This week's Good Facility is slightly unusual.
Nothing wrong with the cycling infrastructure itself - a standard, Dutch uni-directional cycleway, with forgiving kerbing and good separation from parked vehicles between the cycleway and the road.
The cycleway is unusual, however, because it shouldn't be needed on this category of road - an access road, with a 30 km/h limit. These are the kinds of roads in the Netherlands that are designed purely to allow access to properties along them, and consequently have very low levels of motor traffic (as can be seen in the photograph). There is therefore no particular need for a separated cycleway, with only a small number of drivers, travelling at low speeds. (Indeed, in the opposite direction, there is no cycleway - only a painted lane on the road).
But for whatever reason - perhaps a change at the planning stage - the cycleway has been built here, to a high standard, and is consequently used by everyone, despite not being particularly necessary.
Comments
eldering
29 July, 2016 - 20:06
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I would argue that there are
I would argue that there are (minor) reasons to have it here: first, this looks more like a distributor road than an access road to me (but I don't know actual car traffic levels here), and secondly, the cycleway allows cycling on the inside of parked cars.
On streetview if you follow the road for a few hundred meters, the cycleway turns into an on-street cycle lane, and you see how parked cars can potentially introduce conflicts, due to taking away space on the cycle lane: https://goo.gl/maps/wiKsneBiQDq
As Easy As Ridi...
11 August, 2016 - 15:03
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I agree - there will often be
I agree - there will often be pragmatic reasons for building cycleways, even if the speed limit is 30km/h, especially avoiding issues with parking.
I've happened on a similar example in North Amsterdam, here - although the road speed limit is again 30km/h, it looks like the cycleway is a useful way of bypassing a series of potential conflicts with parked/moving vehicles on the road.
As Easy As Riding A Bike