New Leeds-Bradford cycle superhighway slammed for dangerous design changes that offers no protection at junctions

I love the new Thornbury barracks bit. Given me hours of fun watching people try and work out which to go. Come to conclusion it's best ignore the Leeds sign coming from Pudsey and go round the back as the lights are in your favour.

The whole thing is a use of cycle money to cover up the fact that drivers don't understand roundabouts anymore and therefore traffic lights are the way to go.

Couple of examples of how it should be done

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/fun-games/bicycle-commuting-t19820-102...

For those who remember 'SPLINK'

(First find a) Safe (place to cross, then stop)
(Stand on the) Pavement (near the kerb)
Look (all round for traffic and listen)
If (traffic is coming, let it pass)
(When there is) No (traffic near, walk straight across the road)
Keep (looking and listening for traffic while you cross).

Here is a simple mnemonic to help you safely traverse your shiny new side road priority junctions.

Stop (your bike at the junction)
(If there are) Pedestrians (then give them priority)
Look (left, look right, look behind, all at the same time)
(Give way to) All (traffic coming at you from 3 directions, plus pedestrians plus other cyclists)
(Wobble) Tentatively (into the roadway whilst trying to clip in)
Travel (15m to the next junction and repeat)
(Remember to) Extend (your journey times)
(Wonder if you would be better off) Driving!

Now, go get SPLATTED!

The City Connect document shows the majority of the side roads as "side road -table", which is what I assume the photo is

There are detailed plans and overview documents for each section on the City Connect website http://cyclecityconnect.co.uk/documentation.php

On the overview document it states

"Cycle lanes or speed tables proposed at
side roads to continue the cycle route across
the junction"

Now I would have interpreted that as being cyclists have right of way - if this is not the case the whole thing is a bit of a non-starter

I use this route between dick lane and Farsley every day and I'm really not looking forward to it opening!

looks like I'll have 2 choices:

use it, be forced to ride slower due to pedestrians (I'm sure I've seen a shared use sign near the barracks) and spend forever waiting at the give way junctions.

Or

Use the road, ride faster, go with traffic through the junctions and be the most hated person in the world for not using the cycle lane.

Although.... from what I've seen so far the people who live along the route seem to think the council have built them a nice new car park. So like many cycle lanes it'll be full of parked cars and useless anyway.

@Paul_C and last night when I popped round to feed my mums cats I saw a car fail to give way to a cyclist on that bit....

All well and good in theory giving priority, not sure how you ENFORCE priority. See too many drivers ignore zebra crossings, junctions, traffic lights to hold much hope that even with the best design enough drivers are going to give way.

Life preservation being what it is, would you ride out infront of a turning car and hope they stop? You might but many won't.

This is one of the reasons I do not use a lot of cycle lanes, it's actually safer to be on the road as at least people half expect you to be there and you're not stopping every hundred yards when you reach a junction.

We've even got a cycle lane around a roundabout that encourages cyclists to stick to the left when turning right, putting them in danger of being hit by traffic turning left and going straight on!

Cycle planners need to treat us as vehicles rather than pedestrians, if that were a bus lane they were putting in it sure as hell wouldn't look like that.

Hey guys, in NZ this sort of design is awarded a prize for "innovation" (no joke: see #2 on http://can.org.nz/media/2014/best-cycling-projects-and-champions-announced). When I tried to argue that this was only asking for accidents, council replied that cars always get priority...

Notice the car about to turn into the cyclists!?

Any other Mancs out there have a nagging feeling that the Wilmslow Road works will also end up equally as shit as this?

The City Connect team are, frankly, lying in that statement. The detailed designs which are still on the CityConnect website show the side road giving way to the cycle track. Sustrans, CTC, and Leeds Cycling Campaign representatives involved would absolutely not have endorsed this design.

This looks awful. I think I'll take my chances on the main road. Someone is going to get hit here. I use this route occasionally and there was never any real issue at this junction, but there certainly is now.

The new Thornbury Barracks roundabout Is pretty bad too. In addition to hazards to cyclists there is a real risk of a rear end shunt when traffic from Pudsey is turning left towards Bradford. This junction is a hazard to both people on bicycles and people in cars. Even a car-on-car rear end shunt is no joke

This is the text of a letter I have sent to the police and to Highways:

Subject:Near Miss : Hazard to cyclists - New Roundabout Thornbury Barracks
Details: Dear Sir,

"There is an issue with this traffic light controlled roundabout. I approached in a car on the B6154 from Pudsey (Galloway Lane) and was turning left towards Bradford… Sunday afternoon, at about 5.50 pm, dry road, good visibility, light traffic. There is a give way line just beyond the traffic lights giving priority to traffic on the duel carriageway and to cyclists in the cycle lane. Having just started off as the lights go green, it is easy to assume that you have full priority to proceed and that nothing will be coming from the right. This is really misleading and as it happened two cyclists were about to pass in front of me. Since they had the right of way I stopped. But they were very difficult to see until the last moment, maybe it’s the angle at which you sit at the lights, or there is something in the way, but I could so easily have overlooked them. The car behind me nearly ran into me, because the driver absolutely did not expect me to stop. I think he hadn’t realised the cyclists were there at all.

