This, fucking everywhere!
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.
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.
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.
I think the idea is that the cars shield cyclists from potential accidents on the road.
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.
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.
DC and the surrounding areas do it pretty damn well. Tons of dedicated trails and a solid community.
Very good (for America) cycle infrastructure here in Portland Oregon!
Haven’t been, but I’ve heard good things!
I hear America is full of cycopaths
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.
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
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
Appreciate your view and I would love to see more of it.
I live in NJ, which is probably the most suburban state in the US, and so we were built with cars and houses in mind. Fortunately, we are seeing a shift toward biking infrastructure, albeit a little slow, but progress is progress. Jersey City certainly leads the way, and new developments that come online, which there are many, are often required to put in protected bike lanes.
Beyond that, we’ve seen work started on a Greenway connecting Montclair and Jersey City, nine miles through very dense, urban landscape, where there will be dedicated bike lanes throughout. NJ has so many old rail lines that there’s been an effort to turn into pedestrian ways. There’s one that comes to mind that’s 20 miles. Ideally we would also take some of those old railways and make them unold, and add additional rail lines, but things move slowly in a tiny state with 565 municipalities.
All I know is I’m fortunate to be part of the Northeast Corridor of the US, which is seemingly one of the few places that tries to do some forward thinking.
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.
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. 😭
How do you turn left?
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)
MAGA will ban it, and turn it into luxury vehicle parking.
If that somehow magically happens in Massachusetts, I will personally go and slash their tires daily
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
Ah man, I used to live in this town. I wish the infrastructure had been this good when I was there.
Beautiful, I just wish they hadn’t insisted on keeping the parallel parking and planted some trees instead.
In my country this is “standard” bike lane.
Netherlands?
It’d be red and very distinguishable from the rest of the road
Right? What’s up with all these regular-road-coloured bicycle paths in other countries?
Costs, they can’t spare another dime on it, but another car lane is always on budget
What’s a good one look like?
I am jelly as heaven now!
