crowded Dutch bikepaths

On 10/9/2013 3:02 PM, James wrote:

Trouble is, all the corridors have roads here, yet people keep insisting
that we can build bike paths for utility bicyclists, like they have in
the Netherlands. I just don't see it ever happening in our developed
cities, at least not any time soon. Breaking the car culture is a
massive hurdle. I think only a huge fuel price increase or levy on
driving will affect the status quo at this stage.

West of Melbourne City there was recently announced a new urban
development. It is supposed to have a business centre and housing
development. I've asked if "active transport" was considered (e.g.
cycling and walking), as a recent study suggests that an average trip a
cyclist makes saves the economy about $21. No response yet. I suspect
bike facilities may again be added as an afterthought, and be poorly
designed and implemented.

Of course just adding bicycle paths is insufficient. Several things have
to come together to increase utility cycling. Safe and secure parking.
Weather. Equipment availability. Facilities at office buildings for
cyclists.

However if you look at examples like Silicon Valley and the San
Francsico peninsula (including San Francisco) the improvement in
infrastructure has been a major contributor to large increases in
utility cycling. A large number of new freeway overpasses and
underpasses, and multi-use paths have driven this increase. Especially
helpful are routes to major employment centers from the middle class
neighborhoods where the workers live.

Breaking the car culture will require the cost of driving to increase,
both in time and money. Already there's a lot of commutes where the time
to cycle is not that much more than the time to drive. And while I'm not
fond of them, electrically assisted bicycles may help break the car
culture as well.

The problem with some cycling enthusiasts is that they simply can't
understand why everybody doesn't want to be just like them and ride on
roads with no bicycle lanes.

On Thursday, October 10, 2013 4:19:46 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:24:20 -0700, Dan


snip


But it's going to take an infrastructure-wide "road diet", laws
that favor bicycles over cars, and butts on bikes. Hey, what do
you know: That's The Netherlands!

The Dutch did it. Portland, et al, are doing it. Frank's VC
Pleasantville vision *might* be feasible in *some* places *after*
the car culture has been pinned to the mat and rehabilitated for
a sustainable future.


I don't think that is exactly what happened.

I think it kind of is. Reduced (or at least constrained) motor vehicle
capacity ("road diet"), laws that favor bicyclists, and butts on bikes.
Might be summarized as "car culture... pinned to the mat and rehabilitated
for a sustainable future".

I don't believe that the
Dutch ever had the level of automobile use that existed and still is
in the U.S.

Of course the US car culture will require *much* more rehabilitation,
and it won't be exactly like Holland.

But *something* must be done to change things for the better (and
Holland is better). The people in Portland are looking to Holland,
et al, for examples that work; and they're making it work here, too.
They know Portland and the US will never be exactly like the examples,
that's not even the objective; and I said that already.

Certainly I worked with some Nederlanders in Indonesia 30
years ago and it certainly was my impression that car use was not as
wide spread as the U.S. at that time.

Not only car use but the all-consuming importance of cars in the US is
unprecedented in the history of the known universe. All the more reason
to _do something_.

And, I might also comment that
the Netherlands is a small country - I remember people in Texas
talking about driving 100 miles for supper. A 160 Km drive in Holland
and you are in Germany :-)


Cars will always have a place; it should just be one that makes sense.
(That ought to be a special supper.)

Think Big :-)

Duane writes:

On 10/10/2013 7:11 AM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op donderdag 10 oktober 2013 00:02:51 UTC+2 schreef James:
On 09/10/13 23:53, Lou Holtman wrote:



I think some

people are saying that some (beginning) cyclists are more comfortable

on (separate) bikepaths.



Are your separated bike paths kept free from debris? Is there a mini

street sweeper that goes along to clean up debris?

Debris is not a problem, they are clean as far as I can tell. I don't know where the debris has to come from. From what I saw in the USA we are very clean people. Never saw a sweeper. What debris is a problem in your place?


Many places in the states have problems with litter. I guess it
depends on where you are. Here in Quebec we don't seem to have this
issue. I don't know if it's the large fines or just a cultural thing.
Our problem is not generally the cleanliness of the roads but the
state of the tarmac. And then the bike lanes and paths are usually
better because trucks don't use them. Not to say this is always true
but it's rare to find bike lanes worse than the traffic lanes and not
unusual to find them in better shape. Often the shoulder of the road
is less pocked.

An annoying problem seen here is that the bike lane is frequently
used to lay cables. That is, a cable company will slice a narrow
channel right down the middle of the bike lane, lay the cable in
there, then fill and patch. The result is a nuisance.

--
Joe Riel

On Thursday, October 10, 2013 12:54:33 AM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 11:20:17 PM UTC-4, Sir Ridesalot wrote:



I shall try to ignore him too but it's hard to ignore anyone who persists in giving really such bad advice.



