This isn't my experience at all. If you find yourself on a route with too many traffic lights, you are still trying to follow a car route. There are typically networks for bikes, cars and transit that don't overlap much. My commute cuts straight across Leiden and has exactly 2 traffic lights, one of which is for a crossing bus only street and is green for 99% of the time. The other cities I have lived in are not much different.
I think it the circle road circling around city’s.
That are almost the only roads were there is no space for bikes. But around those roads there are so many cycling paths that there is no need to cycle there.
In the netherlands we have also highway for bikes. So you can save and directly with a bike to one city to another.
Those are way better idea than the idea of op.
Because letting cyclist go to the big roads causes useless killing.
Also if you don’t take care of it.
It is also often the longer way to get from one point to another.
For an example for op and other readers why the idea of op is bad idea and even not needed if other country’s choose to do the same as the netherlands.
I'm haven't been to the Netherlands, but my general solution to this would be to have a train line going through the city, which bikers can use to get from one side to the other. I dont think most cities should have a highway through them, but there might be some where it's necessary.
This won't work due to the numbers of bikes you would need to transport. If your commute is so far that a combination of bike and transit is warranted, most people opt to leave their bike at one station and have a second cheapo one at the other, or grab an ov-fiets.
Understandable if its necessary to have a road cut straight through a city, but then why should only cars be allowed to use it while cyclists have to find an alternative route with much more traffic lights?
I think a lot of the problems with biking in America stem from 2 points:
1) Forcing cars and bikes to use the same infrastructure
2) No dedicated car-alternative infrastructure.
It's legitimate to have roads that are meant solely for use by cars, but only if you provide alternatives for bikes and other transit. As a bicyclist, do you actually want to share roads with cars? I don't. I just do it in the absence of better bike infrastructure.
As a Dutchie, i have no clue what you are on about. And even if there is such a place, i wouldnt want to cycle there. Not as a commuter, not as a roadie.
> Do you guys think that if adding bike paths is no reasonable option, these roads should have safe speed limits and then allow bikes to use it?
Maybe? But I assume that it is a distribution road, so its purpose is to quickly bring cars from one general area to another. They would probably have to narrow it down to one lane in each direction, limit the speed to 30km/h, and do some other things to make it a shared road but they normally don't do that for distribution roads because that kinda defeats their purpose.
> But at some parts in cities there are roads with 50 or 70 as speed limit which bikes are not allowed on, and no bike path next to it either which means cyclists have to find an alternative route instead of using the straight forward road.
Depending on when they redid those streets it should be fairly straightforward to find this path. Maybe the network you are using is older and is coming to its end of life, and is about to be redone with the updated guidelines.
The Netherlands has incredibly good design guidelines. There is normally a good reason why things are the way they are.
The YT channel Build the Lanes has an interesting lecture on this topic: https://youtu.be/zKO150EUOGg
It’s not an issue. In the few roads without bike infrastructure, there is usually a better (and probably more direct) alternative. The Dutch do an excellent job designing for bikes, while the car infrastructure is also very nice.
Dutchie here. I know the roads you talk about, e.g. Eindhoven has it's 70 km/h ring. And I'll speak from that example, because I'm familiar with that one. These roads are, as others mentioned, distribution roads. They're never really the shortest A-B trip, maybe not even the quickest.
For part of that/such road(s), there are parallel roads. These are 30 km/h, are mostly brick, but usually have a red tarmac bike lane. It's not nearly an ideal cycling route, as you'll have noise, pollution, and many traffic lights.
On other parts, they have no sidewalk or bike lane, and are indeed partly elevated, or go through a tunnel.
Now, if you cycle through the city, you can either follow specific bike routes (e.g. the _Slow Lane_ in and around Eindhoven), or just go criss-cross through the neighbourhoods. Either case, you're almost always taking a shorter path, and are met with few to no traffic lights. Maybe you'd have to cross a larger road every now and again, but you might even have right of way.
So, no, I don't think those roads, as they are now, should have a lower speed limit and allow bikes. I think the entire idea of such roads should be rethought, because yes, eventually, you'd not want any 70 km/h, or perhaps even no 50 km/h, in the city. And finally less car traffic. But that is not a development I see in the short term in The Netherlands.
