Camden to get London's first left hook preventing separated junction

Big problem is drivers ignore/defy restrictions on turns. E.g. "Ahead Only" at Cromwell Rd/Exhibition Rd, or Marylebone Rd/Marylebone High St, or New Bridge St/Queen Victoria St all have this sign, but there is significant failure to comply and no penalties are imposed!

Looking at the Camden plan...
http://road.cc/sites/default/files/images/News/Cobden%20Junction.jpg

the difficult bit will be getting cyclists wishing to turn left to move out of the straight on only bike lane with a green light and into the left turn vehicle lane with a red light and wait to turn.

IMO without clear instructions 99% of them will stay in the bike lane, go through the green light & make the left turn, straight through all the pedestrians on the crossing.

Cue "#bloodycyclists"

Well I am all for good ideas that increase safety but .... I am wary of schemes that purport to provide a solution.

I don't cycle up the inside of traffic.

I can't avoid traffic overtaking me sometime but generally at junctions the traffic is going relatively slowly. So you should be in the lane not on the inside of it.

If you are going straight on then you are in the normal flow of traffic.

Most drivers don't mind. In fact despite what gets said the thing that most drivers hate is not seeing cyclists, or seeing them late, or anything unpredicatable.

Overtake on the outside if it's safe or join in with traffic in the lane. Being on the inside of moving traffic is a bad place to be.

Unfortunately lots of cyclists and lots of motorists are convinced that this is where you should cycle.

Absolutely years ago I was overtaking stationary traffic quite properly on the outside. Nice and wide and at sensible speed There was nothing oncoming. Up ahead a chap get out of his car to stop me to tell me I was "breaking the law". "cyclists" he told me can't overtake cars on the outside."

I politely told him that it certainly wasn't against the law it against the law and that he'd just imagined that but in fact it was the recommended practice.

Then the usual "I've passed a driving test ..." stuff was profitted. I let him finish and then told him that I not only held a licence, I owned 3 cars, was an advanced driver.

But sometimes that's what you are up against with some drivers. On the other hand I have seen plenty of cyclists being their own worst enemy by squeezing through (one footed) on the inside if vehicles when they could easily be safely passing on the outside.

So I am wary of silver bullets that purport to fix problems in this manner.

I have never been a fan of compulsory cycle training but I do think that encouraging newbie or inexperienced cyclists into such training may well be a good idea. Plus lots more ads on the telly aimed at cyclists and motorists concerning where cyclists should be positioned. Taking the lane etc.

Loads of ignorance out there on both sides (and the police could benefit as well since they have some issues too).

Probably workable on the ground, but it does not help the westbound cyclist approaching the junction along Crowndale Rd. The smart move, I'm afraid, is to skitter across the zebra to the W of Mornington Cres tube into Mornington Cres itself, a nice quiet back road up to Parkway and thence to Swiss Cottage and St John's Wood. Otherwise you have to flog up the High Street and get across to the left for the turn into Delancey St (often masked by buses in the bus-lane on the L side of the High St).

Still, it is progress!

No room for an eastbound cycle lane on Crowndale Road? But room for three - count them - westbound vehicle lanes?

No room for a contraflow cycle lane southbound on Camden High Street? But room for three northbound vehicle lanes?

These are just typical traffic sewers with the usual minimal cycle facilities. We have _so_ far to go to make London a cycling city.

Here's a dead simple way to make all junctions safer for cyclists. Make red mean give way for cyclist unless there's a separate red cycle light. At the same time increase the duration of the red phase for cars.

Not only is this not a first in Camden, it didn't work last time. Some sort of collective amnesia is being experienced among Camden Cyclists here. Have they already forgotten Tavistock Place eastbound at the junction with Marchmont Place? Just in case, this is taken from the Camden Cyclists website:

'Then in 2006, we received complaints from cyclists that people cycling straight ahead eastbound on the cycle track were experiencing near misses from left turning motorists. So to solve that problem, Camden Council installed a separate signal for cyclists on Tavistock Place (it ran after the vehicle signal in the cycle of phases). Many cyclists were annoyed at having to wait so long and then having only a few seconds in which to proceed. So they mostly went at the corresponding vehicle signal.'

So, the sort of rubbish being put in at Cobden junction didn't work there and had to be stopped. Why is it going to work here? Camden Cyclists will argue there are differences but fundamentally, the same dirigiste approach applies here: we and the Council will now decide by use of a traffic light when it is safe for you to make what was previously a legal manoeuvre in the name of cycling safety.

We keep saying that things don't/won't work because plans for cyclists are designed and implemented by non-cyclists. Here we have a plan designed by cyclists for cyclists.

Lets put it in and see what happens. If we don't we'll never know.

Bit concerned these "improvements" are coming from same group that ruined Royal College Street (nw1) with their 'soft' design and then blamed all the damage to the soft infrastructure on 'careless' and 'idiotic' motorists, rather than understanding why physical segregation requires hard infrastructure- the misguided belief in 'Dutch' design being accepted by UK motorists.

Risk management reliant solely on traffic signals and user compliance is no 'improvement' to safety. If anything the streaming is likely to increase the hazard by removing the natural risk management habit in general traffic of watching for left turning motor traffic...

I guess this would work if both cyclists and drivers didn't jump the lights, and if we didn't see any confusion over which lights are for whom (as experienced elsewhere).

The thing is, the stop line for cyclists places riders in the lorry driver's blind spot, so it will be hard to spot RLJs, plus there's likely to be riders in lanes 2 and 3 trying to turn left as well, to beat the queue of cyclists in the cycle lane, and the "swing" of my trailer puts my rear end damn close to any cars on my right, making it potentially lethal for any cyclist filtering up my right hand side.

All very complicated, and it alarms me when Ms Dollimore says, "I have been trying to explain it to various people and find it hard to convey the details".

Personally, I'd like to see cyclists able to use the pavement when turning left, effectively making the corner a traffic island. Yes, there may be one or two injuries amongst pedestrians, but overall KSIs would be reduced significantly. I can't understand why planners see the pavement as so sacrosanct.

Not a criticism as such, as it looks like a big step forward, but in the crossroad examples above, how would a cyclist turn right? As far as I can see their only options would be to get across the two lanes of traffic going left or straight on and join the motor vehicles in the right turn lane, or to go straight on, do a u-turn to return to the junction then turn left from the other direction. Am I missing something?

The light phasing will be vital - it's more than possible to make it a 'greenwave' junction, rather than the 'guaranteed red' you have at Bow. The lane will also have to be wide enough too.

Good attempt, maybe not the last, but cycle specific traffic lights are a really big step forward, hopefully to be seen elsewhere more often now.

Why does this need "ideas" from people. Go to the netherlands, find their latest standard for such a junction, use that.

Hell, I've just just checked the author bio- John- you surely knew the old Hills Road layout!?

This isn't the first. In Cambridge, we used to have this arrangement going north bound on Hills Road at the railway bridge. Main cycle flow continues northbound, much of the car traffic turns left. So there was a segregated lane with it's own phase. A lot of cyclists resented the time sat stationary whilst cars turned left/went straight on- the phasing was definitely biased in favour of motor vehicles. As part of the recent redevelopment this disappeared, replaced with a wide central cycle lane leading to an ASL- which not everyone was happy with (I'm not convinced it's a great move). However, my point here isn't the merits- it is trailing this as a "first".

I honestly don't understand why they don't just allow cyclists to make the left turn on the pavement regardless of the traffic light signal phase. Have a wide run off area, "protected" by low bollards at the apex to prevent cars and lorries cutting the corner, but allow cyclists to just proceed around the turn unimpeded.