Cork City starts to use new “stay left to turn right” cycle lane layout

Cork City Council has started using the new “two-stage turns” layout from the National Cycle Design Manual — older versions of the design can be found in limited locations across Ireland, mostly in suburban areas of Dublin and Cork.

The design is intentionally called a “hook turn” or “box turn” because it usually involves a box layout. The design is a formalisation of a “stay left to turn right” turning movement.

The new layout is triangle-shaped and attached to cycle lanes as they go straight across junctions. Both the cycle lane and the triangle waiting area also use Dutch-style “elephant feet” markings for cycle lanes at junctions.

Kevin Long, a member of the Cork Cycling Campaign, tweeted a video of one of the new turns in Cork.

Long said: “New two-stage turn to get across to CUH. There’s a lot of new box turns like these across the city, but not many people know how to use them. Could be a useful project to do a promotion/ how-to video .”

The approach is in contrast to the recently finished layout in Dublin City, which makes the corners of footpaths shared paths to allow people cycling to turn using shared crossings.

Using the design includes:

  • (1) Cycling towards the junction as usual.
  • (2) Starting to turn left.
  • (3a) Stoping on the cycle right turn arrow marking and facing towards the side street on the other side of the street or road.
  • (3b) Waiting until the traffic lights change to show green in the direction you’re travelling in.
  • (4) Proceeding ahead of other traffic across the junction.

The Cycle Design Manual outlines: “A two-stage right turn layout, see Figure 4.94, can be used to facilitate right-turning cyclists at signalised junctions where a protected layout is not being implemented. The layout incorporates a marked waiting area for right-turning cyclists on the side road which is located between the pedestrian crossing and the main road alignment. The pedestrian crossing may need to be set back slightly to accommodate the waiting area. The vehicular stop line is also set back to improve visibility of waiting cyclists and to allow cyclists to advance ahead of motorists.”

“In this arrangement, cyclists share the road with motorists and move in the same signal stage, preferably with an early start for cyclists. The waiting areas provide an alternative facility for cyclists to turn right without having to wait in the centre of the carriageway for a gap in the traffic,” the manual outlines.

It continues: “Cyclists wishing to turn right can do so in a two-stage manoeuvre. They first enter the junction when their approach arm is given the green signal and proceed to pull into the waiting area in the mouth of the side road. When the side road receives a green signal, cyclists can proceed to cross to the opposite side to complete their right turn manoeuvre.”

The manual suggests that a traffic light loop detector should be installed in the bicycle waiting area to ensure that bicycles are detected, especially on quieter side roads where there might not be frequent traffic to trigger the traffic light change.

It adds: “Where an early start is being provided for cyclists, a secondary cycle signal may be useful, depending on the geometry and signal head placements at the junction.”

Here is the example of the layout pictured in the Cycle Design Manual:

A number of cities have produced videos explaining the turn — obviously, there are some differences between these designs and the Irish ones:

The opposite of the “stay left to turn right” design, stay right to turn left, is sometimes used in the Netherlands at side streets to allow people to turn left from cycle paths where there is no space for protected junction turning spaces:

1 thought on “Cork City starts to use new “stay left to turn right” cycle lane layout”

  1. The stay right to turn left is also widely used in Denmark. That said, there’s not seen to be any need for paint on the road. Since moving back to Ireland, I have used the stay left to turn right at busy junctions such as Donnybrook church N11 junction. or turning right on the south quays to go north at e.g. Christchurch.
    For me this is more about bike user education and awareness than paint. Too many bike users think like motorists and think they have to go across multiple lanes to go right and it is just plain dangerous.

    Reply

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