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A common urban intersection in the Netherlands (2018)

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

#71

Post by Out_of_Characte »

itronitron wrote: post #55
Mattasher wrote: post #16

I'm not sure how common this type of intersection is. I live and bike daily in Amsterdam and it took me about a minute to fully understand what's going on here. The picture seems to show a special case where the intersecting road is bike only, and instead of the normal painted arrows that show where bikes should queue up when making a left, there's an open area off to the left where one would wait behind the "shark t…

Can someone explain this, the italicized part below, in more detail? >> When you approach from the side street, as a driver, the order of dealing with other traffic is different, but the priority is similar. First you will notice a speed bump. The complete intersection is on a raised table. Pedestrians would not have priority if the street was level, but now that it isn’t the “exit construction” rule could apply and…

That's some word salad but let me make things clear,

All intersections have signs indicating priority.

All intersections have road markings indicating right of way.

All intersections have a level change indicating priority. Either you bump up to pedestrians, which also reduces your speed. Or pedestrians step down to asphalt.

All intersections have/dont have color change to indicate right of way.

All intersections have/dont have pavement type indicating right of way (usually bricks for street or pedestrians, black asphalt for roads, red asphalt for cyclists.)

Although you could probaly find some rulebreakers in there, its universally accepted as such.

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

#73

Post by palotasb »

itronitron wrote: post #55
Mattasher wrote: post #16

I'm not sure how common this type of intersection is. I live and bike daily in Amsterdam and it took me about a minute to fully understand what's going on here. The picture seems to show a special case where the intersecting road is bike only, and instead of the normal painted arrows that show where bikes should queue up when making a left, there's an open area off to the left where one would wait behind the "shark t…

Can someone explain this, the italicized part below, in more detail? >> When you approach from the side street, as a driver, the order of dealing with other traffic is different, but the priority is similar. First you will notice a speed bump. The complete intersection is on a raised table. Pedestrians would not have priority if the street was level, but now that it isn’t the “exit construction” rule could apply and…

https://www.theorieexamen.nl/theory-exam/what-is-a-entrance-...

An entrance or exit construction is a place on a road where you aren't just turning onto the road but exiting the road entirely. The most common example from any country would be a private driveway. Pedestrians, cyclists and cars going along the sidewalk, bike path or road have priority against anyone turning into the driveway or turning onto the road from the driveway.

The Netherlands generalizes this concept to some low-priority side streets. If there is a continuous sidewalk (i.e., the cars go up a bump to the level of the sidewalk as opposed to the pedestrians stepping down from the sidewalk to the level of the street). This is not the case in this specific intersection.

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

#76

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

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 you just use the main road instead, then you have priority over all the side roads, so the bike "lane" is pretty much useless.

Of course, we also suffer from just having fragments of cycle infrastructure that don't join up and most of the time, the infrastructure consists of "magic" paint that is somehow going to prevent motorists from parking and blocking the lane (it doesn't and they do).

Edit: Thought I'd share the sheer incompetence that we're faced with. Here's a "cycle lane" in the centre of Bristol that doesn't even use a different colour, so pedestrians aren't particularly aware of it which just leads to unnecessary confrontation - peds and cyclists fighting over the scraps left over from designing for motorists.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/JjfG1YJBwaqyov5H8

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

#77

Post by zelos »

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…

It's even worse in my UK village. they don't even paint white lines, just the white outline of a bike every few hundred meters on the road.

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

#78

Post by em500 »

mikrl wrote: post #5
voidUpdate wrote: post #2

I 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.

Probably any change in country takes some time to adjust to traffic. Coming from the Netherlands, I got quite confused when driving in San Francisco, by many wide roads without any clear road markings. Which parts are meant for overtaking, pre-sorting for turns, parking on the side of the road or just parallel driving lanes? On several roads that could fit 3-6 cars I couldn't tell the direction of traffic on the middle lane(s) or the lane separations.

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

#79

Post by vanderZwan »

eru wrote: post #70

I love the Netherlands, and not just for their livable street design, I just wish they food weren't so bland. They make even German cuisine look adventurous in comparison.

As a Dutch person... this is sadly not just 100% accurate, it's almost part of our culture by now, hahaha. For example, in Gerard Reve's "De Avonden" ("The Evenings", a literary classic in the Netherlands from 1947) the daily bland dinners are described like a recurring cynical joke.

Apparently World War 2 is to blame for the shift in food culture. Somehow we never recovered from that.

I think we just internalized that Dutch cuisine sucks and focus on getting good food from other cultures (don't complain about our pannenkoeken or stroopwafels though, unless you're looking for a fight).

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