"John Rowland" wrote in
message ...
Hi all,

I have often seen footage of foreign crossroads with 2 diagonal
pedestrian
crossings in addition to the 4 orthogonal crossings we usually have
here in
Britain. Today I found a crossroads with all six crossings just
east of
Burnt Oak tube station in Northwest London. According to the
nearest person
I could accost, it's been like that for about 2 or 3 years. Is this
the only
one in Britain? It seems to have been there too long to be a trial.


Ah yes, a Barnes dance - named after NYC Traffic Commisioner Barnes,
who was Commissioner during the 1940s.

The Burnt Oak one was the second in Britain, I gather. There was an
earlier one in Sussex somewhere. Half a century for ideas to cross
the Atlantic (in either direction) is about par for the course, I
suppose.

The Burnt Oak barnes dance stated off as part of DfT (as it then
wasn't) research project S205Q. "Junction Improvements for Vulnerable
Road Users", project management by Faber Maunsell in St. Albans.
Mysteriously there has never been a report of the research, and none
is planned, although the research should long since have been
completed.

The most controversial junction "improvement" being researched was
the idea of putting bike lanes round the edge of roundabouts. That's
an obvious (to me) killer. If you are ever riding a bike round a
roundabout, stay as far away from the bike lanes as possible.

Jeremy Parker