@@tankimarkgraaf Obviously I do not compare with other countries!! That would be really stupid. I am comparing Rotterdam to other Dutch big cities like Amsterdam Utrecht Haarlem etc. Rotterdam is the odd one in NL and an automobile heaven. It is a bicycle nightmare.
Good to see, thirty years ago, Haarlem was famous for its "always red" traffic lights for all (cyclists, pedestrians and cars). I vividly remember being very angry at an article in the local newspaper (Haarlems Dagblad) featuring an interview with the guy who was responsible for traffic lights. He said that his priority was safety. And "there is no more safe traffic than standing traffic". What that idiot of a civil servant forgot, was that standing traffic is not traffic. I don't know how many hours I wasted in the first 34 years of my life living there, but I should visit that guy (if he is still alive) and sue him.
@@jemoeder5347 I feel you. I know. And on top of this, in Haarlem you had a river flowing through the city with a lot of boats and thus open bridges. Back in my youth, even in rush hour. They changed that, fortunately.
Interestingly, if all lights show red by default this should limit wait times on a low traffic intersection as you do not have to wait for the direction that has green to cycle to red first, which typically takes some 7-10 seconds. It is always a matter of choice and whatever choice you make there will always be someone who thinks you made the wrong one. That said, on the point of Delft, for some obscure reason that city appears to have the worst traffic engineers in the whole country. And no it's not just the Delflandplein death trap, the traffic light installation on the Westlandseweg-Papsouwselaan intersection can easily leave you waiting for several minutes as a high number of priority traffic turn every other light to red even if they only had green for like 3 seconds and after the priority vehicle passed the cycle continues with the next in it's list rather than return to the one that was cut short. Having lived close to that intersection I've witnessed how surprisingly often the frequency of trams and busses arriving at it matched the full cycle time of the traffic light installation almost perfectly, effectively halting traffic in one direction completely.
That was before the government was shrunk and intersections began to be arranged by private companies (who had to actually do something to get paid). Naarden had a similar intersection Rijksweg/Godelindeweg. Only one direction at a time got green, so you right-turn-only in 2 directions, while the straight lanes that didn't cross those were made to wait. You could easily spend 11 minutes there and roughly 100% of cyclists and 20% of cars ran the red light, meaning that if any of them missed anything you had a potential fatal on your hands. There were daily trafficjams because the main flow Rijksweg/Godelindeweg didn't receive priority over cyclists and local traffic, so you had empty cycling lanes getting green, while you had 200 cars waiting. 😆 They closed a whole bunch of roads in the neighbourhood such as Graaf Lodewijklaan because traffic wanted to avoid that intersection at all costs. Cost millions just because the civil servants hate to work. Then somewhere mid 2000's a commercial company was contracted to do the traffic arrangements and they fixed the intersection.
The algorithm finally showed me another great channel after watching nearly all videos of notjustbikes, bicycledutch and activetowns ;) Very well presented and I especially liked the different views of and to the intersection.
My impression is that Dutch traffic signals always stay red until they detect approaching traffic. My guess is that this is a safety feature, if you see a green you think its going to turn red and you will have to wait so you are going to speed up just to catch the green. That way people take risk for the sake of getting green. If the light is red by default you are not going to speed up coming to the intersection. Its worth mentioning that on most Dutch traffic light you don't technically need to press a button. A sensor on the road will detect you and "press" the button for you in most cases. This is true for bike lanes too as well for the cars.
I travel trough TU Delft every day and was thinking of this intersection as soon as you mentioned continuous green light bike priority. Funny to see it actually featured in the video. The bike path is the main route for the entire campus to reach the train station. Extremely busy at around 8:30 am!
I've used this intersection a lot as a pedestrian and cyclist. Do urban planners count how many pedestrians and cyclists ignore red lights? That is what makes this intersection smooth for me as pedestrian / cyclist. I don't have to wait very long for green, but it's also so transparent that I can easily ignore the red if I'm in a hurry. Please note that 90% of buses make a turn and don't cross the main crossing for pedestrians and cyclists
As a pedestrian or a cyclist i ignore most red lights when i'm not going to slow down traffic which has the priority or when there's no traffic at all. Also, jaywalking. But i can see why they are against the law.
@@GrandTheftChris obviously not running the red light with a car. And i personally don't walk over the road with a red light when there are kids around.
@@GrandTheftChris sometimes sure. If I see a parent and a young child waiting, I will take that into consideration. But I hope the parent teaches the child not to behave like some adults.
Continuous green can be good and regularly used in the Netherlands, however, this solution doesn’t fit everywhere. To start of, if you want to give continuous green for both cyclists and pedestrians, you should ask yourself if both your current design and a controlled intersection are a right fit for the situation. For example, the intersection in Delft… Dutch guidelines state this intersection shouldn’t be a controlled one. They only installed one because cars can quite literally get stuck when school starts. They probably saw this as the only solution, but sometimes something as simple as making it a one-way street and/or reversing directions could also fix your problem. Back to the original intersection, while I don’t know for certain why it’s controlled in this way I can take a few guesses. For example the city probably has a priority network, in that network busses probably have the highest priority. As you pointed out the frequency of busses is very high, so even if the lights were green by default they would have to turn red very frequently. The second (and possibly more important) part are the clearance times. This is a pretty wide crossing for Dutch standards and even though you can make the crossing in two separate steps you generally want to avoid that. This means that for the pedestrians to cross all the way, you need to have longer clearance times which might result in a less efficient cycle and longer wait times for everyone over all. These scenarios typically get calculated/simulated and weighed against each together with some guidelines/performance criteria in mind, like the priority network I mentioned. My guess is this intersection will get a bit of a redesign 10 or 20 years down the road when it’s up for renovation. Would be fun to see what it looks like then!
It looks like there is a lot of potential for experimenting. They can change up the signal mix to see how it affects flows. Changes can be made during different weather and traffic flow times to further customize how the system reacts to traffic.
Most likely not. Especially when there's public transport involved (and especially at this point, know it personally) systems can (and usually are) also be interconnected to prevent one intersection just keep sending traffic while another has longer red-cycles. Just adapting one intersection to change its cycles can cause major mayhem in the rest of the city.
having lived close to there and cycling through that intersection a lot. it it extremely amazing to go through as it is one that never felt delaying or unfair
There's a continuous green light for cyclists near where I live, And it really helps with the safety, as you can't actually see around the corner until it's too late, So by having the cars slow down every time they approach Cyclists no longer have to worry about cars expecting a green light when it's red.
I use the set of trafic lights in Delft on a daily basis. It's very efficient and works very well for the massive amount of (student) bike traffic! Before implementing it fully, they tested whether students would actually yield for the red light or if they'd be too stubborn and actually carry on. Turned out to work pretty well!
