As a Dutch listener my first reaction to the question was actually "Huh? Those 2 things aren't even related." Took me a second to work out what the questioner meant. :)
This is something I've implored my local city to do more of. In the US, we call them Advisory Bike Lanes. I don't really love the term, but I love the idea. They are low-volume streets where biking should be encouraged.
They are doing something like this in my city, calling them neighborhood bike routes. Using traffic calming, way finding signs,and a butt load of Sharrows. We aren't ready for the "Knips" or modal filters yet though. The culture is still trying to figure bikes out. But it's better than nothing and one of them luckily runs right by my house.
@@stink1701 Advisory Bike Lanes are different than sharrows. With ABLs, bikes have priority and their own marked space, with cars permitted in the middle or on the sides to yield to bikes and oncoming traffic.
I was under the impression that Advisory Bike Lanes are roads which have bike lanes (usually) 'painted' on them. Making a 2 lane road only 1 lane wide *when there are cyclists*. We don't really have them (they do exist, but as exception) in the Netherlands. It's often traffic calming that's mistaken for Advisory Bike Lanes because they're often made with red asphalt, but the colour has nothing to do with bike lanes or not. It's the presence of symbols on the road or signs that make a lane or path a bike lane or bike path. In all honesty, I don't like Advisory Bike Lanes too much, though I suppose they can be a temporary solution while you wait for the real changes to the road to start. But I've also noticed they're misunderstood and complained about in the USA. I believe there was a big ABL thing in a suburb of some big city like LA and everybody was complaining, and saying they were confused (the instruction literally is "Don't run people over", but I guess that's too much to ask). Unless I'm wrong of course, and like I said, we do have a few, but it's old infrastructure. Wouldn't be surprised if the 'youngest' was 20 years old now.
@@tiaxanderson9725 Your first paragraph is accurate. Others may disagree, but I think they have value when you are not at liberty to tear everything down and rebuild from the ground up. Few US cities have that kind of money because states control the money and are devoted to sprawl.
@@jyutzler Oh that's fair, it's entirely my bias that I don't like them. But that's because here in the Netherlands I'm already used to so much better that it's literally a step back. Though because of that I do think it's important for places for which ABLs would be a step up, if they can't skip that step all together. There's 50-ish years of theoretical and practical research about this, seems a shame not to use it.
This year in Tartu (2nd city of Estonia) they'll begin construction of the 2 first cycle streets of the country (Tähtvere & Õnne streets), which will be part of the main bicycle network. Tähtvere st. is already one way and Õnne st. isn't but will be, it'll basically split down the middle, both branches are 1 way in the direction going out from the middle, and that's how they make through traffic through that specific street impossible. I think I've heard that they don't want to keep it 2-way with bollards because of emergency vehicle access, but also the street is pretty narrow
This is why we have terrible bike connectivity and planning in the US. We don't actually have "transportation engineers" who know how to move people. All we have here is "road engineers" who know how to build roads to move cars quickly. Although in truth they are pretty bad at that too. It is sad that the most car dependent nation on Earth is also so bad at building and maintaining its roads.
Mobility matters. Bicycles matter. Electric busses matter. Electric trains matter. Safe protected bike and bus lanes are necessary for efficient transport. Children should be able to ride bicycles or take a bus to school safely. Cities need to provide multiple options for transportation. Less cars, more buses, more bicycles. Staying active is key. There is a climate crisis. We need to make walking, cycling, using escooters and taking a bus easier and the default option for most people. Ebikes are brinigng many older adults back to cycling and the benefits of exercise.
I think cycle streets are not the kind of infrastructure that cities that don’t already have a high volume of cycling traffic relative to car traffic should be looking at. They form the interesting last step in a transformation where cyclists dangerously have to share the road with car traffic, getting some narrow bike gutters at the side, get upgraded to normal and later wider lanes while car traffic is slowly getting curtailed and slowed down, until finally the bicycles outnumber the cars and the cars become a guest at a cycle street. At that point you have come full circle with the bikes and cars having to share the road. Skipping the steps in between is a recipe for disaster.
Consider neighborhoods with a partial street grid. If you don't have the space on whatever acts as the main or through street for proper separated infrastructure, you might be able to do this on a parallel street that doesn't serve that role. This is especially true if the land use encourages a diagonal traveling pattern where the bikes are just as happy being on a middle side street as they would be on the main street. More broadly, consider this as another tool in the toolbox. Since the ideal environment is probably impossible to create, engineers should be creative about using what they have. This is a tool that helps them do so.
That's also what Steffen says in this video. In the Netherlands we add a "knip" which translates to a cut. Make sure that the only cars on a street are destination cars (people living there), while cyclists can go past the bollards. This reduces car traffic in these streets.
@codex4048 I understand what you are getting at. There are just not a lot of places in the US where you need a knip to literally block off car traffic. That number isn't zero, it just isn't common. It's more likely to have something like a cul de sac (which probably shouldn't exist in the first place) and have it connect via a bike path to something else.
