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news
Hills Road separated cycle lane, Cambridge (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpegSunday Telegraph accused of using divisive rhetoric in “death trap” floating bus stops article
The Sunday Telegraph has been accused of using divisive rhetoric in an article that claimed that floating bus stops next to cycleways were a “death trap” for pedestrians – although the newspaper did not provide any casualty figures in support of that assertion.
In its article, it claimed that more than nine in 10 cyclists had not given pedestrians priority when they were waiting to cross to floating bus stops it had observed at three locations in London, and quoted a spokesperson from the National Federation of the Blind as saying that they were a “death trap.”
Sarah Gayton, the charity’s shared space co-ordinator, told the newspaper: “Our concerns, our evidence and our accessibility needs have been ignored, diminished and ridiculed for far too long over the inherently discriminatory floating bus stop design.
“We need a complete halt on any new ones being installed, getting the ones installed in lockdown taken out and all the others removed. It beggars belief that they’re still putting them in. This research should be a massive wake-up call. It’s crazy.”
Will Norman, London’s walking and cycling commissioner, defended the infrastructure, saying: “Bus stop bypasses are a nationally recognised approach for avoiding the dangers of cyclists going around buses into oncoming traffic.
“TfL, like many cities across the country, have integrated this approach into our cycleway programme and we’ve seen a dramatic increase in [the] number of people cycling in the city.
“We are continually working to make all our infrastructure as safe as possible for all road users. All cyclists are required to stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings in accordance with the Highway Code.”
While the article claimed that a number of near misses between cyclists and pedestrians had been observed at the locations in question, a number of Twitter users pointed out that it lacked figures regarding collisions and injuries to back up the assertions being made about the supposed danger being created by cyclists, with one also pointing out the numbers of pedestrians typically killed in a crash involving a bike rider each year, and contrasting that with the number who lost their lives due to motorists driving on the pavement, for example.
Tell me, @ewansomerville , how many pedestrians have been killed by cyclists at floating bus stops?
Answer: none.
How many pedestrians are killed on pavements by cyclists?
Answer: 1 or 2 a year.
How many pedestrians are killed on pavements by motorists?
Answer: around 70 a year. https://t.co/21hUj3Ymqn— PaulM 🇮🇪🇫🇷🇨🇦🚲🐟🌻 (@Onebiskuit) March 19, 2023
Twitter user the Ranty Highwayman, a highways engineer by profession with experience of designing active travel infrastructure, including bus stops, said that the article “both puts the lives of people trying to get around under their own steam under threat and it makes my job as a designer much harder trying to get our streets changed to make it safer for people walking, wheeling and cycling.
“The headline of ‘death trap I,s without foundation because nobody has died,” he said. “This outright lie is designed to sensationalise.”
He acknowledged that some people may have “genuine concerns” over floating bus stops “because they are unfamiliar and that both needs working through with them and a good design response.”
But he added that “The problem is the rhetoric in the piece and the language of some of the people you quote are more widely generating anti-cycling and anti-better streets noise to the point where those who do have concerns are drowned out and they really should reflect on how they behave.
“[Sadiq] Khan is mentioned, but of course, there were many floating bus stops built under Johnson, but the use of Khan is deliberate because it plays to your reader base. In fact, there are floating bus stops all over the country with some dating back to the 1930s,” he added.
Ranty Highwayman also highlighted one in east London that he designed more than 15 years ago, which separates a service road rather than a cycleway from the main carriageway.
Floating bus stops have become increasingly common in the UK over the past decade where segregated cycling infrastructure has been built.
However, they have at times faced opposition, with Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust for example launching a petition in 2016 calling for a planned floating bus stop on Westminster Bridge outside St Thomas’s Hospital to be scrapped, claiming that it would put both cyclists and pedestrians at risk.
> Top London hospital tries to block segregated cycle lane
The petition gained a little over 1,100 signatures, and the proposed floating bus stop was built.
Last October, the NFB joined with 162 other disability groups to call for floating bus stops to be axed, with a registered blind man from Glasgow claiming that they made using the bus “like playing Russian roulette.”
