please empty your brain below
It looks like someone has, at last, either been to the Netherlands or looked at the Dutch design manual.

But, then they took that new knowledge and put it in a blender and mixed it in to the UK design manual for roads and bridges to come up with over engineered and over regulated nonsense.

If there’s one lesson they could have taken from the Dutch in this situation it’s that neither pedestrian nor cyclist will follow rules which have become pointless in the absence of motor traffic. Desire lines, anyone?

Your final point nails it: why spend all this money here when so many other more dangerous places where pedestrians and cyclists have to battle motor traffic need solving first

Jim | 05.08.21 - 7:21 a.m. | #

Perhaps this is some kind of 'proof of concept', then some bureaucrat can generate statistics which 'prove' how safe the layout is before spending countless millions digging up real roads.

Still Anon | 05.08.21 - 7:58 a.m. | #

Do you know which Authority is paying for this! Please, DG?

Liz | 05.08.21 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Just possibly, this is intended as a 'demonstration' or 'best of practice' example. Not intended for actual users but for visiting traffic engineers and others to be shown the standard they should be aiming for.

Such things are not unknown. Think of how Aldwych tube station was always being refurbished. Also building sites sometimes have a 'pointless' wall as a reference design and to show the standards and final result expected from bricklayers.

Pedantic of Purley | 05.08.21 - 8:02 a.m. | #

The project spans a borough boundary, so is "led by London Borough of Waltham Forest supported by London Legacy Development Corporation and London Borough of Newham".

I've found an LLDC transport update from October 2020 which includes a blueprint for the Northwall Road junction (on page 13). The design is a bit less complicated than the final built scheme, and is described as a "quick win" on the Park's main north-south cycle route.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 05.08.21 - 8:19 a.m. | #

I’m going to throw a fit. The LLDC has taken a badging for the terrible nature of their cycling and walking infra throughout the park.

Then they go and do this somewhere nowhere cares about?

They’re literally trolling at this point.

Theo | 05.08.21 - 8:52 a.m. | #

Could be used for Cycling Proficiency training? Does that even exist these days?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 05.08.21 - 8:53 a.m. | #

The narrowness of some of those zebra crossings got me wondering if there are rules about these things. Of course there are. Are all those stripes at least 2.4 metres long?...

dg interrupts: Those aren't proper zebra crossings, so they don't follow these rules.

ap | 05.08.21 - 9:40 a.m. | #

"Also building sites sometimes have a 'pointless' wall as a reference design..."

Indeed they did, and indeed still do. They are a definitive on-site reference - the mortar is meant to be this colour and the pointing is meant to be like this.

They are generally about 1m high and 1 m wide and hence very cheap and very temporary, not like the subject of the current post!

Sb | 05.08.21 - 9:46 a.m. | #

Narrowing the mouth of the junction to reduce vehicle speeds is standard practice in Dutch (and sporadically British) road design.

They'll still be designed to allow a textbook truck to make the turn though, whereas the right angle turns for people cycling in this design won't, at least above not-falling-off pace. Who designs this guff?

Graham | 05.08.21 - 10:21 a.m. | #

Just, wow!!
Wonder whose 'vanity project' this will be exposed as?

Cornish Cockney | 05.08.21 - 10:54 a.m. | #

This looks like an adult-sized set of LEGO roadways, complete with hard-90 turns. Possibly recalls the childhood experience of the designers

John N. Whitmore | 05.08.21 - 12:53 p.m. | #

I’m sure the QEOP or the London Legacy team can answer what's going on.

Greg S | 05.08.21 - 1:49 p.m. | #

Blue Witch - Cycling proficiency does indeed still take place, certainly in Brighton and Hove anyway; I saw several batches of tottering youths being taught a couple of weeks ago.

Jamesthegill | 05.08.21 - 3:09 p.m. | #

Given that something seems to be filmed on this road pretty much every other week, and sometimes more frequently, I wondered if perhaps they wanted to make it easier to access this road by having easy to remove bollards rather than having to shift the concrete blocks every time. But then the concrete has remained so I really have no idea.

Unfortunately I've seen quite a few cyclists use the cycle path from Stratford then join the main road where this junction is as it's a bit quicker than using the safer route under the bridge. So it's not even being used by all the cyclists who ride this way.

Sean | 05.08.21 - 4:16 p.m. | #

Well at least there's an email address right there in photo two that one of us could contact if we have 'any questions' about what's going on! Maybe collate them all into a numbered list to make it easy for them.

James | 05.08.21 - 5:00 p.m. | #

Cycling proficiency these days is called “Bikeability”. The newer scheme started in about 2005/6 & aims to improve cycling skills, ideally helping people to ride confidently on-road. It’s funded by the DfT.

Toni | 05.08.21 - 5:09 p.m. | #

My kids, when small, definitely had a Playmobil set that looked very like this. This is just slightly off the walk around the Olympic Park that I do most days. I shall go and enjoy the excitement of this new development!

Joan | 05.08.21 - 7:55 p.m. | #

"I bet it complies with all relevant junction-based best practice"

Right angles for corners on the cycle lanes and zebras right up them... I bet (hope) it bloody well doesn't!

I could just about forgive it - and in context the quality of the other cycle lanes in Olympic Park isn't all that great (i.e. the red mess outside the student prison ending on a blind bend, the new section of Marshgate Lane with the lampposts in the lane markings, and the section on Waterden Road which ends in Here East's loading bay wall etc) - if it wasn't such a complete waste of money on a junction so lightly used by pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles. Who signed off on this and why?

If I were a resident of Chobham Manor having to paying a park fee on my home for QEOP to piss up the wall like this I'd be beside myself.

Grumpy Chicken | 06.08.21 - 8:04 p.m. | #

9th August: post updated because, on closer inspection, there are five mini zebra crossings not four.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 09.08.21 - 12:51 p.m. | #

Just to show up what a pristine waste of money this was, there's a proposal to 'rewild' Northwall Road and turn it into a linear park.

martin | 13.11.23 - 2:29 p.m. | #











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