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Edge Lane Roads a.k.a. Advisory Bike Lanes

74 points by avel 4y ago

subpixel 4y ago
Interesting as I am trying to get conversations about bike protections started in my rural US community. E-bikes are going to change the dynamic, but you’re taking a huge risk on the roads around here for the time being.
flemhans 4y ago
"Exciting new" contradicts the over 50 years of experience in NL
occz 4y ago
As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.
- blamazon 4y ago
  When faced with uncertainty, car drivers tend to slow down. That's the general advantage here. It's not better than a properly separated bike path, but it is better than a painted bicycle gutter that motorists are comfortable driving 50mph inches from.
  - b3morales 4y ago
    Based on the picture, I don't see a big difference between this and the "painted bicycle gutter that motorists are comfortable driving 50mph inches from". Is it the single center motorized lane that is the important distinction?
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Yes. Except given American drivers insistence on their own primacy and infallibility on the road, I can’t envision an edge lane working. The main road closest to my house was recently (3 years ago) re-striped from two lanes each direction to 1 lane + bike lane. Car frequently ignore the bike markings and simply use the bike lane for aggressive passing of vehicles going the speed limit. I damn near got run down from behind by a bro-dozer making one of these aggressive moves in the bike lane. Too many American drivers are self-entitled wankers, and suburban roads are too wide and too fast, for this to work. (Of course, wide road, no reason for this model, but I suspect American drivers simply wouldn’t tolerate this design)
      - californical 4y ago
        All you need is a curb or even small cement blocks with a marker every 50ft, and no cars are going to drive in that bike lane anymore
        occz 4y ago
        This design kind of relies on there only being painted edge lanes, as drivers are expected to yield out to these edge lanes when encountering cars from the opposite direction. Unless I've fundamentally misunderstood the concept.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        You’re correct for the edge lanes. Previous post was about “normal” painted (but unprotected) bike lanes.
    - blamazon 4y ago
      I agree that paint alone is not bicycle infrastructure. But, when comparing paint with paint, this will slow drivers down more than the standard divided two car lane two way road they are accustomed to, due to the single center motorized lane that you pointed out. As a commenter from the Netherlands pointed out somewhere else on this post, this paint only approach is supposed to just be one cost effective tool for very low throughout roads, the lower end of a panoply of system-level methods to design separation between ped, cycle, and car velocities, part of a system that first prioritizes proper cycleways over paint-only methods. Unfortunately in North America we really have to crawl before we can walk on this one.
- trianglesphere 4y ago
  These are also mainly used on fully residential streets and basically codifying existing rules. They behave very similarly to streets without a center line & sidewalk/bike lanes. I also think cost does become an issue when implementing larger streets/bike lanes (let alone the fact that larger streets make people go faster) on every single residential street.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  I assume it’s space/right-of-way related. But, like you, I have questions about how this configuration would work (in the US, in my case). I can see it working well in towns and suburban roads in some European nations - I’m thinking Scotland here - where default speeds are lower, roads are already shared with parking (so single-tracking is a known procedure), and drivers generally aren’t assholes. In the US, most suburban streets are posted at 25-40mph, and actual speeds tend to be higher yet, which seems WAY too fast for edge lane roads or any other mixed use roadway. Heck, in my area, we have dedicated (but not protected) bike lanes and on some roads, they’re downright scary because the traffic 3’ away is going 50mph.
- clairity 4y ago
  there's no need to be anti-car (it's fruitless anyway) to be in favor of a more diverse mix of transport. we'd have plenty of space for mixed mobility if we just converted all on-street parking to protected bike lanes rather than implementing these edge lane roads, which seem to be a solution looking for a problem (lack of space, in this case). the important bit is segregating traffic by inertia and mass. i'd personally love to see all the car/truck thoroughfares (roads) put underground, with people getting explicit priority on the above-ground, mixed-use streets.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Space is at a premium in many places, possibly every place where such a road might be placed. One of these roads is two blocks away from me. I’m going to go have a look at it later today, but the road it’s on is very similar to the road I live on: two direction street, residential parking on both sides, not four car widths’ wide, so people are already “taking turns” and used to it. I bet it works exactly like the street I live on, only using more paint.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  In the Netherlands this used instead of segregated cycle lanes, but in addition to a strong network of cycle lanes. Most commonly you find them down very old, narrow, country lanes, where there simply isn’t space for true segregation. But equally, there’s usually no need to use these roads a cyclist, as there are normally more direct dedicated cycle routes. You frequently only use them because your specifically looking for a scenic route, or something a little unusual to cycle down. In other parts of the world, they will also have their place in space constraint locations, or in large networks of small country lanes, where providing segregated infrastructure simply isn’t possible or viable due to lack of space, or extremely low volumes of traffic. I personally think the UK could benefit substantially from these types of roads, if country lanes where converted. The lanes are barely big enough for bi-directional motor traffic, and occasionally not even that wide. Providing edge lane roads would encourage motor traffic to remain in the centre of the road, where they’re substantially less likely to collide with cycle or pedestrian traffic, which may be hidden around one of the many blind corners.