> “Like playing Russian roulette” – Blind people raise concerns about floating cycle lane bus stops
Sustrans undertook a detailed analysis of potential conflict between pedestrians and cyclists at two floating bus stops in Cambridge in 2016 on behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council.
> Floating bus stops improving safety of Cambridge cyclists suggests report
The sustainable transport charity reviewed 28 hours of footage, and said that “all interactions” between road users at the location concerned reflected “safe, normal behaviour.”
It also found that 99 per cent of the cyclists who passed through the location did not have aby interaction with pedestrians.
Some 42 instances in which there was interaction between cyclists and pedestrians were recorded, all of which took place at peak times.
Sustrans said that each interaction had scored either one or two on a five-point hazard scale, although it should be noted that no analysis was performed on interactions between cyclists and blind or partially sighted pedestrians.
At the time, Cambridgeshire County Councillor Ian Bates, Chairman of the Economy and Environment Committee, said: “The report’s findings are particularly pleasing, and give reassurance of the safety benefits offered by this new design of bus stop for Cambridge.
“The County Council is committed to providing safe networks for all road users. I welcome ongoing engagement with disability groups, pedestrians, cyclists and bus operators to see if the designs require any further enhancements,” he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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67 comments
I see the Daily Mail got bored over the weekend and promoted the NFBUK filming Londoners "dicing with death" at floating bus stops
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11941229/Video-expose-bikers-Sa...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11945723/Moment-cyclists-refuse...
Usual quality.
It's not a floating bus stop.
Even for the sort of Bus Stop it is, it doesn't meet design guidance.
Could be better.
However pedestrians are not boarding from / alighting onto the cycle path at least - there is a metre (?) of space between bus and path (EDIT red line on my pic - also illustrates plenty of pedestrian space compared to cycle track). Should have had this wider with shelter there ideally. Presumably the "rationale" is that if you did that you'd recreate the existing conflict but at the point where pedestrians left the shelter moving away from the road - and then neither party might have as good sight lines?
Cargo bike acting like an impatient delivery driver and using footway. Not right but not entirely a shock (and safer than a van...). However the final cyclist past leaves them ineffectively scrabbling about for outrage IMO.
Well the video appears to show how well everyone is getting on with the floating bus stop on a busy street. Clearly it is a No News Day at the Telegraph.
And yet not even a month ago, a pedestrian was killed and another seriously injured, when a CAR was driven into a bus stop near Leeds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-64765215
And a teenager killed and three injured when a car was driven into a bus stop three years ago
https://news.sky.com/story/teenager-dies-and-three-injured-as-car-hits-b...
And just over the hill, another a few years further back
https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/12930849.bradford-man-dies-a...
All in west yorkshire alone.
But yeah, it's cycling infrastructure that is the 'death trap'
Well of course cars are driven by right thinking conservatives you see. Bicycles meanwhile are the preserve of lefty, tofu eaters who are a danger to the very fabric of the nation.
I need to find my place in the culture wars. I ride a bike but I don't like tofu. I'm probably illegal in Texas.
It depends. Are you scared of pronouns?
He believes in Critical Race Theory and follows all the Grand Tours on Eurosport.
I'm more of an amateur noun and I identify as an eldritch being
I'm in awe of your Google speed
It's more DuckDuckGo-fu (which is probably closer to being Bing-fu)
Where do you stand on Tempeh? There might be a way around you're dislike of Tofu.
What in the name of seitan is that?
Demonstration was great but not so keen on husband recent stuff
...and the most arrogant people on the road - apart from the bloke who said it, despite admitting to riding a bike ( and insisting that he doesn't wear his wife's leggings, whilst doing so - although he didn't reveal when he does wear them)
Ranty Highwayman pointing out some facts. The Telegraph making up 'facts'. Hasn't this all been done before (facts vs made up stuff) recently? And that didn't turn out well either.
