Safety issues at junction of Bury Place and Bloomsbury Way

continuing on from my first post about the Stand

another dangerous junction I encounter on my daily commute from NW to SE1 is the junction between Bury Place and Bloomsbury Way, just south of "The British Museum"

this junction has a segreated cycle lane, which is great, but the junction fails when it comes to crossing Bloomsbury Way to continue along Bury Place 

as this junction has no "grid" keeping traffic from its centre, its very common for vehicles to block this junction and deny cyclists a safe passage across this junction once the green traffic lights on Bury Place have changed in our favour

I have tried my best to navigate through this junction during 5+ years of daily commuting and have numerous experiences of vehicles attempting to ignore my right of way and run me over, as well as threats of violence and swearing from motor vehicles including private cars, taxis and bus drivers!! 

How does someone go about getting this junction looked at properly? Obviously the local authority has spent considerable money on the segregated cycle path on Bury Place, but has not considered the deathtrap that is currently the junction between the Place and Bloomsbury Way

Replies

  • By gegi at 07:47pm 04 Apr 2012

I don't think I quite understand which drivers are causing the problem. When you have green from Bury PLace surely Bloomsbury Way is red.

If it is oncoming right turning traffic then a yellow box wouldn't help (necessarily). But enforcement would. The Highway code is pretty clear about oncoming right turning traffic.

I would have thought you're in more danger of cyclists jumping red lights on Bloomsbury way. I have been there over the last 2 days in the evening and the norm for cyclists going west to east along bloomsbury way is to jump all the red lights at the junctions.

Their normal action seems to be slow down on red, try and balance and just before they have to put a foot down they jump the lights.

  • By gegi at 11:22am 05 Apr 2012

I have used the junction today and it seems it is the queue backlog on Bloomsbury way that sets off exactly when cyclists cross form North to South. So a yellow box would help solve that. Of course looking before setting off would also help.

Maybe something the Camden Group can tackle. http://www.camdencyclists.org.uk

 

  • By kgriff at 04:04am 01 Jan 2013
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I emailed Camden Council about the problem with Bury Place/Bloomsbury Way junction. Received this reply from a Design Engineer on 18.12.12 :

Thank you for your email informing us of the issue of cycle safety at the junction and apologies for not getting a response sooner or acknowledgement for the receipt of your email.  I have received a similar request in the past and I am currently working on it.  I hope to have a yellow box installed at this junction by the end of this financial year; I will keep you updated on the progress of this.  I will also refer your request for higher signal posts to TFL signals team.

 

 

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