Moreland City Council – Merri Creek Path
Details and Aim of Trial
To determine the most appropriate combination of lights to meet cyclists’ and pedestrian’s safety and security preferences
Light selection rationale
- Red, green and amber (orange) are long accepted indicator colors and thus may be best preserved
- Blue is rarely used for lighting for pedestrian or vehicular traffic, however it has some good lighting properties, including visibility, and may be appropriate for pedestrian-traffic lights
- Generally the selection was found acceptable for the trial purpose
- Steady lights indicate an ongoing condition, flashing lights indicate possible condition changes such as cross roads, etc., orange of lower level risk than red
- White lights are generally reckoned to indicate delineation of pathways, etc. thus the traditional cats eye is white..
Lights selected
- Green for clear path
- White for curves, corners, bends, shoulders, etc
- Flashing orange for low risk intersections
- Red flashing for high risk intersections
- Blue for pedestrian paths (merging or parallel)
- Combination of blue and green for shared pedestrians and bicycles
- Red and orange steady or flashing for obstructions, etc
Layout plan
- Delineation lights (green and white) used to indicate bicycle path centre
- Amber flashing chosen to indicate crossings and/or merging paths and roads
- Blue lights were not used due to the fact that they are generally used to indicate water mains for fire fighting
Trial period
- February 2008 to January 2009
Trial location (Map Reference Mel Page 30 B6)
- Section of the Merri Creek Path near Russion Orthodox Church and Velodrome
- See Map Below
Trial environment description
- Shared pathway pedestrians and bicycles
- Number of crossing of roads and paths
- Twisting pathway
- Little if any street lighting reaches paths
- Concrete surfaces
Results
Light selection
- All lights worked according to specifications
- The final choice was – amber for intersections, white to delineate and guide and green to indicate a clearway
- some users preferred steady amber for crossings, etc., and most agreed that if the risk was high, they should flash
Layout
- Most users said that they would prefer to have the lights at the path side to delineate and were happy with the central lights where paths were shared or corners were sharp
- Generally all agreed that the lights made the paths more rideable
