The Dutch influence on UK road design

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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by FosseWay »

Chris Bertram wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 16:19 I started to compose a post pointing out the difference between Dutch and British bikes, but it was going nowhere. However, might those differences, and the consequent differencesin the behaviour of their riders, suggest different requirements for the infrastructure provided?
The differences between bikes is immaterial compared to the differences between riders, and those differences will occur everywhere.

I have three bikes - a reasonably lightweight road-ish bike with 18 gears, a heavy city bike with 3 gears, and a Brompton. It's true that over a longer distance - say commuting, which is 20 km each way in my case - I will generally be quicker overall on the first, slower on the second and somewhere in between on the third. But the difference will be disproportionately be on (a) uphills and (b) against the wind. Speeds on the flat will differ little, and on the one decent downhill I will do 40-ish km/h on any of them if the traffic allows. Speeds in town, where there is more sharing between modes, and more traffic generally, are even more uniform, governed as they are by what is safe rather than what I or my bike are capable of.

Everyone reasonable accepts that they can't drive, cycle or even walk at the maximum possible speed they might choose because infrastructure isn't infinite or perfect, and there are other road users around. The last third of my route to work takes more like half the time because it's in town and there are other people getting in the way who have as much right to use the road as me. Equally, there are unreasonable people using all modes who refuse to accept this and will go too fast, use areas intended for others, or not respect priorities. The rest of us to an extent just have to do our best to mitigate the risk caused by these.

What is, however, not acceptable on any level is for "society", i.e. transport authorities, to decide that it is OK to force cyclists to slow down more, stop more, go round more awkward bends, up and down more hills, through more pinch points etc. on "cycle paths" than they would have to on the road, just because drivers might be delayed by 30 seconds.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by marconaf »

FosseWay wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 21:41
What is, however, not acceptable on any level is for "society", i.e. transport authorities, to decide that it is OK to force cyclists to slow down more, stop more, go round more awkward bends, up and down more hills, through more pinch points etc. on "cycle paths" than they would have to on the road, just because drivers might be delayed by 30 seconds.
That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.

It’s just that like most things LAs, do, they are completely incompetent at it.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Herned »

marconaf wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:21 That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.
Of course they do, that's why at least 75% of cycle lanes are either repurposed pavements, just done by chucking a few signs on lampposts, or a white line painted down the middle. These universally insist that cyclists give way, often with "cyclists dismount" signs, at every single side street, despite it being explicitly against the rules of the Highway Code.

A tiny, tiny percentage of cycle lanes involve removing space from motorised traffic
Last edited by Herned on Tue Jul 20, 2021 00:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

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Herned wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:29
marconaf wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:21 That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.
Of course they do, that's why at least 75% of cycle lanes are either repurposed pavements, just done by chucking a few signs on lampposts, or a white line painted down the middle. These universally insist that cyclists give way, often with "cyclists demount" signs, at every single side street, despite it being explicitly against the rules of the Highway Code.

A tiny, tiny percentage of cycle lanes involve removing space from motorised traffic
The only reason Bolton has built two "cyclops" junctions is because they'd have no effect on motorised vehicle capacity, so all they've really done is made driving easier and used cycling funds to pay for it...
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

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Chris Bertram wrote:I started to compose a post pointing out the difference between Dutch and British bikes, but it was going nowhere. However, might those differences, and the consequent differencesin the behaviour of their riders, suggest different requirements for the infrastructure provided?
Dutch bike have no brakes to speak of
Dutch bikes weigh a tonne
Dutch bikes are perfectly capable of being riden at speeds in excess of 20kmh as I can testify having chased a mate on his mountain bike through the cycleways of Bergen NH on his wife's Oma Fiets as we were running late to get his kids from school.

Also, Dutch riders particularly in the randstad cities make London couriers look like angels in terms of adhering to the rules of the road.

