Jeremy Parker wrote:

Ah yes, a Barnes dance - named after NYC Traffic Commisioner Barnes,
who was Commissioner during the 1940s.

The Burnt Oak one was the second in Britain, I gather. There was an
earlier one in Sussex somewhere. Half a century for ideas to cross
the Atlantic (in either direction) is about par for the course, I
suppose.

There are hundreds of them already in London - it's just that most of
them aren't marked as such and don't have a distinctive audible warning
either.

The Burnt Oak barnes dance stated off as part of DfT (as it then
wasn't) research project S205Q. "Junction Improvements for Vulnerable
Road Users", project management by Faber Maunsell in St. Albans.
Mysteriously there has never been a report of the research, and none
is planned, although the research should long since have been
completed.

The most controversial junction "improvement" being researched was
the idea of putting bike lanes round the edge of roundabouts. That's
an obvious (to me) killer. If you are ever riding a bike round a
roundabout, stay as far away from the bike lanes as possible.

One good idea the London Cycle Network designers had was to put bike
lanes on the roads one street out from a roundabout where possible, thus
avoiding the problem.

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 17:12:05 -0000, "Jeremy Parker"
wrote:


The Burnt Oak barnes dance stated off as part of DfT (as it then
wasn't) research project S205Q. "Junction Improvements for Vulnerable
Road Users", project management by Faber Maunsell in St. Albans.
Mysteriously there has never been a report of the research, and none
is planned, although the research should long since have been
completed.

In St Albans, we have always crossed the main crossroads diagonally
when necessary, without the benefit of any special markings or
research reports. I wonder where Faber Maunsell got the idea from?
--
Peter Lawrence

(Aidan Stanger) writes:

There are hundreds of them already in London - it's just that most of
them aren't marked as such and don't have a distinctive audible warning
either.

I came across one the other day. Halfway across the road, I realised
that the pedestrian signals were green in both directions and I could
safely cross in one step instead of two. It is rather annoying that
it wasn't more obvious when standing at the curb.

jasonr (Jason Rumney) @ f2s.com wrote:
(Aidan Stanger) writes:

There are hundreds of them already in London - it's just that most of
them aren't marked as such and don't have a distinctive audible
warning either.

I came across one the other day. Halfway across the road, I realised
that the pedestrian signals were green in both directions and I could
safely cross in one step instead of two. It is rather annoying that
it wasn't more obvious when standing at the curb.

Probably the time of the pedestrian phase is sufficient for an
average/slowish walker to cross one of the marked crossings. Obviously if
you walk briskly, you will be able to cover the longer diagonal distance in
that time, but it would be even more annoying to slower walkers, if not
dangerous, if the diagonal crossing was marked without the crossing times
being extended.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"John Rowland" wrote in message ...
Hi all,

I have often seen footage of foreign crossroads with 2 diagonal pedestrian
crossings in addition to the 4 orthogonal crossings we usually have here in
Britain. Today I found a crossroads with all six crossings just east of
Burnt Oak tube station in Northwest London. According to the nearest person
I could accost, it's been like that for about 2 or 3 years. Is this the only
one in Britain? It seems to have been there too long to be a trial.

There is a newish one in the Gorse Hill area of Swindon. The beepers,
etc., stop when pedestrians are still in the middle of the road, which
is a bit disconcerting at first. There is, though, a long pause
before traffic is signalled off again.

PhilD

--

jasonr (Jason Rumney) @ f2s.com wrote in message
...

I came across one the other day. Halfway across the road, I realised
that the pedestrian signals were green in both directions and I could
safely cross in one step instead of two. It is rather annoying that
it wasn't more obvious when standing at the curb.

True - I've just noticed that we have one here in Balham, outside the LU/BR
station! Never realised before reading this thread!

Ian

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...
"Jeremy Parker" typed




The most controversial junction "improvement" being researched
was
the idea of putting bike lanes round the edge of roundabouts.
That's
an obvious (to me) killer. If you are ever riding a bike round a
roundabout, stay as far away from the bike lanes as possible.

Jeremy Parker


There is a dreadful example of this in Burnt Oak barely 1/4 mile
from
the traffic lights at the othe end of Orange Hill Road :-(

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

Ah yes. Bad as Barnet's bike laned roundabouts are, they used to be
even worse. There used to be a "give way" sign painted on the bike
lanes at each entering road. Thus a cyclist in the bike lane had to
give way, but by moving a few inches to the right, out of the bike
lane, the cyclist regained the normal right of way of all the other
traffic.

I mocked these roundabouts at one of the monthly meetings of the
Barnet Cyclists Campaign, which was attended by one of Barnet's
traffic bureaucrats. A few weeks later all the give way signs
mysteriously vanished. However, on the Orange Hill/Deansbrook
roundabout, that Helen refers to, something went wrong with the
unpainting, leaving the right of way rules highly confused. It's
been like that for several years now.

Barnet council's cabinet member for transport, the ultimate Mr Toad,
seems, alas, to be going back on his promise to remove all Barnet's
bike lanes. There was a small section of bike lane removed from
Finchley High Road which did get removed. The lane was no loss, but
I did feel that the Barnet Cycling Campaign should have been notified
when it vanished.

It turns out that no notification was needed. Apparently what looked
like a bike lane was not a bike lane at all. The lane had been
installed under an experimental authorisation. Such things are only
temporary - I think they last for six months. Nothing was done,
though, to remove the paint at the end of the experimental period.

What this implies about the legal situation when the paint was still
there, I don't know. What the status is of Barnet's other lanes, I
don't know. Whether something similar has happened elsewhere, I
don't know.

If you look at p75 of the highway Code, you will see that the
triangular road sign with a picture of a bike on it is not a warning
of possible bikes - you might get bikes on any road, and at the
warning signs there are rarely any more bikes than anywhere else.
Instead the sign is, legally, a warning of bike facilities. Given
that all bike faciliities in Britain are designed by idiots, such a
warning is an excellent idea.

Jeremy Parker

"Jeremy Parker" wrote in message
...

Ah yes. Bad as Barnet's bike laned roundabouts are, they used to be
even worse.

Don't get me started on feckin' cyclists! Urrrggghhhhh!!!!!

Ian

"Ian F." wrote in message ...
"Jeremy Parker" wrote in message
...

Ah yes. Bad as Barnet's bike laned roundabouts are, they used to be
even worse.

Don't get me started on feckin' cyclists! Urrrggghhhhh!!!!!

Ian

If you regard feckin' cyclists as an odious task, please don't start
on it on my account...

Adam...