A "Pinch-Point" design which slows cars without "pinching" bikes

On-road cycle-lane approaching a pinch-point. A potentially dangerous situation for cyclists. Note how from this view the driving lanes appears to narrow at the pinch-point.

Pinch points are often installed on roads to slow motor vehicles and to provide crossing places for pedestrians. They are often dangerous for cyclists. Road lanes which suddenly narrowed to encourage drivers to slow down can force them to come too close to cyclists resulting in close and dangerous overtaking or even a collision. However pinch-points do not have to be built in this way. In this blog post I illustrate a "pinch point" which doesn't really pinch at all. While the pinch-point appears from a distance to restrict the space for cars, resulting in drivers slowing down at the junction, the driving lane actually widens through the pinch point. The cycle-lane has constant width.

Thorbeckelaan from ground level
Thorbeckelaan has a 50 km/h speed limit. These photos were both taken while riding along the road from west to east.

Before the pinch-point. The driving lane is 2.8 metres wide, the cycle-lane 2.1 m wide. Note reasonably wide parking bays and a 0.5 m wide drain. The width of the drain helps to reduce dooring incidents (explained here), as does this being relatively infrequently moving residential parking and not business parking.

At the pinch-point, the cycle-lane remains the same width while the driving lane increases to 3.5 m in width. This still causes drivers to slow down. The narrowing of the driving lane back to 2.8 metres is visible after the central reservation. At this point there is of course no space for car parking.

From the air
Aerial photos (from Google Maps and Ongelukken Kaart) provide another view of the same cycle and driving lanes. The photos above were taken facing east (i.e. view is from left to right on the photos below):

On-road cycle-lanes - not really a good idea
This blog post highlights a good example of how a pinch-point can be built which successfully reserves space for pedestrians crossing the road and also slows drivers, without squeezing cyclists. It's certainly an improvement over other pinch-points I've seen where cyclists are squeezed by drivers as they pass through pinch-points. However I don't mean to suggest that this road layout, with an on-road cycle-lane, is actually particularly good. Such infrastructure shouldn't be an aspiration.

On-road cycle-lanes are well known to cause a myriad of problems for cyclists worldwide, but context is always important. This arrangement works fairly well on this road because cyclists travelling west-east along this particular road are protected from conflict by several other factors which are specific to the character of this road:

1. There are few destinations on this road so few clashes with drivers starting and stopping.
2. Residential side streets do not provide through routes by car and therefore few cars turn into or out of the side roads.
3. There are no bus-stops along this road.
4. The cycle-lane is of a good width, providing wiggle room.
5. The parking along the road is for residents, so those cars rarely move and the drain provides a gap where there are parked cars, reducing the risk of dooring.

Because of these factors, almost all motor traffic on this road travels all the way from one end to the other without stopping and there are few conflicts caused by drivers cutting across the cycle-lane. Note that both ends of this road have extremely safe junctions. At one end there is a very safe roundabout and the other has a very safe traffic light junction. Neither of those relatively large junctions have ever caused cyclist injury.

In other locations the problems would be greater. That is the reason why this layout is by no means a substitute for proper cycle-paths. Though it is overall quite well designed, this road (when riding west to east) is still one of the least pleasant along which to cycle within Assen. In particular, being overtaken by a bus or truck while riding side by side in the cycle-lane is not especially pleasant.

On the other side of the road there's a segregated cycle-path.
A video shows the popularity of the sports club on that side

The other side of the road
This road is unusual in that while there is an on-road lane for cyclists heading from west to east, cyclists heading in the east-west direction are provided with a kerb separated cycle-path on the other side of the road. The cycle-path not only feels far safer but due to being 2.5 metres wide and having a 0.5 metre buffer, it provides more space for cyclists further from motor vehicles.

On this side of the road, there is little or no discomfort due to being passed by a large vehicle.

Note that with a proper separate cycle-path, pinch-points have no effect whatsoever on cyclists so can be made quite narrow in order to reduce the speed of motor vehicles. However on this road the driving lane widens on both sides through the pinch-point.

Read about other examples of pinch points with cycle-paths and at village entrances.

This junction doesn't have a good safety record. Why ?
This road is a busy west-east route for both bicycles and motor vehicles. On its length there are three pinch points of a very similar design to that emphasized here. Two of these pinch points have a good safety record while this one has a relatively bad record by the standards of Assen. Why ? The reason is that this pinch point also happens to be a junction with a busy main cycle-route north-south which provides access from some suburban areas in the North to the city centre.

The red flag with "10" within it on the second aerial photograph tell us that this junction has seen ten incidents since 2007, four of which caused injuries to cyclists, one of which injured a moped rider and one of which caused the unfortunate death in 2009 of a 76 year old female moped rider, in collision with a large car.