Well done with the content of the video. I loved it! Great suggestion for the continuous green light for bikes. It's easier for a car to start from a stopped than a bike.
Having cars stop and accelerate has a negative impact on air quality. I'm not sure if that was a consideration in this instance but a continuously green flow is a commonly used tool to improve air quality in residential areas
I would love to see you compare the efficient flow of traffic through an intersection like this with the flow of an inefficient north american style intersection that handles the same volume of people. Estimating infrastructure cost, safety/fatalities, etc.
With the high rate of busses, I get another idea: detect cars, but basically ignore them - and only let them go when a bus triggers the phase anyway or they are waiting for very long.
@@colinwinogradoff6794For A this isn't a pedestrian crossing in the US, so this isn't about minutes but about seconds. And B he says, there is a bus around every minute. So I'd give three scenarios to give cars green: a bus is approaching anyway (timed so the bus just get's green), there is a gap in the bike traffic or the car is waiting for more than ~30 seconds. …actually the busses are the only reason to even have a traffic light. Else just place a yield sign. :)
Notice the adjusted road design with the always green light at the end, continuous bike path, elevated road to slow down cars. Just having an always green light with a road crossing may actually cause more lethal accidents due to speed difference. It's not just (about) bikes, but safety by design.
A good intermediate solution is to put in detection loops for cyclists, which 'pushes the button' at enough distance so a free passage is likely when there are no buses crossing. This could be tuned to the number of bikes and cars on either side of the crossing (again with buses getting top priority). These systems are in place in the Netherlands, and it works really well in the quieter hours. Priority can be given to either cyclists or cars passing their loops, depending on traffic, backups on side streets etc.
An important part I think you didn't explain very well is that Dutch smart traffic lights use sensors specifically to detect an approaching vehicle (they have them both for cars and bikes). So on a road with a long run up to the light like this, a continuous green for cyclists is perfect because the road signal can detect traffic a good 10-15 seconds before it gets to the light, which is enough to gather information on how many cars are coming down the road and also make a decision based on this and the oncoming cycling traffic on when to turn the cycle light red. It could do this immediately (to avoid the cars having to waste energy stopping and accelerating again) or it can do it with some delay (to let a large group of bikes through first).
Honestly, what you could do here is a non-normal traffic light, especially eastbound, where it is only green for cars with bus (during rushour) you just doublegreen during bus (and clear queue of cars simultaneously) and then back to pedestrians/cyclists
In the past cyclists had to press a button. These days the lights already know you are there or are getting close to it. Some also have rain censors so cyclists get green quicker. (you in the car won't get wet) Finding a light that only accepts the old button press is hard to find. (I know of no such light anywhere)
@@drfisheye That's a myth: of course they are connected! Stuff like that isn't just a cheap button, those things are very costly and the all-weather-proof-for-the-next-20-years pole plus striping and a vandalism-all-weather-proof button is an extremely expensive item by itself (I think you can easly think about a 1000 to 2000 euro pricepoint for just 1 pole+button) My city has a few that still rely on the press of a button. If you don't press it, you will not get a green, it's as simple as that.
@@weeardguy there is a magnetic sensor that detects the bicycles just like with cars. The button is almost never actually needed to get green light. But the button does get the cyclists to stand at right location.
@@drfisheye That the button isn't always needed anymore is a totally different explanation than that it isn't connected, because it sure as hell is. The pole and a switch is just too expensive to just put there and not connect it and also serves as a back-up: if the induction loop or processing electronics behind it fails, you will have no solution to fall back upon. Though there is always a programmed cycle for such cases, pedestrians and cyclists usually are not on the priority list in most cycles.
I think a continuous green system would also improve safety. A red light would always means "a car is coming". Now it could mean "a car is coming" or "your green time is up". Removing this ambiguity makes the intersection safer.
When the man in Delft explained the intersection he forgot the most important detail (which you pointed out right away): the cars have to wait a certain amount of time before being crossing. This allows cars behind them to get in line, crossing at the same time as them, lowering the total red-time for the cyclists and pedestrians. An instant cross for cars would make no very little difference compared to an always red crossing.
Absolutely great idea to keep a continuous green for pedestrians and bikes, and cars would stop and wait. We are so used to the other way around that it feels normal, but it's not. #priorities
This light timing reversal in favor of pedestrians and cyclists would work well in high ped and bike areas. Are you suggesting adopting it in high car/ low or medium ped/bike areas to discourage car journeys and encourage walking and cycling? Another thing to consider: would having cars frequently stop and start increase their carbon footprint?
Hey there. So issues like what this intersection is experiencing are a good problem because its a sign that the city has made the right decisions to arrive at this dynamic. They have a bicycle express connection going from the main train station the the downtown. The have a road that moves modest amounts of cars from one city to another that already has priority for buses. The setup of the signal timing is inherited from the past which is trying to minimize the delay to whoever pulls up at the intersection. If a cyclist pulls up and requests green, itll turn green almost immediaelty if theres not many cars moving through. Exact same with a car. Issue here is, trying to treat all the time loss equally degrades the quality of that express connection between the downtown and train station even though we want it to be as convenient as possible for the bike traffic and we are already taking steps to discourage excessive local car trips. So we just need a signal update to fit the purpose of the environment. Think of it like a software update. The base code isnt bad, we just need to update it to reflect where we want to go with the environment. Now this isn't something I would suggest most americans cities do just to try to encourage more bicycle trips. Before you change the signalling to priotize to the bicycle express route over the local car road, you actually need to build the bicycle express route and create a proper local car road. Keeping traffic sewers and stroads in their current form and just changing the signal timing would probably jsut cause a lot of chaos and lots of blowback against projects like these. This signal step is more of a final step and even in higher bike reas in the US, theres so much more they could do with improving the bike routes themselves, improving the crossing safety, banning right turns on red and so on before doing a continuous green signal fo bikes and peds. The point about carboon footprint resulting from cars stopping and starting is nonsensical because the real goals, reducing car trips in the downtown is a thousand times more effective at cleanign local air quality then tryign to remove every possible barrier so cars arent idling. Getting the car number down is the only way to do this.
Priority order: 1. Get rid of (most) single-family zoning / get rid of euclidean zoning rules. 2. Densify cities and suburbs. 3. Create mix use zoning. 4. Prioritize public transportation. 5. Change traffic rules prioritizing cyclists and pedestrians. 6 ... then do the advanced "stuff".
"would having cars frequently stop and start increase their carbon footprint?" That's an interesting question. On an individual level, yeah definitely. But doing this would also encourage people to use alternative modes of transportation, which then decreases the total carbon footprint. The overarching question I guess is, which is larger: the decrease from having fewer cars, or the increase of having those cars start and stop more frequently? My guess is that there's an overall net positive, since the cleanest car is a car that isn't driving (actually, a car that didn't need to be produced in the first place)
A hybrid car, even non plug in, will have only a small extra carbon footprint for a stop Starr since the Regen braking will recover the energy and use it to accelerate after. Still some but much less than traditional. Obviously applies to BEV as well.
