Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

bicycledutch.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 339 posts

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#131

Post by isoprophlex »

vanderZwan wrote: post #124
isoprophlex wrote: post #96

It's the urban planning, but I'll point out that it's the requirements and responibilities put on the drivers as well. Driving lessons for me consisted for 80% of learning how to ALWAYS ALWAYS track all the cyclists and pedestrians in urban environments, how to approach an intersection and have complete visual on whatever the weaker parties might be doing. A very defensive "assume weird shit can happen any time, and…

It also helps that "the car driver is to blame until proven otherwise" is the actual law in the Netherlands, which is motivated precisely because of that power dynamic. Essentially, the responsibility defaults the more dangerous vehicle. (for some reason this always is controversial with a lot of Americans whenever it is brought up in on-line discussions)

Having recently read "Amerikanen Lopen Niet" (Americans Don't Walk), the power dynamic you describe seems to be entirely real.

Because a car is essential for economic survival in the USA, it's probably difficult for some to accept alternate realities from the status quo.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#132

Post by blueflow »

jmmcd wrote: post #120
adrianh wrote: post #20

I moved from the U.S. to the Netherlands nine years ago, and I can attest that the bike infrastructure is amazing and has an outsized impact on your quality of life and general happiness. Being able to bike everywhere — safely, quickly, without any cultural baggage of "being one of those bicycle people" — is a total game-changer. It's one of those things that sounds kooky to people who haven't actually experienced it…

> "being one of those bicycle people" What really amazes me is motorists' dislike of cyclists (common here in Ireland, also). If that cyclist you see wasn't cycling, they'd be in a car in front of you, and your traffic queue would be worse. Every cyclist is doing every motorist a favour.

Here in town, there is a place where cyclists cross the oncoming lane to enter a bike pathway. The cyclists go downhill and thus have quite some speed. For the cyclists, they are catching a gap between cars. No big deal. From the perspective of a car driver, you have oncoming traffic in the same lane. Bonus point if the cyclist didn't signal their left-turn. I'm sure this location alone is producing a dozen of cyclist haters every day. I think the cyclists lack awareness that cars are bulky and heavy and thus require some free area ahead of them for breaking.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#134

Post by dddw »

gryzzly wrote: post #128

It is completely beyond me why other EU countries simply don’t copy the dutch. It’s clearly way better designed, it’s a pleasure for cyclists, drivers and pedestrians and way safer.

Yeah almost everybody copied our airport signage system. Why not the road system... NL is very flat though

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#135

Post by anentropic »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #76

This design highlights a major failing with UK cycle "infrastructure". Here, we often have shared use pavements with sometimes a bit of white paint to designate the pedestrian and cycle lanes, but they cede priority at every single side road. The problem is that it makes cycling using them really awkward as it takes significant energy for cyclists to slow down and then speed up multiple times. The irony is that if yo…

Yeah it really strikes me when reading the OP article that this is what a country that's "got it's shit together" looks like...

OTOH I did wonder how feasible it is to transfer such a well-designed system to UK towns and cities where it seems like available space would be too cramped to recreate all those nice features though

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#136

Post by DonHopkins »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #53
louwrentius wrote: post #12

Although this was in the '80s I remember that I (Dutch) walked to school at the age of 5, in a town (technically a city (Enkhuizen)), mostly through a pedestrian area but I had to cross one busy street. My parents told me later that they secretly followed me the first few times (I never noticed). Just try to image that you live in a country that is so safe you can let small kids walk to school. Try to imagine what a…

> Just try to imag[in]e that you live in a country that is so safe you can let small kids walk to school. The USA is already that safe. > Try to imagine what a society could look like if it's designed for people first, not traffic. The normal approach is to build overpasses or underpasses so that pedestrians have no need to go into the road. https://tylervigen.com/the-mystery-of-the-bloomfield-bridge

If your kids happen to survive walking to school in the US, then they get shot instead, thanks to the NRA and the Republican party.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#137

