Sunday Telegraph accused of using divisive rhetoric in “death trap” floating bus stops article

I'm sure this is correct but Isn't this another case of "bikes are not mini cars"? In places where most people cycle it seems to work that cyclists don't need to stop (like motor vehicles should) when a pedestrian is waiting to cross. This doesn't seem to be dangerous or very inconvenient *.

I think because in the UK cars are normal and bikes are not everyone expects motor vehicle rules should apply.

So I suspect this is a temporary state on the way to mass cycling. If we get closer to there we'll find that pedestrians almost never need formal cycle path crossings despite more cyclists.

* This works due to several factors I think.
The smaller size of cycles, narrowness of cycle paths compared to roads and generally much lower speeds allow pedestrians to easily move around them and cross quickly. Cyclists are more manoeuvrable than motor vehicles and can also slow slightly to allow someone to cross. There are other factors like clearer visibility between them to "negotiate" and both are vulnerable road users, one isn't hidden in a box etc. Before someone makes a ridiculous statement this obviously means that this doesn't "work" if someone is hooning head-down in a TT position - however I'd suggest even if that were common (it isn't) this would still work better than our current zebras with cars!

I'd see it more as a suitable reuse of familiar symbols, which engages existing cultural expectations.

They're informal zebras. Legally not a zebra crossing, which is clearly defined in law, but there to denote a crossing point that is to be treated like a zebra.

Ignore me, I was wrong.

monkeymike wrote:

They're informal zebras. Legally not a zebra crossing, which is clearly defined in law, but there to denote a crossing point that is to be treated like a zebra.

That implies the existence of formal zebras

As they always dress in monochrome I think of zebras as formal horses.

chrisonatrike wrote:

As they always dress in monochrome I think of zebras as formal horses.

What's black and white and eats like a horse?

Steve K wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

As they always dress in monochrome I think of zebras as formal horses.

What's black and white and eats like a horse?

A very hungry penguin?

Steve K wrote:

What's black and white and eats like a horse?

A greedy nun.

Chorizo!  Hmm, no, that's red... I don't know!

monkeymike wrote:

They're informal zebras. Legally not a zebra crossing, which is clearly defined in law, but there to denote a crossing point that is to be treated like a zebra.

We've got one by our school. Only places you can get to is the school itself and about 10 properties. It's a no through road. Still... if a local woman sees a 5 year old at that crossing she speeds up rather than slows down because she couldn't wait seconds to badly park outside her flat.

One day I'm gonna get crafty with honey and glitter and some pages from the HWC.

No, as explained above.

Well, they seem to work in plenty of other countries. NL examples (Denmarks has too):
https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/08/ten-bus-stop-bypasses-for-...

and here including some historic perspective

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/riding-around-the-bus-stop/

Do the Telegraph have the current casualty figures (allowing that they're probably increasing on a daily if not hourly basis)?

I'd be shocked - shocked, I tells you - if a quality national paper had made a paper tiger out of something cycle-related...

TL/DR - things where modes *interact* may not magically work. They may require some understanding of "what to do", enough users of *both* modes in society (for "empathy") AND maybe a minimum frequency of one or other mode. (No cyclists? Pedestrians may habitually also use the cycle space).

Could just be crap design? Not looked at Telegraph but the UK does seem to be world-leading at taking a perfectly straightforward concept from elsewhere and "improving it" / "making it fit local conditions" until it's useless or even dangerous.

2) There's a "bootstrapping" phase needed to get round the "chicken and egg" problem with growing cycling. New infra where there are modes interacting means *behaviour changes*. (Just like persuading motorists not to park in cycle lanes...). Part of that is having enough folks who already know what to do about - then others copy them. This is almost never the case initially. A part of this understanding comes from you and your relatives having used the infra using *both modes* - again most UK people don't cycle currently.

Finally changed behaviours need to be self-reinforcing as we won't have police standing round everywhere. It strikes me this *does* work by *modal dominance* a bit like cars and pavements. People don't impede cars by walking on the road because it doesn't feel pleasant - AND they (sometimes...) have a footway where it does feel safe. Drivers don't drive on the footway (except when they do...) because it doesn't feel convenient.
If people feel perfectly comfortable standing in the cycleway next to a bus stop it probably won't work for cyclists.

Rich_cb wrote:

Well designed infrastructure should make everybody safer.

I certainly agree!