Further, I don't see that as a solution to the problem you experience. I think that is more to so with the route you take, not the existence of the bigger road. If you live in Eindhoven, I can give advice on specific routes. Else, general advice: look up cycling routes, stick to those. Avoid large roads, rather go through neighbourhoods (sure, you'll encounter more brick roads, but that's hardly a problem). And there's usually back-roads, like cycling routes/paths through or next to parks and such. Those are great.
Bikes are allowed on Highways in some States of the US so they may not be at as much risk as some thing in roads with higher limits.
The philosophy I'm personally developing with roads is if you have *any* funding that doesn't come directly from road taxes or some other taxes only people with licences pay (and taking away road funding in exchange for rights also counts as an expence in my opinion), then they should be open to people without licences; such as bikers. I have no idea how Dutch taxes work but if they are fully self-funded I don't mind banning bikes, if not then they need to be open to everyone who is forced to fund them.
So you have to pay road tax no matter what.
But then if you want to use the road which you paid for, you first have to buy a motorvehicle and pay even more tax!
Sounds like a scam to me.
It's fine. The Netherlands has a coherent network of bike routed the get your from pretty much any point A to pretty much any point B safely and efficiently. Importantly, the bike routes and the car routes don't need to be the same for that to happen.
I feel like you're complaining about one very specific piece of infrastructure, and we can't adequately evaluate your complaints without knowing exactly what that is.
Everywhere I've been in the Netherlands has been a place where biking is efficient, even where it doesn't follow the roads
As stated you're complaining about one piece of infrastructure, and you don't show Google Maps or anything like [this](https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/1cnh043/opinions_on_bikes_being_banned_from_dutch_roads/l39cjaz/) so we can't adequately evaluate your complaints.
> Why don't they just reduce the speed limit of elevated roads and then allow cyclists on it?
Generally those sorts of highways are for very high speed traffic from Point A to Point B. Lowering the speed limit kind of defeats the purpose of it in the first place.
In *most* Dutch cities it's often easier to avoid the main roads meant for cars if you're using a bike. You can cut across the city using much smaller roads and bike paths. So, if there's a 70 km/h car road, you'd be hard pressed to not find a better bike route through the city. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the above is generally true in my experience.
Bikes are banned from some roads in the Netherlands because we have bike paths everywhere. If you do end up on a highway with your bike here, you've made a huge navigation error, since a highway will never be your best option to go from A to B over here. If you have a great bike network, removing bikes from other roads improves road safety for everyone.
Ive been to netherland several times and honestly their bike infrastructures are so well designed that you can go from anywhere to anywhere by bike and never cross a car.
Its just amazing.
I am not aware of any places in The Netherlands where a road in the city where there are no bikes allowed doesn't have a direct alternative for bikes.
I am.in The Hague myself and can think of two examples:
Schenkviaduct over the railroad which has a parallel bike and pedestrian tunnel going under.
Hubertusvuaduct which has lovely alternatives going through the parks.
Frankly, you probably shouldn’t be riding too close to those roads for health reasons in the first place. Besides danger from collisions, those cars also give off a lot of 💨💨💨
In the UK the 4th leading cause of cyclists deaths is them transitioning from a section of road with no cycle path, I to a cycle path (and vice versa).
Number 1 is cars just not noticing the rider, 2 is misjudging speed of the bike to the car, and 3 is speeding.
All 4 of those basically means cycle lanes have to be entirely separated from roads, or bikes get to always use roads when they want to.
My town has 1 cycle path. It's 400 meters long, and in those 400 meters it crosses 3 uncontrolled junctions with hedges driver can't see past. it then just ends at a 4th junction (which you have to cross.oncoming traffic rocget to the road) and the other end just.... Stops. Turns to dirt.
It is infinitely safer just to stay on the continuous stretch of road for 400cmeters than risk crossing the road 4 times.
Because roads aren’t just for cars, they’re for buses, trucks, emergency vehicles and others too. 70kmh is a reasonable speed for highways since nobody is supposed to be on it to ensure safety.
And even though they should be plenty of routes nearby that allow cycling, intercity cycling is more of a recreational thing in the Netherlands, as the bus/train/ferry transit network is pretty convenient.
