Why this type of bike infrastructure is better than all the others
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- čas přidán 18. 06. 2024
- A new "complete streets" project in my city sparked an opportunity to look at three different ways of getting to the same destination: On side streets away from busy car roads, on a multiuse pathway, and on a brand-new dedicated bike lane separated from both cars and pedestrians. Which one do you think will be best?
Big thanks to Shifter viewer Alastair Pollock for letting me steal his idea for this video.
0:00 Introduction
1:06 The criteria
2:10 Side streets
6:41 Multiuse pathway
12:27 Cycle tracks (separated bike lanes)
16:21 And the winner is...
#cycling #bike #commuting
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If you'd like to see a map of the different routes, I cobbled together a quick one here: www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1qvAO1pu0SEjgWOcAkG62DVqTJxpoRCk&usp=sharing
What app are you using here on the phone and what did you do for the route? :D
Hey! Glad you did this. Happy I could help out in my own small way 😌
Thank you. The map geek in me has been appeased, lol.
Side routes are great until you need to cross a major road or a freeway or a tollway and then it's ridiculous
Side routes are great until you live in a city that is only culs du sac and the only through routes are on the major roads
@@russellgeisthardt9828 This reminds me of NJB talking about Riverdale in Toronto having inflated prices because of walkability, transit, etc. I'm eying the Blatchford development in Edmonton because of these things, but a 40 acre development doesn't make up for an entire city being trash. Everyone is gonna try to cram into it.
In my town the bike routes have tunnels underneath intersections. Annoying to go up them but it's better than the alternative 😂
@@thekevmeister77 There are a couple "trails" that have a concrete path under a bridge or over a road but not nearly enough to be truly useful getting from home to work easily on them
Side routes are also great until no they're not dear god
12:20 Another point is the multi-use pathways allow cities to disingenuously claim they have bike infrastructure even when they have very little catering to commuters or ppl cycling for transportation rather than recreation. They can still proudly claim they have X km of bike infrastructure.
My Town is a prime example of this. Claims we have tonnes of km of bike infrastructure. Reality is that we have 3x painted bike gutters which all run east/west only and not a single one of them connects to another. And none of them go to grocery stores or other useful locations.
My city did this originally. Paved some multi-use paths on unusable land under the elevated metro and put up a bunch of green "bikeway" signs on the most out of the way neighborhood streets. Looked great on paper but that was about it. Over time more painted routes have been added, bike controlled traffic lights, a few separated lanes. It's getting better but slowly, and it's still the same story for the new routes downtown. The streets with least amount to do have the bike lanes, the streets with shopping don't.
And politicians claim they ‘cycle and understand cyclists’ - but in reality they use these recreational paths once or twice a year, and that’s it.
That's my town in a gist. It's getting better, but the nearby park is filled with bike lanes that take you nowhere. Fun to ride but literally just for leisure.
My city put one in a couple of years ago. Kind of pleasant if no one's walking on it. It's kind of a little taste of Netherlands. It might be pleasant for a nice little walk, but you can leisurely cycle from one end of it to the other in 2 minutes. And it's not even a help because it runs parallel to one of the quietest streets in the downtown area, a street I have never felt unsafe biking on.
Agreed on the Multi-use Pathways or "trails", they are great until you want to go somewhere and there isn't an exit to where you need to go.
We have some arterial multi-use paths here in DC. Great to be away from cars, but honestly kind of dangerous for pedestrians. On the other hand, I used one of our cycle tracks yesterday and encountered not one but two cars that had managed to wedge their way in between the barriers. One actually drove on the track for a good 25-50 feet before turning back in to the street.
The real problem with side streets is that they're always the last to be repaved, and I'm admittedly more ruthless than many cyclist, but I'll happily share the road with cars to keep the blisters off my keister.
For my money, I'll take freshly paved streets with a few hundred more "sharrows" and "Cyclist may use whole lane" signage over pretty much any other cycling infrastructure. That and some traffic calming measures + reduced speed limits would make me a very happy bike commuter.
@@willkoper
If you're young, strong and an aggressive rider, there are advantages to sharrows.
The problem with sharrows is that any lane which is for both cars and bicycles is a lane for cars. Bikes take their chances.
If you're trying to encourage people to start riding bikes, sharrows are the worst. The people who would ride there are the ones who already ride.
If you want to bring in people who don't like the roads because they feel dangerous, you need routes that don't mix bicycles with 3 ton juggernauts busty updating their Facebook status.
Every major road should have a dedicated bike track on each side of it.
Go another step farther: every major road should be dedicated to bikes and transit. Car drivers should have to use the "side streets" since they are the ones that endanger everyone else.
@@WolfSeril107 FYI, you have your terminology backwards! "Roads" are actually point-to-point passages (think highways) which are supposed to have a few turn-off points, and those turn-off points become "streets", which are places with buildings on each side, such as businesses, homes, etc. So vehicles should really be delegated to roads, so streets (which is where most people congregate, walk, and cycle) can exist in those spaces safely. This is also where the term "stroad" comes from - a weird combination of a road and a street, which just ends up being a horrible experience for every mode of transport. Vehicles have to constantly stop to wait for people turning into business parks, pedestrians usually have little or no sidewalk infrastructure, and people on bikes usually don't have anything but painted bike gutters.
Delivery vehicles should be exceptions, of course.
I don't think I agree with that. In my town these are almost everywhere and it makes for a unpleasant trip. Instead traffic should be calmed around points of interest. Nobody wants to sit and drink a coffee on the side of the street.
There should be a network of multi use pathways wich connects points of interest creating spaces where people actually want to spend time.
@@Lennard222 how is it unpleasant?
The cycle track is great, but missing two things. One, bike-priority traffic signals. Two, the path dips down to street level at intersections, while the better design would be for the street to raise up to meet the cycle track level. The reason being that raising the road level forces cars to slow down (increasing safety), and also signals to cars that they are not the priority. That in turn makes it easier for people to justify getting onto a bike instead of into their car- if bikes are the priority in a community, people are far more likely to use them than if they are shoehorned in alongside cars and still defer to cars at intersections.