AFAIK, the "bad advice" you're going on about is simply this: If a traffic lane is too narrow to safely share, you should not attempt to share it with a motor vehicle.



This is not just my advice. It's the advice given by the cycling courses certified by the League of American Bicyclists, by the Canadian program CAN-bike, by Britain's Bikeability course, by the Florida Bicycle Association and it's educational arm Commute Orlando (which is going national), by John Forester's _Effective Cycling_, by John Franklin's _Cyclecraft_, by John Allen's _Street Smarts_, and by every other well-recognized bike education program. It's codified into law in many U.S. states. It's covered in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (via sharrows and "Bikes Use Full Lane" signs).



Who with any sense is out there teaching cyclists to just squeeze to the right and never delay a motorist?



- Frank Krygowski

A correction. That educational program from Florida is called Cycling Savvy. You can find it online. Good stuff.

- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, October 10, 2013 1:47:17 AM UTC-4, Dan wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

Now: The plan for _what_?

Sustainable transportation, livable streets, healthy, happy populace;
you know - like those particular societies you suggested we "emulate".

(Make it something that just might actually work. Bonus points if it
actually *is* working; you know - like Portland.)

Well, we could do what Portland did. First, we can build cities in a place with a nice mild climate, with short winters and very little snow, where summer temperatures are high only when humidity is low, and where a thunderstorm is an unusual event. We can concentrate the cities in places where hills are moderate. We can do that by passing laws that restrict outlying development. Of course, we'll make sure there are universities in town. Then we'll use all the above to attract an unusually young, hip population with a penchant for nonconformity. (You know, like "Keep Portland Weird.") We'll entice most of them to live within the city, not out into the suburbs, because that's crucial. We'll make sure the downtown stays commercially active, with lots of great restaurants and shops of all types, many within walking distance of residential neighborhoods. We can put in excellent public transit, everything from buses to light rail to streetcars, so people really can live without a car. (The bicyclists will eventually learn to avoid the streetcar tracks.) We can also make sure Zip Car is in town, for those times a person really must use a car.

Let's make all that Phase 1, OK? Because Portland did all those things.

After that, I say we switch to major parts of the Northern European model. First, we'll put roughly 100% sales tax on the purchase of a car. We'll price gasoline at about $8 to $10 per gallon, and we'll make it both expensive and difficult (i.e. long and costly driving school) to get a driver's license. We'll also change the laws so a motorist is assumed guilty in any crash with a bicyclist or pedestrian, at least for insurance purposes. We'll institute far lower speed limits within cities, and especially in residential areas - down to 15 kph or less on some streets. We'll make sure there are plenty of speed and red light cameras in use, too, and expensive penalties for violations. And we'll make parking expensive and hard to find, and certainly make it either illegal or difficult to drive cars into the most interesting parts of town! We'll also put most people into inner-city apartment housing, not suburbs with widely separated houses, and in general make the cities very dense, so travel distances are far shorter than in the U..S.

All that can be Phase 2. That's pretty much what Northern European cities did.

Now, to throw you a bone, so to speak: If you feel you really _must_ have some place "special" to ride a bike, I'd say make a lot of the existing streets into bicycle boulevards. You know, ordinary streets, but made inconvenient for motorists, so only residents will want their cars on them, and even then only by moving slowly.

So bicycle boulevards can be Phase 3.

I think that will give us lots of sustainable transportation, livable streets, and a healthy, happy populace.

You can start work on passing the applicable laws, OK?

- Frank Krygowski

On Thursday, October 10, 2013 7:11:22 AM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op donderdag 10 oktober 2013 00:02:51 UTC+2 schreef James:

Are your separated bike paths kept free from debris? Is there a mini
street sweeper that goes along to clean up debris?

Debris is not a problem, they are clean as far as I can tell. I don't know where the debris has to come from. From what I saw in the USA we are very clean people. Never saw a sweeper. What debris is a problem in your place?

Speaking for Ohio: This is a place that gets a significant amount of snow in the winter. This is handled by trucks that plow the snow to the side, and sprinkle rock salt and fine gravel on the road as they go, to melt the snow and give cars better traction.

The rock salt dissolves and eventually goes into the soil and waters, causing some environmental problems, I suppose. But there is almost nothing done to remove the fine gravel. Oh, and since we live where heavy thunderstorms are common, there are many locations where heavy rains push dirt, gravel and such into the roads. And the freeze-thaw cycles tend to break up the pavement, generating more debris. Then there are the car crashes and tossed bottles generating broken glass and other trash.

Two times per year, road sweeping trucks pass by and brush and vacuum up the bulk of the gravel, glass and debris. It takes the trucks a long time to make it to every street and roadway.

So by April and May - after the snow season, after some heavy rains, but before the first pass of the sweepers - you find the portion of the road traveled by motor vehicles is clean. Car tires have displaced the gravel and broken glass, and moved it to places that car tires never touch.

