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I wish urban designers in Poland learned from this. Our bike lanes are terribly designed, cars turn right into them with very poor visibility. The "solution" is that lawmakers introduce additional restrictions for bikers, which are unclear to everyone, so right now nobody really knows if bikes have priority on bike lane crossings or not.

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Jaxan 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s good to realise the Dutch cycling infrastructure did not came out of nowhere. There were huge protests in the 70’s about traffic safety. At that time cars ruled the roads and there a lot of accidents, also involving children. From those protests an culture shift started, towards better cycling infrastructure.

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ndsipa_pomu 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

There's an excellent documentary about "Stop De Kindermoord" (Stop Killing Our Children)

https://vimeo.com/361286029

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Tade0 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There are many reasons why this is unlikely to happen in Poland, but from the top of my head:

-Traffic fatalities have been falling for years now anyway - the 2022 figure per capita is around 20% higher than in the Netherlands, but used to be much, much worse.

-Polish cities are sparsely populated due to adminstrative changes and little of the old architecture surviving the war. Official numbers say that Warsaw has a density of 3.6k/km2, while the runner up is much smaller Białystok with ~2.9k/km2. Most hover in the region of 2.0-2.5k/km2. Real numbers might be different, but it's sparse compared with say Amsterdam's ~5k/km2.

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panick21_ 5 days ago | parent [-]

There are plenty of places in the Netherlands with much lower density. They have great cycling and urban design even in tiny towns.

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Tade0 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Those are just two out of many points. I stand corrected on the second, but the first holds - road safety has been improving for 20 years now, why bother?

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panick21_ 5 days ago | parent [-]

Why bother to improve the safety of a transportation system? Road safety has been improving since the 1940. Would you have said 'why bother' in 1970? Or 1980?

And the trend of less people dying isn't some magical automated machine, you have to continue to improve, otherwise the trend can reverse, see the US as an example.

And even if you don't care about people and children dying, even if you don't care about 1000s of people being injured impacting their lives and their families, about the massive amount of property damage, about the massive amount of tax payer cost for policy and firefighter, all the money sucked up by insurance companies that can be used to do something useful.

Even if you don't care about any of those things, it simply makes the system more efficient. By literally any way you look at, its one of the single best money invested compared to return you can get.

> Those are just two out of many points.

Both points you mentioned are nonsense, but I guess you have other points in your head that you don't want to tell. I mean if you said what they are, people might bring up facts in response.

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Tade0 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Road safety has been improving since the 1940.

In the west. Over here it has only been a thing since the 90s.

> And the trend of less people dying isn't some magical automated machine, you have to continue to improve,

Which is happening without the involvement of cycling infrastructure and arguably the mentioned isn't that much of a factor. A while ago here pedestrians finally gained right of way when approaching crossings - there was some groaning, but safety improved. This is the level of legislation we're at.

Case in point: the traffic fatality rate in Poland is currently at the level seen in the Netherlands around 20 years ago, but by then the Dutch had a much more robust cycling network.

> Even if you don't care about any of those things, it simply makes the system more efficient.

Efficiency for efficiency's sake is not enough of an argument, especially if you optimise for only a subset of factors. There's always a tradeoff and people here are unwilling to make it.

> Both points you mentioned are nonsense

Perhaps to you, but they're relevant here.

Anyway, other points:

-Smog in the winter, heatwaves in the summer. In 2018 the sale of furnaces where you could throw just anything was banned, but much of the heating is still done using solid fuels, particularly coal ash. Meanwhile summer heatwaves lately have been approaching 36°C - I've attempted commuting by bike in such an environment - not worth the trouble.

-Urbanisation having peaked in the early 2000s at 62% and falling since(~60% currently). Many factors contributing to that, but the two main being generational trauma of living in cramped commie blocks along with barely anyone having the credit score to live within city limits. Dense living is a (dubious) privilege of those who have generational wealth. In the EU only Romania has the same trend and likely for similar reasons.

-Demographics. My city of 650k people has a shortage of 100 bus/tram drivers. Financial incentives that the city can afford don't work as the people who are qualified moved west long ago, when the west was solving such problems with immigration. We can't compete with say Germany on that front.

I could do this all day, but none of us has the time for that.

	▲	panick21_ 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Reducing the amount of car trips, is how bike lanes improve safety. Even if nothing else convinces you. If efficiency isn't relevant for you then I don't know what to tell you. Transporting more people, getting them where they need to go at low cost to the person and to society is something most people think is a good thing. There are not tradeoff, research is pretty clear, improving in biking improves the situation for drivers as well. And the claim that 'people are not willing' is simply because, people are misinformed. To claim Poland is to hot for biking is freaking ridiculous, its equally ridiculous to claim its to cold. Biking is much more common in places Finland and in the Nordics. And in some places in Switzerland. Poland is mostly flat. Netherlands are also flat and rainy. In places where Poland has improve their bike infrastructure, they have seen adoption. Poland in literally every way is like other nations, so get out of here with your Polish exceptionalism. Not all post-communist nations are de-urbanizing. Superannuation is a direct result of policy not some 'cultural will'. Infrastructure and policy is deterministic to a far, far greater degree them 'cultural memory'. Demographics are why you can't have bike lanes? Now you are just flat out ridiculous. Poland growing economically and many people are moving to Poland, including many poles who left. And in regards to drivers, that an equally crazy claim. Driving a vehicle is not some intellectual job that only a brilliant physicists can do. And the claim that the city can't afford it is equally wrong, much, much poorer society then Poland have managed to run a bus system. Are you fully pricing the roads and the parking? If not then that's how you can get some money, and improve the system.

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Vinnl 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I do imagine those places benefited from the cultural mindshift originating in dense areas. Just a guess, of course.

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CrispyKerosene 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In defense of urban planners, we get good design and want to see more of it, but are usually beholden to the elected officials in the municipality who we require to vote in and ratify new design standards, or funding for projects.