State of the art bike way design - a further look

Please note that this blog post has caused considerable confusion. It does not recommend a design, and the sketch presented is not supposed to be a guide for other countries to use to design their traffic lights. The design shown here has in some circles become known as "a standard Dutch junction" but was not the intention of this blog post and is a myth. Other blog posts show the multitude of different designs of traffic light junctions which are really used in an average Dutch city.

Last month I wrote about the new NACTO designs for cycle infrastructure and held the junction design against Dutch junction design. The video that went with the post was taken out of the context of this blog and discussed on forums and other blogs. Without the context some people completely misunderstood it.

Right: Dutch design of an actual junction with cycle paths in red.
Left: the same ideas used on an American road to see if it could be done.

There were of course comments that you can’t really take seriously: “Yuck. That seems like a parody of over-engineering.”

And if someone dares to criticize anything American there is always this: “could be some anti-American bias there.”

Other comments were more serious but reveal a completely different frame of reference:

“I'm not convinced about the safety aspect. I think that this video exaggerates the danger of crossing at a narrow angle. It's just a lane change.”

‘Just a lane change’? That is an interesting way of seeing it. Indeed the whole object of this design is to eliminate just that action. Because a lane change IS a dangerous thing to have to do.

Some commenters were concerned about the remaining space for motorized traffic.

• “large vehicles are to move closer to the center of the junction, possibly disturbing traffic flow”
• [there] “appears to be a sharper turning radius for the Dutch motorist”

The radius is the same as for the conventional US junction. But yes, it appears to be sharper, thus making traffic go slower. One more advantage.

Others were not convinced about the advantages this design has for cyclists. Summarized they:

• believe the ‘swerve’ to the right and then to the left is slowing the cyclists that want to go straight on down;
• fear there would be conflict between cyclists going straight on and right turning motorized traffic;
• fear they would have to wait twice (and long) to make a left turn.

One person on a forum asked if there were Dutch people who have experience with this type of design who could give their view. Others too seem to think this is new and experimental design that should be tested. Well it was… for about 50 years now. Almost all junctions in the Netherlands with separate cycle paths were built exactly like the schematic design in the first video.

Further explanation

This second video shows the design ‘in action’. A number of Dutch junctions showing a number of situations that perhaps shed some light on all the questions. Now you can also see how the various green phases work. Not only do cyclists and pedestrians have their own green phase. Left-turning motorized vehicles get a separate green light as well, when vehicles going straight on -on the same road- have a red light. While this may seem like a bad idea because you would have to wait longer for your own green light, it is in fact the reason for very fast movements on the junctions. Once you get green you can proceed without any waiting for other traffic users that might be crossing your path as is usual in other countries.

More modern solutions

It is interesting that while other people question whether this design could work the Dutch actually have moved on to more modern solutions. The ‘simultaneous green for all directions’ David showed again in his last post is one more modern approach. But an even more radical change is that a lot of the junctions are being transformed into roundabouts. It turns out that these can handle more traffic in a quicker and safer way without even needing traffic lights.

This is still a cross-roads junction in Google Earth...

...but it was already transformed into a more modern roundabout
as can be seen in Google Streetview

Click for many other posts about roundabout design as well as about traffic light junctions, but note that unravelling of cycle-routes from driving routes means that cyclists often avoid such junctions altogether.

A note from David
Please note that while Mark refers to a "standard" junction design in the text above, junctions which exactly resemble this design are not actually common in the Netherlands. Only one junction in Assen closely follows this design and that's already planned to be replaced with a more modern and more convenient (for cyclists) design as used in the rest of the city.

Update 2014: NACTO adopt a similar design
It appears that NACTO took these criticisms on the chin and are adopting a design of junction very similar to Mark's sketch above. Be careful that it is not over-applied. This needs to be one of a range of solutions, amongst better solutions, not the solution or the best solution alongside lesser solutions.