crowded Dutch bikepaths

Lou, can you post links to evacuation planning websites ?

On 10/4/2013 6:03 AM, Doug Cimperman wrote:
On 10/3/2013 3:02 PM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Duane wrote:
Lou Holtman wrote:
Took my winterevening bike for a spin after work. Took some photo's
of the
bikepaths I rode. Terrible....

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...CMzd_6Lxh8f1JA


Man how do you avoid all those crowds Lou?


Nothing special. Most bikepaths between towns look like this outside rush
hours. What I wanted to prove is that you can easily avoid crowds even on
Dutch bikepaths in contrast what many foreigners believe. They only
see the
youtube films of big city bikepaths during rush hour.


There is a website somewhere about a study that found that most Dutch
cyclists were entirely urban, and rode something like less than 1.2
miles one-way for nearly all their trips. Very, very few rode more than
5 miles a day total. ...As well as what you are pointing out--that the
few paths that did exist out into rural areas went largely unused.

"and they call this bike commuting?!?!?"


You can find websites that say anything:
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm

I'd prefer to listen to a local like Lou.

On 2013-10-03 23:53:44 +0000, Frank Krygowski said:

On Thursday, October 3, 2013 2:30:13 PM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:
Took my winterevening bike for a spin after work. Took some photo's of the

bikepaths I rode. Terrible....

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...CMzd_6Lxh8f1JA


BTW, did they build those paths to spare the cyclists from all the
terrible traffic on the adjacent road?

- Frank Krygowski

What do you think? These are main roads (N roads) between towns,
narrow and with a speed limit of 80 km/hr outside the city limits. All
these roads have separate bikelanes outside the city limits. That is
how it is here. Mainly used by high school kids and commuters therefore
quit outside (school) rush hour.
--

Lou

On Friday, October 4, 2013 11:53:14 AM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:
On 2013-10-03 23:53:44 +0000, Frank Krygowski said:


BTW, did they build those paths to spare the cyclists from all the
terrible traffic on the adjacent road?

What do you think? These are main roads (N roads) between towns,
narrow and with a speed limit of 80 km/hr outside the city limits. All
these roads have separate bikelanes outside the city limits. That is
how it is here. Mainly used by high school kids and commuters therefore
quit outside (school) rush hour.

to me, it looks astonishing that the sidepaths are considered necessary.

FWIW, in the U.S. those would be astonishingly expensive. Construction costs would be high, and acquisition of the right-of-way would be prohibitive, including lots of court time. It literally takes years to acquire the right-of-way of a disused rail line (which are what enable most of the MUPs we have) and one local MUP has dead-ended for about 15 years now because the railway sold the right-of-way back to the surrounding farmers. Those farmers are highly resistant to giving it up. Taking people's roadside property would be absolutely impossible.

If you remove the path in your photos, it would look exactly like my favorite riding roads.

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Friday, October 4, 2013 11:53:14 AM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:
On 2013-10-03 23:53:44 +0000, Frank Krygowski said:


BTW, did they build those paths to spare the cyclists from all the
terrible traffic on the adjacent road?

What do you think? These are main roads (N roads) between towns,
narrow and with a speed limit of 80 km/hr outside the city limits.

That's the type of road that comprises most of my commute. I
love riding, but sharing the road with motor vehicles traffic
*sucks*. Even when the drivers are very nice it's harrowing,
and all too often the drivers are not very nice.

All
these roads have separate bikelanes outside the city limits. That is
how it is here. Mainly used by high school kids and commuters therefore
quit outside (school) rush hour.

to me, it looks astonishing that the sidepaths are considered necessary.


You do not even realize what a fool you are making of yourself in
this thread, do you? You claim to be a bicycle advocate, and
here you are trashing the finest example in the known universe,

FWIW, in the U.S. those would be astonishingly expensive. Construction costs would be high, and acquisition of the right-of-way would be prohibitive, including lots of court time. It literally takes years to acquire the right-of-way of a disused rail line (which are what enable most of the MUPs we have) and one local MUP has dead-ended for about 15 years now because the railway sold the right-of-way back to the surrounding farmers. Those farmers are highly resistant to giving it up. Taking people's roadside property would be absolutely impossible.


