Princes Park, Liverpool

This is being paid for by Sustrans yet the proposal as shown in your attachment doesn't include any facilities for cycling at all ? Amazing.

Where do we start ? Your idea of reducing the inbound roads to single lanes is certainly a good one. However, a roundabout of this size and with the level of traffic that it apparently takes should never have cyclists and motor vehicles sharing lanes.

You've probably seen them before, but I've a bunch of photos of all the roundabouts in the city where I live in the Netherlands showing how even the smallest have separate cycling facilities:

   http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/roundabouts

I really think you need to try for the same thing in Liverpool - especially for a project which is being paid for by Sustrans.

This is an occasion when the oft-claimed "there's not enough space" is definitely not true. The existing roundabout in Liverpool is huge.

but we've started to put together some wiki pages on policy including one on roundabouts http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/wiki/roundabouts

It's still in draft, but if nothing else will give you some pictures and also some links to research and other sources of information

With that wierd give way in the middle of it. 

Is there any scope at all for closing some of the routes to through traffic and getting rid of what looks like quite a complicated junction? It's hard, not knowing the area at all, but I take it Princes Road / Princes Ave are both one ways, so effectively that's a big dual carriageway which is going to dominate the traffic and (I imagine) isn't very cycleable. 

If you know the main desire lines for bikes and the main desire lines for cars and can unpick them at all it might be possible to simplify the junction in some way so that it's just a through road, with perhaps limited ability to turn on and off the other roads, making the other roads easier to negotiate on foot or on bike

Of course what I'd be itching to do would be to make Princes Ave a two-way through route and close off Princes road to through traffic and turn it into a bicycle road, but without knowing the area at all I've no idea of that would be feasible.

I don't envy you in trying to make this a better roundabout for cyclists.  Without demolishing the whole thing and starting from scratch, I think you've got a very difficult task.

I used to ride Princes Avenue outward regularly, entering the roundabout and taking either the 2nd exit to Princes Gate East, or the 3rd exit into the park.  You need to be a very assertive, alert, quick and perhaps even foolhardy cyclist to do it, especially if you're heading for the park entrance.

The 'Give way' stop in the middle is terrible for cyclists come down Princes Avenue, as cars will leave it til the last second / smallest of gaps before pulling out.  In the end I've bottled out of using this roundabout and just go an entirely different route..

I've looked at the plan you've done and with the best will in the world, this rebuild will still need cyclists to be very assertive (indicating, changing lane, turning and looking back at the same time level of ability), alert, and quick.. and I just don't know how many extra riders will suddenly decide to take this route?

I really can't see an easy improvement.. Make the whole of the neighborhood 'shared use' pavement would probably see more normal people cycling around the area.  Or turn it into a 20mph zone.  OR close off the whole of the 'give way' section of the roundabout, and join the roundabout up to the central boulevard.

I know it's unlikely, but closing Kingley Rd completely wouldn't be unprecedented.. Just up Princes Avenue, Beaconsfield / Cairns / Jermyn st have been closed off?

It's £300k, but I honestly don't think it will see any real rise in usage figures outside of any rise or fall in the whole of Liverpool.... and once the money is spent, it becomes "well we spent the money and the bloody cyclists don't even use it...."

Sorry to sound so negative.  It's a donkey of a junction, it really is.

Jim

Can't really make sens e of the PDFs. It is very difficult to improve safety for cyclists without impairing traffic flow.  None of the suggestions appear to be a significant improvement. If the traffic flow is disrupted drivers will be more irate and more aggressive toward cyclists. the only way to guarantee safe use is install traffic lights with a light for bikes exiting the park and heading onto the avenue or Kingsley Road.

Otherwise a red cycle lane might raise drivers' awareness of cyclists but in my experience people are fairly tolerant of cyclists taking up their space ie a whole lane on this roundabout (which is what I do). The Kingsley road cycle lights by the Women's slow me down and hence I tend to stay in the main traffic lane. A proposed change needs to bring  improvement. If the bus stop is pushed out a lane (as has occurred on Aigburth Rd) this, in my experience, makes for more hazardous cycling as cars try to pull into the second lane.

Are there any stats in the public arena about bicycles involved in accidents at this site?

Hi all,

I've been researching this roundabout because it is so dangerous (if anything it's worse since the changes made a couple of years ago) and was very surprised to find out that it was paid for out of a cycling safety fund! Virtually all of the suggestions made on this thread were completely ignored. The priorities were changed so that it is more of a normal roundabout and a zebra crossing was added on one of the exits - you have to cross four lanes of traffic at once with no visibility from traffic approaching round the bend. I've seen several near misses because traffic is failing to stop when people are already crossing - drivers just sound the horn and swerve around them - and there is a lot of verbal abuse of pedestrians trying to use this crossing. There is absolutely no provision for cyclists not even any paint. It's two lanes into the roundabout, and cars often go in the outside lane to get around a cyclist and then turn left across you. The traffic approaches very fast and often fails to stop when a cyclist is already on the roundabout meaning you have to brake /swerve. I'm an experienced cyclist and used to traffic, but it's so bad that I've actually started coming back from work at a different time of day to avoid it during the rush hour (alternative routes are not always safe due to antisocial behaviour on the quieter streets during the afternoon/evening). A member of my cycling club suffered a head injury after a hit and run on this roundabout last week. 

Is there an evaluation of the effects of these so called cycle safety measures? Or is it a case of ask for advice, ignore it, make the situation worse, and then go on about all the money that's been spent of improving cycle safety?

I've been in touch with my local councillor but just get the usual response that there's nothing they can do. 

Do you have a date when this work was completed, the response from the local authority suggested December 2013 as a cut-off? Looking at Crashmap, from 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2016 it looks like there have been 8 slight and one serious cyclist casualties. I'd hope they have systems in place (i.e. their road safety team) that would have identified that sort of number of collisions affecting one specific user group in just the past three years.