The best traffic light solution for cyclists. Simultaneous Green scales to almost any size of junction. Safe, convenient

Imagine if it were possible for cyclists to take their desire line across traffic light junctions, even riding diagonally if that the shortest path. Imagine if this was possible in complete safety because there were never any cars using the junction when cyclists used it. Imagine if cyclists' green traffic lights were twice as frequent as those for drivers so that average delays were shorter if you cycled. Imagine that all this was already reality...

For cyclists, the safest and most convenient design for traffic light junctions is the simultaneous green.

With this design, cyclists always make their maneuvre in one and directly. There are never inconvenient and unsafe two stage turns, never is there the possibility of being "hooked" by motor vehicles turning across a cycle lane between other traffic lanes, never do you have to merge with motor vehicles making the same or other maneuvres and there's never a requirement to find your way forwards to dubious safety of an advanced stop line or to make your way across several lanes before the junction to get into the correct lane to make a turn across traffic.

Simultaneous Green gives cyclists their own green phase during which they may travel in all directions at once, including diagonally, following their own desire line across the junction. While cyclists are crossing, all motor vehicles are held behind red lights. When motor vehicles are moving, all cyclists are held behind red (with the exception of often being able to make a safe right turn).

This video shows one of the largest simultaneous green junctions in action:

This is one of the largest simultaneous green junctions in Groningen. As the video starts, we are about to cross ten lanes of traffic, diagonally. This is maximally convenient for cycling. Note also it takes just 20 seconds for us to cross and clear the junction. That's the time required for everyone to cross in all directions by bicycle in the world's top cycling city at a very large junction. Note also how easy emergency access through the city is aided by the bus lanes

It's obviously convenient. Is it really safe ?

There have been no incidents with
bikes here at all. Note how west and
east sides of the junction are very
different. No single solution fits
all existing streets.

Because these junctions remove cars from the road when cyclists are riding on them, the main danger to cyclists is removed. The result is that cyclists crossing simultaneous green junctions are rarely involved in collisions and even more rarely injured. These are extraordinarily safe junctions for cyclists. Between 2007 and 2012 Only one incident involving a bicycle was reported at all of the simultaneous green junctions in Assen added together and that incident didn't result in an injury.

People sometimes wonder how it is that cyclists don't collide with one another while crossing diagonally. There are actually good reasons for this. The whole area of the crossing can be used and peoples' desire lines don't cross at the same point in time.

It's not mere opinion which leads me to call these safe junctions. There are figures to support this and they show a stark contrast between the impressive safety record of simultaneous green junctions, of which there are many in Assen and Groningen amongst other Dutch towns but at which cyclist injuries are virtually unknown, and the relatively bad safety figures seen at shared space and other less well engineered junction designs. What's more, simultaneous green junctions are also subjectively safe. Who doesn't feel safe to cycle when there are no cars moving ? The result is that this type of junction empowers vulnerable road users rather than dis-empowering them.

The designs of different sides of
junctions like this vary enormously
depending on the road that they
are connected with. The principle
scales to all sizes and works with
mixed arrangements like this. This
is the junction at which there was a
single minor incident reported by
a cyclist in 2008. An incident which
did not result in an injury.

Why isn't everyone asking for this design ?
I've been writing about the benefits of simultaneous green for many years now and we have been demonstrated these junctions to hundreds of people on our study tours but somehow it's not easy to get the superiority of this design over others through to people.

This is a superior way of using junctions but it suffers from a lack of familiarity.

There's no one size fits all design that people can take away. This is not about We show a variety of different sizes of simultaneous green junction but we find that people still find it hard to understand how this scales to all sizes of junctions. Some think it takes a lot of space or takes too much time from other modes. None of these things is true. Simultaneous green principles apply well at all sizes of junctions and we've found that in all cases it works extremely well. What's more, all the junctions we're aware of have great safety records.

How much impact on other modes ?
There also appears to be a perception that safety and convenience for cyclists has been achieved by making the junction inconvenient for other modes. While it's true that these benefits are the result of cyclists having the entire junction to themselves when they cross, it should be remembered that cyclists travelling in all directions at once make the very best use of the space while they do so. Because of this, even very large junctions can be cleared by big groups of cyclists from all directions at once in a very short time. After they're clear, there are no cyclists left on the road who could in any way inconvenience other modes. What's more, drivers don't even have to do so much as cross an empty advanced stop line because there is not reason for there to be an advanced stop line and they do not have to negotiate road space with cyclists either on the lead up to the junction, while crossing or at the other side. For all these reasons, simultaneous green leads to very efficient use of the junction.

