Parking hell at the beach

Sometimes it's difficult to find anywhere to park... but I'm not complaining.

The first Fietsroute+ in Groningen

Not all major cycle-routes are given a particularly grand name in the Netherlands. While other countries use terms such as "superhighway" for mere cycle-lanes, in this country, more modest terms are used for very good and direct cycle-paths. One of these terms is "Fietsroute+", favoured by the Groningen-Assen region.

My mother helping me to demonstrate
the Assen-Rolde Fietsroute+

The first Fietsroute+ was constructed in 2007 to cover the 10 km distance between Assen and Vries. For a couple of years, this featured on my commute, and the wonderful smooth surface and continuity of the path helped with riding at high enough average speeds that a 60 km round trip was quite feasible. This particular routes has also featured in several blog posts including about the required standards for a Fietsroute+ (worth reading) and how it is used by many secondary school students. Another Fietsroute+ heads East out of Assen, covering the 6 km distance between Rolde and Assen.

However, both of these are in Drenthe, not in Groningen and this post is about the First Fietsroute+ in the province of Groningen.

Two years ago, Wilfred took some photos of the construction of a new Fietsroute+ to make the 13 km distance between his home in Zuidhorn and Groningen more attractive to cyclists. This cycle-path was finally completed and officially opened in May as the first Fietsroute+ in Groningen. The local government produced a publicity film for it in which the entertainer Arno Van Der Heyden introduces the new fietsroute+, demonstrates how to cycle along the route, and interviews the burgemeester of Zuidhorn, a passer by, and the cycling project leader about the new cycle-path:


Like the other Fietsroute+ routes, as well as other major routes without that designation, it's designed to be safe, wide to avoid conflict, and smooth and direct to cope with higher speeds than an average cycle-path. The combined population of Zuidhorn and surrounding smaller villages is only around 18000, yet 1500 people per day cycle along this route. Their numbers are boosted by people for whom this section is part of a longer route. It is hoped that the quality of the new cycle-path will attract yet more people out of cars.

However, this wasn't the only publicity. There was another event, an opening "race":

The winner of this "race" was professional cycle racer Bauke Mollema. Bauke Mollema grew up in Zuidhorn and rode to Groningen each day to go to school. He tells an amusing anecdote about how when he made his school journeys along the old path, they would ride with two students next to each other and it too cramped for three, while with the new improved path five abreast will be possible. I've seen how school children and students cycle, and I've no doubt that this will happen.

Bauke is a local hero. This year he took part in the Tour de France, though sadly he had to stop after the 11th stage due to problems from injuries suffered on the sixth stage. Better luck next time !

Progress continues to be made so that cycling becomes steadily safer, faster and more attractive. Seven routes are currently shown as either completed or in progress on the Groningen-Assen website, and another fietsroute+ is also planned to be built along the line of the railway to Winsum, some 15 km North of Groningen:

It is only by continual improvement that cycling can be expected to grow. Standards are so high as they are in the Nnetherlands because they need to be higher here than elsewhere merely to preserve the modal share which already exists, let alone to make it grow. While it is relatively easy to convince the first few percent of the population to cycle because they are the least demanding, if the modal share is to become higher, it becomes steadily more difficult because the target is no longer "low lying fruit". Rather, to maintain and build on a high modal share for cycling, the target audience is necessarily those people who are not easy to convince to ride a bike. They may have longer journeys, be more easily scared off from cycling, come from from demographic groups who are less likely to cycle, or perhaps they simply more likely to prefer an alternative such as driving a car.

This is why development of ever better cycling facilities is not a luxury but a necessity not only in the Netherlands but also elsewhere. Campaigners can make no progress by asking only for what is good enough for themselves. Such campaigners are themselves the low-lying fruit and they are already riding. For progress, the standards have to improve and this isn't achieved by aiming low. The benefit of good quality cycling facilities is for everyone, even professional cycle-racers.



In related news, Bauke became a father last week. Gefeliciteerd Bauke en Jane !