If I'm understanding correctly, you have no sensors for bikes, they just get default green. When the sensor detects a car that triggers the lights to cycle to give the car green then it changes back for the cyclists to continue. So bike green is default, but when both car and bike are present, car gets priority. What if you put the car sensor further away from the junction so the cycle is triggered sooner, so that the light changes to green just in time for the car to arrive so it doesn't have to fully stop and can keep going? Less delay for cars. Cars cross junction faster than if they had to go from a standing start, so the duration of red for cyclists is shorter meaning less delay for cyclists. I suppose it all depends on how frequent the cars are. If you make every car wait 30s then there is more chance another car will come along and 2 can go through on the same cycle which is more efficient, but that means if there is not a 2nd car then the wait was for nothing. The sensor will detect the 2nd car so the car light can stay green if it is close enough to the first car. When car traffic is heavier you will need to revert to balancing the timings for each mode so neither has to wait an unreasonable amount of time.
I'd be amazed if there were no loops for cyclists there. I'm not too concerned with delaying cars a bit. I think letting them wait a bit, and then moving a bunch of cars through all at once is more efficient. Also, slower car traffic is safer, so if cars have to come to a complete stop that's a safety win. Finally: the only way to fix traffic congestion is to have good alternatives to driving. Trying to make it convenient and fast for cars will induce more people to drive, which will slow down cars even more, and will slow down other modes of transport as well which leads to more people driving. Slowing down cars speeds up cars.
Almost alle car approaches to traffic signals have a minimum of 3 detector loops in the road. With the furthest one at 60m (urban) to 120m for this exact reason.
In some cases this can't be done. If the crosswalk is long enough, the clearance time will be long. The detector will have to be far away from the intersection. And if there are driveways or accesses along the way, people turning out of them won't be detected.
The situation where the cycling light is kept green could be even more efficient. If the light for the cars turns green immediately when a car approaches, then the car does not need to stop, and therefore the period for which cycling traffic is blocked can be shorter.
Most likely, this is already the case during the quiet hours: cyclists and pedestrians get a green light even if there's no traffic (and cars thus have a red) but as soon as a car approaches and there's no cyclist or pedestrian coming, the car gets a green before he or she gets to a full stop. We tend to avoid a green well in advance of the car approaching: we like the car to slow down so should a cyclist or pedestrian appear out of nowhere (and unfortunately they are quite good at that, especially during the dark hours) the speed is lowered already. The second reason is dependability: we tend to refrain from that approach for 1 particular reason: if a driver, familiar with the situation, approaches such a junction at a quiet time of day, he can get a green every single time and can get used to that. Till the day there suddenly is a cyclist or pedestrian and the motorist, completely used to the situation, keeps on going...
It used to be a radio-tag system communicating by the induction loops in the past, called VETAG/VECOM (VETAG, VEhicle TAG) was the first system, VECOM (VEhicle COMmunication) its successor, these days SICS apparently is the next best thing which builds upon VETAG/VECOM functionality. But most buses these days now rely on GPS-data sent to the cabinets along the route: some nine-eye lights (Negenoog, special lights for public transport) even can be set by the driver by entering a few taps on a special screen in their driving cabin. It will turn green if they drive up to it from the stop, but if they tap their screen a few times, they can force it to 'green' before they get to an induction loop that triggers it. Where the systems from the past just sent information about the vehicle (and thus requesting a green cycle as quickly as possible) the additional info sent these days also holds information about the delay of the vehicle, which can alter the cycle of a light even further (instead of a short waiting time, a delay could trigger a green-cycle further in advance so the bus can just keep going)
The button is still a good thing to have, because not all bikes have enough metal in them. Carbon frame bikes, for example. Also it provides redundancy in case the detector loops fail.
I'd suggest an additional loop to detect further from the lights if possible, so prediction is more useful, since normal speeds of biker is 15mph or 25mph max you could get enough time. A rain detector might be nice as well.
3:00 Hah! Oh yeah that's the Netherlands alright. 4 near misses in about as many seconds when you get closer to the city center but they all get away with it and carry on. With buses the general attitude is, if they don't get priority, they will take it. To be on schedule of course. Sometimes they even go before they signal. Never overtake a bus standing still as a cyclist and be hyper focused as a car driver.
cyclist only had a few sec. green because no more approaching cyclist were detected. this smart system uses 3 detection loops, like is common over here (the Netherlands). cars in this intersection don't have priority over cyclists.
To provide a continuous green for cyclists, they need sophisticated sensors to detect the bicycles. Detecting cars is easy, but the smaller metallic mass of a bike is less so. It can be done, but at a cost.
@Vos and those few who do ride a carbonfiber bicycle can use the button to let the system know they are there (or wait 2 seconds until a metal bike pulls up next to them)
Yeah, you know what's expensive? All the extra roads and traffic lights and parking garages you need when biking isn't convenient and people drive instead. High bicycle mode share saves a LOT of money.
Love this explanation. Now to convince Americans that to think in terms of prioritizing walking humans and biking humans and strollering humans over cars. So many automatically feel too vulnerable to continue the thought experiment once you theoretically remove the car.
Yeah but don't forget that most streets in The Netherlands within cities are already small and narrow and hardly ever feature more than 3 lanes (Which probably are also more narrow than a lane in the USA). This automatically makes you feel less vulnerable. A friend of mine lives close to the Amsterdam Ring motorway and inevitably, cyclists and pedestrians will have to cross the major roads that branch off from the motorway into the city. One of those crossings features a 3 or even 4 lane road with traffic from the left only, an island and than 3 or even 4 lanes with traffic from the right only. It never feels nice to crosse there, while 2 lanes at most usually feels like no big deal. And paired with that is that the overal walkability also needs to improve. Just removing cars isn't the solution if you still can't get anywhere.
Well, i do have a few suggestions. You seem very capable in adding your face to the video. But i miss a map of the area that you talk about. But then you go into google streetview, and suddenly there is a tiny map on the bottom left. Perhaps you can put 2 and 2 together. Second, you could use some program to encircle certain systems you talk about. Like the loops in the road that trigger the smart system, or the traffic lights that you talk about. Also, you took mostly static pictures and video. Perhaps you could rent a Ov Fiets at the trainstation and drive the intersection with the camera rolling as a starter for the video so we know what your on about, rather then a static shot of the crossing. As for static green, it could be a solution, but frankly, its still sub par. A even better solution would be to get rid of the throughput of cars, pedestrianize the area, and put a bidirectional buslane in the middle. The road would be turned into a park with room for shops and seating arrangements, the noise and smell would go away since most busses are electric these days, and overall the place would be even nicer to the inhabitants of the town as well as the visitors.
at 7:28 and 7:34 you find the answer to a lot of questions. Bicyclists just ignore their red light whenever they want. That is the reason why legally compliant drivers have no understanding of giving cyclists even more rights
When it comes to sheer numbers the suggestion probably holds up. But does it holld up when you compare how much space each mode takes (car vs bike vs bus vs pedestrian) really hold up? You can easily fit 4 to 5 bicycles in the same space a car takes for example. So if one would implement this solution, wouldn't car traffic get much worse space wise? Generally you only want to use these setups in places where there's the occasional car and a lot of cyclists (think of the crossing near TU Delft for an example). It works there perfectly because you have *a* car every few minutes on average.