I was going to say this exact thing! It is great design that the bike lane is raised above street level, something they seem to never manage here in Australia, but they need to stay raised when crossing streets. Particular T-intersections where cars should be travelling more slowly and generally don't have right of way!
I think raised crosswalks are the wave of the future! New York City is putting them in.
Absolutely, those things would help. As a Calgarian though, I'm just impressed that there is any investment at all into this sort of infrastructure. Calgary is essentially the gasoline capital of Canada so it has always had car-first policies. It is also situated in the great plains, so a lot of early city development was 'wide' so there was no emphasis on building the city tall and making it commuter friendly. Not to mention the deeply embedded mindset here that it is too cold in the winter to cycle.
There is still a long ways to go but I see far more cyclists now than I did five years ago.
Particularly with the parking next to the cycle lane - I'm always worried about getting right-hooked by a car trying to make a quick turn with that setup
The thing I don't like about bike tracks and side streets is the government subsidized parking on the road. I have had to do many an emergency stop when people get out of their cars. They might tend to look more on the driver's side, but passenger side egress will not be so observant. Not many driveways at least. A lot of bike accidents are on sidewalks where the cyclist feels 'safe' and motorists don't look or don't notice the bicycle. They turn intro an offstreet parking lot crossing the sidewalk. All I can advise is make yourself as visible as possible with lights and bright colored clothing. Be very aware of hazards.
They are all great. In my area voters established an agency for building trails and funded it with a sales tax. While the first several trails were multi-use paths that were mainly recreational. More and more are being built as “cycle tracks” that will connect actual destination and also integrate with our existing transit system.
That’s sort of what I would expect, too, for any city that’s responsive to its citizens or whose citizens are active in pointing the direction they want their city to go in. It seems logical when first being able to justify those multi-use paths that you’d build recreational ones that are away from roads and busy areas - that seems intuitive to me. But as you actually do that, I think it would be pretty common that more people would use them and after more people start using them, it’s going to start to become more obvious what their shortcomings are and how practical cycling can be as more of a utilitarian activity rather than recreational or sport activity.
In essence, to me it seems like the recreational paths are where most “beginners” would start, but they would soon learn what they didn’t know that they didn’t know because they opened the door to something no one else really knew either before the door was opened.
The interesting thing about the bikelanes in the last route is that near intersections it's sending you towards the cars. In the Netherlands the exact opposite happens, you might be cycling on the road, but near intersections you will be separated from car traffic. I wonder why the engineers chose to direct the cyclists "into" traffic.
That said, that last route looks fantastic, it's not at the level of the Netherlands, but probably better than most other European countries.
Yes, we have a lot to learn about safe intersections. Thanks for sharing this insight.
Yes, cycle lanes "giving up" on the approach to junctions is the norm here in the UK. That's usually where I'll jump off my bike and walk it along the pavement (sidewalk) to the other side of the junction before jumping back on again.
Canada: "There's different types of bicycle infrastructure."
Me in Florida: "You guys have infrastructure!?"
Some people don't see cycling as utility of getting from point A to B. They can't fathom cycling three miles to the grocery store when they can continue to gain weight driving to buy their junk food.
i think a lot of people dont even realize that you can attach lots of big cargo bags to your bike in order to haul lots of groceries and what-not. my mom looked at me crazy when i tried describing panniers to her.
Multi-use paths in my town are made of gravel! So bad for many reasons: you get horribly dirty any time it rains (as does your bike and drivetrain!), traction, undermining/damage/holes, vegetation growing in it. They're very popular with recreation cyclists and pedestrians, but they're horrible.
There are also parts of the mutli-use pathway network that are like that in Calgary so don't feel too bad.
In one of our suburbs they have a long, flat, multi-use path along the water and the gravel they used has this fine white powder that works it's way in around your tires and valve stem. We both got slow leaks and had flat tires the next day. I wonder why no one bikes? ;)
@@fallenshallrise Thanks for pointing this out, I'll make sure to keep an eye for that. Which city are you referring to, if you don't mind?
Sounds like a great big middle finger to people in wheelchairs as well.
I didn't really notice while watching the videos, but were there any bike parking racks? This would make the complete streets even more complete IMO. There was a some lost space in front of the ice cream shop that would have been perfect for that. I kinda hate getting somewhere and have to search for a parking or having the lock my bike on an unsafe object, like a sign.
Bike racks? But where will we put the car parking????
One interesting part about the time you rode was the recent rain showing how much effort is put into keeping roads dry compared to how little is done for (some parts) of the bike track.
Thanks for the great video. At 13:33 you see a problematic situation that could be planned much safer. Just do not show green lights at the same time for right turning cars and bikes (and pedestrians). Here in Germany we have a lot of accidents when cars just turn right without checking for bikes going straight ahead. I think in the Netherlands they would never plan it this way. Here in Cologne they also started to forbid right turns for cars in several places that were dangerous.
Cycling to work I often decide to take the longer but greener way along parcs and on side roads to arrive with a low stress level. If I am not in a hurry pleasure beats time :) Though the cycle track is a save and fast ride I think I would decide for side streets to go to the ice cream shop because I do not like noisy cars next to me.
This is a good point. Both right and left turning vehicles can be a problem in situations like this. I left-turning vehicle almost turned into me yesterday
Often times the shortest way is also not the fastest one, the greener way is often faster since the path is uninterrupted by streets and traffic lights, allowing you to go faster.
Two major collisions have happened like this in recent weeks in British Colombia. In one case the vehicle was filmed turning right on red where explicitly disallowed.
I think I'm more scared of getting left-hooked; the close calls I've had were cars trying to make a quick turn against oncoming traffic.
Netherlands here. We always have separated signals for bikes and cars.
There is however another 'trick' we use. If the signal is a "round light" it means that other traffic could cross your path (pedestrians or cyclists).
If it's just an "arrow light" it means no other traffic will cross your path and you can turn right without checking.
We have the traffic rule that the one turning will always have to give way to traffic going straight ahead. This goes for all types of traffic.
That reason is essentially why I consider raised/separated bike lanes so dangerous here in Boston. Cars become less aware of your presence and are more likely to cut you off when turning off the road.