This design can give cycling a competitive advantage
Because cyclists' light are completely independent of those used by drivers, more advanced possibilities are on offer than are possible merely by synchronizing with the cycle used for cars. It is often the case that cyclists are given more than one green phase during each cycle of the lights, meaning that the average delay by bike is half that by car. When simultaneous green is combined with being able to make a safe right turn against a red light, which it very often is, the average delay for cyclists, taking all desired directions into account, is reduced even further. This helps to encourage cycling, which itself improves journey times for motorists.

Examples of scaling to all sizes of junctions
While the video above shows one of the very largest simultaneous green junctions, where you ride straight over or diagonally across a ten lane road in Groningen in one movement, the following photos show how the design scales down from this very large junction to work just as effectively at extremely small junctions. Note that each of these examples is of a different design. There is no one-size-fits-all style of concrete buffer required to separate bikes from cars in a simultaneous green junction. No single easily explained design. The principles are what are important, not an exact pattern which won't necessarily fit into your city:

The same junction as shown in the video above. There are ten lanes here. Four in each direction for general traffic and an additional two lanes for buses only in the middle of the car lanes. From the cycle-path on which we approach you can turn left (diagonally) or go straight onwards. Note the right turn lane for cyclists, which takes cyclists around the corner entirely separately from the road and does not require stopping at a red light at all. There is more about this junction in a much older blog post.

Another view of the same junction from a different angle, in which people can be seen riding in all possible directions.  Note that there is no concrete kerb on the corner because this would be in the way.  Everyone on a bike is following their own desire line while all motor traffic is stopped. This removal of the main source of danger at the junction is what makes simultaneous green so safe. This may look lik a composite photo because there are bikes all over the place, but it's not. This is just a still image of the same crossing as shown in the video at the top during a different green phase. Cyclists negotiate routes on simultaneous green junctions, making maximum use of the available space. This is why it's such an efficient design

A wide bidirectional cycle-path leading up to a medium sized simultaneous green junction. This is the same junction for which I showed the accident record above. Right turns, and also left from a position to the right of the photo, are possible here against a red light simply by riding around the corner on the cycle-path.

The same junction from a different angle. The narrower road leading up to the junction from this direction has just an on-road cycle-lane, but safety and convenience are enhanced by a kerb for a short distance before the junction which also assists integration with a simultaneous green junction. The blue sign gives specific notice that right turns are allowed against a red light.

The same junction again, this time from a third angle. In this case, a 2.5 m wide single direction cycle-path leads up to the junction. The corner of this junction which appears on the far left of the photo is that which featured in the first photo. The blue sign shows that right turn on red is allowed here.

A smaller junction and a narrower cycle-path which still allows bidirectional use by cyclists. Right turn on red is accomplished by turning right on the cycle path which goes around the corner to the right just off the edge of the photo.

On the other side of the same road, facing the last photo. This is a very narrow one-way street for cars which has on-road cycle-lanes to allow bidirectional use by bike. A short section of cycle-path is used to provide a waiting area for bikes. Those who wish to make a left / diagonal turn use the left half of the cycle-path. Those going straight on use the right half. Simultaneous green scales easily to small junctions like this. Because cyclists must cross the road to head to the right, right turn on red is not possible in this instance.

At the end of a feeder street in a residential area which has no specific cycle provision at all, this bridge is wide enough to provide a small length of cycle-path which provides safe access and a waiting area for cyclists using the simultaneous green. The cycle-path on the far side of the road is bidirectional so we cross the road to turn either left or right and in both cases cross the road first. In this case, right turn on red is not possible.

