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CS2 upgrade hold on leftTfL unveils junction designed to eliminate left turn danger for cyclists
The first junction in the UK to protect cyclists from being hit by left turning traffic has been completed in London.
Part of the Cycle Superhighway 2 (CS2) upgrade, the junction of Whitechapel Road and Cambridge Heath Road, holds left turning vehicles while cyclists and straight ahead traffic get a green light. The junction, which also features early release at the traffic lights and a two-stage right turn for cyclists, is the first of many to be rolled out across London.
The CS2 upgrade is now almost 50 per cent complete, with kerb separated cycle tracks and bus stop bypasses to protect cycles from motor traffic.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “I made a firm commitment that we would upgrade Cycle Superhighway 2 to ensure that cyclists get the time and the space they need to cycle safely. That’s exactly what’s happening here in east London. The innovations we’re using at Cambridge Heath are a fantastic taster of the raft of improvements that are coming down the track, ensuring that people can cycle safely and more confidently in our city.”
Man cycles across new CS2 junction, which holds left turning traffic while bikes get the green light
CS2, in its earlier design, featured little more than just blue paint on the road, and the route became notorious when three cyclists died in three years 2011-2014 following collisions on the one mile route from Aldgate to Bow Roundabout. An extension, with segregation from motor traffic, was built in 2012 from Bow to Stratford.
Around 85% of collisions in London occur at junctions and left turning lorries are involved in a disproportionate number of cyclist fatalities.
Once work finishes five CS2 junctions will be built on the Cambridge Heath template, with 11 junctions improved along the upgraded part of the route from Aldgate to Bow.
New bus stop bypass, CS2, London
London's Cycling Commissioner, Andrew Gilligan, told road.cc this is a significant day in the improvements to London's roads.
He said: "This is the standard template for 'hold the left' junction which we're going to see at dozens of junctions across London.
"It's two years and five months since we launched the [Mayor's Cycling] Vision and in that time we have embarked on six major projects: the East-West and North-South [Cycle Superhighways], the upgrade of CS2, the CS5 across Vauxhall and then a couple of really big junctions."
Gilligan says nine of the 33 most dangerous London junctions, identified as part of the Mayor's Cycling Vision in 2013, will be complete by the end of Boris Johnson's term in May, including Blackfriars, Tower Hill, and Parliament Square.
Leon Daniels, Managing Director of Surface Transport at Transport for London (TfL), said: “It’s great to see once again that London is leading the way in bringing safe cycling infrastructure to our streets. This innovative junction, conceived and designed by our in-house team of designers and engineers, is a key part of the Mayor’s wider cycling vision."
Two stage right, CS2, Whitechapel Road, London
Nigel Hardy, Head of Project Sponsorship at TfL, the department that negotiates details of the Cycle Superhighways with different stakeholders, told road.cc one of the key challenges was making sure every part of the route was safe for cyclists.
He said: "Whenever we construct an end to end cycling route it is always challenging because in order to make the route work we have to be able to fix every bit along the route because the route is only as strong as its weakest point."
- Transport for London slammed for "watering down" Cycle Superhighway 2 upgrade
While the London Cycling Campaign welcomes the improvements, it points out one gap, beside Whitechapel Market, remains. The LCC's Rosie Downes told road.cc: "Although we are pleased to see that TfL have taken this bold step of taking out the risk of cyclists being hit when travelling along the Superhighway we are quite concerned about the delays that cyclists will experience.
"There's going to be a gap in the segregation outside Whitechapel Market, which is a real concern - to have protection for much of the route and then expect cyclists to mix with traffic."
While Downes said cycles get less time than other traffic on the route, TfL engineers said cycles get the same amount of green time as motor traffic travelling straight, which is roughly 40 seconds along the main route.
Downes also raised concerns about the two-stage right turn which, she says, can take up to a minute to navigate, and if cyclists have to wait too long there is a chance they will take risks to get across the junction quicker.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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20 comments
I find truly depressing that these kind of things, on a handful of junctions in one city, as seen as radical and groundbreaking, when in truth better versions of these were standard practice on all roads in many European cities several decades ago......
Well I think it's a positive step. A lot of this stuff isn't about roadies and vehicular cycling, it's about kids and oldies and the unconfident. And that group won't generally mind an extra minute or so to wait for the second stage.
