Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study – High Speed Motor Vehicles
Interest in the use of the historic Blackfriars Bridge in London, Ontario became heightened when the City of London decided to open the bridge to eastbound motor vehicle traffic in November of 2021. Pedestrians, cyclists and other users had grown used to having the bridge all to themselves during the incidence of the Covid 19 pandemic and were not happy with the change.
While opinions flourished no actual data was made available to support one point of view versus another. As a result Gorski Consulting decided to conduct a traffic study that would provide some base information to all involved.
The volumes of various traffic units at the site were reported in several website articles on the Gorski Consulting website. At present four videotaping Sessions have been completed and more may be added in the future. The present article will study the speeds of eastbound vehicles at the site.
The observed speeds of eastbound motor vehicles was frequently interrupted by other users of the site therefore it was not useful to provide average speeds of all vehicles. Instead we focused on those vehicles which we labelled “High Speeders”. High Speeders were defined as those whose travel time was 1.5 seconds or less within the 10 metre distance approaching the pedestrian crossing for the Thames Valley Parkway. Why this definition was chosen cannot be discussed here due to the complexity of the issue but may be addressed in another future article.
The table of results is shown below, summarizing all four videotaping sessions that have been completed to this date. An explanation of the table contents will follow.
Speeds were documented over 3 segments of roadway commencing westward from the west edge of the pedestrian crossing at the Thames Valley Parkway. The pedestrian crossing is located at the east end of the Blackfriars Bridge. The first segment was over a 10-metre distance progressing westward from the west edge of the pedestrian crossing, as explained in the photo below.
The next two road segments were each 25 metres in length. So, commencing westward from the 10-metre mark, paint markings were made at 35 and 60 metres west of the pedestrian crossing. An example of the paint marking at the 60 metre distance is shown in the eastward view of the photo below.
A camera was also placed on the north railing of the bridge (at 35 metres west of the pedestrian crossing) pointing in an eastward direction toward the pedestrian crossing, as shown in the photo below.
We can narrow the study further by noting the four vehicles, from all four Sessions, that travelled the 10 metres toward the pedestrian crossing in less than one second. This data is shown in the table below.
Three of the vehicles shown above are from Session #2 which took place on the afternoon of Friday, June 17,2022. No vehicles were noted to be travelling at these speeds in Sessions 1 and 3.
It can be noted that in two of the four instances the vehicles actually increased their speed in the 10 metre distance of approach to the pedestrian crossing in comparison to their speeds in the preceding segments. In those two observations (#44 and #142) the average speeds were well above 40 km/h (42.35 and 46.75 respectively). While these speeds may appear to be rather slow in terms of highway or even urban streets the special conditions of this site involve very limited lines of sight. If a pedestrian, cyclist or other vulnerable person were to enter into the path of these motor vehicles there would most likely be some serious injury consequences.
Addendum
This addendum is included to provide some explanation about the total observations of motor vehicles in the table of four Sessions noted at the top of this article. That table is reproduced again below.
The 149 observations in Session #2 is lower than the total (158) mentioned in previous tables because there was a time delay before all the cameras were put in position be able to document the vehicle speeds. So, although the counting of individual motor vehicles began at 1532 hours, a number of minutes passed before the cameras were set in place to be able to document their speeds. Thus the speed of the first 9 vehicles were unable to be calculated.
Also, in previous articles the total number of vehicles that were documented in Session 1 (77) and Session 2 (157) were incorrect. Upon further analysis during vehicle speed calculations it was discovered that one additional vehicle existed in each of those two Sessions. So the correct motor vehicle total for Session #1 is 78 and for Session #2 is 158. And again, the reason why only 149 observations are shown in the above table is because we could only obtain speed calculations for 149 of the 158 vehicles that were observed.
