still damage roads / emit *elsewhere* etc).

chrisonabike wrote:

Every tax payer pays road tax. The trick is to spot that in the tax you pay, as road spending comes out of the general tax take.

As others say - the motor-vehicle-specific taxes (fuel duty, VED) are to do with pollution mainly (but will almost certainly be re-spun for electric cars - they still damage roads / emit *elsewhere* etc).

It's about time that a tyre pollution tax was introduced as they release a lot of very nasty chemicals into our air and a lot gets washed off the roads into our waterways

You're right. In fact cars 2.0 are not very different from ICE cars in terms of negatives inc. pollution.  Even road noise is much the same (at UK-standard speeds electric cars are basically as noisy as as ICE ones).

No difference to all the other issues of motoring either, they still need the infra, still take up the same space.  Plus some new ones (charging cables left over the footways, different public parking provisions because "we have to charge").

(BTW good use of "mobility track", will try to drop that places.)

The whole thing is really strange to me (not a local) - why the heck there?  I mean - I can see some "cycle paths" (shared use...) on Google Maps if i have the right place.  There's only one cluster of around 20 houses about 200m away - otherwise it's in the middle of an industrial estate, on the edge of a town, with none of the roads directly leading to anyware / connecting anything except large industrial concerns.

Is it "we have to spend cycling money so we're putting it where we can" (e.g. where it will cause the least hassle - as opposed to where it would be useful for more than a handful of cyclists, which of course would definitely conflict with driving / be very visible).

Perhaps there are masses of people cycling to (probably low wage) jobs?

Why anyone other than maybe the businesses be bothered?  I mean - is it they're worried about some more traffic when driving to the cemetery?  Is it Jack & Jill's nursery, the caravan storage, or getting to the Majestic Wine Warehouse?

IMO industrial estates are one of the key places where we need mobility tracks - big, unwieldy, poor visibility cargo vehicles go there just as much as they do to construction sites and city centres.

And much the workforce drives when they may still be waking up, drinking their coffee or worn out and going home. You can get an estimate of how much traffic there is by counting parking spaces and lorry bays on Google.

Further, that's where all the people go to work work in the day, and we want them to walk or cycle. Those journeys need to be safe and viable.

Further still, both lots of traffic will be happening 24 hours a day.

This location, in the newest large industrian estate near me, has conventioned nougties type infra (this is Nottinghamshire), and a person riding to work on a cycle had been killed before it was even finished early in the morning by a turning van which was a tradesman or delivery man collecting something in his iirc Bedord size van.

We teased out the suspected cause here whilst talking about finding collision data and we worked out that the reported time of death was within 1 minute of sunrise, which the van was turning directly into and ran down the cyclist who was on the road, presumably without seeing him.

Just this warehouse and the big one at the end have getting on for 1000 parking spaces and ~150 full size loading bays between them. Just those two are going to be 3000+ movements per day, and they are perhaps half of the whole estate - ignoring the petrol station with Costa and Greggsm Screwfx etc. There's no count, but it must be around 10000 AADT including maybe ~2000 logistics vehicles.

Here's a link to the location:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/VnpcNvXCMm1p57F5A

It really seems a strange choice as you say. I imagine the Dutch planners would say:

"Hey - it's on the edge of the urban area - but it's a massive industrial park!  There will certainly be lorries and vans.  And probably few cyclists (even in NL).

"If we are concerned about vehicle flow a signalised junction is out.  If there are in fact more cyclists (and not too many vehicles) make this a roundabout *without* mobility priority (see what I did there).  But - since we're clearly thinking about vehicle flow and more than a few will be big heavy ones we need to have a grade-separated junction for safety.

" BUT ... actually - we will instead look at the network for cycling here.  Does it even make sense that cyclists will really need to go in all directions here?  It doesn't feel like either a "main through route" for cyclists - or even an important part of the cycling mobility network.  So focus resources on those (in town / between towns).  Perhaps the places where people will want to cycle can be connected up in a different (and possibly more convenient) way?

(Or something like that).

As for bi-directional - hmm... agree with what you say on convenience (David H is a fan, although NOT with priority).  But in the UK this may be "a bridge to far" because drivers.  Probably for more than a generation!

