[HN Gopher] Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes
___________________________________________________________________
Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes
Author : avel
Score : 71 points
Date : 2022-05-14 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.advisorybikelanes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.advisorybikelanes.com)
| subpixel wrote:
| Thinking about how this would play out in the hilly and curvy
| rural roads near me.
|
| Perhaps not so well.
| [deleted]
| blamazon wrote:
| This is basically a paint manifestation of the "share the road"
| idea which is already common policy in North America on
| bidirectional roads without a bike lane.
|
| It is darkly amusing to see a lot of motorists being upset by
| finally seeing this arrangement in a format they can understand -
| dashed and solid painted lines.
| notatoad wrote:
| the only reason the "share the road" signage is accepted in
| america is because drivers interpret it to mean that cyclists
| should give way to motorists. "other road users should share
| with me" rather than "i need to share with other road users"
|
| try going to a community meeting and suggesting that a "share
| the road" sign be replaced with a "cyclists may use full lane"
| sign and see how much pushback you get.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I'm not particularly concerned with the wording on the sign,
| but this sentiment is exactly why I prefer "sharrows"[1] over
| designated bike lanes. They very clearly indicate that
| cyclists are _expected_ to be a part of traffic.
|
| In my experience--at least in Seattle which is more bike
| friendly than baseline in the US but certainly not on par
| with Portland--drivers are far more likely to yield to
| cyclists with these markings than where a bike lane is
| present. In contrast, I've had drivers try to run me off the
| road, screaming mad, when I had the gall to _perfectly
| legally_ ride in the main road where a bike lane was
| present[2]. Even when there was plenty of space for them to
| pass.
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking
|
| 2: Several of my cyclist friends disagree with me on this,
| but I find the particular bike lane exceedingly dangerous. I
| frequently avoided it when it was on my daily commute route,
| after numerous frightening close calls. Riding along with the
| aggressive drivers really did feel safer.
| notatoad wrote:
| When installed correctly - that is, in the very center of
| the lane - sharrows are slightly better than a "share the
| road" sign. Too often, cities install sharrows on the very
| edge of the lane, creating a suggestion that cyclists are
| only permitted to ride on the edge of a lane and that
| drivers should continue passing without giving adequate
| space.
|
| My towns main street has sharrows directly in the "door
| zone" between the street parking and the traffic.
|
| And of course all the normal criticisms of sharrows hold.
| Mainly that they're much more visible to cyclists than to
| cars, creating a false sense of security where cyclists
| feel entitled to a lane while drivers disagree.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| My experience has been the opposite of yours. In the last
| city I lived in they had "sharrows" on some of the streets,
| and cyclists would get angry when people drove on those
| streets. Apparently when cyclists suggest that you share
| something with them, they mean they get to use it and you
| don't, which isn't my understanding of the term.
| kyleee wrote:
| could you talk more about your experience? i don't believe
| cyclists in any meaningful number believe that sharrows
| mean cars aren't allowed, so i'd like to know more about
| the details of your experience (was it in the US or
| elsewhere, what city, information about the cyclists who
| had this belief and how you came to know they thought this)
| svnpenn wrote:
| > The center lane is dedicated to, and shared by, motorists
| traveling in both directions.
|
| This seems like a great way to produce head on collisions.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The first street I lived on in Munich had only enough space in
| the road for one lane of traffic + one lane of parking. This
| meant the road was safer, not more dangerous -- the very fact
| that it was so narrow meant that cars traveled down it quite
| carefully.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| At first blush, it looks like a nicely done international
| resource:
|
| _Depending on the country and the governing agency, this roadway
| type can have different names. Examples include: 2-minus-1 roads
| (New Zealand, Denmark), Edge Lane Road (Denmark, US), Advisory
| Shoulders (U.S. Federal Highway Administration), Schutzstreifen
| (Germany), Suggestiestrook (Netherlands), and Advisory Bike Lanes
| (US)._
| subpixel wrote:
| Interesting as I am trying to get conversations about bike
| protections started in my rural US community.
|
| E-bikes are going to change the dynamic, but you're taking a huge
| risk on the roads around here for the time being.