Hey there, so a couple quick things. Changing it to continuous green for cyclists shouldnt effect the car traffic to much because: Its rarely the case that the light is already green when a car approaches and when it does, just 1 or 2 cars pass before the lgiht changes again. The backup currently happening is due to when the light is already red when the cars approach and cue. What this would do is get rid of a lot of the akward delay cyclist experience when theres not a clear reason for why the light is red to them (when no one is currently using the interesection). But also secondly, the delay for car drivers is not always going to be the biggest priority. It dpends on the context, and tin this context. we are in the center of haarlem and we have a vital link where 4-5x the number of people cycle and walk through then drive. Priotitizing them this way will minimize the delay for the total users of this interesection and barely change it for the cars drivers
@@therealdutchidiot I do understand traffic flows but I also see the system as a comprehensive whole and there is more value in letting more people through quicker between downtown and the train station. The LOS of automotive traffic not an end all be all.
LOWkey this intersection is actually a little annoying to walk through because the beg buttons for pedestrian crossing is a little slow to respond. The intersection between grote houtstraat and gedempte oude gracht in Haarlem, while having fewer pedestrian and cyclist friendly design elements, is ironically faster to cross most of the time. It's a really small nitpick though lol
Although it's efficient, I am of the opinion (I live there) that this intersection is one of the more dangerous ones. Not because of the improvements to the traffic lights/width of the road/one way bus lane or any other practical improvement, but because of human psychology. Because many who use this intersection, and use it frequently, are now predicting and most of the time ignoring the traffic light because... they know it favors bicycles. In my 6 years as a commuter between the train station and my home, I have seen many near misses and as a cyclist myself I am now opting for a different route to the station because this path is always packed with people who now have been influenced by this traffic light :D
I think you forget a important factor why cyclists don't get a continuous green: A bus or car needs a quick drive trough, or else it will produce a lot of air pollution. Walking or cycling doesn't produce pollution when they need to stop.
8 місяців тому
Obrigar os carros a parar e a ficar mais tempo contribui para aumentar mais o ruído e piorar a qualidade do ar. Luz verde para carros significa que os carros podem sair de cena rapidamente.
The idea behind this, is that the vast majority of car users will hate driving through a crowded city centre, and therefore eventually moving towards public transport alternatives...which are plenty. Driving a car towards and in the city centre: slow. Driving away: quick. Less cars overall because the alternative is widely available...so less pollution. 😅
No this would be worse with continuous green for cylists. First: only the wide street has a bus lane, so with this many buses coming down the road, they would often have to wait behind a line of cars, if cars did not get a green priority. This would mess up the system for buses, and that is a major no-no. They do not get priority because of the # of people they carry, but because they are on a schedule. They need to get to the next stop in time. 2nd: while there are more bikes and pedestrians than cars, the comparison is nog 1:1. Cylists and pedestrians -are annoying and should die slow deaths- take up much less room. 5 cyclists could take about as much space on a bike path as a single car. So a larger number of waiting cyclists would take up much less space than even a few cars. The goal is to get the cars out of the city as fast as possible, not have them hanging around creating traffic jams.
These lights are so dangerous, it encourages drivers to push through orange, eventualy quiet a few slipping through red. If someoen slows down it immediately change colour its an unpredictable mess, I seen a lot of realy close calls with cars, pedestrians and cyclists due to these lights, most immportantly it forces drivers to be recless and dont slow down near a changing light. Oh and they have a hard time picking up motorcycles.
Forcing cars to always stop is a very bad idea, because picking up speed produces more pollution than a continuous flow. I do not own a car, I bike when I can, so I do not want to breath in a lot of fine dust. But as soon as most of the cars are electric AND production of energy is renewable, I will be with you on this idea.
That is exactly why you want as few cars in the city as possible. And that’s why you make walking and cycling or taking the bus so much relatively better. Also the intersection is already a default red for everyone at the moment
In Rotterdam they have special rain sensors on big intersections so the cyclists will get more and longer green when it’s raining!
Rain sensors for increased timing, now that's a great idea!
Rotterdam is a nightmare for cyclists and i would know, I cycle here every single day! Please help us
@@2500dozoNightmare?? Ever been abroad, its still freaking amazing
@@tankimarkgraafSome people take our infrastructure for granted.
@@tankimarkgraaf Obviously I do not compare with other countries!! That would be really stupid. I am comparing Rotterdam to other Dutch big cities like Amsterdam Utrecht Haarlem etc. Rotterdam is the odd one in NL and an automobile heaven. It is a bicycle nightmare.
Good to see, thirty years ago, Haarlem was famous for its "always red" traffic lights for all (cyclists, pedestrians and cars). I vividly remember being very angry at an article in the local newspaper (Haarlems Dagblad) featuring an interview with the guy who was responsible for traffic lights. He said that his priority was safety. And "there is no more safe traffic than standing traffic". What that idiot of a civil servant forgot, was that standing traffic is not traffic. I don't know how many hours I wasted in the first 34 years of my life living there, but I should visit that guy (if he is still alive) and sue him.
Oh yeah I heard a saying there. stoplight not traffic light.
Some places can still use some inspiration then. Living in Delft, I find myself waiting an awful lot at deserted junctions.
@@jemoeder5347 I feel you. I know. And on top of this, in Haarlem you had a river flowing through the city with a lot of boats and thus open bridges. Back in my youth, even in rush hour. They changed that, fortunately.
Interestingly, if all lights show red by default this should limit wait times on a low traffic intersection as you do not have to wait for the direction that has green to cycle to red first, which typically takes some 7-10 seconds. It is always a matter of choice and whatever choice you make there will always be someone who thinks you made the wrong one. That said, on the point of Delft, for some obscure reason that city appears to have the worst traffic engineers in the whole country. And no it's not just the Delflandplein death trap, the traffic light installation on the Westlandseweg-Papsouwselaan intersection can easily leave you waiting for several minutes as a high number of priority traffic turn every other light to red even if they only had green for like 3 seconds and after the priority vehicle passed the cycle continues with the next in it's list rather than return to the one that was cut short. Having lived close to that intersection I've witnessed how surprisingly often the frequency of trams and busses arriving at it matched the full cycle time of the traffic light installation almost perfectly, effectively halting traffic in one direction completely.