- notatoad 4y ago
  it seems like the sort of thing that would work well in a space that already has a culture of sharing the roads amongst various transportation modes, and where drivers are already generally respectful and courteous towards other road users. I can see why it works well in the netherlands. I think it's a little naive to imagine it would work in north america. drivers here need more than a gentle reminder to not run other users off the road.
- PhineasRex 4y ago
  This configuration is for streets without enough room for a dedicated bike lane. An edge-lane road is as wide as a standard two-way with no bike lane.
soared 4y ago
Interesting. My first response is to assume these would cause a lot of car crashes, but apparently the data says otherwise. If there are other features to ensure drivers are going slow (speed bumps, chicanes, etc) these seem nice as a cyclist too. I’m going to have to gif die the one in Boulder, which looks like a poor example because they allow street parking, so seemingly had enough room for a normal road + bike lane: https://goo.gl/maps/8KZQbB7rDB81Ryjx5 https://goo.gl/maps/8KZQbB7rDB81Ryjx5
robotmlg 4y ago
Road Guy Rob did a video recently about a failed edge lane road experiment. Seems like a good idea to me as long as car traffic isn't too heavy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE
- bombcar 4y ago
  I think the big problem is nobody knows what the heck they’ve encountered. If you do it naturally people can figure it out: make the road very narrow but technically wide enough for two cars and people will hug the center naturally.
  - gpm 4y ago
    Just don't draw any lines and even on wide (>2 cars) roads people seem to hug the center pretty naturally (IME, there are probably cultural differences between how people drive in different places that matter here). The strange part about this road is that there were so many lines by the edge of the road, that's legitimately pretty confusing. I'm not sure if it's confusing in an unsafe way, but it's definitely uncomfortable. I'd love to know if someone has a link to someone knowledgeable comparing "all these lines for edge lanes" to "just don't draw anything".
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I suspect lines really are only needed when you want to fit maximum lanes in a given space - many of the four lane roads here would turn into one lane each way without lines.
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    Yeah, I think the "North American" way to make this design coherent would be frequent sharrows markers, low speed limits, and no other lane markings. The sharrows markers would make it clear "yes cyclists are supposed to be there" and the lack of lane markings would make it clear "shift left as you need".
blamazon 4y ago
This is basically a paint manifestation of the "share the road" idea which is already common policy in North America on bidirectional roads without a bike lane. It is darkly amusing to see a lot of motorists being upset by finally seeing this arrangement in a format they can understand - dashed and solid painted lines.
- notatoad 4y ago
  the only reason the "share the road" signage is accepted in america is because drivers interpret it to mean that cyclists should give way to motorists. "other road users should share with me" rather than "i need to share with other road users" try going to a community meeting and suggesting that a "share the road" sign be replaced with a "cyclists may use full lane" sign and see how much pushback you get.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    I’m not particularly concerned with the wording on the sign, but this sentiment is exactly why I prefer “sharrows”[1] over designated bike lanes. They very clearly indicate that cyclists are expected to be a part of traffic. In my experience—at least in Seattle which is more bike friendly than baseline in the US but certainly not on par with Portland—drivers are far more likely to yield to cyclists with these markings than where a bike lane is present. In contrast, I’ve had drivers try to run me off the road, screaming mad, when I had the gall to perfectly legally ride in the main road where a bike lane was present[2]. Even when there was plenty of space for them to pass. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking 2: Several of my cyclist friends disagree with me on this, but I find the particular bike lane exceedingly dangerous. I frequently avoided it when it was on my daily commute route, after numerous frightening close calls. Riding along with the aggressive drivers really did feel safer.
    - notatoad 4y ago
      When installed correctly - that is, in the very center of the lane - sharrows are slightly better than a "share the road" sign. Too often, cities install sharrows on the very edge of the lane, creating a suggestion that cyclists are only permitted to ride on the edge of a lane and that drivers should continue passing without giving adequate space. My towns main street has sharrows directly in the "door zone" between the street parking and the traffic. And of course all the normal criticisms of sharrows hold. Mainly that they're much more visible to cyclists than to cars, creating a false sense of security where cyclists feel entitled to a lane while drivers disagree.
