city west path & othertaking

[RoFlmaTiC]

I rode past this stretch on my commute home this afternoon.

There were 2 very substantial puddles on the path where the water couldn't drain. I think this is going to be an issue going forward - the puddle covers most of the path, which is likely to cause westbound riders to veer into the wrong side of the path to avoid.

Sorta wishing they had retained the strip of sand to either side of the path as before - at least the water drained!

I wonder if those sprinklers near the cafe are still there - this could compound the problem!

[wexford]

Works appear to be complete now. Going through this morning, it's definitely now a slow/choke point which I trust was the intention. The marked lanes/lines are good, and because the lanes are so narrow there's a psychological barrier to overtaking especially near the western crossing point where, instead of a crosswalk, there's a Give Way sign at the choke into the chicane.

[eldavo]

I thought the yellow sand spread liberally on dark brown surface in the chicanes was a good visual hazard reminder to slow down =D

[uglybob]

Works appear to be complete now. Going through this morning, it's definitely now a slow/choke point which I trust was the intention. The marked lanes/lines are good, and because the lanes are so narrow there's a psychological barrier to overtaking especially near the western crossing point where, instead of a crosswalk, there's a Give Way sign at the choke into the chicane.

negative! i thought it was complete as well - however i was a bit late to work today, and rode past approx 8am - detours back in place again, so more work is being done. no idea what, will see on the way home i assume.

[wexford]

Ah, it was about 07:30 when I went through. There was sand on the surface but no other signs of work that I could see. Will have another gander on the way home I guess.

At any rate, there were cyclists and peds about and it was definitely slower getting through there than beforehand, which is a good sign.

[eldavo]

I had just read the latest rider down thread from Aushiker about the oncoming head on collision.
I left work at 5pm and entered the Fools Tour de City West, passing the ludicrious Halo on Mount development dangerously encroaching on one of the fastest blindest high traffic sections of PSP around.
I was making my way to the crash location in question at near beginning of thread.
Along the way the next stupid thing I saw after Halo on Mount's negligence was a dangerous cliche - middle age road/race rider in white 'lycra' kit make a blind right turn off Murray Street path at race speed onto the short George Street up-hill PSP portion here http://goo.gl/maps/Q3E7q
All his awesomeness was in peak hour with people were queued at the crossing red light both sides of the and people riding downhill were emergency braking to avoid cut off collision with the rider in front of me.
going downhill to join the queue, missing a crash by luck not thanks to any safety space, time, or traffic skill.
From the Wellington Street lights heading to Market Street, a big rider in blue kit teamed with a small rider in red kit who was acting like a sprint marker/leader constantly looking back at his bigger blue chum while riding in oncoming lane with oncoming traffic in both lanes.
Oncoming riders and pedestrians were squeezed as big blue chum overtook pedestrians westbound, red little leader went 3 wide to clear him, and then remained in oncoming lane for another 3 bikes and a couple of pedestrians until the new chicanes, where they had to face the impossible task of KEEPING SINGLE FILE IN THEIR OWN LANE! Fortunately they weren't travelling quickly, but that made it even more painful to watch as they carried it on up to the next chicane and up the hill.
Since they weren't even cycling quickly I passed and said "keep left for oncoming bikes mate" and realised I should have said "oncoming traffic" because they were squeezing oncoming pedestrians off as well. I had to go extra wide to pass uphill obviously too. They kept on to Subiaco while I took the Thomas Rd. overpass towards Leederville PSP so I didn't get any confrontational response.

In response to the other thread "enough is enough" about the futility of the situation, I think I (we) could keep a little "helper" leaflet kept on the bike with the road traffic act, the excerpts of the relevant laws, and maybe the Main Roads guide with our own improvements targeting these things is the least confrontational most positive 'education' attempt I could think of. I recall a rider had done some leaflet for other riders or cars about some other issue.
This can be like a yellow card, means no need to shout, have them get their back up, etc. etc. and spell it out clearly. Maybe a red card "don't be a f-wit" version that makes the message less politely and more boldly in larger print with less words and more middle finger gestures by famous cartoon characters. Johnny Chimpo is what I would use on my red card flyer.

[uglybob]

the re-working of the path has done nothing towards making it any safer - if anything its even made it worse than before.

i'm going to try & change my daily ride to avoid that path from now on, its just getting worse & worse, and it won't be long before there is another serious accident

[stealthbike]

the re-working of the path has done nothing towards making it any safer - if anything its even made it worse than before.

Not sure if it is any worse than before but I don't think it is much safer. The problem of pedestrians and cyclists crossing still exists and still requires cyclists to decide to give way (which doesn't happen often). I see cyclists ride on the wrong side of the chicane to avoid pedestrians and slower cyclists. The sign posts are all too high to read without looking up deliberately, so most cyclists and pedestrians would not even realise what they say. Downhill speed is still an issue. Nothing has been done to address the high volume of pedestrians and cyclists interacting between the train station and Harbourtown.

[Baalzamon]

Cobblestone it

[Thoglette]

Cobblestone it

Having had a run-in with a wet brick speedhump (covered in wet leaves) this week all I can say is "ouch!"

Seriously, I refer you to my previous comment: provide fly over/under as per Leederville station.

[uglybob]

Cobblestone it

Having had a run-in with a wet brick speedhump (covered in wet leaves) this week all I can say is "ouch!"