Cyclist Injury Data Has Been Released Necessitating Some Obvious Questions
An article published by the Canadian Press, dated August 2, 2022 contained some important data on recent cycling injuries in Ontario and Canada. In part, the article noted:
“The Canadian Institute for Health Information has released national data that covers hospitalizations and emergency department visits from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. It shows hospitalizations for all injuries dropped by about 15,000 visits year-over-year to 256,000 — but hospitalizations for cycling injuries increased 25 per cent to 5,255. The jump was especially big in Ontario, which logged 1,579 bike-related hospitalizations and accounted for about 30 per cent of all cycling traumas. The province also saw nearly 29,000 trips to the emergency room for cycling injuries, up one third from the year before. Nationally, CIHI says cycling-related ER visits jumped 36 per cent to 43,700 and hospitalizations for biking brain injuries increased to 776 from 563.“
The cited report is not presently accessible to the public on the CIHI website. It is not clear why since the Canadian Press article indicated that the CIHI “released” the national data which was published on July 28, 2022. The CIHI reports that it is funded by several government agencies and such information would be highly important for the public to evaluate.
While cycling injuries have been rising there has been little indication of this in news made available to the public. In London, Ontario, like in many similar cities, there have been many adjustments made to roadways with the creation of new cycling lanes. And there have been reports that the cycling mode of transportation is on the rise. Yet little has been said about what types of collisions involve cyclists, what injuries have occurred and under what circumstances. A glance at news media articles would make one believe that very few cyclist injuries occur in the City.
As an example, in the year 2019 there were 6 incidents reported in the news media of collisions occurring within the City of London. One collision, reportedly occurring on Hamilton Rd west of Highbury Ave, caused fatal injuries to the cyclist. The remaining 5 incidents involved injuries but scant information was provided as to the details of those injuries or in what circumstances they occurred. A single cyclist collision that occurred on Exeter Road near Wonderland garnered more attention as the young male cyclist sustained severe head injuries and the progress of his recuperation was publicized over many months.
In contrast another cyclist collision that caused critical injuries to the cyclist in late August of 2019 on Commissioners Road near Andover Drive received very little publicity and minimal information was revealed about the circumstances in which the injuries occurred.
Meanwhile, in the year 2020, when the Canadian Institute For Health Information (CIHI) reported the very large increases in cyclist injuries, there was only a single incident in London that became reported by news media. That incident was a collision in which a retired university professor was killed while attempting to ride his bicycle across Gainsborough Rd just west of Hyde Park Road in west London. Again, very little, if anything, was officially reported about how and why the cyclist was killed. An article written by Dale Carruthers, of the London Free Press, quoted a a cyclist who used that portion of the multi-use path where the collision occurred, reported that “When you’re coming from the north of the bike path, there’s bushes on the right, so you would have to come pretty cautiously to get across the road,”. But no official response was given by either City or police officials. In fact, testing as the site by Gorski Consulting shortly after the incident revealed a number of deficiencies and high speeds of motor vehicle traffic: facts that should have been obvious to the City and police.
And in 2021, another year relating to the CIHI data regarding increasing cycling injuries, not a single news item was noted reporting any cyclist collision in the City of London. Does this mean that, throughout Ontario, a massive increase in cyclist injuries was occurring but in London there was a miraculous lack of those incidents?
Is A Cyclist Travelling 26 km/h Speeding?
Is a cyclist travelling at 26 km/h within High Park in Toronto a dangerous speeder that requires police intervention? This is an interesting question that sparked debate this week causing Toronto’s Mayor to jump into the verbal fracas. Chris Fox of CP24 News reported that Mayor John Tory defended police for ticketing cyclists when police received complaints that cyclists were speeding through High Park. Tory referred to a “safe balance between all those different activities and no group can have their rights supersede the rights of others”. With reference to a cyclist ticketed for travelling 26 km/h in the park’s 20 km/h posted maximum speed, does this speed represent an unacceptable danger to other users of the park?
It would seem that an important issue is that the danger of speed is relative to the situation and location. Travelling 6 km/h faster than the 100 km/h speed limit on Highway 401 would seem dangerous only because this speeding is too little and could result in a vehicle being rear-ended in some parts of the expressway where average speeds are well over 120 km/h. Similarly a passenger car travelling 6 km/h faster than the 50 km/h speed limit on an urban street also would not draw any attention from police.