But their reasoning for building the I frastructure has nothing to do with that, it's simply that they realized where egregstion of traffic is necessary and what type is necessary where.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

Barkstar wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:49
Bryn666 wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 15:58 E-scooters being made road legal would be a massive help too, why we're wasting police resources chasing people on these I do not know.
Round here, almost exclusively in the hands of children, they are a problem for pedestrian cyclist and motorist alike. Given their very limit legal use, unless part of a hire scheme, it is a puzzle why the authorities didn't stop their sale from the off. And you have to query the cognative process of a parent who will spend £300+ on one and put it in the hands of their 13yo. They could, in some circumstances, be a useful tool in cutting vehicle use but not without some serious thought to how they would be regulated and the facilities to make their use safer.
The UK has an appalling history of banning the use of things but not banning the sale of them - typical lack of "joined up thinking"

It seems to me that e-scooters have a place in reducing emissions in urban areas so the government should initiate a public debate about how their use is regulated, should have been done a few years back but better late than never.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Big L »

Ruperts Trooper wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 08:48 The UK has an appalling history of banning the use of things but not banning the sale of them - typical lack of "joined up thinking"….
Banning the sale of things is bad for the economy. Allowing you to buy a thing then banning you from using it is not.
Make poetry history.

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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Chris5156 »

fras wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 14:57I went to the presentation on the recent Crewe Green roundabout, variously called "Whacky Races" and "Crewe Raceway by us locals. When I pointed out the rather poor facilities for cyclists and pedestrians I was told there was not enough of this class of traffic for anything special. I suggested rather than a trek round the outside of this very large "oblongabout", why not put a crossing across the middle with traffic lights and again was told this was not possible. Of course it IS possible as the roundabout at Hyde Park Corner demonstrates !
I just looked this up and it really is junction design by someone who last updated their thinking in about 1960. Absolutely incredible that it could be seriously proposed today - replacing two smaller roundabouts with one enormous oval-shaped multi-lane racetrack, complete with three-lane approaches and so little deflection on the entrance points that it encourages high speeds both entering and circulating.

We have many junctions like that in the UK, but they come from an earlier time. I don't know what the excuse is for promoting an outdated design like that today.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Bryn666 »

Nwallace wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 08:39
Chris Bertram wrote:I started to compose a post pointing out the difference between Dutch and British bikes, but it was going nowhere. However, might those differences, and the consequent differencesin the behaviour of their riders, suggest different requirements for the infrastructure provided?
Dutch bike have no brakes to speak of
Dutch bikes weigh a tonne
Dutch bikes are perfectly capable of being riden at speeds in excess of 20kmh as I can testify having chased a mate on his mountain bike through the cycleways of Bergen NH on his wife's Oma Fiets as we were running late to get his kids from school.

Also, Dutch riders particularly in the randstad cities make London couriers look like angels in terms of adhering to the rules of the road.

But their reasoning for building the I frastructure has nothing to do with that, it's simply that they realized where egregstion of traffic is necessary and what type is necessary where.
The rest came naturally.

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The Dutch were heavily screwed by the 1973 oil crisis and made the effort to wean themselves off reliance on it. We, on the other hand, found a load of it under the North Sea and squandered the profits completely, unlike Norway.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Bryn666 »

Chris5156 wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 09:06
fras wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 14:57I went to the presentation on the recent Crewe Green roundabout, variously called "Whacky Races" and "Crewe Raceway by us locals. When I pointed out the rather poor facilities for cyclists and pedestrians I was told there was not enough of this class of traffic for anything special. I suggested rather than a trek round the outside of this very large "oblongabout", why not put a crossing across the middle with traffic lights and again was told this was not possible. Of course it IS possible as the roundabout at Hyde Park Corner demonstrates !
I just looked this up and it really is junction design by someone who last updated their thinking in about 1960. Absolutely incredible that it could be seriously proposed today - replacing two smaller roundabouts with one enormous oval-shaped multi-lane racetrack, complete with three-lane approaches and so little deflection on the entrance points that it encourages high speeds both entering and circulating.