A cropped version of the first photo in this blog post. Does
each participant in this scene know what the others are doing?

The most common recorded cause of crashes at this location is "no priority given". This suggests that people find it difficult to see each other well while maneuvering or find it difficult to judge whether they have time to complete a maneuvre. Turning across traffic from an on-road cycle-lane is always difficult because the cyclist's proximity to the driving lane results in having limited rear visibility. 180 degree head swiveling is required to see behind, which complicates control of the bicycle and makes correct decisions more difficult to make. The lack of gap between the cycle infrastructure and road also makes it more difficult for drivers to predict cyclist behaviour. Could you tell at a glance what everyone in the photo beside this paragraph was about to do ?

It has been known for many years that unsignalled crossings are far more dangerous than either well designed roundabouts or well designed traffic light junctions. Therefore it should not be surprising to us that the well designed junctions at both ends of this road (both of which are illustrated at the links in the previous sentence) have a far better safety record than this relatively minor junction half way along this road.

Due to the designed higher speed of this road (speed limit 50 km/h), the heavier traffic at this location and limited sight-lines compared with motor vehicle speed, this is not a suitable location for a cycle priority crossing like those which I looked at a few weeks ago.

How not to build a pinch-point
Pinch points which cause problems for cyclists are far more common than those which do not. Here are two examples which featured regularly on my commutes in Cambridge:

Don't copy this: Several narrow pinch points exist on the narrow but busy trunk road which passes through Harston in Cambridgeshire. Cyclists have no good alternative to using this road. Drivers habitually exceed the speed limit here, especially at the ends of the village where the speed limit drops sharply from 60 mph to 30 mph. I estimate the width of the road through this pinch point to be around 3 m. No additional space is provided for cycling. Note also dangerous steel railings which cyclists can be pushed against and that the paint pattern used in the middle of the road through almost the entire village also encourages drivers to give as little space as possible when overtaking cyclists.

Don't copy this: When the new development of Orchard Park was built in Cambridge, the re-design of roads near the development brought many new dangers for cyclists. Several crossings and other features were added to Kings Hedges Road and they were nearly all built with pinch points in widths known to encourage close passes by drivers. Orchard Park could have been built similarly to new Dutch developments. e.g. Kloosterveen

Both of the examples of pinch-points above increase danger to cyclists. They reserve no separate space for cyclists at all and they encourage bad overtaking behaviour by drivers, especially those who misjudge the speed of a cyclist and believe they have more time to overtake than in actually the case.

But it's not only in other countries that mistakes have been made. We don't have to look very far from home in the Netherlands to find bad examples from this country. For example, we also have these examples near the centre of Groningen and in a residential area in Assen:

Don't copy this: This very poor pinch-point in Groningen demonstrates nearly the opposite of what is shown in the good example above. The road lane decreases from 3.5 m to 2.8 m through the pinch point while the cycle-lane is an inadequate 1.2 m the whole time. This leaves a width which encourages close overtakes - e.g. by that bus. Just because something exists in the Netherlands, that doesn't mean it's a good example

Copy this only with caution: This is a residential street in Assen which has a relatively minor speeding and through traffic problem. These planters create a different type of pinch-point, potentially causing conflict between cyclists and drivers heading in both directions. Even when the same idea is used with a cycle bypass there is still potential for danger.

Just because something exists in the Netherlands, that doesn't mean it's a good example. Context is always important and ideas which may work well enough in one street in the Netherlands cannot necessarily be translated to a different place and work well there too. Older examples like this are perhaps more understandably sometimes of poor design, but there are also examples of less well thought through brand new infrastructure which work poorly.

Not enough space ?

One of many very narrow streets in
Assen which didn't have enough space
for a pinch-point or for motor vehicles
either. Assen moved the through
motor traffic elsewhere.

I predict that some peoples' response will be there is not enough space in a given location for a safe pinch point to be built. This may be true for some locations, but if it is true then I would contend that before considering building a dangerous design of pinch point you should think very carefully about whether any pinch point at all is appropriate in that location.

Other ways of removing conflict are possible. For instance, moving motor vehicles onto completely different routes. This has resulted in many minor streets and roads in the Netherlands working extremely well for cyclists and pedestrians without the need for pinch points or other obvious physical infrastructure.

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Ten Bus Stop Bypasses for Bicycles. Bikes, buses and bus passengers can be in harmony only when separated (floating bus stop)

This video shows ten of the bus stop bypasses for bikes in Assen. They're not especially good "cherry picked" examples but simply the ten nearest my home. Most are alongside normal roads, one is alongside a bus road. All are within a couple of km and they were videoed in half an hour early last Friday morning. They're entirely typical of normal cycling infrastructure quality in this area. Note that these are all designed to  be convenient for cyclists to use. They do not narrow or have raised sections to slow cyclists because cyclists are already slow compared with motor vehicles and we need to encourage efficient cycling not to slow cyclists down.