I'd argue it depends a lot on urban design what makes these work. Perhaps the best example of a multi-use pathway is the Metropolitan Branch Trail in Washington, DC. It acts as a grade-separated bypass to many bike-unfriendly roads and also connects residential and commercial areas, such as restaurants, movie theatres, grocery stores, etc. So not all places have bad multi-use pathways. Oddly enough in that pathway, there are now a lot of breweries that popped up along that route as there is a side benefit to drinking establishments that are transit accessible and people don't have to interact with cars.
Your comment reminds me of the NJB video on Oulu, Finland. Where the trails serve as a fully fledged transport network accross the entire city, with loads of grade-separation from large roads.
The Atlanta Beltline is another excellent multiuse pathway. It gets super crowded, so sport cyclists don't like it, and the east side would probably benefit at this point from some cyclist-pedestrian separation, but it definitely feels very much like a complete street (with lots of trailside, trail-facing businesses as well as dense residential developments), but no cars.
@@slaterpenna2797It's certainly a good component of a cycle network. But it's still a work in progress. Fortunately, there's a lot of community support here.
Totally agree. There can be good uses of multiuse pathways, and perhaps the best part of them is that they are usually completely separate from automobile traffic. But the approach to planning them needs to be different than what we typically see here.
One of the issues with "side streets" is that in many North American cities, the zoning prevents there from being destinations along the side streets.
This does not have to be the case. (But proper cycling infra is still better).
This is a great point. It's actually illegal to put things on many of these roads that people might actually want to ride a bike to.
@@Shifter_Cycling Of course! You don't want to have traffic or worse THOSE PEOPLE walking in front of your house!!!!!
This reminds me about how badly Victoria bungled some of its bike routes. It was obvious to put the cycle tracks right through the commercial "villages" in the city, take people direct to their destinations right? But instead business lobbied to tuck the bikes a block or two away from all the destinations on side streets because bikes should be out of sight tucked away on a residential side street. All in the name of preserving street parking that accounts for like 2% of their customers.
This is NIMBYism at it's worst. Victoria (I'm a resident) is actually comprised of 13 separate municipalities; with 13 distinct town councils, 13 individual mayors, etc. One can easily imagine the bureaucratic nightmare with proposing anything like cycling infrastructure that spans beyond these individual municipal borders. This is also why the federal government forced Victoria into building a sewage treatment facility after years of inaction--all 13 municipalities perpetually refused to house the required treatment plant until one was forced to.
Also, how is it that the business owners don't see new commuting infrastructure for bikes as a supplementary vector literally delivering customers to their businesses?
Similarly, I despise arriving at a destination, grocery store for example, only to discover the designated bike lock up area is adjacent to, or doubles as the staff/public smoking area.
Montreal built dedicated bike routes on commercial streets. The businesses were against the idea since in would reduce the number of customers able to park. In turns out that their sales sales in general have gone up and new businesses have opened. Another myth erased « bike lanes are bad for business »
What a missed opportunity! Businesses are just beginning to clue in to the hard data that sales actually INCREASE with bike lanes or pedestrians only zones. I am reminded of Bloomberg in NYC to Sadik kahn "In God we trust, everyone else brings data!" Toronto gripedf or years about bike lanes on Bloor or King St but now they love the increased business. Cars not whizzing by or parked out front monopolizing space means slow roll/stroll traffic that notices shops and stops and BUYS!
Special thanks to Alister for his input and inspiration for this video!
I agree wholeheartedly!
Great video! Really helps paint the picture to those typical responses you see from people that just look at cycling as a recreational hobby. Absolutely those paths are great, we need them, they are pretty and accessible for lots of people. But just look at how much more efficient that separated bike lane for marginal impact to already wide right of ways. Great job Calgary and great video idea.
Thanks Kevin. I think it's so helpful for people to see these routes rather than just talk about them.
Living in Florence (Italy), I have to say that separate and well defined bike lanes are by far the best options; in fact, giving the huge cultural interest of the city, you almost always find tourists occupiyng the entire width of the multiuse pathways having no clue of the fact that they are supposed to share it with bicycles. Just wanted to share my experience commuting in Florence, love your videos, keep it up!
This largely is similar to my experience in my city EXCEPT that my home town Atlanta, Georgia has a multi-use pathway that effectively is a mainstreet with tons of destinations not a solely recreational path.
We have various separated bike trails (the terminology gives away that they're solely aimed at recreation), that are nice and I've even found occasional routes they're useful for in getting to destinations for, but they're mostly like the trail you showed. Very windy, beautiful scenery but not the most practical routes most of the time. However there is one huge exception known as the Atlanta Beltline. This is a multi-use pathway that cuts right through tons of great destinations in the city. It's also an old rail route but one where tons of businesses, homes, and parks lie along it and the eventual goal is to link up the various sections to form a ring around the inner city. It's generally a straight path with only slight inclines/declines, it's pretty wide with well maintained grass on both sides, but then just entrances to places like Ponce City Market, a big shopping/eating area, grocery stores, apartments, townhomes, and other assorted places. And everytime I go on it, the place is PACKED. It actually gets so crowded it's basically impossible to go max speed on a regular, non-ebike most of the time because it's such a popular destination and route. And it is quite easy to get there from our transit system. Trains and buses allow you to take bikes on and there's short bike-friendly routes from multiple train stations onto the Beltline. My only complaint is there could be a better set of connections to downtown from there as there are few separated bike lanes and those that exist stop short at not great places, but it's one of the best examples I've seen in North America of how a LONG (it'll be 33 miles once completed) 100% car free legit street can work.
For pure riding pleasantness, the trails with their lower foot traffic levels and natural scenery are the best. But for practical travel and destinations, the Beltline beats the pants off of complete streets. We need complete streets don't get me wrong, most of the city can't be completely car free. But if I'm comparing the complete streets I have encountered (mostly in the Atlanta suburb Decatur that is a very bike friendly city for the US) to the Beltline, it's no competition. Separated bike lanes are great, but having a direct, you can't even see or hear cars 90% of the time, route that is designed to take folks to real destinations? Absolutely unbeatable.
This sounds really interesting. Thanks for sharing what's happening in Atlanta.
