i disagree. There are good and bad separate bike lanes.
In this one, cyclists will be overlooked a lot when crossing the lane. They are hidden behind parked cars.
edit: apologies in advance. I am glad you built this one, which is already a good step in the right direction.
This is literally how 99 percent of the separate bike lanes in NL are built. Check Not Just Bikes on Nebula.
I think the idea is that the cars shield cyclists from potential accidents on the road.
Though IMO anyone on a bike in areas where they must interact with cars should anticipate right turners going through their lane without even considering if there’s a cyclist about to enter that space. Right of way only matters when looking back at an incident to determine if anyone should be fined or arrested.
I do the same shit while driving, just assume that anyone around me might actually be completely incompetent and could try changing into my lane at any moment.
Indeed and give the bicycles the right of way like the Netherlands. However, with proper traffic controls and the bicyclists must follow the rules too.
This, fucking everywhere!
I didn’t know Americans had cycle lanes
I would guess that Boston Massachusetts has the best bike lanes in America, but there are many American cities I haven’t been to. I have bike lanes in my town, but nothing like I saw in Boston. That city takes biking very seriously.
Very good (for America) cycle infrastructure here in Portland Oregon!
Haven’t been, but I’ve heard good things!
DC and the surrounding areas do it pretty damn well. Tons of dedicated trails and a solid community.
There are like eight cities in the US that give me hope for you guys.
Not a crazy amount of hope, to be clear. But I like seeing this more than the good old find out half of the imperial boomerang.
I have to find a new home at some point and it’s good that not every single community in one continent has decided to continuously shoot itself in the foot at every opportunity. I’ve got friends who moved to Boston and they say it’s nice. Frankly any place where a house costs eight billion dollars better be nice.
They plow them too. Same city, different street, this week:
Wow, here in Germany, the bike path has to be cleared by the residents in many places. You can imagine how well that works. In other words: I’ve been driving my car instead of riding my bike for the last 3 weeks.
Just move to Slovenia. We don’t get snow anymore anyway. ಥ‿ಥ
Oh a Slovenian! I have questions for you if you don’t mind 🙏
We’re planning to go there by train next summer, and were wondering if it was a good country to visit with bikes, or if you’d recommend a car rental or just trains?
You definitely can do it by train. You can also take your bikes on pretty much any train within Slovenia afaik.
Now there are many nice areas to bike here even though there are not as many bike paths as such. I don’t know what you want to visit and what kind of biking you usually do so a rental car would be dependent on those things. Many places can be reached via train but many more cannot.
Now if you bike to get around then no issue but if you prefer going somewhere than doing a bike ride that would change things.
To clarify we either wanted to rent a bike and travel around the country with it + some trains. Or just walking + trains and public transports.
Renting a car would be my least favorite scenario but I wouldn’t mind if it’s the only good way to visit the country.
As for things we wanted to visit, Ljubljana of course, and then mostly the countryside and the cool nature places Slovenia seems to have to offer.
You can also take your bikes on pretty much any train within Slovenia afaik.
Even ebikes which are larger than regular bikes?
Thanks a lot!
Yeah even ebikes pretty sure. Now many nature places can be reached with train and then some biking. But many are quite far from any good connections so until you know a bit more of the specific places you wish to visit I cannot help much
That’s already very helpful, ty so much!
You a normal bicycle road in the Netherlands in every town. All equipped with own traffic signs and own traffic lights. Even with broader bicycle expressways cross country between towns.
Yeah but those would never work in American because our needs are special. We’re “special needs” /s
Post pics! It’s not that I don’t believe you, I just want to be more depressed with my country
I’m not the person you’re replying to but here’s one:
You can just do an image search for “Netherlands separated cycle lane” to see a bunch more.
Here are some videos about road design in the Netherlands you might find interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNtsWvNYKE
I can guarantee at least one of those links is NotJustBikes without even clicking on them.
Thanks, super depressing! Even if we had the design of the second video drivers would pass the white line and crosswalk and wait in the bike lane to make a turn. Or to just stop when going straight. I hate it here
I want that so bad. 😭
and own traffic lights
To make sure I’m understanding correctly, so many people ride bikes that the bike only lanes need traffic lights? I knew the Netherlands had a reputation as a very bike-heavy culture, but I honestly had no idea bike traffic could get that congested outside events.
Bike only lanes are often next to car lanes, at crossings there are separate lights for the bike lanes so they either don’t cross at the same time as cars, or they cross together with cars in a direction where the car and bike traffic don’t cross each other.
And another (if it works for you — iirc it did for me previously)
How do you turn left?
It’s frustrating how many comments are focused on comparisons to the NL. When someone does something hard that was easy for you, do you gloat or do you celebrate their efforts?
Everyone in this community knows that NL has amazing bike infra and this is normal (and better) there.
Hope to see more permanent protected bike lanes in the US. Thanks for sharing OP
Yeah so this wasn’t easy for the Netherlands either. They just started trying earlier, so they had more time to fail and try again. This would maybe not fly anymore in a newly designed street in the NLs now, but it sure as heck looks a lot like some older roads in the Hague that are still waiting on their update to the new guidelines.