Large and small vehicles can never "share" equally. In order to encourage true mass cycling, where the entire population uses a bicycle for a proportion of their journeys, conditions for riding must be subjectively safe. Where bicycles mix with motor vehicles, this feeling of safety is reduced. Where bicycles mix with large motor vehicles it is reduced further.

Don't combine buses and bikes

Dutch bus-stop with no obvious bypass.
Bicycles don't travel on this road at all
but are behind the noise barrier. Watch
this video to see how it works.

Buses and bicycles should never be combined in one lane. This is not only because of the subjective safety issue, but also because the two modes move in fundamentally incompatible ways. Cyclists try to maintain a constant speed because this maximises efficiency (greater efficiency makes riding a bike being practical over a longer distance and reduces the time taken - further aided in the Netherlands by cycling routes being unravelled from motor routes and avoiding traffic lights). Buses, on the other hand, stop regularly to take up and let off passengers.

Where bus and bicycle infrastructure is combined on a long road it often leads to leapfrogging as buses repeatedly overtake bikes and cyclists are given a choice either to wait behind the bus, wasting time and making cycling less attractive, or overtaking the bus while it is stopped, which can be dangerous for the cyclist.

Decades old and unimproved, the least
good example of a bicycle bypass in
Assen still has a place for passengers
to stand before crossing the cycle-path.
New-build doesn't look like this.

Segregate bikes from buses and also from passengers
Bus passengers also clash with cyclists. If a cyclist tries to pass the bus on the "wrong" side between the stop and the bus then this puts cyclists directly into conflict with those who are boarding or alighting the bus. This is avoided in the Netherlands as shown in the video above, though you'll note that in the oldest example, pre-dating modern practice, cyclists are routed on the wrong side of the bus shelter which could cause conflict. No modern bus stop would be designed like this, with conflict built in, but note that even in this example there is somewhere to stand after leaving the bus and before crossing the cycle-path.

Why doesn't Britain copy the best examples ?
After making the video above and while writing this piece I discovered that new bus stops claiming to deal with the problem that the Dutch were had already tackled more than 30 years ago were being introduced in London. Unfortunately, instead of copying from the best tried and tested examples, attempts have been made to design something new. Time will tell whether these are good examples, but there would seem to be reasons to expect them not to be as successful as normal Dutch practice:

New design for London. This will cause clash between cyclists and bus passengers. Why didn't they copy from best practice in NL ?

Bus passengers clashing with
cyclists in Royal College St
(Thanks to @AlternativeDfT)

New bus-stop for Royal College Street, London. It was obvious from the design that conflict should be expected here between cyclists and bus passengers because bikes are being routed between the bus and the bus stop without even a small place for bus passengers to stand between the bus that they're entering or leaving and the bicycle path with through traffic.

Also note that at just two metres wide, the bicycle lanes shown here are narrower than any of the examples in Assen. The high kerbs and the planters between the cycle-lanes and road reduce the safely usable width of the facility.

Even the oldest example shown in my video from Assen is 2.3 m in width. That's on a relatively quiet residential access road and it is just one small weak link in a very dense grid of high quality cycling facilities within a small city. It deals with far fewer cyclists than could be the case in a larger city with fewer facilities.

(a few days later, The Alternative Department for Transport blog included an interesting blog post about how this bus-stop has worked out in practice)

Another compromised design for London. Sharp bends on the cycle-path which is not wide enough. Opened several months after this blog post was written and immediately caused problems due to bad design. Why doesn't London copy best practice from the Netherlands ?

A second example from London is the proposal for extension of Cycling Superhighway 2 in London. This looks as shown in the brightly coloured illustration above.

Dutch example from 1981. Not angular
and you could expect the cycle-path
to be of usable width.

From the picture it initially looked like this example could turn out better than Royal College Street as there is at least supposed to be somewhere for passengers to stand as they leave the bus. In that sense, it's similar to 30 year old Dutch designs. Similarity only goes skin deep, though, as the illustration shows an overly angular design and this could make it difficult to ride around easily, quickly and safely. There also appear to be dangerous high kerbs. It's not obvious why these kerbs are necessary at all, but they could at least be safe like these ones. Lastly, the plans for this cycle-path again suggested it would be just two metres wide.

It can be difficult to pass other cyclists safely within just two metres and if the route is well used this will be a problem. Given that "superhighways" in London are few and far between and that even with the low cycling modal share of London there is a huge population to draw cyclists from, this route probably will be well used.

