Proposed Double Choice Detour on Thames Valley Parkway Ill-Advised
The official City of London stance regarding the direction of a detour around the upcoming Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) construction is to provide two options, their original route via Talbot St and Grosvenor St as well as the route proposed by cyclists via Blackfriars Bridge and Gunn St. Cyclists have warned that the original detour is flawed and dangerous but the City still maintains it as a reasonable option.
In our view, the original detour is dangerous. It proposes taking cyclists through the busy stretch of Talbot St to Oxford St which includes the narrow passage under the CP railway bridge. Additionally, and what is missed by most, is that this route will also take cyclists down the very speed downgrade of Grosvenor St through a busy parking lot into Gibbons Park.
The City seems to misunderstand the influence that downgrades have on cyclist speeds. Our data from testing at several hill sites throughout the TVP has been previously published on this Gorski Consulting website. It clearly shows the heightened speeds of cyclists observed when travelling along downslopes. It is of additional importance that the downslope at the Grosvenor St site ends at a busy parking lot to Gibbons Park. There will be motor vehicle drivers pulling out of parking spots or travelling toward the Grosvenor St exit exactly where cyclists will be racing down the slope. Drivers will not expect or detect high speed cyclists approaching at unexpected angles toward them. Unless major enforcement and signage efforts are engaged there is a heightened probability that a collision will occur.
Our data from our Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS), conducted this summer, provides an indication of the types of cyclist and non-pedestrian users (e-scooter, e-board, medical carts, mini-trailers, e-bikes) that travel northbound along the TVP toward the area of construction. Some of these users include the transportation of children in mini-trailers or wider than normal cargo bikes which do not function in the same manner as a single-manned pedal bike. Braking and acceleration characteristics are different and important when travelling down a steep down-slope or when trying to travel through the narrow confines of the railway underpass at Talbot St.
Not all users of the TVP have an intimate knowledge of its characteristics. As such they may listen to the advice of expert-sounding, officials who would seem to know the quality of the advice they provide. The City has never explained what knowledge they possess about the characteristics of the users of the TVP and whether they know how many vulnerable persons might be placed at risk along the original detour route.
More generally, when collisions occur with cyclists they are rarely publicized in local news media such that the general public is unaware of the safety risks at certain locations. A recent example is the case of the owner of the Smiley’s Pizzeria who was found unconscious somewhere along his cycling route, in the early morning of August 7, 2022, either on Adelaide St north or Sunningdale Road, a location that was never official disclosed. While news media indicated that it was unclear whether the cyclist fell off his bike or whether it was a hit-&-run, nothing was disclosed about the police investigation. Such lack of disclosure could place other cyclists at risk if they are unware of the dangers that may exist at such unknown sites in the City.
It has also been recently disclosed by the Canadian Institute of Health Information that cyclist injuries, identified by visits to hospital emergency wards, have increased dramatically in Canada and in Ontario: “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”. Why has this fact not been disclosed in the City of London which, most likely, would not be immune to the developments in the rest of Ontario? Lack of disclosure of where/how/why cyclists have sustained their injuries means that sites dangerous to cyclist travel continue to exist without proper knowledge of the cycling public. If injuries occur to cyclists from travelling along the originally-proposed detour route of the TVP will the public be made aware of that or will that information remain hidden?
Our advice to the City is to stop advertising this original detour as a safe and reasonable option for cyclist travel.
Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study – Summary of Results From Session #5
Gorski Consulting continues to gather data from the Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS) in London, Ontario. A fifth videotaping Session was conducted on Tuesday, August 9, 2022 commencing at 0918 hours. This video has now been analysed and this article will report the results of this study.
The table below shows the results of volumes of all traffic units in Session #5 compared to the previous 4 Sessions conducted earlier this year.
As suspected, Session #5 resulted in substantially more non-motor vehicle observations as compared to motor vehicles. Although 66 motor vehicles were observed (lowest of all 5 Sessions) there were 358 observations of cyclists, pedestrians and non-pedestrians. The ratio of motor vehicles to non-motor vehicles is well more than 1:4, more like 1:5.4.
With respect to the speed of motor vehicles the table below shows the completed table: an incomplete table was shown in a preceding article.
We speculated earlier as to why only about 7.6 percent of motor vehicles were “speeding” in Session #5, the lowest of all 5 Sessions. We suspected that larger numbers of non-motor-vehicles were slowing the speed of these vehicles. Another possibility is that the shadows existing at the pedestrian crossing at the east end of the bridge caused drivers to be more cautious as they approached from the bright sunshine on the bridge.
