please empty your brain below

Bow?

Again?
Jane. It's DG's blog and his rules. Some of us find the chaos on the Bow Road interesting.
If that doesn't suit you, many other web sites are available. Do have a jolly Christmas.
The shortest crossing countdown I know of is three seconds, at the top of Chancery Lane where it meets High Holborn. Of the ones I've seen Oxford Circus and Cheapside/New Change have the longest (18?).

I've noticed on a lot of occasions that they just don't work - you'll have a short burst of green man then a blank set of signals for however long the countdown timer should have run its course.

Technology etc etc
Bow again? Yes!

As someone who has visited the place and talked to a TfL employee who was there specifically because DG had been raising legitimate concerns, I can see that DG is performing a valuable service.

The saga of Bus Stop M and now the pedestrian crossing are symptoms of wider problems throughout London, caused by poor management, a lack of planning and a lack of coordination between contractors.

DG can't be expected to highlight ALL the cock-ups that are going on, but by offering this layman's view of Bow as an example of the bigger picture he is helping to keep TfL and the Cycle Super Highway people on their toes. Only by having their faults exposed will they improve.
I don't know how often TfL upgrades the street furniture where you live, but here in Bow this is...

a) the second new pedestrian crossing at Bow Church in four years
b) the second complete replacement of Bow Road's lampposts in three years (and the third new set in ten years)
c) at least the fifth remodelling of the Bow Roundabout in five years.

We're either very lucky, or we're the neighbourhood the planners can't get right.
Re (b), is TfL responsible for the lampposts?

dg writes: Bow Road is also the A11, and part of the TfL Road Network.
The next time I visit the UK, I'm going to visit Bow and look at bus stop M.
DG might make a few bob by organising guided tours of Bow roundabout, Bow bus stops, Bow cycle lanes and Bow crossings for the many tourists visiting London - a bit like the Jack the Ripper walks of Whitechapel.
I am wondering if countdown timers are now being installed as standard for new installations. It surely can't cost that much more to do so. They've introduced several near my house when they re-did the road there.
Countdowns on pedestrian crossings in London are becoming extremely common now, to the extent that I have even seen countdowns on *temporary* traffic lights.

It's not a new idea, and they've had them overseas for years, but I love the way our countdown crossings look so British!
I always enjoy your tales of woe in Bow. I do wonder how designers come up with these things; surely they know that people will take the shortest route, but just choose to ignore it?

While slightly off topic, I find some of the best designed parkland opens without any place for pedestrians at all. Wait to see where the grass is worn away, and voila - it's clear where paths should be installed.
...as safety trumps practicality...

Err, it's not quite as simple as that. Designers doubtless know that if a pedestrian facility is too "safe" and impractical, then it will not be used, and overall safety will be worse.

But there is a balance to be struck, and I agree that that balance does seem to be shifting in the direction of making features a bit safer and a bit less practical.
Bow, Bow, ye lower middle classes!
Bow, Bow, ye tradesmen, Bow, ye masses,
Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses,
Tantantara, Tzing boom!

(W S Gilbert, Iolanthe)
what a mess ... longer and more convoluted crossings only increase frustration and encourage people to go "commando"
I think this will officially count as a "veering" comment but the puffin crossing on Streatham High Road next to where Leigham Avenue joins the main road has a faulty sensor. It often thinks someone has crossed the road when they haven't (I think triggered by a larger vehicle going past fast) and the system resets to no-one waiting. You can stand there for a while repressing the button until you're able to cross.
Poor use of money is an ongoing problem, for example there was the start of a roll out for roadside bus ticket machines at bus stops other than the ones served by bendybuses, in several places the basis were put in, others just the plate on the pavement, then nothing - after a while it all quietly removed.

