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Cycling: Why Tunnels are Better than Bridges (2014)

101 points by pmontra 4y ago

anttiharju 4y ago
> A possible disadvantage is low social safety. It is important that cyclists can see out of a tunnel before they enter it. There should be no turns within the tunnel, no-where for a potential mugger to hide. Obviously tunnels should also be well lit. I feel like this is something that's often neglected. Just recently here in Finland there was a case where a cyclist died because a roadblock made of concrete was brought to the middle of a dark tunnel. The goal was to block cars from using the tunnel, but for the summer the tunnel's lights were turned off. The cyclist hit the roadblock at a relatively high speed, was basically launched forward and pretty much immediately died on impact to the ground. Now of course maybe the cyclist shouldn't have been going that fast, but the decision to bring a roadblock to the middle of a dark tunnel is also questionable. Maybe two roadblocks at each end (where there is natural light)? I feel tunnels are much more dangerous than bridges. They're dark and the downhills leading to them encourage high speeds. Link to the news article: (in Finnish) https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12456122 https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12456122 Google translate seems to do well on the article: https://yle-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/3-12456122?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://yle-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/3-12456122?_x_tr_sl=fi... Although maybe concrete piglet/pig should be just "concrete roadblock" edits: added the news articles
- usrusr 4y ago
  Was just about to write something similar, just without the bloody evidence: the "no turns!" part should be right at the start where benefits of inertia-assisted climbing is advertised, because that all turns into the opposite when there are turns that force inhertia loss (or, more likely: some in-between of inertia loss and risk taking).
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    In theory (but not always in practice) the steepness of the road accessing the underpass should be within the limits stated for the type of road (so - again in theory - not too steep). A good example of how NOT to design an underpass (very steep AND curve in the middle), this is Florence (Italy): https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7754979,11.2351912,3a,75y,53.75h,76.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0r6y2c47jot1b-LU6HqqRA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-IT https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7754979,11.2351912,3a,75y,53.... But they did put on a sign to prevent pedestrians to access it, so the mugglers won't go hiding there ;).
    - anttiharju 4y ago
      At first glance that underpass didn't seem that steep, but then I went to look for the underpass which I feel is super steep, I realized, maybe it's just difficult to get a good sense of the steepness from streetview. Here's one I've gone through and feel is a rather dangerous one: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pU36XG6J89QL2nqJA https://maps.app.goo.gl/pU36XG6J89QL2nqJA The view is from top of the underpass, but if you look to the back left you can see there's a downhill and then a really sharp 90° turn which might lead to really dangerous situations due to poor visibility and high speed.
      - jaclaz 4y ago
        Yes, streetview does not convey the actual situation, in person it is steep (though I have seen steeper ones). That underpass is just after a bridge (over the river) so they couldn't make it less steep by making the ramp longer, but the cyclists (those that know the area) can turn on the right right before the ramp and use the "normal" roads/streets, someone that isn't already familiar with it is taken by surprise. This view from a bit further renders a little better the situation: https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7752485,11.2348264,3a,75y,22.62h,95.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smmRqgMTgxsNtmO1gmXLSFA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-IT https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7752485,11.2348264,3a,75y,22....
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Some more thoughts about the risk taking: that inevitably happens to everyone, even the least reckless. Magnitudes certainly differ, but it's always far from gone. Because when cycling, the brain unavoidably enters a state that would be called hypermiling if it happened while driving. The bad thing about stopping or slowing down isn't so much the time lost, it's the exertion required to get going again. And that logic does not just happen on the conscious level, it's much deeper. You'll hate applying the brakes even if, on the conscious level, exertion is the only goal of the ride because you're not going anywhere but doing a workout. "Stopping leads to exertion, don't stop" must be some preset circuit in our brains that has been there since before bipedalism. It's certainly also noticeable when driving (we hate the red light even when not in a hurry at all) but it's much stronger when the exertion isn't just a gentle touch with the right foot. Back to that straight tunnel from the picture: something like that is extremely rare, because bike roads are rarely built completely separate from other roads and when they are not separate, the descent/ascent parts inevitably get folded into wherever they fit.
