ASL/Filter lane

[funnymummy]

I was going to ask what your opinions were of the cycle lane on the corner of my road. There is a shared cycle/pedestrian path where the pavemnet is quite narrow, then as it passes the lights it splits into two totaly seperate paths
Quite a while ago the council added short cycle lane & an ASL onto the road alongisde the shared path, after a few months they added another bit that went past the traffic lights & filtered onto the already in place cycle path, off the road.
I was there when the men were painting it, we had to wheell our bike around their machine, I asked why they were adding the extra bit & was told that as the path was rather narrow alot of cyclist where using the road there when the path was busy, & it was to allow them to carry on back onto the cycle lane REGARDLESS of if the lights were on red, as they would not be impeding the traffic flow off of Western Road to the left, it had been safe to do so! At the initail time there was even a sign put up to tell cyclist to do this

So a few years later, the sign is long gone & the green paint is starting to wear thin, and the original white stop is now showing through, but all the cyclist carry on, as it's what's we've got used to.
It caused a bit of debate amongst some of the school gate mums at home time today, I got a 'telling off' from a friend as she saw me fly through the red lights the other, I explained to her that I was allowed & why, of course a couple of others had an opinion of this, they have all seen it happen at these lights but none were actulay aware that it was ok, and one even said if she overtook a cyclist on this stretch & she could see the lights on red ahead she would deliberatly pull over so they could not carry on - She did apologise & say she would not do it again LOL!

So I thought i'd include a pic & ask what you guys throught of it & if it was misleading at all... I magine my surprise when I zoomed in on Google maps & found a bloke riding not along the actual cycle path, but along the green lane...INTO the oncoming traffic!

 

[marinyork]

If it is a T junction and very wide, you have to ask yourself why have they designed the junction like that. It seems on the face of it unnecessary to have to have cyclists to stop, you might as well have them carry on, especially if it penalises them.

There are plenty of designs where a cycle path comes off before a light and a few where they'd bodged the design and it comes after a light.

You do tend to see people cycling the wrong way down contraflow cycle lanes from time to time.

 

[Arch]

[QUOTE 1400063"]
If there is a solid white line across the cycle path then you must stop when the light is red. If not, you're free to carry on regardless.
[/quote]

Yes, but I think the problem is that the white line is now showing through the green paint, so although it's intended to be hidden, it's visible, a question of maintenance.

I'd contact the council and see if they can bung some fresh paint over it.

There's one in York where a cycle lane has no white line, on purpose, at a bus/car filter light (the cycle lane is in the bus lane). I checked with the council and was told to just go through regardless of whether the light was red or green, and I still got grief off a taxi driver - sometimes these gestures are well meaning, but utterly misunderstood or unclear to drivers.

At another place, there's a white line across the whole lane, and beyond it a narrow box on the left, with a cycle in it, and a further ahead white line, a sort of narrow, ungreen ASL. I do use it, it's a handy headstart at a narrow staggered junction, but I do have to cross a white line to do so. But then aren't there loads of ASLs that have solid white lines, and the rule is that a cycle can cross it anywhere, whereas if there's a dashed portion and a feeder lane, you're supposed to only cross on the dashed bit?

 

[ohnovino]

Ideally, there should be a separate green light for cyclists, something like:

 

[marinyork]

Ideally, there should be a separate green light for cyclists, something like:

Not necessarily. Lots of ways of doing it, could have the lane to the left of an island with the traffic lights mounted for example. Plenty of way of doing it.

 

[Dan B]

But then aren't there loads of ASLs that have solid white lines, and the rule is that a cycle can cross it anywhere, whereas if there's a dashed portion and a feeder lane, you're supposed to only cross on the dashed bit?

Nope. If there are ASLs with solid white lines and no dashed bit or feeder lane, they are illegal to cross anywhere. TSRGD 2002 section 43

 

[marinyork]

Nope. If there are ASLs with solid white lines and no dashed bit or feeder lane, they are illegal to cross anywhere. TSRGD 2002 section 43

There are plenty of examples of ASLs that have been messed up. The ones Arch is talking about have come about as I believe York tinkered with one of the junctions about five years ago.

 

[Arch]

Nope. If there are ASLs with solid white lines and no dashed bit or feeder lane, they are illegal to cross anywhere. TSRGD 2002 section 43

Yes, I wasn't certain, but I'm sure I've read here of people being told by officialdom that they could cross anywhere if there is a solid line. So presumably officialdom knows no better either. (And I suspect, neither do most drivers, who either aren't aware of ASLs at all, or don't know the finer points of the law.)

Marinyork - the cycle lane with no stop line through the bus/car filter is coming down off The Mount to Blossom Street - at the next junction (at the old Odean) there is a proper stop line, which is where I pulled up and was berated by a taxi driver. The un-green painted 'ASL' is at the junction of Clifton and Water Lane.

A green light for cycles would be nice and clear in the OP. Until the green light fails one day. I suspect that having the cycle lane pass to the left of the light would still cause many drivers to drool in indignation, as many of them are incapable of such subtlety.

Personally, I think I'd rather the junction was nice and clear, and I wouldn't bother with an on-road lane and exemption. If the shared path is too busy, and you ride on the road and have to stop for a moment, so be it.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

[QUOTE 1400063"]
If there is a solid white line across the cycle path then you must stop when the light is red. If not, you're free to carry on regardless.
[/quote]

I'm not so sure about the "carry on regardless" bit. I raised this in this YouTube post, and someone pointed out the following regulation:

The TSR&GDirections 2002 S 43(3) Where no stop line has been provided in conjunction with light signals or the stop line is not visible, references in relation to those signals to the “stop line” are—

(a)in a case where the sign shown ... is placed in conjunction with the light signals, to be treated as references to that sign; and

(b)in any other case, to be treated as references to the post or other structure on which the primary signals are mounted.

 

[Dan B]

Cripes, yes. Not sure how you'd interpret that, but to be legally unambiguous I think you'd have to relocate the traffic light so it was obviously not applicable to the cycle lane