A reasonably speedy delivery

The cycle-paths on this route are all
wide and smooth like this. On weekend
mornings, all the racers are riding.

Earlier this week, a customer in Meppel ordered a few dynamo lighting parts. It's within cycling range, so I asked if he minded waiting until Saturday so I could deliver them in person.

I made the delivery this morning and I took photos on the way.

Catching up with another racer

The customer's apartment turned out to be 44 km from our door. As with most journeys in the Netherlands by bike, almost all the distance was covered on cycle-paths, save for our residential road and the pedestrianized area (with bikes allowed, like in this example) in the middle of Meppel where the customer's apartment was located. It took an hour and twenty minutes of riding against a slight headwind to reach my destination.

Another racing cyclist on the cyclepath
As usual, I didn't see any bikes on the
road. There is no benefit from that.

I took the same route back, so I had a slight tailwind. With the tailwind it took an hour and ten minutes to get back home. That's an average speed of over 37 km/h (23 mph) including riding back through the pedestrian area slowly, slowing down at junctions and at one point coming to a near standstill to pass a horse. The return journey was also almost entirely on the same cycle-paths, though as I got close to Assen, to avoid waiting for an open bridge which had built up an impressively long queue of backed up cars, I took the nearly car free service roads on the other side of the canal from the main road and cycle-path for a few km. It is peak season for tourism by boat and it's really nice that by bike you often have alternatives to waiting and can continue your journey when the bridge is open.

Older stretch of cycle-path with less
separation, resurfaced and very smooth.
More racers heading in the opposite
direction to me.

As well as being peak season for canal boats, July is also peak season for racing bikes. The Dutch are very enthusiastic followers of cycle-sport, and the Tour de France is everywhere at the moment. Cycle racing is something that people not only like to watch but also to participate in in large numbers. At this time of year, the cycle-paths have far more lycra clad cyclists on them than is the case in winter. While the majority of cyclists who I saw today were not lycra clad and not riding racing machines, I decided it would be interesting to take photos of these cyclists as I rode this morning.

Another thing which was holding up
cars on the main-road was this tractor,
which I overtook from the other side
of the canal

It's surprising how often people from overseas who don't understand this country write that the Dutch are "slow cyclists" and that cycle-paths make them slow. Someone tried to make a a comment on my blog this week in which amongst other incorrect things he claimed that the Dutch cycle "at 6 mph". If his comment had had some facts in it, or was the basis for reasonable discussion, or indeed if it had been on-topic for the post which he sent it to then I would have approved it. However, this was an off topic post by someone who had not read what they were writing under and how was trying to misinform and stir trouble.

In part, I've written this blog post as a response, to try once again to point out that simplistic arguments like "Dutch cyclists are slow" are so very short of the truth. It would be nice to think that people contemplating writing the same sorts of things would first read the myths and excuses page, but those who have their own fixed view of the world tend not to bother.

Also plenty of cyclists on the almost car
free road on the other side of the canal
from the main road and cycle-path

So, something about the speeds with which people really ride their bikes. In general, speeds are of course slower in any city than in the countryside. Anyone who really wants to ride fast goes out of the city and rides there. IME, the average rolling speeds for city cyclists tend to be above 20 km/h. Small children, pensioners and people with disabilities tend to be a little slower, groups of school children tend to be in no hurry at all, but of course there are also many club cyclists on racing bikes and other people who like to go quickly. There are at least as many cycling enthusiasts per capita in this country as in any other country.

The actual average speed by bike in the city of Groningen has been measured and it's 14.2 km/h, or just short of 9 mph. This is not especially quick, but this is for an average person and it is not the rolling speed, but the overall speed for a complete journey including stops. By car it's much slower - 9.6 km/h. This is perhaps the source of the "6 mph" speed quoted by some VCers. It applies to cars, not bikes, but anyone who came here and insisted on riding their bike on the road would have their speed reduced to this level.

Any lack of speed perceived is not because "the Dutch are slow" but because in the Netherlands, even people who are slow still ride bikes. This is a country where the demographics of cycling include everyone, not just fitter than average people.

