"Richard J." wrote in
:


Since all the traffic now stops
for the pedestrian phase, it should be safer than before.


Many crossings in London have been changed so that all traffic stops for
pedistrians, and Ocford Circus was like that before the changes.

Given that we don't have kerb-edge doors to protect passengers on the
streets of London, how is that different from any other
light-controlled crossing in London?

I'd suggest two reasons:

Most pedestrian crossings are on the straight. Pedestrians stick to the
pavement (until the green man), traffic sticks to the road. That's fine.

Before the junction at Holborn was remodelled, the crossing over the left
turn lane from Holborn into Kingsway was on the skew. You just had to
learn that you had to stand back a bit when the 521 (then a Bendibus) came
round as there was very, very little clearence between it and the pavement.

The whole point of Oxford Circus is that this demarkation is lacking, and
the pavement around there can be very crowded indeed. Safe 99.9% of the
time? Yes. 99.9999% of the time? Not convinced.

The other issue is that most pedestrains in London now ignore red/green men
and cross if it seems to be safe to do so. The phasing often has so much
time on red that you can watch the red man appear, amble up to and across a
dual carriageway and still get to the other side before you get run over
(well, I havn't been flattened yet ....)

This is fine if you know the way the phasing works at a particular
junction. What is also happening increasing often is that people who
aren't paying sufficent attention see the red man, all the lights on red
and step into the road pretty much as the traffic starts moving....

Now, the diagonal at Oxford Circus is actually quite a long way. I assume
the phasing allows plenty of time for the slowest pedestrian to cross the
diagonal which is going to leave an awuful lot of time on red when people
are going to be tempted to cross. I really wouldn't want to get trapped in
the middle with traffic all around me, yet that is exactly what was close
to happening to people on Saturday.

I'm sure there is an education issue here - for both pedestrians and
drivers - but combine overcrowed pavements with the traffic levels at
Oxford Circus which means that the junction won't always clear for the
green phase - and the odd cyclist on his mobile who doesn't stop for
anybody (I saw one in Oxford Street this evening) and I struggle to see how
it can be "safe".