| ▲ | 0xbs0d 6 days ago |
| It's not that much different from Copenhagen where I live. Bike lanes are everywhere. |
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| ▲ | maelito 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Bike lanes are everywhere in most big cities in France too... But they're bad, very bad. We desperately need this principle of elevated bike lanes that cars should be worried to cross. I have code an open-source framework to assess the cyclability of territories : https://villes.plus It only takes into account quality bike lanes, based on OSM data, run every trimestre. For instance, painted bike lanes or shared bus lanes are excluded. Amsterdam's score is around 90 %. The best French city, Strasbourg, has around 45 %. There is some inherent variability as each run takes random points among a data set to build the segments to be tested. |
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| ▲ | lqet 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Bike lanes are everywhere in most big cities in France too... But they're bad, very bad. We once cycled from Germany to Colmar in France. Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wJU4GLWrmqF9EDes8 Of course it isn't much better in Germany. | | |
| ▲ | david-gpu 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it I don't mean to detract anything about what you just said. At the same time, my first thought when I clicked on the link was something like: "Woah, that is pretty nice; a painted bike lane and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast". We have a long way to go for most of North America to become friendly to cyclists. | | |
| ▲ | lqet 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > We have a long way to go for most of North America to become friendly to cyclists. Also for pedestrians, in my experience. When I first visited the US 10 years ago, I wanted to leave the hotel to get to a nearby public transit stop to go into town. On the map, it was a distance of around 500m from hotel to transit stop (Market Center in Dallas). But getting there was quite an ordeal. This was the pedestrian walkway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gvduBGYMQfxSVxcFA, it ended in a dirt path by the side of the road after a few meters. There was a better walkway on the other side of the road, but it was impossible to safely cross it without walking for nearly 700 meters into the other direction. | |
| ▲ | trompetenaccoun 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The way this looks it could be more dangerous than having no bike lane at all. Drivers will see this as a sign that the big lane belongs to them. Bike riders must expect someone in the parked car to unexpectedly open the door at any time and hit them. There have been many deadly accidents where bike riders got "doored" just like that. Also imagine you have two trucks crossing paths and bikes on the side. Or a trailer with a child like the user said. That bike lane is a nightmare. | | |
| ▲ | david-gpu 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree with most of what you've said, and yet as a utility cyclist I can tell you that this is nicer than many of the streets I need to ride when I leave my home. Let me reiterate that I don't say this to dismiss the importance of improving that street. On the contrary, I am simply lamenting how bad things are here [0]. [0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/nurAWCzcBW98TxFm8?g_st=ac |
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| ▲ | mytailorisrich 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast You're underestimating French drivers here ;) . Also on that picture the main lane is not considered narrow at all in France/Europe, it's quite comfortable to speed. The only way to limit speed is speed cameras and speed bumps (both are also becoming ubiquitous in the UK). China is what I imagine the US with bike lanes would look like. | |
| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | maelito 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Remember that the east of France is considered the top place to cycle... Well except Paris and its recent revolution. | | |
| ▲ | lqet 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree, the bike infrastructure in Paris is now quite good. If only cyclists in Paris would start to stop at red lights, especially at pedestrian crossings (this is a problem everywhere, of course, but in Paris it seems to be particularly bad). |
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| ▲ | simgt 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm still failing to understand why the urbanism departments are so bad in councils of even our big metropolitan areas. We could just contract with corps like Copenhaguenize to get to the state of the art right away when rebuilding roads, but "on a des idées" so why not improvise? Or it's just corruption and favoritism... Nice project though, might ping you for something related :) | |
| ▲ | david-gpu 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > run every trimestre From another non-native speaker, the term you are looking for is "quarter". As in: a quarter of a year, as 12/4=3 months. | | |
| ▲ | maelito 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Thanks ! I wonder though if native english speakers understand it instantly, or no. | | |
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| ▲ | vanderZwan 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Is this intentional bait for the somewhat notorious "Copenhagen is Great ... but it's not Amsterdam" video by the Not Just Bikes channel? ;) (as a Dutchie living in Malmö: I love Copenhagen, and I'm already happy that it's a million times better than 99% of the rest of the world. Still, it's also true that the Netherlands has a head-start of a few decades on everyone else and that it does show if you look closely) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjzzV2Akyds |
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| ▲ | leokennis 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In general I try to avoid nationalism - a lot of what one perceives as "my country ABC is the best at XYZ!" is just "I was born in ABC so I am used to XYZ!". But...for the small niche of cycling infrastructure, the top 10 list is The Netherlands in places 1 to 10, then no country in places 11 to 50, and then Denmark in place 51. What is important to consider is that cycling infrastructure is all around great in The Netherlands everywhere. Not just in the center of Amsterdam. Industrial estates, villages in the middle of nowhere, roads through forests, popular attractions or theme parks, islands: everything is reachable by bike, usually with bike lanes that are well maintained and physically separated from the main road, and often with bicycles having right of way on roundabouts etc. | | |
| ▲ | vanderZwan 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Haha, same! I think the most nationalistic thing I ever did was when I went on a "field trip" to Copenhagen with the classmates of my international master studies, and constantly complain that the bike infrastructure was so disappointing. I have to admit Copenhagen hasn't been sitting still and improved in the last decade though! I try to frame it more like a friendly rivalry with Denmark (or more accurately, Copenhagen), since nobody else even tried to rival us until very recently. Looking forward to everyone else catching up though! (also, I live in Sweden, making fun of the Danes is a legal requirement to be considered integrated into local society) | | | |
| ▲ | okwhateverdude 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > What is important to consider is that cycling infrastructure is all around great in The Netherlands everywhere. Case in point, I've literally cycled across the country diagonally basically using the Fietsersbond (national cycling association that advocates for this cycling infra) route planner and on mostly dedicated cycling paths. |
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| ▲ | 0xbs0d 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Hahah, I would never! :D It definitely shows that the Netherlands had an early start and still an advantage. Kudos on that! | | |
| ▲ | vanderZwan 6 days ago | parent [-] | | You have the advantage of being able to learn from the mistakes we made along the way and skipping those, so should be able to catch up quickly! |
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| ▲ | LeonidasXIV 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Bike lanes yes. But where are all the safety features you can see here? Bike lanes are often separated, but not always. On many streets they are just painted on. They are rarely color marked, which is fine when you know where the bike lane but in new places you sometimes miss that there is a bike lane because it is not obvious at the crossing. Even proper, separated bike lanes often terminate in right turn lanes for cars (even in places where there is a lot of bikes and in places where there would be a lot of space), leading to weird situations where a car is trapped in a wall of cyclists from every side. In practice it mostly works but I'm not surprised car ownership in the city is on the rise, because the city still prioritizes cars way too much. Copenhagen is mostly a regular city with consistent bike lanes. |
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| ▲ | attendant3446 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Berlin is full of bike lanes, but they're built ass-backwards and inconvenient for everyone - motorists, pedestrians and cyclists alike. |