That was before the government was shrunk and intersections began to be arranged by private companies (who had to actually do something to get paid). Naarden had a similar intersection Rijksweg/Godelindeweg. Only one direction at a time got green, so you right-turn-only in 2 directions, while the straight lanes that didn't cross those were made to wait.
You could easily spend 11 minutes there and roughly 100% of cyclists and 20% of cars ran the red light, meaning that if any of them missed anything you had a potential fatal on your hands. There were daily trafficjams because the main flow Rijksweg/Godelindeweg didn't receive priority over cyclists and local traffic, so you had empty cycling lanes getting green, while you had 200 cars waiting. 😆
They closed a whole bunch of roads in the neighbourhood such as Graaf Lodewijklaan because traffic wanted to avoid that intersection at all costs. Cost millions just because the civil servants hate to work.
Then somewhere mid 2000's a commercial company was contracted to do the traffic arrangements and they fixed the intersection.
The algorithm finally showed me another great channel after watching nearly all videos of notjustbikes, bicycledutch and activetowns ;)
Very well presented and I especially liked the different views of and to the intersection.
And a year later it reached mine haha liked and abonnee
Nice! Love me some “continuous” green for bikes and peds. Great job on the video. Cheers! John
My impression is that Dutch traffic signals always stay red until they detect approaching traffic. My guess is that this is a safety feature, if you see a green you think its going to turn red and you will have to wait so you are going to speed up just to catch the green. That way people take risk for the sake of getting green. If the light is red by default you are not going to speed up coming to the intersection.
Its worth mentioning that on most Dutch traffic light you don't technically need to press a button. A sensor on the road will detect you and "press" the button for you in most cases. This is true for bike lanes too as well for the cars.
Pretty cool how you make transportation topics interesting and presentable. I wish more places in the world had intersections like this.
Intersection critique, what a wonderful sub-genre! Waiting for the next one.
This needs to be a new trend.
I travel trough TU Delft every day and was thinking of this intersection as soon as you mentioned continuous green light bike priority. Funny to see it actually featured in the video. The bike path is the main route for the entire campus to reach the train station. Extremely busy at around 8:30 am!
In my experience the students cycling that road cross anyway if the light is red so its probably better to just keep it on green lol
I've used this intersection a lot as a pedestrian and cyclist. Do urban planners count how many pedestrians and cyclists ignore red lights? That is what makes this intersection smooth for me as pedestrian / cyclist. I don't have to wait very long for green, but it's also so transparent that I can easily ignore the red if I'm in a hurry. Please note that 90% of buses make a turn and don't cross the main crossing for pedestrians and cyclists
As a pedestrian or a cyclist i ignore most red lights when i'm not going to slow down traffic which has the priority or when there's no traffic at all. Also, jaywalking. But i can see why they are against the law.
You seem to be very comfortable about running red lights. Do you never feel guilty regarding the kids?
@@GrandTheftChris obviously not running the red light with a car. And i personally don't walk over the road with a red light when there are kids around.
@@ihuvvvcuncur2617 Although my question was for the OP, it's really nice to hear that you care about the kids and don't jaywalk when they're around. 👍
@@GrandTheftChris sometimes sure. If I see a parent and a young child waiting, I will take that into consideration. But I hope the parent teaches the child not to behave like some adults.
Continuous green can be good and regularly used in the Netherlands, however, this solution doesn’t fit everywhere.
To start of, if you want to give continuous green for both cyclists and pedestrians, you should ask yourself if both your current design and a controlled intersection are a right fit for the situation. For example, the intersection in Delft… Dutch guidelines state this intersection shouldn’t be a controlled one. They only installed one because cars can quite literally get stuck when school starts. They probably saw this as the only solution, but sometimes something as simple as making it a one-way street and/or reversing directions could also fix your problem.
Back to the original intersection, while I don’t know for certain why it’s controlled in this way I can take a few guesses. For example the city probably has a priority network, in that network busses probably have the highest priority. As you pointed out the frequency of busses is very high, so even if the lights were green by default they would have to turn red very frequently. The second (and possibly more important) part are the clearance times. This is a pretty wide crossing for Dutch standards and even though you can make the crossing in two separate steps you generally want to avoid that. This means that for the pedestrians to cross all the way, you need to have longer clearance times which might result in a less efficient cycle and longer wait times for everyone over all. These scenarios typically get calculated/simulated and weighed against each together with some guidelines/performance criteria in mind, like the priority network I mentioned.
My guess is this intersection will get a bit of a redesign 10 or 20 years down the road when it’s up for renovation. Would be fun to see what it looks like then!
It looks like there is a lot of potential for experimenting. They can change up the signal mix to see how it affects flows. Changes can be made during different weather and traffic flow times to further customize how the system reacts to traffic.
Most likely not. Especially when there's public transport involved (and especially at this point, know it personally) systems can (and usually are) also be interconnected to prevent one intersection just keep sending traffic while another has longer red-cycles.
Just adapting one intersection to change its cycles can cause major mayhem in the rest of the city.
having lived close to there and cycling through that intersection a lot. it it extremely amazing to go through as it is one that never felt delaying or unfair
Thanks for posting this analysis video. I appreciate seeing someone who's trained in this thoughts on the matter.
There's a continuous green light for cyclists near where I live,
And it really helps with the safety, as you can't actually see around the corner until it's too late,
So by having the cars slow down every time they approach
Cyclists no longer have to worry about cars expecting a green light when it's red.
I use the set of trafic lights in Delft on a daily basis. It's very efficient and works very well for the massive amount of (student) bike traffic! Before implementing it fully, they tested whether students would actually yield for the red light or if they'd be too stubborn and actually carry on. Turned out to work pretty well!
Well done with the content of the video. I loved it! Great suggestion for the continuous green light for bikes. It's easier for a car to start from a stopped than a bike.
Thank you!
Having cars stop and accelerate has a negative impact on air quality. I'm not sure if that was a consideration in this instance but a continuously green flow is a commonly used tool to improve air quality in residential areas
I would love to see you compare the efficient flow of traffic through an intersection like this with the flow of an inefficient north american style intersection that handles the same volume of people. Estimating infrastructure cost, safety/fatalities, etc.
With the high rate of busses, I get another idea: detect cars, but basically ignore them - and only let them go when a bus triggers the phase anyway or they are waiting for very long.
How stupid, you want a car to wait 30 minutes???? For the next bus.
@@colinwinogradoff6794For A this isn't a pedestrian crossing in the US, so this isn't about minutes but about seconds. And B he says, there is a bus around every minute. So I'd give three scenarios to give cars green: a bus is approaching anyway (timed so the bus just get's green), there is a gap in the bike traffic or the car is waiting for more than ~30 seconds.
