A Tram To Trafford

Earlier this week I was in Manchester for a conference. I didn't have time for a proper look around at what's new, but I did manage to jump on a tram to Stretford before it got dark on the day I arrived.

Why Stretford? Well, in a previous job, I became aware of a project planned for Kingsway which is part of the wider regeneration of the Stretford Mall Shopping centre and surrounding area. Dom Cycling has a good history of the development works including Kingsway from earlier this year.

The A5145 Kingsway flanks the northern side of the shopping centre and connects to the A56 Chester Road to the east (which forms the eastern flank to the shopping centre) and then on as Edge Lane towards Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where a branch of my family was from, and then Stockport. Sabre Roads has a little on the history.

Kingsway itself was a dual carriageway with two traffic lanes in each direction with a large junction serving the shopping centre. It really was a huge barrier between the community to the north, the shopping centre and the surrounding area. A classic example of how many urban places were trashed to enable more road capacity (above).

This road is now a very much a street and I was pleased to have squeezed in a quick visit as part of my trip. I would have like to have cycled around, but this time I was on foot. The work on Kingsway runs for about 450 metres and includes the junction with Urmston Lane/ Barton Road to the west, but stops short of the the A56 junction which is wrapped up in other studies and work (the progress of which I have no idea).

The general design approach provides a single carriageway flanked by planted rain garden buffers, a pair of with flow cycle tracks, footways and a various laybys for bus stops and loading (above), all with a 20mph speed limit.

Despite being within the project, the Urmston Road/ Barton Road junction was somewhat disappointing. It had been redesigned and made smaller with a slip road between Barton Road and Kingsway removed, but from a cycling perspective, advanced stop lines is all that's provided and the westbound transition from Kingsway is going to be hard to turn right from (above).

While I am at it, I'll also have a whinge about the eastbound transition from the junction into the Kingsway cycle track (above). Access is provided via a dropped kerb which is in line with the general kerbline of the realigned carriageway. The trouble is, the angle that people will join the cycle track at is perfect for wheels to be caught on this kerb - this should have been an asphalt to asphalt tie-in.

The overall look and feel of the new street is one of high quality and a real push to to include landscape. The cycle tracks should have been much wider given the huge amount of space there was to play with, but they are of a fairly decent quality (they're a bit less than 2 metres wide from my unscientific pacing).

I was very pleased to see forgiving kerbs being used for the cycle track (above). This means that people can cycle the full width of the space and where they need to join and leave they cycle track, that is safe and possible at a lower speed - especially useful for those who cannot dismount. 

The kerbs are actually Dutch as supplied by the folks at Hardscape from their Active Travel Kerb range. The little connectors at each end of the kerbs are called "hol-en-dol" (hollow and round), a detail that helps in both installation and adding strength.

At the eastern end there is a transition to light segregation before the A56 and while the junction is out of scope for this project, people are not thrown right into traffic, although the A56 crossing is pretty awful for everyone not driving!

About half way along there is an "implied" roundabout (above) which provides a vehicular access to the shopping centre car park which drivers seemed to be coping with. I don't know how busy it will be in final operation, but there is no set-back where people walk and cycle across the side road.

Here's a different view just showing the cycle crossing (above). It would have been nice if this were a continuous treatment or maybe a parallel crossing depending on the expected traffic flow at the side road.

There are a couple of toucan crossings on the link (one either side of the implied roundabout). They are well-positioned to connect residents to the shopping centre and the bus stops on the street from Bennet Street and Pinnington Lane. The problem is that if you want to use the toucan crossings from the cycle tracks, it isn't clear how you actually do so. It would have been better to have parallel signalised crossings for local coherence such as can be found in Waltham Forest, London.

The bus stops are floating (because why wouldn't there be) and there is a decent passenger island width (above). The bus shelters have solid panels in them which is a little problematic in terms of masking people crossing the cycle track, although as can be seen in the photograph, visibility is still reasonably good. 

My personal preference for the crossings would have been zebra crossings, but they are on very gentle humps to provide a flat crossing point (above). I think the "look left/ look right" markings are overkill and the white lines across the line of travel are not permitted road markings.

Walking is no longer constrained to narrow footways behind guardrail. There is plenty of space, landscaping to enjoy and a decent buffer from the traffic (above). 

The other little notable feature are "Stretford's Iconic Sun Loungers" (above) which have attracted confected outrage from the usual suspects in the media, but which create fun and interest in the street along with a whole range of seating. The northern side of the project really does create a new place for the residents that live there.