Another cyclist spotted this morning.
In Dutch law, wheelchairs and scooters
like this are classed as bicycles. Cycling
facilities are inclusive of everyone.

Right across the Netherlands, bikes are faster for shorter journeys than cars. This is the result of deliberate policy and it is very important. If cycling were not both extremely convenient and extremely safe, then it would certainly not be so popular as it is.

My journey was fast and convenient because of the cycle-path network in this area. I was home today in time to have a shower and sort through my photos before lunch and then continue on with the day. Making a delivery in this way has less to do with running our business than giving me an excuse to go for a ride and get some exercise, which is of course beneficial to everyone. The health benefits of cycling are recognized in this country just as in any other, but because cycling is always a pleasure in the Netherlands, these benefits are realised to a greater extent than in other countries.

The yellow thing at the bottom of the photos is my Mango velomobile. It's a good part of what makes it possible for me to ride faster than younger and fitter people on "hi tech" carbon racing bikes. Streamlined bikes like these are the fastest practical production bicycles in the world. They are more common in the Netherlands than in any other country and this is in no small part due to the Dutch cycle-path network providing such a good habitat for people who like to ride fast.

Lastly, I leave you with a video made by my friend Harry featuring his and Wilfred's Mangos, demonstrating how it's possible to get through Groningen on the traffic free streets and cycle-paths at a higher average speed than 14 km/h while remaining responsible and not causing anyone any problems:

If some of the maneuvers at junctions in the video seem unconventional, it's probably because you're watching one of the many simultaneous green junctions. However, on my trip there were no traffic lights at all, while there would have been several sets to negotiate if I'd driven instead of cycles. It's quite common in the Netherlands that you avoid traffic lights when cycling.

Click for my picasaweb album of racing cyclists on cycle-paths. This is where they ride in NL, not on the roads.

Unravelling of modes

Cyclists have more direct, safe and pleasant journeys if their routes are separated from the routes taken by drivers. This video shows examples of how on the west of Assen, cycle-routes are mostly quite separate from driving routes. By this I don't only mean that cycle-paths run alongside the roads, but that the routes themselves are different. It is increasingly common in the Netherlands that cycling and driving routes are unravelled from one another.

The map (courtesy of Google Maps) shows many of the routes featured in the video. Blue routes are for cars, red routes for bikes. The traffic lights featured in the video can be seen on the map, as can the blue arched bridge, one of four bridges clustered together, three of which make part of viable routes for cyclists, and two of which make viable routes for drivers.

The blue arched bridge, the largest of four bridges close together in the centre of the map and the only one of the four map on which cyclists can't ride, was actually built to benefit cyclists. It adds nothing for drivers over the flat junction which was in this position until 2008. In fact, the construction of this bridge removed the option to makes turns left and right to use what is now a cyclist only through route. This bridge was constructed to take the dual carriageway ring-road above the cycle-path so that cyclists neither had to wait at a crossing, dive through a tunnel or climb over a bridge.

I've shown all the possible through routes by car on the map but note that they do not join up in the top left corner where a road runs under the motorway bridge next to a cycle-path. By comparison, I've only shown the relatively heavily used bicycle through routes. In fact, while drivers have relatively few through routes to choose from, every road and street on the map except for the one car only road (on which there is a traffic light) and the motorway can be used as a through route by bike. The majority of the map have been drawn as solid red for bikes, even though these residential streets are not useful through routes by car.

Driving between one traffic light and another, on a road
between noise barriers. Would you prefer this ?
Note that not only car routes but also bus routes are unravelled
from cycling routes. There are few things less pleasant than
riding with buses.

In the video, I highlight one of the no cycling signs on the ring-road which runs over the blue arched bridge.

These signs are sometimes misunderstood by people in English speaking countries, who think that cyclists being banned from roads like this one leads to having to take less direct, less convenient routes than would be the case if cyclists could ride with the cars and trucks.

Actually, of course, this is completely incorrect.

In this case, should our intrepid cyclist defy the sign and cycle with this bus and van, he/she would simply find another set of traffic lights four hundred metres from this one.