| calderra wrote:
| ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue making
| very American conclusions.
|
| Confusion about how these roads work is actually good. It may
| seem paradoxical at first, but easy to understand roads with
| ample signage actually breed high speeds, congestion,
| complacency, and dead pedestrians. Many dangerous intersections
| have found that removing signage and leaving it up to drivers
| drastically reduces speeds and improves safety.
|
| Mentally taxing roads slow cars down, make people take alternate
| routes, and force people to look for pedestrians. You can't
| juggle your Starbucks and your iPhone when you're navigating
| unfamiliar roads - AND THAT IS GOOD.
|
| The purpose of a city is not to breed cars, nor is it to allow
| lazy car drivers a chance to justify their miserable commute.
|
| I mean what, if the drive to work sucks people might just find
| work closer to home, or lobby for public transportation. Who
| wants that?
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| I enjoyed riding on this style of road near Amsterdam. It
| struck me as a very efficient use of space for roads that don't
| experience high volume traffic on a regular basis. Drivers
| naturally slowed down and waited their turn to pass when they
| saw cyclists and oncoming traffic. It made me wish that things
| like this would exist in the US.
|
| But again, all of my experience riding in the US tells me that
| this style of road is a terrible idea without two
| prerequisites:
|
| 1. significant increase in difficulty of obtaining a license
|
| 2. enforcement of penalties when drivers murder cyclists and
| pedestrians
|
| The number of times that people have dangerously cut through a
| bike lane, done high speed close passes, swerved and
| accelerated into incoming traffic to do a dangerous pass while
| going 20mph over the speed limit, randomly pulling over to park
| directly in front of me in a no parking zone in the bike lane,
| etc, that I have seen in the US, makes me dread this kind of
| road.
| lawkwok wrote:
| I agree that there are too many signs in Canada that don't help
| because the roads feel like they support higher speeds.
|
| I don't think roads need to be mentally taxing as that just
| causes fatigue to already tired workers commuting. What you can
| do is offer visual and sensory cues so that the speed limit
| feels natural. For example, narrowing lanes, gradient changes,
| road material changes.
| et-al wrote:
| > ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue
| making very American conclusions.
|
| Skimming the other posts here, people are drawing American
| conclusions on how drivers would behave. And can you blame
| them? Drivers have gotten away with slaps on the wrists for
| killing cyclists and pedestrians for too long in America. [0]
| These edge lane roads only work if drivers believe that
| cyclists also belong on the road. But that isn't the case in
| America.
|
| Unless the States start punishing distracted driving, and
| enforce stricter licensing requirements, we'll continue to rely
| on urban planners to protect other road users with
| infrastructure against idiocy.
|
| [0] - https://www.vice.com/en/article/9bzdpv/you-can-kill-
| anyone-y...
| wyager wrote:
| There exist optimization criteria besides "reduce the number of
| deaths". In particular, the enjoyment of drivers is an
| important optimization criterion.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Why? and in particular why drivers only?
| hgomersall wrote:
| I'm assuming it's ironic because it made no sense to me
| either.
| tremon wrote:
| Which drivers? Lorry drivers? Race car drivers? Soccer moms?
| Commuters? Motorcyclists? Regular cyclists? Jockeys? Draft-
| horse drivers?
|
| I grant you that it certainly is a criterion for
| optimization, but I would call it important only for race
| tracks, not public roads.
| dqv wrote:
| >In particular, the enjoyment of drivers is an important
| optimization criterion.
|
| Yeah but it's not (it shouldn't be) important for _every
| road_. And that 's the point. We want roads that drivers
| prefer for "enjoyment" (I have never enjoyed driving a
| vehicle) and roads that optimize for bicycle rider and
| pedestrian enjoyment. The drivers can stay on the driver
| roads and bicycle riders and pedestrians can stay on the
| bicycle and pedestrian roads.
| mwattsun wrote:
| > ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue
| making very American conclusions
|
| As an American, it could be that I've experienced and heard of
| active hostility to bicyclists. It seems like a uniquely stupid
| American thing. I'm sorry if this is also the case in Europe.
