Separation Principles
While trawling through www.fietsberaad.nl’s vast documents area (many of which are translated into English), I found a chapter from a Danish manual on cycle infrastructure design. It was specifically addressing the issues of what sort of infrastructure is required for different circumstances - there’s no such thing as one size fits all. So this document sets out the principles for selecting infrastructure needed to build a full, A-to-B cycle network.
“Terminology:
The cycle network is a coherent system of cycle routes. A cycle route goes from A to B, and is planned for bicycle traffic with a high level of safety and sevice. On the main routes there are many cyclists for a long time. Local routes are for few cyclists for a short time. In practice, cyclists should be able to detect when they are on a cycle route, and when they are leaving one.”
What caught my eye was this chart, highlighting the different options available. For safety and convenience, this is all about separation:
Which got me wondering - do we have a similar chart for UK traffic engineers to use? If we do, maybe it looks something like this:
Cynical - me? Nooo.
Indeed, the Danish manual - which is the result of over 30 years best practice - makes it easy to figure out what kind of infrastructure is recommended.
You need to know how many cars on a stretch each day, the speed limit of the cars. Then you can find the infrastructure you need.
With that said, many municipalities implement bicycle infrastructure better than the recommended. Voters demand it.
I like the satire. Except… it isn’t satire, is it?
Sadly no, it’s not satire.
When I found this design document, I was actually looking for its Dutch equivalent. It would be interesting to compare that with the Danish one, and the actual design guides used elsewhere.
The danish model is clearly totally inappropriate for the UK as it doesn’t say whats needed when you have 12,000 vehicles per day all crawling past at 6kph
I believe that this is the official Dutch version (English edition)
It’s not free, sadly.
oops here’s the link…
http://www.crow.nl/nl/Publicaties/publicatiedetail?code=REC25
Cyclists have made a start in Newcastle suggesting key routes to Newcastle City Council.
We now need to campaign for these routes to be adopted into council’s planning and engineering. And the Newcastle Cycling Campaign will!
http://www.bikely.com/listpaths/by/KatsDekker
“The danish model is clearly totally inappropriate for the UK as it doesn’t say whats needed when you have 12,000 vehicles per day all crawling past at 6kph”
I wonder is motorists could be persuaded to fit roof bars, and sturdy pieces of flat board to those. When in traffic jams, the boards join up, and the rear most car lowers a ramp - the bicycles then roll along atop the cars.
For your information
Driven to Excess a report on traffic noise and its corrosive effects on social cohesion
http://tiny.cc/DrivenToExcessFullReport
The busiest road had a declared traffic count of 17,092 in 12 hours and an overall estimate of 21,130 vehicles/ 24 hours. Which is significantly higher than the Danish chart.
[...] big disagreement is how we break down that barrier. One set of campaigners want to separate the large volumes of fast moving motor vehicles from cyclists. The other thinks that there is a [...]
[...] excluded from by a de facto ban). The degree of separation required would be specified by set of Separation Principles, similar to The Netherlands and Denmark, in place of our current (failed) Hierarchy of Provision. [...]
[...] of the things I found interesting was the discussion on when to use what sort of infrastructure. The engineering staff present (and I still count myself as an engineer of sorts) wanted a hard and [...]
[...] Replace the current hierarchy of provision with a much more specific set of separation principles. [...]
[...] Replace the current hierarchy of provision with a much more specific set of separation principles. [...]