Wells Terrace at Finsbury Park was another, the old 1960s bus station was upgraded with new paving, cctv etc., then a couple of years later the whole lot was demolished, the so called improved version saw the overall roof replaced with trendy glass bus shelters that didn't keep your feet dry when it rained because the roof of the bus shelter didn't extend far enough (it couldn't because it would then be struck by the bus) - plus the joints between the glass panels leaked.
I first saw lights with a countdown at Oxford Circus. They are now being introduced widely. One was installed across the Talgarth Road at Barons Court this month with a generous 14 second countdown. A last chance for the mayor to show what a good job he is doing?
Christopher
They replaced the puffin with a pelican? That's an interesting-sounding development. I too never liked the puffins; they are the epitome of an inexperienced design student's bright idea that was unfortunately taken a little too seriously by people who wanted to appear modern, without regard for how it might work in practice.

In theory, the pedestrians waiting on the side of the road would be looking in the direction of oncoming traffic. This, sadly, demonstrates a failure of thinking.

Firstly and most obviously, locating the indicator across the road guarantees the waiting pedestrians, arrayed parallel to the road, a (mostly) unobstructed view of the thing until it changes. But when it is located by one end of the horizontal queue of pedestrians, there is now only one person who can see it, and they are standing in the way of everyone else's view. Given a sufficient number of people, it would be impossible for all of them to watch the light even if they arranged themselves in a perfect circle segment, so they just stare across the road from their usual position instead.

Secondly, and this is more a failure of the implementation than the theory, the puffin lights were always angled somewhat obliquely, pointing into the pavement, to the extent that it was nearly impossible to see one from a position standing on the kerb looking parallel to the road. This rather defeats the whole point, since you cannot watch the light and the oncoming traffic simultaneously.

Thirdly, pedestrians simply don't want to have to turn around between being given the indicator to cross and crossing. They want to face the direction in which they intend to proceed next. Nobody ever starts a journey facing sideways. Much like the rest of the sorry saga of British pedestrian crossing development, the puffin was a product of official hubris and a misplaced belief in the malleability of human nature. I can only hope that they will ultimately go the way of the disastrous "Panda Crossing" experiment.

(insert usual mutterings about 2d and 4c etc.)

dg writes: No, 1a! I was nodding throughout.
cf @swirlything I'll add my 1h and 2b...
Seems we have a DG Readers only "Mornington Crescent!" game
Years from now, I imagine new readers of DG Blog wondering what on earth the number/letters are......
Yes, countdown is quite common in Central London, and I might have met a few in Bath as well. While in Hong Kong there are a few lights with countdown, they never really take off as in Hong Kong the green man blinks every second instead.

An interesting point: In Taipei, countdown is available for *vehicles* to tell drivers how long the *red light* will stay around.
re the comments about the positions of the red / green man, in Hemel Hempstead "they" are removing the universal traditional signals at high level on the other side of the crossing and replacing them with four waist level indicators perpendicular to the kerb. The ones on the other side are invisible, the ones on this side can only be seen by the person nearest to it, one of whom has to look away from the traffic to see it. At night an oncoming motorist now sees two waist height lights, one on each side of the road. The lights are either red (i.e. car drive on) or green (i.e. car stop)!
The works entail complete removal of the existing poles and the erection of new ones, together with two new short ones.
So, we now have two different sorts of pedestrian signals, one high and opposite, one low and beside you.
Why? Could not the money be better spent?
6b, please.
"In Hong Kong the green man blinks every second". Actually the British green man may also be blinking, but it's hard to tell, as he is drawn too small to see his eyes...
We've got several countdown crossings near us but I've noticed that, even after the 12 second countdown, there are still several seconds before the traffic gets their green light, as in the pre-countdown era. This now seems to be an unnecessary delay, which pedestrians have already begun to factor into their 'final dash' time, thus defeating the purpose of the countdown.

I also think the green figure should stay on during the countdown period as it's all legitimate crossing time for pedestrians, the approaching end of which is being indicated by the countdown.

The Puffin crossings, with the pedestrian lights low down on this side of the road, were always an irritation. Press button, look across road to see what the light's showing, fail to find light across road, realise light is hidden down there and not across road, see light change to red. Putting them there so pedestrians can see the oncoming traffic is hardly a good reason as we don't need to watch the traffic because the traffic lights are looking after it for us!
At this new crossing there's a similarly baffling two second gap between the countdown reaching zero and the traffic light turning green.
"we don't need to watch the traffic because the traffic lights are looking after it for us".

