As anyone looking to properly understand London’s transport needs and network knows, context, background and best-practice are important. As readers might imagine, behind the scenes here at LR Towers we thus spend a lot of time sharing links and reading around the subjects we cover here.
We also occasionally share links containing good information about transport topics that we know we just don’t have time to cover. We also all, as authors, occasionally write elsewhere on this or tangentially related subjects.
If you’ve have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, don’t forget to email us at [email protected]..
- TfL endorses street design guide – Global Designing Cities
- Slipstream safety on platforms – Rail Technology Magazine
- March Madness comes to Transit – Streetsblog
- More analysis of falling US transit ridership – Human Transit
- Busting the myth of the scofflaw cyclist – Streetsblog
- Guerrilla toilet plunger bike lanes become permanent – Streetsblog
- World’s best sleeper trains – City Metric
Slipstream problems …
Having read the relevant RAIB report …
It’s scary stuff & I would recommend everyone who hasn’t yet read it, do so.
@Greg: Just reading the article is enough:
The “Busting the myth of the scofflaw cyclist” article is a spectacularly misleading title. The actual survey shows that 96% of cyclist ignore stop signs and traffic lights, which seems about right based on what you see around London. In any event the title should be “Survey shows truth of the scofflaw cyclists.”
Those figures (96% of cyclists ignore traffic lights, 98% of motorists break speed limits, etc) need to be taken with a large pinch of salt. How often do they do so? In London, my observation is that at any set of traffic lights the vast majority of cyclists do stop. But it may be that 96% of those cyclists occasionally miss one. Likewise with speed limits – if 95% of drivers only observe the speed limit 95% of the time, is that 90% observance or 5%?
timbeau: Exactly. And the salt should probably be added with a shovel rather than a thumbnail, as the survey in question is only reporting on what various road users say they do. Observation suggests that 95% of the people misrepresent and/or do not know how they actually behave on the road.
It is evident (from Tunnel Designer’s comment and much other evidence) that anyone who reads that article is unlikely to have their views on how dreadful / heavenly cyclists are altered one iota. Views on this matter are somewhat entrenched.
It could be that a substantial proportion of cyclists admit to sometimes ignoring lights and stop signs, not dismounting in pedestrian areas etc, but only under certain circumstances, such as at very quiet times, which are low risk to both cyclists and pedestrians if both take reasonable care. Some of the places concerned may be those that in more pedestrian/cycling-friendly nations such as Holland might be ‘shared space’ environments where the emphasis is less on signals, signs and enforcement and more on slowing down all traffic and encouragement of awareness, courtesy and compromise. Another case is where a cyclist waits correctly at a road junction and then a large vehicle comes up beside them on their right at a left turning. Moving forward, past a red light if necessary, is totally understandable self preservation behaviour, much preferable for the individual than being obediently crushed to death. Clearly there are junctions that have been modified to reduce that particular risk, but there are many remaining that haven’t.
As both a cyclist and a car driver, I have no problems with cyclists who move off early at a red light, nor ones who go the wrong way up one way streets.
I do that too! Perhaps everyone who complains about cyclists should be forced to cycle for a month? Perhaps this could be used as a form of punishment for errant drivers who cut up cyclists? 😉
It used to be said that the safest way to learn to drive was to start with a pedal-cycle, graduate to a motorcycle & then a car.
Provided one survived the motorbike stage, the driver had, by then, acquired a much broader view of the diverse road conditions & hazards.
As part of a campaign against rat-running traffic through my West London street, the residents association invested in some speed measurement equipment so our arguments were based upon data rather than opinion.
We found that 85% of drivers exceeded the speed limit.
Does the data show by how much (on average)?
A few years ago my local Parish Council, to which I was the Clerk, undertook a similar exercise. It was perceived locally that speeding was rampant in the area of the racecourse and that visitors were consequently to blame. We found that the incidence of speeding was far less than the local population alleged (most traffic was in the region of 25 – 30 mph in a 30 mph limit) but that of those exceeding the speed limit almost all of the transgressors were local. Result? The local pressure group went very quiet very quickly.
@Manniac – I have megabytes of spreadsheet data… the 85th percentile speed is generally used by traffic engineers as an indication of the “de facto” speed limit of a road. In my case, the 85th percentile speed was 30mph (85% of cars below 30mph, 15% above 30mph) The road has a 20mph limit and we used this as evidence for the council that despite the signage by the side of the road, on the road surface and two signs that flashed warnings, the limit was being ignored by the majority of drivers.
The data was also useful to show that for a large majority of cars that were below the limit, there was an oncoming car within about 100m. That is, the main reason drivers were slowing down was because of oncoming traffic, not because of things like signs…