South Korea: Motorway with bike lane and solar panels in central reservation

[Osthagen]

This article from ABC recently caught my attention:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/so ... d=90197800

This highway, of D4(M) standard, between the Korean cities of Deajeon and Sejong provides a place for locals to exercise while integrating a facility to generate clean power. The 20-mile road features a 13-foot wide cycle lane in the central reservation, which runs for around 5 and a half miles. Forming a roof over the path is a panoply of over 7500 solar panels.

For such a short stretch, it's a very popular bike path in South Korea, with cyclists apparently coming from all over the country to use it.

[tom66]

I'd wonder about the risk of trucks kicking up stones, or ice in winter being thrown in your face from a passing car. At 100km/h+ those could be "surprising" events.

[Vierwielen]

Interesting concept, but what about all the fumes that the cyclists woudl be inhaling?

[Conekicker]

I'd wonder about the risk of trucks kicking up stones, or ice in winter being thrown in your face from a passing car. At 100km/h+ those could be "surprising" events.

Then there's the large quantity of spray that will be present, thrown up by passing vehicles, whenever it rains. That's going to make for a lot of very wet cyclists.

[jnty]

Yeah - this reminds me of the Tay Bridge path which is not a pleasant place to be even in clement conditions on a 50mph D2. The only way the disadvantages of the path could be mitigated, to my mind, would be enclosure in glass or a similar material, but then it would turn into a greenhouse in sunny weather. I can't help but think this is an attempt to use a maintenance track which already had to be built to generate some PR or nudge a BCR over the line.

[Bryn666]

This thing is a meme for how not to design for cyclists - how do you get on and off it, where does it serve, how is it protected from errant vehicles, etc, etc.

It's not something to copy.

[jnty]

This thing is a meme for how not to design for cyclists - how do you get on and off it, where does it serve, how is it protected from errant vehicles, etc, etc.

It's not something to copy.

Did that London bike lane that was planned in the central reservation of an urban dual carriageway, segregated but without barriers, ever come to pass?

[Vierwielen]

Yeah - this reminds me of the Tay Bridge path which is not a pleasant place to be even in clement conditions on a 50mph D2. The only way the disadvantages of the path could be mitigated, to my mind, would be enclosure in glass or a similar material, but then it would turn into a greenhouse in sunny weather. I can't help but think this is an attempt to use a maintenance track which already had to be built to generate some PR or nudge a BCR over the line.

Looking at the bridge on Google Earth, I agree that cyclists could have better protection. There are actually two bridges, so if a two metre glass wall were erected, one on each bridge, to protect cyclists (and possibly a well ventillated roof, then there woud be a flow of air from between the two bridges which should cancel out any greenhouse effect. For the record, the Tay River Bridge is 2200 metres in length.

[bothar]

Not strictly relevant to this thread, but this South Korean reservation barrier is interesting
https://www.worldhighways.com/wh11/prod ... n-firm-eti

[Conekicker]

Impressive. Doesn't seem to deflect much so presumably high containment. Looks expensive though.

Edit: US/Canadian video but interesting nonetheless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6CKltZ ... =AndrewLam

[Nwallace]

Yeah - this reminds me of the Tay Bridge path which is not a pleasant place to be even in clement conditions on a 50mph D2. The only way the disadvantages of the path could be mitigated, to my mind, would be enclosure in glass or a similar material, but then it would turn into a greenhouse in sunny weather. I can't help but think this is an attempt to use a maintenance track which already had to be built to generate some PR or nudge a BCR over the line.

Looking at the bridge on Google Earth, I agree that cyclists could have better protection. There are actually two bridges, so if a two metre glass wall were erected, one on each bridge, to protect cyclists (and possibly a well ventillated roof, then there woud be a flow of air from between the two bridges which should cancel out any greenhouse effect. For the record, the Tay River Bridge is 2200 metres in length.

It's 1 Bridge deck, the paths a wee but narrower than would be ideal, structurally the wind loading of anything sticking up such as netting has been assessed to be out of design capability.
The only real problem is no one on it can hear a thring for passing traffic so there's constant conflict between cyclists, runners, and walkers all going at different speeds.
Oh and because of the gradient you can get pretty quick northbound without trying.

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

[jnty]

Yeah - this reminds me of the Tay Bridge path which is not a pleasant place to be even in clement conditions on a 50mph D2. The only way the disadvantages of the path could be mitigated, to my mind, would be enclosure in glass or a similar material, but then it would turn into a greenhouse in sunny weather. I can't help but think this is an attempt to use a maintenance track which already had to be built to generate some PR or nudge a BCR over the line.

Looking at the bridge on Google Earth, I agree that cyclists could have better protection. There are actually two bridges, so if a two metre glass wall were erected, one on each bridge, to protect cyclists (and possibly a well ventillated roof, then there woud be a flow of air from between the two bridges which should cancel out any greenhouse effect. For the record, the Tay River Bridge is 2200 metres in length.

