JimDec 6

An excellent episode of @notjustbikes's Urbanist Agenda with @BrentToderian.

5 stages of urban planning. 1: the wrong thing (car-centric design). 2: the wrong thing, but better (EVs are better than ICE cars). 3: have your cake and eat it too (widen roads while adding bike/transit lanes). 4: doing the right thing, badly (painted bike lanes). Alt 4: only the low-hanging fruit (bike lanes in parks). Finally, 5: doing the right thing, well.

Says @brisbane did stage 3 when he was here.

Show threadjslDec 6
@jimcullen @notjustbikes @BrentToderian @brisbane Sorry, but Stage 5 is where the hard work begins: 5a: Do the right thing, but very poorly, e.g. build segregated cycle lanes but they end whenever an intersection would have required redesigning. 5b: Do the right thing, but incompletely, e.g. only planning for local bike traffic, not fast commuting (because cyclists only ever pootle around at 3 mph, stopping for coffee or smelling the wayside flowers every half mile). 5c: Do the right things for cyclists but at the detriment of pedestrians and public transport, like 'floating' bus stops. 5d: Putting bollards everywhere because SUVs and dented Amazon vans mount every curb and park everywhere.
Show threadJim
@jsl I would say that your examples for 5a, 5b, and 5d are actually examples of 4 (unless 5d is a bollard that stops cars *without* narrowing the path for cyclists). Your 5c example is just...good design. Floating bus stops are great. As long as they're clear about who has to give way (usually, this should be pedestrians, but at particularly high-traffic stops it *might* be appropriate for it to be cyclists who give way, indicated by a **raised "wombat" crossing**). https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/riding-around-the-bus-stop/
Riding around the bus stop

One of the things that I had planned to show you for a long time is how the Dutch can cycle around a bus stop. That there is an interest for this came up in the past several times. So I had been tr…

BICYCLE DUTCH
Dec 8 at 9:39amWeb
Show threadjslDec 8
@jimcullen I see your point. As for the floating bus stops, they need education of pedestrians and cyclists. During school rush hour, I can't plow my bike through a gaggle of school children trying to catch the bus, but need to be considerate. (Some cyclists don't like this idea.)
On the other hand, pedestrians will have to learn to look out for cyclists before crossing over to the island. Just because I hadn't had to do this before doesn't give me permission to ignore the new layout and simply stumble into the path of a cyclist. (Some pedestrians refuse to change their habits.)
Show threadJimDec 9
@jsl after writing my last comment I had a look. Apparently these are highly controversial in the UK? They're the norm in the Netherlands, and here in Aus I haven't heard much said about them either way. One problem with UK designs I see is rather narrow and short platforms. Two buses pull up, 2nd is directly on the bike lane, before the island. And even the one on the island doesn't have enough width before pedestrians hit the bike lane to give them time to view and evaluate. 1/
Show threadjslDec 9
@jimcullen From very localised limited experience, I've only seen them in large cities and not consistently. I wouldn't be surprised if, were you to poll cyclists and pedestrians, nobody would even know who has right of way. Thus, it comes down to the proud British idea of fair play. Which means that Mamils & heavy e-bikes bomb through, yelling at pedestrians, even if the council painted a little zebra crossing.
Thus, I am not in favour of them, but would rather cycle in the bus lane. At least the local bus driver seem to have it in their KPIs to not maim or kill cyclists. It does help that the busses in the UK are mainly slow low-floor affairs and their drivers are used to be stuck in traffic and go slowly.
Show threadJimDec 11
@jsl mixing bikes and buses is just a HARD no. I've had enough incidents on slower low-traffic inner-city roads where buses have pulled across DIRECTLY into me because they half overtook me and then decided "I have to stop here now". And that's before you get into the situation where the bus decides it's time to *pull out* around the same time the bike is coming. Bikes and motor vehicles do not mix.
Show threadJimDec 9
@jsl it also looks like the norm in the UK is to give pedestrians priority at crossing them, even when there are high volumes of cyclists. This is poor design. Cyclists rely on momentum, pedestrians can stop very very easily. Dutch bus islands certainly seem to give cyclists right of way. This should be reinforced with a continuing bike lane that *looks* like a bike lane, and a kerb-drop that pedestrians go *down* when crossing. 2/
Show threadJimDec 9

@jsl If they *do* want bikes to give way, the wombat crossings need to be more clear. The ones I saw seemed like very smooth, gradual hills, instead of feeling like a speed bump for cyclists and looking like pedestrian footpaths over the top. Better to use concrete or bricks than asphalt, even asphalt painted with zebra lines.(see pic for car example)

And that's not even counting cases where the bike path goes *between* the shelter and the drop-off point... What an appalling design that is. 3/3