YouTube driving instructor Ashley Neal visits new CYCLOPS cycling junction... and calls it an "absolutely awful waste of time and money"

I watched this 1st on Neal's YT channel, not exactly a fan of his but he puts some good stuff on, he's open to look into traffic junctions and cycle stuff too. He went to Dubai, New York and is thinking of going to Holland, which'll be massively interesting to see a hardened motorist instructor see cycling mecca. I live about 6ml from this junction and the only time I've been thru it was on the road and to even think about doing the cycle lanes you've got to be crazy. Prior to this, it was a very straightforward roundabout and very quick too, what this council have done is 99% unpopular in the local area I can atest that.

I've got mixed feelings about this new juction. Firstly, whilst new infra, especially at junctions is welcome - it has to be 'right' or 'as good as possible' on all levels, otherwise, it won't really encourage many 'new cyclists' to use it. As mentioned by others, the wait time of up to 4mins is a real problem & yes how many 'confident' cyclists will take their chance on the road if it's substantially quicker? One plus point is the junction eliminates any left-hook issues which can be a problem with circular Dutch-style roundabouts such the one on Fendon Road in Cambridge.

Comparing this to Cambridge is interesting on many levels. Whilst Fendon Road has a serious 'left-hook' design flaw, it is attractive to use. The red coloured asphalt, camferred kerbs and planting are all good, plus the limited wait times, if any at the junctions. To be fair the Cambridge junction is in a much quieter suburban environment, rather than a busy junction, as with St. Helen's. The Cyclops design aims to address the issue of greater vehicular flow, but my god is it ugly!  The light green topping will clip and fade in time, the vertical kerbs will gather leaves, be a ideal spot for weed growth and could possibly catch a pedal. It is not a place you could call attractive. People not only want a safe and easy to use cycle junction, they want an attractive one as well. I work at a large college in southern England and getting new people to cycle is a nightmare, literally everything has to be right for people to make the switch to cycling. Otherwise, they simply won't do it.

Some of the design of this junction is a bit wacky. Who thought a tight 180 degree turn was a good idea here.

https://youtu.be/p3roS0jvksw?feature=shared&t=1372

The £15m scheme is not just this junction, it also includes a multi-storey car park amongst other things!

https://www.sthelens.gov.uk/leagreen

He has a point about the wait times for cyclists, but this is fixable. It did come across to me as a bit of an anti-cycling-infrastructure rant, but I don't think that was the intention.

He did manage to cycle through a red light a couple of times too! https://youtu.be/p3roS0jvksw?feature=shared&t=1294

Driver complains about waiting times at lights?  What's news here?

(Just joking!  Haven't watched them yet but I kind of agree with Ashley in that if it's to work for "Joe public" - or indeed anyone - then the cycle infra has to be at least as convenient as it is for driving - and probably more given cycling involves physical effort compared to driving.  Further - as he says most places in the UK do not have a network of routes suitable for 8-80 cycling.  Here in most cases it's a either "cycle facility" which disappears at any junction or - in rare cases like this - junctions which connect roads that e.g. the Dutch would always have actual separate cycle paths for due to speed / volume of motor traffic.  Or streets where most of the motor traffic has been removed.)

It appears the big issue with this one is the wait time, which can hopefully be adjusted to be better/prioritise cyclists otherwise they will end up not using it.

Whilst it would be great to have decent safe infrastructure for cyclists, this will not happen everywhere and where it is possible will take time to bring in.

If we want to increase cycling quickly, we need to make the roads safer.
The best way to do that is to force drivers to be safer around vulnerable road users.
And that basically involves a very big stick.

I'm glad this one has been noticed. My slightly long comments:

1 - Note this is on Ashley's "Just Cycling" channel. And there is good debate in the comments over there.

As I have said before, I think this is a good learning community, and at both Ashley's channels people with various shades of scepticism on cycling can get some rough edges knocked off - whether from Ashley's basic message of 'take responsibility for yourself and others, and help safety by improving your skills' or by having conversation below the line.

2 - As ever, there are things I think Ashley got right, and a couple of things I think he missed.

3 - In this case, Road-confident cyclists - like Ashley, me and many Road.cc readers - are not the immediate target audience for this first cyclops junction in Liverpool City Region.

The area was slashed in half 50 years ago by what is now a 20k a day A-road, a 10k a day B-road the other way, and a huge motorway style traffic island. All with uncontrolled pedestrian crossings and casualty stats to match.

The big benefit of this CYCLOPS junction is that non-motor-users now have a safe option to get across all the roads. That is now BUILT IN, rather than RULED OUT, for the next 30 years. THAT is the big win here.

This is for example for people walking to the 1000 passenger a day Lea Green railway station, which is immediately adjacent.

4 - Straight-through cyclists are not the immediate audience, either. They still have the option, which as a signalised straight through road option is far safer than the multilane roundabout.

Active travellers, including right turning, or out and back, cyclists benefit from the CYCLOPS, as do people with mobility aids.

5 - The other group which benefits are all the people who did not cycle because of the killer roundabout. They - perhaps 10-50x as many as road-confident cyclists, now have a realistic & safe option here.

Imagine children cycling to school, or to cubs and brownies, and elderly people who use a standard or non-standard cycle as their mobility aid.

6 - Ashley is correct to roast the cycle-signals, which are an abortion. Fortunately they are an easy fix, and can be reprogrammed rather than needing a rebuild.

I think he is mistaken in suggesting that this may invalidate it all; I'd say it is 80-90% of the way there and needs some attention to detail. It may make the safe route round unattractive to particular groups until it is sorted - come back in 1-2 years.

It needs all-round ped/cycle green signals twice in every cycle, plus request buttons, and perhaps in due course detection loops for cycles and peds when there are more of them which will turn the traffic off. Max delay needs to be 20-30 seconds.

I put this down to Liverpool City Region inexperience. They need to learn from Manchester ! They are where Manchester was in 2018-2020 with these at the start of the learning curve.

That also shows up in details such as the non-sloped kerbs in some places.

7 - On attitudes to Dutch infra, I think Ashley's own view is evolving. Not so long ago he commented "Dutch Infra could never happen here".

Now it is starting to happen in a few places, including this little corner of Liverpool Region.

8 - This one in St Helens is starting a game of active-travel CATAN, starting to give practical non-motor options to everyone else. Now we need a lot more nodes, and the routes joining them up.

One thing they have got reasonably right is that the fall off the edge of the decent cycling infra is not as abrupt as one or two others, though this is just a first step.

​Have a good day everyone !
 

He is right that with the current priorities it is a waste of money. 

Disagreed with his asertion that UK could never be like Netherlands as we have a different culture. My understanding is that Netherlands was much like UK a few decades ago, until they made a concious effort to change it.

It sounds as though the timings of the lights are a problem.

As for Mr Neal's other comments, they do not come across as coherent. He refers to the Netherlands, but they have created a cycling culture with infrastructure like this, not just with education.

Of course we know we need coherent routes with consistent standards, but I guess you can't do it all in one go.

I think he's got a point. I won't use infrastructure that deliberately marks cyclists or pedestrians out as second class citizens. It's worth noting that in the Netherlands these kind of junctions give cyclists priority 100% of the time.