The myth of the "standard Dutch junction"

Before starting his own blog, Mark Wagenbuur made videos for some of my posts and then became a regular guest blogger here. Some of the blog posts and videos that he made for this blog are still quite popular.

In April 2011, Mark wrote a blog post in which he criticized a dangerous junction design suggested by the then new and claimed to be "state of the art" US NACTO design guide. I thought this to be a very good blog post. At that time we would discuss posts before publication and the only thing that I asked to be changed was that the article should include a reference to other types of junction such as the more modern simultaneous green design. That was added before anyone read the post.

Mark's approximation of Dutch ideas
applied to a hypothetical US junction
seems to have been misinterpreted as
a design which should be copied.

Mark tried to demystify how traffic light junctions in the Netherlands worked and he sketched out how Dutch ideas could be applied to the mock-up American junction from NACTO in a video. The object was not to design a real junction. His approximation consisted of on-screen graphics based upon the dimensions of the original NACTO graphic in order to try to show that a safer type of junction could be built within the same dimensions.

Many people misinterpreted what Mark had written about and between us we wrote some additional notes which were added to the blog post in order to try to explain.

This confusion continued so Mark wrote a second post to follow the first a month later in an attempt to explain yet more misconceptions. This again included information about more modern solutions, referring to the simultaneous green design and the use of roundabouts instead of traffic lights.

Sadly, the confusion continues
I've re-read both of Mark's blog posts and I still see nothing wrong as such with what he said. Perhaps the problem is what he didn't say. Somehow people keep reading something other than what was written. Rather than seeing Mark's sketch as an approximation of a Dutch junction created with the aim of dissuading NACTO from promoting a dangerous design, people now appear to be using his sketch as a design guide in itself.

At first sight, this looks remarkably
similar to Mark's sketch: A design
proposed for Christchurch in New
Zealand, heralded as "safe",  but they
have misunderstood. Cyclists are not
supposed to stop at the same stop line
as cars and traffic lights need to be
positioned so that they are visible to
cyclists making the second part of a
right turn. Also, the geometry is wrong.
This would require sharp turns.

Versions of this junction "design" now pop up everywhere. They've even reached the opposite side of the planet.. Unfortunately, as the idea that this is somehow a good design has taken hold, many of the key points of the real design and of Mark's argument were lost. What's more, alternatives that are more common in the Netherlands, safer and more convenient for cycling are being ignored in favour of pursuing this one design.

In Christchurch, New Zealand, a design which superficially looks similar to Mark's sketch is referred to as "the Dutch intersection", though their design departs in several ways from any real Dutch intersection through which I've cycled.

Is this just a matter of language ? Has this design been picked up so widely for no reason other than that Mark referred to this as "Dutch standard junction design" ? Was the confusion caused by a matter of English usage ? Junctions which look similar to his sketch are not "standard" in the sense of being "to a standard" but "standard" in the sense of being unexceptional. i.e. there's nothing special about this in the Netherlands. It may even be inferior.

Is it because people view the video in isolation from reading the related blog posts so don't ever see the explanations ? Why are engineers and planners trying to design infrastructure based on what they've read on blogs, watched on Youtube and looked at through Google Streetview when it is possible to come and see the real thing being used in a real context ?

I think some explanation is required of why the emphasis on this design is wrong:

Junctions like this are neither common nor desirable
In Assen we have no junctions at all which are of this design.

The closest thing we have to this type of junction in Assen is
here by the railway station. It was built in the 1980s and
is now planned to be removed in the very near future.

Only one junction near the railway station has a strong resemblance to this design. This is pictured to the right. This is the only junction in Assen where a commonly used left turn requires use of two traffic lights, both of which are likely to delay you. The design dates from the late 1980s when the existing railway station was built.

Part of the plan for the new railway
station area. The through road is going
underground. Cyclists will not longer be
faced with delays due to traffic lights

Over time, many traffic lights have disappeared in Assen and this one will be next. Plans are very well advanced for the replacement railway station and as part of this work through motor traffic is to be redirected through a tunnel which will make these traffic lights superfluous. In future, the cycle-route between the railway station and the centre of the city will have no traffic lights on it.

I have to cycle quite a long way to find a junction which is really similar to Mark's sketch. About 40 km South of here in Hoogeveen there are some older junctions which have not yet been reworked. One of them is known to me because it is one of two slightly inconvenient points for me, where I am slowed and delayed on a route which I have cycled fairly frequently to visit a friend who lives 100 km south from here.

Older designs simply are not so good as newer designs and they should be where inspiration for other nations comes from. If you are inspired by the Netherlands, take your inspiration from the good stuff.

