Yes. I'd really love to know what the ridiculous delays in traffic lights on pedestrian and bicycle crossing is all about. Surely this only leads to frustration for both pedestrians and cyclists, and for cars that often stop for no reason as the person has being sick of waiting has already crossed .
This one annoys me no end. One that comes to mind is the pedestrian crossing on Springvale Rd near Whites Lane. Can take several minutes while in the meantime you get several gaps in the traffic and you're waiting around looking stupid.
@@bradl7439 I just asked about this at VicRoads here: www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/contact-us/feedback-and-enquiries and suggested that they watch the whole video as well.
Every single one of those crossing would have had flashing lights and boom gates if they were in operation today. I think a raised crossing and call buttons that actually stop traffic ASAP without waiting a minute or more should be the bare minimum of such a high-profile trail as this one. And yes, I’m a new viewer and now subscriber to your channel 👍🏻
Yup. On a rails-to-trails conversion in the PNW, there's a spot where trails users have stop signs to yield to *golfers going from one part of the course to another*. I make the joke that I guess the freight trains that used to come through there had to stop and yield to golfers crossing the rail line...
This bothers me because every other street is for cars. 99% of streets are for cars, so you'd at least think they'd give that 1% of space for other modes priority over cars, right? Nope, on that last remaining 1% they also prioritize cars over everything else. It's like if a public park was 99% for golf but on the remaining 1% where you're allowed to picnic, they insist on playing golf there too so you can't even picnic there. It's absurd how much we subsidize car use over everything else despite the tremendous costs to society.
My understanding of long wait times after pressing the beg button is that they are hoping to batch pedestrians up so that more of them cross at once and fewer pedestrian phases are needed, providing more green time to cars. This is most likely based on the results of traffic simulations. Of course, as you describe, the results are very different in real life because real pedestrians cross in gaps rather than obediently waiting over a minute for the green man and drivers end up stopping at a red light when no one wants to cross. Another longer-term outcome of this is that fewer people choose to cycle and walk because they know that the level of service is poor unless you are in a car, meaning that batching pedestrians isn't even possible because they are too infrequent, making the long wait time pointless. It doesn't even achieve a better level of service for drivers, only a worse one for pedestrians and cyclists. The earliest misunderstanding in this chain is probably that mode choices are inelastic and that we should "predict and provide" capacity. In reality, the capacity choices road engineers make influence the mode choices that the public make which makes building roads for the predicted rise in motorists a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back in the 1980s, studies in Australia showed very poor pedestrian compliance with signalised crossings if the wait was more than 30 seconds. I guess the traffic engineers don't care about real-world human behaviour.
I sometimes wish our bike trails/routes were looked after by a proper state entity start-to-finish, similar to how VicRoads manages arterials. Currently it seems like in order to have a good network we need every single council to get its act together, and one council failing to do so (like in this video) can just ruin a route for everyone. Meanwhile VicRoads puts painted bike lanes on highway interchanges like that's helping anyone.
Are you willing to pay use fees like motor vesicles pay in the form of License fees and gas taxes or do you just want to free load off of peoples tax dollars that don't ride bicycles ?
@WesB1972 Carbrained logic. Automobiles are heavily subsidised. But to answer the question, if I got the proper, safe infrastructure that cycling needs and turned my home into Copenhagen, I absolutely would pay my fair share. It would certainly be cheaper than paying for car infrastructure as we do now.
You better be careful what you wish for. The fees you mention go nowhere near covering the cost of car infrastructure, and bicycle infrastructure is far, far cheaper.
I feel this. I commute into town daily from Whittington, and the crossings on my way, especially St Albans Rd having no refuge, are never fun. Bump outs, raised crossings, and narrowing or chicanes on the road to slow cars on the lead-up would make these especially busy crossings so much nicer
The Okeefe rail trail (from Bendigo) has far less intersections but when I rode it last was just gravel. Where it is means that it's virtually entirely for social riding as it's location doesn't make it suitable for a commuting route. Would really be nice to see a nice tarred rail route that actually has separated road crossings.
Happens almost everywhere. Dorset Golf Course in Croydon (Victoria). Trawalla Rd into the golf course is a dead end. Very little traffic as it's only people going to and from the golf course that use the road at this point. But despite the road having little humps before and after the crossing to slow traffic, the road STILL gets priority over the shared path that crosses it. And there's the usual 'Shared Path Ends', 'Give way' and shared path signs on both sides of the crossing. If the shared path can't get priority over a few vehicles going to and from a golf course, what hope have we got anywhere else?
They can use cameras / induction loop to detect bikes approaching light controlled crossings and triggering them so the bike doesn't have to stop. Though I think they should just put a train back in again - or put in a tram.
We have a similar issue here in Seattle, WA, USA. There's an excellent bike trail called the Burke-Gilman trail, but many of the road crossing have stop signs for cyclists. This can be problematic for a couple reasons: 1. The state of Washington has an "Idaho Stop" law, meaning cyclists are allowed to roll through stop signs as long it's safe to do so. This means cyclists will generally blow through the intersection, which can lead to some close calls. 2. Cars generally yield to cyclists anyways even though they have the right of way. This adds even more confusion because you can't predict the driver's behavior when approaching the intersection. Frankly I don't understand, if drivers already yield to cyclists as a courtesy, why they don't just codify it by changing the signage to match human behavior?
I've ridden this many, many times over the years and you know, I've just realised after watching this just how brainwashed I had become into thinking that cyclists are second class transportation citizens and just have to put up with risking their lives even on so called "bike paths".