Those places are the bike lanes or the shoulders of the roads just past the white edge line. And there the debris stays. It's worst in the spring and early summer, but even after the sweeping happens, it begins to accumulate again, more slowly. Of course, there are some bike lanes (in more rural settings) that are never swept at all.

A couple days ago I rode downtown and took the long way back. Within half a block of the main downtown street is a nice wide bridge that was recently refurbished. The road surface is concrete, but with fine transverse grooves, for traction, I suppose. The officials were reluctant to paint bike lanes here, perhaps due to liability concerns, but in this place (as in a few others) they striped a very wide (5 or 6 feet) shoulder. Sometimes these have been termed "undesignated bike lanes." Of course, motorists expect me to ride there. But it was impassible because of the hundreds of chips of broken glass, never brushed further aside by motorists, and caught in the pavement grooves.

I see this debris and glass in bike lanes and on wide shoulders all the time. I've taken some photographs, too, but the problem can be difficult to photograph. Here's one taken inside a park within the city:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16972296@N08/5103443110/
(This bike lane is a travesty in every way.)

Here's one taken just at the city limits of a different town (where my daughter lives): http://www.flickr.com/photos/16972296@N08/5102849733/

And this is within that town:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16972296@N08/5102849655/

- Frank Krygowski

On 11/10/13 03:31, Phil W Lee wrote:
Frank Krygowski considered Wed, 9 Oct 2013
17:47:33 -0700 (PDT) the perfect time to write:

On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 6:02:51 PM UTC-4, James wrote:

West of Melbourne City there was recently announced a new urban
development. It is supposed to have a business centre and
housing development. I've asked if "active transport" was
considered (e.g. cycling and walking), as a recent study suggests
that an average trip a cyclist makes saves the economy about $21.
No response yet. I suspect bike facilities may again be added as
an afterthought, and be poorly designed and implemented.

And even if well designed and implemented, they may not be well
used.

The "Build it and they will come" crowd insists that lots of bike
facilities will necessarily lead to lots of utility biking. But
the town of Stevenage in Britain is clear disproof. The town was
designed (in the '40s or '50s) to allow cycling access everywhere,
with a thorough and complete system of totally separate
cycletracks. It's never worked. The bike facilities see very
little use, and less than 3% of Stevenage trips are by bike.

And the clear counter-example, Cambridge, only 25 miles north-east
of Stevenage, had NO dedicated cycling infrastructure until very
recently, yet has Dutch levels of cycle use (and is the only place
in the UK which has).


So what's caused this difference, Phil? I'm curious.

--
JS

On 10/10/2013 23:10, James wrote:
On 11/10/13 03:31, Phil W Lee wrote:
Frank Krygowski considered Wed, 9 Oct 2013
17:47:33 -0700 (PDT) the perfect time to write:

On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 6:02:51 PM UTC-4, James wrote:

West of Melbourne City there was recently announced a new urban
development. It is supposed to have a business centre and
housing development. I've asked if "active transport" was
considered (e.g. cycling and walking), as a recent study suggests
that an average trip a cyclist makes saves the economy about $21.
No response yet. I suspect bike facilities may again be added as
an afterthought, and be poorly designed and implemented.

And even if well designed and implemented, they may not be well
used.

The "Build it and they will come" crowd insists that lots of bike
facilities will necessarily lead to lots of utility biking. But
the town of Stevenage in Britain is clear disproof. The town was
designed (in the '40s or '50s) to allow cycling access everywhere,
with a thorough and complete system of totally separate
cycletracks. It's never worked. The bike facilities see very
little use, and less than 3% of Stevenage trips are by bike.

And the clear counter-example, Cambridge, only 25 miles north-east
of Stevenage, had NO dedicated cycling infrastructure until very
recently, yet has Dutch levels of cycle use (and is the only place
in the UK which has).


So what's caused this difference, Phil? I'm curious.

University town = young people. Cambridge also has a lot of people
hanging on after they graduate - cycle as a student (no point in having
a car, and not allowed one anyway), may as well cycle afterwards too.

Old town = narrow roads, compact

Cambridge is a crap place to drive. Stevenage is a new town (30s?) and
probably rather better to get a car around.

Cars are physically easier to use, and people are lazy. If there's
decent car infrastructure, why cycle (*)? That's another reason I picked
up on Frank's desire to put the bike paths in as wide shared lanes - it
makes driving easier, and that's not a good thing.

(* because it's fun, keeps you fit, cheaper, etc - the reasons we all
know here. But for joe public...)

