Please send your answers to: bike_infrastrucuture@VeloCity.at
Friday, 17 May 2013
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Painting over the problem.
The vice mayor announced a bold plan to paint all the cycling lanes a uniform colour to clearly indicate to pedestrians and car drivers where cyclists will ride. A clear consistent marking of the cycle space is a great idea but....
Of course the traditional (in Vienna) Red cycle paths will now be Painted Green. Red cycle paths built by the Red Socialists will be painted Green by the Green Party. This will no doubt lead to huge discussion of which colour to use rather than a discussion about the problem which they are attempting to solve.
London and New York are used as examples where this has been successful. If the London Super Highways are to be described as a an example we should aspire to I despair.
Red marking will be used to mark the danger zones! Why not design out the danger zones and fix them?
Painting the existing cycle path (Option 2 of 7) was the 4th most popular option in the Ring Radweg Options survey. It is seen as an improvement but it is not a fix of the fundamental problem we have on the Ring:
According to the experts:
"Vienna has many large roads running right into the city centre with many lanes. These high volumes of cars
cause problems in the city: not only large streets with many lanes to cross but also fewer space for cyclists and pedestrians. AND all the cars on one street go to other streets where they also ask for space and may cause traffic jams etc. If it would be possible to replace part of the car traffic by bicycle it would result in more “space” in the whole system. One lane of 3,5m can carry about 2000 cars per hour. The same lane can carry about 15.000 cyclists. This is 7 times more efficient. By bicycles many more people can move in the city than if they would go by car. Here is the great advantage of cycling for the city."
Painting a poor solution will not fix it or ease the pressure of space that pedestrians and cyclist have due the over consumption of space by car infrastructure.
The Door Zone problem will not be fixed by painting these terrible lanes.
The incomprehensible rights of way will not be solved by paint alone.
The ENDE problems will not be solved by paint alone.
The lack of usable junctions design for bikes will not be solved by paint alone.
Paint is slippy when worn and wet. It maybe cheap but it is easily damaged (especially by snow clearing) and needs constant repainting. It is not what the Dutch do they use Red Tarmac. In Burgenland (Austria) they can get this right.
I would really like to support any initiative that makes consistent cycling infrastructure clearly marked. In principle clearly delimiting the space with colour is a good idea but it does not change where that space is and that the space is poorly designed. Lets not get distracted be the which colour debate and try and get some competent mobility planning rather than politicians painting over their problems and mistakes while they argue about which colour..
Of course the traditional (in Vienna) Red cycle paths will now be Painted Green. Red cycle paths built by the Red Socialists will be painted Green by the Green Party. This will no doubt lead to huge discussion of which colour to use rather than a discussion about the problem which they are attempting to solve.
London and New York are used as examples where this has been successful. If the London Super Highways are to be described as a an example we should aspire to I despair.
Red marking will be used to mark the danger zones! Why not design out the danger zones and fix them?
Painting the existing cycle path (Option 2 of 7) was the 4th most popular option in the Ring Radweg Options survey. It is seen as an improvement but it is not a fix of the fundamental problem we have on the Ring:
According to the experts:
"Vienna has many large roads running right into the city centre with many lanes. These high volumes of cars
cause problems in the city: not only large streets with many lanes to cross but also fewer space for cyclists and pedestrians. AND all the cars on one street go to other streets where they also ask for space and may cause traffic jams etc. If it would be possible to replace part of the car traffic by bicycle it would result in more “space” in the whole system. One lane of 3,5m can carry about 2000 cars per hour. The same lane can carry about 15.000 cyclists. This is 7 times more efficient. By bicycles many more people can move in the city than if they would go by car. Here is the great advantage of cycling for the city."
Painting a poor solution will not fix it or ease the pressure of space that pedestrians and cyclist have due the over consumption of space by car infrastructure.
The Door Zone problem will not be fixed by painting these terrible lanes.
The incomprehensible rights of way will not be solved by paint alone.
The ENDE problems will not be solved by paint alone.
The lack of usable junctions design for bikes will not be solved by paint alone.
Paint is slippy when worn and wet. It maybe cheap but it is easily damaged (especially by snow clearing) and needs constant repainting. It is not what the Dutch do they use Red Tarmac. In Burgenland (Austria) they can get this right.
I would really like to support any initiative that makes consistent cycling infrastructure clearly marked. In principle clearly delimiting the space with colour is a good idea but it does not change where that space is and that the space is poorly designed. Lets not get distracted be the which colour debate and try and get some competent mobility planning rather than politicians painting over their problems and mistakes while they argue about which colour..
Monday, 13 May 2013
To Mix or Separate that is the Question?
Should bicycle traffic be mixed with other Motorized traffic? The CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic has an answer summarized by Paul James in his cheat sheet: It is complicated but the clear principle is the busier and faster the road the more separated different modes of transport should be.
In Austria the same principle is applied to produce the following guide.
Separate Cycle paths solutions only work well if they are designed to benefit cyclists and do more than get bikes off the busy roads and out the way of cars.
Combined traffic solutions only work if there is no conflict of road function.
- If you mix with motor traffic that is trying to get through the area (rat running) or you will have conflict.
- If you mix with a queue of motor traffic that is stuck you will have conflict as you filter though it.