@@Shifter_Cycling What type of bike is that? E bike? What is the fastest speed do you get to? Im trying to decide on if I want a ebike or a normal bike, I have a few hills here and there and want to drive it out far sometimes
The Beltline project sounds fantastic. I often bike on the multi-use pathways near me here in San Francisco. They now exist in several sections of Golden Gate Park. The biggest and most recently created is JFK Drive, which appeared in 2020 - it is an entire car street blocked off and converted to multi-use, and it's become a huge recreational destination as well as a major corridor for east-west travel, and one of the subjects of a political battle to bring back the cars. The Panhandle, east of JFK, continues the corridor, but it's really a bit too narrow for the amount of traffic it's getting. It has two paths, and only one is designated multi-use, but while cycling you have to pass a lot of pedestrians because they'll take either one.
All of them are useful to the extent that the park lets you exit to the neighborhoods. So the Panhandle's path is very useful because it's right on the grid and gets you to the commercial corridors, but other sections of the park are blocked off by destinations and won't exit for 10 blocks. This is not really as big an issue as the fact that once you exit, you go straight through busy intersections into painted lanes and a sea of parked cars. The streets need a complete-street redesign to make the network really work for the last mile, and it's become more pressing as pedestrian deaths have risen despite an official "Vision Zero" policy; just this past week, for example, a speeding car exiting the park turned into another car, plowing it into a bus shelter and hospitalizing four pedestrians waiting there.
The belt line is such a interesting study, I hope they add more housing along the belt line facing towards the path.
Starting to think I should get tf out of Americus then 👀
sooooo, did you get ice cream with each ride??? ;-)
I had planned for the last shot of the video to be eating ice cream that I bought on my last ride, but I ate it too quickly for the camera!
Thanks!
Amazing, thank you Richard! I appreciate the support. It means a lot!
If you ate three ice cream cones I'd suggest a few extra kilometres.
Good on you helping out that person who dropped their phone!
the separated bikeway had one major problem you didn't seem to notice: very little space between the bikeway & the parked cars. the opportunities for getting doored & for negative interactions with people at their cars are too high. these kinds of infrastructures are necessary, but they still have to be built with an awareness of all the hazards that are faced.
interesting the push back( hate) from motorists , "cyclists should have licenses" and "pay insurance"..etc. A lot of kids ride bikes, giving them safe routes to travel is a win-win. Less bikes in traffic, safer for everyone. I think you should interview some city planers. Why are north American cities planned the way they are?Lousy for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.People get paid a lot of money, to sit around talk about this, and draw up community plans. I suspect possible bike lanes are sacrificed for car parking, then painting some lines on the road for cyclists is the usual solution... forcing cars and bikes into each other's way.Causing animosity on both sides.
Oh yeah, talk is the cheapest. That is what they do here, lecture about safety, basically victim blaming. Next cheapest is paint, which they also love around here. Nowhere is there a separate cycle track. Just a multi use path at the beach. Honestly they must be shelling out big bucks for lawsuits and insurance by the looks of things -- not so cheap.
@@robinrussell7965 Where I am pedestrian deaths are common, caused by cars of course. But people worry about being hit by a bike?Separate the three cars,cyclists,pedestrians. Multi use paths are a nightmare... kids, dogs, wheel chairs, walkers...separate connecting cycle paths are the way to go.For everybody.
I fully support the idea of there being a pollution/space tax on SUVs and large trucks/vehicles like they have in some major urban cities. If you’re going to drive bigger vehicles that pollute more and take up more space, then you should be willing to pay extra for it. There needs to be more incentives/penalties for these transitional movements, making downtown cores more efficient with rapid transit and bike lanes, etc. Also, yes, the biggest issues are combining all three together. It just doesn’t work. Better to designate and separate. Safer and certainly more enjoyable for everyone.
I loved this comparison. Thank you, Tom. I recently rode through Calgary on my cross Canada tour and used the multi use path network to get out of the city. I was impressed how far the network reached, not only in city centre but well outside of it.
Great test. While you didn't call it out, it's pretty apparent where geography plays a role in the usefulness (livability) of the infrastructure. The bridge, in particular, becomes the only way across the river.
I've lived in the Puget Sound area since 1997 and made use of all the various kinds of bicycle infrastructure. I used to live on the west side of the lakes and work on the east side. For nearly 10 years I rode a multitude recreational trails system around the north end of the lake because the bridge didn't have an option. This added 30 miles onto my otherwise 10-ish mile commute one-way. While it was an enjoyable ride, I really wanted a bike lane on the 520 bridge, because it would take me where I was going .
We have a Bishop Grandin Greenway here in Winnipeg, and it's a gorgeous 2-way seperated mixed-use path that I love taking. The problem, is that i need to bike for 15min on residential side streets, stroads, and cross 8 lanes of stroad (in 15sec) just to get there. It pains me that this is basically one of few "unicorn" paths in Winnipeg. If your stroad is lucky enough to have ANY bike infrastructure, you can bet your ass it's going to be a painted bicycle gutter.
We have a Greenway to Nowhere (which is a nice ride) but if you want to get to a place you have to ride on sidewalks and/or risk getting ran over on a Strode.
Lovely to see happy mums and kids riding together. It’s Kidical Mass in Exeter, U.K. today, it’s great fun
What do you think about the way I ranked these routes? Would you have scored them differently?
Yes, I would have scored them very differently. The multi use pathways took roughly a third more time than side streets and you rated them higher for liveability. Those side streets remind me of my hometown and they are quite fine to cycle down, and lead to way more useful places than the multi use pathways. I would never choose the pathways over side streets to get to that ice cream shop.
Also, two criteria’s that are subjective basically take anything objective out of it. Pleasure is a weird criteria. This cycle track is useless for commuting, but hey it’s nice! The Sunday drive rating feels out of place on an urban transportation channel.
You found driving on the side of a major street inhaling exhaust fumes more pleasurable that a quiet side street? That did not compute with me either. (Although that cycle track is quite Ace and I am jealous.) What would that track need to get a 10? I have a major highway through town with no sidewalks on the side with businesses and no bike lanes. If I got that it would be an 11, not a 9.