cowmoo728 4y ago
I recently did a few consecutive full day bicycle trips around the Netherlands and rode on many roads like this. I felt safe and drivers were respectful and patient when passing. I would never ride on one of these in the US. I can already imagine the Amazon delivery van or work truck parked in the bicycle section, forcing me into the center. I can also imagine the impatient drivers accelerating way beyond the speed limit to try to pass me while I'm riding in the center. I was a bike commuter in NYC for years, and am a regular recreational cyclist in the Bay Area and LA. So I have pretty significant experience riding in the US, and all of that experience is telling me that this is a bad idea for US cities.
- blenderdt 4y ago
  I don't know the rules in the US but in the Netherlands the car is always at fault in case of an accident, unless it is proven the cyclist was at fault. This makes the roads a lot safer for cyclists. When this law was introduced years ago the Dutch also made fun of it: https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU
  - julianlam 4y ago
    You don't know the rules, but you can probably hazard a guess. In Toronto, a driver took their eyes off the road, reached for a water bottle on the floor, hopped the curb, hit and killed a pedestrian, and was found not guilty. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-sentenced-1.4412121 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-sentence...
    - upofadown 4y ago
      Well they said they were reaching for a water bottle. For all we know they were yelling "death to the sidewalk dweller" as they deliberately murdered someone. In Canada, drivers are not generally held responsible for driving that is normally incompetent. So the defence would of wanted to establish that such incompetence had occurred. It had to be a mistake that anyone could make. It's a a pretty big problem, but no one seems to care...
  - 4y ago
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
New York has a lot of wide shouldered roads in snow country that effectively work like these. They are meant to limit plow damage and heaving at the edge of the road bed. They are also a superior alternative to demarcated bicycle ghettoes because you get much less grief when you aren't "where you belong" when conditions necessitate it.
Freak_NL 4y ago
> This roadway configuration originated in the Netherlands where they have over 50 years and many hundreds of road-kilometers of experience with this facility. Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either. This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to arterial or collector roads. Taking it out of that context seems risky. (The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane, and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes².) 1: Example https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271.11h,81.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFlZBhEBBQC-zCz71gKT9wQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271... 2: Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15.67h,89.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEnqttjWUnVPJ5odWZWLvjw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15....
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either. They actually say that in the video. In Germany they are mostly used in urban settings in streets with speedlimits below 30 km/h I believe. They definitely work if this is a low volume street, however the speed limits need to be enforced (a general problem in many countries IMO).
ajb 4y ago
These seem work a lot like "bidirectional single lane with passing places" (mountain or very low traffic country roads). Except that you pass by pulling in behind a bike. It seems to me that it relies a lot on people understanding how they work. If most people have experience with the "passing place" version, these would work. If they don't, it would seem like they would need a lot of user education. Where I live, I almost never encountered a passing place road and they always made me very nervous when I did.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I feel that to implement these in the US you’d want to start by marking those country roads, but even then it would take time. L It almost feels like it works better unmarked.
svnpenn 4y ago
> The center lane is dedicated to, and shared by, motorists traveling in both directions. This seems like a great way to produce head on collisions.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  The first street I lived on in Munich had only enough space in the road for one lane of traffic + one lane of parking. This meant the road was safer, not more dangerous -- the very fact that it was so narrow meant that cars traveled down it quite carefully.
AHOHA 4y ago
Maybe better instead of wasting our tax money on a secondary priorities, Ottawa should really invest on fixing the asphalt roads itself (yes, in Ottawa city), you can't drive for a few minutes in Ottawa without potholes, bumps, and forever lasting constructions.. Those are the priority that should be focused on, as it's just not about damaging the car (tires/ suspensions/etc.) that none are covered by insurance, but also might harm people could be causing an accident avoiding it or caused by it. Get your priories right, Ottawa!
calderra 4y ago
ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue making very American conclusions. Confusion about how these roads work is actually good. It may seem paradoxical at first, but easy to understand roads with ample signage actually breed high speeds, congestion, complacency, and dead pedestrians. Many dangerous intersections have found that removing signage and leaving it up to drivers drastically reduces speeds and improves safety. Mentally taxing roads slow cars down, make people take alternate routes, and force people to look for pedestrians. You can't juggle your Starbucks and your iPhone when you're navigating unfamiliar roads - AND THAT IS GOOD. The purpose of a city is not to breed cars, nor is it to allow lazy car drivers a chance to justify their miserable commute. I mean what, if the drive to work sucks people might just find work closer to home, or lobby for public transportation. Who wants that?
- lawkwok 4y ago
  I agree that there are too many signs in Canada that don’t help because the roads feel like they support higher speeds. I don’t think roads need to be mentally taxing as that just causes fatigue to already tired workers commuting. What you can do is offer visual and sensory cues so that the speed limit feels natural. For example, narrowing lanes, gradient changes, road material changes.
- wyager 4y ago
  There exist optimization criteria besides "reduce the number of deaths". In particular, the enjoyment of drivers is an important optimization criterion.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Why? and in particular why drivers only?
    - hgomersall 4y ago
      I'm assuming it's ironic because it made no sense to me either.
    - 4y ago
travisd 4y ago
As a Seattleite who uses a bicycle as the primary means of transportation (but not a bike enthusiast or “bike person”): these are nice (experienced them a bit in Ann Arbor) but the only way to truly make biking safe is going to be to remove cars from the equation in 90%+ of circumstances. No bike gutters (a derogatory word for bike lanes that are only protected by paint), dedicated bike infrastructure.
- twoWhlsGud 4y ago
  Well as another Seattleite who bikes a lot, I have to say that infrastructure is only part of the solution. I chose my neighborhood on the basis of bikeability - it was literally the most important metric. And demographics and narrow streets trumped bike-specific infrastructure by a wide margin. Upper middle class folks are much less likely to kill you regardless of what sort of road they're on (I can pretty much predict the probability of bad interactions simply based on looking at what folks are driving). And in the absence of any effective law enforcement with regards to traffic laws improving your priors is fundamental. (Heck in the WA state 10% of fatal crashes are due drivers who don't even have a license at all https://wtsc.wa.gov/download/12727 https://wtsc.wa.gov/download/12727 - apologies for the cert warning on the above) And the other thing to look for is narrow streets (big feature of my neighborhood here) which keeps vehicle speeds down. And don't bike after 10 PM at night (that's what buses and Uber is for) - too many impaired drivers after that point. And keep in mind that separated infrastructure does little or nothing at intersections and driveways. There's a notorious separated lane across I-5 from me where lots of my friends have had bad interactions (including injuries) at parking garage driveways (a particularly nasty case is associated with the garage for a medical practice - we theorize that folks are coming out after unhappy doc visits distracted by the prospect of looming financial ruin - another US-specific feature ;-) I take the lane there (which is scary as it makes drivers cranky, but again given the demographics they're not homicidal (at least so far)) but it beats getting squashed by someone speeding out of the garage. I think the way forward in the US lies in achieving automated (and therefore safe and cheap) public-ish transport so we can give an alternative to the folks that can't drive safely and get them from behind the wheel. Short of that infrastructure (if built correctly) can be helpful but like bike helmets gets way more attention than warranted.
subpixel 4y ago
Thinking about how this would play out in the hilly and curvy rural roads near me. Perhaps not so well.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DoreenMichele 4y ago
At first blush, it looks like a nicely done international resource: Depending on the country and the governing agency, this roadway type can have different names. Examples include: 2-minus-1 roads (New Zealand, Denmark), Edge Lane Road (Denmark, US), Advisory Shoulders (U.S. Federal Highway Administration), Schutzstreifen (Germany), Suggestiestrook (Netherlands), and Advisory Bike Lanes (US).
asah 4y ago
omg this sounds like a terrible idea: speeding motorists passing each other and taking out bikes. ...or distracted or impaired motorists drifting out of the center and taking out motorists? teenagers using both lanes to race each other... the list goes on and on...
halffaday 4y ago
Use sharrows. Changing the meaning of stripes for one special type of road is a terrible idea. There also really needs to be more aggressive standards for participation in transportation planning. I see way too many “ideas guys” playing engineer. I’m looking at you, landscape architects!
PeterStuer 4y ago
We have very many of these in Belgium. Their purpose seems to be mostly to refrain cyclists from using their right to cycle side by side in the urban areas, and cheaply prop up the political numbers for 'cycling infrastructure' while avoiding diehard motorist backlash. Even after decades of use, they still confuse the road users. Cyclists that think of them as bicycle lanes (wrong), and most motorists that think of them as just a part of their normal car lane (right). My heuristic has always been 'if you can create it with a bucket of paint and a brush it is not a bicycle path'.

