The problem in the Netherlands nowadays is not the interaction between motorists verus cyclists, but ebikes versus normal bikes. Lot of accidents happen on the bycicle roads
A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
151–160 of 339 posts
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#152I 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…
"Bikes hitting pedestrians (ex: children wandering out on to the bikelane) is a much larger safety concern than bikes being hit by cars."
what? there are many orders of magnitude more injuries and deaths from bikes being hit by cars than there are from pedestrians being hit by bikes. Even when a pedestrian is hit (which is rare- both are highly nimble), it is very rare that it is problematic because a bike carries so little momentum
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#153Needs (2018) in the submission title.
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#154The problem nowadays is not the interaction between cyclists and motorists but more between ebikes and normal bikes (on the same pathway)
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#155Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#156This 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…
The problem in the UK is a deep cultural one. First we have to understand that, all things being equal, cars "win" by default on the roads. They are bigger, heavier, faster and more powerful (thanks to burning fossil fuels), and the operators are more reckless and inconsiderate due to being shielded from the outside world. That means their presence on the roads automatically makes it more dangerous and unpleasant for…
> See, for example, dual carriageways. Technically everyone has a right to use them by any means (they have paid for it, after all), but you'd be crazy to walk/cycle down one.
I regularly cycle along the dual carriageway part of the A370. Whilst I get that it can be unnerving for most cyclists, dual carriageways are well designed for cycling along as they typically have great visibility (drivers can see you from a distance) and there's a whole lane for drivers to overtake safely.
> Fourth notice that every part of the road network is designed to make it easier for cars at the detriment of pedestrians and cyclists. Why does a pedestrian need to press a button to cross the road? Why, upon pressing the button, must the pedestrian wait to cross? Why doesn't the light cycle start immediately? There is absolutely no sense at all in making the pedestrian wait. But everyone is used to it and doesn't question it; it's just the way it is. But what it does is makes being a pedestrian a third class status. It's these little things, like having to sit at the back of the bus, that chip away at people's ability to feel like an equal member of society. If you walk or cycle you are under no illusion that you come second to cars. It's little wonder people choose the car if they can.
I think a big part of the problem is that politicians are heavily influenced by car/oil lobbyists. What we need are brave politicians that are forward looking and have a vision.
By the way, I like to refer to the pedestrian crossing buttons as "beg buttons".
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#157[deleted]
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#158I wish more urban areas were as good as The Netherlands. Where I live, there are occasionally some footpaths on the sides of the roads that are half a cycle lane. People constantly walk in the cycle lanes and cycle on the footpaths. Other than that, its just normal urban roads
As a semi regular tourist to the Netherlands from North America it took a bit to adjust to all the modes of traffic at once but now I can easily navigate and stay safe around bikes, mopeds, trams, skinny cars etc. But I’m also a seasoned traveller in the region. So, there would be an adjustment period for the population of your country, and it might take a while, and depending on culture might not be easy.
My city (Valencia, Spain) generally has good biking infrastructure but recently they redid an intersection and came up with this monstrosity. Even for locals it's confusing / dangerous.
In the direction I travel frequently, I have to stop in the middle of the bike lane which is sandwiched between two pedestrian crossing to wait for a light. Once the light turns I cross over three lanes of vehicle traffic and immediately am thrown into a bike lane crossing my path. The cars here give you no leeway so if you are slightly late in crossing (and there's only about 3 seconds between the "hurry up the lights gonna change soon" flashing light to the cars getting a green light) then you have no place to stop / slow and look if there's any bikes coming.
After that you are directly in a pedestrian crossing zebra zone in the island, which then throws you into anther bike crossing, another pedestrian zone and then finally crossing the other three lanes of traffic. Of course on the other side you t-bone directly into another bike lane, and then the lane I'm on turns into a "mixed use" lane (just paint on the sidewalk).
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4670503,-0.3900646,95m/data=...
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> run every trimestre From another non-native speaker, the term you are looking for is "quarter ". As in: a quarter of a year, as 12/4=3 months.
Thanks ! I wonder though if native english speakers understand it instantly, or no.
Of course they do, unless they've been skipping their biology classes. Trimester is a common word for the three month periods of a pregnancy:
Re: A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)
#160I wish urban designers in Poland learned from this. Our bike lanes are terribly designed, cars turn right into them with very poor visibility. The "solution" is that lawmakers introduce additional restrictions for bikers, which are unclear to everyone, so right now nobody really knows if bikes have priority on bike lane crossings or not.
It’s good to realise the Dutch cycling infrastructure did not came out of nowhere. There were huge protests in the 70’s about traffic safety. At that time cars ruled the roads and there a lot of accidents, also involving children. From those protests an culture shift started, towards better cycling infrastructure.
There are many reasons why this is unlikely to happen in Poland, but from the top of my head:
-Traffic fatalities have been falling for years now anyway - the 2022 figure per capita is around 20% higher than in the Netherlands, but used to be much, much worse.
-Polish cities are sparsely populated due to adminstrative changes and little of the old architecture surviving the war. Official numbers say that Warsaw has a density of 3.6k/km2, while the runner up is much smaller Białystok with ~2.9k/km2. Most hover in the region of 2.0-2.5k/km2. Real numbers might be different, but it's sparse compared with say Amsterdam's ~5k/km2.