Seriously, I refer you to my previous comment: provide fly over/under as per Leederville station.

the west leedy station has the fly-over, but also has a much, much smaller volume of traffic as well - i'd be interested to see if that would solve the issue (AT) city west, as i think if you put the same amount of people in & around the west leedy station, you'd strike a lot of issues

[Thoglette]

the west leedy station has the fly-over, but also has a much, much smaller volume of traffic as well - i'd be interested to see if that would solve the issue (AT) city west, as i think if you put the same amount of people in & around the west leedy station, you'd strike a lot of issues

I concur that there are still problems at W/L - there's still interaction between the path and pax exiting/acccessing station at two points. (And buckets of leaves)

West Perth needs under/over passes at both ends. Probably bury PSP at the West end and put stairs over PSP at east end.

[uglybob]

a straight overpass, no entry / exits is what would be ideal - separate the bikes from the peds completly.

[Clownshoes]

8) Build a bridge over the cross walk?

It works well at West Leederville

+1 your making common sence, gov departments lack it

But government departments are the ones who allocate budgets for these kind of things - bridges are very expensive

[Thoglette]

But government departments are the ones who allocate budgets for these kind of things - bridges are very expensive

Ask the MRD. They seem to have lots of money for bridges. (funny as I don't recall them ever making a profit)

[ColinOldnCranky]

the re-working of the path has done nothing towards making it any safer - if anything its even made it worse than before.

Not sure if it is any worse than before but I don't think it is much safer. The problem of pedestrians and cyclists crossing still exists and still requires cyclists to decide to give way (which doesn't happen often). I see cyclists ride on the wrong side of the chicane to avoid pedestrians and slower cyclists. The sign posts are all too high to read without looking up deliberately, so most cyclists and pedestrians would not even realise what they say. Downhill speed is still an issue. Nothing has been done to address the high volume of pedestrians and cyclists interacting between the train station and Harbourtown.

I don't excuse motorists for failing to check the left hand cyclists lane when turning left just bercause it is inconvenient. By the same token if cyclists are riding the drops in such a manner that they do not observe normal signage then it is encumbent on them to address that. When I rode on the drops I still managed to watch in front of me while still maintaining situational awareness generally.

I haven't been there since the works. But I never found any difficulty in reading the signage. And my recollection is that it was heavily (some may say excessively) signed so I find it hard to imagine total unawareness even if the odd sign is missed. Or am I missing something - have they elevated the signage way above normal?

I take what I think you are suggesting however - cyclist DO do stupid things despite what you do. And so you can be hit even when you are doing everything right. The only way I see to improve this is to subject us to police observation and prosecutions commensurate with that applying to cars.

[wexford]

I haven't been there since the works. But I never found any difficulty in reading the signage. And my recollection is that it was heavily (some may say excessively) signed so I find it hard to imagine total unawareness even if the odd sign is missed. Or am I missing something - have they elevated the signage way above normal?

Heading east (downhill) the give way sign is elevated and obscured by some foliage. A "give way" sign painted on the path (if it's possible to reproduce the regular traffic sign in paint?) would be useful. Of course, it's pretty obvious that there's a traffic hazard ahead with the roundabout-y chicane-y arrangement, so anyone hitting it at speed is clearly stupid.

[Spoked]

I rode this section yesterday in both directions and although there was no pedestrians crossing the path from the train station as it was Sunday I did notice that my attention was drawn to avoiding the kerbing and making the necessary course corrections to navigate the "hazard" and the amount of time looking for pedestrians was very small. On previous encounters in that section prior to the installation of the kerbing I spent most of the time looking for pedestrians.

Signage painted on the path leaves no doubt that you should slow down and keep a look out at least going downhill, can't recall the uphill signage as I was going rather slow fighting gravity in the heat and pushing into a headwind.

[Bakks]

Judging by the work and signage this morning, it looks like they are now going to install speed humps.

[nachoman]

On Tuesday afternoon I almost had a head on collision with a west bound cyclist who darted in the wrong lane going through the diamond.

[Baalzamon]

Judging by the work and signage this morning, it looks like they are now going to install speed humps.

I do hope they do that to force cyclists to slow down at that dangerous spot

[twowheels]

I've only recently returned to Perth. Have used this chicane three times since and before reading this post. The solution has created exactly the same issue that occurs on one of my local streets with local bogans, ie split road on bend causes temptation to continue on path of least resistance straight through the crossroad and onto the right lane on other side.

[rolandp]

Don't believe so, in relation to the question on speed humps. There were some temporary speed mats used to slow down traffic when the work was occurring but they get lifted up at the end of the day.

The path was closed when I rode through yesterday at 7:50am for the spraying of green paint on these crossings. Unclear why this work needed to occur in peak hour for both peds and cyclists.

With the green paint, the yellow curbing, the raised signs and the slow down signs on the path, don't forget to wear your sun glasses to reduce the clash of colours.

[uglybob]

the green paint is very obvious. (unfortunately) rode this section this morning - detour whilst they finalise the paving etc off but can't miss it

instead i was left with a couple of morons with earphone in who decided to try ride me off the path instead

[eldavo]

I did wonder what colour blind folk see when they see this new scheme... I also wondered if they had a plan for all this or someone is just knee-jerk reacting to every quick quip in this thread, resulting in a big tie-dyed matzo ball =P

I can recommend an even more pleasant detour up the hill for an apple/cinnamon/raisin scroll
I was a bit late for work so emailed the photo to boss hoping honest humour was better than being run off path excuse like Uglybob