Dangerous cycle lanes report

Road safety and perceived risk of cycle facilities in Copenhagen

is a report that makes unpleasant reading. I'd recommended it but the bottom line is that if you build more cycle lanes along roads then the danger along the road goes down but the danger at junctions goes up. 


"The increase in injuries due to the construction of cycle tracks arises because there are more injuries to pedestrians, cyclists and moped riders at junctions. There has been an increase of 28%, 22% and 37% respectively for these three road user groups." 


With an increase of +1951% in accidents when 'entering and exiting bus passengers' .  I think this means that if you build a cycle lane you get a big increase in cars hitting pedestrians. 


Apparently the problem is that cars turning is the most dangerous place - so introducing a cycle lane pushes cars of the main road meaning more turning and more turning means more accidents. Yuck. 


Comment 


Naturally we would say that the solution is to separate cyclists from cars at all junctions. This is good for the cyclists - they don't like slowing down for junctions and its good for cars - they don't have to look out for cyclists.  We believe the best  way you could do this is to have a gradient separation that is you need an elevated section at junctions. Having a raised section at each junction is inefficient  ( you keep going up and down ) so the natural conclusion is to have a continuously raised section with down spots away from junctions. 

Let them eat tarmac

I've linked to this because you can read some of the negative comments of car drivers as they find their roads pushed aside to make way for cycle lanes. 

It's a problem, how do you make space for a separate transportation network in a city? You can push the car's aside but as anyone who has cycled in a cycle lane full of parked cars knows, car's can push back. The alternatives are go down ( underground the most expensive way of doing things ), don't built ( cycle on the road and hope for the best)  or go up.

Up is the space monorails, but you need minimalism, tight turning, circles and tiny stations. Things you can't do with traditional heavy rail even traditional monorails. PRT can do it, but I think bikes are the most elegant way of doing it. 

Cycleways and travelators

Odd thoughts about high speed travelators/moving walkways. Architects like Brian Rogers had a big thing about them in the 60's. If you want a high capacity (bodies per second) line then a travelator is the thing for you. In the 70's Dunlop tried to invent versions that could slow down and speed up but they could never deal with the problem of people 'bunching up' and then collding as they slowed down. I was told my David Turner ( guy at Warwick University that had done a lot of simulations of this ) that you have problems with the little old lady not walking way from them. 


So what happens if you have one designed for cyclists only ? I saw a cyclist level change in Holland ( nice ) and thought about it as a ski-lift like gradient change device. 


At this point you don't need moving handrails and if you come off you just coast ( assuming there is nothing either side to collide with). More importantly once you come off you just coast (so no little old lady slow moving blockage ). This would be true if you had a system that accelerated too and if the system broke then the passengers would not be threatened. 


Something to consider. What would happen as you got on ( front wheel on back wheel off) if the break was off I guess your front wheel might go backwards for a second.