Am I alone in believing that the traffic flowed better across the junction on the days when the lights were broken?
Personally I consider having lights at ever junction on the roundabout particularly frustrating, would not 2 sets of lights at key points, enable a smoother flow (and therefore possibly some less dangerous breaches of courtesy that I’ve witnessed by fellow drivers). Sometimes it feels as though the traffic department have deliberately set these lights to be as irksome as possible (perhaps in the hope of putting motorists off driving)?
But what concerns me most is the vulnerability of cyclists, I feel that they are particularly vulnerable to bad tempered drivers. Also that the fast expansion of housing on the Cambridge side will only increase the numbers of children attending Impington Village College and having to run this gauntlet on a daily basis.
One of the most troublesome things I find when trying to cross this roundabout on my bike is the fact that very few drivers actually seem to use their signals here. On more than one occasion I’ve pulled out in front of cars that I assume are going to keep on moving around the roundabout. Either a system to ensure the safe passage of cyclists across the roundabout needs to be introduced or a way of ensuring that drivers obey basic traffic regulations (although I feel the latter may be a lost cause!).
I fully agree with both posts above. The traffic lights over the A14 help in busy times but this junction worked much better when they were peak time only and turned off after 7pm. Now it’s all start-stop on an empty roundabout.
And using the junction daily as a cyclist, there is an amount of excitement crossing the A14’s ‘on’ ramps as there is no real gap for crossing the roads from the pavement. Often I’ve found it better to simply cycle on the road rather than the cycle path when it’s busy – at least motorists then give you equal priority, even if they resent you being there.
David Sharp – you are not alone. I also got the strong impression that the rush hour traffic flow was improved when the lights were broken. I wrote to the council asking why they bothered to keep fixing them but nobody replied. And why on earth they aren’t switched off outside peak hours is beyond me (but then that applies to most of the traffic lights in the country).
Interesting point (Richard Bowers) on crossing the on ramps at busy times on a bike. I cycle across there a lot but on evenings/weekends when it’s not a problem. Cycling on the road sounds like a good solution. When it comes to resentment I think it’s important to remember that there is a subtle difference between a driver who simply thinks that you shouldn’t be allowed to hold them up – which I think is actually very rare – and a driver who is bewildered by what you are doing because they aren’t a cyclist and so don’t understand the world from that perspective.
Am I alone in believing that the traffic flowed better across the junction on the days when the lights were broken?
Personally I consider having lights at ever junction on the roundabout particularly frustrating, would not 2 sets of lights at key points, enable a smoother flow (and therefore possibly some less dangerous breaches of courtesy that I’ve witnessed by fellow drivers). Sometimes it feels as though the traffic department have deliberately set these lights to be as irksome as possible (perhaps in the hope of putting motorists off driving)?
But what concerns me most is the vulnerability of cyclists, I feel that they are particularly vulnerable to bad tempered drivers. Also that the fast expansion of housing on the Cambridge side will only increase the numbers of children attending Impington Village College and having to run this gauntlet on a daily basis.
One of the most troublesome things I find when trying to cross this roundabout on my bike is the fact that very few drivers actually seem to use their signals here. On more than one occasion I’ve pulled out in front of cars that I assume are going to keep on moving around the roundabout. Either a system to ensure the safe passage of cyclists across the roundabout needs to be introduced or a way of ensuring that drivers obey basic traffic regulations (although I feel the latter may be a lost cause!).
I fully agree with both posts above. The traffic lights over the A14 help in busy times but this junction worked much better when they were peak time only and turned off after 7pm. Now it’s all start-stop on an empty roundabout.
And using the junction daily as a cyclist, there is an amount of excitement crossing the A14’s ‘on’ ramps as there is no real gap for crossing the roads from the pavement. Often I’ve found it better to simply cycle on the road rather than the cycle path when it’s busy – at least motorists then give you equal priority, even if they resent you being there.
David Sharp – you are not alone. I also got the strong impression that the rush hour traffic flow was improved when the lights were broken. I wrote to the council asking why they bothered to keep fixing them but nobody replied. And why on earth they aren’t switched off outside peak hours is beyond me (but then that applies to most of the traffic lights in the country).
Interesting point (Richard Bowers) on crossing the on ramps at busy times on a bike. I cycle across there a lot but on evenings/weekends when it’s not a problem. Cycling on the road sounds like a good solution. When it comes to resentment I think it’s important to remember that there is a subtle difference between a driver who simply thinks that you shouldn’t be allowed to hold them up – which I think is actually very rare – and a driver who is bewildered by what you are doing because they aren’t a cyclist and so don’t understand the world from that perspective.