Assen's best bicycle "tunnel" is a bridge. How a crossing of a main road, once a large traffic light juncion, has been made almost invisible to cyclists.

The video has a short spoken introduction but I then shut up and let you hear for yourself how quiet and peaceful this area is for a place where we cross four lanes of motorized traffic. This is not peak bicycle traffic but an average level of traffic for mid morning.

The video above shows the best "bicycle tunnel" in Assen. It's actually a bridge for cars. This deserves some explanation.

In the 1960s the canal which used to head to the centre of Assen in this location was filled in and a ring-road built around the city. Until late as early 2007, the ring-road was still at ground level. At this point Assen could be accessed by motor vehicles heading in from villages around the city. The lifting bridge was used by motor vehicles and cycle alike.

When cyclists wanted to go to the centre of the city they had to use a light controlled crossing and wait for a gap in the motor traffic. Boats could of course not access the centre at all.

A new route for drivers heading to the right on this picture
(i.e. west) is just off the bottom of the image. This new route
is also paralleled by cycle-path. Drivers didn't lose a route
as a result of this bridge being built, but cyclists did gain.

However, Assen has been growing rapidly and a new suburb on the west of Assen needed not only better facilities for access by car, but also required that cycling facilities were improved in order that the cycling modal share of the city would grow rather than shrink as people moved into the new suburb. That is why this area needed to change.

The ring-road was to be doubled in width for a short section to allow for the large increase in population at this side of the city. It's unrealistic for cyclists to expect that roads should never be improved as unless we're going to ban people from owning cars, people will want to drive the cars that they own. The Netherlands is remarkably free of obviously anti-car policy. The highest cycling modal share in the world is the result more of cycling being made attractive than of driving being made unattractive. When infrastructure is retrofitted to an existing city, as happened here, we do sometimes have to be pragmatic - hence the bicycle road discussed below rather than a cycle-path as the direct route to the city centre from this point. However we should never accept that cycling infrastructure comes second and should be built to a low standard. Cyclists should benefit even from new road building.

The existing road to the centre was no longer to be used for motor vehicles. Rather, this most direct of routes was changed into a bicycle road divided by stretches of cycle-path so that it could not form a through route by car. The existing lifting bridge became part of the bicycle road, also used only by residents' cars for access. This has now become a main bicycle route unravelled from motoring routes. As a side benefit, the canal could also now be re-opened as a public amenity (these days it's used for tourism, not for industry).

This blog post highlights just one of
many crossings of main roads and
railway tracks in Assen. Many
crossings are required in order
to avoid the funneling problem.

One crossing is not enough
Note that this is just one of many crossings of large roads and railway tracks in Assen, just one of many crossings which prioritize cycling.

Bridge or tunnel ?
A bridge for cyclists to cross the ring-road was considered, but this would have had to be extremely long to have the required gradual incline and of course any bridge requires cyclists to climb to a considerable height before they can ride back down the other side, which slows cyclists down. Cycle-paths should be built to maximise the speed of cycling in order to make this mode as attractive as possible. Therefore it is best to avoid high bridges.

The option of a tunnel was also considered. This would also have solved the problem of expecting cyclists to wait and it would have come without the price of sending bikes and their riders up an incline. However it would also have required sending people into a hole in the ground and it was judged that in this case the subsequent reduction in social safety could lead to less cycling.

The distance between the new suburb and the centre of the city was already long enough. It was considered to be important to keep journeys times so short as possible and to avoid any other reasons why people might choose not to cycle.

A comprehensive grid of cycling
infrastructure covers Assen as it does
other Dutch cities. Red=main routes,
Blue=secondary, Green=recreational.
Of course, it's still not enough. Assen
has not finished with building and
improving cycling infrastructure.

So the city chose to leave cyclists on the level and to build a bridge which carries four lanes of motor vehicles above the cycle-path. It is easier for motor vehicles to climb than for cyclists to climb.

Cyclists stay on the level, but with no need ever to stop for the road. Sound barriers were installed which make the sound of motor vehicles almost completely disappear. Cyclists now barely even notice when they cross the ring road.

If your aim is to encourage cycling then it's important for the cycle route to be as good as it can possibly be. This means it should be so direct as possible and have so few stops as possible.

