Theres a junction like this at the junction of West Street and Trinity
Street in Fareham, Hants. The way it is worked there is that there is a
small filter lane on the incoming right leg that the cyclist can take. There
are two sets of traffic lights, one for the small filter lane, one for the
rest of the traffic being forced to bear left. When one is red, the other is
green. The cyclist who wishes to go straight on moves into the filter lane,
stops at the (usually) red light with traffic proceeding to be forced to
turn left flowing round in front of him. The lights detect his presence and
then switch, stopping the main flow of traffic in both directions along the
top bar of the "T", while he proceeds straight ahead.
The advantage is that if a cyclist doesn't want to go straight ahead, but
bear left with the main traffic flow, he just stays out of the filter lane
and so doesn't get delayed. Its not ideal because it makes the cyclist wait
to go straight on, but it is safe as long as everyone respects the red
lights!
Dave.
"Ian Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:We all know how appalling most cycle facilities are.
I find myself trying to design a road junction, and the council is
amenable to incorporate special measures to accommodate cycles, but
it's actually proving a pain in the neck. Hence, I'm seeking
inspiration.
Consider a T-junction.
For various reasons, traffic proceeding across the top right-to-left
has now been stopped in one direction and must turn left down the
stem. This is easy, if we force all traffic to do it, but actually, I
could let bicycles go straight on.
However, I can't see a way to do so. Motor traffic, which is going to
be forced to turn left, will assume that all traffic will turn left,
and will not notice that bikes may go straight on - resulting in too
many clashes. Further, even if the cyclist avoids that, the stuff
coming up the stem, which must turn right, needs to be brought forward
to the middle of the road for visibility reasons, so there's a second
clash with the cyclist crossing through a stationary queue.
If you're having trouble visualising it, there's a sketch at
http://www.astounding.org.uk/ian/temp/TMsketch.pdf
What to do? I really want to let cycles go straight on, because
otherwise it's a miles long detour. However, my highways department
insists the stuff coming up the stem gets a stop line at what was the
middle of the road, and I can't see any way to avoid conflicts.
My best solution so far is to make the footway across the top a shared
use cycle path, so cycles going along that (which is what I expect
they will do) are at least decriminalised. However, I'll hate myself
forever for causing a shared-use-pavement to be brought into being....
Thoughts?
regards, Ian SMith
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