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A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

bicycledutch.wordpress.com

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

#61

Post by peoplefromibiza »

xiaq wrote: post #58
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #35

you need space to do that, not many cities in Europe have the luxury of being built from scratch and having so much space to dedicate to a single intersection. Where i live (in Rome) the streets are like this https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/04/93/42/24/1000_F_493422444_Hw... edit: anyway the simplest solution is to turn every intersection into a roundabout, no traffic lights needed, clear right of way, cars can't go fas…

Such old urban places would just be car-free in the Netherlands (sometimes with limited access for delivery and emergency vehicles), a trend fortunately becoming popular in other European cities now. The “urban” in the title is a bit misleading, this intersection is definitely more suburban, or on the boundary of an urban center. (Or rather, the author has a different definition of urban - in my definition cities lik…

> Such old urban places would just be car-free in the Netherlands

that's the hardest part that everyone always ignores.

first you have to remove cars from the streets, than it's becomes easier to implement biking infrastructures.

I've been a long time petitioner to completely ban car traffic from the neighborhood where I live, but it's been a lost battle in the past 20 years.

Changing human habits it's harder than it looks.

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

#62

Post by enaaem »

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…

I live in Amsterdam. The freedom to do all your errants and entertainment by bike or walking is amazing. I can literally walk to the zoo, walk to the market, and walk to endless bars and restaurant.

The things is this is not some liberal, 15 min city conspiracy. This is how life has always been…

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

#63

Post by vanderZwan »

desas wrote: post #40
dmurray wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't deal with what happens when the queue gets bigger than one. It looks like a second car would queue on the main road, blocking traffic. To eliminate this you could turn the buffer into a whole extra lane with room for say 5 cars to queue, but this would compromise on the nice feature where the partially turned car gets to completely turn and have great vision of the cycle lanes in both directions.…

Build more bike lanes. To an extent, it's a self-solving problem. If you have great non-car transport options and an increase in traffic makes car driving less appealing, then more people will use those non-car transport options rather than joining the queue.

And an often forgotten point: this benefits people who have to drive cars too, since there are less cars on the car road!

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

#64

Post by palotasb »

benterix wrote: post #28

> Here you can see that a car drivers waiting for people cycling are never in the way of other people in cars. Am I blind or does it only work for just one or maybe two cars?

Correct, only one.

This specific turn is onto a street that the article describes as "traffic volume here is low, since only residents will use this street." They probably expect the 1-car buffer to be enough for this intersection. You can see in the video that the 1-car buffer is empty most of the time.

For intersections where they expect more turning traffic (where the one car buffer wouldn't be enough), they add turning lanes that can accomodate more than one car. You can see an example of this a few hundred meters northeast when Graafseweg intersects the Van Grobbendocklaan: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZmURqawr3oeBX5Sq9

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

#65

Post by timonoko »

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.

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

#66

Post by okwhateverdude »

leokennis wrote: post #38
vanderZwan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this intentional bait for the somewhat notorious "Copenhagen is Great ... but it's not Amsterdam" video by the Not Just Bikes channel? ;) (as a Dutchie living in Malmö: I love Copenhagen, and I'm already happy that it's a million times better than 99% of the rest of the world. Still, it's also true that the Netherlands has a head-start of a few decades on everyone else and that it does show if you look closely) [0…

In general I try to avoid nationalism - a lot of what one perceives as "my country ABC is the best at XYZ!" is just "I was born in ABC so I am used to XYZ!". But...for the small niche of cycling infrastructure, the top 10 list is The Netherlands in places 1 to 10, then no country in places 11 to 50, and then Denmark in place 51. What is important to consider is that cycling infrastructure is all around great in The N…

> What is important to consider is that cycling infrastructure is all around great in The Netherlands everywhere.

Case in point, I've literally cycled across the country diagonally basically using the Fietsersbond (national cycling association that advocates for this cycling infra) route planner and on mostly dedicated cycling paths.

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

#67

Post by vanderZwan »

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…

> without any cultural baggage of "being one of those bicycle people"

Arguably you technically do have that cultural baggage, it's just that it's a core part of the Dutch national identity so it doesn't stand out ;)

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

#68

Post by mytailorisrich »

david-gpu wrote: post #42
lqet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bike lanes are everywhere in most big cities in France too... But they're bad, very bad. We once cycled from Germany to Colmar in France. Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wJU4GLWrmqF9EDes8 Of course it isn't much better in Germany.

> Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it I don't mean to detract anything about what you just said. At the same time, my first thought when I clicked on the link was something like: "Woah, that is pretty nice; a painted bike lane and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast ". We have a long way to go for most of North Americ…

> and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast

You're underestimating French drivers here ;) . Also on that picture the main lane is not considered narrow at all in France/Europe, it's quite comfortable to speed.

The only way to limit speed is speed cameras and speed bumps (both are also becoming ubiquitous in the UK).

China is what I imagine the US with bike lanes would look like.

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

#69

Post by vanderZwan »

0xbs0d wrote: post #32
vanderZwan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this intentional bait for the somewhat notorious "Copenhagen is Great ... but it's not Amsterdam" video by the Not Just Bikes channel? ;) (as a Dutchie living in Malmö: I love Copenhagen, and I'm already happy that it's a million times better than 99% of the rest of the world. Still, it's also true that the Netherlands has a head-start of a few decades on everyone else and that it does show if you look closely) [0…

Hahah, I would never! :D It definitely shows that the Netherlands had an early start and still an advantage. Kudos on that!

You have the advantage of being able to learn from the mistakes we made along the way and skipping those, so should be able to catch up quickly!
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