There is no "Dutch Standard Junction Design"
There is not really such a thing as a standard Dutch junction. In fact, every junction is designed to fit a particular space and is designed with the needs of the traffic in that space. Another blog post shows every traffic light in Assen so you can see the great variety of designs used. In the 1980s it may be been acceptable to expect cyclists to make slow two stage turns but that is a last resort measure now.

The best junction for cyclists at any particular location is whatever can keep cyclists safe while not causing slowing, deviation from a straight line or stopping. In practice, this is achieved in Assen by unravelling routes for drivers from those used by cyclists so that cyclists do not have to interact with traffic lights installed to manage motor vehicles. Where cyclists do have to use the same junctions as drivers, they are often provided with simultaneous green traffic light designs (the safest and most convenient option) or roundabouts.

Junctions between large roads in the Netherlands often don't need to cater for cyclists at all. These include traffic light junctions where cyclists have another route and "turbo roundabouts" which provide convenience for drivers. This special type of roundabout is entirely designed around driving and cyclists have other routes.

The most common junction design in the Netherlands is almost nothing at all

A better contender for the term "Standard
Dutch Junction" is something like this.
Much more common than any traffic
light junction, this is in a residential
area, has a 30 km/h speed limit, raised
table, small corner radii, and most
importantly it's not a through route for
motor vehicles.

Most junctions in the Netherlands are on residential streets or in town centres where low speed limits, raised tables, special surfacing, small corner radii and one-way systems which apply to drivers only make them unattractive to drivers. These do not operate as through streets for motor vehicles. On such streets, you meet very little motorized traffic and these junctions do not require traffic lights on them.

Not one option, but many
Where cyclists and motorists do have to use the same junctions, there are many options, not just one. Roundabouts with separate infrastucture for cyclists are very commonly used, for instance.

We demonstrate a wide range of solutions on our cycling infrastructure study tours.

Update. www.protectedintersection.com
A few days after I published this post, a new website authored by Nick Falbo appeared which promotes a variation on the same design of junction as Mark described three years ago. The main feature of the website at this time is this very well made video which describes Nick's interpretation of a Dutch traffic light junction design:

Not only does this video show a junction design, it also includes car parking in the right place relative to cycle-paths, so there are good aspects to this.

It's late as I type this. I've just watched the new video and these are my first impressions. While watching the video, I kept expecting the author to trip up at some point or another, but he does seem to have almost everything covered. Overall, I'm impressed. The video necessarily covers much of the same ground as did Mark's video and I'm very pleased to see that Nick acknowledges that debt. I'm also quite pleased to see that he acknowledges influence from this blog and other sources.

I had to look through old local government
publications to find an example of what is
now being proposed as a "protected
intersection" elsewhere. This junction in
Assen was rebuilt as something much better
in 2007. Don't be taken in. Copy what the
Dutch really do now, not a knock-off of
what they used to do.

The incorporation of simultaneous green into this junction is not quite right from a Dutch point of view because the geometry of real simultaneous green traffic light junctions is different to this junction. The "corner refuge" will get in the way of the most efficient use of the junction where diagonals are allowed. However, in my view this wouldn't stop the junction being able to work at all in that way and of course we do have to proceed in steps. If the US can start to install civilized junctions based on this design then we will perhaps see variations including more Dutch style simultaneous green in future.

Apart from the 6 m (car length) setback for where cyclists cross the street (itself an important detail), there are no dimensions on the video nor in the accompanying text. This brings me to my concerns:

The devil is very often in the details of implementation. If dimensions are adequate, traffic light timings are adequate, if cyclists have separate traffic lights and motorists can be prevented from making right turns on red (which I know many US motorists expect to be able to do) then I think the design will work well. However, that's quite a list of details. Quite a list of things which could be got wrong if the junction can't be built to the standard that it needs to be built to. I hope that Nick can prevent that from happening.

There is also the not so small matter that this design represents an Americanized version of just one of the many tools used by Dutch planners. This design of junction is only used at a minority of intersections in many Dutch towns. It is certainly an advance for the USA if this type of junction can be built, but please also look to the other interventions taken in the Netherlands but it should not be over-applied. Most of the places where we could have a junction like this in Assen, for instance, are now places without traffic lights at all. Understandably, it may take a little time for those other ideas also to be imported to the USA.

For cyclists, well designed Simultaneous Green junctions are more convenient than every having to make a two stage turn. Roundabouts are also more convenient. However, it's most convenient of all to have no traffic lights or other major junctions which need to be negotiated when cycling.

It's the "second revolution". i.e. getting rid of through traffic in cities and therefore also being able to get rid of the traffic lights and wide roads required to control motorized traffic which has done much to civilize Dutch city centres. This is more of philosophical approach than merely moving concrete, and it's perhaps too much of a leap to make immediately. But this where the big prize is.

