As I mentioned the other day, I’m currently in Auckland, and that’s allowed me to check out a few new cycling sites of interest while I’m here. The Northwestern Cycleway is one of the major cycling routes feeding into the city from the western suburbs and at many places it has to connect with the various major roads that cross it. In a few cases a grade-separated underpass has been built to make the ongoing journey safe and simple, but at other places, a combination of signalised and unsignalised crossings are provided instead – like this one at the St Lukes Rd intersection.
This is called a “dual crossing”; essentially a zebra crossing for both walking and cycling. Unfortunately the current pedestrian crossing rules in NZ don’t explicitly require motorists to give way to bike riders when using the zebra stripes, so a GIVE WAY sign is used instead to assign priority, with a separate green strip for cycles crossing. Being on a raised platform also helps improve safety and compliance; while I was there I watched behaviour on the three dual crossings present and motorists were very good about stopping for crossing users.
Dual crossings are still relatively new in NZ (I can only think of some in Christchurch at Deans/Riccarton and along Ilam Rd so far?), but expect to see more of them over time as another way of providing priority to active modes when it’s needed.
What do you think of dual crossings?
I love the bumps as they do mean that most drivers slow down.
I believe that the visual clues from the of colours (I see red, white, green and yellow – and black) grab the attention of drivers and lead to more consideration of all other road users.
Conversely as a cyclist I do not like uniform whole-width-of-road speed humps as when I am cycling they often slow me down more than I like, unless I can minimise impact by cycling to far left where the hump is usually much less.