It was perfect! I do however think the main road doesn't have much shade and as someone who lives in a hot place it doesn't seem so nice to ride it. But definitely more "fun" looking than the other roads. Awsome video! :)
I absolutely agree getting turned around should count for the time. I’ve had to backtrack when a sidewalk/path just ends into a busy street that is not safe to bike through. Definitely a problem near office parks, almost like the infrastructure is designed to keep non car owners out of the area.
They have lined it well in places with trees, once they grow it'll be better
What phone app were you using? Looked like it was providing directions as well as duration and speed
There are so many awesome little restaurants in that part of the city, I'm so glad they made it more accessible
This is usually the channel I recommend to people who want to start cycling more, it's so nice to have this resource I can refer people to that's focused on bikes as transportation. Especially since you're also in Canada, which negates a lot of the "oh cycling isn't a viable alternative to cars here because bla bla bla".
Amazing, thank you Buzz!
I was hoping to see you eating ice cream during the summary sequence, that would have been the cherry on top 😂, thanks for the great video.
This was great. This demonstrates levels of "goodness" of bike infrastructure.
I appreciate the effort you go to in providing real world metrics. Well done and thank you.
In Minneapolis, the Midtown Greenway was built along a largely grade-separated railroad track. As a cycle route AND a land redevelopment incentive, the Midtown Greenway has been a major success, during a neglected part of the city into a fashionable redeveloped area.
I would measure 2 more metrics I find very important.
The Danger Factor. Along each route there are dangerous and safe portions. Use a map to add up the % distance on unprotected high speed or congested areas that you feel are dangerous.
Secondly, the Number of Traffic Lights. I hate sitting at badly timed lights in my city. So I will choose my route to avoid them and save wasted time.
Engaging and insightful video!
Tom so good to see you still active on CZcams and growing :D
Had no idea we had these on Calgary! So excited to ride on these tracks and hope to see them more around town!
Great video! They put those same cycle tracks on 24th avenue nw which is a major part of my commute to work at the UofC - and honestly one of the the major reasons I started biking to work.
This is a really good experiment. I guessed correctly which was the best, so I guess I wasn't surprised by it, but I find that it illustrates really well what the problem is without any drama. That's really important when you're trying to present information to people who aren't convinced by the whole urban cycling thing yet.
Great video, should be sent to all city town planners 😉
@notjustbikes will love this urban planning episode. Great video Tom
The main point in favour of "cycle tracks" is that you can follow the established main transit routes. You don't have to relearn several different routes for a few destinations just because the side street pattern is not always aligned with the main roads.
That said, in most European cities and towns, the side streets can be a very "liveable" experience, too, especially in vibrant neighbourhoods. You might just discover the shop or restaurant that no car driver ever will.
Thanks for the video. Alastair is a good friend of mine, so it was a very pleasant surprise to hear his name when I stumbled upon this video. I sent him a thank you as well. ^_^
I will say in bigger cities having separated streets intended for higher bike use and others for car use between high demand areas is certainly good and is part of the reason Dutch biking is so good. ( those "side streets" become bike highways and have more economical connection to destinations than the car routes too over there.)
Amazing timing. I went on a long ride last night and had this same experience. I wanted a chill ride so I took a long loop, basically a triangle of multi-use paths joined by a cycling route which ended up being a side street with some signs. It was "pleasant" for most of the distance but after 12k I was getting hungry and had to leave the route to ride in traffic to go somewhere with stores and restaurants.
The old way of city planning here is to put all the cars on the street with all the restaurants, breweries, cafes and patios and the bikes 1 or 2 streets over where there is nothing to do. In the few places that bike routes are where restaurants and patios are located it's great. Easy to get there and you can chill with a drink without 4 lanes of traffic speeding by.
The new bike track was a welcome surprise the last time I biked over to that area. I frequently recreationally bike over to that area (coming from downtown it's nice to hop along the path and ride either east or west) so having an option to interact with the community is welcomed.
Keep going, I'm learning how to start getting involved in making my city a better place to cycle from you. I'm reading Frostbike too, finally someone gets the challenge of ice and chinooks!
Amazing, thank you! I think every city has its unique winter challenges, and ours is ice and chinooks! Thanks for the support, and good luck in making your city better!
Wow, it is good to see bowness area leading the street completeness trend
"Massage parlours" lol, that tops ice cream, which really raises the issue of a need to use the bike for more important issues than ice cream (or perhaps massage parlours). Like shopping. I'm in Montreal and we have a dedicated dense bike way grid with many of them completely separate from cars and the main ones salted and cleared through winter. Clearly Calgary's municipal politicians are behind the times: no surprise as the city is as car-centric as Los Angeles... albeit on a smaller scale. It's more like Amsterdam here in Montreal at this point and that includes the critical issue of "car driver mentality". Every season more and more separated dedicated bikeways are being built. I honestly almost never have to actually drive on a road with cars near me here. And that's for shopping and essentials, not "ice cream." Cheers.
Hi Tom, I'm really loving all the videos brother. I also live in calgary, and you have inspired me to take up bike commuting. Hope to catch up with you one day.
That cycle track looks pretty awesome as a resident of Atlanta
My dad lives in Bowness and whenever I visit YYC, I either bring my folding Brompton, or I borrow a bike - so I know that multiuse pathway well! The seperated cycle track along Bowness road was an absolute game changer! if only it extended west all the way to Bowness Park, and it took you across Shaganappi and continued down Parkdale Blvd and through kensingtom! - but sadly, you need to switch back to the multiuse just a bit beyond that ice cream shop. Also.. I have to say, particularly as i'm a woman, that multiuse pathway is a bit too isolated in parts at night - and I feel safer with known danger of the giant trucks and busses on the main road, than on the isolated parts of the bow river path.
great simple way to explain bike commuting.
Thanks so much for the support. I really appreciate it!