So well done guys, you are def. going in the right direction with this 🙏.
The only thing you could maybe argue is why they are not just asking for a bit of help from a Dutch road designer during the design process. I mean, the knowledge is all there already, why not use it? 😉
And it isn’t like it’s hidden behind closed doors. They literally have the manuals available online for anyone to access it
Do you have then at hand? I tried looking for them a while ago and couldn’t find it
PDF alert, almost every link will lead to a PDF
Amsterdam’s Red Book (Handboek Rood), with design standards for street design, and Green Book (Handboek Groen), with standards for street vegetation (only in Dutch):
https://openresearch.amsterdam/nl/page/108424/puccini-methode-handboeken-rood-i-en-ii-en-handboek-groenOslo also made their manual available, look for the file “Street-design-manual_ENG” for the english version:
https://www.oslo.kommune.no/gate-transport-og-parkering/veiarbeid-og-vedlikehold/gatenormal-og-normark/Copenhagen also has it in great details here (Some in Eng, others in Danish):
https://urbandevelopmentcph.kk.dk/mobility-cycling/copenhagen-the-best-cycling-city-in-the-worldHighlights to:
Good, better, best. The city of Copenhagen’s bicycle strategy 2011-2025
https://kk.sites.itera.dk/apps/kk_pub2/index.asp?mode=detalje&id=823Cycle-Friendly Infrastructure 2024 - Design standards for cycle and road projects in the City of Copenhagen
https://kk.sites.itera.dk/apps/kk_pub2/index.asp?mode=detalje&id=2947Awesome, thanks!
Fair enough! Thanks for the reality check :)
From the Netherlands myself. I’m always really happy to see improvements like this elsewhere. I know what it looks like in other countries.
I’m going to hit my head on that tree’s branches
One of the best things about recumbents is I’d go right under it
yeah there’s a bigger tree further up this stretch that I constantly have to duck under
There used to be a few branches like that on the sidewalk to my grocery store. I just bought a pair of shears and read up on how to prune safely.
I used to live in Somerville! Good town.
I also had my arm broken by a reckless driver hit and run on my bike there, so I’m happy to see bike infrastructure improving a bit.
Any improvement is good improvement. All of the “that’s it?” comments are wild
Beautiful, I just wish they hadn’t insisted on keeping the parallel parking and planted some trees instead.
Ah man, I used to live in this town. I wish the infrastructure had been this good when I was there.
That automotive crossing in frame center is seriously bad vibes. The car parking immediately adjacent to the driveway - A driveway that presumably leads to more car parking - Means zero bike visibility for drivers turning right off the street. That’s a near-guaranteed cyclist injury or death in the future, which becomes even more likely the smaller the cyclist is. None of the road signs seem to warn of the presence of the bike lane. And there’s another car crossing 20 feet after that! Aesthetically this lane looks pleasing to the North American eye but I expect it wouldn’t actually pass muster in a place like NL.
It’s certainly a move in the right direction but I’d stop short of calling it “good” when it’s not even safe.
Wow this is what I first noticed as well. But then I thought at least it’s better than what we have in my city, which is nothing.
I don’t understand the complaint about driveway frequency. How would the Netherlands handle that?
No parking minimum requirements, most places in the US have minimum parking requirements for both residential and commercial construction which not only makes construction unnecessarily expensive but also ensures that the built outcome functionally serves cars more than people.
You can also simply cap the allowable number of driveways per distance on a street. New construction can either join with an existing driveway, put their driveway on another side of the block, or simply not have a driveway.
Municipalities can designate specific areas for parking: Commercial districts can ban on-street parking completely and have a low-cost municipal parking garage in a business district. You can also cap the number of parking lots per block and mandate that any commercial property on the block have access to that lot instead of having a constellation of business-exclusive lots.
As for the visibility complaint, standard guidance is to ensure that the car is completely perpendicular to the bike lane by the time it’s crossing, so that the driver can clearly see both left and right down the lane before they cross it. You do this by setting the driveway a car length off of the road, which can be achieved a bunch of different ways. The way it’s set up now, it’s like putting a right turn lane on the left side of a highway. And they’d also put signage at a crossing like this.
Somerville does not have parking minimums.
Ofc all the buildings pictured were built before that was the case and before there was a protected bike lane. What you mentioned is all good policy but mostly focused on building from scratch.
How would an existing streetscape be handled? Would existing driveways actually be seized by eminant domain?
Establishing maximum parking spots per occupancy does seem like a good idea (say 1 car parking spot for every 4 people).
If the owner doesn’t block the parking spots (eg planting trees or building housing in their place), fining them would make sense.
Oh man I wanna bike there so bad. How’s the bikeability from Somerville to Boston?
Somerville has the community path (car free) that cuts across the city and works it’s way into Cambridge, making it super easy to get into Boston. Boston’s infra is not as good but it’s getting better.
Bonus points if they raise the entry from the road to the parking lot to separate things further!
They get those bonus points, you can see the grade level difference by looking at the angles of those curbs. Construction progress can be seen on google maps back in 2020: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FB8dtRKbdueiQLuQ9
I see that now! A little hard to spot at first, the construction males it much more obvious.