With respect to cyclists the table below shows the travel directions they took in Session #5. As explained previously, the column “Source” is the direction from which cyclists entered the study area and the other columns indicate which direction the cyclists travelled upon exiting the study area.
And the next table takes all the cyclists from all 5 Sessions and groups them together.
About 83% of the cyclists in all 5 Sessions were observed riding on the TVP. Of those TVP riders only about 6.7 percent turned off the parkway to travel onto Blackfriars Bridge. In terms of the 80 cyclists who were eastbound on the Blackfriars bridge their exit directions appeared to be somewhat equal (SB TVP=23, SB Ridout=33 and NB TVP=24), although there was a slight increase in numbers continuing southbound onto Ridout Street.
Next we look at pedestrian motions in Session #5 as indicated in the table below.
And again we combine all the pedestrian observations from all 5 Sessions in the table below.
With respect to pedestrians their approach into the study area was not as dominated by the TVP as they were for cyclists. A substantial number of pedestrians (NB Ridout=163, EB Blackfriars=247) came from either northbound on Ridout or eastbound on Blackfriars Bridge. There seemed to be a slight increase in the number of pedestrians southbound on the TVP (332) versus northbound (275). In terms of departures, 302 pedestrians of the total 770 chose to exit from the other three travel directions (SB TVP, NB TVP, NB Ridout) to travel westbound on the Blackfriars Bridge.
Discussion
Recent notification by the City of London indicates that the Thames Valley Parkway will be closed from August 22 to September 30, 2022. This development will likely mean that observations at the Blackfriars Bridge study area will likely be affected and no further Sessions can be completed during this time of construction. For cyclists it can be noted from our previous tables that 331 cyclists were observed travelling northbound on the TVP in the 10 hours of our observations or about 33 cyclists per hour. A detour map suggested by the City of London is shown in the image below.
This detour will take cyclists through the busy and narrow areas of Talbot Street south of Oxford Street. This is not a safe route. Readers have suggested an alternate route taking cyclists westbound/eastbound across Blackfriars Bridge and along the path on the west side of the Thames River. It is not clear where this route might take cyclists back onto the TVP. Either way cyclists and perhaps some pedestrians will experience some dangerous situations during this construction period.
It is unclear at this time whether a sixth videotaping Session will be attempted before the construction begins on August 22nd.
UPDATE
A map showing an alternate route was posted by a reader on Twitter and this map is reproduced below.
Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study – Preliminary Results of Motor Vehicle Speeding in Session #5
Preliminary results are now available from Session #5 of the Blackfriairs Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS) with respect to the number of observed motor vehicles and their speeds. The analysis is incomplete such that the only speeds available are those as eastbound vehicles travel the 10 metres approaching the pedestrian crossing at the east end of the Bridge. As analysis continues calculations of speed in the two preceding segments of road along the Bridge will be completed.
For now the incomplete table below is a comparison of Session #5 against the results of the other four preceding sessions.
As can be seen in the table, the smallest number (only 66) of motor vehicles were documented in the two hours of observation in Session #5. Yet this compares fairly well with the 68 observations in Session #4.
The most striking revelation is with respect to the number of “High Speeders” in Session #5. Only 5 motor vehicles were observed travelling at 25 km/h or higher as they approached the pedestrian crossing. One of the reasons for this may be that there were a large number of cyclists, pedestrians and non-pedestrians who interfered with the motion of these vehicles. Although no official count has been made yet it was observation, while standing at the site, that there were many more cyclists, pedestrians and non-pedestrians than motor vehicles. We have already indicated from previous Sessions that motor vehicles were out-numbered by almost 4-1. However it is possible that this ratio might even be higher in Session #5, although that remains to be officially determined.
We are continuing our analysis of the relevant facts in Session #5 and will continue to report these details as they become available in the next few days.
Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study – Session #5 Videotaping Completed
Videotaping with respect to Session #5 of the Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS) was completed in the mid-morning of August 9, 2022. More precisely it is expected that data will be tabulated between 0918 and 1118 hours.
Of interest in the current Session was the discovery of shadows at the east end of bridge while the eastward approach of motor vehicles was in bright sunshine. The first photo above shows the scenario while an eastbound cyclist is riding ahead of the motor vehicle seen in the view. The presence of the cyclist is more evident in the two other photos shown below.
This scenario exemplifies the unique situations that can occur at collision sites where visibility can change drastically, sometimes in just a few minutes, depending on specific environmental conditions. The next four photos below show another example of pedestrians walking through the pedestrian crossing at the east end of Blackfriars Bridge and how difficult it might be for a motor vehicle driver to detect them in the shaded area.
The video from this Session is now being assembled within editting projects and will then be analysed to extract the important details for comparison with the previous four Sessions.
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.
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