Few Dutch people would now vote for a return to what streets looked like in the 1970s.

Another possible pitfall
John Pelletier pointed out another possible pitfall in email: "One thing that I noted he missed and mentioned in the comments is the issue of drivers not stopping at the stop line and blocking either the bike lane and/or ped crossing.  In the US the standard is to put traffic lights at the opposite side of an intersection, I am sure this contributes quite a bit to folks not stopping at the stop bar.  I notice in many instances the Dutch bring the traffic lights close to the stop bar so that going past the bar means you have no idea if the light is red or green, this confusion forces folks to more likely stop behind the bar".

In the Netherlands, the traffic lights for cars are always just beyond the stop line, not on the opposite side of the road. If drivers pass the stop line then they can't see whether the light is green or red.

Has Alta altered ?
On of the reasons why I am enthusiastic about this video is that Nick works for Alta Planning and Design. I've criticised this company in the past because they were involved in design standards and plans which I consider to be inadequate (e.g. Ontario and Los Angeles). Alta were also involved in work for NACTO which prompted Mark's video and blog post to which this is a reply.

Nick's video criticizes older, more dangerous intersection designs (e.g. two stage turns and merging right turning cars with cyclists) which Alta appears to have supported in the past. These same designs as were also criticized by Mark and myself amongst others. If Nick is the new face of Alta, and this type of design is the sort of thing that we can expect the company to advocate in the future then that's a very good thing. Alta would appear to have altered its recommendations in the light of what has been learnt. I hope to find that Alta will from now on pursue this better design and not merely advocate it alongside the inferior designs.

This could be a very good first step for America... but you do eventually also need to do the other things.

Update 21 Feb 2014
NACTO appear to have adopted Nick Falbo's design. I asked NACTO to let me know whether the new design will replace existing, less safe and convenient, junction designs in their standard or whether it will appear beside these inferior ideas.

While it is an advance for NACTO to adopt this design, there is a risk that this design could well end up being the best option alongside a range of inferior options in the toolbox available to American planners.

In the Netherlands, junctions like this are an average option offered alongside several superior options in the Dutch toolbox.

My concerns about this type of junction being over applied are still valid.

Is this for countries outside North America ?
There is no reason for countries outside North America to seek to emulate the NACTO guidance. With the adoption of this design, NACTO's best solution for cyclists is a copy of an average solution in the Netherlands. Come directly to the source.

Update May 2015

Salt Lake City design.

There is now a proposal for a real implementation of the "protected intersection" in Salt Lake City in the USA. Unfortunately, this departs from the the best recommendations of Nick Falbo's video. One of the most important things missing from the Salt Lake City design is that there are to be no separate traffic lights for cyclists. This creates a dangerous conflict between drivers turning right and cyclists going straight on or turning left. This is similar what occurs in "mixing zones" which have proven to have fatal outcomes elsewhere.

The drawing also makes it appear as if the kerb lines on the cycle-paths are intended to impede cyclists. This is not a feature of Dutch junctions where widths and radii are quite generous on cycle-paths to ensure that people can cycle efficiently.

In my view it is still unfortunate that the superior simultaneous green design wasn't adopted for this experiment. That is far more efficient for cyclists and avoids all the dangerous conflicts.

Update June 2015
Austin in Texas is also jumping on the "protected intersection" bandwagon. Here are pictures of two of their examples. In both examples there is no separate set of traffic lights for cyclists so motorized traffic is expected to magically stop in the face of a cyclist. But the problems with these two examples are greater than that. The geometry of the crossings seems to include pinch points for cyclists and very tight corner radii. The other problems isolated to each individual design are in the comments under each picture:

In this example there is no safe way of exiting the junction to head East or North. The buffer only gets in the way of cyclists and makes it difficult for them to join the road in those directions  forcing two 90 degree turns where there would otherwse be no requirement to turn at all (for a cyclists going straight on through the junction). It is possible to join segregated junctions with roads which don't have segregated infrastructure in a seamless and safe manner, but no attempt at all has been made to do that at this intersection. The only direction in which cyclists are actually protected by the buffer is if they proceed from the west and turn right. i.e. this "protected intersection" protects cyclists from motor vehicles in only one of the twelve different directions in which it can be used by cyclists. 1/12.

This example is on a huge road which certainly requires separation of cyclists from motorists by use of separate traffic lights. Cyclists who are late in crossing the road have absolutely no refuge between eight lanes of traffic. No do pedestrians have a refuge. Cyclists heading South and wishing to go straight on or left have a dramatic diversion from a straight line which they have to negotiate before finding themselves in front of motor vehicles which were making a right turn with a far more generous corner radius, leading to higher speeds around that corner. Cyclists coming from the west and wishing to continue North are first placed in conflict with one lane of right turning cars heading south and then placed in conflict with two lanes of cars going in a straight line towards the East. In this case, right turns are protected by the buffer in all four cases, but neither straight on or left turning cyclists have any protection at all. 4/12.