| ajb wrote:
| These seem work a lot like "bidirectional single lane with
| passing places" (mountain or very low traffic country roads).
| Except that you pass by pulling in behind a bike. It seems to me
| that it relies a lot on people understanding how they work. If
| most people have experience with the "passing place" version,
| these would work. If they don't, it would seem like they would
| need a lot of user education. Where I live, I almost never
| encountered a passing place road and they always made me very
| nervous when I did.
| bombcar wrote:
| I feel that to implement these in the US you'd want to start by
| marking those country roads, but even then it would take time.
| L
|
| It almost feels like it works better unmarked.
| travisd wrote:
| As a Seattleite who uses a bicycle as the primary means of
| transportation (but not a bike enthusiast or "bike person"):
| these are nice (experienced them a bit in Ann Arbor) but the only
| way to truly make biking safe is going to be to remove cars from
| the equation in 90%+ of circumstances. No bike gutters (a
| derogatory word for bike lanes that are only protected by paint),
| dedicated bike infrastructure.
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| Well as another Seattleite who bikes a lot, I have to say that
| infrastructure is only part of the solution. I chose my
| neighborhood on the basis of bikeability - it was literally the
| most important metric. And demographics and narrow streets
| trumped bike-specific infrastructure by a wide margin.
|
| Upper middle class folks are much less likely to kill you
| regardless of what sort of road they're on (I can pretty much
| predict the probability of bad interactions simply based on
| looking at what folks are driving). And in the absence of any
| effective law enforcement with regards to traffic laws
| improving your priors is fundamental. (Heck in the WA state 10%
| of fatal crashes are due drivers who don't even have a license
| at all https://wtsc.wa.gov/download/12727 - apologies for the
| cert warning on the above)
|
| And the other thing to look for is narrow streets (big feature
| of my neighborhood here) which keeps vehicle speeds down.
|
| And don't bike after 10 PM at night (that's what buses and Uber
| is for) - too many impaired drivers after that point.
|
| And keep in mind that separated infrastructure does little or
| nothing at intersections and driveways. There's a notorious
| separated lane across I-5 from me where lots of my friends have
| had bad interactions (including injuries) at parking garage
| driveways (a particularly nasty case is associated with the
| garage for a medical practice - we theorize that folks are
| coming out after unhappy doc visits distracted by the prospect
| of looming financial ruin - another US-specific feature ;-)
|
| I take the lane there (which is scary as it makes drivers
| cranky, but again given the demographics they're not homicidal
| (at least so far)) but it beats getting squashed by someone
| speeding out of the garage.
|
| I think the way forward in the US lies in achieving automated
| (and therefore safe and cheap) public-ish transport so we can
| give an alternative to the folks that can't drive safely and
| get them from behind the wheel. Short of that infrastructure
| (if built correctly) can be helpful but like bike helmets gets
| way more attention than warranted.
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| I recently did a few consecutive full day bicycle trips around
| the Netherlands and rode on many roads like this. I felt safe and
| drivers were respectful and patient when passing.
|
| I would never ride on one of these in the US. I can already
| imagine the Amazon delivery van or work truck parked in the
| bicycle section, forcing me into the center. I can also imagine
| the impatient drivers accelerating way beyond the speed limit to
| try to pass me while I'm riding in the center. I was a bike
| commuter in NYC for years, and am a regular recreational cyclist
| in the Bay Area and LA. So I have pretty significant experience
| riding in the US, and all of that experience is telling me that
| this is a bad idea for US cities.
| wyager wrote:
| > I can already imagine the Amazon delivery van or work truck
| parked in the bicycle section
|
| I've lived all over the US and I've mostly seen this on the
| east coast (NY, CT, MA). Totally insane to me that police don't
| ticket the hell out of delivery vehicles for parking in the
| middle of active roadways (not just bike lanes).
|
| Drivers in this area are terrible in general, not just delivery
| drivers. Everyone likes to claim that their local drivers are
| bad, but as someone with a lot of broad experience, East Coast
| drivers are truly some of the worst.
| murphyslab wrote:
| > I felt safe and drivers were respectful and patient when
| passing.