- FastMonkey 4y ago
  Tunnels are also significantly more expensive, which is why they're so rare. With a tunnel, you generally have significant earthworks, possibly a permanent groundwater issue (you may have essentially created a boat that you do not want to float), and you still have to build a bridge capable of carrying whatever traffic the bikes are bypassing. A bicycle bridge is just the bicycle bridge, a relatively light structure, easy to construct and maintain.
- benj111 4y ago
  >Now of course maybe the cyclist shouldn't have been going that fast Now replace cyclist with motorist. Would it be in anyway acceptable for someone to plonk an unmarked concrete block in the middle of an unlit road?
  - anttiharju 4y ago
    Probably no. But there is a guideline that you should only go at the speed from which you can stop from within the visible part of the road.
    - usrusr 4y ago
      And yet roads are full of highly visible warning signs whereverr there is a turn that might not be safe at slightly beyond general maximum speed in some weather conditions.
      - anttiharju 4y ago
        I'm not sure I've seen weather condition specific warning signs, apart from the speed limits being lowered for the winter season by swapping the signs themselves. Can you link to an example?
        seszett 4y ago
        They're pretty common in some places. The E17/A22 entering France for example has these overhead signs[0] that go from 110 in good conditions down to 70 in very bad conditions or even 50 if there's congestion. There are also similar signs in Belgium but they're more rarely adjusted depending on weather, it's usually just according to traffic. [0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/pbCArbN5yraJZFBw9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/pbCArbN5yraJZFBw9
        solar-ice 4y ago
        The UK's "smart motorways" project does this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_motorway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_motorway Actually turns out they're a terrible idea, tbh.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Yeah, destroying pedestrian and cycle infrastructure to keep cars out is a pet peeve of mine. It's often dangerous, makes the path inaccessible, and just plain ugly. Like the "concrete pigs" you mention. Often not marked properly, and cyclists have to slow down to a crawl to pass. Often 90% of the road is blocked with a boom barrier, and pedestrians and cyclists all have to share the remaining part to squeeze through. That only increases conflict. Also pretty hard for bigger cargo bikes, wheelchairs etc to pass. During winter, the booms are opened for the snow plow and then closed. Which means that as a cyclist I still have to cycle around on the un-plowed part... It's insane the lengths one has to go to avoid cars destroying everything. Edit: An example pic https://imgur.com/a/FmDd5Ve https://imgur.com/a/FmDd5Ve Nice wide road, have to close it off with a boom because of cars. Pedestrians and cyclists have to pass on the icy parts...
  - null_object 4y ago
    At the end of this article (translated from Swedish) are a whole bunch of deadly obstacles placed in the way of cyclists “for their own safety”: https://bicycling-se.translate.goog/blogg/bilhindren-som-dodar-cyklister/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://bicycling-se.translate.goog/blogg/bilhindren-som-dod...
    - matsemann 4y ago
      Yeah, those pictures are quite crazy. I follow him on Twitter and saw the thread asking for examples, I think he got hundreds of images!
    - checkurprivlege 4y ago
      worst are the iron chains hanging 30 cms over the ground
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Some drunk mistakes the bike path for their turn and the municipal planner shows up to work on Monday with an inbox that's been blown up by a million Karens screeching about "gotta keep cars out" So he goes through the catalog of typical off the shelf solutions that exist in his trade, selects a reasonable one and has it installed. 6mo later his inbox gets blown up by the same million Karens screeching about how the barrier made the bike path suck. A large subset of the public is made up of people that don't understand that everything is tradeoffs and think they can have their cake and eat it too. And because these people can't wrap their minds around the tradeoffs it's impossible to have the adult dialog regarding which tradeoffs they dislike least that needs to be had if the least worst solution is to be reached. There's no winning when dealing with this kind of customer base unless you creatively define "winning" to exclude customer satisfaction. But when you do that you get other failure modes. You can sometimes money your way around the problems but that's just a constant factor improvement on something that's exponentially crap.
