How To Close Down A Badly Designed Bike Path?
Magyarul a criticalmass.hu-n.
We strongly prefer bike lanes on the road to pavement bike paths shared with pedestrians for safety and ideological reasons. ’nuff said, but what happens if such a badly designed facility has already been built?
The answer is obvious and still pretty rare: it needs to be closed down. This is exactly what happened in Stuttgart.
At the beginning of the abandoned section, cyclists are diverted to the road, with proper signage for motorists to expect traffic from the right.
The closed path can be recognized from the different surface. There are bike racks now on some of the liberated space.
So now that cyclists are back on the road, we are finished. Or are we?
Well, as it turns out, no left turn is allowed in this intersection. This being an unnecessary limitation for bikes, two new areas are painted for bike left turns.
It is important to note that in order to actively encourage cycling, a city needs to provide more (extra left turn) and not less (no entry for bikes) possibilities for cyclists.
Finally a legal solution for those who are still afraid of cycling in motor traffic: this is a pedestrian area with bikes allowed. But it remains obvious that 1) pedestrians have priority, 2) cyclists have the full right to the road.
