Category Archives: pedestrians

Town Centre Cycling

Posted on by Posted in Pedestrian Heart, pedestrians 3 Comments

Today, the Borough Council’s Economy and Environment Scrutiny Committee receives a report about cycling in the town centre during 2010.  As most people will recall,  when the centre of Darlington was pedestrianised, there was considerable resistance from a number of quarters to the idea that cycling could be part of the new arrangements. But following a number of studies, including our own, that showed that town centre cycling posed little danger to anyone, the council backed cyclists. At the same time, and to calm the fears of others, it agreed to set up a monitoring programme and regularly review the decision. Today that review takes place.

You can download the full report here. Here are some interesting extracts:

  • “whilst cycling continues to increase across Darlington and at high levels through the town centre, no personal injury accidents have been recorded by the Police and incidents reported to the Transport Policy team do not show any collisions between a cyclist and a pedestrian.”
  • During this period, there have been three collisions between pedestrians and cars (two taxis and a private car) in the Pedestrian Heart.  The private car failed to stop. The manner of the reporting suggests that the pedestrians were at least partly to blame.  All injuries were described as slight.
  • The only cyclist/car accident reported was not strictly within the Pedestrian Heart.  A car decided to do a U-turn at the Stonebridge/Tubwell Row/Crown St mini-rdbt.  A cyclist attempted to avoid a collision, contact was minor, but as a result he collided with a kerb and then a wall.  This was rated as a serious injury.  There is no comment as to prosecution or outcome of injury.
  • There has been only one ‘reported incident’ in the year – by a cyclist, of cyclists:  “.. two young cyclists overtook him at close proximity on Tubwell Row and then appeared to nearly collide with two pedestrians before performing a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre on a car.”

A representative from the Campaign will be at the committee meeting today to argue that the monitoring  process should now be terminated.

Contraflow Signage

Posted on by Posted in cars, Pedestrian Heart, pedestrians, speed limits, traffic calming 6 Comments

Earlier this year, Cambridge Cycling Campaign succeeded in winning local council support for the setting up of trial “cyclist contraflow” signs in parts of Cambridge. And as one of Darlington Cycling Campaign’s members pointed out to me today, Cycling England has been encouraging all cycling towns to make one-way streets two-way for cycling.


Here in Darlington we have already asked officers on a number of occasions to consider this. One area where this is perhaps more urgently required, however, is at the Duke Street exit of the Pedestrian Heart. Here, cyclists who leave the town centre are confronted with a particularly narrow road outside the Coop Bank, a road that is designed to be one-way for motorised traffic.


This picture shows the view from outside the town centre. This evening, on my way home from the station, I was cycling out of the town centre on this stretch when I noticed a car accelerating towards me and beeping his horn (at 8pm in the evening). He seemed in a great hurry. The reason soon became clear. He screeched to a halt before I was able to exit the narrow road into Duke Street to tell me off for cycling “the wrong way down a one way street”.


Having obligingly opened his car door to tell me so, I hung on to it in order to inform him that, in fact, he was entering the Pedestrian Heart, an area in which cycling is allowed both ways. But this was not enough for my car-centric friend, who clearly believed he had the right to speed into the pedestrianised Skinnergate because the bollard had been lowered.

Clearly, there is an education job to be done here. And what better way than to introduce, as is the case in many other countries, contraflow signs on one way streets. The usual safety “experts” will of course argue that “for safety reasons” this just cannot be introduced. But why is this deemed so unsafe, and ONLY in the dear old UK? Because we continue to pander to bad motorist behaviour, rather than developing an expectation of care when driving in built up areas. Contraflow cycling contributes to this.

Look again at the picture above, and you can see a so-called “flying motorcycle” sign. This is supposed to signal a road that is two-way for cyclists, but not motor vehicles. But how many motorists understand this? Especially when there are time restrictions which run out in the evening.

Perhaps more pertinent in this case is the question – why do motorists, other than commercial vehicles loading and unloading, require access into Skinnergate at all? Their only possible destination is a couple of hundred yards from this exit anyway. Would it not make sense “for safety reasons”, and indeed to save the NHS some money by encouraging a bit more walking, to simply keep motorised traffic out of the town centre altogether?

Statistics v Anecdotal Evidence – An Explanation

Posted on by Posted in Pedestrian Heart, pedestrians 3 Comments

Why have there been so many reported “near misses” between cyclists and pedestrians in the pedestrian heart? When the Cycling Campaign’s own documented video evidence has found these incidents to be extremely rare?