We have many junctions like that in the UK, but they come from an earlier time. I don't know what the excuse is for promoting an outdated design like that today.
https://goo.gl/maps/rw4MHeHURmGjrN6M6 since when was Preston a compass point?
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by scrogghill »

Stevie D wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 00:21
Vierwielen wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 21:52Maybe I should have shown this image (a few hundred metres away).
So what I'm seeing is:

A pavement that forces cyclists to give way to traffic exiting and entering the roundabout with no priority, slowing them down and putting them in a dangerous position.
image_2021-07-19_001526.png

A pavement that is narrow and is shared with pedestrians.
image_2021-07-19_001712.png

A pavement that is not kept clear of leaves and detritus.
image_2021-07-19_001342.png

A pavement where cyclists have to give way to traffic turning on and off the main road with no priority, slowing them down and putting them in a more dangerous position.
And so on.
It is grossly inadequate as a cycle route, it doesn't meet any acceptable standards, it should not even be designated as a cycle route and there is certainly no way that you could force cyclists to use such a woeful piece of infrastructure instead of the road.
It's about as helpful to cyclists (and pedestrians) as putting green signs up on the road, then saying it's been 'upgraded to primary route status', would be helpful to drivers...

Tokenistic rubbish that does no good for any road user I reckon.

But at least not as insane as the M23 sliproad cycle lane at Hooley...
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

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marconaf wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:21
FosseWay wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 21:41
What is, however, not acceptable on any level is for "society", i.e. transport authorities, to decide that it is OK to force cyclists to slow down more, stop more, go round more awkward bends, up and down more hills, through more pinch points etc. on "cycle paths" than they would have to on the road, just because drivers might be delayed by 30 seconds.
That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.

It’s just that like most things LAs, do, they are completely incompetent at it.
I didn't mean that there was any intent to make life harder for cyclists. Most such infrastructure is well-intentioned, in that it is seeking to do something positive for cyclists, but it is poorly informed, funded and executed to the extent that it is positively unhelpful in some cases. The "forcing" part of my last post may be slightly hyperbolic, but refers to precisely the attitude that Vierwielen expressed further up, where society increasingly expects cyclists to use the cycle path if provided, regardless of how usable it is, and consequently increasingly berates cyclists for choosing not to.

It's probably hard to separate out the substandard cycle provision that is the result of not wanting to reallocate road space, and the substandard provision that is the result of insufficient funds to do it properly. TBH it doesn't really matter why a given facility is substandard; what matters is that it *is* substandard, and that those in charge of similar decisions in the future understand what the problem is.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by FosseWay »

Ruperts Trooper wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 08:48
Barkstar wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:49
Bryn666 wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 15:58 E-scooters being made road legal would be a massive help too, why we're wasting police resources chasing people on these I do not know.
Round here, almost exclusively in the hands of children, they are a problem for pedestrian cyclist and motorist alike. Given their very limit legal use, unless part of a hire scheme, it is a puzzle why the authorities didn't stop their sale from the off. And you have to query the cognative process of a parent who will spend £300+ on one and put it in the hands of their 13yo. They could, in some circumstances, be a useful tool in cutting vehicle use but not without some serious thought to how they would be regulated and the facilities to make their use safer.
The UK has an appalling history of banning the use of things but not banning the sale of them - typical lack of "joined up thinking"

It seems to me that e-scooters have a place in reducing emissions in urban areas so the government should initiate a public debate about how their use is regulated, should have been done a few years back but better late than never.
Many places, not just the UK, have an appalling history of banning the use and/or sale of things because a minority of people misuse them in dangerous or antisocial ways, rather than addressing the problem people directly.

I agree that e-scooters should have a place in the modern transport landscape. Certainly more of a place than the latest plague to afflict my neighbourhood, which is "moped cars" or whatever they're called in English: microcars with the emissions, noise and accident safety characteristics of a Trabant, piloted by 15 year olds who are more interested in their phones.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Nwallace »

Ah well see those microcars, the Dutch give them out as invalid carriages.
Iirc there are limitations to where they can go but that also includes some fietspaden.
Ive never got the hang of when to expect the sound of a bunch of kids on a brommer tearing along.

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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by marconaf »

Herned wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:29
marconaf wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:21 That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.
Of course they do, that's why at least 75% of cycle lanes are either repurposed pavements, just done by chucking a few signs on lampposts, or a white line painted down the middle. These universally insist that cyclists give way, often with "cyclists dismount" signs, at every single side street, despite it being explicitly against the rules of the Highway Code.

A tiny, tiny percentage of cycle lanes involve removing space from motorised traffic
That doesnt actually prove the point and I think there is confusion over cause and effect here.

They’re doing that to avoid spending proper money whilst looking like they’re doing something whilst above all interpreting “safety” in the only way the Public Sector knows how, ie daftly.