A view in the opposite direction from the previous photo. A low traffic road has a short length of on-road cycle-lane which leads into the simultaneous green junction. Right turn on red is possible here simply by joining the cycle-path heading left-right across the photo. A different view of this junction can be seen in an older blog post

The design works even at extremely assymetrical junctions such as this. In this case, we're on the bidirectional cycle-path which runs left to right through the previous photo. When the light goes green, cyclists heading in both directions on this cycle-path may turn across to the other side of the canal (right in this picture), go straight on towards each other remaining on the cycle-path, or turn down the small road in the previous photo (left in this picture). A view of the same cycle-path at the same junction but taken in the opposite direction can be seen in an older blog post

Busting myths
I hope with this blog post to have busted myths about Simultaneous Green being difficult to implement or only being suitable for large junctions. In fact, it works extremely well at all sizes of junction from the very small to the very large.

What's better ?
The only way to improve upon simultaneous green is to remove traffic lights from cyclists' routes altogether. Assen provides a good example of how to design so that traffic light junctions are mostly away from cycle routes. Where cyclists and traffic lights come together, simultaneous green is by far the best solution.

What's worse ?
Almost any other design of traffic light junction creates more problems and danger for cyclists than does this, yet it is these other ideas which are given prominence in design guidelines around the world.

One of the junctions shown
above in Assen looked like
this at the start of 2007.
The "protected intersection"
design which some people
are still pushing.

The much pushed but somewhat mythical "standard Dutch junction" is not a terrible solution but it is less safe and less convenient than simultaneous green.

Copenhagen Left type junctions are not only inconvenient because they require cyclists to stop twice and divert from their desire line to make a turn across traffic but they are lethal in their home country so likely to be lethal in yours too.

Advanced Stop Lines simply don't provide any real protection for cyclists at all and centre of the road cycle lanes which are sometimes used to provide a way to turn across traffic at ASLs encourage cyclists and drivers to cross each others' paths.

Shared Space junctions have far higher injury rates and especially cause problems for the more vulnerable road users.

What happens to pedestrians ?

Light controlled pedestrian crossings
shown in blue on a crossing in
Groningen. Possible directions by
bike from one corner shown in red.
The zebra crossings give pedestrians
priority over cyclists but in most cases
the pedestrian green light does not
not light at the same time as that for
cyclists.

Pedestrians must also be accommodated by any junction design.

It's not practical to allow pedestrians to walk diagonally across at junction at the same time as cyclists are doing the same as this causes conflict. However, provided that pedestrian crossings are outside of the cycle crossings, as shown in the picture on the right, pedestrians can cross in all directions other than diagonal at the same time as cyclists use the simultaneous green crossing and without any conflict at all.

The time taken for a cyclist to cross a wide road is considerably less than that taken by a pedestrian so there is no extra impact on traffic light cycle times from the point of view of motorized modes due to allowing simultaneous green at the same time as pedestrians are allowed to cross.

In Assen, conflict has been removed by
a further step. Pedestrian crossings are
completely outside the cycle crossings,
meaning that there is no conflict at all.
Pedestrians therefore don't need to rely
upon cyclists stopping for zebra
crossings on cycle-paths

In practice it is necessary at wide junctions to provide central reservations with additional push buttons to operate the pedestrian crossing. This is required to accommodate people who walk slowly. That can also be achieved without any conflict though it's never very pleasant to be in the middle of a road. It should never be necessary for a cyclist to cross any road in more than one stage, even if riding diagonally, even if crossing ten lanes of traffic as shown in the video above, because cyclist speeds are higher than pedestrian speeds.

Groningen's simultaneous green crossings use zebra crossings across the cycle-path in an attempt to give pedestrians priority over cyclists. Unfortunately, they placed the pedestrian crossings in front of the cyclist stop lines. The problem with this design is that it can result in a pedestrian reaching the far side of the road just as cyclists are given a green. Cyclists are therefore delayed entering the junction and may be tempted to jump a red light. This potentially converts a minor bike-pedestrian conflict into a more serious bike-car conflict. In Assen a superior design is used which places the pedestrian crossings completely outside the cycle crossings. Therefore cyclists can always go without delay when they have a green light, and pedestrians never clash with cyclists.

Roundabouts ?
In some cases, a roundabout may be more appropriate, but this requires good design. Not all roundabouts are equal. Not even all Dutch roundabouts are equal. Some have extremely good accident records while some do not.