There are (a few) debates even in NL I think - there certainly were about a decade ago about priority.  Although bidirectional cycle roundabout designs do exist there.

Google "cycle infra" layer isn't great with showing active travel infra (and certainly not with "actually quiet streets") BUT I'm starting to smell a rat.  Look at the rest of the place...

Doesn't look great on e.g. OpenCycleMap.org either although that does at least show a route going there.

Any locals can comment?

It looks from Google maps as if a new housing development is in the offing. Maybe part of a sec 106 deal?

It could be an active-travel-friendly rat of course - perhaps someone is in favour of this kind of thing in the county / LA, but without one in existence no others will get built (because "not tested here") so someone's found the place where doing the first will cause minimum controversy?

wtjs wrote:

I would avoid it if I had to wait begging for someone to let me me risk the crossings 

But... at current standard UK roundabouts and junctions, that is the situation for cyclists vs. drivers, no?  Joining a roundabout you have to wait for a gap and hope that drivers don't drive into the "gap" where you are.  And while on the roundabout hope that people don't forget about you and hook you when they turn off, or not see you and pull out on you when they join, and nobody nudges you as you're going round...

But yes - the original design makes things safer and more convenient but is not entirely free from "depending on driver behaviour" (e.g. it is designed for low speeds / traffic volumes and obviously in NL "everyone knows what to do" partly because "training" and partly because everyone will experience these quite often).  However such a completely safe design is possible  (just much more expensive / needs more space).  In the UK with our traffic volumes and speeds these ones might be more appropriate.

And in fact examples of this design exist right now (one of several in Edinburgh here)!  Albeit most were made for pedestrians rather than cycling.  Our ones tend to be less convenient (the cars stay on the level while vulnerable road users have to descend then ascend - often via stairs or ramps with tight turns).  They are also often grubby, get flooded or make people fear muggers or worse.

Ah yes, that one, I remember!

In fact - the two designs are substantially different (or are based on rather different designs, for different situations).

I do agree that in the UK things can be spoiled by bad design (compromise, tweaks) or construction.  Or simply plonking these in situations which are not (yet) suitable e.g. too many vehicles at peak flow, or speeds too great.

That then means cyclists act as mobile traffic calming and or "crash test dummies" for driver training, at best.  Sadly that may be the only practical way in the UK (because money and politics and far more people driving than cycling).

However - from the design (can't see all details and who knows what will actually be built) the Hertfordshire one does look quite Dutch in the plans.  A roundabout with cycling priority - very common in NL.

The North Shields one is more like a non-urban Dutch design (without cycling priority).  Here's a somewhat similar real Dutch example (except it's more of a junction).

The sharp turns for cyclists are deliberate in this kind of design.  Some even advocate for a bi-directional version of this within urban areas on the grounds of statistics showing safety.  The majority Dutch view seems to favour priority ones in urban areas though.

The one you show is far too big to be a successful cycling priority design anyway.  The "waiting" areas for cars are too long (the set-backs for the cycle / pedestrian crossing is too great).  Of course in the UK that set back is likely - as you say - to see drivers accelerating ... OTOH by making the crossing at right-angles it gives cyclists and drivers the best possible mutual visibility.  Although as you point out - drivers need retraining to actually look.  But the intent of the design is it doesn't suggest to cyclists "just go and the drivers ought to stop for you", so it's putting responsibility for safety back into your hands.

yes yes, but we all know that "success" can only be measured in reducing or maintaining exsiting (short) car journey times.  Anything the average NIMBY conspiracy theorist perceives as a potential detriment to that is absolutely "carnage" or an "unfair war on motorists".  Whether founded in reality or not.

The roadworks will not cause carnage but the road users might.

"cause carnage" - bit of hyperbole, methinks?

There is potential carnage about, in areas where the driving schools (I only have evidence on this one, so far) are even teaching learners to overtake cyclists while staying in the left lane throughout, in order to avoid crossing the unbroken white line. This one is Green Pass BMW Mini Cooper EJ65 PFF, and the close passing is worse than on the previous Green Pass offence (naturally, they ignored my email). The big sign on the roof declares that the instructor is Carl

https://upride.cc/incident/yx74soj_greenpass_closepass/