74 points by avel 4y ago

Interesting as I am trying to get conversations about bike protections started in my rural US community. E-bikes are going to change the dynamic, but you’re taking a huge risk on the roads around here for the time being.

flemhans 4y ago

"Exciting new" contradicts the over 50 years of experience in NL

occz 4y ago

As a staunch supporter of everything that reduces the amount of cars, I can't say that I'm particularly excited about this particular type of bicycle infrastructure. What benefits does it have over a configuration with a properly separated bicycle path? Are the benefits purely economical/space-related? If someone knows more, I'm more than happy to hear you out.

blamazon 4y ago
When faced with uncertainty, car drivers tend to slow down. That's the general advantage here. It's not better than a properly separated bike path, but it is better than a painted bicycle gutter that motorists are comfortable driving 50mph inches from.
- b3morales 4y ago
  Based on the picture, I don't see a big difference between this and the "painted bicycle gutter that motorists are comfortable driving 50mph inches from". Is it the single center motorized lane that is the important distinction?
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Yes. Except given American drivers insistence on their own primacy and infallibility on the road, I can’t envision an edge lane working. The main road closest to my house was recently (3 years ago) re-striped from two lanes each direction to 1 lane + bike lane. Car frequently ignore the bike markings and simply use the bike lane for aggressive passing of vehicles going the speed limit. I damn near got run down from behind by a bro-dozer making one of these aggressive moves in the bike lane. Too many American drivers are self-entitled wankers, and suburban roads are too wide and too fast, for this to work. (Of course, wide road, no reason for this model, but I suspect American drivers simply wouldn’t tolerate this design)
    - californical 4y ago
      All you need is a curb or even small cement blocks with a marker every 50ft, and no cars are going to drive in that bike lane anymore
      - occz 4y ago
        This design kind of relies on there only being painted edge lanes, as drivers are expected to yield out to these edge lanes when encountering cars from the opposite direction. Unless I've fundamentally misunderstood the concept.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        You’re correct for the edge lanes. Previous post was about “normal” painted (but unprotected) bike lanes.
  - blamazon 4y ago
    I agree that paint alone is not bicycle infrastructure. But, when comparing paint with paint, this will slow drivers down more than the standard divided two car lane two way road they are accustomed to, due to the single center motorized lane that you pointed out. As a commenter from the Netherlands pointed out somewhere else on this post, this paint only approach is supposed to just be one cost effective tool for very low throughout roads, the lower end of a panoply of system-level methods to design separation between ped, cycle, and car velocities, part of a system that first prioritizes proper cycleways over paint-only methods. Unfortunately in North America we really have to crawl before we can walk on this one.
trianglesphere 4y ago
These are also mainly used on fully residential streets and basically codifying existing rules. They behave very similarly to streets without a center line & sidewalk/bike lanes. I also think cost does become an issue when implementing larger streets/bike lanes (let alone the fact that larger streets make people go faster) on every single residential street.
alistairSH 4y ago
I assume it’s space/right-of-way related. But, like you, I have questions about how this configuration would work (in the US, in my case). I can see it working well in towns and suburban roads in some European nations - I’m thinking Scotland here - where default speeds are lower, roads are already shared with parking (so single-tracking is a known procedure), and drivers generally aren’t assholes. In the US, most suburban streets are posted at 25-40mph, and actual speeds tend to be higher yet, which seems WAY too fast for edge lane roads or any other mixed use roadway. Heck, in my area, we have dedicated (but not protected) bike lanes and on some roads, they’re downright scary because the traffic 3’ away is going 50mph.
clairity 4y ago
there's no need to be anti-car (it's fruitless anyway) to be in favor of a more diverse mix of transport. we'd have plenty of space for mixed mobility if we just converted all on-street parking to protected bike lanes rather than implementing these edge lane roads, which seem to be a solution looking for a problem (lack of space, in this case). the important bit is segregating traffic by inertia and mass. i'd personally love to see all the car/truck thoroughfares (roads) put underground, with people getting explicit priority on the above-ground, mixed-use streets.
sokoloff 4y ago
Space is at a premium in many places, possibly every place where such a road might be placed. One of these roads is two blocks away from me. I’m going to go have a look at it later today, but the road it’s on is very similar to the road I live on: two direction street, residential parking on both sides, not four car widths’ wide, so people are already “taking turns” and used to it. I bet it works exactly like the street I live on, only using more paint.
avianlyric 4y ago
In the Netherlands this used instead of segregated cycle lanes, but in addition to a strong network of cycle lanes. Most commonly you find them down very old, narrow, country lanes, where there simply isn’t space for true segregation. But equally, there’s usually no need to use these roads a cyclist, as there are normally more direct dedicated cycle routes. You frequently only use them because your specifically looking for a scenic route, or something a little unusual to cycle down. In other parts of the world, they will also have their place in space constraint locations, or in large networks of small country lanes, where providing segregated infrastructure simply isn’t possible or viable due to lack of space, or extremely low volumes of traffic. I personally think the UK could benefit substantially from these types of roads, if country lanes where converted. The lanes are barely big enough for bi-directional motor traffic, and occasionally not even that wide. Providing edge lane roads would encourage motor traffic to remain in the centre of the road, where they’re substantially less likely to collide with cycle or pedestrian traffic, which may be hidden around one of the many blind corners.
notatoad 4y ago
it seems like the sort of thing that would work well in a space that already has a culture of sharing the roads amongst various transportation modes, and where drivers are already generally respectful and courteous towards other road users. I can see why it works well in the netherlands. I think it's a little naive to imagine it would work in north america. drivers here need more than a gentle reminder to not run other users off the road.
PhineasRex 4y ago
This configuration is for streets without enough room for a dedicated bike lane. An edge-lane road is as wide as a standard two-way with no bike lane.