|
| A large part of this, from what I've observed living in Canada
| and the Netherlands, is the different perspectives borne out of
| each culture.
|
| In the Netherlands, everyone grows up having been a bicycle
| commuter. It's how every child gets to school. So everyone has
| been a bicycle commuter for at least some period of their lives
| and can sympathize with other bicycle commuter.
|
| In Canada, it's less common for children to ride bicycles to
| school. Busses are far more common or parents dropping off
| their kids at the kiss-n-ride. When kids do ride bicycles, it's
| for sport.
|
| So if a Canadian driver sees a person riding a bicycle, he or
| she does not see that person as an equal; someone who is also
| using the road to commute. They tend to see the bicycle
| commuter as someone who is intruding on their space, using the
| road (which is for commuting) for sport. And there is some
| small proportion of self-appointed citizen police who will
| decide to "teach them a lesson", much like you have with
| drivers who go about break-checking. It does not take many of
| those experiences to instill a sense of terror for those who
| try to commute by bicycle.
|
| Additionally, in the Netherlands people who drive to work still
| frequently ride their bicycles to run errands. Need a carton of
| volle melk from the Albert Heijn or Jumbo? Just hop on your
| bicycle and ride 5 minutes. In the Netherlands there are very
| few food deserts [0] and small, well-stocked grocery stores are
| close at hand for every neighbourhood. That's often impractical
| in Canada, where we have shifted to large RC Superstores and
| Walmart "Supercentres", often located distant to residential
| neighbourhoods, often located along stroads which are
| inhospitable to anyone but car drivers.
|
| In the Netherlands, it's much easier to think, "well, that
| could be me tomorrow", when driving past a bicycle commuter. In
| Canada, car drivers see the bicycle commuter as an invader or
| alien species, "the cyclist", whom is different and perhaps
| even unwelcome. In Canada, I feel lucky if the car drivers just
| _tolerate_ my presence on the road; In the Netherlands I felt
| seen as an equal.
|
| [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I lived in the Netherlands, England, Ireland, and New
| Zealand; England and Ireland are not "bike countries" either,
| but for the most part it was actually pretty okay cycling in
| the city: there are _enough_ cyclists around, roads are
| small, and most people understand that the limited space
| needs to be shared.
|
| New Zealand, however, was a different story. The roads are
| huge, US-style, and a significant number of cyclists think
| that the road is for _them_ and _them only_ which, given the
| design, is not even entirely invalid as such. You get
| aggressive drivers everywhere (including NL), but the
| incidence in NZ was far more often than anywhere else. I
| think the mandatory helmet laws aren 't helping either: it
| instils the impression that you're doing something inherently
| dangerous on a space not intended for you.
|
| Actually the most careful (car) drivers I've seen was in
| Indonesia, where roads are for scooters first and cars
| second.
| murphyslab wrote:
| > I think the mandatory helmet laws aren't helping either:
| it instils the impression that you're doing something
| inherently dangerous on a space not intended for you.
|
| Oddly, the use of helmets may alter the perceptions of
| drivers opposite to what you suggest. There have been a
| couple studies showing that drivers, when seeing a bicycle
| commuter wearing a helmet, give that bicycle rider *less*
| room upon passing, compared to a bicycle rider who is not
| wearing a helmet.
|
| There's a good summary of the observed effect which also
| provides links to the published research:
|
| https://www.bicycling.com/news/a25358099/drivers-give-
| helmet...
| htkibar wrote:
| Important to also note, when something exists commonly on
| streets, it ends up being expected.
|
| When a bike is a random occasion, you don't drive expecting
| one on every corner. Even if you hate it. This can create an
| interesting type of blindness to it (your brain just doesn't
| register it[0]).
|
| Even if nothing changed in terms of people'' feelings, this
| would be beneficial as well (which I presume, is much more
| common than people wanting to punish them).
|
| [0]: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/motorcycl
| es-a...