On 11/10/13 09:31, Clive George wrote:
On 10/10/2013 23:10, James wrote:
On 11/10/13 03:31, Phil W Lee wrote:
Frank Krygowski considered Wed, 9 Oct 2013
17:47:33 -0700 (PDT) the perfect time to write:

On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 6:02:51 PM UTC-4, James wrote:

West of Melbourne City there was recently announced a new urban
development. It is supposed to have a business centre and
housing development. I've asked if "active transport" was
considered (e.g. cycling and walking), as a recent study suggests
that an average trip a cyclist makes saves the economy about $21.
No response yet. I suspect bike facilities may again be added as
an afterthought, and be poorly designed and implemented.

And even if well designed and implemented, they may not be well
used.

The "Build it and they will come" crowd insists that lots of bike
facilities will necessarily lead to lots of utility biking. But
the town of Stevenage in Britain is clear disproof. The town was
designed (in the '40s or '50s) to allow cycling access everywhere,
with a thorough and complete system of totally separate
cycletracks. It's never worked. The bike facilities see very
little use, and less than 3% of Stevenage trips are by bike.

And the clear counter-example, Cambridge, only 25 miles north-east
of Stevenage, had NO dedicated cycling infrastructure until very
recently, yet has Dutch levels of cycle use (and is the only place
in the UK which has).


So what's caused this difference, Phil? I'm curious.

University town = young people. Cambridge also has a lot of people
hanging on after they graduate - cycle as a student (no point in having
a car, and not allowed one anyway), may as well cycle afterwards too.

Old town = narrow roads, compact

Cambridge is a crap place to drive. Stevenage is a new town (30s?) and
probably rather better to get a car around.

Cars are physically easier to use, and people are lazy. If there's
decent car infrastructure, why cycle (*)? That's another reason I picked
up on Frank's desire to put the bike paths in as wide shared lanes - it
makes driving easier, and that's not a good thing.

(* because it's fun, keeps you fit, cheaper, etc - the reasons we all
know here. But for joe public...)


I guessed as much. Ground up use of a bicycle, and deterrents to car use.

Thanks.

--
JS

On Thu, 10 Oct 2013 11:23:20 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On Thursday, October 10, 2013 4:19:46 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:24:20 -0700, Dan


snip


But it's going to take an infrastructure-wide "road diet", laws
that favor bicycles over cars, and butts on bikes. Hey, what do
you know: That's The Netherlands!

The Dutch did it. Portland, et al, are doing it. Frank's VC
Pleasantville vision *might* be feasible in *some* places *after*
the car culture has been pinned to the mat and rehabilitated for
a sustainable future.


I don't think that is exactly what happened.

I think it kind of is. Reduced (or at least constrained) motor vehicle
capacity ("road diet"), laws that favor bicyclists, and butts on bikes.
Might be summarized as "car culture... pinned to the mat and rehabilitated
for a sustainable future".

You seem to be implying that at some point auto use in Holland was
much greater then at present and the Netherlanders deliberately
decided to limit car use, i.e., decrease it. I don't believe that this
is correct. I think that they set out to make the existing use of
bicycles more convenient. While it still resulted in bike paths the
philosophy seems different. the Dutch appeared to be saying, " we'll
make it more convenient to ride your bike" while you seem to be
advocating "sell your car and buy a bike".

The problem is the old song, "How are you going to get them back on
the farm after they've seen New York". Or, "you mean you want me to
ride a bike, get rained on, snowed on, get all sweaty, maybe have a
heart attack? Do something that almost all the bike riders are telling
me is dangerous?" You are mad!

I don't believe that the
Dutch ever had the level of automobile use that existed and still is
in the U.S.

Of course the US car culture will require *much* more rehabilitation,
and it won't be exactly like Holland.

Out of curiosity, how many people want to rehabilitate car drivers and
how many want to buy a new car?

But *something* must be done to change things for the better (and
Holland is better). The people in Portland are looking to Holland,
et al, for examples that work; and they're making it work here, too.
They know Portland and the US will never be exactly like the examples,
that's not even the objective; and I said that already.

Why does "something" have top be done? And is it really a change? What
is the number of cars registered in Portland now and say 10 years ago?
My guess it that it has increased over the past ten years. Has there
been a large influx of bicycle riders immigrating to Portland to ride
the bike paths?

My guess is that you are seeing the frosting and ignoring the cake.


Certainly I worked with some Nederlanders in Indonesia 30
years ago and it certainly was my impression that car use was not as
wide spread as the U.S. at that time.

Not only car use but the all-consuming importance of cars in the US is
unprecedented in the history of the known universe. All the more reason
to _do something_.

So what? When I was at Edwards Air Force Base there were civilians
driving from Burbank to work and home again in the evening. You want
to do that on a bicycle... a what? 120 mile round trip every day?

And, I might also comment that
the Netherlands is a small country - I remember people in Texas
talking about driving 100 miles for supper. A 160 Km drive in Holland
and you are in Germany :-)


Cars will always have a place; it should just be one that makes sense.
(That ought to be a special supper.)

Think Big :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.