Historically poor design has given subways a bad name in Britain. For example Dutch subways under dual carriageways use the central reserve to locate a light well to bring in natural light - a design detail precious few UK engineers would think of including, leading to dark and dingy sewers. They also raise the carriageway to keep the subway level, rather than burying it or making it feel like the ramps you're descending are taking you into the bowels of the Earth. And how many British subways start and end in 90 degree turns, providing a nice hiding place for anyone up to no good?
Magic roundabouts do exist. There's at least one in York. Unfortunately for 'normal' roundabouts two of the most common crashes involving cyclists are drivers exiting or entering the roundabout and colliding with cyclists on the circulatory. A peripheral on-carriageway lane does nothing to remove this risk - in fact it can exacerbate it by placing cyclists out in the peripheral vision of drivers, places they tend not to look in detail.
Again, I think this is down to a lack of knowledge on the part of designers about users wants and needs and the actual design guidance.Herned wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 09:46 So much of what is done for cycling provision could be so much better for not much more cost. Why the insistence on using paths split with a white line which virtually no pedestrians pay attention to? Would it really be that much more expensive to have an extra curb and a raised path for pedestrians?
I wouldn't use full upstand kerbs to delineate a cycleway. Best practice is 45 or, now they're available, 30 degree splayed kerbs with a 60mm upstand - helps avoid pedal strike but still detectable by blind or partially-sighted pedestrians using rollercanes or sticks.
We don't build subways because "people have very good reasons not to like them" as designed in the UK.
This comes down to who as engineers we are designing for. People exactly like ourselves, or do we take into account the preferences of different sections of the population? Shared footway/cycleways do not work fine for the elderly, for the blind and partially-sighted, nor, if there are a large number of pedestrians or dog-walkers, for cyclists.crb11 wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 12:08 Bear in mind the cycle-only bit in that example is about as wide as a a typical shared-use path, so you're effectively needing to build an entire new pedestrian section alongside existing paths. Plus modify numerous junctions. All nice to have, but overkill for most locations where things work fine provided there's a bit of consideration on both sides.
From: www.infracgi.com