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| I've also noticed in the US that people have a built in
| idea of how fast a bicycle goes - roughly 20-25 km/h, the
| speed that the middle school and high school students go
| while biking to class. I can often reach 40 km/h on my road
| bike, but I have to pre-emptively brake as soon as someone
| starts a right turn or is about to pull into the road.
| Because they see a cyclist, assume I'm going 20 km/h, and
| pull out directly in my path even though I would have
| smashed straight into the side of their car if I had not
| defensively braked.
|
| It's like their brain just shuts off estimating speed and
| distance as soon as they see a bicycle, it's very
| interesting.
| htkibar wrote:
| Expectations play an interesting part for sure. To draw a
| parallel, this is why in the Netherlands at the moment
| e-bikes are scary as hell - because they are faster than
| the expected speed of a bike; it is harder to notice /
| react.
| alephxyz wrote:
| Seriously. I'm in Canada but I regularly see drivers cut
| through bike lanes to get in and out of parking lots without
| checking for bikes, or turn through a bike lane at an
| intersection without checking their blind spots. Even seen
| someone drive over a concrete curb and on a protected bike lane
| to get around a slow moving garbage truck.
|
| I never feel safe on shared streets unless there's a physical
| barrier between cars and other road users. It only takes half a
| second of distraction for a driver to ruin your day, or worse.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| In NYC, drivers regularly drive through "hardened" bike
| lanes, when they're not crashing into the concrete separator.
| blenderdt wrote:
| I don't know the rules in the US but in the Netherlands the car
| is always at fault in case of an accident, unless it is proven
| the cyclist was at fault.
|
| This makes the roads a lot safer for cyclists.
|
| When this law was introduced years ago the Dutch also made fun
| of it: https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| American drivers are rarely prosecuted for murdering
| cyclists, even if the driver was running a red light,
| speeding, or committing some other kind of traffic violation.
| Even drivers that hit-and-run regularly get off with some
| kind of "time served" or probation plea. Sometimes they'll be
| given a moving violation fine of a few hundred dollars.
|
| This is an opinion piece from 2013 but is still accurate
| because enforcement has not changed since:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-
| ok-t...
|
| More recent examples:
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-
| adventure/biking/cycli...
|
| https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-
| court...
| paulgb wrote:
| Another example here in NYC recently. The driver ultimately
| blamed a vehicular malfunction and the DA basically said
| there was no way to disprove that so the driver walked
| free. By all appearances the driver got away with road rage
| murder.
|
| https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/01/13/driver-who-killed-
| del...
| murphyslab wrote:
| In British Columbia this year (after some changes to the
| insurance system), the provincial insurance corporation,
| ICBC, billed a cyclist $3700 for damage to a car that hit
| him after the car driver blew through a stop sign:
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cyclist-
| bill...
|
| They have just in the past month updated the policy, but
| there have been several instances of this in the past 12
| months.
| aqme28 wrote:
| In New York at least, drivers are almost never prosecuted for
| hitting cyclists or pedestrians, even if the driver is at
| fault.
| nicwolff wrote:
| The _laws_ in the US are a patchwork of state and local
| regulations - but the _rules_ are "fuck you, I'm drivin'
| here", and "yeah I'm parked in the bike lane, whaddaya gonna
| do about it?"
| tremon wrote:
| Just a nitpick, a car driver is by default 50% _liable_ when
| involved in an accident with a weaker road user (cyclist,
| pedestrian, skateboarder, etc). That just means their
| liability insurance will have to cover the costs.
|
| For most crashes and/or road traffic accidents, no "fault" is
| usually determined, FAFAIK.
|
| The funny detail is that cyclists can choose to prosecute the
| car driver if they want the car driver to take on 100%
| liability, and in that case fault will be determined. But if
| a judge then finds the cyclist at fault, the car driver's
| liability decreases to 0% and the cyclist gets nothing.
| y7 wrote:
| > For most crashes and/or road traffic accidents, no
| "fault" is usually determined, FAFAIK.
|
| This might be true. On the other hand, I know that
| especially in fatal accidents, forensic analysis is
| sometimes able to tell whether the driver was speeding or
| was exhibiting other kinds of illegal/reckless behavior, in
| which case prosecution for 3rd degree murder ( _dood door
| schuld_ ) is usually pursued.