Combined solutions should be for the roads you live in where you just need access with motor vehicles. You should feel comfortable walking in the road and then people will feel comfortable cycling along it or living / socializing / playing / shopping in it. These roads need to feel like nice places to be for people without the threat of motor cars bulling people away. The cars need to be separated out of these roads.
There will be some roads where this is not possible because they have a mix of functions. These roads are problems to design for because they involve a compromise. I believe one of the main problems in Vienna is that the fist principle of sustainable safety is not applied. Each road is a compromise rather than having a clear function, so the solution becomes a compromise and there is conflict as a result. I believe this conflict and the danger associated with it is why a lot of people do not cycle in Vienna.
Sustainable Safety is clearly not understood by planners or politicians in Vienna who try to put behavior laws, or media campaigns in place to cope with the unpredictable or aggressive behavior that results from stressful, conflict situations. I worry that this will not be a very effective strategy to make Vienna an even better place to live.
Often cycle activists in Vienna are religiously anti separation. I have some sympathy with them as they have had years of roads that they used to ride happy a long turned in to door zones and or pedestrian slaloms. However not all cycle infrastructure is bad and very few people felt comfortable riding along the roads before cycle infrastructure was built. These two minor points seam to get lost or ignored in the anti infrastructure religion. There views manifest into a advocacy for mix strategies where cyclists are used as traffic calming devices. This strategy is not going to create a pleasant cycling environment for anyone and will increase the car / pedestrian / cyclists conflict that is getting so much attention in the media right now.
I want to answer the Mix or Not question in a simple way. If you want to design roads for bikes you must ALWAYS SEPARATE. Either you have a separate route, separate cycle path or you separate motor traffic out of the street.
Dutch Cycling Embassy: ThinkBike report workshops Vienna Januari 2013
The Dutch Cycling Embassy were in Vienna earlier this year and have produced a very interesting report: here.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Bike Boxes
Advanced stop lines (ASL) or Bike boxes look like a good idea because they give the cyclist pole position. However they do not work very well and they are a 1970s Dutch idea that the Dutch are phasing out and replacing with better solutions for good reason.
Why do they not work?
They create conflict with motor vehicles encouraging cyclist to filter past a queue of frustrated stationary vehicles and stand in front of them. When the lights change cyclists then have to race off in front of the vehicles who try to then overtake them. This leads to conflict. A lot of drivers position themselves in the box to stop this conflict happening which aggravates the situation even more. They also encourage a lot of cyclists to filter when, for their own safety, they really should not:
Advanced riders in the UK (where there are a lot of ASLs) decide to use them based of some well developed logic. The danger of large trucks to cyclists means if you do not have a good understanding of that logic you could easily be then next victim to die a very horrible death.
So they are not good for inexperienced cyclists and they are not particularly good for experienced cyclists. Who are they good for? I worry that they are good for politicians, incompetent traffic planners and frustrated cyclist groups who like and need cheap quick paint on solutions that look like a good idea and can be marketed as such.
We do not have many bike boxes in Vienna but I worry this will change and we will copy poor infrastructure solutions that keep cycling modal share in the UK very low despite the best possible marketing while ignoring 40 years of research and development because...??????
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Relocate space back to people - but not in VeloCity 2013.
This blog is not about copying cycling infrastructure from countries with low numbers of cyclists but this fantastic film shows that even in car dominated cities it is possible to relocate space back to people and the positive effects of doing so.
In London the major has announced his vision for cycling.
Paris closes roads to cars and opens them to people in the summer so that people in the city can enjoy being there.
The Ciclovia in Bogotá Colombia shows how popular roads are when they are closed to car traffic.
The last 60 years of road building have shown that car traffic consumes all the space that is available to it. In modern cities this must be challenged. Cities will become more and more densely populated and so we need more efficient space solutions for transport and leisure.
The solutions are there but it is often the irrational fear of loss of car space that is congesting and choking our cities. Quality cycling infrastructure can be build along side car infrastructure and as part of car infrastructure where motor traffic volume and speed is low, however it can not be built if the design brief is to build it in such a way as to have no negative effect on car space. I am not a fan of "Share the Road" without specifying the road type and function but I am a fan of "Share the Road Space".
It is extremely disappointing that in Vienna (Velo-City 2013) even the Green Party does not even consider the removal of one lane of cars to be at all politically realistic. I feel there needs to be pragmatic political pressure to fix this problem rather than painting over the fundamental design problems.
In London the major has announced his vision for cycling.
Paris closes roads to cars and opens them to people in the summer so that people in the city can enjoy being there.
The Ciclovia in Bogotá Colombia shows how popular roads are when they are closed to car traffic.
The last 60 years of road building have shown that car traffic consumes all the space that is available to it. In modern cities this must be challenged. Cities will become more and more densely populated and so we need more efficient space solutions for transport and leisure.
The solutions are there but it is often the irrational fear of loss of car space that is congesting and choking our cities. Quality cycling infrastructure can be build along side car infrastructure and as part of car infrastructure where motor traffic volume and speed is low, however it can not be built if the design brief is to build it in such a way as to have no negative effect on car space. I am not a fan of "Share the Road" without specifying the road type and function but I am a fan of "Share the Road Space".
It is extremely disappointing that in Vienna (Velo-City 2013) even the Green Party does not even consider the removal of one lane of cars to be at all politically realistic. I feel there needs to be pragmatic political pressure to fix this problem rather than painting over the fundamental design problems.
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