"FWIW", indeed. It's worth crap. The transportation infrastructure
authority has _no problem_ taking land for expanding *car* capacity.
Let me run this by you once again:

"The difference is the Dutch put the car culture in its place."

If you remove the path in your photos, it would look exactly like my favorite riding roads.


And it might, too. Can we see some photos of *your* roads during
"rush hour"? We'd like to compare to rush hour in Amsterdam and
Portland.

Dan wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On Friday, October 4, 2013 11:53:14 AM UTC-4, Lou Holtman wrote:
On 2013-10-03 23:53:44 +0000, Frank Krygowski said:


BTW, did they build those paths to spare the cyclists from all the
terrible traffic on the adjacent road?

What do you think? These are main roads (N roads) between towns,
narrow and with a speed limit of 80 km/hr outside the city limits.

That's the type of road that comprises most of my commute. I
love riding, but sharing the road with motor vehicles traffic
*sucks*. Even when the drivers are very nice it's harrowing,
and all too often the drivers are not very nice.

All
these roads have separate bikelanes outside the city limits. That is
how it is here. Mainly used by high school kids and commuters therefore
quit outside (school) rush hour.

to me, it looks astonishing that the sidepaths are considered necessary.


You do not even realize what a fool you are making of yourself in
this thread, do you? You claim to be a bicycle advocate, and
here you are trashing the finest example in the known universe,

FWIW, in the U.S. those would be astonishingly expensive. Construction
costs would be high, and acquisition of the right-of-way would be
prohibitive, including lots of court time. It literally takes years to
acquire the right-of-way of a disused rail line (which are what enable
most of the MUPs we have) and one local MUP has dead-ended for about 15
years now because the railway sold the right-of-way back to the
surrounding farmers. Those farmers are highly resistant to giving it
up. Taking people's roadside property would be absolutely impossible.


"FWIW", indeed. It's worth crap. The transportation infrastructure
authority has _no problem_ taking land for expanding *car* capacity.
Let me run this by you once again:

"The difference is the Dutch put the car culture in its place."

If you remove the path in your photos, it would look exactly like my
favorite riding roads.


And it might, too. Can we see some photos of *your* roads during
"rush hour"? We'd like to compare to rush hour in Amsterdam and
Portland.

Those roads are narrow and have no shoulder. You would have to take the
lane in a road with a speed limit of 80km/h. Which means cars doing 90 or
100. Not saying this is impossible but it's hard to understand how a bike
advocate would actually argue against those smooth clean bike paths
paralleling the road.


--
duane

On Friday, October 4, 2013 10:16:57 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

Those roads are narrow and have no shoulder. You would have to take the
lane in a road with a speed limit of 80km/h. Which means cars doing 90 or
100. Not saying this is impossible but it's hard to understand how a bike
advocate would actually argue against those smooth clean bike paths
paralleling the road.

If you read the AASHTO Guide on bike facility design, they list roughly a dozen reasons sidepaths such as those cause problems. Admittedly, there are fewer problems in an empty rural setting like Lou photographed; but my point was, there is very little need for them in that setting.

One example from that list (working from memory): Intersections tend to be problematic. Cyclists are typically entering the intersection at an unexpected location (perhaps 20 feet away from where motorists are used to looking) and thus surprise motorists. Consequently, the dangers of right hooks and left crosses go up. There have been examples of this in Montreal, I know. And it's not just road intersections, it's also a problem at every driveway that the path crosses. (I remember riding such a path in Iowa, where there was a stop sign for the cyclists at every driveway! Stupid!)

On such a narrow, shoulderless road, I do ride at lane center, and have for decades. It works. But if you want enough space to let bikes and motor vehicles pass each other with no delay, why not just widen the roads?

The typical path-fanatic answer is that you'll get run over from behind. But crashes from right hooks and left crosses are far, far more common. Why make those worse to reduce the type of crash that is so rare?