The old direct route
You may wonder what happened to the old direct driving route into the city which has now been closed to through motor traffic. Two photos illustrate how this road has changed:

In the 1970s this was a narrow through road shared by cyclists pedestrians and motorists. Because roads like this encourage high speeds, a hand painted sign reading "drive slowly" was put up by a resident.

The same road is now a bicycle road. It is no longer possible for motorists to use this as a through route. Therefore motorists use this stretch of road for access to just 11 houses which still exist along here. For cyclists it's a busy through route which provides part of a straight line cycle-route between the new suburb of Kloosterveen (planned for 9000 homes) and the city centre. Local residents no longer have a need to erect signs to ask drivers to slow down for the sake of their safety.

Exceptional or unexceptional ?
Of course, one piece of cycling infrastructure can do very little on its own. There is often too much emphasis on exceptional pieces of infrastructure when what is truly exceptional in the Netherlands is something altogether different:

True mass cycling is enabled when the entire population is attracted to cycling and when all journeys can be made by bike.

Cycling is made attractive by segregating cyclists from motor vehicles almost 100% of the time because motor vehicles are what people fear most when cycling. In the Netherlands this has been done by building a remarkably tight grid of cycling infrastructure which would be considered to be exceptionally good in any other country. No-one has to make their journey in unpleasant conditions which might scare them off cycling.

The need for a high quality grid of traffic free routes was the most important lesson learnt by the Dutch way back in the 1970s and this is what has been built upon since that time. Nothing stands still. All cities across the Netherlands continue to improve their infrastructure. During the seven years that we have lived in Assen, the majority of the city's cycling infrastructure has been improved. Other places can't catch up by doing less, only by doing more.

We visit this bridge and ride the entire length of the bicycle road on our study tours. The whole of the uninterrupted route between the bridge and the city centre can be seen in a video.

Link to Bing Maps bird's eye view of the site of the blue bridge.

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.

An unremarkable morning and a pleasant evening

Explanatory captions on this video are only visible when it is viewed on a computer and not on a mobile device.

The video shows a Monday morning from a few weeks back. I made the video at around 11 in the morning, which is a very low time for cycling - especially so on a Monday morning like this one as the shops are all shut.

This is a very typical scene of what it's like when it's not rush hour.

Cycling is relaxing, not stressful. There's no need to concentrate unduly on potential dangers.


Explanatory captions on this video are only visible when it is viewed on a computer and not on a mobile device.

The next video was made on the way back from an event in the city. We rode home after midnight, separated from the light motor traffic the whole way. Again, it's relaxing, not stressful.

In the Netherlands, cycling is for everyone. It's not only for commuters, not only for confident young adults, but for everyone in all stages of their life and at all times of the day and night.

The simple ordinariness of cycling in the Netherlands is what is so special about it.

I've covered the scene of the first video twice before, once in rush hour and once demonstrating the degree of separation of cars from bikes.

What separation of cycle routes really means

Explanatory captions on this video are only visible when it is viewed on a computer and not on a mobile device.

This video shows a location very near our home. Cyclists completely separated from motor traffic. It's not an aberration, but something quite common. It is possible to cycle here and barely see cars. Cars are mostly elsewhere.

The cycle routes you see in this video have few cars for several reasons. Some are cycle paths along which cars are not allowed. Others are roads open to all, but along which there is no destination for drivers, so they are not at all useful as a through road by car. No road sign will tell a driver that these small roads are route. They are directed onto the main road that you also see in the video. What's more, rat-running doesn't work here. Those roads which have been prioritised for cyclists really don't make a useful alternative for drivers.

This location looked quite different three years ago. The motivation for this transformation was to make sure that there was a direct and easy route to the city centre from a new housing estate on the western side of the city. The blue bridge carrying the cars over the cycle path was built to give cyclists a direct route without any stops and with maximum social safety.

This change was amongst those which helped the city to raise its cycling rate from around 37% to the new figure of 41% of all journeys by bike.

If you imagine going under the blue bridge in this video, you can get all the way into the city centre on the bicycle road, and the last bit looks like this

The video was shot from an artificial hill which stands where the red spot is in this photo:
The photo is from Microsoft Bing Maps birds eye view. I would have embedded it if I could work out how (it's much easier with Google Maps...).