The real bus stop bypass in London
under construction. "barely 1 m wide"
(Thanks to @AsEasyAsRiding)

Unfortunately, it's not actually been built even two metres wide. Mark Treasure tells me that it's "barely 1m wide at narrow point". A one metre wide cycle-path, with a post in it which narrows its effective width further, deep kerbs either side and passing a bus stop where bus passengers may or may not be aware of an approaching cyclist is very very far from best practice so far as bus stop bypasses are concerned.

The idea of a bypass is to make cycling convenient. It should not cause cyclists to slow down or place them in danger. It should not cause conflict between cyclists and bus passengers. It should also not cause frustrated cyclists to use the road in order to bypass the bypass.

(Hackney Cyclist wrote a very good blog post giving more details of the HS2 route extension)

"40 years behind" is a choice
London is "40 years behind" by choice not by accident. Even now, after supposedly having "gone Dutch", the city is still designing and building inferior infrastructure as seen in the two examples above.

This simply isn't good enough.

Why is London still not learning from the best examples ? Why is the city still trying to find its own novel ways to solve problems which were identified decades ago in the Netherlands and the solutions to which have since been refined to a very high standard ?

Instead of continuing to make costly mistakes, why not send planners to find out what proper cycling infrastructure looks like ?

Thanks to @EdinburghTom

Go North, find an even worse idea...
An amusing blog post from The People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire reminded me of another idea for passing buses which has appeared in Scotland recently. The rightly much criticized "Nice Way Code" suggests that cyclists should never pass buses on the left and on the right only "if you must".

Sadly, the "Nice Way Code" campaign has consumed a considerable fraction of the not very generous funding for cycling in Scotland. Instead of making it easy for bikes to pass buses safely and without conflict, they're using cycling money to tell cyclists not to pass buses.

This is just one of the many errors made by the "Nice Way Code", an organisation which sadly is backed by both CTC and Sustrans amongst other organisations who really should have known better.

Campaigners need to campaign effectively.
There is also excitement this morning about the British government having announced the "largest ever investment in cycling". This is apparently a figure of 77 million pounds to be spread amongst eight cities "in an effort to put Britain on a level footing with countries [...] such as [...] the Netherlands".

Unfortunately, this sum of money isn't nearly enough to achieve that aim. The Netherlands spends roughly €30 per person per year, every year in order to improve the cycling infrastructure and continue to expand the network. The total funding available over the next two years is about £148 million and this will allow investment in just eight cities to be at around £10 per head for just two years. This low figure of £10 per head is the figure which CTC actually asked for a few months ago and it's also the figure which will be debated in parliament on the 2nd of September.

Why is there so much complacency amongst campaigners ? Why such low ambitions ? Why do they offer support for inadequate policies and why do they not fight for what is really needed ? When you are already decades behind you cannot catch up by doing a third as much so why are campaigners putting their names to calls to do so little that the UK will inevitably remain in "dark ages" so far as cycling is concerned ? Low aspirations will not result in mass cycling and campaigners working with such aspirations are very much part of the reason why the UK is behind.

"Armadillos" in Assen. These have sometimes featured on
the study tour as an example of what not to do. They get
bumped by passing vehicles.

Update January 2014
The "armadillos" in Royal College Street are a failure. If we had been consulted we could have told TfL in advance that this would happen. It's not something you find often in the Netherlands because it doesn't really work. There are just a few old examples like that shown in the photo on the right. When copying from the Netherlands it's important to look for good examples.

This is not a good example, it's one of those things that you should not copy. Probably the oldest cycle-path in Assen. It works OK in this location because it is alongside a residential area (apartment blocks) and there are very few vehicles turning across the cycle-path. But in time this will be replaced (it was supposed to have happened in 2010).

Update March 2014
The "Armadillos" shaken loose over the last few months by large vehicles which have been accessing a site on this road have been re-fitted and broken examples replaced. Much tidier now.

You'll see from the photo that the cycle-path is generous enough that it doesn't feel cramped and also that cars pass at a reasonable distance. Nevertheless, this is outdated infrastructure. We were originally told there would be a proper cycle-path in this location by 2009.

Each Assen concrete block "Armadillo" is 1 metre long, 25 cm wide and 12 cm tall. When some were loose, I tried picking one up. It was heavier than I thought I could lift without damaging my back. These are not the insubstantial plastic used elsewhere. Nevertheless, this is not adequate.

Also see Hackney Cyclist for more and The Alternative Department for Transport for more about Royal College Street. This post was updated to include the words "floating bus stop" because this newly invented term has become commonly used to refer to bus stop bypasses.