| julianlam wrote:
| You don't know the rules, but you can probably hazard a
| guess.
|
| In Toronto, a driver took their eyes off the road, reached
| for a water bottle on the floor, hopped the curb, hit and
| killed a pedestrian, and was found not guilty.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-
| sentence...
| upofadown wrote:
| Well they _said_ they were reaching for a water bottle. For
| all we know they were yelling "death to the sidewalk
| dweller" as they deliberately murdered someone.
|
| In Canada, drivers are not generally held responsible for
| driving that is normally incompetent. So the defence would
| of wanted to establish that such incompetence had occurred.
| It had to be a mistake that anyone could make.
|
| It's a a pretty big problem, but no one seems to care...
| flemhans wrote:
| "Exciting new" contradicts the over 50 years of experience in NL
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| New York has a lot of wide shouldered roads in snow country that
| effectively work like these. They are meant to limit plow damage
| and heaving at the edge of the road bed. They are also a superior
| alternative to demarcated bicycle ghettoes because you get much
| less grief when you aren't "where you belong" when conditions
| necessitate it.
| asah wrote:
| omg this sounds like a terrible idea: speeding motorists passing
| each other and taking out bikes.
|
| ...or distracted or impaired motorists drifting out of the center
| and taking out motorists?
|
| teenagers using both lanes to race each other...
|
| the list goes on and on...
| occz wrote:
| As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of
| cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this
| particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it
| have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path?
| Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone
| knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.
| PhineasRex wrote:
| This configuration is for streets without enough room for a
| dedicated bike lane. An edge-lane road is as wide as a standard
| two-way with no bike lane.
| notatoad wrote:
| it seems like the sort of thing that would work well in a space
| that already has a culture of sharing the roads amongst various
| transportation modes, and where drivers are already generally
| respectful and courteous towards other road users. I can see
| why it works well in the netherlands.
|
| I think it's a little naive to imagine it would work in north
| america. drivers here need more than a gentle reminder to not
| run other users off the road.
| trianglesphere wrote:
| These are also mainly used on fully residential streets and
| basically codifying existing rules. They behave very similarly
| to streets without a center line & sidewalk/bike lanes. I also
| think cost does become an issue when implementing larger
| streets/bike lanes (let alone the fact that larger streets make
| people go faster) on every single residential street.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I assume it's space/right-of-way related.
|
| But, like you, I have questions about how this configuration
| would work (in the US, in my case). I can see it working well
| in towns and suburban roads in some European nations - I'm
| thinking Scotland here - where default speeds are lower, roads
| are already shared with parking (so single-tracking is a known
| procedure), and drivers generally aren't assholes.
|
| In the US, most suburban streets are posted at 25-40mph, and
| actual speeds tend to be higher yet, which seems WAY too fast
| for edge lane roads or any other mixed use roadway. Heck, in my
| area, we have dedicated (but not protected) bike lanes and on
| some roads, they're downright scary because the traffic 3' away
| is going 50mph.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Space is at a premium in many places, possibly every place
| where such a road might be placed.
|
| One of these roads is two blocks away from me. I'm going to go
| have a look at it later today, but the road it's on is very
| similar to the road I live on: two direction street,
| residential parking on both sides, not four car widths' wide,
| so people are already "taking turns" and used to it.
|
| I bet it works exactly like the street I live on, only using
| more paint.
| avianlyric wrote:
| In the Netherlands this used instead of segregated cycle lanes,
| but in addition to a strong network of cycle lanes.
|
| Most commonly you find them down very old, narrow, country
| lanes, where there simply isn't space for true segregation. But
| equally, there's usually no need to use these roads a cyclist,
| as there are normally more direct dedicated cycle routes. You
| frequently only use them because your specifically looking for
| a scenic route, or something a little unusual to cycle down.
|
| In other parts of the world, they will also have their place in
| space constraint locations, or in large networks of small
| country lanes, where providing segregated infrastructure simply
| isn't possible or viable due to lack of space, or extremely low
| volumes of traffic.
