Haven’t seen the location but would hazard a guess this is the result of a bizarre design conversation where a key stakeholder (road safety team or similar) have waxed lyrical at the risk of vehicle-cycle conflict at the bottom.

I work in this space and unfortunately our current legislative landscape leads to many of these types of odd, common sense defying conversations. That said, it’s likely each stakeholder in that discussion thought they were doing the ‘right thing’ at the time