These appear to be nothing more than "cargo cult" copies of Dutch designs. The subtleties of the real designs have not been understood at all and some ideas from a third-hand half-remembered idea which could perhaps have worked at a relatively small intersection with little traffic have been scaled up to form the basis of a design for a completely different context. This seems to have happened without any real thought as to how it will work in practice. These intersections are not genuinely similar to Dutch intersections - they merely look superficially similar to designs which work at some places in the Netherlands.

At a real-life large scale Dutch intersection with many lanes on the road, the cycling facilities are completely separate from the driving lanes. Cyclists are assured absolute safety because they use completely separate traffic lights which remove all conflict between cyclists and drivers. This example would have made a far more suitable starting point for the Texas intersections than the design for much smaller intersections which they tried to scale up. If they'd sent people here, or even just asked sensible questions, we would have shown them this.

Before wasting more asphalt, before putting people in danger through bad design, come and see how real intersections in the Netherlands work.

In both these cases I've given directions relative to the pictures, assuming that North is at the top of the picture.

Mark criticized just one feature of the NACTO design guidelines. Read my longer critique of Ontario's design guide, which shares many similarities as well as authorship with the NACTO guidelines.

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)

Disappearing traffic lights. Removal of motorized traffic from where cyclists and pedestrians needed to be made mass cycling possible in the Netherlands. A second transport revolution despite a rise in car use and ownership.

Assen's first traffic lights were at
this junction, once the most busy in
the city.

The first traffic lights in the world were installed in London in 1868. This gas operated signal exploded shortly after installation.

It wasn't until the 2nd decade of the 20th century that electric traffic lights were invented and after the first of those was installed on August 5th in Cleveland Ohio, they were swiftly adopted worldwide.

The Netherlands followed shortly afterwards, installing the first traffic light in 1928.

Traffic lights were invented for very a reason: The adoption of motor vehicles led to a growing number of deaths and injuries. Controlling motor traffic was essential to improve safety. There are far more cars now than there were a hundred years ago, so they are still needed - but only on streets used by motor vehicles.

Nowadays, the same junction looks
like this. It's still busy with bikes, not
so many cars. The result of deliberate
policy to improve city centres. Note
empty car parking bays. There aren't
many provided but they're rarely full

The first revolution
During the 20th century, not only were traffic lights installed in order to control the problems of motor vehicles, but other changes were made to streets in order to control pedestrians and cyclists.

The transformation of city streets to favour car drivers over cyclists and pedestrians happened across the world. The Netherlands was just like other countries in this regard. Traffic lights were required to avoid motor problems caused by motor vehicles, but those same motor vehicles were still seen as the solution rather than the problem.

Not so long ago, Dutch children were educated about traffic
by "Bruintje Beer in het Verkeer". This junction is just like
the one shown above. Chains stop pedestrians crossing
the road, formal crossings show places where this is allowed,
cyclists are not kept apart from motor vehicles, which appear
to be going rather quickly compared with everyone else.
The text specifically tells children not to cross diagonally,
It's now encouraged by the most modern Dutch traffic light
junction design which make diagonals safe & convenient

Into the 1960s, Dutch towns were actually removing cycle-paths built earlier in order to make more space for cars and in other places the building of cycle-paths was opposed on the grounds of causing delays. For example, in Heerlen, "The head of the traffic police division has declared that the city's traffic situation is leading increasingly to the use of traffic signals at intersections. Should bicycle paths appear at these intersections, this would require separate traffic signals, which would be too costly. Moreover, it would cause too great a delay for 'fast' traffic".

By the 1970s, the streets of Dutch cities had been redesigned with many features associated priotizing motor vehicles:

1. Pedestrian barriers to prevent pedestrians from crossing the road where they want to.
2. Pedestrian crossings to enforce crossing only at places situated for the maximum convenience of drivers
3. Narrow pavements (sidewalks) to make more space available for wide lanes for motor vehicles.
4. Asphalt road surfaces replaced the older tiles to enable higher speeds of driving with lower noise within the car.
5. Traffic lights were required to control mass driving and make it safer, but they were mostly built without much thought to how they could be used to make convenient and safe journeys by foot or by bike,

Another view of how grim Assen had
become by the early 1970s. This street
is no longer open to cars at all. Watch
a video showing how it is now.