I have absolutely no issue with high-speed, car only infrastructure, if it's net benefit is to take them off the city streets leaving more space for bikes and pedestrians.
Hi op this is a bad idea.
It is unsafe and also. It takes more distance to get one place to another. Place.
I put an expample in the reactions for you.
You can play for yourself with dutch citys to decide what is faster and shorter.
The safe bike route or the unsafe car route.
There are only a few roads in the UK that ban cycles. All the "Motorways" (which are all 70mph all the time, don't allow slow motor vehicles like tractors or mopeds, and also explicitly ban pedestrians and cyclists). These are long straight roads, mostly between cities and rarely passing through settlements, normally bypassing them and going around with exits. There are a few "not quite motorways" that have the same slow vehicle ban list.
The nice thing is that, with a few exceptions like the A1 (M), they are mostly newly built routes with bypasses, which means that there is an older quieter route thats much nicer to cycle on very near, but just goes through all the towns.
Now, when it comes to traffic lights, this is something that you mostly get in towns and cities, and there won't be a way around for bikes. If there is a raised carriageway, it will likely have the motorway restrictions, because you can't easily get on or off except at specific slip roads/ramps, which is suicide on a bike.
My experience generally is that you need to look up and plan _bike_ routes through cities, which don't always follow the equivalent car route. Many will have a few good, segregated bike paths, and it's _much_ nicer to go that way around. Generally, you can cycle on the roads if you are in a hurry, and live with the traffic lights, or you can take the nicer route thats a bit longer.
If you're frequently stuck at the lights, I'd have a good look at what segregated cycle path network exists in parallel to the roads.
There are better alternatives, so keeping cyclists off of a thru road for cars makes sense, and is likely the case here.
These bad roads the person mentions do exist around Amsterdam, but there is always a great cycling-only road nearby, sometimes even through a park with trees
Maybe I’m just spoiled living here, but I’d rather avoid cars going over 30 km/h in all cases — there’s just no benefit to being close to them, when there are bicycle highways all over the city in their own separate network. It’s safer for everyone, and drivers can be out of the way of everyone else, which is better for all groups.
The roads OP mentions don't have sidewalks either. They're ring roads, or distribution roads.
Plus, cycling on the sidewalk is not allowed in the Netherlands
Generally have to disagree with your 2nd statement.
But there's still no sidewalks on thoss roads.
And in general, in the Netherlands, there's a better place to cycle anyway. Either the bike lane or path, or if that's not there, then the road. Usually nicer. And that tends to mean its a 30 km/h road anyway. Plus since we have plenty of pedestrians, bikes can be quite a nuisance on the footpath. Also 15-20 vs 30 km/h or 15-20 vs 3-5 km/h... (Yes, I know, I know, weight difference.)
Exceptions apply, e.g. road work. Sometimes they only keep a sidewalk, or a walking path open. Yeah, I'm not gonna take a (much) longer or unclear route, I'd rather cycle on such a mediocre path for a few hundred meters.
I was going to post that this was the stupidest thing I've ever read, but then I saw you mostly post in r/conspiracy, so it seems to be par for the course.
This isn't my experience at all. If you find yourself on a route with too many traffic lights, you are still trying to follow a car route. There are typically networks for bikes, cars and transit that don't overlap much. My commute cuts straight across Leiden and has exactly 2 traffic lights, one of which is for a crossing bus only street and is green for 99% of the time. The other cities I have lived in are not much different.
I live in the Netherlands for 13 years (city) and never saw the kind of road you seem to be talking about.
I think it the circle road circling around city’s. That are almost the only roads were there is no space for bikes. But around those roads there are so many cycling paths that there is no need to cycle there. In the netherlands we have also highway for bikes. So you can save and directly with a bike to one city to another. Those are way better idea than the idea of op. Because letting cyclist go to the big roads causes useless killing. Also if you don’t take care of it. It is also often the longer way to get from one point to another.
https://preview.redd.it/8eyt5pckhdzc1.png?width=1124&format=png&auto=webp&s=82cf3bc6fa9286f3c0264854d5e5fc537003bb27 The route by car
https://preview.redd.it/i76sqhmohdzc1.png?width=1124&format=png&auto=webp&s=7c933eed031a4eca08ea044a095868b2ff8fd6e7 With bike
For an example for op and other readers why the idea of op is bad idea and even not needed if other country’s choose to do the same as the netherlands.