The path is also exceedingly narrow, especially given the lamp posts are placed together for each side and narrow the path further. Making any kind of progress if it's remotely busy is tricky - even passing a solo pedestrian requires a degree of active cooperation on both sides as it is natural to walk in the middle of the path. Imposing into the carriageway without losing a lane is probably impossible too as it's already pretty narrow. Think it's a bit of a lost cause, to be honest, but there's certainly room for marginal gains.

[FosseWay]

The answer to some of the criticisms raised above is right there in one of the captions in the video - "built to create green energy and give people somewhere to exercise at the same time" (my bold, and I'm paraphrasing). When we in western Europe talk about "cycling infrastructure", we generally mean infrastructure that allows people to cycle as a means of getting from A to B as part of their daily life, whether it's a description of somewhere that does this well (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) or a complaint that it's missing (most other places).

"Giving people somewhere to exercise" immediately reduces one of the criticisms above (I think it was from Bryn), that the central-reservation cycle path is difficult to access other than at each end. That doesn't really matter if you're just going to ride from one end to the other and back again as an equivalent of going to the gym. But broadly I agree, it would be much better if people could access it at regular intervals. To that end, why build it in the middle? Why not have the same concept at one side? Then you can have as many access points as there are roads joining or passing over/under the motorway.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be as harsh in my criticism of other aspects of this installation as some people above. I cycle along a cycle path alongside a motorway-like road on every commute - it's this one, sandwiched between the motorway and the tram tracks, and here's a GSV shot from a bit further north.

The only real disadvantage to this cycle path is that it's not very peaceful to cycle alongside a lot of fast-moving traffic. Sure it's not, but if you commute into a city by any road-based mode, you will be exposed to a lot of traffic unless you go out of your way to find rat runs, which in the cycling context will take you a lot longer. Basically aesthetic considerations are a pretty long way down a cycle commuter's list of priorities, and in my case the 5-ish km alongside Dag Hammarskjöldsleden is offset in that regard by the 12 km further south, which is on a disused railway along the coast.

The advantages of this route to a utility cyclist are several. It goes straight into the city following the most obvious route from the topographical point of view. Unsurprisingly the old railway (now tram) and major road do likewise - it's flat and straight. It doesn't wiggle around an artificial "route" made up of multiple junctions on residential roads, which the "cycle route" into, say, Leicester city centre avoiding the A6 does. Because of the aesthetic issues and because the cycle path is physically separated by the road and tramway from property alongside, the conflict between cyclists and pedestrians is much lower here than either further into town, where it's crowded, or further south on the disused railway, which sees a lot of pedestrian use because it's a pleasant place to walk. Pedestrians walking the same route tend to choose to go through the park on the western side of the tramway. You can do that on a bike as well if you wish - it's nicer but it takes longer, as it's more hilly and you can't blat along at 30 km/h without being dangerous and antisocial.

Someone commented on the width of the Korean example. It seems comparable to my Swedish one. Cycle lane width is something I sometimes do criticise on Swedish roads, but this is not such an example. It is wide enough for a cyclist to be able to pass a pedestrian going in the same direction without impeding oncoming traffic. You can't safely overtake another cyclist with oncoming traffic, but the route is straight enough that you get a reasonable number of overtaking opportunities. Sure, in an ideal world it could be a bit wider to allow in effect S4 running, but it's a heck of a lot better in this respect than wiggling through estates, using squashed-in cycle paths on existing city streets (like this one, just north of the motorway, which I also use every commute), or just cycling on main roads as one tends to in the UK.

There were also comments on safety. As shown above, the Swedish example is separated from the motorway by Armco at the southern end and by a fence, whose resistive capacity against an HGV I wouldn't rate especially high, at the northern end. Granted, the speed limit is probably lower on the Swedish motorway than the Korean (it's 80 km/h at the southern end, 70 further in towards town). But my question is not really "what would happen to a cyclist on the cycle path if an HGV spun out and hit the barrier/fence?". Rather, I find two other questions more relevant: "What is the likelihood of an HGV spinning out and hitting the fence?" and "What is the risk to cyclists from wayward vehicles on the road alongside compared to the risk to cyclists from (a) cycling on roads in the same space as the potentially wayward vehicles, and (b) from junctions/pedestrians/narrow paths/other crap that characterise any obvious alternative routes? My (statistically non-rigorous) response is that in 10 years of using that cycle path I've never heard of an accident on the motorway that has affected the cycle path, never mind seen or been involved in one, while over the same 10 years I've seen and sometimes myself just narrowly avoided collisions between cyclists and other cyclists, cyclists and pedestrians, and cyclists and holes in the road or other obstructions that shouldn't be there, on numerous occasions. Perhaps we're focusing on the wrong aspects of safety here?

Sure, you could continue the Armco all the way to Linnéplatsen and TBH I'm not sure why it doesn't. You could also improve the drainage so that all the water off the motorway doesn't accumulate on the cycle path. But this kind of cycle path is substantially preferable to (a) none, and (b) one that is much less direct. I can't help thinking that some of the criticisms made above come into the category of the perfect being the enemy of the good, and that insisting on some definition of "perfect" is one of the biggest obstacles to reasonable cycle provision in the UK and similar countries.