The second revolution
Starting in the 1970s, the Netherlands began to transform towns to reduce the problems caused by cars. This resulted in taking a step back from many of the "improvements" made in the mid 20th century, and  returning city centre streets to a similar condition to which they had in the early 20th century. Because cars are either completely banished or have been reduced to mere guests on streets which are dominated by cyclists and pedestrians, the problems that they create have been largely removed from most city centre streets.

Assen in the 1970s. Waiting for a
traffic light which no longer exists

The result of removing motor vehicles from these streets is that the traffic lights and other street features once required to control those vehicles are no longer required and that has made walking and cycling both pleasant and convenient.

Having got rid of the motorized through traffic, the traffic lights could go too. But it couldn't be done without first getting rid of those cars.

City centre streets can be made more civilized, quieter, less fume-filled and more pleasant spaces to be in if motor vehicle access is restricted. Such streets are referred to as Autoluwe or Nearly Car Free. This should not be confused with the far less successful "Shared Space" which seeks to keep motor vehicles in the same spaces.

Another junction in Assen in the 1970s vs. now. Apart from the traffic, note that the photo on the left features the same chains to prevent crossings and narrow pavement (sidewalk) as Bruintje Beer used to educate children about. There is far less traffic and far more space and freedom for pedestrians in the new situation as shown on the right. It's also a lot quieter and the air is cleaner than in the 1960s. Note that the old photo shows a petrol station in the city centre. They were removed from such locations decades ago and can now only be found around the edge of the city.

This is a very small junction
View Larger Map
The junction shown in the video and photos above, the site of the first traffic lights installed in Assen, is very small. With 1950s and 60s methodology (which took hold just as well here in the Netherlands as elsewhere), it made sense to dedicate a small junction like this, with streets barely more than 10 metres wide, to motor vehicles. This was the wrong solution for such a street. The "second revolution" took away that mistake and other places should not seek to replicate the mistake.

Nowadays, if you go looking in the Netherlands for traffic light solutions for streets of these small sizes, you're likely to be disappointed. This blog post shows you the current situation. i.e, it's no longer a traffic light junction. On a map which shows all of the traffic lights of Assen, this junction now shows up as a white space.

Not only in the city centre
With modern infrastructure, you do not usually have to stop for traffic lights with anything like the frequency in the Netherlands that you would do in other countries which still resemble the mid 20th century in this country. This is enormously beneficial for cyclists as you'll see from this video, showing a complete journey from a village outside Assen to the city centre.

At the end of the video there's another glimpse of how the city centre looked in the 1970s

Why stopping matters to cyclists
Stopping a motor vehicle and re-starting it consumes a great deal of energy. However, it's not especially wearing on the driver, who merely has to move their feet between the brake and accelerator pedals. Stopping is much more serious for a cyclist because the cyclist is not merely the "driver" of their vehicle but also the engine. Stopping not only costs a cyclist time but also energy. It greatly reduces average speeds to have to stop, making all journeys take longer and thereby also making an acceptable journey time cover a much smaller area.

For a cyclist, each stop can easily be the equivalent of riding several hundred extra metres. Cycling becomes a far more attractive mode of transport, even over longer distances, once it is made into a much quicker and more convenient mode of transport. This is why Dutch people not only cycle more of their short journeys than people of other nations, but also cover far more of their middle distance and longer journeys by bike than do people of other nations.

When I visited London in November, I expressed my annoyance not only with the danger of cycling in that city but also that cycling is dreadfully slow on the streets of a city which is still designed very much around the motor vehicle (the video that I shot in London shows many of the problems with that city, others are discussed in blog posts). London is by no means unique. Many other cities also combine dreadful cycling provision with time-consuming stop-start journeys. In such an environment we can never expect to see cycling grow beyond a 5% modal share. Even convincing people to make a low proportion of their journeys by bike will be difficult so long as cycling remains both dangerous and inconvenient.

Not only is cycling infrastructure required to removes cyclists from the danger of 'sharing' streets with motor vehicles, but it is also necessary to unravel routes sufficiently that cyclists can reach their destinations without having to continuously stop and restart. Stop-start cycling is also an artifact of motor dominance because it comes from streets being designed around motor vehicles. The solution is not to put cyclists onto back-roads which don't go to their destinations, but to give them direct routes which do take them to their destinations.

Every country followed the first revolution, however most haven't yet begun to catch up with the second revolution which started 40 years ago.

What can we learn?

Study Tours can be organised for groups on
almost any date. The next open tour is in April.
Read more about what we cover.

It is possible to make city centres more attractive for cycling and walking by making these modes more pleasant and more convenient. Removing traffic lights achieves these aims if the traffic is also removed. To see this in real life, book a place on a study tour.