However it is unfortunately probably impossible to get from where we are to many more people cycling without causing some kind of conflict or worry to some people. (In a similar way that we can't have better cycling conditions for all - or even mass cycling - with zero impact on motoring convenience).

I foresee a certain period of occasional unpleasantness (which in x years - should we achieve mass cycling - everyone will of course forget about...)

The UK is certainly very good at making more conflict between modes than necessary though!

For ages UK policy has been "OK, maybe make some provision for cycling - but we must slow down those dangerous scorchers!" Which is quite sensible until we realise that we mostly have selected for cyclists who *do* feel they have to go very fast (to run with the cars) and the "normal people" found what infra there was too inconvenient for them.

I wouldn't like this to happen like it did with the motor car (can't find the quote but I think it was a minister saying essentially "adults, children and animals will just have to learn to get out of the way of the car - or else!") However even in NL while it is now safer AND more convenient for pedestrians than the UK there *are* a few conventions which you have to learn eg. if there is a separate footway (which they mark very clearly there) you should be on that, not in the cycle path.

I think the concerns of blind pedestrians and those with disabilities should get more of a look. There should be some useful data - even from the UK - by now. See eg the Sustrans study.

Again since this kind of infra has been in very widespread use for decades now in other countries (and the odd one in the UK for over a decade) there should be ways to ensure what the UK is building is no less safe, and reassuring the most vulnerable.

...unless we're just building sub-standard conflict-increasing versions of an otherwise good type of design
because "our streets are too narrow" AKA "we can't have any less space for motorists"?

They've been all over the Uk since the 1930s, where the "bypass" is a service road by a major road used by motor vehicles eg people going shopping.

The current campaigners are bad faith actors, and for some reason never mention these as a problem.

More sensible groups such and RNIB and Guide Dogs have been engaged with the research and improvement process.

Sorry to sound harsh, but that's what's going on. NFBUK have in many respects just become useful idiots.

It's a good point, and a demonstration of how embedded car culture and design is that I am now trying to think of reasons why this arrangement is different... but it's not.  

It's the shock of the not old enough / uncommon.  It's concerning to people because it appears new.  And "bicycles on the 'footway' ".  It's like suddenly being able to see the cars...

TL/DR - if you're actually interested in this stuff plenty of people have in-depth articles about this in various different countries / different designs.  Robert Weetman's Copenhagen one is good (with updates about these kind of debates).  Also BicycleDutch on "crossing the cycle path" and he also has one specifically on bus stop bypasses.

I'm not aware of any data which show this is particularly dangerous, from anywhere.  If there was it ought to be easy to find.

Note it took thousands of casualties from cars and many years for pedestrians to "learn" the expectations and behaviours which (mostly) keep us safe.  We've some routines - but they don't always work.  However everyone's just used to what is.  We don't see it - until something changes.

We certainly don't want that again.  And it won't happen.  However: given that some people are apparently worried (change) perhaps the authorities should be putting out a campaign with helpful / reassuring information?  It wouldn't hurt to monitor these.  (And also actual road zebra crossings too, as a baseline...).

Maybe if we had "standards" not "guidelines" for cycle infra (yeah, LTN1/20 is ignored everywhere...) we could at least spot where someone in the UK had screwed up a safe design?

Maybe there are a few specific problem places / populations?  Maybe it's just those aggressive youth gangs / financial services executives in London?

I don't think it will help reassure people - simply put they don't want cyclists in their space - however I guess they could be made with some sharp-radius turns in the cycle path - like rich_cb's chicane idea.  However if I was building them I'd make sure there was space to make it so those could be made more shallow or just removed once people adapted to the new infra.

After all, you don't increase the popularity of an activity by deliberately making it less convenient than its competitors.

That's a fairly routine feature and has been researched to death over the last 7-8 years, but it also has a downside in that eg runble strips can be painful for people with arthritis, or power wheelchair, or mobility scooter, or potentially E-scooter, users, who are all probably best encouraged to be in the cycle track rather than on the pavement - for the safety of blind / visually impaired / frail.

The big issue with the Telegraph piece is that it is promoting an utterly unrepresentative extreme uncompromising and misleading position from a tiny splinter group, that will result in many more casualties if introduced.

Obvs it's also tied up with the exploitation of the issue from Tories in London making a Hail Mary pass to save their political skin.

I predict once we have the election it will bubble under again.

I'm not a fan of rumble strips in general but chicanes around bus stops, if adequately signposted, can reduce speeds effectively and safely.