Loved this video, it really shows what is like baseline for bike friendly infrastructure and livable cities. On the topic of whether to have
On the topic of wheter to have cycle track on both sides, I think I like having track on one side but in both directions. What happens otherwise (at least around here) is that both are too narrow and you can't pass safely (maybe we shouldnt?) And you cant fit a bike trailer through. Around here we have a protected contra-flow bike lane that is 2 bike widths wide and a striped-yellow-line, so it's easy to fit a trailer through and if nobody is using the other direction you can use it to pass. I think that's my favorite kind of bike lane.
I love riding through the park or the side streets, I think it's really nice to be away from the traffic and noise. Sadly in my city this is really uncomfortable. Many bridges (where you have to be on the main road again) and mostly cobblestone sidestreets
Great video Tom! Here in Hamilton Ontario, we have a few core city east west and north south protected bike lanes that work for commuting and getting you where you want to go with dedicated signals. There are 'bike routes' through side streets but they have the problems you outlined. Unfortunately, we are killing pedestrians and cyclists at a record rate on the 1950s 5 lane one way dragstrips the call Main and King streets!! The result ispeople are beginning to talk about redesign for safe streets. There are also great rail trails but they are just for recreation. Great rating scale and test design. Thanks to Alistair too!
The separated path in Bowness appears to be a better design than the one in Capital Hill along 24th Avenue parallel to Confederation Golf Course. Last week I did see a car parked on the sidewalk / bike path. The bike path and sidewalk are not well separated. In fact the only difference is the colour, one part is black and one part is grey. I do appreciate when bike paths and cycle tracks are properly separated. Thanks Tom for all the great ideas and updates.
A separated bike route through a neighbourhood shopping area is a great amenity. It often seems you can get to a shopping street safely by bike, but once there if you want to make several stops you may be dealing with faster through-traffic & parked cars.
One thing that struck me was the number of puddles on some of the bike-specific lanes after the rain...I could almost hear Pekka Tahkola saying 'Drainage!'. :-) Those puddles could easily turn to ice several months a year.
Also puddles have a nasty habit of hiding potholes.
This could only a dream on my country, without any goog infrastructure even for the cars. 🇬🇹 Great content. 🖖
Nice video! There is also another item into consideration, that would be the purpose of the ride, like if you´re commuting I guess Cycle tracks would be the best option, but in case your going with a friend or family or kids to the ice cream shop, there’s always the social ride that’s also fun, riding side by side, and the best option in this case would be the pathways.
Great video! In my city (Budapest, Hungary) I can appreciate that I have separated bike lane from home to work, because it’s along busy roads. You always say in your videos that you don’t like painted bike lanes. I think it depends on how busy the road is. In some areas of the city like suburban streets I think they can be completely fine. For me multi-use pathways are more problematic. Pedestrian always pay less attention than car drivers, often you can’t overtake them safely, they don’t even recognise that they aren’t on a simple sidewalk and sometimes yell on cyclist. A good example is a multi-use pathway in the city along the river Danube (Duna in Hungarian), many tourist are walking in every direction, very narrow in some places, hate to ride there.
While you were riding the cycle track I noticed you passed a bus stop. In my commuting experience during morning rush hour in the Denver, Colorado, metro area, the cycle track would have been completely blocked by people standing while they waited for the bus. They would all be looking in my direction as I approached but not a single person would step off the path to let me by. Thereafter, whenever I got to this location I would take to the street so I wouldn’t have to deal with the blocked path.
Cycle tracks are a pretty common sight in the denser parts of Copenhagen, Denmark. When I visited a few years ago I was both shocked and impressed with the bike infrastructure. Definitely way ahead of anything we have here in the US
Очень нравится ваш канал. Спасибо за вашу работу!
In my community, we have a fairly comprehensive coverage with painted one-way bike lanes. I have found that I can get where I need in reasonable safety, except when the lane is co-opted for road work signs, tree trimmers and the occasional break down. We have a way to go yet.
This is my first comment on YT. So thank you for the video,
I'm from Cologne, Germany and probably have a very different experience. I would say it depends on what kind of transport you do. Short distance or long distance. At the moment I'm planning an overnighter from Cologne to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I also can choose between different routes and all your criteria are relevant. A lot of the trio is along a "bigger" street/road that connects cities. It's probably ahh the rank you would call a highway, but it's not an Autobahn and mostly only one line per direction as is normal over here.
There is a separated bikelane along that road, so it probably would best fit your third kind of infrastructure. But it's boring. And loud. And stinky. So I'm partly switching the route away from that road at infrastructure more of the second kind. Along a canal, through fields or through woods. Most of these are part of hope routes and and not single trail or the like. At other places I switch onto less boring side streets with old houses from the middle ages and cure shops. Instead of sticking the big road that over here often avoids the real centre of a town.
Same for daily commuting or tasks. I use a lot of parks and side streets over here in Cologne. As they are often less stressful, less noisy and sometimes even more direct. But we have a nice network of parks that are also intended for transport. Even some school routes him through them. As yes, there are kids taking the bike to school. Even as when I was younger it was more usual.
I'm actually not sure about the new bike track you got. Yes, going along main streets is something you want to be able to do. And you want those streets either be closed to cars or dedicated bike infrastructure.
But over here in Cologne we had those higher level, separated tracks. And we fought a long fight to get them removed and to get a (currently painted) bike line on the street instead. Actually at a lot of big streets now a former Caroline is dedicated to bikes, now. This is done for safety reasons. As if you are away from cars, the drivers don't realise you being there which can cause accidents as the crossings. And there is also an issue with getting doored if the bike line passes parked as closely as yours did.
As somebody else said. In Cologne we are not the Netherlands. But we currently have some programs and evaluations about accidents and how to reduce them. Like removing bad left and right turns for cars, putting the bikes beside the cars. Or to confer some network of side streets to bike streets or the like.
We still have a long way to go. But we already seem to have a lot more sensible options for biking well enough, and less stupid separation of shops and houses and park and destinations, that my answer over here would be different. My trip to my favoured ice shop is through side streets. Usually on foot. As it's part of my neighbourhood.
So the answer is: you just need more infrastructure when there is not "the best" but the one matching your planned activity and it's probably an easy mix of all three types that interconnect with each other.
You don't need bike-stroads. Putting bike lanes only at car stroads would lead to that. You want sensible long distance away from car bike-roads with few interceptions and few red lights. But you also want bike-streets, where it's easy to get to destinations. Both could be bike infrastructure alongside car infrastructure but they also could be something different.