- silvestrov 4y ago
  Dark underpasses can be avoided by splitting the "bridge" into multiple smaller bridges. Example of a "6 lane" split into 6 smaller bridges: https://goo.gl/maps/V84SqmbjkASapyxQA https://goo.gl/maps/V84SqmbjkASapyxQA This allows for a lot of light and no overhead lights are needed. (my gut tells me this design was used to improve maintainability: you cannot completely close the bridge or highway as the city is too dependent. But they could get away with closing 1-of-5 bridges for some time).
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    Five of the six bridges carry railway lines. I think the design is more likely because the tracks are very close to a station, so they're spaced widely to allow for the platforms.
    - silvestrov 4y ago
      The station is very small and cheaply built, so it might have been cheaper to make two tracks on one bridge and then have the "people platform" on each side of the tracks instead of between. Just like this place: https://goo.gl/maps/gwfGxdxDs4sbpF2S7 https://goo.gl/maps/gwfGxdxDs4sbpF2S7 Or this with a station on a curve: https://goo.gl/maps/Eo5fZK5E8kYoFAuW8 https://goo.gl/maps/Eo5fZK5E8kYoFAuW8
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Admittedly, bike lighting is a solved problem by now, one shouldn't bike where you cannot see. There is always the risk of an obstacle you wouldn't expect, could be even an injured person blocking the way. But of course, this doesn't justify any of those ridiculus and dangerous artificial blocks. Just clearly marking the bike paths with color should be good enough. If an car ever is caught there, well, rip apart the drivers license. Or just leave it to the bicyclists :p I have seen too many of those blockages myself, they are dangerous and often enough I cannot pass them with my bicycle.
jaclaz 4y ago
The article is actually about underpasses, which are not "tunnels" but rather a bridge (or overpass) built on the "other" road. Such "tunnels" are normally very short and straight, so I cannot understand the reference to turns in the article, a "real" tunnel is several tens of meters, more often hundreds or thousands meters long and very likely is not straight, though I doubt that they are the preferred hideout for mugglers aiming at cyclists.
- anttiharju 4y ago
  Yeah, underpass is a much more appropriate name. Now that you mention it, it does seem strange that the article doesn't mention turns before/after tunnels as those tend to lead to risk taking (going too fast into the underpass that you can't see into). At least in Finland the underpasses used by cyclists are also used by pedestrians, so the underpasses being used as mugging spots is conceivable, although I've never heard about it happening.
  - Someone 4y ago
    I think it’s more about perceived safety than about actual risks. A design that is safe, but makes “the people” think it is dangerous is a failed design, as fewer people would use it.
    - emn13 4y ago
      I live near a mixed use cycle+pedestrian underpass under a railroad that has curves into and out of it. It's mildy terrifying in a way that's surely by design. I don't know how safe it actually is, but it _is_ used very heavily - because it's by far the shortest path connecting most routes on the opposite sides of the train track, which trumps virtually all other concerns in day to day traffic, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. And hey, there's no car traffic, so accidents are likely to be at least a little milder, though hitting one of those stone pillars is perhaps not much better.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Actual tunnels are usually pretty awful for cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists since they tend to be hot and full of exhaust fumes.
Graffur 4y ago
As a kid I had to cycle through one of these. There was always anti-social behaviour around them.
sriram_malhar 4y ago
Underpasses are terrible for coastal cities that receive a lot of rain. I am thinking in particular of places like Mumbai in the monsoons, where the water accumulates much faster than you can pump it out (enough to keep it dry-ish at all times). There is also the problem of where to pump it to, esp. if the tide's up and all the drainage is already full.
- user_7832 4y ago
  As a Mumbaikar living in the Netherlands (where OP appears to be), you're right - such underpasses will be a terrible idea in the monsoon season for Mumbai-like places. However for the Netherlands, rain is much more evenly distributed across the year and even "heavy" rain days are much lesser than the amount of rain a tropical city like Mumbai gets - which is why it's unlikely to be a major issue in the NL. (Side note I don't think there are pumps at every underpass if at all, perhaps only if the underground drains/sewers overflow. Also NL maintains high sea walls/dykes partly out of necessity so there likely will be place to pump it here.)
pacifika 4y ago
If we would keep the tunnels smelling less like urine, I would agree more
- bagels 4y ago
  It's amazing how well bike/pedestrian bridges and underpasses so effectively capture urine.
  - 11235813213455 4y ago
    what a waste of a resource useful for the soil / grass / plants