soared 4y ago

Interesting. My first response is to assume these would cause a lot of car crashes, but apparently the data says otherwise. If there are other features to ensure drivers are going slow (speed bumps, chicanes, etc) these seem nice as a cyclist too. I’m going to have to gif die the one in Boulder, which looks like a poor example because they allow street parking, so seemingly had enough room for a normal road + bike lane: https://goo.gl/maps/8KZQbB7rDB81Ryjx5 https://goo.gl/maps/8KZQbB7rDB81Ryjx5

robotmlg 4y ago

Road Guy Rob did a video recently about a failed edge lane road experiment. Seems like a good idea to me as long as car traffic isn't too heavy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeynqnirofE

bombcar 4y ago
I think the big problem is nobody knows what the heck they’ve encountered. If you do it naturally people can figure it out: make the road very narrow but technically wide enough for two cars and people will hug the center naturally.
- gpm 4y ago
  Just don't draw any lines and even on wide (>2 cars) roads people seem to hug the center pretty naturally (IME, there are probably cultural differences between how people drive in different places that matter here). The strange part about this road is that there were so many lines by the edge of the road, that's legitimately pretty confusing. I'm not sure if it's confusing in an unsafe way, but it's definitely uncomfortable. I'd love to know if someone has a link to someone knowledgeable comparing "all these lines for edge lanes" to "just don't draw anything".
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I suspect lines really are only needed when you want to fit maximum lanes in a given space - many of the four lane roads here would turn into one lane each way without lines.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Yeah, I think the "North American" way to make this design coherent would be frequent sharrows markers, low speed limits, and no other lane markings. The sharrows markers would make it clear "yes cyclists are supposed to be there" and the lack of lane markings would make it clear "shift left as you need".

blamazon 4y ago

This is basically a paint manifestation of the "share the road" idea which is already common policy in North America on bidirectional roads without a bike lane. It is darkly amusing to see a lot of motorists being upset by finally seeing this arrangement in a format they can understand - dashed and solid painted lines.

notatoad 4y ago
the only reason the "share the road" signage is accepted in america is because drivers interpret it to mean that cyclists should give way to motorists. "other road users should share with me" rather than "i need to share with other road users" try going to a community meeting and suggesting that a "share the road" sign be replaced with a "cyclists may use full lane" sign and see how much pushback you get.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I’m not particularly concerned with the wording on the sign, but this sentiment is exactly why I prefer “sharrows”[1] over designated bike lanes. They very clearly indicate that cyclists are expected to be a part of traffic. In my experience—at least in Seattle which is more bike friendly than baseline in the US but certainly not on par with Portland—drivers are far more likely to yield to cyclists with these markings than where a bike lane is present. In contrast, I’ve had drivers try to run me off the road, screaming mad, when I had the gall to perfectly legally ride in the main road where a bike lane was present[2]. Even when there was plenty of space for them to pass. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking 2: Several of my cyclist friends disagree with me on this, but I find the particular bike lane exceedingly dangerous. I frequently avoided it when it was on my daily commute route, after numerous frightening close calls. Riding along with the aggressive drivers really did feel safer.
  - notatoad 4y ago
    When installed correctly - that is, in the very center of the lane - sharrows are slightly better than a "share the road" sign. Too often, cities install sharrows on the very edge of the lane, creating a suggestion that cyclists are only permitted to ride on the edge of a lane and that drivers should continue passing without giving adequate space. My towns main street has sharrows directly in the "door zone" between the street parking and the traffic. And of course all the normal criticisms of sharrows hold. Mainly that they're much more visible to cyclists than to cars, creating a false sense of security where cyclists feel entitled to a lane while drivers disagree.