Default to Green: cyclists have priority while drivers wait for the lights to change

Assen has 28 traffic light junctions. Three of them are set up in such a way that they default to green for cyclists. i.e. their usual situation is showing a green light for cyclists and they will only switch to red for cyclists and green for motor vehicles a sensor leading to the junction is triggered by the motor vehicle.

Red shows cycle-paths, blue shows the direction from which cars are leaving the motorway at this junction. X and Y are two junctions which default to green. The video was made at position X.
The area covered by this map is only about 500 m wide. Cycling infrastructure has to be built at a very high density in order that it is useful. At the western end, the cycle-paths link with little used service roads. To the east they are unbroken to the centre of the city.

The junction featured in this blog post is one of two very close together on a secondary cycle route in an industrial area in the west of Assen which give priority to bikes.

The roads in this area all have 50 km/h (30 mph) speed limits and with this being an industrial area you might have expected that most cyclists would be adults. However, even in this location, cyclists are provided with separate infrastructure from the road and are prioritized on those cycle-paths. There are good reasons why. Cycling has to be efficient and subjectively safe in order to be an attractive means of transport. Cycling also needs to be a "go anywhere" mode of transport to make it a default method of getting about rather than a "some journeys" mode of transport. If the cycle-path network did not reach into the industrial area, this would be a "no go" area for many people and what's more, if there were many places like this then cycling would no longer be a mode which could be relied upon to take you to any destination in comfort. As a result, fewer journeys would be made by bike.

If you want a high modal share for cycling then you need good infrastructure everywhere. When there is a tight grid of high quality cycle provision over the entire country it becomes possible for the whole population to cycle to any destination. Distances become less of a barrier if the experience is pleasant and that is why the Dutch do not only make shorter journeys by bike but are also more willing long distance cyclists than the people of any other nation. This wouldn't be true if the infrastructure didn't make it attractive.

On the way to junction X on the map above I first had to ride past junction Y. This young girl was riding alone in the industrial area next to a motorway junction. It's not a route used by many school children because it's not really a direct route for them between school and home. Perhaps she was riding to her parents' workplace or to a dentist further along here? However, the point is that whatever her destination, it's safe for her to get there by bike. It is an error to only try to provide good cycle facilities in town centres, for short journeys or only close to schools and housing. Unless cycling is made to be safe and convenient everywhere, it will never become a mode of transport used by everyone to make a large proportion of their journeys. For a high cycling modal share, a grid of high quality provision needs to go everywhere.

Why so few bikes in this video ?
This video has been six years in the making. That may sound ridiculous, and of course I'm not claiming that I've spent six years sitting there with a camera. However, this junction is particularly difficult to demonstrate because it reacts to both cyclists and drivers and normally there are either too many people using the junction for it to be demonstrated or it's the middle of the night and you can't see anything.

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This was the first time that I've found myself in this location with my camera and with little enough motor and cycling traffic that the timing of the traffic lights could be recorded. At more popular times you simply can't see so clearly what these traffic lights are doing. This is the reason why we show you a different default to green traffic light on our study tours.

Traffic lights which work like this are almost exactly the reverse of many pedestrian and cycle crossings. e.g. "Toucan" crossings in the UK. As it happens, we have three of those in Assen as well, and they have also been made efficient for cycling.

Inadequate infrastructure causes injuries. Better infrastructure prevents them. Learning from two minor crashes. Mini Roundabouts are unsafe for cyclists

My mother lives in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, England. Just before Christmas, my mum was involved in a crash while cycling. She had right of way when turning right on a mini roundabout. A driver coming from her left drove into her without seeing her.

My mother was following the line shown in red. The crash happened at the blue cross. See it on Google Maps.

The driver who hit my mother is not a bad person. She was apologetic from the start, took my mother to hospital and has checked up on her since then. The driver also paid for repairs to the bicycle and admitted liability to the police.

My mother was not seriously hurt, but her minor injuries have caused pain for some weeks now. A couple of days ago, my Mum collected her bike from the bike shop which made the repairs and rode it home. That's brave. Many people never cycle again once something like this has happened to them. While careful cyclists rarely have collisions anywhere in the world, including the UK, cycling becomes subjectively far less safe for people who have had this type of experience.

Crashes like this are quite common in the UK. They're usually referred to using the word "SMIDSY" ("Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You") as that's what drivers say so very often to the people who they have injured.

However, while crashes like this are common, they are rarely the result of deliberately dangerous behaviour. This is why neither legislation against drivers nor additional training are likely to make such events less frequent.

Another view of the same location. The red line shows the route that my mother takes to ride her bike home from the town centre.

The Blame Game
Who should we blame for this crash having occurred ?