Choose Simultaneous Green
Simultaneous Green is by far the most convenient design of traffic light junctions for cyclists. What can be more convenient than following your desire line across a junction ? This is also now an extensively tested solution which has proven to be extremely safe - this is objectively shown by viewing the online map of collisions. This junction is more convenient and safer than the mythical "standard Dutch junction", much more convenient and very much safer than the proven lethal two stage turn design and it also has also proven to be far safer for cyclists than shared space junctions even when those are on a smaller scale, catering for a much smaller number of motor vehicles.

Dutch signage for
simultaneous green.

Given the advantages and the flexibility of simultaneous green, this is the junction design which cycling organisations the world over should be trying to emulate. It may take some changes to your local laws to allow the required signage and to change to way in which traffic lights are sequenced, but these are human constructs which are changed all the time. The advantages of Simultaneous Green are such that it is truly worth campaigning for.

It's not new (I've been writing about it for six years) and it's not an unproven idea. It's popular with cyclists because of its convenience and has proven to be safe. Enough time has passed that had campaigning for this junction design started when I first wrote about it, your laws could already have been changed to accommodate this style of junction. Get campaigning!

Previous posts about simultaneous green junctions include many videos and photos of other examples.

If you think that six years doesn't sound like much time, remember that it took only eight years for the Netherlands to transform the whole country enough to be inspirational.

Why collisions don't occur between cyclists on Simultaneous Green junctions - bikes are ridden through curves not sharp angles

This location, a large Simultaneous Green junction in Groningen, was chosen for this example because of its symmetry, making it easy to illustrate with arrows showing the routes that people take as they cross the junction. To simplify the diagram I have not shown the straight over routes by bike or the legal right turn against a red light routes. (Google map)

In Assen and Groningen we have many Simultaneous Green traffic light junctions. These offer the greatest safety and convenience for cyclists. Cyclists can at any time make a right turn without stopping even if there is a red light, while straight on and left turns are made with cyclists going in all directions at once, separated in both time and space from motor vehicle traffic (all directions for motor vehicles have red lights while cyclists have green), never having to make an inconvenient two-stage turn in order to cross traffic.

Simultaneous Green design for cyclists works at both small and large traffic light junctions. This junction has many lanes of motor traffic, all of which is stopped while cyclists cross in one swift, safe and convenient movement. Junctions like this can also cater for vast numbers of cyclists. Note how the cycle lanes on several sides of the junction have more than one lane to cope with busy traffic. The cycle-path in the bottom right corner is five metres wide and has two northbound lanes combined with a southbound lane.

I drew this diagram in order to illustrate a common misconception amongst people who have never seen a simultaneous green junction in reality. It is often imagined that there will be many collisions between cyclists at the centre of the junction. If hundreds of cyclists really did try to ride perpendicular to each other directly through the centre of this junction at the same time then there would indeed be collisions, but that is not the reality.

Cyclists travel through curves

The distance that A has travelled to
reach the potential conflict point is
much shorter than the distance B has
to travel to do the same. The result
is no conflict in reality.

Cyclists do not make sharp 45 degree or 90 degree turns. Rather, they travel through graceful curves because this is the only way to control a bicycle. All design for cyclists should be made with this knowledge in mind. Sharp angles have no place in cycling infrastructure because they cannot be followed by a cyclist without slowing down.

In the came of simultaneous green junctions, the arcs that cyclists travel through result in the potential conflict points not being reached all at once by all cyclists but in fact being spread through time and space from the point of view of any cyclist using the junction.

Consider cyclists A and B in the diagram. B has to ride considerably further than A to reach the same point. This means that for cyclists riding at similar speeds there simply is no conflict. He will in any case also expect to give way to A because the convention at these junctions is that everyone gives way to the right.

There is no kerb in the corner of a Simultaneous Green
junction. Cyclists must be free to follow many parallel paths
in order to make the junction efficient. Cyclists consume less
of the traffic light green time than with a two stage turn.

What's more, this is a simplification. My arrows do not show the exact lines of cyclist. In fact, the arcs used by individual cyclists at junctions like this vary enormously. While each cyclist turning left will start and finish in roughly the same place, these arrows should really be much wider in the centre.

While the cycle traffic lights are green, the entire area of the road junction is open for cyclists to use optimally. Faster cyclists often overtake slower cyclists while crossing diagonally. Negotiation takes place in that one party sometimes speeds up a little while another slows down. It is also straightforward to take a wider arc and therefore to go behind someone coming from your right.