But what about a cyclist travelling 26 km/h along the right edge of an urban street? Is that dangerous? Again, does it not matter where this speed was attained? Was it on a busy roadway with many pedestrians and average cyclist speeds of only 15 km/h? Or did it occur on an open portion of a arterial road where few pedestrians are found? So does the actual speed matter or does it matter whether a cyclist is travelling substantially faster than the average cyclist at that location and time?
In order to understand what danger is posed by a cyclist speed of 26 km/h, one should also have some idea of past instances of injury and cyclist speed. But what information do persons have about this important relationship? How many persons actually have the data and knowledge to have a clear idea of what danger is posed by a cyclist speed of 26 km/h? In fact essentially no data is publicly available about this relationship.
The danger of cyclist behaviour was demonstrated in the CP24 News article by the following: “CP24 cameras saw dozens of cyclists breezing through an intersections (sic) in the park without slowing or stopping at the clearly visible stop sign”. Thus this observation brought to the public’s attention seems like a good reason to believe that cyclist behaviour in High Park is exceptionally more dangerous, thus requiring police presence. But what is typical of cyclist behaviour at stop signs generally in Toronto or anywhere else in the Province of Ontario? Do cyclists typically come to a full stop at any intersection where there is a stop sign? Did CP24 News know that information? Did they conduct a study? At Gorski Consulting all kinds of vehicle motions have been documented by video throughout southern Ontario for many years. We can conclusively say full stops by cyclists at stop signs, unless forced by opposing traffic, are a very, very rare occurrence, much more rare than the full stops not achieved by motor vehicles. Suggesting that such non-stops are an indicator or dangerous actions is simply wrong.
Speeding is believed to exist when a traffic unit moves at a speed greater than the posted speed of a roadway or path. As an example, the City of London recently posted maximum-speed signs of 15 km/h along several sections of its Thames Valley Parkway (TVP). In that sense a cyclist travelling at 6 km/h above this posted speed should be ticketed by police. Cyclist speeds were documented by Gorski Consulting in July, 2021 at one of these segments (Greenway Park). This location was very flat and straight. This showed that eastbound cyclists travelled at an average speed of 21.8 km/h whereas westbound cyclist speeds were 19.4 km/h. Should more than half of the eastbound cyclists be ticketed by police? This segment contained a very minimal downgrade in the eastbound direction yet, even this minimal influence, caused the average speed of cyclists to differ by 2.4 km/h between eastbound and westbound directions of travel. What would happen if the path slopes were much greater as they are in Toronto’s High Park?
Observations at several locations of such slopes in London have shown that average speeds of cyclists rise essentially proportionate to the steepness and length of a down-slope. As an example taken from video on the TVP near Trafalgar Street, average speeds were noted to be over 40 km/h. This occurred from travelling down a slope for about 150 metres with a maximum 9.5% grade at one short segment, and an average slope of 5.5%. No measurements of slopes have been obtained from the High Park location in Toronto but it is known that significant drops in elevation occur as the park approaches toward the edge of Lake Ontario.
So yes, speeds of cyclists at High Park could be quite high along these significant down-slopes. But that has little to do with the dangerous actions of individual cyclists. It has more to do with the fact that, given any recreational cyclist, a high speed will be attained on a significant down-slope regardless of the location, whether on a roadway or on a path within a park. This conclusion is not mere baseless comment but is supported by substantial video documentations.
In summary, a narrow preoccupation with speed as the sole designator of what is unsafe or dangerous is an erroneous approach. At what location was the speed attained? How does it compare to the average speed of similar traffic units? What could the consequences be of such a speed in terms of injury causation? And there are many similar questions that need to be considered before conclusions should be drawn about speed and its consequences.