Perhaps my experience on the way to the railway station this morning is one explanation. As usual I cycled into the town centre from Woodland Road and, on reaching the top of Priestgate, slowed down to walking pace (Bondgate was still relatively empty) to prepare to push my bike down the narrow pavement on the one-way part of that street. Nobody on the pavement, so a short one legged scooter to the first obstruction (a traffic sign) a few metres down and I stopped to get off. An elderly couple were slowly approaching from the other direction. I waited 15 seconds or so for them to approach, did my usual pleasant “good morning” (Code of Conduct rule 3?) to let them pass, and got an immediate earful of complaints.

“Why are you not on the road?” they complained to this stationery cyclist?

“Well, because it is a narrow, one-way street full of buses”, I replied. “Could you show me the cycle path, please?”

“You’re just totally selfish. You shouldn’t be on the pavement. You only think of yourselves”, and off they went, perhaps ready to announce another “near miss”. Certainly it was an unpleasant encounter.

But it also points to the problems inherent in definitions of “pavement cycling”. I scootered the first few metres (one leg on ground, the other on a pedal) simply to reach a point where I could fully dismount. If I had dismounted and pushed before these elderly people passed me, as opposed to stopped, I suspect the space was too narrow (two elderly people, a bike and a dismounted cyclist) for us all to comfortably pass. Better, I thought, to stop altogether behind the obstruction, take up less space, and allow them to pass. Was I breaking the law because I was not fully dismounted?

I have always felt that consideration for others should take precedence over strict legal concepts. Good cycling always involves judgement and interpretation on the road. With so little dedicated cycling space on Darlington’s streets, it is also needed on pavements. And the Home Office agrees.

Shared Space in Drachten Revisited

Posted on by Posted in cycling in Europe, infrastructure, inspiration, pedestrians, traffic calming

Last year two members of the Cycling Campaign visited an example of Shared Space in Drachten, Netherlands. You can see our original post and video here.

Since that visit, the Space’s designers have posted an assessment of its impact on YouTube. Here it is. Some highlights stand out, when considering its implications for Darlington:

*It is a roundabout where 22,000 vehicles daily pass by. I wonder how these numbers compare with, say, the Victoia Road/Grange Road roundabout, where a solution for a cycle crossing is yet to be implemented?

*We have no queues anymore.

*The interaction around the roundabout – meeting each other, greeting each other. This refers to how car drivers and cyclists relate on the roundabout. Imagine!!!

Cycling in Europe 5 – Shared Space in Drachten

Posted on by Posted in cars, cycling in Europe, environment, inspiration, pedestrians, traffic calming


After the overnight in Sneek, a wet morning’s cycling to the town of Drachten, comparable in size with Bishop Auckland, and with a Shared Space project on its inner ring road. Ten miles out from Drachten, the road – and cycle path – are closed for road works. What do we get instead? This specially constructed, temporary diversion for cyclists. This was in a small village, and it even had a nice lady at the end of it to stop traffic so that we could cross a busy road.

The Shared Space concept is one that is gaining increasing support across Europe. In Drachten, the project is based on the removal of traffic lights on the busy inner ring road, and their replacement with roundabouts, and junctions like the one in this video.

A bit like a zebra crossing for cyclists and pedestrians, but without the beacons! We used the crossings ourselves without a hitch, but what we noticed was that a routine was established by cyclists whereby they signalled their intention to cross with a wave of the appropriate arm, and local car drivers were waiting for the signal. In other words, local customs had developed to deal with uncertainty.

The one car that failed to stop was a Polish-registered vehicle. The cyclist in question, however, was alert to the possibility and probably stopped in time when he registered that the Polish driver was dreaming rather than looking. This, we conclude, is the hub of the problem. Like Poles, most British car drivers also currently dream in these situations, safe in the assumption that they have absolute right of way.

How can we change such behaviour to something more appropriate to urban driving? After so many years of motor dominance in our urban spaces, we are still trying to develop cycle routes in towns like Darlington on the assumption that the motorist should not be disturbed. Yet in contradiction, there is now said to be a hierarchy of traffic modes that puts the disabled, pedestrians and cyclists above motorists in terms of priority.

This theoretical commitment now needs practical application to tackle the major barrier to urban sustainable transport development – British car driver behaviour. Rather than run away from the issue, we badly need politicians, local and national, who will show leadership, and start the long haul towards more considerate – and aware – urban driving.