Off road car parking. NL vs. UK

The photo on the right, from the Crap Waltham Forest blog, shows how High Road in Leytonstone in London has been transformed to move car parking off the road. This has resulted in narrowing of the carriageway and a worsening of conditions for cyclists.

Click on the link for more details of the harm that is being done as well as comments about the continuing confusion of some cycle-campaigners in the UK about what works to increase cycling modal share.

On the face of it, this is an application of the same idea as I blogged about a few weeks ago having seen it adopted more frequently throughout Assen. However, there is a fundamental difference.

In the Netherlands, this is a technique used to civilize residential streets which are not busy through roads, which do not have a high number of motor vehicles passing through and which have a 30 km/h speed limit. In the UK the same thing is being done on busy through roads with higher speed limits and lots of traffic.

Context is important. This concept, and others like it, can only work properly if they are implemented in the right places, and from the point of view of a cyclist, the implementation in London is definitely not happening in the right places.

On the face of it, this is yet another case of the fundamental principles of a good idea in effect being "lost in translation" as it travels across the North Sea.

Update Freewheeler provided more context and explanation of the first photo.

Central reservations enable cyclists and pedestrians to cross safely

Where cyclists or pedestrians must cross a road which is used by an appreciable number of motor vehicles, central reservations make a huge difference to safety. They allow the cyclist to cross just one stream of traffic at once, which is moving in one direction, before making a second decision from the centre of the road before crossing again.

Of course, such a reservation needs to be adequate in size. The crossing shown above, in a residential area in Assen by the local shops, allows two cyclists travelling in each direction to pass each other, and is long enough for a bicycle with trailer to stop safely in the middle. it also has a completely separate crossing for pedestrians, and of course both the cycle and pedestrian paths on both sides of the street. The speed limit for cars is 50 km/h (30 mph).

Here is another view of the crossing:

Open in Google Maps - note that cyclists don't suffer from a "pinch" effect due to cars because there are separate cycle-paths either side of the crossing.

When we first moved to Assen, there
was no central reservation at this
crossing. Image from a leaflet
explaining the change

This is an example of a crossing which works extremely well for cyclists, but it is not in any way an unusual or unique design. It's actually strikingly normal - there are so many crossings like this in Assen that I couldn't possibly count them. You need look no more than a hundred metres to the South from this one to find three more which are similar (see them here on Google Maps).

However, that this is very common doesn't imply that such crossings have existed forever. Actually, this one was retrofitted quite recently.

Back of the same leaflet
explaining what was
being done to improve
safety. Particularly
aimed at school children

Note five features on and around this crossing which make motorists slow down. Firstly, the shape of the crossing requires that motorists must decelerate and change course to go around it. Secondly, the width of the lanes either side of the central reservation is narrow which makes maneuvering difficult at speed. Thirdly, the road is narrow and there is no central white line. This makes motorists less sure of their position on the road and further reduces speed. Fourthly, the speed limit is 50 km/h (30 mph) on this street, which provides access, and 30 km/h (18 mph) on surrounding streets. Fifthly, there is also a pedestrian zebra crossing here for which motorists must stop if a pedestrian is crossing. Cyclists don't have priority in this case, but often receive it anyway.

The requirement that motorists have to swerve could be dangerous to cyclists due to a pinching effect if cyclists were on the street but because there are parallel cycle-paths on both sides of the street there is no danger at all.

See also videos showing the same crossing in use by hundreds of school children.

This can be seen as something which is easily "lost in translation" when implemented elsewhere because while the same concept might appear elsewhere, the implementation is completely different. For example, here's the same concept as implemented in Cambridge, UK:

Crossing of Madingley Road in Cambridge, UK. This is one of several roads in Cambridge which are unpleasant to cycle along and which can be difficult to cross safely by bicycle. We used to do this with our children, but this made us very much the exception as most people would not see this as a safe thing to do with their children. It's important for campaigners to realise that they are part of a self-selected group. Conditions like this are a reason why keen cyclists stop when they have children.

The example shown at the top of this blog post from Assen is on a relatively minor street with a slow speed limit and a significant but not enormous flow of vehicles. Those are the conditions in which  a crossing, if built to a high enough standard, can work well. However this Cambridge example is on a major arterial road, one of the busiest in Cambridge. This central reservation is too small in both dimensions. It does not slow traffic because the lanes either side of the reservation are too wide and it doesn't cause motor vehicles to change course, but the central reservation is also too narrow. Only one person can use it at a time and it can't be used if towing a trailer. It also doesn't feel safe because there is not much separation from high speed traffic. There's also no separate provision for pedestrians and neither pedestrians nor cyclists are prioritised at this crossing.