Actually we do need to check, because drivers have been known to disregard red lights - some famous politician was observed doing this, for instance. Someone at school once told me that if you are run over on a pedestrian crossing, it doesn't count. (I disbelieved him).
Oh, the 3:30 comment has beaten me to it.
I was going to mention a real design flaw with some of these lights, which is a heavy pause between the countdown reaching zero and the lights changing green for the traffic.
Presumably the designer thought a hiatus where no-one moved would be an added safety feature. In reality is has created quite the opposite.
All some pedestrians do is pause, look at the cars not yet moving, and think 'well, if you're not going to go, *I will*!'
The idea might well have been to make the design more foolproof but, hey, trust pedestrians to come up with a better idiot :(
And all those extra seconds when everybody is held up and nothing seems to be happening creates impatience and irritation all round.

I've always suspected that the buttons on pedestrian crossing don't actually do anything and are only there to provide people with something to do while they're waiting for the lights to change according to some pre-ordained algorithm that actually takes no input from pedestrians at all. If this is the case it would be equally useful to have another countdown while the red figure is lit that shows how long it's going to be before the lights change to stop the traffic.
Never mind the countdown timer, what's that man doing standing on top of the traffic lights?
ActonMan - there are some crossings at junctions where the button does nothing because it's on a programme. There are some where it always does and some where it is a mixture of the two.

E.g. at a junction near my office you never get a green man unless you hit the button. And one near my house is on a programme during the day but at night you never get a green man unless you press.
I'm way too eager to read about bus stops that I never use (do use the 25 though)!
Based on some further research it seems that my suspicions are well founded that pedestrian buttons are, in most situations, non-functioning placebos, while the crossing lights are controlled by other factors. All the more reason to introduce my suggested system with a countdown on both the red and the green figures to keep pedestrians informed of the lights' automated progress. Maybe this new design of crossing (the Ptarmigan?) could be introduced experimentally in Bow just along from bus stop M.
I have seen the two-way countdown on a pedestrian crossing somewhere. I suspect not in Britain. The numbers were in green or red I think, matching the pedestrian light showing.
I'm not convinced by the "placebo" theory.
Many crossings are designed so that there is a minimum interval between red phases (for traffic), so the length of time you have to wait from the green man depends how long the lights have been red. Others have a variable time between button and green man because they are phased with the other lights - i.e the lights are programmed to put a pedestrian phase in at a particular point in the cycle, but only if someone has pressed the button.

The whole thing can get very complicated. Google "Fox River Grove crash" for an unforeseen consequence of introducing a pedestrian phase at a crossing.
The 'placebo button' theory seems to be supported by evidence from transport managers in several UK cities.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23869955
This confirms that the more complex the junction and the more traffic there is, the less likely it is that the pedestrian buttons do anything, such that in many cities the buttons only work the lights between midnight and 7am, when it would probably be perfectly safe to cross the road without the aid of any lights at all.
Why is it a green/red man? and not a woman? Or why it not 50/50?
This is really good news for us. My 14 year old daughter and one of her friends make the trip from school in Stratford to Bow for work experience once a week. They have to use that crossing and the new system looks so much better than the old one.
@E, women have their role elsewhere.
Who says it's a man?
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02096/green-figure_2096346b.jpg"

And what about these two? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_crossing#/media/File:Equestrian_crossing_lights.jpg
The crossing outside Bow Magistrates Court, just up the road, has the sensors DG mentioned which check to see if anyone's waiting to cross and cancel the command if not. However they don't seem particularly reliable - they seem to rely on people standing in a specific spot to work, which of course doesn't always happen!
Just out of interest.

The crossing, Bow Road, 1968..

I bet you don't get queues like that these days: https://www.flickr.com/photos/isarsteve/23147010719/in/photostream
Outstanding photo, thanks!

None of those shops survive, nor the pub on the corner, but it's interesting to see that the new works have returned the crossing to its original alignment.

And no, the days of such queues are long gone - there are rarely more than a dozen people these days.
I think it must have been taken at factory kick out time.

Unusual, the double Belisha Beacons.. crossing there was obviously dangerous.










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