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Clarence Road BristolBristol bike lane bollards: "If they're stopping cars they're doing their job".
A campaigner has defended Bristol council's trials of new cycling infrastructure after cars have driven onto the bollards protecting a bike lane, in one case becoming wedged.
Bristol City Council will replace the low concrete bollards, called Toby bollards, on the Clarence Road "Dutch-style" bike lane after complaints about safety, and damage to cars from people driving onto them.
Responding to concerns reported in the media that the trial designs were a waste of money, Sustrans' Jon Usher argues councils should be allowed to try out "light segregation" where budgets are stretched, as there are no design standards for cycling infrastructure in the UK, and what works overseas may not automatically work in the UK.
- Bristol plans £35 million spend on cycleway network
He also questioned how people got their cars wedged onto the bollards in the first place.
Usher, who is Sustrans' Bristol Programme Manager, told road.cc: "If people are driving onto them and stopping, the bollards are doing their job because it means the cars aren't getting through to the bike lane.
He added: "I don't know what goes on for a car to mount a bollard when it's on the highway."
- Video: Critical analysis of proposed cycling provisions on Manchester’s Oxford Road
Usher adds "light segregation" - things like planters, wands and armadillos, that provide separation from traffic without using kerbs- are part of a toolkit that allows councils to build bike routes at lower cost.
"It does come down to money unfortunately; the UK doesn't have a funding environment which allows us to provide full kerb segregation everywhere, so Bristol wanted to find out what might work, but it turns out they are having to go back and put a few kerbs in, which is more expensive than a few bollards."
He said: "There is a learning process for [things like bollards on bike lanes]. European best practice probably wasn't appropriate in the UK because we want more protection, and it turns out those Toby bollards don't offer enough protection."
Toby bollards have been trialled in Seville in southern Spain, and in the UK light segregation, in the form of planters and armadillos, are used on Royal College Street in Camden, North London. Planters there have similarly suffered some hits from vehicles, prompting people to say the designs have failed.
Plans to use armadillos on one of Manchester's busiest roads were met with derision (see link above).
Clarence Road is a busy A-road that needed something more robust than white lines but, Usher says, in this case the Toby bollards weren't robust enough.
However, he says, this shouldn't stop councils trying out new designs.
"It's part of a local authority's responsibility to trial to see if they can find solutions to fit their context and it is their responsibility for them to share when trials go well and when they don't go well to save other councils money," he said.
Bristol City Council was contacted for comment.
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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32 comments
Ah I see now the drivers intentions are quite normal by today's standards! First he wasn't aiming for a cyclist he saw the fast approaching zebra crossing and he felt sorry for the cyclist's being struck by motor vehicles as their owners drive round with eyes closed. He saw some pedestrians though and what a great idea aim for them instead and if it wasn't for the bollard I could of ditched my car in the river. We should remove the handrail and the road furniture and put a road sign up saying please turn left without looking then he could do us a favour. One less metal box on the road. Seriously how couldn't it see it? It wasn't going very fast I hope the bollards got good victim support.
The driver was clearly at fault and should have to pay for the damage to the bollard. Not entirely surprising that some drivers can't see stationary concrete coloured objects, as there are plenty of them who can't see a fluourescent clad cyclist in broad daylight. Will the driver be banned until his sight has been checked?
Glasgow has an ongoing test of most of the options above. details are on the glasgow.gov.uk/cycling page under projects.
link here:
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=16521
They have also quite a few segregated lanes newest being the South West City Way.
Love the car trapped between the bollards. fell off the sofa laughing.
Yeah I don't get what the driver was doing to end up like that, surely the council should state that the bollards are working and that they'll paint them bright colours (maybe put a little flag on them if drivers struggle with them that much).
I really don't get how some people can manage to be so unobservant, if it was a brick wall and you drove in to it you wouldn't be blaming the people who built it.
Mwah Hahaha....... 6 hours later....... Hahahaha! What a tool!
Congestion is bad enough in Brizzle, how about just taking this guy off the road. Everybody would benefit.
It looks like it worked perfectly to me - numpty driver got trapped! If only all road infrastructure punished drivers for being dangerously stupid...
Maybe this happened after the driver heard it was back to the future day, and thought he had a flying car?
The more permanent the better, to prevent the next lot of politicians removing it!
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cycling-capital-southern-europe-bike-lanes
The other side of that coin, is that politically it's a lot more difficult to put them in. A lot of the light infrastructure is put in on a temporary traffic order, so as to raise fewer objections.
Once locals have got used to it, it can then be easier to get the permanent stuff installed.
That is why I'm a fan of armadillos, tobys, planters etc.
With a temporary TRO to trial segregation they can be installed quickly and cheaply as there are no kerbs or drainage to install/alter.
As soon as it is shown that it doesn't cause carmageddon, permanent & more costly infrastructure should be installed to replace.
