Convert car lanes to bus-and-cycle lanes, says Jo Walters Masterplan for Brighton's traffic blackspot

Jo Walters Masterplan

1 March 2011. An independent study has called for car lanes to be converted to bus-and-cycle-lanes in Brighton's Lewes Road traffic black spot, and for an immediate end to mixed 2-way cycle-pedestrian traffic along the kerb of the A270/A27 merge slip road where Jo Walters died.

On Friday last week (24 Feb) the Jo Walters Trust released a "Cycling Masterplan" for the A27/A270 Falmer Interchange, where newly qualified school teacher, Jo Walters, lost her life in an accident in 2010.

The Masterplan, authored by traffic planning expert Paul Mynors, recommends "converting the inner (left hand) lane of the A270 in each direction into a wide bus/cycle lane. Within these wide lanes, cycle lanes would be provided where the width is sufficient (4.5m or more). Elsewhere, cyclists would share the inner lane with buses".

This would have the effect of extending on-road cycle lanes coming out of Brighton on the A270 to the east, where at present, cyclists in some places have to share pavements with pedestrians and other cyclists going in the opposite direction.

For those not familiar with the area, the A270, also known as the Lewes Road, is the main link between Brighton and the universities of Brighton and Sussex, the Amex Sports stadium, the city of Lewes and it is a designated Regional cycle route, D90.

The Masterplan says:

"A check on traffic flows showed that in principle this [reduction from 2 lanes of car traffic to one lane] should be possible, now that the A27 Brighton bypass has opened and removed long distance traffic from the area. Between junctions, the flows on the A270 are no longer such as to require two lanes in each direction for general traffic. In 2007 the two-way weekday peak hour flow on the A270 northeast of Coldean Lane was slightly under 1,600."

At the time Paul Mynors started consultations on this project, in May 2011, Brighton and Hove City Council won a £4m grant from the Department of Transport's Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) to make improvements to the Lewes Road, aka A270. The council has been refining these proposals, and invited the public to contribute. One of the new ideas (not included in the original Lewes Road LSTF scheme) was to convert the inner (left hand) lane of the A270 in each direction into a wide bus/cycle lane.  

Plans for Lewes Road will be the subject of detailed public consultation in 2012, following initial consultations undertaken in November / December 2011.

Jo's family started the Jo Walters Trust, which funds diverse community projects, and employed transport consultants to make cycling safer. Transport planner Peter Mynors developed the Masterplan following local consultations that started with a meeting at Brighton and Hove Council offices on 24 May 2011. 

Community cycle groups Bike Train & Lewes Road for Clean Air (LRCA) worked with the Trust and transport planner Peter Mynors in developing this plan.

LRCA spokesperson Duncan Blinkhorn said on Friday 25 February: "Jo was a Brighton University student who was killed in an accident while cycling along the cycle track by the Lewes Road at Falmer in July 2010. A tragic accident due in part to the inadequate width of the shared two-way cycle track at the A270/A27 interchange outside Sussex University."

Mr Blinkhorn added: "The plan has also informed the City Council's developing vision for The Lewes Road which will go out for consultation from 16th April. We look forward to doing more to help turn these ideas into a reality of improved cycling conditions during the coming months and years."

At the spot where Jo Walters was killed the cycle lane runs on the pavement alongside the A270 as it feeds onto the A27. Here, the Masterplan makes a call for immediate action: east and westbound cycle traffic should be separated by signage - east-bound (uphill) cycle traffic only should use the pavement alongside the A270. Westbound, downhill traffic should use the quieter, parallel Stoney Mere Road. If the Masterplan was fully implemented, so far as I can see, the left hand lane of the A270 will be converted to a bus and cycle lane as far as the actual merge with the A27 - and then it will leave the A27 and join Stoney Mere Road.

In addition, the Masterplan details secondary cycle  lanes around the area, and champions a 'nodal' system of cycle lane sign posting, a system which reportedly works well in the Netherlands. In a complex network of cycle routes, cyclists need more than route numbers to guide them.

For a copy of the Masterplan, please visit the Jo Walters Trust http://www.jowalterstrust.org.uk/

Accidental death of cyclist on Lewes Road: safer cycle lanes on A roads are needed

In edition no 88 of Bricycles Newsletter, Tony Green provided a report on the inquest into the death of cyclist Joanna Walters on the Lewes Road in June 2010. The verdict was accidental death.

But we can, and need to make urban A Roads safer for cyclists - especially where they are designated cycle routes.

Mr Green is Treasurer and Membership Secretary of cycle campaign organisation Bricycles. He wrote: "Jo’s death was a terrible accident, which almost certainly would not have happened if there had been a proper barrier between the cycle track and the road. Will anything be done to make this location safer for cyclists and pedestrians?"

He wrote that the cycle lane conformed to standards when it was built, so "we’ll probably just carry on hoping another tragedy won’t happen. Although much lip service is now paid to cycling there remains little evidence of it being taken seriously by the authorities".

Joanna was cycling along Regional Cycle Route 90 which connects Brighton with Lewes and takes in Sussex and Falmer Universities. Where the accident happened (at the underpass where the Lewes Road/A270 merges with the A27) the cycle lane runs alongside the busy A270 and is shared by cyclists going on both directions and pedestrians. Apparently, Joanna was cycling into Brighton, another cyclist was coming the other way, there was a little confusion about their positions, their shoulders touched and Joanna was clipped by a delivery van traveling along the road.

It was a tragic accident, the coronor recorded.