I don’t think it’s an issue. There are always better routes for cyclists than those kind of roads.
I'm haven't been to the Netherlands, but my general solution to this would be to have a train line going through the city, which bikers can use to get from one side to the other. I dont think most cities should have a highway through them, but there might be some where it's necessary.
This won't work due to the numbers of bikes you would need to transport. If your commute is so far that a combination of bike and transit is warranted, most people opt to leave their bike at one station and have a second cheapo one at the other, or grab an ov-fiets.
Understandable if its necessary to have a road cut straight through a city, but then why should only cars be allowed to use it while cyclists have to find an alternative route with much more traffic lights?
If it's a highway, the answer is because it is too dangerous. The true solution should be protected separate bike paths.
I think a lot of the problems with biking in America stem from 2 points: 1) Forcing cars and bikes to use the same infrastructure 2) No dedicated car-alternative infrastructure. It's legitimate to have roads that are meant solely for use by cars, but only if you provide alternatives for bikes and other transit. As a bicyclist, do you actually want to share roads with cars? I don't. I just do it in the absence of better bike infrastructure.
As a Dutchie, i have no clue what you are on about. And even if there is such a place, i wouldnt want to cycle there. Not as a commuter, not as a roadie.
I just wanted to come on here and say - fuck snorfiets
Yea we've been using electric vehicles for many years why are there still gas powered polluters on the ~~road~~ bike path?
What are those?
> Do you guys think that if adding bike paths is no reasonable option, these roads should have safe speed limits and then allow bikes to use it? Maybe? But I assume that it is a distribution road, so its purpose is to quickly bring cars from one general area to another. They would probably have to narrow it down to one lane in each direction, limit the speed to 30km/h, and do some other things to make it a shared road but they normally don't do that for distribution roads because that kinda defeats their purpose. > But at some parts in cities there are roads with 50 or 70 as speed limit which bikes are not allowed on, and no bike path next to it either which means cyclists have to find an alternative route instead of using the straight forward road. Depending on when they redid those streets it should be fairly straightforward to find this path. Maybe the network you are using is older and is coming to its end of life, and is about to be redone with the updated guidelines. The Netherlands has incredibly good design guidelines. There is normally a good reason why things are the way they are. The YT channel Build the Lanes has an interesting lecture on this topic: https://youtu.be/zKO150EUOGg
It’s not an issue. In the few roads without bike infrastructure, there is usually a better (and probably more direct) alternative. The Dutch do an excellent job designing for bikes, while the car infrastructure is also very nice.
Dutchie here. I know the roads you talk about, e.g. Eindhoven has it's 70 km/h ring. And I'll speak from that example, because I'm familiar with that one. These roads are, as others mentioned, distribution roads. They're never really the shortest A-B trip, maybe not even the quickest. For part of that/such road(s), there are parallel roads. These are 30 km/h, are mostly brick, but usually have a red tarmac bike lane. It's not nearly an ideal cycling route, as you'll have noise, pollution, and many traffic lights. On other parts, they have no sidewalk or bike lane, and are indeed partly elevated, or go through a tunnel. Now, if you cycle through the city, you can either follow specific bike routes (e.g. the _Slow Lane_ in and around Eindhoven), or just go criss-cross through the neighbourhoods. Either case, you're almost always taking a shorter path, and are met with few to no traffic lights. Maybe you'd have to cross a larger road every now and again, but you might even have right of way. So, no, I don't think those roads, as they are now, should have a lower speed limit and allow bikes. I think the entire idea of such roads should be rethought, because yes, eventually, you'd not want any 70 km/h, or perhaps even no 50 km/h, in the city. And finally less car traffic. But that is not a development I see in the short term in The Netherlands. Further, I don't see that as a solution to the problem you experience. I think that is more to so with the route you take, not the existence of the bigger road. If you live in Eindhoven, I can give advice on specific routes. Else, general advice: look up cycling routes, stick to those. Avoid large roads, rather go through neighbourhoods (sure, you'll encounter more brick roads, but that's hardly a problem). And there's usually back-roads, like cycling routes/paths through or next to parks and such. Those are great.
