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0 pointslucideer6y ago0 comments

Having cycled briefly in a few cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Hague), and also in Copenhagen, I found the former cities excellent and the latter stressful.

Copenhagen tends strongly towards segregated lanes: you have to be extremely familiar with the city layout to be able to pre-empt where to enter & exit, and local cyclists come across quite aggressive if you're not constantly perfectly aware of where you're supposed to be going (and going fast enough for them). The lanes are claustrophic and hurried.

Turning at junctions works quite well (cyclists cross with traffic and loop backwards to wait to turn, rather than crossing lanes), but only with very large junctions; this doesn't scale downwards.

In the Netherlands on the other hand, road-sharing is very much the norm. The sheer number of cyclists means bad behaviour just does't seem to be an option for motorists: safety in numbers.

I think this is the real answer. I've seen "fundamentalist" behaviour from fellow cyclists, and it bothers me, but I think it's reactionary when the relationship with other road-users is strained. With growing numbers of cyclists, and shared road-space, I think this wanes. This has been my experience in Dublin anyway: nowhere near the numbers of Amsterdam, etc, but still, the numbers have significantly increased in recent years and the relationship has noticably improved (anecdotally).

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robertony6y ago

If I compare cyclists in London (and, there are a lot) to pretty much anywhere in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the cyclists are far better behaved.

I don't have to worry for my life walking on a pavement that in the next moment a cyclist may decide to go on the pavement because there is a red light on the road at full speed, or almost knock me over, going across a zebra crossing when the light is green for pedestrians. Cyclists in London seem to think they can go regardless and no rule applies to them.

It wouldn't be too surprising in such a circumstance that they don't particularly feel safer with bike lanes.

I don't think this is a numbers issue.

lucideerOP6y ago

To clarify: I don't think having as many cyclists in London as in a Dutch city will bring about the kind of culture and benefits cyclists enjoy in Netherlands; there are so many other factors there.

All I'm saying is that having more cyclists brings about marked improvement for cyclists.

For your particular example (cyclists jumping onto the pavement), this is often down to bad planning. Signals and road layouts are designed exclusively for motorists in most cities, with the question of whether it's efficient to use (not just safe) for cyclists very unlikely to even be mentioned during planning. How fast you can get from A to B in a car is a question enormouse resources are poured into, with complex models developed. The same process is rarely applied to cyclists. If cyclists could get from A to B relatively efficiently without meeting unnecessary barries along their journey, you'd find a smaller minority would be feeling the need to hop on pavements and run reds* through crowds of pedestrians.

* Though on the subject of running reds in general, there's quite a few studies advocating things like the Idaho Stop and the Parisien laws on red lights. In my experience, pedestrian outrage at this behaviour is usually exaggerated and comes down to nothing more than anger at rule-breaking for the sake of it. Accidents whereby pedestrians are injured due to cyclists running reds don't factor highly in statistics.

nizmow6y ago

>The sheer number of cyclists means bad behaviour just does't seem to be an option for motorists: safety in numbers.

I was once almost hit by a car who didn't look coming from a side street in Amsterdam, the surge of cyclists behind me angrily shaking fists and yelling curses at the driver was quite something.

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