But, as Tony Green suggests, a barrier such as a fence might have prevented this accident.

I agree with Mr Green, and further, I point out that this is not an isolated case. When you consider the statistics, with urban A roads claiming 17 times more casualties among cyclists than among car drivers, per mile travelled, we should be doing do more to protect cyclists from motor vehicles.

Yes, this means segregated facilities that separate cyclists (and pedestrians) from motor transport.

Where space is limited, we may have to used mixed pedestrian-cycle lanes. Mixed use is not ideal - pedestrians and cyclists mixed up does cause confusion and sometimes accidents, but it rarely leads to serious injuries. We would prefer separate lanes for each direction of cycle travel and for pedestrians, but where this is not possible, we must separate this mixed use pedestrian-cycle lane from motorised traffic with a sturdy barrier to prevent cyclists accidentally straying onto the path of rushing cars.

The government is encouraging people to cycle to school and work. If this is the case they should provide safer cycling facilities along designated cycle routes, separating vulnerable cyclists and pedestrians from motor cars so that accidents like this one are less likely to occur.

A trust celebrating the life of Joanna Walters can be found at http://www.jowalterstrust.org.uk

Bricycles website can be found at: http://www.bricycles.org.uk/

Cyclists 14 times more likely to be injured than car drivers - per mile travelled on British Roads

Statistics released by the UK's Department for Transport show that cyclists are 14 times more likely to become casualties on British roads, when compared with car drivers, per mile traveled (extract above, link to detailed stats below).

The statistics include all journeys including motorway journeys, which have very low accident rates - but no cycles. I presume if we compare stats for urban roads the two modes of transport will show more similar causality rates. I have asked the DfT for data filtered to show urban areas only, and hope to present it on this blog when it becomes available.

We need to know accurate data for urban areas because perceived safety is one of the most important issues for people deciding whether to cycle to work and school, according to Cycling England studys.

These statistics need to be taken with caution. The number of miles journeyed is an estimate based on manual roadside traffic surveys. I've mentioned one factor - motorway journeys - that make car stats look safer.

Ken Kifer's study suggests that experienced cyclists (such as members of the UK's CTC) have far fewer accidents than inexperienced riders, and says cyclists, who travel fewer miles than motorists, and have a healthy lifestyle, are overall living less risky lives. Other experienced cyclists say cycle accidents are rare, and any risk is balanced by increased health benefits (Guardian discussion).

Do these statistics have an impact on our 'real' lives? My local paper (Brighton Argus) tells me people are being injured every day driving their cars, more so, it seems, than walking or cycling. I know of a couple of people knocked off their bikes by cars at junctions and corners.

So far as I know only one cyclist has been killed in Brighton and Hove in the past few years. Student Joanna Walters was killed while cycling on a cycle lane that forms part of the national cycle network. The cycle lane at times runs along the hard shoulder of a busy dual carriageway, and Joanna was struck by a van at the pinchpoint formed by the underpass.

Many motorists have died in the same period - hence we have the impression that cycle accidents are rare.

Although the number of cycle casualties is low compared to motor car casualties (because in the UK only 2% of trips are made by cycle), if we are to increase cycling to European levels, there could be a fifteen fold increase in cycling.

Cycling increased by 23% since 2000. So, although the casualty rate per mile cycled was reduced, cycle causalities rose steadily since 2007 when 16,195 cyclists were injured on the road. This figure rose to 17,185 out of a total of 209,000 road casualties in 2010.

The data above shows 8% of casualties are cyclists. Yet no more than 2% of our journeys are made by bicycle. This implies that we are four times as likely to be injured per cycle journey than in a car journey. (Compare to figure of 14 times more likely to be injured per mile (above) maybe due to longer car journeys).

We cannot ignore these statistics while telling adults to cycle to work and parents to let their kids cycle to school. They already perceive cycling as dangerous (Cycling England survey), and if anything the stats back them up. If its not as dangerous as all that, lets see the data. If DfT is serious about addressing this issue, as Norman Baker says it is, it will analyse the data to provide real information about the relative safety of cycling (and walking) in urban areas - compared to traveling in cars or buses. The DfT may then wish to take a more systematic approach to providing safe cycling routes for inexperienced cyclists, if it is to be credible about aspirations for sustainable transport. This means taking a close look at what's been done in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam to make cycling safe.

Link to DfT Report: (Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain: Main Results 2010, 30 June 2011)

Brighton's Bike Train offers safety in numbers for cyclists in rush hour traffic

A community-run project offers Brighton's cyclists a safe way to cope with rush hour traffic by gathering them together in one big group - the "Bike Train".

Bike Train is a volunteer-run project set up by the Lewes Road for Clean Air community group, which is working to clean up air pollution on the Lewes Road
"through positive citizen action, promoting a shift to sustainable transport for a low-carbon future".

Of all Brighton's official cycle routes none are as scary as Lewes Road, with the Level and Vogue Gyratory and the underpass pinchpoint danger spots. The latter is where cyclist Joanna Walters was killed 14 July last year. She was cycling on the cycle route near the underpass on the Lewes Road when she was struck by a delivery van.

Other danger spots along this cycle route - National Cycle Route 90, no less - include the "Vogue Gyratory", a monster roundabout built in the mid 1980's with no provision for cyclists, and "The Level", with its cycle paths positioned in the path of oncoming buses.

Bike Train runs daily from The Level to Sussex University, departing from The Level at 8.30am.
www.biketrain.org