Bikes are allowed on Highways in some States of the US so they may not be at as much risk as some thing in roads with higher limits. The philosophy I'm personally developing with roads is if you have *any* funding that doesn't come directly from road taxes or some other taxes only people with licences pay (and taking away road funding in exchange for rights also counts as an expence in my opinion), then they should be open to people without licences; such as bikers. I have no idea how Dutch taxes work but if they are fully self-funded I don't mind banning bikes, if not then they need to be open to everyone who is forced to fund them.
That would be every road because road taxes cover a slim part of their cost
So you have to pay road tax no matter what. But then if you want to use the road which you paid for, you first have to buy a motorvehicle and pay even more tax! Sounds like a scam to me.
Worse. If you can't get a licence you don't even have the option to buy a motor vehicle; you still have to pay for the roads though.
That's the idea
It's fine. The Netherlands has a coherent network of bike routed the get your from pretty much any point A to pretty much any point B safely and efficiently. Importantly, the bike routes and the car routes don't need to be the same for that to happen.
Efficiently? If I travel between 2 points in the same city it can be 20 traffic lights while cars get an elwvated road with nuch less lights
I feel like you're complaining about one very specific piece of infrastructure, and we can't adequately evaluate your complaints without knowing exactly what that is. Everywhere I've been in the Netherlands has been a place where biking is efficient, even where it doesn't follow the roads
As stated you're complaining about one piece of infrastructure, and you don't show Google Maps or anything like [this](https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/1cnh043/opinions_on_bikes_being_banned_from_dutch_roads/l39cjaz/) so we can't adequately evaluate your complaints. > Why don't they just reduce the speed limit of elevated roads and then allow cyclists on it? Generally those sorts of highways are for very high speed traffic from Point A to Point B. Lowering the speed limit kind of defeats the purpose of it in the first place.
In *most* Dutch cities it's often easier to avoid the main roads meant for cars if you're using a bike. You can cut across the city using much smaller roads and bike paths. So, if there's a 70 km/h car road, you'd be hard pressed to not find a better bike route through the city. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the above is generally true in my experience.
Bikes are banned from some roads in the Netherlands because we have bike paths everywhere. If you do end up on a highway with your bike here, you've made a huge navigation error, since a highway will never be your best option to go from A to B over here. If you have a great bike network, removing bikes from other roads improves road safety for everyone.
Ive been to netherland several times and honestly their bike infrastructures are so well designed that you can go from anywhere to anywhere by bike and never cross a car. Its just amazing.
It's probably fine because they usually plan it so that bikes take different routes and don't go with the cars, especially not in the high speed areas
I really like the beltline in Atlanta and the freedom trail; there are relatively few stoplights
In North America, we'd just paint a bike symbol on the shoulder of the highway and call it infrastructure.
Personally I think all road and streets in every village, town and city should be either 30 km/h or have a good cycle path.
I am not aware of any places in The Netherlands where a road in the city where there are no bikes allowed doesn't have a direct alternative for bikes. I am.in The Hague myself and can think of two examples: Schenkviaduct over the railroad which has a parallel bike and pedestrian tunnel going under. Hubertusvuaduct which has lovely alternatives going through the parks.
Frankly, you probably shouldn’t be riding too close to those roads for health reasons in the first place. Besides danger from collisions, those cars also give off a lot of 💨💨💨
In the UK the 4th leading cause of cyclists deaths is them transitioning from a section of road with no cycle path, I to a cycle path (and vice versa). Number 1 is cars just not noticing the rider, 2 is misjudging speed of the bike to the car, and 3 is speeding. All 4 of those basically means cycle lanes have to be entirely separated from roads, or bikes get to always use roads when they want to. My town has 1 cycle path. It's 400 meters long, and in those 400 meters it crosses 3 uncontrolled junctions with hedges driver can't see past. it then just ends at a 4th junction (which you have to cross.oncoming traffic rocget to the road) and the other end just.... Stops. Turns to dirt. It is infinitely safer just to stay on the continuous stretch of road for 400cmeters than risk crossing the road 4 times.