Above is the view the other side of the loungers, some incidental play in the street in an area well away from the road giving children the chance to be themselves, perhaps as part of a trip to the shopping centre.

Despite some of the detailing issues I noticed, it's of course a really good redesign of the street. While it doesn't provide connections elsewhere, it does set a high standard for whatever is taken forward on the A56 and beyond and it is is always helpful to have somewhere that can be used as a local reference point. I'll leave you with another kerb photo (above) and this is a transition from forgiving kerb to flush kerb. Because this is the Dutch system, this is designed specifically for edging cycle tracks and all power to the designers for using it.

Booking Time & Space

There's very little to innovate in (motor) vehicle parking management and so it's nice to be able to report on something which is both simple and clever at the same time.

I found myself with a bit of spare time the other week and so on a trip into the City of London, I diverted down to the Walworth Road in Southwark for a look at an experimental project which provides on-street dynamic loading space. The project is part of a wider network of loading places across the borough and is being delivered in partnership with Grid Smarter Cities, which deals with the technology side of the operation through its Kerb platform.

The premise is simple really. The idea is that in a busy place like Walworth, kerbside space for loading is at a premium, but despite there being loading bays, they are accessed on a first come, first served basis. This means that should a bay be occupied, then drivers have to find somewhere else or they may end up taking a chance and it's just not efficient. 

Under UK rules, on-street loading cannot be provided for a named business or group of businesses and so this project thinks a little outside the box. The photograph above is one of the bays which was a loading bay, but which has been converted to a permit bay using an experimental traffic order.

The use of the permit bay approach is that they can be issued against a particular vehicle registration for a particular time slot of 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Subject to enforcement, this means that a space should be available as the delivery arrives and so makes things a little more efficient and stress-free for the delivery driver. The photograph above shows an example of a simple permit bay sign which essentially means the bay is there for permit holders at all times.

It's a long way from the days of having to send a form to the council to get a paper permit for the vehicle window because now, the user books their slot online or via an app, and the booking appears on an e-paper display at the bay to show the slot as taken (above). The permit is issued electronically and so long as the registration of the loading vehicle matches, then all is good.

In theory, the e-paper screen isn't really needed because electronic parking management has been around a while. For example, resident parking and pay and display parking can managed by electronic permits which are checked by enforcement staff on a handheld device. However, I like the e-paper screen because it's quite handy to show people when things are booked at a glance. For example, a business owner can get a call from a supplier and nip out to look at bay availability, so it adds a nice layer of customer service.

A Tale Of Two Roundabouts

This post comes from London where two roundabouts have been redesigned to add protected cycling space.

The first is the Old Street junction which is right on the border of the boroughs of Hackney and Islington, but part of the Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) and is so a strategic road for motor traffic.

The overall design for the roundabout was "peninsularisation" whereby one of the areas between two of the four roundabout arms was closed to traffic and the remaining three sides converted to two-way traffic. This essentially leaves the junction as a pair of closely associated signalised T-junctions.

The north and east arms are on London's Inner Ring Road, the southern arm heads towards the City of London and the western arm heads towards Westminster, and so there's lots going on traffic-wise as well as it being a transport interchange for buses with the Underground. Just north is the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the local area has lots of business and leisure destinations as well as there being lots of people living there.

The old roundabout had been signalised for years and there were two-stage pedestrian crossings on three of the arms (City Road east without any) and it was a pretty grim place to be. There were also a network of subways feeding the Old Street Underground station on the Northern Line which is under the centre of the junction. The project has been going on for ages as it includes works to the station, but the road works are pretty much complete.

For cycling, the junction now has a series of with-flow cycle tracks which are at carriageway level and protected by narrow traffic island strips. At three locations, the cycle tracks split into two lanes which means that people leaving the junction carry on ahead with those crossing an arm having little right turn lanes. Above is a photograph of the approach to the southern arm with the left lane heading south to the City of London and the right turn lane a crossing to access City Road westbound.

The arrangement provides one-way cycle crossings which operate in parallel with pedestrian crossings in two locations and traffic movements are separated out in essentially hold the left arrangements. However, this doesn't apply to cycle movement which crosses the eastern arm because unfortunately, there is no pedestrian crossing here as was the case with the old layout. The cycle movement is quick here, but it is stingy not to have added a pedestrian crossing.

The closing of the northwest side of the junction has released lots of space back into the public realm and as well as this giving the opportunity for better access to the station, there is much more space for people to flow as it's a very busy pedestrian area. It has also providing space for public seating and rain gardens (above); and yes, I took the photo a few months back when it was a little colder.

