What can Seattle learn from Dutch street design?

Post by throwaway2245 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:39 AM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #25

armada651 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch person who lived in the UK for a year, yes. Bicycle lanes are nearly non-existent outside of London and the boroughs seem to be hostile to the idea in general. The few bicycle lanes you do find often end as abruptly as they start, there's nothing connecting them and there are no bicycle crossings when you meet a road. However if you get a mountain bike and stick to the dirt roads along the rivers and hills…

A problem in the UK is that in general we are hostile to build roads and certainly wide roads. So roads are as narrow as possible and congested, which in itself is not great for bikes but also makes bike lanes near impossible. And when a bike lane is built (i.e. painted on the road or pavement) it is usually also very narrow and interferes with traffic. Obviously this is difficult to change for existing roads, but we…

Post by Someone » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #2

I must say that I find it rather odd that apparently it is “phænomenal” that 25% of all trips are by bike. What other means of transportation would one use for short distances where a bike is simply faster than a car due to ease of parking? Personally, however, I use a skateboard fitted with 100 mm all terrain wheels for even greater ease of parking.

Post by markvdb » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #20

armada651 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch person who lived in the UK for a year, yes. Bicycle lanes are nearly non-existent outside of London and the boroughs seem to be hostile to the idea in general. The few bicycle lanes you do find often end as abruptly as they start, there's nothing connecting them and there are no bicycle crossings when you meet a road. However if you get a mountain bike and stick to the dirt roads along the rivers and hills…

> Yes, any Dutch expat you meet is silently judging your country on the safety of its cycling infrastructure. And so you should. The UK's cycling infrastructure is embarrassingly bad. An example. Local to me, recently, the government spent over £100m on a new road junction, to replace an old one. One of the main reasons that they had to build a new junction was that they claimed they could not remove traffic lights f…

Post by jules » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:54 AM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #31

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #2

I must say that I find it rather odd that apparently it is “phænomenal” that 25% of all trips are by bike. What other means of transportation would one use for short distances where a bike is simply faster than a car due to ease of parking? Personally, however, I use a skateboard fitted with 100 mm all terrain wheels for even greater ease of parking.

I wanted to argue against the 'Europeans are supercilious' comment, but this comment doesn't help. Dutch people do know that the extent of their bike lanes and infrastructure is incredible. I've only seen the new 'megafietsenstalling' at Den Haag Centraal train station complained about because 8000 bike parking spaces was not ambitious enough and is not expected to be enough space. And yet, it's the second largest in…

Post by stasiu » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

teekert wrote: post #35

Sometimes on fora I encounter pretty hostile attitudes towards bikes/bikers in the US, things like: They claim the road! They are dangerous! They claim the pavement! And I'm looking at the movies and pictures thinking, but where else can they be? In the Netherlands everybody is a biker at least some of the time and a driver at other times. A hostile attitude towards a biker is just simply very weird to see and read a…