Something is adrift here.

I fear that there will either be a rear end shunt or a cyclist will be hit by a vehicle turning left from Pudsey to Bradford.
I also negotiate this junction on a bicycle so I am very aware of the hazards yet it could so easily have caught me out as I was driving in my car.

Perhaps you might take a car and make the left turn from Pudsey to Bradford, or maybe have someone watch driver behaviour at this junction and see if you agree with my observation. If you do agree with me, then please see if you can help to get something done before someone is badly hurt."

I had the misfortune to witness a 30 mph rear end crash a while ago, also when driving a car. The car in front of me went straight into the back of a parked car. The seat belted driver hit the windscreen and was catapulted back into his seat with such force that he broke the back of the seat... and his neck.

To be honest I wouldn't be suprise if Sustrans had signed it off. They are about the worst cycling apologist I can think of. They do little but make cyclist lives less safe.

I was seething when I saw this the other day, but thought it was just me. I'm glad that others feel the same, it's a shame that something could help to normalise cycling is being done so wrong.

The City Connect (the project implementing this project) team are now claiming on facebook that this was the intended design all along, and that the original plans, which appear to show that cyclists would in fact have priority, have been misinterpreted and that it was the intention all along to give cars priority over cyclists. Furthermore, they are claiming that this was all signed off by Sustrans, Leeds Cycle Campaign and the CTC. Given that the original plans are pretty unambiguous, and that Sustrans, Leeds Cycle Campaign and CTC are tweeting their disapproval of this design, it looks like they have been caught with their pants on fire. This should now get interesting!

On the same sort of topic, the screenshot is the A46 and is a sustrans path, i have an interest in that i got hit by a beemer coming out of the side road.

So how should priority be? Is there a legal route to get junctions like this sorted and made safer? There are a couple of side roads and both have the same priority and the both are pretty blind when approaching on a bike because of the hedges?

I almost burst out laughing when I saw the pics. Presumably the people who designed and approved this have never used a bike? I can imagine the workmen building it scratching their heads for hours while being told to stick to the plans.

Just a thought, but would it be possible to provide the necessary sight lines if traffic from the side road had to stop at the cycle lane? Is it possibly less dangerous for cyclists to give way than for cars to be ever edging forward to see what's coming?

priority CAN be given for cyclists and pedestrians at side street using existing road markings and signage... here is an example on Princess Elizabeth Way in Cheltenham... admittedly they didn't tighten up the radius’s to slow down the motons but it can be done...

oh fer heck's sake... I'm going to have to do the google street view tomorrow at work as apparently google maps is broken at the moment on Linux... I can't drop the little man on the map anymore... FFS...

I've had a couple of email exchanges with the Councillor in charge of Transport, Richard Lewis. His responses to my concerns about this scheme have all been along the lines of "be glad you're getting anything at all, now fuck off". The entire scheme has been doomed from the start as the Highways department are adamant that there can be ZERO reduction in motor vehicle capacity along the route. That point of view isn't going to change any time soon.

In Belgium all traffic on side roads and streets has to give way to the cycle lane that crosses it at junctions. Who are these blithering idiots who design British cycle paths/lanes. Clearly there is not enough input from cyclists. Its the same all over Britain and the motor vehicle fraternity cannot get their tiny brains and blinkered attitudes around the fact that motorists do not have some sort of divine right to our roads. I think that it is about time that some sort of national protest or demonstration should be organised to highlight the situation. After all we all contribute to the road fund through our taxes !

What we need is a legal requirement that anyone involved in designing this shit is forced to send their young kids and/or grandparents down these new facilities, unsupervised and at rush hour.

If they decline then it's back to the drawing board until they are confident to do so, but they don't get any more money.

If it goes tits up - Unlucky - Back to the drawing board to design their mistakes out, again, they get no more money.

Local cyclists said this would happen, the councils promised it wouldn't and even published plans that showed it wouldn't!

But they have always - Leeds council especially - lied to their own cycle consultation forum, and despite promises to the contrary, they still do not care whether people on bikes live or die, and always prioritise the convenience of motorists over the lives of bike riders.

In Leeds, this will never change until the law compels them to build right.

This kind of shit is exactly why legally-enforced national design standards are required. It is blindingly clear that local councils cannot be trusted with cycle infrastructure design.