_ph_ 4y ago
Yes, as bicycles/pedestrians are not as tall as trucks, the underpasses can be lower with all resulting benefits. So yes, the bikes probably should go under the cars. Doesn't mean however, that the cars couldn't go over a raised bridge. Or even just split the difference. Have the underpass go down like 1.5m and then raise the road above that.
jpcapdevila 4y ago
> "Tunnels offer protection from wind and rain." Not sure about this one. Back home in Guadalajara Mexico a lot of tunnels get flooded during rain season. I'm talking about 6ft of water. To be fair, even streets turn into rivers / pools.
em-bee 4y ago
this is a summary for a more detailed article here: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/08/why-tunnels-are-better-than-bridges-for.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/08/why-tunnels-are...
michaelcampbell 4y ago
> Tunnels have a smaller height difference than bridges. Only need clearance for the height of a cyclist, not for trucks or trains plus electric lines. Well, sure. Tunnels built FOR BICYCLES ONLY will have this advantage. A bridge build FOR BICYCLES ONLY would have similar small height requirements so this seems kind of moot. Seems that the rest of the ideas are mostly based on the same one; smaller inclines/declines. The "work first, then coast" is not, of course.
- rakoo 4y ago
  No, a bridge needs to go over the road that is used by trucks, even if the bridge is bicycles-only
  - michaelcampbell 4y ago
    That is a good point, but I was thinking of it in terms of 2 roads are going to cross and rather than make an intersection you have the choice of a bridge or a tunnel. On that road, the same trucks/bicycles/etc will use it regardless of your choice, so the tunnel can't be any less "height aware" than the bridge.
- fdupress 4y ago
  Wait... A bridge built for bicycles only to go over still needs cars and lorries and other large things going under it. A bridge built for bicycles only to go under is nice, and means not even having to deal with a slope. (But might be more costly than a bicycle tunnel.)
  - michaelcampbell 4y ago
    I was speaking to the requirements of the bridge's height requirements, not the ones of the road it goes over, but point taken.
sk8terboi 4y ago
AlbertCory 4y ago
In America, we'd call that an underpass, not a tunnel, as others are pointed out. Actual tunnels in America are scary as shit to cycle through. The "sidewalk" is maybe 24 inches wide, and the cars are 6 inches from you. There is no shoulder to ride in. Whereas bridges tend to have normal width sidewalks, like in his picture.
trompetenaccoun 4y ago
>no-where for a potential mugger to hide Or maybe the opposite: Design cities to give muggers even more spaces to hide. Maybe then the people looking the other way will finally notice that there are major cultural/political issues in the societies where muggings are commonplace. I've yet to hear about Japanese tunnels being engineered specifically to reduce muggings.
analog31 4y ago
In my locale, there's been extensive construction of bike infrastructure. There's some kind of grand plan, but it makes sense that provisions for bikes are added when they're going to rebuild everything: The road, crosswalks, sewers, etc. And there's no space left in town where they're not trying to cram everything together. So the choices of bridges or tunnels tends to be one of what will actually fit. There's one giant road intersection where there are two bridges and a tunnel. The tunnel fits entirely within the footprint of the road above it, which is 6 lanes and carries heavy trucking. Its cost was probably absorbed by the overall project cost and need to support those 6 lanes throughout. The bridges can be much lighter, since they really only need to support themselves, but need extra space at the two ends for the ramps. One of these ramps displaced a house that was there. In the town where my son attends college, there's a bike path along a river, that regularly gets flooded when the river rises. But that was by design -- space for the bike path also doubles as a flood control measure, as is true of a lot of park space that's built along rivers.
codeangler 4y ago
This article is right for a single scenario: the long straight away in and out of a fair weather, well drained path/road/bikeway As others have mentioned adding a turn before or after the underpass increases risk. A number of them (person to person, hidden obstruction, unsafe traction spots: ice, damp silt, etc) A pedestrian bridge has recently been replaced in town (boulder, co) And I miss the bridge each day I commute. The pedestrian underpass has poor visibility (compared to the bridge that was there) and the above stated risks. While snow/ rain/ice would build up at times, it would clear out days sooner than the underpasses along my four mile commute. But I was shouting to the wind to keep the bridge, as part of the financing for pedestrians underpasses in town is funded by fed/state/local flood mdigiation dollars.
iostream24 4y ago
Not the sort of tunnels I was thinking about, obviously. Mountain tunnels for cars often have no room for pedestrians or maintenance workers let alone cyclists, and basically zone-limit cyclists.

