Great Western Coffee Shop

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpv96lyp4o):

What please is the relevance of this subject with regards to Rail / GWR services/ this rail passengers discussion and rail information site ?

I posted on our well-established board, at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?board=31.0 , AMLAG, where 2212 posts in
295 topics have previously been posted.

I'm sorry if I seem a little terse.

Chris.  :-[

It *is* posted in the right place - "The West but not the West's trains" ... but .. it came up for me at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/recent.html as I am testing stuff in the mobile friendly pages, and it flagged up to me that I haven't yet added the board name into that format.  Something added onto my list.

I've already been on that page adding today to add a list of who has liked pages and a like button (grotty format / operation as yet) and more to do on there, but too tired tonight!

It took the council's contractors a long time to do it. It has taken the media quite a long time to cotton on to it. Not sure it helps any road users, more than its previous incarnation.

Probably the only way you would get California cross (roads) and Nine Mile Ride into the national media. Not sure how you could "spruce up" the rest of the area.

Statement Of The Bleedin' Obvious alert.

A Google Maps Street View image from May 2023 shows this location as having a perfectly functional mini-roundabout with pedestrian refuges arrangement. So to what extent are the residents of Finchampstead on the hook for whatever this completely unnecessary upgrade cost and which (council?) imbeciles signed this of as being in any way appropriate?

A highway engineers take on it https://bsky.app/profile/rantyhighwayman.bsky.social/post/3lh74oakzkk25 (https://bsky.app/profile/rantyhighwayman.bsky.social/post/3lh74oakzkk25)

I have not paid a lot of attention to this, though it has appeared on the front page of the local papers often enough (notably last September with the headline "crossroads in national spotlight"). The council have put quite a lot about it on their web site (https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/roads/road-maintenance/california-cross), and not just in response to all this comment. From the start, they seem to have wanted to show they were not just roads managers. (Note this all goes back long before the Lib Dems took over the council in 2022).

The junction was a double mini-roundabout, and they never work very well because drivers have to attend to too many directions at once. With a lot of pedestrians as well, it has been seen as a problem for a long time. But development means more houses, more traffic, and some s106 money to throw at the problem.


From then on the language and logic have got more woolly. My objection to it is that for drivers who are not locals and come across it while at least half lost, having to cope with such an unfamiliar style of junction is an extra risk. Successful cooperation between drivers an pedestrians requires them to all know what's going on, and who is going to go where. I'm not convinced by the more recent idea that forcing drivers to work things out with no guidelines is safer in a case like this

I think they should have used normal zebra crossing markings at all 5 positions, with the necessary approach signage. There seems no reason for drivers to give priority to pedestrians, so their safety has been seriously reduced.

This was exactly the problem that occurred on the internal roads on the site at which I worked.  The architect had the idea that it would look more elegant to denote the pedestrian crossings by a shallow beige raised area across the road, rather than the usual black and white stripes.  The staff expected that only black and white stripes would mean a pedestrian crossing, because that was the marking they saw everywhere else.  Nobody died but there were many near misses.  Eventually management overruled the architect's idea and painted the stripes, and all was well - everybody then knew exactly what was meant and who had priority.

There are (or have been)  a number of other none-standard Zebra crossings around

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47402269

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-57630842

and I recall a curved zebra crossing on a corner - I think in Funchal - sure I took a picture but can't find it.

To be fair, the crossing by Castle Park in Bristol is signal-controlled - the area that’s been painted would normally just be plain highway - so it’s not particularly confusing.

Something similar at Chichester. (https://road.cc/content/news/furious-locals-rant-about-cycling-roundabout-312455)

Perhaps the Department for Transport should now update their guidance on roundabouts in the Highway Code (https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/roundabouts.html).

Their current illustrations bear no resemblance to these increasingly artistic variations which are now springing up.  ::)

Better still - update their guidance to prohibit non-standard road markings. Surely the whole idea of standard road markings is for safety, so that all road users know what the rules are, they can be taught as part of teaching children pedestrian road safety and safe cycling and learner drivers to drive.

I do not have a problem in principle with Dutch-style "home zones" where motorised traffic has to cede priority to others in the right places, but there needs to be clear and universal road signage and marking.