I know the Netherlands has intersection designs that reduce the crossing conflict problem. They do it by routing the bicyclist the long way around, and/or adding extra traffic light "red" time to everyone. The former is going to significantly slow the trip of every cyclist, and the latter is going to slow everyone's progress. It will never fly in America. So if we build those things, we'll continue to funnel cyclists into conflicts - while telling them "No, no, this is safe. (wink, wink.)"

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski writes:

On Friday, October 4, 2013 10:16:57 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

Those roads are narrow and have no shoulder. You would have to take the
lane in a road with a speed limit of 80km/h. Which means cars doing 90 or
100. Not saying this is impossible but it's hard to understand how a bike
advocate would actually argue against those smooth clean bike paths
paralleling the road.

If you read the AASHTO Guide on bike facility design, they list roughly a dozen reasons sidepaths such as those cause problems. Admittedly, there are fewer problems in an empty rural setting like Lou photographed; but my point was, there is very little need for them in that setting.

One example from that list (working from memory): Intersections tend to be problematic. Cyclists are typically entering the intersection at an unexpected location (perhaps 20 feet away from where motorists are used to looking) and thus surprise motorists. Consequently, the dangers of right hooks and left crosses go up. There have been examples of this in Montreal, I know. And it's not just road intersections, it's also a problem at every driveway that the path crosses. (I remember riding such a path in Iowa, where there was a stop sign for the cyclists at every driveway! Stupid!)

On such a narrow, shoulderless road, I do ride at lane center, and have for decades. It works.


It's true that you and I are not so very different. Your approach to
bicycling works for you, as mine does for me. That's great! Nothing
wrong with that. We both feel the benefits outweigh the risks. But
both approaches fail to make bicycle transportation inviting or feasible
to the public. Never, ever, ever going to happen.

But if you want enough space to let bikes and motor vehicles pass each other with no delay, why not just widen the roads?

The typical path-fanatic answer is that you'll get run over from behind. But crashes from right hooks and left crosses are far, far more common. Why make those worse to reduce the type of crash that is so rare?

I know the Netherlands has intersection designs that reduce the crossing conflict problem. They do it by routing the bicyclist the long way around, and/or adding extra traffic light "red" time to everyone. The former is going to significantly slow the trip of every cyclist, and the latter is going to slow everyone's progress. It will never fly in America. So if we build those things, we'll continue to funnel cyclists into conflicts - while telling them "No, no, this is safe. (wink, wink.)"


At least I don't rationalize a bunch of utter crap to foist my way on
everybody (or anybody) else.

It can be done. The Netherlands did it; Portland is doing it.

Op 5-10-2013 6:22, Frank Krygowski schreef:
On Friday, October 4, 2013 10:16:57 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

Those roads are narrow and have no shoulder. You would have to take the
lane in a road with a speed limit of 80km/h. Which means cars doing 90 or
100. Not saying this is impossible but it's hard to understand how a bike
advocate would actually argue against those smooth clean bike paths
paralleling the road.

If you read the AASHTO Guide on bike facility design, they list roughly a dozen reasons sidepaths such as those cause problems. Admittedly, there are fewer problems in an empty rural setting like Lou photographed; but my point was, there is very little need for them in that setting.

One example from that list (working from memory): Intersections tend to be problematic. Cyclists are typically entering the intersection at an unexpected location (perhaps 20 feet away from where motorists are used to looking) and thus surprise motorists. Consequently, the dangers of right hooks and left crosses go up. There have been examples of this in Montreal, I know. And it's not just road intersections, it's also a problem at every driveway that the path crosses. (I remember riding such a path in Iowa, where there was a stop sign for the cyclists at every driveway! Stupid!)

On such a narrow, shoulderless road, I do ride at lane center, and have for decades. It works. But if you want enough space to let bikes and motor vehicles pass each other with no delay, why not just widen the roads?

The typical path-fanatic answer is that you'll get run over from behind. But crashes from right hooks and left crosses are far, far more common. Why make those worse to reduce the type of crash that is so rare?

I know the Netherlands has intersection designs that reduce the crossing conflict problem. They do it by routing the bicyclist the long way around, and/or adding extra traffic light "red" time to everyone. The former is going to significantly slow the trip of every cyclist, and the latter is going to slow everyone's progress. It will never fly in America. So if we build those things, we'll continue to funnel cyclists into conflicts - while telling them "No, no, this is safe. (wink, wink.)"