Can't help thinking that the huge majority of drivers and people-on-bikes simply won't understand the new system though. Who watches TfL videos on Youtube? You'll have people waiting on the right hand side of the cycle lane, people turning right from the cycle lane and getting broadsided by the straight-on traffic coming the other way... but hey. Baby steps.
i'm very undecided about segregating bikes. having kerbs both sides makes overtaking other bikes difficult and to my mind dangerous esp through that bus bypass chicane. the huge kerbs on southwark bridge just look perfect for going over the top of and under a car that won't have any indication that you're about to land on the road in front of them. segregation also robs the roads of a lot of space. i also worry that segregation will be a step backwards for educating motorists about cyclists. it will be so much easier to drive through a junction at 35mph+ if all the bikes are well out of the way... finally on insurance. if you have a no-fault accident on a segregated junction where you've decided to go with the cars not the bikes (sensible, because then you'll only have to wait for the lights once not twice) insurance companies will implicitly blame you for being in the wrong place
No because the bike lane is optional not mandatory, the only roads you can't ride on are motorways and those that are explicitly sign-posted as no bicycles.
Lack of segregation does not educate motorists, I cycle and get close passes by motorists constantly on non-segregated roads.
That's just silly - letting your imagination get the better of you.
So after the bikes have been let go, then the left turning traffic goes are the bikes following along stopped? If not they all run the same risk as currently exists? If they are stopped then surely cyclists will just merge into the main carriageway, also causing issues?
I don't get why major junctions don't have a dedicated left turn lane and then the cycle lane next to this for all straight on traffic, it seems to work well enough in the U.S.
Would massive fines for drivers that kill and the companies that employ them not work better for less money?
Doesn't have to be either / or, surely?
Two things on this.
1. To fine a driver or company they would have to be proven to be at fault, which means being taken to trial and that means existing laws come into play (we know how few get that far).
2. Any fines would be after an incident (and it would likely take a number of incidents and resulting fines for the message to get through), which means at least one person would be injured/killed. The whole point surely is to prevent an incident in the first place.
Yes these junctions would only help on these junctions, and there may be better ways (education and enforcement of existing rules across all road users, including mandatory re-tests for all vehicle drivers every 10 years would be a good way to go in my view).
wtf is a two stage right?
Wait at the first lights then go forwards a bit and pull over to the left and wait again for that set of lights.
I wouldn't bother with it, I'd just join the traffic and turn in one stage, although I'd pull this manoeuvre if it was a no right turn.
Two-stage turn manoeuvre - TFL
Good luck explaining that to drivers/cyclists unfamiliar with the junction with a briefly seen infographic.
The TfL engineers are not correct if they said cyclists get the same green time as motorists. This clear from the TfL YouTube video 'Hold the left turning traffic' https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=48&v=JFL-c7Sv9Q8 The cyclists light goes red while the motor vehicles can go straight on or turn left.
At Whitechapel cars get about twice the time as cyclists. Cyclists doing the 'two-stage' right turn also face longer delays, up to 50 seconds on the most popular right turn at this junction. These delays create unnecessary risk, cyclists will be encouraged to leave the protected lane. It is quite possible to design a cycle segregated junction where cyclists, motorists and also pedestrians all get the same time going straight on. All turning movements are put into a separate phase.
Whooo hoo - they have badly implemented the second best right turn system (right turners still don't get kerb protection they need, there is no way they are going to use that).
I guess that means in another 10 years we will get the state of the art "all directions green for cyclists" that is best practice in the Netherlands after they have spent ages trying to get this one to work.
Why don't they just jump directly to the state of the art? Its a step along the road though I guess...
...now go and roll it out to 1000 junctions and you might start to make a difference, 33 is just not enough!
Couple of things re that bus stop bypass.
The problem with having cycle lanes that have kerbs both sides is that they collect crap (litter/leaves/water) much more than a road does and they rarely seem to get sweeped (normal road sweeping lorries don't fit, and the pavement cleaning machines tend to stay on the pavement, strangely).
On that photo of the bus stop bypass, there appears to be an illegally parked van on the other side of the shelter - I bet this will happen loads, but at least in this case the van doesn't appear to be blocking the cycle lane.
Disclaimer: I don't cycle in London. It sounds as though they've thought about these junctions properly, and that they may well reduce left hooks.
I like the kerb separation and the bus stop bypasses. The two-stage right turns aren't ideal, and as Rosie Downes says, we'll have to wait and see whether they are used in the way the designers intend.
Racist.
Is this similar to the Oval CS7 Meatgrinder? cyclist are held in a separate lane from traffic going straight on, then released at the same time, normally with a bus piloted by a chap who bought his driving licence from a market stall in Abuja aiming 12 tons of metal into the bus stop only 20 metres ahead of the cyclists?
Oddly there is no feedback method on Superhighway changes for all the complaints of cyclists getting pushed off the road?
Nice bit of casual racism to round things off there.
We can *all* visit Abuja market. You racist.
How on earth is that racist?