The larger the junction, the more parallel routes are possible and the more efficient Simultaneous Green becomes both for cyclists and for other traffic as well because their total red time will be shorter with a simultaneous green layout than if cyclists cannot ride parallel and are required instead to follow each other in straight lines and cross twice.

Success !

It's easy to pick up misconceptions from blogs,
photos and videos online. Simultaneous Green
junctions are demonstrated on our cycling
infrastructure study tours.

Simultaneous Green junctions are extremely successful. They have very good safety records and scale to all different sizes of junctions.

Where it is not possible to remove traffic lights altogether or to make efficient routes for cyclists which don't include traffic lights for drivers, this is the best solution to make cycling both efficient and safe.

Read more about Simultaneous Green junctions (includes videos showing them in use)

Peace breaks out between cyclists and drivers

Please note that this video has explanatory captions which are only visible if viewed on a desktop computer. You will not benefit from the explanation if you view on a mobile device.

The video shows one of the simultaneous green junctions in Assen. At junctions like this, which are increasingly common in the North of the Netherlands, cyclists travelling in all directions are given green lights at once and can cross in any direction including diagonally. While cyclists cross, the junction holds all motor vehicle traffic behind red lights. Therefore all conflict between bikes and cars is removed.

Simultaneous Green junction. Cyclists go in all directions at once, and while the lights are green for bikes, all motor vehicles have red lights. Complete safety, as well as convenience and speed for cyclists.

Simultaneous Green also can be combined with other measures. At this particular junction cyclists can make conflict free right turns against a red light at three of the four corners. On one corner of the junction it is also possible to make a left turn against a red light without conflict.

Note how even large trucks can pass through the junction without causing any concerns to cyclists because cycles are separated from motor vehicles in both time and space.

Disabled person on a tricycle leads
the charge diagonally across a large
SG junction in Groningen

Dutch roads are engineered to remove conflict. This is a large part of the reason why it is that cycling is subjectively safe enough that cycling is a common activity for all age groups. In the video you'll see many adults and children, and also disabled people using the cycle paths. None feel threatened. They do this not because of a false feeling of safety - the high subjective safety that they feel is backed up by conditions which make Dutch cyclists the safest in the world even if in many cases they are groups of distracted teenagers, people making telephone calls as they cycle, or whatever.

Very large junction in Groningen
with successful SG treatment

Drivers are not permitted to use cycle paths, and cyclists are not permitted to use these roads. This is something which people from other countries who don't understand often object to. However, in situations like this there is simply no gain to be had by riding on the road.

Very small example in Assen, equally
successful. SG junctions scale well
to all sizes and do not have to take
up a lot of space. See several
examples on our study tours

The delays here for cyclists are not so short as in the example which I showed a few days ago. Here, cyclists and drivers have the same timings at the traffic lights and are delayed equally. However, cyclists actually have a significantly shorter average delay than drivers because only cyclists can make some of their turns without stopping at all.

If you were to ride on the road then you would on average have to wait longer than if you used the cycle path. It is quite clear where the desire is: cycle paths sometimes have barriers to stop drivers from using them but roads don't have barriers to stop cyclists. There are many examples on this blog of places where cycling infrastructure improves speed for cyclists vs. drivers.

The video was made from the North East corner of the junction in this map, pointing the camera to the West:

Note how the four corners of this junction are each different from one another. Simultaneous Green junction design works at asymmetrical junctions and it scales from joining very small roads (one example is Assen is a single lane for cars with contra-flow cycle-lane to very large junctions. Click for larger map

The number of cyclists shown in the video is typical for an average morning in April. I tried counting, but it's rather difficult to do so. There are in any case over a hundred bikes in the first five minutes. Some times of day are more busy, some less so. Assen is quite a small city, with only 65000 residents, but on average they make over 70000 journeys each day between them.

How the junction was at the start of 2007.
The old-fashioned "protected intersection"
design which some people still think looks
futuristic. Don't campaign for this old design.
It is very much less convenient for cyclists
and certainly not safer. There have been
no reported cyclist crashes or injuries at this
location since the junction was improved.