Of course, being the UK, the project has now attracted hordes of hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) bollards which, as usual, create a blot on the public realm landscape. The designers have tried to make some useful adding cycle hoops, but they don't work properly as one cannot lock a front wheel to the HVM bollard (above).

From a cycling perspective, the junction is so much better than mixing with traffic, but there are issues. There is no way to turn right from Old Street west into City Road south and so you have to remember to turn off before the junction into some of the old local cycling network. It's not the end of the world, but it's not intuitive. The pedestrian crossings all cross the cycle spaces rather than being floated which means there is going to be mixed levels of compliance as signals are for motor traffic rather than people management.

The approaches and exits to the junction are also hit and miss because while the signals generally allow progress to be made ahead of traffic, you end up being dumped back into general traffic or bus lanes. Hopefully the links will be addressed in the future. Here's a video of the junction and a little extra to the east where access to Cycleway 1 can be found.

The other roundabout I wanted to look at is 4.25km to the north east in Hackney, the Lea Bridge Roundabout and yes, if you've followed this blog a while, that name will ring a little bit of a bell. 

The junction is another large TfL-managed roundabout which carries the north-south A107 with the western arm carrying a local road, Kenninghall Road, and the eastern arm forming the A104 Lea Bridge Road. Yes, that Lea Bridge Road which passes from Hackney to Waltham Forest some 800 metres to the north-east and which I looked at for my 400th post.

In terms of footprint, this junction is pretty similar to Old Street, but the changes are far simpler and in general a fair model for efficient retrofit for roundabouts like this. The roundabout form is kept as it was, that it is to say a four arm roundabout with two stage pedestrian crossings over each arm. The curious bus terminus in the centre has also been kept and it remains with its signal-controlled exit back into the circulatory area (above).

From a cycling perspective, this project provides a further section of Cycleway 23 which connects Dalston to the Waltham Forest part of Lea Bridge Road and which crosses the roundabout from Kenninghall Road (through filtered streets).

The design approach is very similar to aspects of Old Street. The junction is now encircled by with-flow cycle tracks that split into two lanes at the roundabout exits with an exit ahead and right to cross the arm in parallel with pedestrians. It's a way of adding cycling into an existing traffic signal arrangement which should be broadly neutral in capacity terms and I think it largely keeps the same number of general traffic lanes. 

The cycle crossings, like pedestrians are in two stages, but I can't quite work out how they operate as in most cases, I caught a green over both crossings most of the time. I suspect some of this will be responding to motor traffic flows.

From a walking point of view, the project hasn't really changed much from the crossing the main carriageway point of view, but of course there are now cycle tracks to cross to get to the main crossings. In all cases, the cycle track crossings are uncontrolled and very annoyingly offset (see above). The tactile paving of the uncontrolled crossings is the same colour as the paving which is very poor indeed as dark grey would provide the contrast needed here.

The northern and southern arms drop cycle traffic back with general traffic and buses, but the project also includes pushing C23 to the Waltham Forest boundary, and so here there are with-flow cycle tracks on Lea Bridge Road.

The Lea Bridge Road section is very compromised. The south-westbound bus lane has been retained, so although some of the space for the cycle tracks might have been nibbled from the edge of the carriageway, it also takes away a strip of footway on each side of the road which means narrow footway-level cycle tracks. There are various vehicle crossings which trip the cycle track to the right which is a significant issue for the stability of those using more than two wheels (above).

A little further east and eastbound cycle traffic is taken into Millfields Park. Westbound cycle traffic will be out on the street heading south-westbound with a south-westbound bus lane. The surface of the cycle track is a nice red colour (above), but it is not machine-laid and is one of the worst surfaces I have cycled on in a long time, and for some reason, it has swapped sides with the pedestrian path since consultation. 

Anyway, this is for a revisit another day when the Lea Bridge Road works are complete and so I'll leave you with a video of the roundabout, but with the bonus of me heading into Waltham Forest to show that London is slowly connecting itself for cycling.

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 4: Intercity

When I visit the Netherlands, one of the things I enjoy doing is cycling between towns and cities because it is a great way to experience just how the cycle network operates separately to the motoring network.

I don't actually mean cycling and motoring take place in complete isolation and separation from each other, I mean that getting from A to B by each mode will often take different routes designed for those modes, even where they run next to each other. 