- Frank Krygowski


Riding on those roads just leaving out the separate bikepaths is not an
option. The roads are too narrow. Imagine during school rushhour convoys
of schoolkids riding at least two abreast 50-100 m long combined with
much heavier traffic than shown in my pictures. Nobody wants that, nor
the people in the car nor the cyclists. There are two solutions: widen
the roads or seperate bikepaths. There are studies that show that the
latter is more problematic sometimes and I tend to agree. The severity
of the accidents reported is lower but they occur more often. If you ask
all the parents of the kids which solution they prefer they choose
without exception for seperate bikepaths. They like the idea of a ditch
and/or a row of trees between the road and the bikepath. So that is what
we have here on those roads. With my post I wanted to oppose against the
idea that they are always crowded and that a serious/sportive cyclist is
limited in anyway by them. That is not the case 95% of the time. As long
as the pavement is OK I have no problems with bikepaths although they
are not my first choice but sometimes they can't be avoided.

Lou

Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 5-10-2013 6:22, Frank Krygowski schreef:
On Friday, October 4, 2013 10:16:57 PM UTC-4, Duane wrote:

Those roads are narrow and have no shoulder. You would have to take the
lane in a road with a speed limit of 80km/h. Which means cars doing 90 or
100. Not saying this is impossible but it's hard to understand how a bike
advocate would actually argue against those smooth clean bike paths
paralleling the road.

If you read the AASHTO Guide on bike facility design, they list roughly
a dozen reasons sidepaths such as those cause problems. Admittedly,
there are fewer problems in an empty rural setting like Lou
photographed; but my point was, there is very little need for them in that setting.

One example from that list (working from memory): Intersections tend to
be problematic. Cyclists are typically entering the intersection at an
unexpected location (perhaps 20 feet away from where motorists are used
to looking) and thus surprise motorists. Consequently, the dangers of
right hooks and left crosses go up. There have been examples of this in
Montreal, I know. And it's not just road intersections, it's also a
problem at every driveway that the path crosses. (I remember riding
such a path in Iowa, where there was a stop sign for the cyclists at
every driveway! Stupid!)

On such a narrow, shoulderless road, I do ride at lane center, and have
for decades. It works. But if you want enough space to let bikes and
motor vehicles pass each other with no delay, why not just widen the roads?

The typical path-fanatic answer is that you'll get run over from behind.
But crashes from right hooks and left crosses are far, far more common.
Why make those worse to reduce the type of crash that is so rare?

I know the Netherlands has intersection designs that reduce the crossing
conflict problem. They do it by routing the bicyclist the long way
around, and/or adding extra traffic light "red" time to everyone. The
former is going to significantly slow the trip of every cyclist, and the
latter is going to slow everyone's progress. It will never fly in
America. So if we build those things, we'll continue to funnel cyclists
into conflicts - while telling them "No, no, this is safe. (wink, wink.)"

- Frank Krygowski


Riding on those roads just leaving out the separate bikepaths is not an
option. The roads are too narrow. Imagine during school rushhour convoys
of schoolkids riding at least two abreast 50-100 m long combined with
much heavier traffic than shown in my pictures. Nobody wants that, nor
the people in the car nor the cyclists. There are two solutions: widen
the roads or seperate bikepaths. There are studies that show that the
latter is more problematic sometimes and I tend to agree. The severity of
the accidents reported is lower but they occur more often. If you ask all
the parents of the kids which solution they prefer they choose without
exception for seperate bikepaths. They like the idea of a ditch and/or a
row of trees between the road and the bikepath. So that is what we have
here on those roads. With my post I wanted to oppose against the idea
that they are always crowded and that a serious/sportive cyclist is
limited in anyway by them. That is not the case 95% of the time. As long
as the pavement is OK I have no problems with bikepaths although they are
not my first choice but sometimes they can't be avoided.



Right. And the existence of these paths don't prevent you from riding on a
road if you choose, do they?


--
duane