…actually the busses are the only reason to even have a traffic light. Else just place a yield sign. :)
To be fair, based on the video, most pedestrians are already using that intersection like it is a continuous green one, haha.
Notice the adjusted road design with the always green light at the end, continuous bike path, elevated road to slow down cars. Just having an always green light with a road crossing may actually cause more lethal accidents due to speed difference. It's not just (about) bikes, but safety by design.
I think it's a fascinatnig video in the detailed and objectove analysis you do.
Great to see a Usonian with a different mindset.
A good intermediate solution is to put in detection loops for cyclists, which 'pushes the button' at enough distance so a free passage is likely when there are no buses crossing. This could be tuned to the number of bikes and cars on either side of the crossing (again with buses getting top priority). These systems are in place in the Netherlands, and it works really well in the quieter hours.
Priority can be given to either cyclists or cars passing their loops, depending on traffic, backups on side streets etc.
Most likely induction loops for cyclists are already present at this site.
An important part I think you didn't explain very well is that Dutch smart traffic lights use sensors specifically to detect an approaching vehicle (they have them both for cars and bikes). So on a road with a long run up to the light like this, a continuous green for cyclists is perfect because the road signal can detect traffic a good 10-15 seconds before it gets to the light, which is enough to gather information on how many cars are coming down the road and also make a decision based on this and the oncoming cycling traffic on when to turn the cycle light red. It could do this immediately (to avoid the cars having to waste energy stopping and accelerating again) or it can do it with some delay (to let a large group of bikes through first).
Honestly, what you could do here is a non-normal traffic light, especially eastbound, where it is only green for cars with bus (during rushour) you just doublegreen during bus (and clear queue of cars simultaneously) and then back to pedestrians/cyclists
In the past cyclists had to press a button.
These days the lights already know you are there or are getting close to it.
Some also have rain censors so cyclists get green quicker. (you in the car won't get wet)
Finding a light that only accepts the old button press is hard to find. (I know of no such light anywhere)
There are still buttons at many places, but very often they aren't connected to anything. It's just psychological.
@@drfisheye That's a myth: of course they are connected! Stuff like that isn't just a cheap button, those things are very costly and the all-weather-proof-for-the-next-20-years pole plus striping and a vandalism-all-weather-proof button is an extremely expensive item by itself (I think you can easly think about a 1000 to 2000 euro pricepoint for just 1 pole+button)
My city has a few that still rely on the press of a button. If you don't press it, you will not get a green, it's as simple as that.
@@weeardguy there is a magnetic sensor that detects the bicycles just like with cars. The button is almost never actually needed to get green light. But the button does get the cyclists to stand at right location.
@@drfisheye That the button isn't always needed anymore is a totally different explanation than that it isn't connected, because it sure as hell is. The pole and a switch is just too expensive to just put there and not connect it and also serves as a back-up: if the induction loop or processing electronics behind it fails, you will have no solution to fall back upon. Though there is always a programmed cycle for such cases, pedestrians and cyclists usually are not on the priority list in most cycles.
A first recognizing a familiar street on UA-cam.
I think a continuous green system would also improve safety.
A red light would always means "a car is coming". Now it could mean "a car is coming" or "your green time is up". Removing this ambiguity makes the intersection safer.
In Tilburg they have a few which look very similar to this near te train station and they're so damn nice
Very interesting, yes more videos like this are very welcome. Good job
When the man in Delft explained the intersection he forgot the most important detail (which you pointed out right away): the cars have to wait a certain amount of time before being crossing. This allows cars behind them to get in line, crossing at the same time as them, lowering the total red-time for the cyclists and pedestrians.
An instant cross for cars would make no very little difference compared to an always red crossing.
Absolutely great idea to keep a continuous green for pedestrians and bikes, and cars would stop and wait. We are so used to the other way around that it feels normal, but it's not. #priorities
This light timing reversal in favor of pedestrians and cyclists would work well in high ped and bike areas. Are you suggesting adopting it in high car/ low or medium ped/bike areas to discourage car journeys and encourage walking and cycling? Another thing to consider: would having cars frequently stop and start increase their carbon footprint?
Hey there. So issues like what this intersection is experiencing are a good problem because its a sign that the city has made the right decisions to arrive at this dynamic. They have a bicycle express connection going from the main train station the the downtown. The have a road that moves modest amounts of cars from one city to another that already has priority for buses. The setup of the signal timing is inherited from the past which is trying to minimize the delay to whoever pulls up at the intersection. If a cyclist pulls up and requests green, itll turn green almost immediaelty if theres not many cars moving through. Exact same with a car.
Issue here is, trying to treat all the time loss equally degrades the quality of that express connection between the downtown and train station even though we want it to be as convenient as possible for the bike traffic and we are already taking steps to discourage excessive local car trips. So we just need a signal update to fit the purpose of the environment. Think of it like a software update. The base code isnt bad, we just need to update it to reflect where we want to go with the environment.
Now this isn't something I would suggest most americans cities do just to try to encourage more bicycle trips. Before you change the signalling to priotize to the bicycle express route over the local car road, you actually need to build the bicycle express route and create a proper local car road. Keeping traffic sewers and stroads in their current form and just changing the signal timing would probably jsut cause a lot of chaos and lots of blowback against projects like these. This signal step is more of a final step and even in higher bike reas in the US, theres so much more they could do with improving the bike routes themselves, improving the crossing safety, banning right turns on red and so on before doing a continuous green signal fo bikes and peds.
The point about carboon footprint resulting from cars stopping and starting is nonsensical because the real goals, reducing car trips in the downtown is a thousand times more effective at cleanign local air quality then tryign to remove every possible barrier so cars arent idling. Getting the car number down is the only way to do this.
Priority order:
1. Get rid of (most) single-family zoning / get rid of euclidean zoning rules.
2. Densify cities and suburbs.
3. Create mix use zoning.
4. Prioritize public transportation.
5. Change traffic rules prioritizing cyclists and pedestrians.
6 ... then do the advanced "stuff".
"would having cars frequently stop and start increase their carbon footprint?"
That's an interesting question. On an individual level, yeah definitely. But doing this would also encourage people to use alternative modes of transportation, which then decreases the total carbon footprint. The overarching question I guess is, which is larger: the decrease from having fewer cars, or the increase of having those cars start and stop more frequently? My guess is that there's an overall net positive, since the cleanest car is a car that isn't driving (actually, a car that didn't need to be produced in the first place)
A hybrid car, even non plug in, will have only a small extra carbon footprint for a stop Starr since the Regen braking will recover the energy and use it to accelerate after. Still some but much less than traditional. Obviously applies to BEV as well.
@@wimahlers you might want to first build a bike path network before prioritizing intersections for cyclists and pedestrians
If I'm understanding correctly, you have no sensors for bikes, they just get default green. When the sensor detects a car that triggers the lights to cycle to give the car green then it changes back for the cyclists to continue. So bike green is default, but when both car and bike are present, car gets priority.