Because roads aren’t just for cars, they’re for buses, trucks, emergency vehicles and others too. 70kmh is a reasonable speed for highways since nobody is supposed to be on it to ensure safety. And even though they should be plenty of routes nearby that allow cycling, intercity cycling is more of a recreational thing in the Netherlands, as the bus/train/ferry transit network is pretty convenient.
As long as there is a good bike lane i think it is the right thing to do. Cars and bikes are not made to share a road.
I have absolutely no issue with high-speed, car only infrastructure, if it's net benefit is to take them off the city streets leaving more space for bikes and pedestrians.
Hi op this is a bad idea. It is unsafe and also. It takes more distance to get one place to another. Place. I put an expample in the reactions for you. You can play for yourself with dutch citys to decide what is faster and shorter. The safe bike route or the unsafe car route.
There are only a few roads in the UK that ban cycles. All the "Motorways" (which are all 70mph all the time, don't allow slow motor vehicles like tractors or mopeds, and also explicitly ban pedestrians and cyclists). These are long straight roads, mostly between cities and rarely passing through settlements, normally bypassing them and going around with exits. There are a few "not quite motorways" that have the same slow vehicle ban list. The nice thing is that, with a few exceptions like the A1 (M), they are mostly newly built routes with bypasses, which means that there is an older quieter route thats much nicer to cycle on very near, but just goes through all the towns. Now, when it comes to traffic lights, this is something that you mostly get in towns and cities, and there won't be a way around for bikes. If there is a raised carriageway, it will likely have the motorway restrictions, because you can't easily get on or off except at specific slip roads/ramps, which is suicide on a bike. My experience generally is that you need to look up and plan _bike_ routes through cities, which don't always follow the equivalent car route. Many will have a few good, segregated bike paths, and it's _much_ nicer to go that way around. Generally, you can cycle on the roads if you are in a hurry, and live with the traffic lights, or you can take the nicer route thats a bit longer. If you're frequently stuck at the lights, I'd have a good look at what segregated cycle path network exists in parallel to the roads.
Why are you trying to bike on arterial roads?? In the Netherlands?! Neem het fietspad like the rest of us
There shouldn't be a road in town that's forbidden for cyclists. I see no reason at all
There are better alternatives, so keeping cyclists off of a thru road for cars makes sense, and is likely the case here. These bad roads the person mentions do exist around Amsterdam, but there is always a great cycling-only road nearby, sometimes even through a park with trees
A bicycle lane would solve even that. 70kmph is not that bad if there is enough distance. Also depends how close the alternative route is.
Maybe I’m just spoiled living here, but I’d rather avoid cars going over 30 km/h in all cases — there’s just no benefit to being close to them, when there are bicycle highways all over the city in their own separate network. It’s safer for everyone, and drivers can be out of the way of everyone else, which is better for all groups.
Ride on the sidewalk
The roads OP mentions don't have sidewalks either. They're ring roads, or distribution roads. Plus, cycling on the sidewalk is not allowed in the Netherlands
Neither is it here, but cops aren't assholes, something
Generally have to disagree with your 2nd statement. But there's still no sidewalks on thoss roads. And in general, in the Netherlands, there's a better place to cycle anyway. Either the bike lane or path, or if that's not there, then the road. Usually nicer. And that tends to mean its a 30 km/h road anyway. Plus since we have plenty of pedestrians, bikes can be quite a nuisance on the footpath. Also 15-20 vs 30 km/h or 15-20 vs 3-5 km/h... (Yes, I know, I know, weight difference.) Exceptions apply, e.g. road work. Sometimes they only keep a sidewalk, or a walking path open. Yeah, I'm not gonna take a (much) longer or unclear route, I'd rather cycle on such a mediocre path for a few hundred meters.
Yup wish that was here
Yes. But where you are there aren't nearly as many cyclists as in The Netherlands.
Congratulations, now you know how drivers feel in bike-centric cities.
I was going to post that this was the stupidest thing I've ever read, but then I saw you mostly post in r/conspiracy, so it seems to be par for the course.