Old Shoreham Road

Norman Baker MP at the grand opening telling the one about two nuns riding down a cobbled street. Maybe. A passing aeroplane made it difficult to hear.

Well, the construction work has finally come to a close on Old Shoreham Road. Firstly, to remind you of the scheme, here are the consultation plans for the eastern end (BHASVIC means Brighton & Hove Sixth Form College)

..and the western end

…and the two posts I wrote during the construction period are here and here.

Below is the Old Shoreham Road stood close to the Dyke Road Junction looking west whilst the path was in construction

An old Old Shoreham Road looking West

And this is how it looks now…

As you can see in the new photo above, the line markings have been painted except the centre line. I have been reliably informed that the line will not be painted immediately as part of a road safety trial to see if traffic speed drops as a result. You will also note that the cycle lane starts away from the Dyke Road junction. I assume this is because the original purpose was to link the schools and colleges and BHASVIC to the right so, job done. Below are a couple of photos of Chanctonbury Road with its bit of cycle permeability

…and this it now…

Junction with Chanctonbury Road, now with shared use area

Stone setts announce (albeit vaguely) that we are entering a shared use area. This to me poses problems, especially when you consider the Belisha Beacons indicating the zebra crossing just ahead.

On the plus side, the central ‘holding pen’ with guard railings has been removed which is a definite improvement. However, cyclists are going to have to negotiate around the Belisha Beacons and pedestrians are going to be needlessly on guard as they cross the road. I personally would have extended the zebra crossing across a cycle path that I would have continued right through. That way there is no ambiguity or confusion, particularly for partially sighted pedestrians. The tree marked the edge of the old carriageway anyway – I assume that the designers wanted to give the feeling of widening the pavement at this point but in doing so they may have increased the potential for conflict.

The radii at junctions have been tightened considerably to slow traffic making left turns reducing further the chance of a collision.

Stencils were made to get the message of continuity across in a fun, graffiti way in lieu of coloured paint. These were spray painted on the approach to each side turning, presumably because people on bicycles need a little bit of time to adjust to not being treated as second-rate citizens. Cars I encountered waiting to pull out all waited patiently behind the ‘give way’ markings.

Not quite Banksy but a good way to get the priority message across

My Brompton as a guide to path width. And it’s all for bicycles.

Another criticism of the cycle path is the way it becomes shared use on a railway bridge, as illustrated in the picture below, just beyond the tree. Even here however, space has been taken from the main carriageway to keep the shared use area as wide as possible and, with the sight lines so good, it just requires a little common courtesy, which should be mandatory in an area where people live and go to school anyway.

Cycle Lane rejoins the road as a mandatory bike lane before junctions

One of the particularly interesting features of this scheme is the new phase on the traffic lights installed on the two main junctions. There is an auxiliary bicycle light that turns green a few seconds before the main lights to give cyclists a head start

I think it’s an attempt to replicate the this type of light seen below, which I photographed on the David Hembrow Study Tour in Assen and Groningen last September..

In Assen, cyclists and pedestrians are given their own separate phase as opposed to optimistic head starts. I assume there had to be compromise in the British version so as not to impede on ‘traffic flow’ (although that is conjecture). It will take a while for British cyclists (and motorists for that matter) to adjust to even this simple change in signalling but it is an improvement from just an Advanced Stop Line. My slight concern is – does it really give a more nervous cyclist time to make a right turn before motor traffic comes steaming through in the opposite direction? In the interests of infrastructure nerdism and the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, I filmed the lights in action, just for you.

Overall, I personally think this is an excellent, progressive scheme. It is not perfect – there are problems as outlined throughout this post (as usual with a British scheme it’s the conflict points) but these can be remedied. At least they didn’t build a narrower track which would then cost a prohibitive fortune to widen. Cycling along this facility, just for a short while, it almost felt as if the Netherlands or Denmark has infiltrated this little part of the South Coast and this was also reflected by the variety of people I saw using it including parents with young children which was encouraging. The width of the vast majority of the track means that, unbelievably [for Britain] people can ride side by side to chat, casting my mind back to seeing groups of Dutch children and young adults cycling to school and college in social groups (always important) or groups of elderly people out for a mid-morning ride to the shops and a natter. To me, this is a crucial element of making the bicycle look inviting to the masses as opposed to part of a heads down specialised sporting rat race it often becomes here.