What if you put the car sensor further away from the junction so the cycle is triggered sooner, so that the light changes to green just in time for the car to arrive so it doesn't have to fully stop and can keep going? Less delay for cars. Cars cross junction faster than if they had to go from a standing start, so the duration of red for cyclists is shorter meaning less delay for cyclists. I suppose it all depends on how frequent the cars are. If you make every car wait 30s then there is more chance another car will come along and 2 can go through on the same cycle which is more efficient, but that means if there is not a 2nd car then the wait was for nothing. The sensor will detect the 2nd car so the car light can stay green if it is close enough to the first car. When car traffic is heavier you will need to revert to balancing the timings for each mode so neither has to wait an unreasonable amount of time.
I'd be amazed if there were no loops for cyclists there.
I'm not too concerned with delaying cars a bit. I think letting them wait a bit, and then moving a bunch of cars through all at once is more efficient. Also, slower car traffic is safer, so if cars have to come to a complete stop that's a safety win. Finally: the only way to fix traffic congestion is to have good alternatives to driving. Trying to make it convenient and fast for cars will induce more people to drive, which will slow down cars even more, and will slow down other modes of transport as well which leads to more people driving. Slowing down cars speeds up cars.
Almost alle car approaches to traffic signals have a minimum of 3 detector loops in the road. With the furthest one at 60m (urban) to 120m for this exact reason.
In some cases this can't be done.
If the crosswalk is long enough, the clearance time will be long. The detector will have to be far away from the intersection.
And if there are driveways or accesses along the way, people turning out of them won't be detected.
The situation where the cycling light is kept green could be even more efficient. If the light for the cars turns green immediately when a car approaches, then the car does not need to stop, and therefore the period for which cycling traffic is blocked can be shorter.
Most likely, this is already the case during the quiet hours: cyclists and pedestrians get a green light even if there's no traffic (and cars thus have a red) but as soon as a car approaches and there's no cyclist or pedestrian coming, the car gets a green before he or she gets to a full stop.
We tend to avoid a green well in advance of the car approaching: we like the car to slow down so should a cyclist or pedestrian appear out of nowhere (and unfortunately they are quite good at that, especially during the dark hours) the speed is lowered already. The second reason is dependability: we tend to refrain from that approach for 1 particular reason: if a driver, familiar with the situation, approaches such a junction at a quiet time of day, he can get a green every single time and can get used to that. Till the day there suddenly is a cyclist or pedestrian and the motorist, completely used to the situation, keeps on going...
Very interesting to watch. Good video.
Can you do a video on how true transit priority works in the Netherlands?
It used to be a radio-tag system communicating by the induction loops in the past, called VETAG/VECOM (VETAG, VEhicle TAG) was the first system, VECOM (VEhicle COMmunication) its successor, these days SICS apparently is the next best thing which builds upon VETAG/VECOM functionality. But most buses these days now rely on GPS-data sent to the cabinets along the route: some nine-eye lights (Negenoog, special lights for public transport) even can be set by the driver by entering a few taps on a special screen in their driving cabin. It will turn green if they drive up to it from the stop, but if they tap their screen a few times, they can force it to 'green' before they get to an induction loop that triggers it. Where the systems from the past just sent information about the vehicle (and thus requesting a green cycle as quickly as possible) the additional info sent these days also holds information about the delay of the vehicle, which can alter the cycle of a light even further (instead of a short waiting time, a delay could trigger a green-cycle further in advance so the bus can just keep going)
720P in 2023?
There are electronic loops in the road. Cars and bikes create a reaction on the trafficlights. You donot need the button
In this area you still need to press the button as a pedestrian to get the green sooner
@@steffenberr6760 Yes,because we arend made off metal.The sensor reacts to metal..
The button is still a good thing to have, because not all bikes have enough metal in them. Carbon frame bikes, for example.
Also it provides redundancy in case the detector loops fail.
Nice video!
I'd suggest an additional loop to detect further from the lights if possible, so prediction is more useful, since normal speeds of biker is 15mph or 25mph max you could get enough time. A rain detector might be nice as well.
that loop is there. thats why the bikers had such a short green light window.
the average speed of Dutch cyclists is 9mph though, since they're not cyclists like in other countries, they're just commuting, not sporting
Change those mph to km/h and you're correct
3:00 Hah! Oh yeah that's the Netherlands alright. 4 near misses in about as many seconds when you get closer to the city center but they all get away with it and carry on. With buses the general attitude is, if they don't get priority, they will take it. To be on schedule of course. Sometimes they even go before they signal. Never overtake a bus standing still as a cyclist and be hyper focused as a car driver.
cyclist only had a few sec. green because no more approaching cyclist were detected. this smart system uses 3 detection loops, like is common over here (the Netherlands). cars in this intersection don't have priority over cyclists.
To provide a continuous green for cyclists, they need sophisticated sensors to detect the bicycles. Detecting cars is easy, but the smaller metallic mass of a bike is less so. It can be done, but at a cost.
Nope, just the same induction loops work for bikes, just smaller. Nobody drives carbonfibre bikes here so it is easy to detect them
@Vos and those few who do ride a carbonfiber bicycle can use the button to let the system know they are there (or wait 2 seconds until a metal bike pulls up next to them)
This is literally not an issue, almost every trafficlight I know of here has bicycle detecting loops
Yeah, you know what's expensive? All the extra roads and traffic lights and parking garages you need when biking isn't convenient and people drive instead. High bicycle mode share saves a LOT of money.
the continues green isn't there because the buslane has priority.
Love this explanation. Now to convince Americans that to think in terms of prioritizing walking humans and biking humans and strollering humans over cars. So many automatically feel too vulnerable to continue the thought experiment once you theoretically remove the car.
Yeah but don't forget that most streets in The Netherlands within cities are already small and narrow and hardly ever feature more than 3 lanes (Which probably are also more narrow than a lane in the USA). This automatically makes you feel less vulnerable. A friend of mine lives close to the Amsterdam Ring motorway and inevitably, cyclists and pedestrians will have to cross the major roads that branch off from the motorway into the city. One of those crossings features a 3 or even 4 lane road with traffic from the left only, an island and than 3 or even 4 lanes with traffic from the right only. It never feels nice to crosse there, while 2 lanes at most usually feels like no big deal.
And paired with that is that the overal walkability also needs to improve. Just removing cars isn't the solution if you still can't get anywhere.
Interesting seeing Harlem here. Amsterdam Avenue.