Post by contrarian1234 »

throw310822 wrote: post #102
contrarian1234 wrote: post #91

I find bikelanes that are integrated with sidewalks incredibly dangerous and give a false sense of safety. Bikes hitting pedestrians (ex: children wandering out on to the bikelane) is a much larger safety concern than bikes being hit by cars. Taipei uses the sidewalk model and I recommend never using them I find the Chinese model of bike/scooter lanes w/ barriers integrated into the main road a superior model. The ot…

Not sure if you mean the Dutch style cycle lanes: in that case, it's just tourists that risk impact with bikes, simply because they're conditioned to ignore them (i.e. the brain is trained to consider dangerous only what's beyond the curb). After a few weeks people just learn to be mindful of bicycles and bicycle lanes as they are normally mindful of roads. In particular, one learns to never change direction suddenly…

I guess this conditioning just doesn't happen in Taipei .. I guess then I don't really understand why the sidewalk and bikelane are on the same level at all. Why not have an actual barrier or curb and places to get on/off?

it's effectively another road - with the same dangers as a car-road. But it's just some painted asphalt

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#138

Post by stringsandchars »

timonoko wrote: post #65

This is 1950's Swedish solution, imho. Modern fad is that there shall be no separate bicycle crossings in intersection areas. Bicycles are equal to other vehicles so it makes sense to concentrate the intersecting traffic to one flow, so it is easier to observe.

> Bicycles are equal to other vehicles so it makes sense to concentrate the intersecting traffic to one flow, so it is easier to observe

Swedish bike lanes are the absolute worst I've cycled on - and I've cycled in England, Denmark, Spain and (briefly) the Netherlands.

Disregarding the pitiful maintenance of a lot of the bike lanes in Stockholm (which is another discussion), the current model where a bike-lane has been carved from the pedestrian pavement, but which then throws the cyclist out to the road immediately before a junction is a deadly design which I've found to be nerve-wracking both when I'm cycling or driving. The cyclist is hidden behind parked cars, and is in the blindspot of turning trucks, until the very last seconds before suddenly emerging into the flow of traffic when crossing the side-street. I see near-misses almost every day.

It amazes me that anyone ever thought this was a good idea - but even more egregious to me is that Swedes seem to think their own invention is somehow so good they want to export it.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#139

Post by brnt »

isoprophlex wrote: post #96

It's the urban planning, but I'll point out that it's the requirements and responibilities put on the drivers as well. Driving lessons for me consisted for 80% of learning how to ALWAYS ALWAYS track all the cyclists and pedestrians in urban environments, how to approach an intersection and have complete visual on whatever the weaker parties might be doing. A very defensive "assume weird shit can happen any time, and…

I live in NL close to a border. Guess where tourists tend to stop their car, when coming in from the left in situation of the fine article?

People have little situational awareness anyway, but perhaps a bit moreso when they are Dutch.

Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

#140

Post by contrarian1234 »

pimterry wrote: post #107
contrarian1234 wrote: post #91

I find bikelanes that are integrated with sidewalks incredibly dangerous and give a false sense of safety. Bikes hitting pedestrians (ex: children wandering out on to the bikelane) is a much larger safety concern than bikes being hit by cars. Taipei uses the sidewalk model and I recommend never using them I find the Chinese model of bike/scooter lanes w/ barriers integrated into the main road a superior model. The ot…

I broadly agree that I'd like standalone separated bike lanes, but I think this is dubious: > Bikes hitting pedestrians (ex: children wandering out on to the bikelane) is a much larger safety concern than bikes being hit by cars As far as I'm aware, more or less everywhere, both the frequency & severity of bicycle vs pedestrian crashes is much lower than bicycle vs car crashes. Do you have any statistics that say oth…

I only have my personal experience. Biking on the sidewalk lanes in Taipei creates a lot of scary close calls esp with children and dogs. On the road I only rarely have some issues with buses. Everyone is moving in the same direction so it's generally less scary.

I think in terms of deaths, the most dangerous issue is getting t-boned at an intersection by a car going fast through the intersection. I'm not sure how either setup really addresses that. You need to decrease overall traffic speed somehow. Chinese do this with speed cameras everywhere and electric scooters being much slower than gas powered ones (which are illegal most places now)

Post reply on HN