UK's first Dutch-style roundabout gets underway in Bedford

interesting phrase in Bedford officers email

"Cyclists will have a choice of dismounting with priority, or negotiating priority with oncoming motorised vehicles."

so is this a good solutions for cyclists? (and pedestrians?)

the stats show that drivers aren't that great at stopping for dismounted cyclists and pretty bad at stopping for cyclists who are riding at crossings - in this type of position I think a lot of drivers will negotiate from a position of strength using speed, surprise, quantity and weight as tactics

the Canterbury link at least shows a crossing which isn't confusing - 4m wide zebras will benefit pedestrians mixing with cyclists but also (rightly or wrongly) encourage those cyclists using the share path to continue believing they have some sort of priority - the Law is a problem but I'm not sure if this is the best solution

if the roundabout is designed to reduce traffic speeds to 15mph then why not have a 20mph limit and give ways at cycle crossings adjacent to the zebras? that would save cyclists having to "negotiate" with vehicles and give drivers and cyclists a clear idea of priority

Assuming this is the same design as trialled recently by the TRRL, where a correctly positioned cyclist nearly came to grief by a driver who was leaving the rbt and assumed he was now clear, it is a recipe for disaster.
And remember, they were all alert, knowing it was a trial of something new!

After looking at https://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=3...

I love the way, what I'm assuming are the proposed bike lanes leading up to the roundabout, vanish just as you get to the point when you need them. Unfortunately, this is typical of Bedford (and the most of the country from my experience).

I ride over this roundabout almost every day going from south to north and I'm not really seeing how this is going to help me. They'll paint all different lanes and pointers on the tarmac, and this will break up within the year leaving a typical road of the kind you see on the news in Syria!

I can't wait for it to happen. It took over 40 years for Bedford to get any kind of bypass, so I won't be holding my breath on this one.

"I guess part of the answer is that where local authorities really want to improve things for cycling, they need much better nationally agreed tools to do the job. Zebra crossing equivalents where (mounted) cyclists also have priority. Roundabouts where cars have to wait for bikes on exit. Cycle lanes where cars aren't legally allowed to park (or stop). And so on."

second that - local authorities seem to run scared of being innovative - probably because they find it essential to spend a lot of money on ensuring every traffic order/sign/design meets a myriad of often very dated and conflicting regulations

last years Parliamentary enquiry (sort of) addressed this and here is a couple of quote from the DfT's response - one issue here is that local authorities look to DfT as defining best practise when DfT (possibly) isn't the best authority on non-motorised transport, looking at and citing best practise elsewhere would be better but if its not legally possible a local authority won't run with it - what's needed is some sort of enabling act allowing local authorities to examine and implement schemes that without reference to national guidelines will do the job - provided some sort or criteria is met - like "could a Belgium truck driver understand the road layout?" or "could someone who took a driving test 40years ago understand this road layout?" - that last one is probably the problem

"This response is made on behalf of the Department for Transport, which has responsibility for cycling policy in England, outside London. Wales, Scotland and London have their own programmes to support cycling.

...............Through the revised Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, due in 2015, Government will be making further changes to make it easier for councils to install cycle facilities, by removing the requirement for Traffic Orders for mandatory cycle lanes and exemptions for cyclists (such as ‘No Right Turn Except Cycles...............

.............The Department is currently working with local authorities to trial innovative new measures for cyclists, particularly looking at different signals to make junctions safer for cyclists. At the same time work is underway to revise the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions, which will include many changes to benefit cyclists. These changes will need to be referenced in subsequent guidance, but the focus is on making revisions by April 2015 to improve traffic regulations for all road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.......................

etc etc etc

detail here section 8 well worth reading

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...

I've just noticed something in the plans showing the road layout.
If you're going Union St to Roff Ave (bottom to top) you go in the outside lane.
If you're going Clapham Rd to Tavistock St (side to side) you go on the inside.
But you're going straight on in both instances.

Just an update.

This roundabout bears no resemblance to the "Dutch" one in the picture.
There are no cycle lanes on it.
It's got a nice smooth surface now, but that's as good as it gets.
There was no provision for cyclists before, and there is none now.
I quote from Blackadder.....

Like fitting wheels to a tomato - time-consuming and completely unnecessary.

In 56% of the cases where the waiting cyclist is dismounted the first vehicle to approach stops, while for mounted cyclists this drops to 33%. 87% of first vehicles stopped for a waiting pedestrian.

Or to put it another way, 31% of drivers would stop for a pedestrian without a bike but not for a pedestrian with a bike, what a bunch of ****s.

I've noticed cars hate stopping when I'm with my bike on a Zebra crossing, so I just walk faster into the road to achieve > 56% of the f**kers stopping.

PS, legally speaking you don't get priority until you put one foot in to the road.

+1
Poor design for cyclists, we are sadly used to
Design aimed at solving a car capacity problem by making things worse for cyclists, paid for from cycling specific budgets....

Just to reiterate what others have written, the headline image on this article is of the test roundabout in Berkshire, and is therefore misleading and has nothing to do with the proposed roundabout.

More detail on the proposed roundabout is at the linked article:
https://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=3...

And David Hembrow has written articles explaining how un-Dutch it is, what a bodge it is, and why it's bad for cyclists here:
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/06/when-going-dutch-doesnt-mea...

I would advise anyone interested in this to visit both those pages. And I would very much like to know what Patrick Lingwood has to say about this.

So it looks like another shared path cop out and this has been reported before I believe...

Back to the drawing board for Bedford and the rest of the UK.

What a mess.

This is not cycling friendly at all. If you cycle over a zebra crossing you're likely to get run down.

