Cycling infrastructure is not just about protected bike lanes. It’s in the little things. For example runnels that help with accessibility and connecting safely from one piece of infrastructure to the next. Here at Amsterdam central station. #CyclingInfrastructure#BikeTooter#Ottawa#Cycling#Amsterdam
Looking at social media rn and I keep seeing articles about: ever larger, ever more-expensive cars, SUVs and trucks out-selling smaller vehicles, rants calling for the abolition of public transport, hate campaigns directed at cyclists, an insistence that driving is the ONLY valid form of transport—
The car industry is panicking. End of fossil fuel burners plus €10,000 for a car-sized battery pack equals end of a viable motoring economy (cheap second-hand cars can't exist in an EV future).
Photos from today's second parcel run, featuring typical everyday Dutch cycling infrastructure.
The first photo shows a bus-stop bypass, but the cycle-path is straight and reasonably wide (about 2.5 metres wide for single direction use) so this doesn't inconvenience cyclists.
The second photo shows a junction with a side road. We have priority and drivers have a place to stop at 90 degrees to the cyclepath and look both ways before they cross.
The second isn't perfect. Sight lines to the right are less than ideal, and drivers sadly cannot be relied upon to drive safely. But generally this infrastructure works well.
There's more about Dutch cycle-paths here, including lots of photos:
Mayor of #Ottawa:
"The debate over closing a specific stretch of Queen Elizabeth Driveway is not about whether or not the city supports active transportation. It’s about where and when are the best opportunities for it."
Today's parcel run. I again had lots of odd shaped parcels so took them in a trailer.
And this time the photo is from the edge of Assen's city centre. The street from here on has restricted access. It's a pedestrian area where cycling is permitted, but we are supposed to look out for pedestrians.
No cars.
Deliveries to shops can be only made in the morning.
Here's a new comment on a nine year old article of mine about Southend-on-Sea in the UK:
"Its nearly 9 years now since your article and yet nearly all your comments remain as relevant as if you had visited last week. However bad the initial schemes may or may not be, the town, now a city, has done absolutely nothing to develop cycling over the last decade. No problems have been sorted, no junctions improved, no changes to the permeability of cycling in the pedestrian areas. In addition one of the effects of Covid has been a collapse in the service levels of the already poor and overpriced public transport offering. All in all Southend will remain a clogged up car based place for many years, probably decades, to come yet. No politicians are trying to do anything useful to reduce car dependency in the town. The waffle and websites will continue to "encourage" cycling and public transport use, but nothing real will ever be provided. I fear UK is slipping further and further behind best practice despite all the hightened modern concerns about global warming, safety and land use that makes the most out of the town. What a waste!"