While this video and blog post illustrates one junction, the pleasant conditions it creates for cyclists are not atypical but the norm. There is no need for everyday cycling to be a competition for inadequate space or a fight for dominance. It is not necessary that cycling should be about being strong enough (physically and mentally) to take on the roads, nor is it necessary that cyclists should need to be confident enough to "take the lane" to prevent larger vehicles from causing danger. Cycling does not have to be an extreme sport. Rather, for most trips, most of the time, cycling should merely be a way of getting to your destination, quickly, safely and without stress. That's what it's like here.

Finally, if you're thinking that this road is much wider than roads in your own country, you're probably wrong. This street, Groningerstraat, is actually the same width as a road in Cambridge in the UK which is supposedly "too narrow" for proper cycle provision. The excuse of "we don't have enough room" is rarely, if ever, actually true. The Dutch find space for bikes, no matter what the width of the road. In fact, this junction itself shows an example of this. The Western side is more cramped than the Eastern side, but both sides work as well as they can for cyclists, given the available space.

2013 update:
It's perhaps of interest that transforming this junction cost just €32K from the cycling budget. Transforming the entire road was not very expensive either by the standards of other countries. Not only is the Dutch budget for cycling larger than in other countries, it's also spent far more efficiently than in other countries. As well as matching the expenditure level, the efficiency also needs to be matched if you want to "catch up" with the Dutch.

This new video shows the same junction as at the top of this post from the point of view of a cyclist travelling from the South West to the North East of the junction.

More examples of what works.

Right turn on red

The blue sign says "rechtsaf voor fietsers vrij" or "free right turn for cyclists."

This indicates that it is legal to make a right turn at this junction when the traffic light is red. This is a privilege that is only extended to cyclists. Drivers must always wait for a green light.

You can do this at many junctions where there is a fully segregated cycle path, and there is usually no sign then. However, at junctions like this where all the traffic comes together some indication is needed to show whether a right turn is safe at this location.

The video shows the way this works. You go from one cycle path around the corner onto another without stopping, and without having to worry about motorised traffic as none of it is in your lane.

Explanatory captions on this video are visible only if you play it on a computer and not on a mobile device

The keen eyed will have noticed that there is also a white and green sign underneath the traffic light. As well as allowing right turn on red, this is also a simultaneous green junction, go to that link for more information.

From the CROW Design
Manual for bicycle traffic
April 2006 / June 2007

Thousands of traffic light junctions across the Netherlands allow cyclists to make right turns on a red light, and this contributes to making cycle journeys faster than equivalent journeys by car.

There are several other blog posts illustrating the details of what makes Groningerstraat in Assen a good place for cycling.

Update 2015: Right on red is not new
Paris has achieved much press over the last few months for its implementation of right on red (and straight through on red) for cyclists. None of this is new. It's been normal across the Netherlands for over a decade now.

Traffic Lights

On the North side of the Vaart in Assen is a bicycle road which has no traffic lights on it all the way into the centre of the city. That's the primary route in this direction.

Today we're on the Southern side of the same canal, on a secondary cycling route, which has this one set of traffic lights for cyclists.

There are a number of interesting things here.

The parallelogram features on the ground are the second set of detectors for bicycles which you roll over on the way to this light. The first set is about 50 metres before the lights. It is advantageous to cyclists to have their own detectors as they are never set up so that they only detect cars. Having the double set means that often the lights have changed for you before you reach them.

There is also a yellow button on a post which allows a cyclist to make sure that the traffic light controller is aware of their presence. If the detectors should fail, then this gives another way of indicating the presence of a cyclist.

Next we have the green sign on the traffic light post, which indicates this is a simultaneous green junction at which cyclists can go in any direction they want (left, right, straight on, diagonal) when there is a green light. All motorised traffic is at a standstill while this happens.

The same junction as at the top of this post, from the road on
the right in the top photo, before the approach was
improved for bikes

Cyclists are never given a green to cycle straight on while drivers have a green to turn right. To do this would put cyclists into the most dangerous and lethal position on the road. This is why we do not have junctions designed in the same way as in Denmark.

Also note that you can see lamps on the lampposts ahead over the cycle path as well as over the road. This helps to improve the social safety of this cycle path at night.

Finally, note the width of the cycle path. It's over 3 metres in width, even though it's merely a secondary route paralleled by the 5 metre wide bicycle road on the other side of the canal.