Where i live there are separated cycle paths by the side of most of the main roads. The cycle paths function like there own roads with a footpath at the side and 2 lanes for cycling traffic. Generally, rather than crossing roads you go on under them so there is little interaction with traffic but as they follow main roads, they still go everywhere you want. I think they are great, I can get everywhere I want. However they would be difficult to fit in after everything been built - my town was built with them.
Definitely would like to see more of that, for sure.
I will also say that I'd like to see more creative use of the multiuse pathways. One of my favorite things on the (relatively short) Katy Trail in Dallas, TX was The tavern that backed up against it (the trail follows the power right of way through an area I'd call midtown in Atlanta's nomenclature). They basically made an "entrance" on the trail and ergo there was an amenity on the trail without even having to navigate the parking lot. That's not easy to do, I realize, but I do think that connections from the recreational trail to the city streets (with bike infrastructure) would greatly enhance the total experience. For example, we (Atlanta) have a "Greenway" that runs along a river and is very much recreational. But it parallels a street that is fully retail. And yet the access is minimal and supported by *no* infrastructure, which I find mind boggling. There's 10 miles of trail, completely away from roads, including crossing, that runs past neighborhoods whose tenants could ride down and shop there. Or get to work in other cases (my office is not far from the trail, but, again, incomplete infrastructure). Atlanta is linking trails in greater numbers now, but an equal focus on navigation, as you say, would be a boon to all.
Here where I live in UK it’s a mix of shared pavements, roads and public bridle ways. There needs to be more protected cycle lanes and shared paths.
I take that route all the time to visit my dad 😊
In my city, Christchurch NZ, the separated cycleways tend to go down back streets which is good for quiet, less cars, access to schools, but bad for access to shops, businesses, other destinations. The main road has painted bike lanes on a 60kmph road so not very safe but it takes you past places you wanna go and is more direct. So it more depends on the route than the type of infrastructure imo. The direct route to destinations will always be the most convenient, but not necessarily the safest or most pleasant.
Separate bike lanes are definitely the best. Outside of downtown Denver (CO), there aren't very many separate bike lanes. However, the Platt river goes in several directions, so the recreational paths that follow the river have become my most effective of way of running non-downtown errands by bike.
Works great for businesses near the river, but others, not so much.
Thanks for identifying these 3 distinct types of bike infrastructure. I'm just getting into urbanism and I was trying to articulate my frustration with most bike infrastructure in New England being relegated to only the multiuse/recreational trails. Still, even these are beneficial because of how dense my area is, but I think the key is integrating these types of bike infrastructure together; as you pointed out, it's annoying to have to adjust going from bike-friendly to bike hostile on your route
Boy you are a lucky to live in such a nice city with multiple choices for routes. I have visited Calgaray a few times but only in the winter to go skiing. I was always impressed with the bike lanes and parks downtown. Saut Ste Marie is making progress with a city circling multi use trail and some painted bike lanes. They have only done traffic calming on one street so far but it's come a long way from nothing. Hmmm... three trips to the ice cream shop and one trip to the cannabis shop. Nice choice of routes!!!
Nice to hear things are changing in the Soo (do you still call it that?). I recommend many trips to the ice cream shop.
@@Shifter_Cycling Yup it's still the Soo. Nothing much changes here except for the increasing number of potholes. Unfortunately both the Soo and Timmins ont, have the lowest population density to number of streets in North America so it's really spread out and although we are relatively small
As far as I understand, the backbone of bike infrastructure in the Netherlands is more akin to the multi-use paths (Look up "The Best Dutch Cycling Infrastructure" by Not Just Bikes). However, they are routed for efficient travel, rather than for joyrides.
The REV network in Montreal is excellent bike infrastructure.
Happily it is being expanded to many more neighbourhoods around the island
In my city in the uk we have 1 multi use pathway that used to be a railway and I like to think of it like a highway of sorts. It's about 6 miles long and connects the inland city centre to the seafront. there are quite a few exits into random surburban side streets but it certainly takes a while to get from it to anywhere else along the way. Because it used to be a railway it's very direct straight to the seafront but it's certainly quite boring, there's a supermarket, running track and a gym/sports centre along it but the rest is just nothingness. It's unfotunatley the only piece of decent cycling infrastructure we have and it's a very similar situation in other towns and cities in the uk, especially the >200k population ones.
I used to think UK infrastructure was bad, especially in poorer northern industrial towns. But my home town has at least 2x fully separared bike paths linking it to the nearest larger metropolitan area (middlesbrough) among other bike lanes and bike paths throughout the town. Luxury compared to what i have in a similar sized town in Canada
There should have been safety ratings for each method. Great vid!
Thanks
Thank you for the support! I really appreciate it!
At the last route I noticed the bikelane was curved towards the road at the intersections, In the netherlands it would constructed away from the road, less car speed, and so much saver.
This is a great point to note. Thanks for sharing.
If you're ever in Montreal, I'd like to challenge you to do the same thing around our neighbourhoods. The city has been quite good at adding painted bike lanes, SHAROWs, multi-use paths etc., but the best bike infrastructure are in the higher income areas.
Places like Westmount, Mount Royal, and the Plateau are BEAUTIFUL for people who don't travel in cars. However, there are still many dangerous and sketchy parts, or transition areas (between Burroughs) that need improvement.
I for one, would love to have SAFE dedicated lanes for cyclists and EV riders EVERYWHERE, to feel like we are safe from motor vehicles, and not a nuisance for pedestrians. Or have multi-use capabilities on all sidewalks. These things are even more necessary for anyone rolling on smaller wheels, like skateboards, rollerblades, kick scooters etc. Most of our painted lanes in my neighbourhood of NDG are on badly neglected roadsides and shoulders, with potholes as large as roasting pans. For a cyclist, these are minor bumps, but to a person whose wheels are smaller than 10 inches, this is an accident waiting to happen.