cowmoo728 4y ago

I recently did a few consecutive full day bicycle trips around the Netherlands and rode on many roads like this. I felt safe and drivers were respectful and patient when passing. I would never ride on one of these in the US. I can already imagine the Amazon delivery van or work truck parked in the bicycle section, forcing me into the center. I can also imagine the impatient drivers accelerating way beyond the speed limit to try to pass me while I'm riding in the center. I was a bike commuter in NYC for years, and am a regular recreational cyclist in the Bay Area and LA. So I have pretty significant experience riding in the US, and all of that experience is telling me that this is a bad idea for US cities.

blenderdt 4y ago
I don't know the rules in the US but in the Netherlands the car is always at fault in case of an accident, unless it is proven the cyclist was at fault. This makes the roads a lot safer for cyclists. When this law was introduced years ago the Dutch also made fun of it: https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU https://youtu.be/ivY06w83fKU
- julianlam 4y ago
  You don't know the rules, but you can probably hazard a guess. In Toronto, a driver took their eyes off the road, reached for a water bottle on the floor, hopped the curb, hit and killed a pedestrian, and was found not guilty. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-sentenced-1.4412121 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gideon-fekre-sentence...
  - upofadown 4y ago
    Well they said they were reaching for a water bottle. For all we know they were yelling "death to the sidewalk dweller" as they deliberately murdered someone. In Canada, drivers are not generally held responsible for driving that is normally incompetent. So the defence would of wanted to establish that such incompetence had occurred. It had to be a mistake that anyone could make. It's a a pretty big problem, but no one seems to care...
- 4y ago

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

New York has a lot of wide shouldered roads in snow country that effectively work like these. They are meant to limit plow damage and heaving at the edge of the road bed. They are also a superior alternative to demarcated bicycle ghettoes because you get much less grief when you aren't "where you belong" when conditions necessitate it.

Freak_NL 4y ago

> This roadway configuration originated in the Netherlands where they have over 50 years and many hundreds of road-kilometers of experience with this facility. Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either. This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to arterial or collector roads. Taking it out of that context seems risky. (The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane, and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes².) 1: Example https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271.11h,81.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFlZBhEBBQC-zCz71gKT9wQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271... 2: Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15.67h,89.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEnqttjWUnVPJ5odWZWLvjw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15....

cycomanic 4y ago
> Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either. They actually say that in the video. In Germany they are mostly used in urban settings in streets with speedlimits below 30 km/h I believe. They definitely work if this is a low volume street, however the speed limits need to be enforced (a general problem in many countries IMO).

ajb 4y ago

These seem work a lot like "bidirectional single lane with passing places" (mountain or very low traffic country roads). Except that you pass by pulling in behind a bike. It seems to me that it relies a lot on people understanding how they work. If most people have experience with the "passing place" version, these would work. If they don't, it would seem like they would need a lot of user education. Where I live, I almost never encountered a passing place road and they always made me very nervous when I did.

bombcar 4y ago
I feel that to implement these in the US you’d want to start by marking those country roads, but even then it would take time. L It almost feels like it works better unmarked.

svnpenn 4y ago

> The center lane is dedicated to, and shared by, motorists traveling in both directions. This seems like a great way to produce head on collisions.

TulliusCicero 4y ago
The first street I lived on in Munich had only enough space in the road for one lane of traffic + one lane of parking. This meant the road was safer, not more dangerous -- the very fact that it was so narrow meant that cars traveled down it quite carefully.

AHOHA 4y ago

Maybe better instead of wasting our tax money on a secondary priorities, Ottawa should really invest on fixing the asphalt roads itself (yes, in Ottawa city), you can't drive for a few minutes in Ottawa without potholes, bumps, and forever lasting constructions.. Those are the priority that should be focused on, as it's just not about damaging the car (tires/ suspensions/etc.) that none are covered by insurance, but also might harm people could be causing an accident avoiding it or caused by it. Get your priories right, Ottawa!

calderra 4y ago

ITT: People who've never done any research on this issue making very American conclusions. Confusion about how these roads work is actually good. It may seem paradoxical at first, but easy to understand roads with ample signage actually breed high speeds, congestion, complacency, and dead pedestrians. Many dangerous intersections have found that removing signage and leaving it up to drivers drastically reduces speeds and improves safety. Mentally taxing roads slow cars down, make people take alternate routes, and force people to look for pedestrians. You can't juggle your Starbucks and your iPhone when you're navigating unfamiliar roads - AND THAT IS GOOD. The purpose of a city is not to breed cars, nor is it to allow lazy car drivers a chance to justify their miserable commute. I mean what, if the drive to work sucks people might just find work closer to home, or lobby for public transportation. Who wants that?