E-Bike Users of the Thames Valley Parkway in London Ontario
Recent studies by Gorski Consulting provide an illustration of the very large increase in e-bike ridership in London Ontario. As an example several videotaping sessions have been conducted along London’s Thames Valley Trail (TVP) in the past year. The table below shows the results of 4 videotaping sessions conducted in 2021 versus 4 similar sessions conducted in the 2022.
As can be seen a total of 1249 cyclists were observed riding on the TVP. The table shows that small percentages of e-bikes were observed in 2021 ranging between 1 and 5%. In contrast the 4 studies in 2022 show an average of 11.29% e-bikes riding on the TVP. This is a very large increase within on year’s time.
Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study – Session #4 Results
Session #4 of the Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS) was completed by Gorski Consulting on Monday, July 18, 2022. Documentation occurred between the 2-hour period of 1201 and 1401 hours. The table below shows the observations in Session #4 compared to the three previous Sessions.
As can be seen the total number of traffic units observed in Session #4 (349) was just slightly higher than in Session #3 (333) but substantially lower than Session #1 (758) and Session #2 (545). The smallest number of eastbound motor vehicles (only 68) were observed crossing Blackfriars Bridge in Session #4. Similarly, the smallest number of cyclists (89) was also noted. However the number of pedestrians (182) was comparable to Session #2 and substantially higher than in Session #3.
Overall, looking at all four Sessions, there were one and a half times more cyclists observed (683) than motor vehicles (414), and about twice as many pedestrians (822) were observed compare to motor vehicles. And combining all the traffic units that were observed (1985) there were almost 4 times as many cyclists/pedestrians/non-pedestrians (1571) as there were motor vehicles.
Breaking down the numbers in the Session #4, the arrival of motor vehicles at the site was documented at 15-minute intervals as noted in the table below. There appeared to be nothing unusual in these arrivals.
The arrival and departure of cyclists at the site in Session #4 is also shown in the table below. As explained previously, the “Source” column notes the direction from which cyclists arrived at the site and the three remaining columns indicate in which direction the cyclists departed the site.
The above table shows that, by far, the number of cyclists entering the site was either from southbound (SB TVP) or northbound (NB TVP) along the Thames Valley Parkway. Seventy-eight (78) of the total 89 cyclists originated from the TVP and 69 of those cyclists continued riding on the TVP as they passed through the site.
We can also examine the actions of pedestrians as shown in the table below and here we can see a substantially different pattern of travel as compared to cyclists.
Of the total 88 pedestrians who approached the site from the TVP only 50 continued along it. A large number of pedestrians (26) turned from the TVP to travel westbound onto the Blackfriars Bridge. And there was also a large number of pedestrians observed travelling eastbound on the Blackfriars Bridge (42) and then departing primarily onto the TVP.
Interestingly, the approach of pedestrians onto the site was about equally divided amongst the four sources (SB TVP=47, NB TVP=41, NB Ridout=52, and EB Blackfriars=42). This is obviously different from the cyclist actions where a very large percentage arrived from the TVP.
We can also look at a summary of all 4 sessions combined for cyclists and pedestrians. The table below shows the summary for cyclists.
In the above table the predominance of cyclists riding on the TVP is obvious. Of the total 683 cyclists who were observed, 562 entered the study area from either southbound or northbound TVP, or about 82%. And of those 562 cyclists, 486 (86%) continued to travel along the TVP.
The next table provides the summary for pedestrians from all four Sessions.
The predominance of cyclists riding on the TVP is not so strongly demonstrated in the pedestrian traffic. Of the 822 pedestrians who were observed in the 4 Sessions, only 497, or about 60.5% originated from the TVP. Substantial numbers of pedestrians entered the study area from northbound Ridout (129) and eastbound Blackfriars Bridge (196).
In summary, there is still substantial variance in the volumes of the traffic units from one session to the next. In Session #1 a total of 758 units were observed. In contrast, Session #3 yielded 333 and Session #4 yielded 349. This is partly due to the large numbers of cyclists and pedestrians that were observed on the Sunday afternoon in Session #1. It is expected that additional Sessions will be conducted in the near future and some of this variance may be better explained.
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