We also have limited, and hastily designed lanes on underpasses that leave you feeling vulnerable to high speed vehicle traffic as there are no guide rails to prevent motorists from pinning you up against a wall. We're often dumped into extremely dangerous situations or made to take meandering detours to get places where the cyclist infrastructure hasn't been established yet.
These problems are exasperated by a remarkable lack of charging areas as well. Given that there are street lights along every street and public bathrooms in most parks, it's surprisingly complicated to plan one's day around available charge points. These are not issues for cyclists, but cheap commuter scooters lose their charge very rapidly (usually under an hour). So if I'm gonna moan about bike infrastructure, why not throw those gripes in to the mix?
Love your videos. Keep up the great work!
thanks I'm living in the North of England near the seafront and there are multiple ways to get to certain zones and destinations. our council has just proposed more cycling routes to be made to encourage a greener environment
A good tip as a city commuter, use repetitive hand gestures. Ensuring there are vehicles a safe distance away:
-To make a left turn, signal with your left arm that you're going left.
-To make a right turn, signal with your right arm that you're going right.
-To merge point downward and diagonally (still outward from the body) to the lane you'd like to switch to.
Proceed when safe, and make repetitive motions with all so everyone knows what you're doing and apply this to all
Side Routes: One method that I see used is to be putting up a barrier gate that can only be unlocked by emergency vehicles. Bicycles and Pedestrians can still go around the barrier and prevents cars from using it as a shortcut for car traffic.
Multi-use pathways. The main multi-use pathway in my area is mainly Pedestrian driven. There is no bicycle infrastructure at the trailheads for it, they even put up signage saying that bicycles yield to pedestrians. There are also numerous areas where they don't drop down the curb for roadway crossings. Agreed on nothing to do, I can't use the playgrounds put on the pathway. I've shyed away from using my main one because it isn't equipped for bicycles and their speed.
Navigations, both of these methods screw up navigations so you are right on that front. But this isn't usually a problem if you know how to navigation it without the use of a navigation device.
Separated bicycle lanes: Don't have experience with it yet. Okay well one time but that was a special case when I was over 10 miles away from home and was only on it for like 500 feet. At least the navigation seemed to handle this one really well.
The best cycle paths are highspeed cyclepaths. I use the F270 daily to go to school or to most places in the city. They are straight, extremely smooth and seperated from cars except for some streets with very little car traffic. But on these streets cyclists always have priority and at junctions cyclists also always have priority except for places that would be dangerous like say a junction next to a rail crossing. These cyclepaths are amazing so if you are ever in the Netherlands i recommend you try some of these out, my absolute favorite is the RijnWaalpad which goes From Nijmegen to Arnhem.
Thank you for the comparison!
I think that it depends on where you need to go, and depends on what is surrounding the route. If you are surrounded by fences, then most options are good.
In countries with snow we should just have "Shared Curb Lanes". Segregated lanes hinder cyclists when trying to make left turns...
Dedicated paths though should be considered, take some of the roads that cover 50% of city space & turn them into bike & local vehicular paths..
Toronto has a great path network spreading to either end of the city from the core
Your local urban planners are brilliant
Nice comparison!
I would actually like the sidestreets most if they build proper bike infrastructure across that bridge and the small part in the middle. Biking in the middle of those carrier deck sized streets without moving cars must be fun!
On the other hand, the cycle track does not seem wide enough. At least where it's also seperated from the pedestrian space there is no way to overtake a second biker. Sign of planning done by someone who has never been in bike traffic ;)
awasome
It's good and functional that last route and it seems like something I would feel comfortable on to get from the start to the destination. I would consider the path to be a bit on the narrow side compared to what I'm used to in the Netherlands (even for one directional ones), but they are mostly working with the space they've got available on that street. Although I must admit that I do find the width sometimes to be a bit hard to judge with wide angle lenses.
The bits where there was a wide section of grass between the path and the sidewalk were a missed opportunity though, could have widened the bicycle path a bit a bit more to allow even the potential wider users of it to overtake each other safely and comfortably. Also I'm always very annoyed about 14:07 sign placement on the right there, putting it that close to the side of the path essentially makes the right 20-30cm not available and generally just doesn't seem like a safe or sane implementation.
Anywhere without cars is the best route. But if I had to pick between those three, I’d personally take multi-use pathways if possible. They keep you in nature and are likely to be pretty quiet most of the time. They might not be the most direct routes and take longer but it would be worth it to me.
Agreed with your points, this is similar in Denver. Side streets are lovely until you need to cross an obstacle like a river, highway, or railroad with limited bridges, then you have to switch to an unpleasant/unsafe busy street to cross it and maybe awkwardly ride the sidewalk. They can involve lots of zig zagging and turns which lengthen the route, make it less convenient and easy to screw up a turn. Trails are typically recreation focused, and only sometimes work well as transportation routes by accident.
Safe protected bike lanes with safe intersections on traffic-heavy major through streets with destinations must be the key backbone of the system. Side streets ARE still important to fill in the gaps between those backbones, provide short-distance neighborhood routes, and also provide a secondary option for anyone who doesn't want to be on the street with lots of cars. To make the side streets safe/comfortable they need frequent modal filters to keep out car through traffic, and they should have easy connections to protected infrastructure to get across bridges. My city calls these neighborhood bikeways, and so far they are doing a poor job designing them because they won't install enough (if any) modal filters, and they are trying to use some of them as a zig zaggy replacement for protected bike lanes rather than a complement, because they are too cowardly to remove parking on through streets. BOTH are needed. Parks and recreational trails should be taken advantage of as much as possible to double as transportation routes and links.
The Toronto area is chopped into isolated islands by highways and railways. Our Ministry of Transportation absolutely refuses to build safe crossings.
Near me there is a railway bridge over a road that is the only through route, with bike tracks on both sides of the bridge. The teeny tiny problem is that the entire space under the bidge is used by road pavement, from pier to pier. You can't even cycle in the gutter because your shoulder would be hitting concrete on the sides!
In my city, the multi use pathways are more of a grid system which actually do take you to places like grocery stores, restaurants and other services. Yes we have linear Park style more useful for recreation but our network is pretty usable for everyday use. Trying to compare what is best really depends on the location. If you do this same experiment in my town, my guess is you would have different results.