101 points by pmontra 4y ago

> A possible disadvantage is low social safety. It is important that cyclists can see out of a tunnel before they enter it. There should be no turns within the tunnel, no-where for a potential mugger to hide. Obviously tunnels should also be well lit. I feel like this is something that's often neglected. Just recently here in Finland there was a case where a cyclist died because a roadblock made of concrete was brought to the middle of a dark tunnel. The goal was to block cars from using the tunnel, but for the summer the tunnel's lights were turned off. The cyclist hit the roadblock at a relatively high speed, was basically launched forward and pretty much immediately died on impact to the ground. Now of course maybe the cyclist shouldn't have been going that fast, but the decision to bring a roadblock to the middle of a dark tunnel is also questionable. Maybe two roadblocks at each end (where there is natural light)? I feel tunnels are much more dangerous than bridges. They're dark and the downhills leading to them encourage high speeds. Link to the news article: (in Finnish) https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12456122 https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12456122 Google translate seems to do well on the article: https://yle-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/3-12456122?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://yle-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/3-12456122?_x_tr_sl=fi... Although maybe concrete piglet/pig should be just "concrete roadblock" edits: added the news articles

usrusr 4y ago
Was just about to write something similar, just without the bloody evidence: the "no turns!" part should be right at the start where benefits of inertia-assisted climbing is advertised, because that all turns into the opposite when there are turns that force inhertia loss (or, more likely: some in-between of inertia loss and risk taking).
- jaclaz 4y ago
  In theory (but not always in practice) the steepness of the road accessing the underpass should be within the limits stated for the type of road (so - again in theory - not too steep). A good example of how NOT to design an underpass (very steep AND curve in the middle), this is Florence (Italy): https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7754979,11.2351912,3a,75y,53.75h,76.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0r6y2c47jot1b-LU6HqqRA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-IT https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7754979,11.2351912,3a,75y,53.... But they did put on a sign to prevent pedestrians to access it, so the mugglers won't go hiding there ;).
  - anttiharju 4y ago
    At first glance that underpass didn't seem that steep, but then I went to look for the underpass which I feel is super steep, I realized, maybe it's just difficult to get a good sense of the steepness from streetview. Here's one I've gone through and feel is a rather dangerous one: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pU36XG6J89QL2nqJA https://maps.app.goo.gl/pU36XG6J89QL2nqJA The view is from top of the underpass, but if you look to the back left you can see there's a downhill and then a really sharp 90° turn which might lead to really dangerous situations due to poor visibility and high speed.
    - jaclaz 4y ago
      Yes, streetview does not convey the actual situation, in person it is steep (though I have seen steeper ones). That underpass is just after a bridge (over the river) so they couldn't make it less steep by making the ramp longer, but the cyclists (those that know the area) can turn on the right right before the ramp and use the "normal" roads/streets, someone that isn't already familiar with it is taken by surprise. This view from a bit further renders a little better the situation: https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7752485,11.2348264,3a,75y,22.62h,95.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smmRqgMTgxsNtmO1gmXLSFA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-IT https://www.google.it/maps/@43.7752485,11.2348264,3a,75y,22....
- usrusr 4y ago
  Some more thoughts about the risk taking: that inevitably happens to everyone, even the least reckless. Magnitudes certainly differ, but it's always far from gone. Because when cycling, the brain unavoidably enters a state that would be called hypermiling if it happened while driving. The bad thing about stopping or slowing down isn't so much the time lost, it's the exertion required to get going again. And that logic does not just happen on the conscious level, it's much deeper. You'll hate applying the brakes even if, on the conscious level, exertion is the only goal of the ride because you're not going anywhere but doing a workout. "Stopping leads to exertion, don't stop" must be some preset circuit in our brains that has been there since before bipedalism. It's certainly also noticeable when driving (we hate the red light even when not in a hurry at all) but it's much stronger when the exertion isn't just a gentle touch with the right foot. Back to that straight tunnel from the picture: something like that is extremely rare, because bike roads are rarely built completely separate from other roads and when they are not separate, the descent/ascent parts inevitably get folded into wherever they fit.
FastMonkey 4y ago
Tunnels are also significantly more expensive, which is why they're so rare. With a tunnel, you generally have significant earthworks, possibly a permanent groundwater issue (you may have essentially created a boat that you do not want to float), and you still have to build a bridge capable of carrying whatever traffic the bikes are bypassing. A bicycle bridge is just the bicycle bridge, a relatively light structure, easy to construct and maintain.
benj111 4y ago
>Now of course maybe the cyclist shouldn't have been going that fast Now replace cyclist with motorist. Would it be in anyway acceptable for someone to plonk an unmarked concrete block in the middle of an unlit road?
