Is Red Light Running on a bike always Inexcusible?

Note: I do not condone running red lights. They are there for safety predominantly and you should always follow the rules of the road when on the road.

I cycle a lot in Manchester and have noticed other cyclists disobeying red lights. Interestingly, it happens an order of magnitude more often on Oxford Road near the university campus than on any other road in my experience. It could be down to irresponsible students who have never taken a driving test and thus don't know the rules of the road (but surely everyone knows red means stop?), or there could be other factors. Maybe cyclists are given the red light too much? Maybe red shouldn't always mean stop?

I think the first issue is that cyclists are often given a red when there doesn't need to be one. The designers of Oxford Road clearly understood this, as they have implemented a few red light bypasses for cyclists along the route at T junctions.

These allow cyclists to go straight on, even when the side road has a green light, since the side road traffic does not come into conflict with cyclists. They both have different designs for pedestrian crossings. The top one has pedestrians giving way to the cycleway to get to the actual crossing, and the bottom one has a red/green man and red/green cycle light. However, the red cycle light and red man are frequently ignored entirely, and both pedestrians and cyclists treat the bottom junction exactly like the top one, with pedestrians crossing between a gap in cyclists.

These are good designs as you don't have to stop unnecessarily. Compare it to the junction just down the road however and you see that this design hasn't been used on most of the junctions along the route.

It's the exact same principle here. Northbound cyclists shouldn't have to stop when the side road to the right has a green light, there should be no conflict between the vehicles and the bikes. However, they are given a red light just like the general traffic is. This is thus almost entirely ignored and it actually puts pedestrians at risk as cyclists ignore it regardless if the red is for the crossing pedestrians or for the side road. A setup like above would be much better for everyone. I of course always stop here. It doesn't add much time in reality and I try to follow the law 100% of the time.

There are plenty of examples of poor planning that just encourage red light running.

Turning left from Moss Lane East onto the Oxford Road cycleway requires stopping at a red light (where the van is), then joining Oxford Road, only to immediately leave it to join the cycleway in the park. Couldn't there have been a "slip lane" from Moss Lane East directly into the park?

Or this left turn here onto the cycle lane on Cavendish Street? The Oxford Road corridor has many junctions that have little to no cycle provision, and it's easy to see why (although I don't condone it) many people will run the red lights when there is little risk to themselves or anyone else by doing so, but decent time savings.

That said, Oxford Road is also plagued by inconsiderate and stupid red light running predominantly by cyclists (but also by bus drivers, taxis and private cars...). Things like cycling through a pedestrian crossing on red as people are trying to cross, or cycling straight on across a busy crossroads as the other road has a green light are just selfish and indefensible. I'm not sure why Oxford Road is so bad for it, I'd say a much higher proportion of cyclists do it here vs my other route down Upper Chorlton Road. I am often one of the only ones stopping at zebras across the cycleway or pedestrian pelican crossings and it's really sad to see.

There are other reasons as well than just time savings. For example, it can often be safer to run a red light. The Wilmslow/Wilbraham junction is a great example of this.

The light phasing goes North/South traffic, then East/West Traffic, then 4 directions of pedestrians, then repeat. There is no cycle phase (although you can use the shared pavements and the toucan crossings if you really want but no one does). This means that if you are going North or South along the cycle route and wait for the green light, you will be crossing the junction with the other traffic. You will get squeezed at a pinch point by impatient buses. You will get cars turning left across you. I always do this junction in primary position now and ignore the cycle lanes. A cyclist who slowly rolls through when it's the green pedestrian phase will get to the other side in complete safety, and the pedestrians will too. Again, I am one of the only people to stop for the lights here, everyone else slowly and cautiously rolls through on the pedestrian phase.

And this isn't even mentioning trying to make a right turn. Again your choice is either cautiously rolling though on the green pedestrian phase, or going with the traffic and waiting in the box in the middle for a gap while 30+mph traffic roars past within centimetres on both sides, and a taxi honks at you for not turning in a gap that you thought was too small. Again not hard to see why people do it.

I finally want to mention one more junction I ride a lot that has awful lights for cyclists. Chester Road roundabout. I will openly admit to "running" the reds here, as otherwise I'd never get to work. It's not as bad as you think though, let me explain.

Here is the junction, and on my journey from the bottom road (Chorlton Road) to the top right (Chester Road) there are 4 traffic lights. I first have to cross a roundabout exit, then the roundabout itself, then the other side of the roundabout, and then a roundabout entrance. The problem is that these lights are timed as to not delay motorists at all. You are only given a green when cars are already stopped for other motorists. This means that you will often hit three or four of these red lights, which can have up to a minute wait. It's pretty poor. As you can see, these are parallel to pedestrian crossings: 

It's well accepted that crossing on a red man as long as there are no cars coming is perfectly legal and considered fine, but if I were to cycle across here without waiting for the green light, I'd be breaking the law. And yes, I will happily admit to doing this. If there is a safe gap in traffic, I will cross regardless of the light. It might help me make other green lights further round the roundabout, meaning it doesn't take me 5 minutes to cross a single junction. If I knew that waiting for the green light would mean the other lights would sync up and I could do the rest of the junction without stopping, I'd never cross on red, what would be the point?

My conclusion is basically that a lot of red light running is people wanting to do legitimate low risk manoeuvres, and we have a lot of work to do to re-design our junctions such that those can be carried out without having to run red lights. Sometimes this is because of safety, sometimes because of time saved, and sometimes its just because people are impatient and value their time over their own (and others safety). It's important we realise which is which and design out as much as possible.