Rich_cb wrote:

...but when those criticising the article are criticising the 'rhetoric' and not mentioning the principle observation in said article that also reveals bias.

No, because the principal observation is not what was actually claimed by the biased article. The problem is with the article, not the video. Nobody is denying the video is real, the principal observation of the video is that there doesn't seem to be an issue.

Rich_cb wrote:

 The main point of the Telegraph article was that cyclists do not routinely give way to pedestrians at the crossings for the floating bus stops.

The article claimed 1/10 cyclists did not stop, these are different things and should not be conflated. I don't believe 1/10 makes this "routine" either.

Rich_cb wrote:

If cyclists are riding illegally around more vulnerable road users then we can't just shrug our shoulders and engage in whataboutery.

IF doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. Are the cyclists illegally cycling around other vulnerable road users. Are you sure it is illegal to do so? Shoulder shrugging does seem to be the appropriate response to a non-issue, I'm not sure there is any real whataboutery.

It's illegal to not give way to a pedestrian on a zebra crossing. The Telegraph are claiming that 92% of cyclists did not comply with the highway code but doesn't break down the proportion of legal breaches.
In the videos there are several examples of legal breaches but there is undoubtedly cherry picking from the Telegraph in that regard.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/18/sadiq-khan-cyclists-floating...

These crossings don't seem to be working to protect pedestrians and should be redesigned to increase compliance with the highway code.

Rich_cb wrote:

hese crossings don't seem to be working to protect pedestrians and should be redesigned to increase compliance with the highway code.

Difference between "protect" and "inconvenience" here maybe?

An actual study here from Sustrans / Cambridgeshire CC (2015).  Very small (2 sites but only 42 cyclist interactions!)

The only "issues" reported:

"Large groups of pedestrians were observed using the cycle lane as an extension of the pavement at Hills Road especially when the bus stop was congested.
After school has been let out many young people can be seen crowding around the bus stop ... usually do not appear to be as attentive to the flow of traffic ..."

"Protection" - are these any different (apart from probably being safer!) from the current situation where the zebra crossing goes across a carriageway with motor vehicles driving on it?  I haven't watched the Telegraph's videos but I'd guess that there are 3 "issues":

 - pedestrians will wait for buses or just stand in the cycle path area (not limited to floating bus stops...) because "it's the pavement" and they won't expect a cyclist.
- pedestrians crossing will not look out for crossing cyclists for the same reason.
 - pedestrians wanting to cross will stop and wait for an approaching cyclist to come to a complete halt before they cross, like a mini-road - inconveniencing them both, or getting annoyed should the cyclist not do this.

Cyclists will presumably expect people either to move out of the cycle lanes or if crossing to "negotiate" visually with them.

Again - apparently works fine elsewhere (including other places in the UK, some of which were "controversial" in the past, including the St. Thomas' hospital one covered e.g. on road.cc)...

However since it's "new" people will take time to work it out.  Given that the idea of infra is to get previous non-cyclists to cycle unfortunately there will doubtless be some people who aren't "careful and considerate" - either through ignorance or just because for a large enough sample some people are arsy.

You seem to think this merits something competely different for this "transition period" ("These crossings don't seem to be working to protect pedestrians and should be redesigned to increase compliance with the highway code.")

What would that look like then?

Absolutely this. I find it embarressing the disregard a large number of cyclists have for these crossings through Chiswick. If I stop there is usually a surprised look from pedestrians. Of course the telegraph is going to blow it out of all proportion, but the fact is this is an issue. Brushing it away becuase no one has died doesn't stop it being a problem for pedestrians, particularly the more vulnerable.

IanMSpencer wrote:

Wait till they find about bus stops that are on the other side of the road.

I've made this suggestion before.  Putting in a bus stop bypass does create an additional obstacle for pedestrians - and in particular disabled pedestrians, much that many of us on here would argue it is a relatively minor one.  But this could be redressed to some degree by - at the same time as putting in bypass - putting in a zebra or pelican crossing over the main carriageway to facilitate use of the bus stop on the other side of the road.  That means that whilst there would be a minor inconvenience on one side of the road, there would be a big improvement on accessibility to the other side of the road.

It might also flush out the motivations of some of those who protest against bus stop bypasses.

In Europe, lots of places have trams running down the centre with mini-stations for boarding. Invariably they have crossings at either end and in both directions. The alternative I've seen is traffic lights that stop all traffic while the tram is stopped - especially if there is no room for a platform.