This is proper cycling infrastructure which attracts cyclists, designed for a high degree of actual and subjective safety. It is part of what has resulted in Assen having 41% of all journeys by bicycle - a higher cycle modal share than can be claimed anywhere outside the Netherlands.

Designing for the future. Simultaneous Green junction at a large junction

Los Angeles in the 1950s. This somehow was
seen as aspirational and copied around the
world, including in the Netherlands.

How are roads designed where you live ? Are planners still operating in the 1950s mode of trying to make space for ever more cars, or have they moved on to more modern road design methods which place emphasis on people ?

In the 1950s and 60s, cycle paths were removed in the Netherlands to make more room for cars, very much following the American lead model of building for cars, as represented by the photo on the left of Los Angeles, California in 1959. This was seen as aspirational across the world at that time.

However, following the oil shock of the early 70s and the Dutch all-time peak in road deaths in 1972 there was a change in policy followed by surge in the building of cycle paths, a renaissance of cycling and cities being designed for people more than for cars. This process continues to this day.

Some parts of the country had already been designed and built on the cars-first principles. This junction Groningen was one of them

Where large multi-lane roads exist in the cities here, they've been civilized for cyclists as you'll see by watching how you can cross such a major junction as shown in this video:

Note that this video has explanatory captions which are not visible on a mobile device. Play this video on a computer to read the captions and understand how the junction works.

This is the main ring around Groningen, built when the city's plans didn't include cyclists as they do now, and it has many lanes. If you look at the aerial photo you can see them (we're going from the South West and turning left to head North West in the video):

This is the junction in the video. Many lanes of traffic in each direction. Simultaneous Green junctions scale well from small to large junctions and they work well at each size. Click for larger map

Two more views of the same junction. Note how while cyclists use the junction, all the motor vehicles are stationary:

Cyclists get two simultaneous in all direction green phases for each cycle of the lights and as a result this is a place where you can cycle both efficiently and safely.

A later blog post includes a video of riding through this junction.

From South East to North
West, pedestrians and cyclists
must make four separate
light-controlled crossings.
I've never seen anything so
ridiculous as this in NL

A junction which doesn't work well for cycling
On the other hand, look what happened just a few years ago where we used to live on a much smaller junction with far less traffic. In 2004, planners in Cambridge came up with the road junction design in the photo on the left. Cyclists and pedestrians in the bottom right hand corner were to use four different toucan crossings, each involving pressing a button and waiting, merely to get to the other side of Cambridge Road. On each of the islands they planned railings which would make use of the junction difficult, and the crossings don't line up, so crossing involves 6 right angle turns in confined space as well. It was so obviously bad that many people complained, including myself. The eventual outcome was that they built exactly what they'd planned, complete with all the crossings and right angle turns, as can be seen in the aerial photo of this area.

This is but one aspect of the design of the area that was complained about, all of which proved to be just as hostile to cyclists and pedestrians as it they were expected to be. This is design which merely pays lip-service to cyclists, can accommodate just a few, and is expected to be used by just a few. The Dutch don't do things like that.

So, what's going on in your back-yard ? Are your local planners still following dreams of the 1950s, or have they progressed ?

The photo at the top is from "The Book of Knowledge" encyclopaedia published in 1960. The original caption read: "Traffic Congestion in the United States. Though new roads, specially constructed to accommodate dense motor traffic, are continually being constructed in United States, construction can not keep pace with the rate at which additional vehicles are being put on the road. This photograph was taken on a motorway outside Los Angeles." It sounds to me that the writers of this encyclopaedia could already see that the writing was on the wall for this type of provision.

Simultaneous Green

What a difference a sign makes. The sign on the left is increasingly common at junctions in the Netherlands. It indicates that cyclists will get their own green phase at the lights and that when the light is green they can travel in any direction across the junction, including diagonally.

What's more, cyclists usually get two green phases per complete sequence of the lights, meaning that they wait for less time behind a red light. This leads to cyclists getting past the lights quicker than drivers. It works very well indeed.


A couple of days ago I made a video of riding across such a junction when I visited Groningen. Also there is a video of the same junction made by the fietsberaad, the Dutch panel of experts in cycling, which demonstrates the same junction from different angles.



Please also read other later / better blog posts about simultaneous green traffic lights. Also see many other examples on this blog of infrastructure which makes cyclists' journeys faster.