What's more, the speed limit here is much higher than that of the Assen example, at 40 mph (64 km/h) and this is a major arterial road into Cambridge so there are usually far more cars driving here than you find at the equivalent looking crossing in Assen.

When we crossed at this point with our children it was difficult to accompany them and cross the road safely. What's more, when I pulled a child trailer across this junction it didn't fit, so I had to make the crossing in one step.

It's an example of something extremely inadequate being installed in completely the wrong situation. The closest equivalents we have in Assen would be this or this.

Another view of the crossing of Madingley Road. It's similar to Huntingdon Road a little further North and many other roads in and around Cambridge. These are part of the reason why Cambridge's cycling is limited to a demographic group. View Larger Map

If your only reference to good infrastructure design comes from books, websites and looking at Google Maps, then it is very easy to misinterpret what is seen on the ground in the Netherlands. This is why it is important that planners from English speaking countries should see for themselves what good infrastructure actually looks like, and see it in the country which has the best standards. Referring only to what is in, for example, the UK can only result in copying from bad examples. It is to try to help to prevent this problem that we organise study tours.

See other examples of ideas "lost in translation", enabling of crossing the road, and perhaps most important, examples of what works in the Netherlands.

Reducing speeds in villages. Britain vs. The Netherlands

View Larger Map

When we were in Britain last October we drove from one of our parents to the other. It was an interesting experience being back on Britain's roads and making a long journey by car. One of the things we especially noticed after our absence from Britain's roads was how attempts had been made to limit speeds on roads through villages, but that they were inadequate. Speeds remained too high, and conditions for cyclists and pedestrians remained unpleasant.

The example above is of the A153 entering the village of Coningsby in Lincolnshire, and that's the example I'll use in this blog post. There are hundreds of villages along similar roads in the UK. but this is the one by which I stopped and took some photos:

Dangerous British example: Cycle on the road through a pinch point with 40 mph (64 km/h) motor vehicles.

The national speed limit of 60 mph ( 100 km/h ) applies along most of the length of the A153. On entering the village this falls to 40 mph ( 64 km/h ). A reduction in speed is encouraged by signs and a central reservation which doubles as a space for pedestrians to cross the road, though there there is nothing other than grass verge to walk on if you reach the other side of the road.

The A153 has no parallel cycle or pedestrian path. Anyone who wants to travel the 4.5 miles between the next village, Mareham-le-Fen and this one has to use the road. Many journeys are made between villages separated by this sort of distance in order to shop, use sport facilities, go to school or to commute. Coningsby is a desirable destination from Mareham because there are more shops and other facilities in this larger village. However, because cycling along here means being overtaken by vehicles travelling at 100 km/h, very few people would consider it. We stopped for several minutes to take these photos and no cyclists or pedestrians were seen. Everyone who was making this journey made it by car, van or truck.

Where there are two vehicles heading in opposite directions, there is very little room for a motorist to overtake a cyclist.

A few metres past the 40 mph speed limit signs there is a central reservation. It is narrow and does not require drivers to divert much from a straight line. Many vehicles are still travelling in excess of the speed limit when they reach this point. Calls can be made that drivers should slow to well below the speed limit when passing a cyclist inside the pinch point, but they won't be heeded. The result is that anyone on a bicycle will be passed extremely close by a motor vehicle which arrives in the same place at the same time. This does not make for a pleasant or safe experience when cycling. Alternatively, the cyclist can "take the lane" and attempt to force motorists approaching from behind to brake sharply, but this also is doesn't make for pleasant or safe cycling and causes resentment amongst drivers.

This design of road, and this design of traffic calming, is lethal. What's more, given the high speeds that remain through the village, it doesn't even result in particularly pleasant conditions for those who live there.

The reason why this particular feature of the road grabbed my attention was that a few days previously I'd pointed out something very similar in concept to the study tour group from Vilnius when they visited us in Assen.

If you had heard only a description of these two roads and not seen the physical reality then they would probably sound like almost the same thing. However, they are not the same in practice. Here is the "equivalent" traffic calming design in Assen:


Grotere kaart weergweven

The Witterhoofdweg has a speed limit of 60 km/h ( 37 mph ) before the signs and 30 km/h ( 18 mph ) through the village. This is the speed limit through most villages in this area. A third of the Dutch road network now has a speed limit of 30 km/h or lower.

Safe Dutch example: Speed limit is 30 km/h (18 mph) and cyclists have a completely separate cycle-path rather than riding through the pinch point with motor vehicles

The central reservation is much larger than the British example and requires drivers to change course quite dramatically as they drive around it. You couldn't drive through here at the speeds at which drivers in Britain routinely enter Coningsby.