Fighting for the "right to ride" on roads such as this one would be a meaningless gesture. No-one is interested in doing so, because it makes no sense at all to prefer to ride in those conditions. This is a road which exists to deal with the consequences of cars.

Or this ? It's the same bridge and this is the direct route to
town. However, cyclists have not just direct routes to
places that they want to go, but also ride in places
designed for an open feeling leading to a high degree
of social safety.

As you see on the map segment above and in the video, there are far more viable through routes by bike than by car, and cyclists frequently avoid traffic lights by using cycle-paths. No-cycling signs like this exist only on roads where no sensible person would want to cycle anyway.

Motor vehicles do nothing to lend anywhere a sense of "place", and they are rightly removed not only from city centres and residential areas, but also from main routes for cyclists. Stick to cycle-routes and a cyclist finds not only fewer traffic lights and routes which are more direct than those available to drivers, but also he/she will ride along real streets where there are people, shops and cafes and not between noise barriers erected to separate motor vehicles from people.

Freewheeler once said to me "I do wish cycling campaigners would drive more". He made a very good point. Without knowing what conditions are like for drivers, cyclists can't really make a valid comparison.

This is particularly true when considering the subjective and social safety of different modes. In most countries, driving wins over cycling hands down when it comes to subjective safety, and this is a very strong reason why many people don't see cycling as a viable alternative. However, in the Netherlands, the most pleasant and safest conditions are usually to be found when cycling. This is so because motor vehicles have been removed.

More Study Tour feedback

On the Study Tours we pack into three days as much as possible of what took us many years to learn. Perhaps it's not surprising that people sometimes look a bit shell-shocked by the end of the tour as it can be quite hard to take it in. Feedback is always welcome, and happily it usually demonstrates very well that participants on the tour have understood what they saw. Today we were lucky enough to receive feedback from two different people.

Michel from Norway sent us this wonderful video made by Ingvild Stensrud and Herman Andreassen, two of the Norwegian students who came on a tour in March. I don't understand Norwegian, and there are no English subtitles, but it's a very watchable video which demonstrates much of what they saw on the tour:


The second item came from Claire Prospert of the Newcastle Cycling Campaign. Claire has written a wonderful and detailed blog-post for the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain which is both a review of the tour in May as well as being extremely thorough and informative in itself. Please read her post.

The following video is one of several shot on the tour which you can find on Claire's youtube channel. This video catches the first thing that everyone saw on the the first day, before the tour had even started - the full spectrum of Dutch cycling from a velomobile to a school trip heading out of the city went by right outside the door of the accommodation on a street which used to be the main route for cars into Assen from the South but now is a much more friendly space:


During the May Study Tour we came across three different groups of children from three different schools. While it would be quite exceptional elsewhere, this isn't an unusual sight at all in the Netherlands (read other blog posts about school trips by bike). This brings us back to what is one of the most important things with regard to campaigning for a high cycling modal share: you have to start with children, and indeed that is what the Dutch did.

Why come on a tour ?
Our blog, as well as others that we link to on the right, go to some effort to explain how things work in the Netherlands. There are also books on the subject, and many people refer to Google Maps. All of these things give an impression, however there is really no substitute for seeing it yourself.

When in the Netherlands, there is much to see, and it is very easy it is to miss things or to misunderstand the context or usage. I know from personal experience that on first visiting the country it is easy to ride past important infrastructure without noticing it at all - the ease of cycling in the Netherlands makes it very easy to take the reason for that ease for granted. What's more, very few Dutch people who have "always" been surrounded by the infrastructure realise that it is exceptional. People's memories are short and they don't necessarily recall how things used to be.

For these reasons, it is helpful to be on a tour which specifically takes in so many interesting features as possible, and on which there are explanations of why these things are interesting. Because you benefit from our years of experience on a three day tour, this saves a lot of time. We're native English speakers and understand the different contexts of cycling in both English speaking countries and the Netherlands. This is what is unique about our study tours and why people find them to be so informative.

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.

Add caption

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.