Most pointless set of pedestrian lights?

[Ian Perry]

Is this the most pointless set of pedestrian lights in the UK/world? This road leads only to the car parks of the International Swimming Pool, ice rink and yacht club in Cardiff. A Zebra Crossing would have been cheaper to purchase, install and maintain and delay both pedestrians and motorists much less.
Does anyone know the typical price difference of a pelican and zebra crossing?

I have marked the location of this crossing in red on the map.

[Ian Perry]

I did forget to mention, just beyond the upside down cycle lane marking on what Cardiff class as a cycle path, there is a brand new lamp-post right in the middle of this new, purpose build cycle path...

The local brewery is called Brains. For many years they ran the slogan, "It's Brains you want, Brains beers". I'm not sure if the road engineers of Cardiff are suffering from a lack of brains or and excess of Brains!

[Ian Perry]

The footpath from Cardiff International Swimming Pool to the nearby bus stop. Mind the puddles!

[Martin Cassini]

Presumably that particular road can get packed with traffic on event days. In any case, as long as we live and die by directional priority (main road, or, as at roundabouts, right-side priority), instead of temporal priority (filter in turn), engineers and policymakers will perceive the "need" for lights (to interrupt the priority streams of traffic to enable others to cross). Drivers on main roads are simply following the culture of priority laid down by the misguided rules of the road. What is needed is a change in culture. If we had a culture based on equal rights and social custom - as in other walks of life - most of our road safety, road rage, and many of our congestion "problems" would vanish in a puff of exhaust smoke.

[Ian Perry]

This road is no busier on a weekend when there is an event on... In fact this photograph was taken on a particularly busy day for the pool - and if it is so dangerous to cross this bit of road, then surely it is more dangerous to walk in the ar park itself when vehicles are reversing and turning round blind bends...

Cars do travel at excessive speeds through car parks, and people have been killed or had their cars written off by these speeders... So how do you redesign car parks so that motorists slow down - or do we need more sleeping policemen?

Yes, education is part of the answer, yet we have some from a place where people drove with people walking on the streets, but then the car drivers drove the pedestrians away...

[Ian Perry]

I came across this:

"At many intersections outside of downtown areas, pedestrians need to use pedestrian pushbuttons. This may require pedestrians who are blind to divert from their path of travel to find and use the pushbutton. When pedestrian pushbutton use is required to get the walk signal, the pedestrian has to align and cross during the next pedestrian phase, leaving no time to listen to moving parallel traffic and realign before crossing"

Now surely a zebra crossing is more user friendly to a blind person and guide dog than a pelican crossing?

[David Neylan]

As I understand it Pelican crossings are old technology replaced by Puffin crossings.

The Pelican has the green and red man on the the opposite side of the road, visible to the driver and pedestrian with an audible crossing signal.

The Puffin has the green and red man on the button box not visible to the driver and the audible signal is replaced by a revolving cone under the button box that has to be felt for by the blind ( yes it's true).

In Bridport 2 years ago a Puffin crossing cost £26,000 to install, at the same time a four way lights controlled junction was upgraded from Pelicans to Puffins costing £85,000.
Last year the removal of a Zebra crossing, resurfacing, installing a Pelican with 'refuge' (caged) island cost £100,000.

I got all this from my council they are obliged to reveal this sort of information.

[Martin Cassini]

Good information, David. The public money spent on segregating and alienating us from each other, all in the name of safety (when the very foundation of traffic control is flawed, so the measures are in vain and the money wasted), is an under-reported scandal. My next piece for Economic Affairs (still a month or two away from publication), addresses the subject, and asks if we need look any further for painless public expenditure cuts.

David Neylan said:

As I understand it Pelican crossings are old technology replaced by Puffin crossings.

The Pelican has the green and red man on the the opposite side of the road, visible to the driver and pedestrian with an audible crossing signal.

The Puffin has the green and red man on the button box not visible to the driver and the audible signal is replaced by a revolving cone under the button box that has to be felt for by the blind ( yes it's true).

In Bridport 2 years ago a Puffin crossing cost £26,000 to install, at the same time a four way lights controlled junction was upgraded from Pelicans to Puffins costing £85,000.
Last year the removal of a Zebra crossing, resurfacing, installing a Pelican with 'refuge' (caged) island cost £100,000.

I got all this from my council they are obliged to reveal this sort of information.