A video view of the entire bicycle road route between the city centre and the new housing development is in another blog post. There is also another view from this hill.

Extreme sport ? Why there is no point in saying that cycling is safe without it being subjectively safe

This bridge provides an essential link for bicycles by
keeping cars out of the way. Read more.

Skydiving is a very safe sport. In the USA in 2007 there were 2.2 million jumps and only 18 deaths of sky-divers. That's an average of a death every 122000 jumps. If you were to jump once every day you could expect to live to 334 years of age before a skydiving accident killed you. (source: USPA website)

What does this have to do with cycling ? Well, these are precisely the sorts of statistics that many cyclists like to quote to non-cyclists to try to encourage them to cycle in countries where there is little cycling.

Does this work ? Generally not. Cycling remains at around 1% of journeys made by bike in the English speaking countries. People who are enthusiastic cyclists cycle. Those who are not enthusiasts don't. In that way it's very much like skydiving. People use both activities to raise money for charity.

I share with a lot of my readers that I wouldn't willingly jump out of an aeroplane with a parachute no matter how safe I was told it was. I can see that it's thrilling, and I'm sure it is fabulous fun. However, jumping from an aeroplane offers no utility to me, and it is way past my threshold for subjective safety. Many people feel the same way about cycling.

So what is the difference between the Netherlands, where everyone cycles, and the countries where few people cycle ?

It's quite simple. There are two main points. First the high level of subjective safety achieves this:

1. A cycle ride here is always a pleasure.
2. Motor vehicles are generally somewhere else.
3. Street design is such that conflict between motorists and cyclists is rare

What's more, there is the great efficiency of cycling in the Netherlands:

1. Cycle routes are often shorter than driving routes
2. You can skip past traffic lights
3. You can park closer to your destination

What's more, everyone does it. From children, through families together on to older people.

It's a logical impossibility to expect 40% of journeys by bike if cycling only appeals to 5% of the population. That is why cycling here has to be for everyone and why a high degree of subjective safety is vital. A high cycling rate and high subjective safety cannot be separated. This is why I've highlighted subjective safety in a number of posts.

If you live in a country where there is a low level of cycling, you live in one where the subjective safety for cyclists is too low for most people to consider cycling. Without improving conditions cycling will continue to look like an extreme sport to many people and you will have as much success in increasing the rate of cycling as in convincing the general public to skydive.

While cycling in busy traffic might sometimes seem like an extreme sport in some countries, it doesn't here. The woman in the photo is definitely not engaging in an extreme sport. There is no "traffic jamming" here in Assen. The nearest any car travelling at speed will get to her today is if one crosses over the bridge she's just passed under. What's more, she is on the most direct route to the centre of the city. This high quality cycle route is closer to a straight line than any route by car, and has no traffic lights on it, vs. a minimum of three sets by car. Wonderful conditions for cycling like this attract people to cycling.

To see conditions for cycling which are so irresistable that they attract everyone, come on a Study Tour. If you simply want to relax in conditions away from the stress of cycling elsewhere, consider one of our holidays.

I should perhaps point out that I have no argument with skydivers. If you want to throw yourself out of a working aeroplane, that's fine by me. However, if you don't mind, I'll just watch.

Rush hour

Note that captions on the video are only visible on computers, not on mobile devices.
This is a short video showing part of the rush hour traffic near our home in the suburbs of Assen.

It's like this every morning and evening. In fact, as this video is rather murky and doesn't have the 360 degree vision you need to see what is really going on in all directions at once, real life is somewhat more impressive than what you see here.

This is just one small area. There are many other busy cycling routes.

The large bridge, carrying the dual carriageway over the cycle paths, was built in order to make cyclists feel safe and so that they have direct and fast journeys. Until last year, there was a flat road junction here, and the bicycle roads were part of a direct driving route to the centre of the city. No longer. Drivers are now sent along that dual carriageway, through a few sets of traffic lights and by a detour to the centre. The direct route is for bikes.

Other, later blog posts explain a lot more about what is happens in this location and why. See also products for cycling with pets.