Effect of side road junction design enhancements and flows on priority for crossing pedestrians and cyclists

Abstract

Enhancements to designs or carriageway markings are increasingly used by engineers to reinforce pedestrians’ and cyclists’ priority when crossing side roads at their junctions with main roads. Yielding behaviour in 13,402 interactions was collected at enhanced and control junctions. Enhanced junctions created high proportions of interactions demonstrating priority for pedestrians and cyclists (by design: 90%, markings with zebra: 88%) and eliminated voluntary yields by them. A negative binomial model with log-link accounting for junction type and flows indicates 1.4 times more yields forced by drivers onto pedestrians and cyclists with enhanced design, and 1.1 times more with enhanced marking with zebra. There is no effect of the crossing set-back distance from the main road, cyclists experience fewer forced yields than pedestrians, and cycling towards main road traffic is not problematic. The research confirms the efficacy of enhancements, supported inclusion of enhanced designs in Scottish guidance, and is influencing guidance interpretation.