|
| I personally think the UK could benefit substantially from
| these types of roads, if country lanes where converted. The
| lanes are barely big enough for bi-directional motor traffic,
| and occasionally not even that wide. Providing edge lane roads
| would encourage motor traffic to remain in the centre of the
| road, where they're substantially less likely to collide with
| cycle or pedestrian traffic, which may be hidden around one of
| the many blind corners.
| clairity wrote:
| there's no need to be anti-car (it's fruitless anyway) to be in
| favor of a more diverse mix of transport. we'd have plenty of
| space for mixed mobility if we just converted all on-street
| parking to protected bike lanes rather than implementing these
| edge lane roads, which seem to be a solution looking for a
| problem (lack of space, in this case).
|
| the important bit is segregating traffic by inertia and mass.
| i'd personally love to see all the car/truck thoroughfares
| (roads) put underground, with people getting explicit priority
| on the above-ground, mixed-use streets.
| blamazon wrote:
| When faced with uncertainty, car drivers tend to slow down.
| That's the general advantage here.
|
| It's not better than a properly separated bike path, but it is
| better than a painted bicycle gutter that motorists are
| comfortable driving 50mph inches from.
| b3morales wrote:
| Based on the picture, I don't see a big difference between
| this and the "painted bicycle gutter that motorists are
| comfortable driving 50mph inches from". Is it the _single_
| center motorized lane that is the important distinction?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Except given American drivers insistence on their own
| primacy and infallibility on the road, I can't envision an
| edge lane working.
|
| The main road closest to my house was recently (3 years
| ago) re-striped from two lanes each direction to 1 lane +
| bike lane. Car frequently ignore the bike markings and
| simply use the bike lane for aggressive passing of vehicles
| going the speed limit. I damn near got run down from behind
| by a bro-dozer making one of these aggressive moves in the
| bike lane.
|
| Too many American drivers are self-entitled wankers, and
| suburban roads are too wide and too fast, for this to work.
| (Of course, wide road, no reason for this model, but I
| suspect American drivers simply wouldn't tolerate this
| design)
| californical wrote:
| All you need is a curb or even small cement blocks with a
| marker every 50ft, and no cars are going to drive in that
| bike lane anymore
| occz wrote:
| This design kind of relies on there only being painted
| edge lanes, as drivers are expected to yield out to these
| edge lanes when encountering cars from the opposite
| direction.
|
| Unless I've fundamentally misunderstood the concept.
| alistairSH wrote:
| You're correct for the edge lanes. Previous post was
| about "normal" painted (but unprotected) bike lanes.
| blamazon wrote:
| I agree that paint alone is not bicycle infrastructure.
|
| But, when comparing paint with paint, this will slow
| drivers down more than the standard divided two car lane
| two way road they are accustomed to, due to the single
| center motorized lane that you pointed out.
|
| As a commenter from the Netherlands pointed out somewhere
| else on this post, this paint only approach is supposed to
| just be one cost effective tool for very low throughout
| roads, the lower end of a panoply of system-level methods
| to design separation between ped, cycle, and car
| velocities, part of a system that first prioritizes proper
| cycleways over paint-only methods.
|
| Unfortunately in North America we really have to crawl
| before we can walk on this one.
| soared wrote:
| Interesting. My first response is to assume these would cause a
| lot of car crashes, but apparently the data says otherwise. If
| there are other features to ensure drivers are going slow (speed
| bumps, chicanes, etc) these seem nice as a cyclist too. I'm going
| to have to gif die the one in Boulder, which looks like a poor
| example because they allow street parking, so seemingly had
| enough room for a normal road + bike lane:
| https://goo.gl/maps/8KZQbB7rDB81Ryjx5
| AHOHA wrote:
| Maybe better instead of wasting our tax money on a secondary
| priorities, Ottawa should really invest on fixing the asphalt
| roads itself (yes, in Ottawa city), you can't drive for a few
| minutes in Ottawa without potholes, bumps, and forever lasting
| constructions.. Those are the priority that should be focused on,
| as it's just not about damaging the car (tires/ suspensions/etc.)
| that none are covered by insurance, but also might harm people
| could be causing an accident avoiding it or caused by it. Get
| your priories right, Ottawa!