I cycled London Cycle Superhighway 2 (Bow to Aldgate) in its entirety on Tuesday evening on my way back from a presentation in Stratford. It just felt like optimistically placed blue paint allied to a too narrow segregated path and confusing lights at Bow Roundabout. At no point did it feel as though any attempt had been made to improve the lot of cyclists at all in terms of comfort or safety on what is still a hysterically busy thoroughfare. It was like eating a McDonalds Big Mac Meal – a lot of money had been spent on branding and advertising but after trying it, I was left still feeling hungry. However, the Brighton & Hove scheme has actually taken considerable space from motorised traffic. They have made the bicycle look like an inviting mode of transport that is taken seriously. To be fair, it’s obviously nowhere near as long as the Cycle Superhighway, but it doesn’t give itself an undeserved grandiose name either.

The Old Shoreham Road should be an easy win, being the former A27 but it has been many years in the formulation and execution. I have to doff my hat (in lieu of a helmet) to those who had the determination to see it through. I now incorporate this into my commute (which is now an almost totally segregated route within the Brighton & Hove city boundary).

On that note, I’m thinking of doing an Infrastructure safari on a Saturday in July covering this and other Brighton schemes followed by the ride that I would normally take as my commute followed by a ride around the best and worst of my adopted home town of Worthing. Here is a picture taken from my commute this evening..

Looking toward Worthing Pier

If you’re interested, do let me know. Just bring suntan lotion and money for a pint of beer and 99 ice cream (with flake).

Work in Progress

This week has been a real reward for those of us that ride our bicycles through all seasons. The clocks went forward to usher in British Summertime meaning no need for lights anymore and we had the sort of sunshine and warmth that made you insane if you weren’t on a bicycle.

Continuing on from my earlier post, I’ve taken some movie footage of the works going on just round the corner from my day job which I’d like to share with you. I’ve made some crude annotations using YouTube’s video editing facility as another five minutes with iMovie would have meant me smashing up my laptop whilst giggling like a maniac.

The first film is of the first section heading east to west. Dyke Road to Upper Drive.

You will note that the top section in particular is very much a work in progress and none of the junction works have been carried out yet along the whole route.

Here is the second film from Upper Drive to The Drive which is a very pleasant width.

I will keep stressing how crucial it is to get junctions right for a couple of reasons; firstly because I have yet to see one done correctly in Britain that contains safe motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian movements and also because of the next two films.

Getting segregated infrastructure along the wide sections should be the easy win, particularly when one considers that not one mature tree had to be removed. A bit different to this shocker from Grimsby which should just be placed in the ‘What The Hell Were They Thinking’ category.

Let’s now ride from the Old Shoreham Road down to the sea through Hove on the now infamous segregated path on The Drive/Grand Avenue.

The path here is far narrower with an elevated segregating kerb in places, even stopping for a pinch point (or, to use Council vernacular, ‘Pedestrian Build Out’). The point I’m making here is cyclists at the moment have to indicate and then try to maneuver back into the motorists consciousness across two lanes to make a right turn. I would imagine that this has put many cyclists off using this facility at all – it’s great if you are heading north-south, or wish to make a left turn. It is even worse heading north from the sea as it is uphill and so the speed differential is even greater between motorist and cyclist when a right turn is attempted. This is a critical deal in view of the fact that, for children wishing to get to the new [Old Shoreham Road] path from the old one [The Drive/Grand Avenue], they will have to make a right turn. Forgive the Ford by the way, the driver of which was caught helplessly out-of-place when the Ambulance shot through the junction. Anyway, let’s continue…

Here, we see that not only do cyclists have to move out considerably to make right turn but also from behind parked cars and large refuse bins. Let’s go back to the junction in the Netherlands that we encountered in my last post

Here we see one separate phase for all bicycle movements negating the need for ASL’s or having to move across lanes of traffic. Cyclists in this instance making a right turn (or left turn over here) don’t even have to enter the junction as it’s part of a high quality bicycle network. Many bicycle traffic lights in the Netherlands are triggered by pads so all the cyclist has to do is roll over it on approach to trigger a green light (more on traffic light controlled junctions in the Netherlands here). To do the same at the bottom of The Drive/Grand Avenue would involve the cyclist having to weigh about a ton and may therefore have to wait a considerable time before continuing their journey.

I will of course keep you updated on progress. If at completion, a path has been built that shows continuity of travel for bicycles with priority over side roads and a progressive (dare I say Dutch) attitude to junctions, Brighton & Hove City Council can give themselves a pat on the back. Even if there are niggles, they will be minor as opposed to the path being too narrow which would cost too much money and political will to rectify.

It certainly felt more pleasant cycling the nearly completed sections and it was lovely to see children playing out on the street whilst it’s closed to traffic. At the moment, the people coming to look and try it out are children, experienced cyclists and infrastructure nerds like you and me. Getting the rest of the local population to use it, cherish it and most importantly give feedback on it is the critical bit.