**UPDATE** Side Streets
We have been asked to comment in an article for The Evening Times about the dangerous side streets on the South City Way. These have recently opened and have been the subject of a lot of complaint and near misses. The article was published today with an initially pleasing headline (warning: don’t get your hopes up!):
Contrary to as reported, Glasgow City Council have not directly contacted us or assured us about our concerns. We first wrote to them three weeks ago as detailed here:
GoBike find the council’s response wholly unsatisfactory. Side streets need to be designed properly and safely from the outset, and we don’t believe that late additions of the markings and signs promised will be enough to the ensure the safety of people on bikes.
Our quote was reduced and to be clear, we are not asking for minor changes. What we highlighted was:
“A good side street beside a continuous cycle lane should be absolutely unambiguous about showing that people in the cycle lane have priority over anyone making a turn. To do this, the cycle lane needs to be in a bright continuous colour, it needs to be raised from street level, and the corners at the turn need to be tight to slow turning traffic.”
We are also deeply concerned regarding the safety audit. There should surely have been one carried out at design stage and waiting until the project is completed before assessing safety will leave the junction open to too many potential collisions for far too long.
We are starting to see similarly ambiguous side streets crop up on other projects. It is ESSENTIAL that best practice on safe design of side streets is looked at now to ensure that all current and future projects consider the safety of people on bikes.
**NB** The photograph the Evening Time used in their article shows the Devon Street junction prior to the new cycle track addition. This video shows it as it is now, and illustrates a near miss at the junction:
