Urban Planet is a daily roundup of blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
What makes the safest intersection for all road users? It’s a question planners, designers and engineers have been tackling for years. In the Netherlands, experiments with a bike lane/turn lane yielded poor visibility for cyclists and too many conflicts. As this video via Momentum Magazine explains, Dutch standard junctions create safe passage for cyclists and pedestrians by carving out corner curbs to keep cyclists separated from both vehicles and pedestrians when turning or crossing an intersection.
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One comment
Its definitely a much safer solution, and it can even increase the capacity of a junction with traffic lights. Here in the Netherlands we’ve much more of these solutions to make (bicycle) traffic much safer and quicker.
Too bad the export of our advanced traffic knowledge isn’t a big thing. Nevertheless I think other countries could learn a lot of the Dutch traffic regulation. It’s not by coincidence that the Dutch traffic is the safest in the world, despite our busy traffic ánd many cyclists. It probably would be a tremendous challenge for Dutch traffic experts like me to improve safety and traffic flow, but most roads in other countries can be used more efficiently I suppose.