- anttiharju 4y ago
  Probably no. But there is a guideline that you should only go at the speed from which you can stop from within the visible part of the road.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    And yet roads are full of highly visible warning signs whereverr there is a turn that might not be safe at slightly beyond general maximum speed in some weather conditions.
    - anttiharju 4y ago
      I'm not sure I've seen weather condition specific warning signs, apart from the speed limits being lowered for the winter season by swapping the signs themselves. Can you link to an example?
      - seszett 4y ago
        They're pretty common in some places. The E17/A22 entering France for example has these overhead signs[0] that go from 110 in good conditions down to 70 in very bad conditions or even 50 if there's congestion. There are also similar signs in Belgium but they're more rarely adjusted depending on weather, it's usually just according to traffic. [0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/pbCArbN5yraJZFBw9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/pbCArbN5yraJZFBw9
      - solar-ice 4y ago
        The UK's "smart motorways" project does this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_motorway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_motorway Actually turns out they're a terrible idea, tbh.
matsemann 4y ago
Yeah, destroying pedestrian and cycle infrastructure to keep cars out is a pet peeve of mine. It's often dangerous, makes the path inaccessible, and just plain ugly. Like the "concrete pigs" you mention. Often not marked properly, and cyclists have to slow down to a crawl to pass. Often 90% of the road is blocked with a boom barrier, and pedestrians and cyclists all have to share the remaining part to squeeze through. That only increases conflict. Also pretty hard for bigger cargo bikes, wheelchairs etc to pass. During winter, the booms are opened for the snow plow and then closed. Which means that as a cyclist I still have to cycle around on the un-plowed part... It's insane the lengths one has to go to avoid cars destroying everything. Edit: An example pic https://imgur.com/a/FmDd5Ve https://imgur.com/a/FmDd5Ve Nice wide road, have to close it off with a boom because of cars. Pedestrians and cyclists have to pass on the icy parts...
- null_object 4y ago
  At the end of this article (translated from Swedish) are a whole bunch of deadly obstacles placed in the way of cyclists “for their own safety”: https://bicycling-se.translate.goog/blogg/bilhindren-som-dodar-cyklister/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://bicycling-se.translate.goog/blogg/bilhindren-som-dod...
  - matsemann 4y ago
    Yeah, those pictures are quite crazy. I follow him on Twitter and saw the thread asking for examples, I think he got hundreds of images!
  - checkurprivlege 4y ago
    worst are the iron chains hanging 30 cms over the ground
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Some drunk mistakes the bike path for their turn and the municipal planner shows up to work on Monday with an inbox that's been blown up by a million Karens screeching about "gotta keep cars out" So he goes through the catalog of typical off the shelf solutions that exist in his trade, selects a reasonable one and has it installed. 6mo later his inbox gets blown up by the same million Karens screeching about how the barrier made the bike path suck. A large subset of the public is made up of people that don't understand that everything is tradeoffs and think they can have their cake and eat it too. And because these people can't wrap their minds around the tradeoffs it's impossible to have the adult dialog regarding which tradeoffs they dislike least that needs to be had if the least worst solution is to be reached. There's no winning when dealing with this kind of customer base unless you creatively define "winning" to exclude customer satisfaction. But when you do that you get other failure modes. You can sometimes money your way around the problems but that's just a constant factor improvement on something that's exponentially crap.
silvestrov 4y ago
Dark underpasses can be avoided by splitting the "bridge" into multiple smaller bridges. Example of a "6 lane" split into 6 smaller bridges: https://goo.gl/maps/V84SqmbjkASapyxQA https://goo.gl/maps/V84SqmbjkASapyxQA This allows for a lot of light and no overhead lights are needed. (my gut tells me this design was used to improve maintainability: you cannot completely close the bridge or highway as the city is too dependent. But they could get away with closing 1-of-5 bridges for some time).
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Five of the six bridges carry railway lines. I think the design is more likely because the tracks are very close to a station, so they're spaced widely to allow for the platforms.
  - silvestrov 4y ago
    The station is very small and cheaply built, so it might have been cheaper to make two tracks on one bridge and then have the "people platform" on each side of the tracks instead of between. Just like this place: https://goo.gl/maps/gwfGxdxDs4sbpF2S7 https://goo.gl/maps/gwfGxdxDs4sbpF2S7 Or this with a station on a curve: https://goo.gl/maps/Eo5fZK5E8kYoFAuW8 https://goo.gl/maps/Eo5fZK5E8kYoFAuW8
_ph_ 4y ago
Admittedly, bike lighting is a solved problem by now, one shouldn't bike where you cannot see. There is always the risk of an obstacle you wouldn't expect, could be even an injured person blocking the way. But of course, this doesn't justify any of those ridiculus and dangerous artificial blocks. Just clearly marking the bike paths with color should be good enough. If an car ever is caught there, well, rip apart the drivers license. Or just leave it to the bicyclists :p I have seen too many of those blockages myself, they are dangerous and often enough I cannot pass them with my bicycle.