At least it's a city, albeit a small one. Breukelen (Brooklyn), on the other hand, has a population of 10,000
Well, i do have a few suggestions. You seem very capable in adding your face to the video. But i miss a map of the area that you talk about. But then you go into google streetview, and suddenly there is a tiny map on the bottom left. Perhaps you can put 2 and 2 together. Second, you could use some program to encircle certain systems you talk about. Like the loops in the road that trigger the smart system, or the traffic lights that you talk about. Also, you took mostly static pictures and video. Perhaps you could rent a Ov Fiets at the trainstation and drive the intersection with the camera rolling as a starter for the video so we know what your on about, rather then a static shot of the crossing.
As for static green, it could be a solution, but frankly, its still sub par. A even better solution would be to get rid of the throughput of cars, pedestrianize the area, and put a bidirectional buslane in the middle. The road would be turned into a park with room for shops and seating arrangements, the noise and smell would go away since most busses are electric these days, and overall the place would be even nicer to the inhabitants of the town as well as the visitors.
at 7:28 and 7:34 you find the answer to a lot of questions.
Bicyclists just ignore their red light whenever they want.
That is the reason why legally compliant drivers have no understanding of giving cyclists even more rights
When it comes to sheer numbers the suggestion probably holds up. But does it holld up when you compare how much space each mode takes (car vs bike vs bus vs pedestrian) really hold up? You can easily fit 4 to 5 bicycles in the same space a car takes for example.
So if one would implement this solution, wouldn't car traffic get much worse space wise? Generally you only want to use these setups in places where there's the occasional car and a lot of cyclists (think of the crossing near TU Delft for an example). It works there perfectly because you have *a* car every few minutes on average.
Hey there,
so a couple quick things. Changing it to continuous green for cyclists shouldnt effect the car traffic to much because:
Its rarely the case that the light is already green when a car approaches and when it does, just 1 or 2 cars pass before the lgiht changes again. The backup currently happening is due to when the light is already red when the cars approach and cue. What this would do is get rid of a lot of the akward delay cyclist experience when theres not a clear reason for why the light is red to them (when no one is currently using the interesection).
But also secondly, the delay for car drivers is not always going to be the biggest priority. It dpends on the context, and tin this context. we are in the center of haarlem and we have a vital link where 4-5x the number of people cycle and walk through then drive. Priotitizing them this way will minimize the delay for the total users of this interesection and barely change it for the cars drivers
@@buildthelanes The way you're proposing makes it worse for everyone, not better.
@@therealdutchidiot got some numbers to prove that?
@@buildthelanes Actual experience with this type of infrastructure. You're talking like you don't understand the first thing about traffic flows.
@@therealdutchidiot I do understand traffic flows but I also see the system as a comprehensive whole and there is more value in letting more people through quicker between downtown and the train station. The LOS of automotive traffic not an end all be all.
I lived in Haarlem very close to this intersection from 1999 to 2014. Kruisweg was not that nice back in 1999. It is way better now!
right!? also cool news haarlem is going to experiment with part of my idea. You heard it here first!
Did you actually nick a 'work in progress' sign? 🤪
believe it or not, it was gifted to me and i didnt ask too many questions
@@buildthelanes A wise man.
Btw: Love your work. Subscribed!
NotJustBikes has begun the age of going nuts about bike infrastructure lol
It’s just a good signal ;)
i live there wtf
Hi
Moving people should be the priority everywhere, not moving cars.
Good video, but you need a "de-esser" on your voiceover
LOWkey this intersection is actually a little annoying to walk through because the beg buttons for pedestrian crossing is a little slow to respond. The intersection between grote houtstraat and gedempte oude gracht in Haarlem, while having fewer pedestrian and cyclist friendly design elements, is ironically faster to cross most of the time. It's a really small nitpick though lol
theyre going to change it after we discussed it during our meeting, stay tuned!
You can’t have continuous green for two directions.
Although it's efficient, I am of the opinion (I live there) that this intersection is one of the more dangerous ones. Not because of the improvements to the traffic lights/width of the road/one way bus lane or any other practical improvement, but because of human psychology. Because many who use this intersection, and use it frequently, are now predicting and most of the time ignoring the traffic light because... they know it favors bicycles. In my 6 years as a commuter between the train station and my home, I have seen many near misses and as a cyclist myself I am now opting for a different route to the station because this path is always packed with people who now have been influenced by this traffic light :D
I'm honestly wondering why an American is thinking about our Dutch traffic systems.....?
Omdat ik werk in Nederland als een verkeerskundige
En Nederland heeft in meine meining de beste systeem van de wereld
@@buildthelanes Gelijk heb je ☺️👍
@@buildthelanes Is wel "Het systeem" hè 🙂
@@MartinInAmsterdam oki oki oki
1:06 Attention headphone users
I think you forget a important factor why cyclists don't get a continuous green:
A bus or car needs a quick drive trough, or else it will produce a lot of air pollution.
Walking or cycling doesn't produce pollution when they need to stop.
Obrigar os carros a parar e a ficar mais tempo contribui para aumentar mais o ruído e piorar a qualidade do ar. Luz verde para carros significa que os carros podem sair de cena rapidamente.
Carros modernos tem o Stop-Start e não é um problema
The idea behind this, is that the vast majority of car users will hate driving through a crowded city centre, and therefore eventually moving towards public transport alternatives...which are plenty.
Driving a car towards and in the city centre: slow.
Driving away: quick.
Less cars overall because the alternative is widely available...so less pollution. 😅
No this would be worse with continuous green for cylists. First: only the wide street has a bus lane, so with this many buses coming down the road, they would often have to wait behind a line of cars, if cars did not get a green priority. This would mess up the system for buses, and that is a major no-no. They do not get priority because of the # of people they carry, but because they are on a schedule. They need to get to the next stop in time.
2nd: while there are more bikes and pedestrians than cars, the comparison is nog 1:1. Cylists and pedestrians -are annoying and should die slow deaths- take up much less room. 5 cyclists could take about as much space on a bike path as a single car. So a larger number of waiting cyclists would take up much less space than even a few cars. The goal is to get the cars out of the city as fast as possible, not have them hanging around creating traffic jams.
Why are the cyclists not wearing helmets? Are they stupid?
These lights are so dangerous, it encourages drivers to push through orange, eventualy quiet a few slipping through red. If someoen slows down it immediately change colour its an unpredictable mess, I seen a lot of realy close calls with cars, pedestrians and cyclists due to these lights, most immportantly it forces drivers to be recless and dont slow down near a changing light.
Oh and they have a hard time picking up motorcycles.
Forcing cars to always stop is a very bad idea, because picking up speed produces more pollution than a continuous flow. I do not own a car, I bike when I can, so I do not want to breath in a lot of fine dust. But as soon as most of the cars are electric AND production of energy is renewable, I will be with you on this idea.
That is exactly why you want as few cars in the city as possible. And that’s why you make walking and cycling or taking the bus so much relatively better. Also the intersection is already a default red for everyone at the moment
CARS produce more pollution than NO CARS. The solution is self-evident.