RCS in LONDON NW1 is a joke
"light segregation" is bike lanes on the cheap = rubber armadillos, white paint and thin steel plant pots.
Of course its all smashed up, if its not a solid concrete kerb those motorists are driving into / through it and pushing it into the bike lane...you are safer riding on the road
I don't drive very much, but I still don't understand how someone who is paying attention to the job at hand can run into street furniture-y stuff like bollards, planters, etc. Its not like they're moving, about to jump out at you...
Unfortunately, even when people are supposedly paying attention, this kind of thing happens
The fact is for too long allowing people to hurtle around in +1 tonne steel boxes largely unchecked, is untennable.
I would love to know what that car was doing in the photo, to get itself hooked over a bollard like that; I'm presuming that the driver was about to level up on candy crush saga or something...
I remember when the rising bollards were first introduced in Cambridge. Predictably, a few drivers thought they were a bit sharper than they were and tried to nip through behind buses. Equally predictably, it was all someone else's fault when it went wrong.
Anyway, now those things are commonplace and that doesn't seem to happen so much. The same thing would probably happen here. It does seem a bit odd if they're concrete colored as someone's suggested above, but ultimately the onus is on drivers to look where they're ****ing going.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4456573,-2.589877,3a,75y,192.29h,64.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAJCXA4kD7mGYbhtkMKwtrQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
thought i would find the sight on Google Maps, i can see the cycle path doesn't match the stupidty site exactly, but i really am at a loss as to WTF the driver was trying to do that didn't involve breaking some traffic law, such as driving on pavement, crossing the solid white line into the cycle lane etc.
Screen Shot 2015-10-22 at 20.28.27.png
I think that is exactly what he was trying to do.
Someone waiting to turn right blocking his way, he thinks "I'll just swerve into the cycle lane to get round them, while checking my mirrors for cyclists" & boom! he's on a toby.
If the frequency of the tobys was like in Seville then the drivers couldn't miss them.
By which standard we should acutally being calling for the drivers prosecution!
It's obviously an amphibious Audi and he's trying to reach the river!
Hmm, what kind of kerb might they be replaced with? If just a 'stand up' kerb leaving the cycle track at road level, then ok (although the ability to join and leave the track between the bollards will be missed by some). But if they also raise the track to pavement level, then it becomes simply another shared use pavement. Not good.
I'm not surprised as I often cycle in that lane or the road and they're not very visible. They're mainly concrete coloured and could do with brighter colouring. That picture does make me laugh though.
IF council replaces the bollards with a kerb - if the drivers then park on the cycle path (one has to guess that is what the Audi driver was trying to do) - will the council then admit the kerb isn't working and put the bollards back?
It says a lot about driving standards in this country, that when drivers hit a stationary object, it automatically considered is the stationary objects fault. Now if there was just a law that said that all drivers must drive with "due care and attention"...
audi driver, do i really have to say any more?
Clearly Tobies work. Was the car prevented from entering any further into the cycle-lane? Was any vulnerable road user injured? Will the car driver do it again? Will it encourage the others? If the answers are Yes, No, No and Yes then they work and should be the default protection for cycle-lanes. Bring it (them) on!
They only danger I can see is to clothing wrecked by people laughing so hard they sh*t themselves.
"Toby bollards have been trialled in Seville in southern Spain, and in the UK light segregation, in the form of planters and armadillos, are used on Royal College Street in Camden, North London. Planters there have similarly suffered some hits from vehicles, prompting people to say the designs have failed"
It's not the designs that have failed - it's the vehicle drivers.
In what sense have they 'not worked'? Is it that difficult to drive a car in the lane intended?
TBH, it's not clear to me. The council and the bloke from Sustrans (or was it BCC? Can't remember now and, annoyingly, you can't see the article when posting a comment) seem to have come to that conclusion. I'll try to get down there tomorrow and see it for myself. I suppose if – *if* – large numbers of drivers are driving into them (presumably when turning out of a side road or maybe pulling a U-ie; I can't see how else it would happen. Unless drunk?!) then that could be called "unacceptable collateral damage". Then again, similar things were said when those automated rising bollards were introduced and chancers tailgating buses etc drove into them. I think people have got used to the way those work now, so maybe it's just a question of needing a period of acclimatisation. In which case, they haven't given it long enough, really. But if the Tobies are a failure in this situation, the point is it's not a disaster. Better to have tried and found out, etc.
They tried it, it didn't work. So now they know and they can try something else. Clarence Rd is busy but it's short so it's not a big loss either financially or in terms of a cycle route. In fact, in terms of a cycle route I don't think it's that important, or wouldn't be if it weren't for the school. The problem with putting a kerb in is it then looks like part of the pavement so people walk in it, or worse just stand around in it, like in Baldwin St.
baldwin street is terrible for that; you'd think that the way it's a different surface to the footpath and has a line down the middle and bikes painted on it might be a giveaway that it's a cycle path not just more of the footpath, but noooo...
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