| robotmlg wrote:
| Road Guy Rob did a video recently about a failed edge lane road
| experiment. Seems like a good idea to me as long as car traffic
| isn't too heavy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE
| bombcar wrote:
| I think the big problem is nobody knows what the heck they've
| encountered.
|
| If you do it _naturally_ people can figure it out: make the
| road very narrow but technically wide enough for two cars and
| people will hug the center naturally.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yeah, I think the "North American" way to make this design
| coherent would be frequent sharrows markers, low speed
| limits, and no other lane markings. The sharrows markers
| would make it clear "yes cyclists are supposed to be there"
| and the lack of lane markings would make it clear "shift left
| as you need".
| gpm wrote:
| Just don't draw any lines and even on wide (>2 cars) roads
| people seem to hug the center pretty naturally (IME, there
| are probably cultural differences between how people drive in
| different places that matter here).
|
| The strange part about this road is that there were so many
| lines by the edge of the road, that's legitimately pretty
| confusing. I'm not sure if it's confusing in an unsafe way,
| but it's definitely uncomfortable.
|
| I'd love to know if someone has a link to someone
| knowledgeable comparing "all these lines for edge lanes" to
| "just don't draw anything".
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect lines really are only needed when you want to fit
| maximum lanes in a given space - many of the four lane
| roads here would turn into one lane each way without lines.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| > This roadway configuration originated in the Netherlands where
| they have over 50 years and many hundreds of road-kilometers of
| experience with this facility.
|
| Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared
| centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic
| is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and
| some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming
| measure1. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated
| cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis
| of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only
| local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city
| limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited
| space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists
| may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic
| won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either.
|
| This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as
| a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use
| _in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on
| dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to
| arterial or collector roads_. Taking it out of that context seems
| risky.
|
| (The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant
| for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road
| variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane,
| and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes2.)
|
| 1: Example
| https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271...
|
| 2: Example:
| https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15....
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I've ridden rental bikes on roads like these between Amsterdam
| and Leiden.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the
| shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where
| traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40
| mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic
| calming measure1. Most arterial and collector roads have
| segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That
| is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly
| share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit
| within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads
| where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes
| which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases
| motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic
| either.
|
| They actually say that in the video. In Germany they are mostly
| used in urban settings in streets with speedlimits below 30
| km/h I believe. They definitely work if this is a low volume
| street, however the speed limits need to be enforced (a general
| problem in many countries IMO).
| samatman wrote:
| As an American it was immediately clear to me the sort of road
| this website is suggesting we replace with edge lane roads.
| They are two lane, dotted-white divided, and limited to 45mph.
| Very common rural and exurban pattern.
|
| This might not have been as clear outside of the North American
| context.
| cameldrv wrote:
| On a 45mph road though that's a closing speed of 90mph
| assuming everyone's following the speed limit. It seems crazy
| to me to have opposing traffic sharing a lane at those
| speeds.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the roads this is meant for are mostly empty, so you have a
| long time to see someone coming.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Fair enough but you could say the same for the cyclists.
| Ultimately having traffic sharing a lane with high
| relative speeds is dangerous. It's dangerous for the
| cyclist at 15mph having a car come from behind going
| 45mph, and it's dangerous for the car having a car
| driving at them at 45mph. Both a 90mph collision between
| two cars and a 30mph collision between a car and a bike
| are likely to be fatal.
| samatman wrote:
| Opposing traffic is already sharing a lane at those speeds,
| that's what the double-white is about.
|
| They aren't that wide and there's not a lot of traffic, the
| safe thing to do is in fact to stay toward the center and
| yield to the sides when opposing traffic is coming. This
| isn't that different.
| zabzonk wrote:
| I used to work in Utrecht in the Netherlands as a contractor
| (doing Delphi progamming,me based the UK) and I can safely say
| that the bikes used to terrify me far more than the cars did,
| as the NL has some of the worst gridlock in Europe, so you can
| walk faster than the cars, even on motorways. The bikes used to
| sneak up on you.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-14 23:01 UTC)