As a Dutch listener my first reaction to the question was actually "Huh? Those 2 things aren't even related." Took me a second to work out what the questioner meant. :)
This is something I've implored my local city to do more of. In the US, we call them Advisory Bike Lanes. I don't really love the term, but I love the idea. They are low-volume streets where biking should be encouraged.
They are doing something like this in my city, calling them neighborhood bike routes. Using traffic calming, way finding signs,and a butt load of Sharrows. We aren't ready for the "Knips" or modal filters yet though. The culture is still trying to figure bikes out. But it's better than nothing and one of them luckily runs right by my house.
@@stink1701 Advisory Bike Lanes are different than sharrows. With ABLs, bikes have priority and their own marked space, with cars permitted in the middle or on the sides to yield to bikes and oncoming traffic.
I was under the impression that Advisory Bike Lanes are roads which have bike lanes (usually) 'painted' on them. Making a 2 lane road only 1 lane wide *when there are cyclists*.
We don't really have them (they do exist, but as exception) in the Netherlands. It's often traffic calming that's mistaken for Advisory Bike Lanes because they're often made with red asphalt, but the colour has nothing to do with bike lanes or not. It's the presence of symbols on the road or signs that make a lane or path a bike lane or bike path.
In all honesty, I don't like Advisory Bike Lanes too much, though I suppose they can be a temporary solution while you wait for the real changes to the road to start. But I've also noticed they're misunderstood and complained about in the USA. I believe there was a big ABL thing in a suburb of some big city like LA and everybody was complaining, and saying they were confused (the instruction literally is "Don't run people over", but I guess that's too much to ask).
Unless I'm wrong of course, and like I said, we do have a few, but it's old infrastructure. Wouldn't be surprised if the 'youngest' was 20 years old now.
@@tiaxanderson9725 Your first paragraph is accurate. Others may disagree, but I think they have value when you are not at liberty to tear everything down and rebuild from the ground up. Few US cities have that kind of money because states control the money and are devoted to sprawl.
@@jyutzler Oh that's fair, it's entirely my bias that I don't like them. But that's because here in the Netherlands I'm already used to so much better that it's literally a step back.
Though because of that I do think it's important for places for which ABLs would be a step up, if they can't skip that step all together. There's 50-ish years of theoretical and practical research about this, seems a shame not to use it.
This year in Tartu (2nd city of Estonia) they'll begin construction of the 2 first cycle streets of the country (Tähtvere & Õnne streets), which will be part of the main bicycle network.
Tähtvere st. is already one way and Õnne st. isn't but will be, it'll basically split down the middle, both branches are 1 way in the direction going out from the middle, and that's how they make through traffic through that specific street impossible.
I think I've heard that they don't want to keep it 2-way with bollards because of emergency vehicle access, but also the street is pretty narrow
This is why we have terrible bike connectivity and planning in the US. We don't actually have "transportation engineers" who know how to move people. All we have here is "road engineers" who know how to build roads to move cars quickly. Although in truth they are pretty bad at that too. It is sad that the most car dependent nation on Earth is also so bad at building and maintaining its roads.
Mobility matters. Bicycles matter. Electric busses matter. Electric trains matter.
Safe protected bike and bus lanes are necessary for efficient transport.
Children should be able to ride bicycles or take a bus to school safely.
Cities need to provide multiple options for transportation. Less cars, more buses, more bicycles. Staying active is key.
There is a climate crisis. We need to make walking, cycling, using escooters and taking a bus easier and the default option for most people.
Ebikes are brinigng many older adults back to cycling and the benefits of exercise.
I think cycle streets are not the kind of infrastructure that cities that don’t already have a high volume of cycling traffic relative to car traffic should be looking at. They form the interesting last step in a transformation where cyclists dangerously have to share the road with car traffic, getting some narrow bike gutters at the side, get upgraded to normal and later wider lanes while car traffic is slowly getting curtailed and slowed down, until finally the bicycles outnumber the cars and the cars become a guest at a cycle street. At that point you have come full circle with the bikes and cars having to share the road.
Skipping the steps in between is a recipe for disaster.
Consider neighborhoods with a partial street grid. If you don't have the space on whatever acts as the main or through street for proper separated infrastructure, you might be able to do this on a parallel street that doesn't serve that role. This is especially true if the land use encourages a diagonal traveling pattern where the bikes are just as happy being on a middle side street as they would be on the main street.
More broadly, consider this as another tool in the toolbox. Since the ideal environment is probably impossible to create, engineers should be creative about using what they have. This is a tool that helps them do so.
That's also what Steffen says in this video. In the Netherlands we add a "knip" which translates to a cut. Make sure that the only cars on a street are destination cars (people living there), while cyclists can go past the bollards. This reduces car traffic in these streets.
@codex4048 I understand what you are getting at. There are just not a lot of places in the US where you need a knip to literally block off car traffic. That number isn't zero, it just isn't common. It's more likely to have something like a cul de sac (which probably shouldn't exist in the first place) and have it connect via a bike path to something else.
So much light the yellow Dutch number plates turned white.
The Netherlands looks really weird this time of year.
So weird they even speak a different language .