My mother is a very careful cyclist and was riding according to the highway code when the crash occurred so she can't be blamed. The driver of the car has to take some responsibility because it was her action which caused the crash.

However it would be a mistake to think that these two parties are the only people involved. We need to look at why the driver made the mistake. This didn't happen for no reason at all, it was at least in part the result of the environment. Because crashes like this continue to occur I don't find it constructive to continue to blame either of the two principle actors.

It's not just Burnham. Britain has many
mini-roundabouts. This one near our old
home in Cambridge often caused us
problems by bike. Car crashes also
occurred. At least one person has died
at this junction since we left the UK.

This is a busy road junction yet it's designed as a mini-roundabout. Mini-roundabouts like this can be quite efficient for motorists but many cyclists find them to be dangerous. On a mini-roundabout, people have far less time in which to make a decision than they do on a full-sized roundabout. This leads mistakes being made and makes it far easier for motorists simply not to notice bikes and their riders amongst the more common and far larger motorized vehicles.

The speed limit at this junction is 30 mph (50 km/h). Burnham doesn't have any lower speed limits than this, not in residential areas which should not be used as through routes by car nor even by schools, even though schools exist for children yet children never drive cars to school.

The petrol station adjacent to the mini-roundabout adds more uncertainty. This station has a total of three entrances and exits, one in a side road and two of which divert traffic onto and off from the mini-roundabout. Passing drivers may also be distracted by reading the advertised fuel prices.

While both cyclists and pedestrians have no choice but to use this junction to get across the town, there is no provision here for cyclists to ride around the junction safely nor even to help pedestrians to cross the road.

The mini-roundabout is in the distance in this image, this is the road along which my mother was going to cycle in order to get home. Is this an equitable way to allocate space ? Both the mother with children and the person in a disability buggy have to use extremely narrow pavements while drivers enjoy wide lanes. The closest safe provision for crossing the road as a pedestrian is behind the camera.

Just like in other towns in the UK, planners here have only considered motor vehicles as a mode of transport. However, even that has not been done very well.

British Road Design
The roads in Burnham-on-Sea are very typical for a British town. I rode across this junction hundreds, if not thousands, of times when I lived in Burnham in the 1980s and 1990s. There has been no significant change to the roads in thirty years.

While British roads have not changed in design in the last thirty years, that is not true of the Netherlands. Sustainable safety principles applied progressively to Dutch roads in the ten year period between 1998 and 2007 are credited with having reduced the fatality rate by 5% per year. While the number of injuries for car occupants in the Netherlands is at around the same level as in Britain, pedestrians and cyclists are safer here than in the UK. Dutch children are far more likely to be independently mobile than British children and they are much safer than their British counterparts as they make their way around.

Comparison of the same road as above in Burnham (left) and a similar road and junction in Assen (right). The overall width of pavement, cycle-path and road at this point in Burnham is somewhat narrower than the example from Assen. Nevertheless, despite having less space overall, the British example allocates more space for cars even at this narrow point: the driving lanes in Burnham are about as wide as the driving lanes in Assen and the car parking lane, even though no parking is allowed. Extra width could be allocated to pedestrians and cyclists even here, but that isn't done even further along the road where it's much wider. Note also the smaller corner radii into side roads in Assen to reduce speeds and make crossing easier and lower speed limits in all residential streets. The width of the driving lanes of this street in Assen were reduced in 2008.

Burnham-on-Sea is a small town (the population is less than a third that of Assen at under 19000 people) but the roads in the town are always busy with cars. As in most of the UK, there is little alternative but to drive. Very few people will ever feel comfortable to cycle when the infrastructure design makes it so obvious that drivers are preferred over cyclists. In these conditions, people often believe driving to be a necessity.

When we visited in October, we saw that cycling provision is still virtually non-existent in Burnham. Enthusiastic cyclists ride their bikes, but there is little to attract those who are not enthusiastic cyclists. Many of the people who we came across who cycled used the pavement and apologised for doing so, or avoided the direct routes by using back streets and narrow pedestrian only cut-throughs.

The red line at the left shows part of the route taken by my mother to get from home to the town centre. The green line on the right shows the only cycling infrastructure in this area, a cycle-path built on the edge of a new housing development on the Eastern side of the town. This single path is of relatively good quality by British standards but it's not very useful because it skirts around the town and doesn't provide a direct route to common destinations. A very finely spaced grid of high quality cycle-paths is required to enable safe mass cycling. The blue line on the far left shows where Sustrans tell cyclists to ride along the beach.

Where the best cycle-path in Burnham
crosses a minor side-road, the corner
radius is large to enable high speed
when entering the residential streets
and drivers have priority. Also note
how much space is allocated for
driving vs. other modes.