jaclaz 4y ago

The article is actually about underpasses, which are not "tunnels" but rather a bridge (or overpass) built on the "other" road. Such "tunnels" are normally very short and straight, so I cannot understand the reference to turns in the article, a "real" tunnel is several tens of meters, more often hundreds or thousands meters long and very likely is not straight, though I doubt that they are the preferred hideout for mugglers aiming at cyclists.

anttiharju 4y ago
Yeah, underpass is a much more appropriate name. Now that you mention it, it does seem strange that the article doesn't mention turns before/after tunnels as those tend to lead to risk taking (going too fast into the underpass that you can't see into). At least in Finland the underpasses used by cyclists are also used by pedestrians, so the underpasses being used as mugging spots is conceivable, although I've never heard about it happening.
- Someone 4y ago
  I think it’s more about perceived safety than about actual risks. A design that is safe, but makes “the people” think it is dangerous is a failed design, as fewer people would use it.
  - emn13 4y ago
    I live near a mixed use cycle+pedestrian underpass under a railroad that has curves into and out of it. It's mildy terrifying in a way that's surely by design. I don't know how safe it actually is, but it _is_ used very heavily - because it's by far the shortest path connecting most routes on the opposite sides of the train track, which trumps virtually all other concerns in day to day traffic, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. And hey, there's no car traffic, so accidents are likely to be at least a little milder, though hitting one of those stone pillars is perhaps not much better.
bobthepanda 4y ago
Actual tunnels are usually pretty awful for cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists since they tend to be hot and full of exhaust fumes.

Graffur 4y ago

As a kid I had to cycle through one of these. There was always anti-social behaviour around them.

sriram_malhar 4y ago

Underpasses are terrible for coastal cities that receive a lot of rain. I am thinking in particular of places like Mumbai in the monsoons, where the water accumulates much faster than you can pump it out (enough to keep it dry-ish at all times). There is also the problem of where to pump it to, esp. if the tide's up and all the drainage is already full.

user_7832 4y ago
As a Mumbaikar living in the Netherlands (where OP appears to be), you're right - such underpasses will be a terrible idea in the monsoon season for Mumbai-like places. However for the Netherlands, rain is much more evenly distributed across the year and even "heavy" rain days are much lesser than the amount of rain a tropical city like Mumbai gets - which is why it's unlikely to be a major issue in the NL. (Side note I don't think there are pumps at every underpass if at all, perhaps only if the underground drains/sewers overflow. Also NL maintains high sea walls/dykes partly out of necessity so there likely will be place to pump it here.)

pacifika 4y ago

If we would keep the tunnels smelling less like urine, I would agree more

bagels 4y ago
It's amazing how well bike/pedestrian bridges and underpasses so effectively capture urine.
- 11235813213455 4y ago
  what a waste of a resource useful for the soil / grass / plants

_ph_ 4y ago

Yes, as bicycles/pedestrians are not as tall as trucks, the underpasses can be lower with all resulting benefits. So yes, the bikes probably should go under the cars. Doesn't mean however, that the cars couldn't go over a raised bridge. Or even just split the difference. Have the underpass go down like 1.5m and then raise the road above that.

