This roadway configuration originated in the Netherlands where they have over 50 years and many hundreds of road-kilometers of experience with this facility.
Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either.
This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to arterial or collector roads. Taking it out of that context seems risky.
(The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane, and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes².)
Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either.
They actually say that in the video. In Germany they are mostly used in urban settings in streets with speedlimits below 30 km/h I believe. They definitely work if this is a low volume street, however the speed limits need to be enforced (a general problem in many countries IMO).
I used to work in Utrecht in the Netherlands as a contractor (doing Delphi progamming,me based the UK) and I can safely say that the bikes used to terrify me far more than the cars did, as the NL has some of the worst gridlock in Europe, so you can walk faster than the cars, even on motorways. The bikes used to sneak up on you.
As an American it was immediately clear to me the sort of road this website is suggesting we replace with edge lane roads. They are two lane, dotted-white divided, and limited to 45mph. Very common rural and exurban pattern.
This might not have been as clear outside of the North American context.
In most places, the roads I think you're referring to would be dotted yellow divided (unless you mean a 45-mph two-lane one-way road).
In many states speed limits on such roads are 55-75mph. The thing in the article isn't a replacement for those at all.
This configuration looks like an alternative to one-lane, two-way roads in the US (typically no lines, 25mph speed limit; usually only for short parts of longer rural roads; often found near dirt/gravel roads).
One lane roads in the US have room for cars to pull off on the berm to let ongoing traffic pass. This seems similar. A bike wouldn't want to cruise along the red bits of a rural road like the one in the article, becuase they'd repeatedly hit debris. However, the dotted line provide guides to cars to allow them to avoid hitting bikes as they pass, and stretches of a few dozen yards in the red zone would usually be fine.
On a 45mph road though that's a closing speed of 90mph assuming everyone's following the speed limit. It seems crazy to me to have opposing traffic sharing a lane at those speeds.
Opposing traffic is already sharing a lane at those speeds, that's what the double-white is about.
They aren't that wide and there's not a lot of traffic, the safe thing to do is in fact to stay toward the center and yield to the sides when opposing traffic is coming. This isn't that different.
Fair enough but you could say the same for the cyclists. Ultimately having traffic sharing a lane with high relative speeds is dangerous. It's dangerous for the cyclist at 15mph having a car come from behind going 45mph, and it's dangerous for the car having a car driving at them at 45mph. Both a 90mph collision between two cars and a 30mph collision between a car and a bike are likely to be fatal.
Comments
Well yeah, but we use this specific configuration with the shared centre lane only on the lowest tier of rural roads where traffic is limited and the speed limit is 60 km/h (roughly 40 mph), and some select urban streets where they act as a traffic calming measure¹. Most arterial and collector roads have segregated cycleways, both within and without city limits. That is the basis of our road system. Cyclists and motorists mostly share only local roads/streets (30 km/h (20 mph) speed limit within city limits, 60 km/h without). The exceptions are roads where limited space means cyclists have dedicated cycle lanes which motorists may not use for overtaking, but in those cases motorized traffic won't share lanes with oncoming traffic either.
This specific set up is not uncommon, but certainly not meant as a solution for high traffic roads. It is one small trick to use in a system that mostly keeps cyclists and pedestrians on dedicated ways segregated by greenery or kerbs parallel to arterial or collector roads. Taking it out of that context seems risky.
(The trick with the single shared lane and wide 'gutters' meant for passing oncoming traffic are common in the 60 km/h local road variety in the Netherlands, but mostly they lack a cycle lane, and cyclists share the single lane between the dashed lanes².)
1: Example https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2004506,5.8052424,3a,75y,271...
2: Example: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1613758,5.4629652,3a,75y,15....
They actually say that in the video. In Germany they are mostly used in urban settings in streets with speedlimits below 30 km/h I believe. They definitely work if this is a low volume street, however the speed limits need to be enforced (a general problem in many countries IMO).
I used to work in Utrecht in the Netherlands as a contractor (doing Delphi progamming,me based the UK) and I can safely say that the bikes used to terrify me far more than the cars did, as the NL has some of the worst gridlock in Europe, so you can walk faster than the cars, even on motorways. The bikes used to sneak up on you.
As an American it was immediately clear to me the sort of road this website is suggesting we replace with edge lane roads. They are two lane, dotted-white divided, and limited to 45mph. Very common rural and exurban pattern.
This might not have been as clear outside of the North American context.
In most places, the roads I think you're referring to would be dotted yellow divided (unless you mean a 45-mph two-lane one-way road).
In many states speed limits on such roads are 55-75mph. The thing in the article isn't a replacement for those at all.
This configuration looks like an alternative to one-lane, two-way roads in the US (typically no lines, 25mph speed limit; usually only for short parts of longer rural roads; often found near dirt/gravel roads).
One lane roads in the US have room for cars to pull off on the berm to let ongoing traffic pass. This seems similar. A bike wouldn't want to cruise along the red bits of a rural road like the one in the article, becuase they'd repeatedly hit debris. However, the dotted line provide guides to cars to allow them to avoid hitting bikes as they pass, and stretches of a few dozen yards in the red zone would usually be fine.
On a 45mph road though that's a closing speed of 90mph assuming everyone's following the speed limit. It seems crazy to me to have opposing traffic sharing a lane at those speeds.
Opposing traffic is already sharing a lane at those speeds, that's what the double-white is about.
They aren't that wide and there's not a lot of traffic, the safe thing to do is in fact to stay toward the center and yield to the sides when opposing traffic is coming. This isn't that different.
the roads this is meant for are mostly empty, so you have a long time to see someone coming.
Fair enough but you could say the same for the cyclists. Ultimately having traffic sharing a lane with high relative speeds is dangerous. It's dangerous for the cyclist at 15mph having a car come from behind going 45mph, and it's dangerous for the car having a car driving at them at 45mph. Both a 90mph collision between two cars and a 30mph collision between a car and a bike are likely to be fatal.
I've ridden rental bikes on roads like these between Amsterdam and Leiden.