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Petition to Prioritise the Ring Road over the Central Access Scheme
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I'd say that's more advanced than what you describe as a school project. AFAIK this was final year project from college students. Hats off to anyone that goes out of their way to help the people of kilkenny. If only our council would be so obliging.
You really do have a bee in your bonnet dont you. Its not like the council have started to knock down the castle and refuse tourists permission to enter the town. They are building a bridge albeit a bridge that maybe in a somewhat silly location, its not going to kill the town ya never know it might just make it easier to get around
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Say what ever you want about the Central Access Scheme, Kilkenny County Council, the bridge not being a nice design etc
The bridge section of the Central Access Scheme with make it substantially safer for cyclists and pedestrians to cross the town that ever before. It gives more than 50% of its available space to non mortised transport users.
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Ok rather than jump straight into looking at the designs its better to start from first principles.
Most collisions, including car/bicycle, collisions happen at junctions.
The patterns in this diagram are taken from this paper: Layout and Design Factors Affecting Cycle Safety at T-Junctions, Henson R. and Whelan N., Traffic Engineering and Control, October 1992
If we look at the top three situations which involve failure to yield by turning motorists, we have1) Motor driver pull out from near side. 30%
2) Motor driver turns across path of cyclist from offside. 12%
3) Motor driver overtakes cyclist and turns into nearside junction. 6.5%
For the first one the issue is that you want to avoid designs that discourage motorists from slowing in the turn or yeilding. So very wide junction mouths with sweeping curves are bad news. The most extreme example is slip roads which are the most dangerous junction types for cyclists. You have motorists entering at an angle where they have to look over their right-shoulders to assess the road conditions. Cyclists, who will usually be on the far left can be missed.
In terms of avoiding these types of collision, the recomended advice for cyclists is to adopt a prominent road position in the vicinity of this type of junction. (Having first had regard for the nature and speed of following traffic.) If traffic conditions allow, you want to be out where the motorists are looking.
We can infer from these crash types that, for the cyclist, staying too far to the left might put them at increased risk. Therefore road features that encourage cyclists to keep too far left (cycle lanes) or which take cyclists completely out of the "zone of attention" of other drivers (roadside cycle paths) might tend to increase the likelihood of such collisions occurring.
If you combine a feature that keeps cyclists in to the left with a junction feature that discourages motorists from stopping or yielding then you have created a safety hazard.
If we look at Drawing 2 in the linked presentation then the junctions at Greens Bridge St and Wolfe Tone St stand out immediately.
In both cases motor traffic appears to be joining the road at an oblique angle.
Another point to note is that this type of wide-mouthed junction design increases the crossing distance and exposure to risk for pedestrians.
If you look at the screen shots there are dished kerbs set back from the junction mouth away from the pedestrian desire lines. Instead being favoured and helped pedestrians are expected to go out of their way to facilitate a road design that favours merging motor cars.
A point to note is that this design has been used despite the fact that there are stop lines at the junction anyway. (Although the geometry militates against it being respected)
Edit: What I mean by that last point is that if the designers genuinely want entering vehicles to "stop" then they could have built the footpath across the mouth of the junction as a raised ramp or "entry treatment". This would have the effect of getting vehicles to actually stop, recognising the pedestrians legal priority and making the road safer for cyclists.0 -
If we look at the junction with Castlecomer road we see staggered crossings
Edit: This means instead of just letting people on foot cross in one go they have to stop in the middle and wait twice.
These are discouraged by the latest design guidance (Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets). Again we have a situation where in a historic town centre, the pedestrians are being managed for the benefit of cars rather than the other way around.0 -
OK in the linked Kilkenny CC presentation it is Drawing 4 that really blows away the claim that this scheme is about improving access or safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
That drawing shows an "Irish" style roundabout at the junction of Newpark drive and Castlecomer Rd.
Roundabouts of this type are inherently hostile to two-wheeled traffic and pedestrians. On roundabouts of this design cyclists have an injury accident rate that is up to 14-16 times that of motorists. Motorcycle/Scooter users have up to 10-13 times the injury rate.
These roundabouts are also challenge for pedestrians particularly anyone who might have limited mobility. If on foot you basically have to guess what the cars are going to do especially if crossing an exit.
Background discussion here:
http://www.oocities.org/galwaycyclist/roundabout/roundabout01.html
http://www.oocities.org/galwaycyclist/info/roundabouts.html
In the post above, I dealt with the issue of the danger created for cylists by slip-road type junction arrangements. One of the reasons Irish roundabouts are so dangerous is that they are composed of series of mini-slip roads. This diagram sets out the resulting crash types.
So the designers have marked cycle lanes on Castlecomer road and are then directing cyclists into a wholly inappropriate junction to use at such a location. In addition on this junction the designers have put in another secondary slip road on the western arm for left-turning traffic - see circled in red in first screenshot above.
There is also a left-diverge on the Castlecomer arm of the junction again creating a hazard. If you look at the cycle lane (circled red in screen shot below) the designers have put a yield sign in the cycle lane before the roundabout. So the design is so flawed, the design is so incompetent, that cyclists are now expected to yield to traffic coming from behind. In effect the normal rules of the road have been turned on their head.
It is clear that instead being about promoting cycling and walking in Kilkenny, this scheme apparently involves creating a major hazard and obstacle for people who wish to cycle or walk in Kilkenny.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 26417
Thanks galwaycyclist,
I think we all knew the claim of the CAS being safer for cyclist was nonsense (I certainly did as a cyclist), but you've done a far more detailed response then I ever could have and as such you've completely destroyed any such claims.
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