lawkwok 4y ago
I agree that there are too many signs in Canada that don’t help because the roads feel like they support higher speeds. I don’t think roads need to be mentally taxing as that just causes fatigue to already tired workers commuting. What you can do is offer visual and sensory cues so that the speed limit feels natural. For example, narrowing lanes, gradient changes, road material changes.
wyager 4y ago
There exist optimization criteria besides "reduce the number of deaths". In particular, the enjoyment of drivers is an important optimization criterion.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Why? and in particular why drivers only?
  - hgomersall 4y ago
    I'm assuming it's ironic because it made no sense to me either.
  - 4y ago

travisd 4y ago

As a Seattleite who uses a bicycle as the primary means of transportation (but not a bike enthusiast or “bike person”): these are nice (experienced them a bit in Ann Arbor) but the only way to truly make biking safe is going to be to remove cars from the equation in 90%+ of circumstances. No bike gutters (a derogatory word for bike lanes that are only protected by paint), dedicated bike infrastructure.

twoWhlsGud 4y ago
Well as another Seattleite who bikes a lot, I have to say that infrastructure is only part of the solution. I chose my neighborhood on the basis of bikeability - it was literally the most important metric. And demographics and narrow streets trumped bike-specific infrastructure by a wide margin. Upper middle class folks are much less likely to kill you regardless of what sort of road they're on (I can pretty much predict the probability of bad interactions simply based on looking at what folks are driving). And in the absence of any effective law enforcement with regards to traffic laws improving your priors is fundamental. (Heck in the WA state 10% of fatal crashes are due drivers who don't even have a license at all https://wtsc.wa.gov/download/12727 https://wtsc.wa.gov/download/12727 - apologies for the cert warning on the above) And the other thing to look for is narrow streets (big feature of my neighborhood here) which keeps vehicle speeds down. And don't bike after 10 PM at night (that's what buses and Uber is for) - too many impaired drivers after that point. And keep in mind that separated infrastructure does little or nothing at intersections and driveways. There's a notorious separated lane across I-5 from me where lots of my friends have had bad interactions (including injuries) at parking garage driveways (a particularly nasty case is associated with the garage for a medical practice - we theorize that folks are coming out after unhappy doc visits distracted by the prospect of looming financial ruin - another US-specific feature ;-) I take the lane there (which is scary as it makes drivers cranky, but again given the demographics they're not homicidal (at least so far)) but it beats getting squashed by someone speeding out of the garage. I think the way forward in the US lies in achieving automated (and therefore safe and cheap) public-ish transport so we can give an alternative to the folks that can't drive safely and get them from behind the wheel. Short of that infrastructure (if built correctly) can be helpful but like bike helmets gets way more attention than warranted.

subpixel 4y ago

Thinking about how this would play out in the hilly and curvy rural roads near me. Perhaps not so well.

deleted 4y ago

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DoreenMichele 4y ago

At first blush, it looks like a nicely done international resource: Depending on the country and the governing agency, this roadway type can have different names. Examples include: 2-minus-1 roads (New Zealand, Denmark), Edge Lane Road (Denmark, US), Advisory Shoulders (U.S. Federal Highway Administration), Schutzstreifen (Germany), Suggestiestrook (Netherlands), and Advisory Bike Lanes (US).

asah 4y ago

omg this sounds like a terrible idea: speeding motorists passing each other and taking out bikes. ...or distracted or impaired motorists drifting out of the center and taking out motorists? teenagers using both lanes to race each other... the list goes on and on...

halffaday 4y ago

Use sharrows. Changing the meaning of stripes for one special type of road is a terrible idea. There also really needs to be more aggressive standards for participation in transportation planning. I see way too many “ideas guys” playing engineer. I’m looking at you, landscape architects!

PeterStuer 4y ago

We have very many of these in Belgium. Their purpose seems to be mostly to refrain cyclists from using their right to cycle side by side in the urban areas, and cheaply prop up the political numbers for 'cycling infrastructure' while avoiding diehard motorist backlash. Even after decades of use, they still confuse the road users. Cyclists that think of them as bicycle lanes (wrong), and most motorists that think of them as just a part of their normal car lane (right). My heuristic has always been 'if you can create it with a bucket of paint and a brush it is not a bicycle path'.