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Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

advisorybikelanes.com

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Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#11

Post by clairity »

occz wrote: post #2

As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.

there's no need to be anti-car (it's fruitless anyway) to be in favor of a more diverse mix of transport. we'd have plenty of space for mixed mobility if we just converted all on-street parking to protected bike lanes rather than implementing these edge lane roads, which seem to be a solution looking for a problem (lack of space, in this case).

the important bit is segregating traffic by inertia and mass. i'd personally love to see all the car/truck thoroughfares (roads) put underground, with people getting explicit priority on the above-ground, mixed-use streets.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#12

Post by Freak_NL »

> This roadway configuration originated in the Netherlands where they have over 50 years and many hundreds of road-kilometers of experience with this facility.

Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either.

This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to arterial or collector roads. Taking it out of that context seems risky.

(The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane, and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes².)

1: Example https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271...

2: Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15....

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#13

Post by bombcar »

robotmlg wrote: post #4

Road Guy Rob did a video recently about a failed edge lane road experiment. Seems like a good idea to me as long as car traffic isn't too heavy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE

I think the big problem is nobody knows what the heck they’ve encountered.

If you do it naturally people can figure it out: make the road very narrow but technically wide enough for two cars and people will hug the center naturally.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#14

Post by ajb »

These seem work a lot like "bidirectional single lane with passing places" (mountain or very low traffic country roads). Except that you pass by pulling in behind a bike. It seems to me that it relies a lot on people understanding how they work. If most people have experience with the "passing place" version, these would work. If they don't, it would seem like they would need a lot of user education. Where I live, I almost never encountered a passing place road and they always made me very nervous when I did.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#15

Post by sokoloff »

occz wrote: post #2

As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.

Space is at a premium in many places, possibly every place where such a road might be placed.

One of these roads is two blocks away from me. I’m going to go have a look at it later today, but the road it’s on is very similar to the road I live on: two direction street, residential parking on both sides, not four car widths’ wide, so people are already “taking turns” and used to it.

I bet it works exactly like the street I live on, only using more paint.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#16

Post by bombcar »

ajb wrote: post #14

These seem work a lot like "bidirectional single lane with passing places" (mountain or very low traffic country roads). Except that you pass by pulling in behind a bike. It seems to me that it relies a lot on people understanding how they work. If most people have experience with the "passing place" version, these would work. If they don't, it would seem like they would need a lot of user education. Where I live, I…

I feel that to implement these in the US you’d want to start by marking those country roads, but even then it would take time. L

It almost feels like it works better unmarked.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#17

Post by avianlyric »

occz wrote: post #2

As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.

In the Netherlands this used instead of segregated cycle lanes, but in addition to a strong network of cycle lanes.

Most commonly you find them down very old, narrow, country lanes, where there simply isn’t space for true segregation. But equally, there’s usually no need to use these roads a cyclist, as there are normally more direct dedicated cycle routes. You frequently only use them because your specifically looking for a scenic route, or something a little unusual to cycle down.

In other parts of the world, they will also have their place in space constraint locations, or in large networks of small country lanes, where providing segregated infrastructure simply isn’t possible or viable due to lack of space, or extremely low volumes of traffic.

I personally think the UK could benefit substantially from these types of roads, if country lanes where converted. The lanes are barely big enough for bi-directional motor traffic, and occasionally not even that wide. Providing edge lane roads would encourage motor traffic to remain in the centre of the road, where they’re substantially less likely to collide with cycle or pedestrian traffic, which may be hidden around one of the many blind corners.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#18

Post by notatoad »

blamazon wrote: post #6

This is basically a paint manifestation of the "share the road" idea which is already common policy in North America on bidirectional roads without a bike lane. It is darkly amusing to see a lot of motorists being upset by finally seeing this arrangement in a format they can understand - dashed and solid painted lines.

the only reason the "share the road" signage is accepted in america is because drivers interpret it to mean that cyclists should give way to motorists. "other road users should share with me" rather than "i need to share with other road users"

try going to a community meeting and suggesting that a "share the road" sign be replaced with a "cyclists may use full lane" sign and see how much pushback you get.

Re: Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

#19

Post by notatoad »

occz wrote: post #2

As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.

it seems like the sort of thing that would work well in a space that already has a culture of sharing the roads amongst various transportation modes, and where drivers are already generally respectful and courteous towards other road users. I can see why it works well in the netherlands.

I think it's a little naive to imagine it would work in north america. drivers here need more than a gentle reminder to not run other users off the road.

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