NFBUK is an odd organisation, it claims to be "The Voice of Blind People!" on its Twitter feed and yet has fewer than 3000 followers (there are approximately 350,000 registered blind/PS people in the UK); said feed seems almost exclusively concerned with anti-cycling/scooter messages, including sharing content that has nothing at all to do with interactions between blind people and cyclists such as the FIA's decision to ban cycling on track walks. It seems no coincidence that the Telegraph should go to them for quotes rather than the RNIB, which has also expressed concerns about floating bus stops but has taken a constructive approach to try and work with the authorities to find the best solution rather than simply screaming that they must be banned and pumping out as much anti-cycling propaganda as they can find.
Are these just mini zebra crossings (without Belishas)?
Rule 19 says should for waiting, but only must for crossing. Presumably a cyclist will stop for anyone in the middle of what must be a narrow lane? Or be hurt themselves.
Can't read the full article, of course.
theyve a catchy video which summarises it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWPHJsGrK-A
They're technically informal zebras, which essentially means the council paint it like a zebra to denote it's a crossing point, but legally it isn't a zebra crossing and it's the same as if there wasn't any paint there at all.Ignore me, I was wrong
Once a foot is on the crossing then giving way is a 'must'.
There were several examples of this being breached.in the videos accompanying the articles.
They refer to zebra crossing, but is it legally a zebra crossing when it doesn't have the flashing orange lights like typical zebra crossings? If so isn't it is just a marked crossing point and nothing more surely...? I've had a couple appear on my commute recently, but you never need to worry about people using them, as they just walk down the middle of the cycle lane like it is standard pavement and if they cross they do it anywhere.
Indeed. Without the orange globes, it's just a confusing bit of paint.
Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/2400/schedule/1/made
According to Ranty Highwayman, who I asked a week or two ago, they *are* to be treated like any other Zebra crossing. I can't give you a legislative authority, but that's enough for me.
I had been arguing your approximate espressed position - that they were indicative, in my case because no "controlled area" could be off the carriageway, but I accept the correction.
LTN 1/20 notes that for cycletrack Zebras, the Belisha Beacons are optional.
There is also the road user hierarchy, of course, which says pedestrians first.
Nope. A zebra crossing is defined in law as:
A place on the carriageway—
(a)where provision is made for pedestrians to cross the carriageway;
(b)the presence of which is indicated by—
(i)a yellow globe of the type provided for at item 27 of the sign table in Part 2 of Schedule 14 at each end of the crossing (except that globes need not be present at a crossing that only crosses a cycle track);
(ii)the black and white stripes shown in the diagram at item 52 of that table and in respect of which provision is made at paragraph 18 of Part 1 of that Schedule (including provision for the black stripes to be a different colour); and
(iii)where used, the marking provided for at item 55 of that table; and
(c)the limits of which are indicated by the stripes except that, where used, the limit is indicated by the marking at item 55
Note the use of "and" in the list.
Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/362/schedule/1/made#f00024
Btw, I'm not saying that one shouldn't treat stripes across the highway like a zebra crossing, I'm only saying that stripes across the highway (without the globes) are not a 'zebra crossing' and cycling through them when a pedestrian is crossing is not illegal only by it's own virtue (like it is for an actual zebra crossing). It can of course still be 'wanton and furious cycling' if the threshold for that is met (for example).
Although I've just noticed the but about not needing them to cross a cycle track, so you should basically ignore this entire post!!
As you obviously didn't read what you copy pasted I've highlighted it in the quote above!!
I hang my head in shame. Still, I learned something new today, so it could be worse.
I now have th elegislative authority.
Para 25 of this page specifies that Belisha Beacons are options for Zebras across cycle tracks, and there is no need for a "controlled area" (which can only exist on a carriageway) to be present:
http://https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/362/schedule/14/made
General provision about crossings placed across cycle tracks
25.—(1) Sub-paragraph (2) applies where, but for this paragraph, these Regulations impose a requirement for there to be a controlled area.
(2) Where the crossing is placed across a cycle track, no controlled area in that part of the carriageway that is a cycle track is required.
(3) In relation to a Zebra or Parallel crossing which only crosses a cycle track, a yellow globe (provided for at item 27 of the Part 2 sign table) is not required.
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