A recently built housing development on the Eastern edge of the city provided a single cycle-path. However, this path is compromised in quality (narrow, gives way at all side-roads, low social safety) and doesn't actually go anywhere very useful. It skirts around the edge of the new homes where it was easy to build rather than going where it would provide a useful route.

There's a stark contrast between the housing development in Burnham-on-Sea which is typical for Britain, and what we've seen with a new development built on the edge of Assen which is typical for the Netherlands. In the Dutch example, cycling is not an afterthought. Not only was this development designed to enable most children to cycle to school but the new suburb also came with all facilities including a pedestrian and cycle friendly shopping centre. What's more, not only does the new development in Assen have an extensive network of internal cycle-paths, but it its construction also involved extensive works to provide a direct, unobstructed and nearly car free route to the city centre by bicycle.

Is everything perfect in the Netherlands ?

The collision in Assen took place at
this junction in an industrial estate

We go to some lengths to point out, both on this blog and on the study tours, that the Netherlands is not perfect. While the overall standard of the Netherlands is very good, there are plenty of places in this country where the infrastructure is not yet up to scratch. Plenty of work remains to be done. We have observed that those places which have inadequate, old-fashioned, infrastructure are often the scenes of collisions.

This is a long, straight road with lanes
just as wide as those used in the UK.
Drivers often exceed the speed limit
of 50 km/h in this location. No cycle-
paths here to keep cyclists safe.

This was illustrated in the last week because a friend of ours was involved in a very similar crash here in Assen to that which befell my mother in Burnham-on-Sea. Like my mother, our friend was bruised but not seriously injured. Her bicycle had some damage. The car driver in this case initially wanted to leave the scene of the accident but did co-operate.

It's often the case that people from outside the Netherlands overestimate the effect of "Strict liability" law. This was not a deliberate act and law does nothing to prevent accidental crashes. The driver simply "didn't see" the cyclist when he used a junction to turn around. No change to the law can prevent crashes because they address the wrong issue. The law does provide the useful service of ensuring that the crash victim will have her bicycle repair paid by the insurance of the driver.

Proper cycling infrastructure in this location almost certainly would have prevented the crash from happening because this removes the chance for a collision to occur. There is easily enough space for a cycle-path along this route and it is highly likely that one will be built in the future. The Western end of this area is to be rebuilt in the next few years and I expect to see changes for cyclists when that happens.

The route taken by the Assen cyclist through the industrial estate is shown as the bottom line, in red. The location of the crash is shown by the blue cross. No-one used this as a through route until very recently when a new bicycle bridge joined the short green section of cycle-path on the right to the red road. There are many cycle-paths in Assen and they go to all destinations. The longer green line across the top shows one good quality route (mainly cycle-path) to the same destination. This shortest safe route is 0.8 km longer for this particular journey, hence the desire to save time by choosing the red line. As the red route now makes a useful bicycle through-route, it is imperative that a cycle-path is built alongside it to improve safety.

Bad road designs are unsafe

Further along the same road, still in the
industrial area, there's a painted mini-
roundabout (new since we moved here)
Dutch drivers cut corners just as British
drivers do. This type of infrastructure
is no more safe here than in the UK.

Bad infrastructure in the Netherlands is no more safe than is bad infrastructure in the UK. Where conflict is caused by road design, problems of safety also arise.

In the post second world war period, the Netherlands and the UK were transformed by the rise of the private car. Starting in the 1970s, the Netherlands took a different path. Some forty years have now elapsed of this second phase of transformation. People now take priority and road safety has improved by a huge margin.

In some places, old fashioned and unsafe infrastructure remains in the Netherlands. In the case of the street featured above, it affected relatively few people until the recent opening of a cycle-bridge made it into a short-cut for some journeys by bike. It is now important that this street too needs to be updated to make it safe - part of an on-going process.

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Just because something exists in the Netherlands, that doesn't mean it works well for cycling. Many things can be found on the road network of the Netherlands or are promoted by Dutch companies but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to copy all of them. This is why we offer independent advice about infrastructure. We're in a unique position to understand and explain, having experience of the UK and the Netherlands, and we have no company's product to sell.

My mother and Kona are not the only cyclists in Burnham-on-Sea. This town is also home to the world's oldest triathlete.  On the theme of the last paragraph above, some may remember that I criticized a Dutch company last year who offered "Dutch" infrastructure which was not the same as they would build in the Netherlands. Public companies are amoral. Just because they have Dutch roots that does not mean they're interested in cycling. Profit is their motive. The same company has now become involved with achieving consent for a shiny new nuclear power station just 10 km from my mother's home. That's not very "Dutch" either - there are no nuclear power stations under construction in the Netherlands near the mothers of the people at the top of Royal Haskoning.