Their intent however is quite obviously not driven by “avoiding delaying car drivers”. I’m all for slating LAs but this isnt a fair bit of mud to chuck. Noting that pretty much everything they do does acheive delays to drivers!

“Removing space from motorised traffic” isnt anyones objective is it?
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Bryn666 »

marconaf wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:55
Herned wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:29
marconaf wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 22:21 That seems a strawman. Local Authorities cylcing provision is near uniformly awful, but I’m not aware they’ve ever made it so in order to avoid delaying car drivers! Indeed the converse is true, most cycle lanes now do come at the expense of other road (and pavement) users.
Of course they do, that's why at least 75% of cycle lanes are either repurposed pavements, just done by chucking a few signs on lampposts, or a white line painted down the middle. These universally insist that cyclists give way, often with "cyclists dismount" signs, at every single side street, despite it being explicitly against the rules of the Highway Code.

A tiny, tiny percentage of cycle lanes involve removing space from motorised traffic
That doesnt actually prove the point and I think there is confusion over cause and effect here.

They’re doing that to avoid spending proper money whilst looking like they’re doing something whilst above all interpreting “safety” in the only way the Public Sector knows how, ie daftly.

Their intent however is quite obviously not driven by “avoiding delaying car drivers”. I’m all for slating LAs but this isnt a fair bit of mud to chuck. Noting that pretty much everything they do does acheive delays to drivers!

“Removing space from motorised traffic” isnt anyones objective is it?
Modal transfer specifically requires removing space from motorised traffic; observe the Paris tramway works recently where almost every GSJ along the Boulevards of the Marshalls was filled in and replaced with tram stops.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by jackal »

Leaving aside the cyclist wars for a moment, are green bridges really something we got from the Dutch? They do have wildlife bridges but so do many countries. There is a lot of misinformation about this (e.g. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact ... SKBN26N2H0).
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Herned »

marconaf wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:55 “Removing space from motorised traffic” isnt anyones objective is it?
Yes, it needs to be, in many places provision of decent cycling and walking infrastructure is only possible by removing space from other road users - most major roads in cities are going to end up with the balance of space changed between motorised users and cyclists/pedestrians
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Vierwielen »

Phil wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 15:41
Jim606 wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 19:21 Inspired by the famous Monty Python 'Life of Brian' sketch, I thought of a 'What did the Dutch ever do for us' version.

Well apart from,
  • Advanced Stop Lines (ASL) for bikes
    Dutch-style roundabouts
    Green bridges
    Shared space
Anymore?
Except, that as seems usual in the money / low tax obsessed UK, we don't want to spend more than the bare minimum so most of these ideas get badly implemented!
When the Dutch built the dykes, they worked on the principal that the current generation pays the capital costs, the next generation pays the interest and it is the following generation who have the real benefit of the reclaimed land.
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Re: The Dutch influence on UK road design

Post by Debaser »

Nwallace wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 08:39
Chris Bertram wrote:I started to compose a post pointing out the difference between Dutch and British bikes, but it was going nowhere. However, might those differences, and the consequent differencesin the behaviour of their riders, suggest different requirements for the infrastructure provided?
Dutch bike have no brakes to speak of
Dutch bikes weigh a tonne
Dutch bikes are perfectly capable of being riden at speeds in excess of 20kmh as I can testify having chased a mate on his mountain bike through the cycleways of Bergen NH on his wife's Oma Fiets as we were running late to get his kids from school.

Also, Dutch riders particularly in the randstad cities make London couriers look like angels in terms of adhering to the rules of the road.

But their reasoning for building the I frastructure has nothing to do with that, it's simply that they realized where egregstion of traffic is necessary and what type is necessary where.
The rest came naturally.

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Although there are obvious differences in the types of cycles used, isn't the greater difference in the types of people who cycle? That is, everyone. Here it's overwhelmingly a male pursuit (somewhere between 5M:1F and 10M:1F IIRC) and for the young to middle aged. Over there female cyclists are in the majority and age and disability are not used as the knee-jerk excuses that many anti-cycling/anti-LTN types immediately use when they feel threatened. Adapted cycles appear to be more widely available and I believe his and hers e-bike purchases are a growing feature of elderly couples experience.
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