I would also like to know what the stats are like for incidents at zebra crossings on the exits of roundabouts. I have a sneaking suspicion they aren't terribly safe as drivers don't have a great view of people waiting to cross and are likely to be distracted by the hazards on the roundabout until the last second.

An article on the same website from April last year is quite enlightening on the status of cyclists using the zebra crossings and Bedford's priorities with the scheme:

"Zebra crossings will be installed on the roundabout arms to assist pedestrians and those cyclists who use the shared paths. The council plans to seek permission from the DfT to install new blue ‘Cyclists give way to traffic’ signs at the crossings. (Patrick) Lingwood explained that, whereas pedestrians have priority over vehicles on a zebra crossing, vehicles have priority over cyclists.

Bedford looked at a number of other possible redesigns for the junction, including creating single lane entries and a single lane on the roundabout. But Lingwood said Paramics modelling showed this option would cause unacceptable delays."

So that's what £420k, 85% of the project cost, buys eh?

Full article:
https://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=3...

I agree with what others have said, cars wouldn’t be overtaking me on that roundabout as I would be in “Primary Position” the same as I am on all roundabouts. I notice that road cc missed a sentence out in copying the text from the transportxtra article. In the text of the original article it says; “He ( Patrick Lingwood ) said many cyclists were likely to cycle in the middle of the lanes” before it goes on to mention how wide the lanes are.

To be honest I don’t really see that much difference or advantage to cyclists that are confident cycling on the road and using “Primary Position” etc. Where the difference is; slower / less confident cyclists will now be able to cycle around the outside of the roundabout on a new shared use path, like the 200 out of 550 cyclists had already been doing “illegally” on the footpath.

Something that does I think ‘open up a can of worms’ and highlights the difference between the UK and the Netherlands; are the crossings on the shared use path “zebra crossings” or are they “tiger crossings” ?

According to the Highway Code (rule 79 ) cyclists can’t cycle across zebra crossings, the rule says “Dismount and wheel your cycle across”. It doesn’t have “must not” in bold type so it isn’t illegal to cycle across one (I do all the time). The problem is, if a driver collides with a cyclist that is using a zebra crossing the police / courts etc can cite the Highway Code to say the cyclist was in the wrong ! Hence why I believe they are looking into making “zebra crossings” on shared use paths something called “tiger crossings”. From my limited understanding and reading up on it, the difference is the road markings, but they are a relatively new thing and the highway code being a few years old doesn’t mention them.

Last summer I was in the Netherlands (& Belgium), I used proper Dutch roundabouts (such as the one modelled in the photo), the biggest thing that I found was that motorists actively looked out for cyclists, in this country some motorists seem to only actively look for cyclists for use as target practice!! I fear that the mentality of many motorists would lead to even proper Dutch roundabouts working...

This is a really bad idea.

The plastic dividers won't stop cars/lorries taking route of preference - but they will trip and constrain bikes.

This is precisely what the Motorbikers said in objecting to this proposal - and they were dead right.

As if that isn't bad enough, 'Cyclesafe' money is being misappropriated to fund this atrocity.

Turbo roundabouts are designed to reduce vehicle/vehicle conflict to *increase* the speed of traffic flow. When they are good and speedy, Patrick Lingwood points them at zebra crossings. Madness.

For permission to cycle on the pavement and piss-off all the pedestrians, £420,000 is one hell of a lot of money. The painted signs are £300 tops.

Patrick Lingwood should resign with immediate effect, and never claim the mantle of cycle promotion again.

Bikes make up 2% of the traffic, 85% of the cost of the project comes from the cycle safety fund but doesn't deliver improvements for cyclists.

A similar design was dropped at Lambeth Bridge in London as, amongst other reasons, traffic doesn't have to stop for cyclists on zebra crossings (see this CTC thread on Crank v Brooks 1980 for more details).

Best of luck 'less confident cyclists' negotiating a junction with 25000 vehicles a day that don't have to stop for you on a piece of infrastructure that has been built with your money with you in mind.

Clearly if they are really set on this kind of roundabout then the cycling budget should be used for £75k of some real dutch design cycletracks outside and separate from the roundabout, while the £450k for the roundabout comes from general roads budgets
Time to call for a audit into misuse of funding?

Why is this being touted as a "Dutch-style" roundabout as if it's a Dutch roundabout? They may have turbo roundabouts in the Netherlands, but this is NOT a Dutch roundabout.

There is NO cycle provision here at all. Just a 'take the lane and you might be ok' attitude that's ingrained in British road design. Every time you have to take the lane it is because the infrastructure is anti-cycling.

the stock headline photo is misleading - it is indeed a turbo roundabout - there is a detailed diagram in the linked article its the link were the story talks about motorcyclists complaining - I've reproduced it below
http://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?id=37123 which shows zebra crossings at the exits and also states that the adjacent pavements will be made into dual use - meaning that if the traffic speeds aren't the predicted 15mph quoted in the article then funding for cycle safety will have built a nice roundabout that maintains vehicle flow and forces many cyclists to act as pedestrians - might be being a bit too cynical there at least trying something different

Please note Holland is only a portion of the Netherlands. Yes, there are many Hollanders who will call the country Holland, but that still pisses off some non-Hollanders.

"that bikers may not see the lane dividers and hit them, or hit them when taking action to avoid a collision, but it was too late to avoid the implementation of the scheme."
From the article above.....maybe the bikers should ride slower then.
It might work in Holland but here in the UK where we drive far more aggressively and give our highway transport infrastructure totally over to motor vehicles without any consideration to pedestrians or cyclist it doesn't have a chance!

Popcorn indeed. Should be interesting with some cyclists opting for the lanes and some sticking to the road. This will irk motorists no end.
Then of course the road-using cyclists should give way to the lane using cyclists crossing their path. That WILL be interesting!