Turning pockets

Over Christmas I was in Sydney. I was interested to see these separated cycleways on the corner of Kent Street and King Street. I have posted about the Sydney separated cycleways before, but had somehow missed seeing these turn pockets. 

It is the first I have seen on separated cycleways. I assume this must have high turning volumes as the King Street cycleway connects to the bridge over Darling Harbour. Unfortunately on New Year's day there was not much cycle traffic.

The operation of the cycleway is unfortunately constrained by the conflict with right turning traffic that needs to cross the cycleway. The cyclists therefore have a red signal until they activate the induction loops or pressure sensors in the pavements at the stop line.

Quite clearly this arrangement increases delay to cyclists. In the little time I stood there I observed a couple of cyclists ignoring the red bicycle signal and just going through with the general traffic.

LATER EDITS

In 2012 Bitzios Consulting undertook an assessment of thes signals amongst others. The phasing of the signals is interesting. There are two phases controlling movement on Kent Street:

• cars going straight and turning right get a green signal as well as pedestrians (10 seconds red for beginning of Ped movements).
• bicycles on Kent Street get a green signal while cars and pedestrians are stopped.

The cyclists signal phase apparently operates as part of the cycle during weekdays - getting 11% of the time (12 seconds). It only operates if called on evenings and weekends.
So cyclists are always stopped while cars run.  I would think that cyclists would have less delay and be better served if the signal phases were:

• cars going straight get a green signal as well as pedestrians and cyclists.
• cars going straight and turning right get a green signal - cyclists and peds stop.

I don't know what the vehicle right turning volumes are, but I assume they are high - and hence the signal phasing. The Bitzios report recommended a  review of the allocated time to cyclist movements as cyclists often ignored the red signal when traffic volumes were low. I would be interested to find out whether alternative phasing as I suggest has been considered - especially when traffic volumes are low. Having the vehicle right turn as an actuated signal phase could significantly reduce the delay to cyclists.

Facebook support

The Sydney Morning Herald reports there is a facebook group that has been established to lend support to the separated bikeways being rolled out in Sydney. The over 4,800 people 'liking' the group clearly enjoy the freedom of these new bike lanes.

Sydney seperated bike lanes

I was down in Sydney at the end of this week and so I took a morning jog to see the separated cycleways the city has built. It was good seeing what I had read so much about.
The first thing I noticed was that Sydney-siders get up far later than us Queenslanders. The cycleways were empty at 7:30am and most cyclists I saw were in general traffic. I was starting to wonder whether the cycleways were in the right place because at that time of the morning Brisbane's bikeways are packed.

But by 8am the cycleways were filled with riders. The cycleway along College Street was very busy and cyclists coming up the hill spread over the whole bi-directional cycleway. Fortunately the flow appears very tidal so there was no conflict.

It was good to see how Sydney has tried several different designs.
There are the standard kerbside bike lanes.
shared bus lanes (which are the bane of bus passengers who hate travelling at bicycle speeds)
shared pathways

separated bike lanes on the road pavement
and separated bike lanes at the footpath level.
Lots of style out there on the bikes - no wonder there is now a Sydney Cycle Chic web site.
There are some good points and some things that do not appear to work well. But more of that in my next post.

My bike route

Sydney is trialing an interesting website to get information from users on the bikeable or potentially bikeable network. They are asking cyclists to tell them what routes they would recommend as cycle routes that are currently not marked as such. An excellent initiative if sufficient response can be achieved.

Brisbane is developing a bicycle route mapping system based on the Google Maps. It is not live yet but I am looking forward to it being up and running. Far better than the old static maps.

City bikeway network supported

The Daily Telegraph reports that 84% of inner city and 75% of all Sydney residents support the development of a comprehensive cycleway network in the city - according to a survey of 500 residents of inner Sydney suburbs. Half of Sydney residents believe cycling can help ease congestion and 73% of those between 18 and 35 would consider riding a bike if there was a safe and convenient network of cycle routes.

The web site Sydney Cycleways, developed by the City of Sydney provides five reasons why cycleways are good for the city and gives some policy and strategy on these. The five reasons are:

• to ease congestion
• for improved health
• to create a liveable city
• to support the economy
• to improve safety
  

Looking after pedestrians and cyclists in Sydney

Sydney has embraced bicycles and pedestrians. The City is spending $76 million over the next 4 years on rolling out 200km of cycleways in Sydney. Part of the investment is to improve the lot of cyclists in the CBD. To improve the permeability of the one-way road system and to improve safety for cyclists they are delivering a number of separated bi-directional cycleways through closing curbside lanes.
This photo of King Street (from the Council web site) shows the type of facility. The maps below show some of the CBD cycleway links they are building.








The ABC reports that Council is considering restricting vehicle access to George Street between Bathurst and Market Streets to just taxis and buses, rolling out a 40kph speed limit throughout the City. These are part of the recommendations of Gehl Architects which recommended a more holistic mindset of traffic and public space planning that looks after pedestrians and cyclists and improves the visual amenity of the City. Anyone who has walked up George Street from would agree with that. This shot from Google Streetview of George St shows why it would not win any awards for people friendly design.
I look forward to doing a tour of these projects in my next visit to Sydney.