Floating bus stops cause a lot of argument. They are a design where the bike lane alongside a main arterial road passes behind a bus stop so bicyclists do not get stopped or wedged in by a bus stopping to pick up passengers. The bus stop ‘floats’ between two streams of traffic. Pedestrians need to step across the bike stream to get to the island where they wait for their bus.
As a way of managing and maintaining traffic flows, floating bus stops make sense. They are compromise. They balance different constraints of physical space, traffic flows and personal requirements.
They are a cause of friction though. Particularly in terms of accessibility and equity. There are strong views that the design form is disabling because it places a fast traffic stream in front of pedestrians, specifically people with visual impairments and wheelchair users, who are simply trying to get to their bus stop on the pavement.
Manchester
I was in Manchester for CampDigital on Thursday and walking back along the Oxford Road I noticed this floating bus stop.
The evening before I had been with my mother trying out a mobility scooter and going to the shops near her home. That experience had heightened my awareness of the proper embedded of dropped curbs and tactile pavement. The ones near her home created a very unnerving experience for her first trip.
Thus I was more looking at the crossing points from main pavement to floating bus stop.
The first crossing point did not have the bumpy curb stone problem my mum encountered.
However, there is something odd about it. There is tactile paving. That marks, for both visually impaired people and guide dogs, where a crossing point is.
This crossing is directly in the path of cyclists who are coming in at speed.
Further along the length of the stop, there is a painted SLOW sign
This is followed by a more formal crossing point. Tactile paving plus black and white lines, a Give Way physical sign and orange beacon lights.
This is where people should cross over. It is where the full system of traffic management systems has been applied.
The first crossing places people at risk, the second crossing tries to balance that out.
Why are the cues and signs to bicyclists to pay attention to pedestrians and crossings offered only halfway through the bus stop lane?
How are pedestrians (including guide dogs) supposed to know that one crossing is safer than the other?
Shared Spaces and Equitable Spaces
There are several problems with all this design and they remind me of previous work on Shared Space schemes. In particular, Exhibition Road (the road between the Science Museum, Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum). That space also fails the equity test: how do you balance the privileges and needs of motor vehicle users, cyclists and pedestrians?
In general, when the flows of these three types of public space use cross over there is a tension about privilege and equity.
Do drivers have the right to just keep driving and only stop when formally requested by signs or lights?
Do cyclists and pedestrians have to be shoved together to maintain that motor vehicle privilege?