On one of our days for our last trip, we cycled 35km between Breda and Dordrecht which was a perfect example of how this all works. Here's a map of the route we took for those wanting to delve in a little more closely. The video at the end of this post covers the route, but I want to have a look at some of the locations along the route to point out how the Dutch system works. 

First, we actually stayed on the outskirts of Breda because it was cheaper, safe in the knowledge that it would be easy to cycle into the city during our stay and as you can see below, we were well catered for on the arterial roads such as Tilburgseweg.

In terms of the cycling and motoring networks, this is an example of a main cycling route and a main motoring route (the N282) which both link Breda and Tilburg and which share the same corridor. There is also the A58 motorway to the south but that's purely a motoring corridor.

Of course, there comes a point where the cycling and motoring networks cross each other and in a situation like this, there will be some kind of traffic management such as traffic signals (above) where the cycle track crosses one of the A27 motorway slip roads, but it is still separated provision which shares a corridor.

Further in towards Breda, we lose the multi-lane highway in favour of a pretty common layout of a road with a pair of one-way cycle tracks and separate footways and in the example above, a nice example of a buffer. 

The carriageway here is 6 metres in width which helps control driver speed and it is also a bus route. The buffer has car parking, the hedgerow provides greenery in the street, and every so often, the buffer contains a bus stop (above) or a pedestrian crossing point. For this section, the cycling and motoring networks are integrated in their design. 

You'll see the centre of Breda in the video where the city centre is car-light and available for selected access because there is car parking on the edge of the centre, but there is also rail, bus and of course cycle access giving lots of options, but I'm skipping the low traffic centre to get us on the way to Dordrecht.

The photo above is where Terheijdenstraat goes below the railway to the east of the station and is where again the cycling and motoring networks coincide and are integrated in their design.

A bit further north (above) and we're starting to return to the model where cycling and motoring are on the same corridor, but the only design integration is where they occasionally cross. The cycle track above has a buffer to the road, but equally, it could be 100 metres away for all the user cares. This section of Terheijdenstraat is interesting as there is a central tidal bus lane in operation along the N285.

The main cycle route peels away from the N285 south of the village of Terheijden and so is unravelled from the main motoring network. In fact the N285 is solely for motoring and it soon meets the A59 motorway. The road into Terheijden carries local motor traffic, but it still has cycle separation on Bredaseweg (above) as the speed limit is 50kph (30 mph). In reality, the one-way cycle tracks here are shared-use paths, but few people are walking in the low density outskirts of the village.

As we get closer to the village core the cycle tracks become cycle lanes with footways appearing and some traffic calming. In the central section, the cycle lanes give way to more of a cycle street treatment on Hoofdstraat (above) with a speed limit of 30 kph (20mph). It's a space compromise because some drivers didn't leave enough space when passing, but it never felt too busy to mix with traffic. 

On leaving Terheijden, the cycle lanes reappeared with a familiar Dutch treatment that has no centre line, and despite a bit of traffic calming on the outskirts, the 60kph (40mph) speed limit felt uncomfortable on Moerdijkseweg (above), even though traffic was fairly light. This is not the main motoring network as the N285 provides that with a higher speed limit, but it still felt like somewhere that needed a two-way cycle track.

We turned off and skirted the village of Wagenberg to access a completely different bit of the road network which was still 60 kph (40mph), but it was narrow and pretty much just served farms (above).

We hardly saw anyone else for ages and of the few people we did see, most were cycling rather than driving. Luckily for us, the wind was light because sometimes this open land can be very hard work if the wind is against you. We did find some interest on Honderdroedeweg where we crossed a single track railway which serves a logistics complex to the east.

As we carried on north, we rejoined a cycle track along another road which provided access to the A16 motorway, but we soon turned off it onto Ketelpolder Oost (above) which provides very local access to farms, farmland and wind turbines running parallel to the motorway. The only car we saw was someone picking up a friend who had suffered a mechanical problem on his racing bike!

Ketelpolder Oost (and it's twin on the other side of the motorway, Ketelpolder West) has a slip road with a height limit that becomes a cycle track. There are also little access tracks right from the motorway which means there is the potential for emergency access via the local access roads here. But in reality, the cycling network which has been using local access roads arrives next to the motorway (and the main motoring network) in order to make use of Moerdijk bridges crossing of the Hollands Diep river. It doesn't interact with the motoring network, it just shares the corridor once more.

Once across and into South Holland (having left North Brabant), we again found ourselves on a road that is part of what is essentially an elongated motorway junction for the A16 as we crossed the motorway itself at Beerpolderweg (above) and a route which took us north towards Dordrecht.

2km north, and we cycled by the edge of an industrial park extension which is the other end of the motorway junction for the A16 and where cycle traffic gives way to motor traffic (above). The cycle route here accesses Rijksstraatweg (below) which has become a long cul-de-sac as new industrial roads have been built in parallel.

This is another lesson in the Dutch continually adjusting its network as in this area, the industrial area is given its own motorway access which keeps that traffic away from the residential areas on the edge of Dordrecht. From a cycling point of view, there is of course access to the industrial area and for longer distance cycle travellers, we got a direct route to the city.

The next section of the journey remained very simple from a cycling perspective as we cycled on the road through a strip of residential development that was separated from the commercial area behind it (but accessible on foot, cycle and local traffic) and then there was more cycle tracks to use to the north of that (above). 

The next kilometre was complex as there was ongoing works with everything pushing through a narrow corridor. Cycling ended up on painted lanes once more and this felt old fashioned compared with the edge of Breda, as cycling was bolted onto motoring space here. 

We crossed the canal and ended our journey on Wijnstraat in the older part of Dordrecht (above) and while there is motor access, it was quiet enough that cycling felt safe and comfortable (apart from the surface perhaps!). This is not the cycling network though, just a street that's fine to cycle along.

As with Breda, we actually had to get out of the centre again for our hotel and we found some more interest. Spuiweg (above) is a shopping street to the south of Dordrecht which provides direct cycle access to and from a large residential area to the south of the city. At first look, a two-way cycle track on a shopping street with one-way for general traffic might look odd, but the main motoring network runs elsewhere and this being a key cycle route to the centre means the layout makes perfect sense.

So, as I said above, here's a video of the route - speeded up for time, but mainly because I set my camera to time-lapse by mistake! If you flick through it, you'll see some of the locations I have covered in this post, but you should also be able to see where the cycling and motoring networks are integrated, are in the same corridors and are separate.

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 1: The Hovenring

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 2: The Double Floating Bus Stop

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 3: Football and Fietsers

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 3: Football And Fietsers

Ostensibly, my trips to the Netherlands are meant to be holidays, but of course, it's impossible to switch off completely and besides, travelling is about finding out about how other people live isn't it?

Over the last few years the trips have included little detours to things for me to geek out on, but there has to be balance and for my son who was with me for this trip, he wanted to go and see some football in Eindhoven. Unfortunately for him PSV Eindhoven weren't playing at home for our visit and so we booked tickets to go and see the slightly smaller and lower division FC Eindhoven.

I'm not especially a sports fan, but fair's fair and the agreement was that we would of course cycle there, and so we did from our hotel in the city centre to the Jan Louwers Stadion in the south of the south of the city, a distance of 4km or about 20 minutes relaxed cycling. The trip was easy and made on cycleways such as Stratumsedijk (above) which is a multimodal corridor sporting a central two-way bus road.

Of course, the junctions we cycled through were fully protected such as the junction of Stratumsedijk with Elzentlaan (above) and even at dusk, we felt safe and protected from drivers.

As we approached the large park and recreation complex in which the stadium sits, we still had protected space which allowed us to enjoy the sunset on Antoon Coolenlaan (above), although some local roadworks did make access down to the stadium a little awkward. However, there were so many people walking and cycling at this point, the odd car driving into the site was treated very much as a guest.

As the light faded and as my phone camera quality got worse, I managed to snap the cycle street style treatment on Charles Roelslaan as we approached the stadium (above).

Because I had checked out our the destination before travelling, I knew that there was cycle parking right outside the 4,200 seater stadium (above) and we arrived about half-an-hour before kick-off which meant there was plenty of space. When we left to head back into the city after the match, it was all taken up with lots of people just using their wheel locks leaving their cycles where they could.

The stadium does have a very small car park, but the wider complex has very little car parking generally which means most people travelling to a match will walk, cycle and use buses. In the event, FC Eindhoven were beaten 3-0 by northern club SC Cambuur in a match with plenty of controversy. 

The most amusing thing of for me was even though I know very little Dutch (about as much as I do football), it was very clear the home crowd was full of football experts shouting at their team and the referee. Like their drivers, the Dutch really aren't that different from the British!

The return cycle was a little quicker and we parked up at a city sports bar and ended up seeing the highlights of the match we had just seen!

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 1: The Hovenring

Go Dutch 2024 - Part 2: The Double Floating Bus Stop