The reservation is 4.5 metres wide, meaning there is ample space in which to wait to cross the road even with a loaded bicycle. On the other side of the road there is a cycle-path which you may well want to reach. Now how on the left side of the photo you can see the three metre wide cycle-path which continues the entire length of the village, even though the speed limit on the road is 30 km/h. At junctions with side-roads in the village, the cycle-path has priority. This results in a continuous, convenient and stress free experience for cyclists.

Looking in the opposite direction we get a good view of the cycle-path as it enters the village. The complete separation of cyclists and drivers ensure that making cars swerve to slow them down doesn't in any way endanger cyclists passing this point at the same time.

For most of the distance from Assen the cycle-path is separated by too large a distance from the road for it to easily appear in photos taken from the road. This cycle-path is four metres wide.

At the opposite end of the village there is a similar traffic calming construction. Cyclists retain a very good degree of subjective and actual safety right through this village and out the other side.

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At the time when we took this photo it was a cold winter day in the Christmas holidays. However, there was a regular stream of cyclists, as there always is. When the schools are in session, this is part of a route taken by thousands of children each day who ride their bikes from villages to the South West of Assen into the city. Witten, where these photos were taken, is just 3.6 km from the centre of the city. However, this is merely the half way point to the next village, Bovensmilde, which is 6.6 km away - almost exactly the same distance as Mareham-le-Fen to Coningsby, and many people travel along here by bike from other villages considerably further away than that. Because the distance can be covered on cycle-paths, the experience will be pleasant and safe when doing so, and it's convenient to cycle, people cycle.

Written descriptions of these two traffic calming devices would sound the same. However, in reality they are different. Aerial views of both traffic calming features to the same scale:


Coningsby. The signs are above the top of this view, the central reservation is just behind the truck. No need to divert at all while driving through here. While there is space for a cycle-path, none has been built  - View Larger Map


Witten. The signs are very close to the central reservation (see shadows to the right), motorists have to divert from a straight line to cross this point. Cycle-paths lead in all directions, all separated from the road, some by a considerable distance - Grotere kaart weergeven

Now I expect some readers to point out that the A153 is a larger more strategic road than the Witterhoofdweg. They'd be right of course. But larger roads in the Netherlands have rather more care taken to preserve the rights of cyclists and pedestrians to go about their everyday business in peace, not less. A traffic calming feature like this simply has no place on a busy road like the A153.

In Britain, the same ideas have been used as in the Netherlands, but they are often applied in a much weaker way, and often in staggeringly inappropriate places. That is what the blog posts tagged "lost in translation" show.

Mistranslations and misunderstandings of Fietsberaad articles

View of a residential area in Almere
from one of the very direct cycle-paths
which go through the suburbs of the city

I've noted before that the workings of the Fietsberaad are quite often completely misunderstood by English language commentators. Sometimes this isn't so much the fault of those who read the publications as those who write them.

A new example has come up, and this time it is especially ripe for misinterpretation !

The English language version of a Fietsberaad article, titled "Almere abandons traffic separation principle" says the following:

"Almere has about 190,000 residents and the government has asked the municipality to expand by another 60,000 residences. A characteristic of Almere, as is the case with other new towns, is the strict separation of traffic types. Almere has, for instance, a completely segregated network of bus routes. The municipality’s new Mobility Plan will abandon this concept, at least in part, through the introduction of city streets. City streets are streets or lanes that exhibit a more urban look by diminishing the separation between the traffic and its surroundings. According to the municipality this should enhance the urban experience, participation, and public safety."

That is all the English language version of the article says, and as a result it sounds like a straightforward case of a Dutch city giving up on segregation of modes. However, it's actually a case of a rather less than perfect translation which manages to give entirely the wrong impression of what is being done.

The original Dutch version of the same article is entitled "Almere gaat minder vrijliggende fietspaden aanleggen", or "Almere will construct fewer separate cycle-paths", and the text has a completely different emphasis than the English language translation:

Almere cycle-path offering a direct
route by bike alongside a road with a
30 km/h speed limit which offers an
indirect route by car

Rather than saying that Almere will abandon segregation of different modes, the Dutch article goes into some depth about why Almere has a lower than average (for the Netherlands) cycling modal share for a city of more than 100000 people and how they will improve the cycle-path network with special emphasis on social safety:

1. The city is relatively spread out, and has many small centres. In its development is has provided fewer opportunities for employment than residences. This has resulted in many people having commutes which are too long for cycling. Also the cycle-path network in Almere has a problem with low social safety. These factors have worked against a high cycling modal share.
2. Almere seeks to have a main cycle-path network of very good quality that links all important destinations, with 4 m wide red asphalt cycle-paths, direct routes with priority for cyclists (it was the first place in the Netherlands where I saw a traffic light which defaulted to green for bikes) and with a good record of traffic safety.
3. Due to the low density of Almere, the city is finding the cost of maintaining a tight grid of high quality cycle-paths for the entire area is too high. As a result, maintenance doesn't meet the usual high Dutch standard. For this reason, while Almere will stick with a 300 m x 300 m grid of paths in urban areas, they are considering building cycle-paths at a lower density in less busy suburban areas.
4. The lower density of cycle-paths in future suburban developments will be achieved by building them only when necessary. Streets in newer developments are less likely to have segregated cycle-paths than was the case previously, but if there are more than 15000 traffic movements per day, it would cause an unsafe situation, or would hinder traffic flow then segregation will still be used to improve safety and comfort.
5. Furthermore, more attention is to be placed on the social safety of cycle-paths in Almere. Where possible, there should be more "eyes on the bike-path" so that people feel it is safer to cycle. There is to be more thought about where the paths go in order to make this so. The aim is to achieve at least one truly socially safe cycle-route between each district.

Parking at a railway station in Almere

So there you have it. An English version of an article which makes almost entirely a different case to the original Dutch, and which will almost certainly be misunderstood and misinterpreted by readers in the English language.

I don't read every publication by the Fietsberaad in both Dutch and English, so I don't know how often this sort of thing happens.

More about Almere
Almere is the newest city in the Netherlands, built on the world's largest artificial island, Flevoland. The first house built in Almere was completed in 1976 and the city is still under construction. For a Dutch city, Almere has a "low" cycling modal share. "Low" means that "only" 31% of all journeys under 7.5 km are made by bicycle, or 19% of journeys in total.

These are very low figures for the Netherlands, actually lower than the average for the whole of the country (27% of journeys across the entire country are by bike). However, anywhere outside of the Netherlands, Almere would be seen as a leading cycling city.

We are native English speakers with many years of experience of cycling both in the UK and in the Netherlands. We understand the contexts of both English speaking countries and the Netherlands. We do tours on which we demonstrate and explain how cycling infrastructure works in the Netherlands on which misunderstandings like these are avoided.

Cycle access to two sporting facilities

In its proposals for the Olympic Park in London, the London Cycling Campaign has produced some very nice glossy looking computer mock-ups of their vision for this enormous new sports facility.

On behalf of the cyclists of London, The LCC is asking for three metre wide bidirectional cycle-paths for routes past and through the facility.

Assen reality. A 3.3 m wide
cycle-path leads to a small
sports centre in a new suburb

In the second picture, the bidirectional cycle path looks barely two metres wide. It is also not clear how the guy in black is supposed to make a safe right turn at this junction to head towards the stadium.

Last year, the LCC was pushed by its membership into asking for Dutch style infrastructure. Unfortunately, they still don't really understand what they are asking for and are still not asking for anywhere near enough. This has not stood in the way of making demands which are often rather inadequate or of producing glossy pictures to illustrate those demands.

I think it's instructive to compare with a typical small sports facility here in Assen, which is itself a fairly typical small Dutch town. Other sports facilities in this city and across the country are served in much the same way.

Cycle-path past the same new suburb's sports centre. 4 metres wide and well separated from the road. No problems here with making turns. Note that the road, with a single lane in each direction, is one of just two entrances by car for a development of 9000 homes. There are many routes by bicycle.

Comparison table:

	London	Assen
Population	8 M	67000
Pop served by facility	7 billion. The Olympics is an international event.	9000 homes eventually in this housing development
Path width past facility	3 m, subject to negotiation	4 m
Path width inside facility	3 m, subject to negotiation	3.3 m

It's not just in new developments in the Netherlands or in Assen that cycling is a normal way to reach sport facilities. I took this in 2007 outside a local swimming pool in Roermond, a town in the south of the country. Britain is still planning for lower a lower cycling modal share in new developments than the Netherlands was planning for thirty years ago. To achieve change, campaigners in the UK need to have higher aspirations.

More later on how the LCC still doesn't really understand what "Going Dutch" should have meant.

A year later...
The Olympics has been and gone in London, and the mess left behind in the Olympic park area doesn't even slightly resemble anything the Dutch would build or what was shown in the promotional video. See Hackney Cyclist's blog about it.

Having low aspirations like the LCC and other British campaign groups, does not result in progress. Rather, it helps to keep the UK "40 years behind".

Yes, there's someone walking their dog by bike in the second photo. This is not unusual in the Netherlands. Will "Love London, Go Dutch" result in the same happening all across London ?

Want to know more about the differences between the UK and the Netherlands ? We've lived in and ridden many tens of thousands of km in both countries. This gives us a unique insight which we condense into three days of study tour.