this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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This design is actually good -- it's a Dutch-style shared street. (See other examples here and here).
Edit: and here's a NotJustBikes video that shows the design.
Don't fall for Jalopnik's pro-car spin.
I trust the Dutch with this design, bikes are treated as priority with a lot of respect. Not the same in the US… and in this test, I especially wouldn’t trust college town kids and local drivers who asked for (and got) additional parking on the same street.
You never arrive at your destination unless you start moving towards it. Knock it off with the defeatist American exceptionalism.
I’m going to assume positive intent and not the hostile tone “knock it off” reads like to me.
True… roundabouts took some time but are pretty prevalent now in my region and people have gotten used to them. I don’t think the US shouldn’t try things, just pointing out a difference in culture and attitude towards cars & bikes in the US compared to Dutch. I also don’t think a college town is the right place to test something like this, maybe I’m wrong and discounting younger drivers too heavily.
I almost got into an accident just yesterday because a car tried to enter a roundabout when I was in it and had right of way. We're getting better, but at least in my semi-rural area, there are still some issues. To be fair, this was a really poorly designed roundabout with a stoplight about 50-75 ft from one of the entries, so it seems to always get backed up (and the car in question was coming through the intersection to the roundabout).
Oh wow, that’s scary. I’m semi-rural too, thankfully I don’t hear much about accidents or incidents in roundabouts at least locally. I’m curious about areas where there are pedestrians and bikes that cross roundabouts too… where I’m at they are farther away from walkable/bikeable territory so it’s really just cars using them.
Most are far from walkable/bikeable areas, but there are two right next to each other near a park that has a lot of car, bike, and foot traffic.
We have a couple of these in my local community. Same thing happened, a bunch of hysterical postings, and then it worked and people just forgot about it
IDK, I'm not a fan of parking on both sides. In the examples you showed, there was either no parking or parking on one side facing oncoming bicycle traffic. If you put parking on both sides, bicycles end up in the door zone if they stay in their lane. Cars will push cyclists into the door zone with this design because they feel they have a right to the center lane.
I would be okay with this if the parking were only on one side.
Glad someone made this comment before me. Here's the MLive article the clickbait is based on. You can learn more about edge lane roads here.
Generally these are good for slower speed routes that don't seea lot of traffic. Residential streets are a perfect example. It's basically how drivers instinctively navigate down slow narrow streets. Not too familiar with that area of Kalamazoo to know if it's a good fit for that road but I'm generally in favor of this road layout and think we need more of them in the US so it's not seen as some scary confusing thing by motorists.
Considering Edge lane roads have reduced crashes by 44% in the US I'd say they fare pretty well with American vehicle ownership. When drivers are sharing the lane with oncoming traffic, it tends to slow their cars down a bit regardless of size. I'd even wager that larger trucks feel the calming effects of this tight road design more than a small car.
Plenty of neighborhoods in the us with parked cars on both sides of a bidirectional travel lane wide enough for one car. Cars go slow and negotiate for space. It's a very similar concept here.