jpcapdevila 4y ago

> "Tunnels offer protection from wind and rain." Not sure about this one. Back home in Guadalajara Mexico a lot of tunnels get flooded during rain season. I'm talking about 6ft of water. To be fair, even streets turn into rivers / pools.

em-bee 4y ago

this is a summary for a more detailed article here: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/08/why-tunnels-are-better-than-bridges-for.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/08/why-tunnels-are...

michaelcampbell 4y ago

> Tunnels have a smaller height difference than bridges. Only need clearance for the height of a cyclist, not for trucks or trains plus electric lines. Well, sure. Tunnels built FOR BICYCLES ONLY will have this advantage. A bridge build FOR BICYCLES ONLY would have similar small height requirements so this seems kind of moot. Seems that the rest of the ideas are mostly based on the same one; smaller inclines/declines. The "work first, then coast" is not, of course.

rakoo 4y ago
No, a bridge needs to go over the road that is used by trucks, even if the bridge is bicycles-only
- michaelcampbell 4y ago
  That is a good point, but I was thinking of it in terms of 2 roads are going to cross and rather than make an intersection you have the choice of a bridge or a tunnel. On that road, the same trucks/bicycles/etc will use it regardless of your choice, so the tunnel can't be any less "height aware" than the bridge.
fdupress 4y ago
Wait... A bridge built for bicycles only to go over still needs cars and lorries and other large things going under it. A bridge built for bicycles only to go under is nice, and means not even having to deal with a slope. (But might be more costly than a bicycle tunnel.)
- michaelcampbell 4y ago
  I was speaking to the requirements of the bridge's height requirements, not the ones of the road it goes over, but point taken.

sk8terboi 4y ago

AlbertCory 4y ago

In America, we'd call that an underpass, not a tunnel, as others are pointed out. Actual tunnels in America are scary as shit to cycle through. The "sidewalk" is maybe 24 inches wide, and the cars are 6 inches from you. There is no shoulder to ride in. Whereas bridges tend to have normal width sidewalks, like in his picture.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago

>no-where for a potential mugger to hide Or maybe the opposite: Design cities to give muggers even more spaces to hide. Maybe then the people looking the other way will finally notice that there are major cultural/political issues in the societies where muggings are commonplace. I've yet to hear about Japanese tunnels being engineered specifically to reduce muggings.

analog31 4y ago

In my locale, there's been extensive construction of bike infrastructure. There's some kind of grand plan, but it makes sense that provisions for bikes are added when they're going to rebuild everything: The road, crosswalks, sewers, etc. And there's no space left in town where they're not trying to cram everything together. So the choices of bridges or tunnels tends to be one of what will actually fit. There's one giant road intersection where there are two bridges and a tunnel. The tunnel fits entirely within the footprint of the road above it, which is 6 lanes and carries heavy trucking. Its cost was probably absorbed by the overall project cost and need to support those 6 lanes throughout. The bridges can be much lighter, since they really only need to support themselves, but need extra space at the two ends for the ramps. One of these ramps displaced a house that was there. In the town where my son attends college, there's a bike path along a river, that regularly gets flooded when the river rises. But that was by design -- space for the bike path also doubles as a flood control measure, as is true of a lot of park space that's built along rivers.

codeangler 4y ago

This article is right for a single scenario: the long straight away in and out of a fair weather, well drained path/road/bikeway As others have mentioned adding a turn before or after the underpass increases risk. A number of them (person to person, hidden obstruction, unsafe traction spots: ice, damp silt, etc) A pedestrian bridge has recently been replaced in town (boulder, co) And I miss the bridge each day I commute. The pedestrian underpass has poor visibility (compared to the bridge that was there) and the above stated risks. While snow/ rain/ice would build up at times, it would clear out days sooner than the underpasses along my four mile commute. But I was shouting to the wind to keep the bridge, as part of the financing for pedestrians underpasses in town is funded by fed/state/local flood mdigiation dollars.

iostream24 4y ago

Not the sort of tunnels I was thinking about, obviously. Mountain tunnels for cars often have no room for pedestrians or maintenance workers let alone cyclists, and basically zone-limit cyclists.