I think in terms of the faster crossings for cars, its more to do with energy conservation that anything else, cars are much bigger than bikes obviously, and they take a lot more energy to stop and speed up again, so reducing the amount of times a car needs to slow down and speed up on a journey is usually priority on quicker roadways like that.
Great idea! Making them 30 km/h zones should reduce the amount of accelerating a motorist will have to commit to while improving safety for everyone. Win-win!
@@Kattbirb That could work, but you would still encounter the issue of vehicles having to lose speed and come to a stop and then accelerate again, Unfortunately without money there are never good solutions that benefit both parties, and the government in this case has chosen cars to have full priority due to the higher throughput compared to the bikes and people walking through the trail. In truth, waiting at a give way for a few minutes, be it a car or a bike/ped, doesn't make much of a difference to the journey, but because the car outputs so much more carbon emissions they are always going to have priority since a vehicle travelling at a constant speed has the least emissions. It all comes down to how much money the govt is willing/has to spend on projects like this, especially for the main roads, they cant lower speed limits due to the same energy conservation issues, and changing the speed limit doesn't really help cyclists cross the road other than maybe giving them a better chance if they ride out in front of a car. I think in an ideal world they would make an under or overpass for cyclists and peds but they are expensive, usually in the ballpark of 500,000 to 1 million for an overpass, maybe a bit more for an underpass. The more you think about simple problems like this the more you realise how chaotically complex they are
@toesmasher2138 This is incorrect on several points. Cars do not have greater throughput. Busses, light rail, trains, and bikes (during rush hour) all have better throughput than cars. For example, a "mostly empty" bus with 6 to 10 people on it is moving more than 6 to 8 cars do, as private cars are rarely used to transport more than one person. Government "chooses" the Auto and Oil industries that lobby billions of dollars a year to gain a privileged place in infrastructure. The fact that private cars emit so many carbons and microplastic, as well as stress-inducing noise, that they should be moved out of cities. Keep them on motorways where they are the most efficient and limit intra-city traffic to local movements. The issue is definitely difficult, but solutions to it are actually really simple when all the BS and emotional outbursts are removed from it.
I did write a reply but it was deleted and I really don't feel like writing it all again, so Im just gonna shorthand it all - Cars by themselves don't have greater throughput than bikes and peds, but, taking the entire day into account. Cars, trucks, busses, and other commercial vehicles in total will always outnumber bikes and peds. - Light rail and trains are outside the scope of this discussion (also light rail and trains are basically the same thing) - Also, a mostly empty bus with 6-10 people, if one went by the crossing per hour, that number of people would still likely total more than the number of bikes using the cossing - I see what you are saying public transport is better, which it is, but tell the govt that - Yes you are right, Oil companies do like throwing money around to gain priority, it does happen - Private cars and light commercial vehicles, in terms of emissions in the transport sector, do emit the majority of emissions, at 61%, however, in total, the total emissions for the entire sector of transport (trains, planes, boats, cars, trucks) only amounts to just over 10% of emissions, so vehicles should not be the thing to focus on - Microplastics are actually not emitted by vehicles, rubber emitted from tyres being abraised by the road surface is referred to as microplastic, but it isn't. - Yea noise definitely causes stress, which comes back to public transport. However, this electric car nonsense is making that problem even worse - I think once public transport is in a place that can handle restrictions of vehicles into cities, then yea, but we just don't have the money Lastly, everything is uber expensive, I said before that under and overpasses can cost between 500,000 and 1 million, well I was wrong, it costs around 13k to 39k aud per linear foot. Which would mean either would end up costing 500k minimum at least, not including maintenance and operating costs. While a simple traffic light system can cost between 500,000 and 2 million+ depending of a few factors.
You continue to miss the point. Busses use roads, yes, but they can have bus specific lanes enabling bus rapid transit and not get stuck in traffic. I'll concede the trains, but Light rail moves along rails placed in roadways, so they are absolutely within the perview of road traffic. And they beat private cars for throughput very thoroughly. Yes, bikes rarely convey more than one rider, same as cars, but they take a fraction of the space. Thus why cars do not scale well for moving people. And as for emissions, it's less about how much, as an EV fan I'm not trying to make arguments about climate change, but it's more about *where*. All these emissions from private cars in cities mean it's directly impacting everyone in the area. From the exhaust, the micrplastics or even just the constant noise of tires. Then for the economics, even if it costs the same for private car infrastructure as it does for transit and bikes, the car infrastructure requires constant maintenance, costing cities hundreds of millions of dollars every year, more than the measly gas and registration fees could ever cover. Cars aren't the answer. Their ubiquity is a symptom of worse issues like government incompetence if not abject corruption.
It's shocking that there aren't even crosswalk markings. Paint is not infrastructure, so having only such paint is a sore spot, and for 4-lane traffic, those at least have beg-button flasher things in my city. But to not even get painted crosswalk markings... what a slap in the face.
Scary stuff. Surprising that crossings are not even marked. The road lanes are so wide. Same problem here in France that cycle paths do not get priority even when they have hugely more traffic than the road that crosses them. Cycle crossings are normally well marked, the road lanes narrowed and drivers very respectful. Quite often there is a pedestrian crossing which seems to be taken as a bike priority crossing. Often cycle lanes are much faster than dedicated cycle paths because cyclists have rights the same as other vehicles.
Because those funding the infrastructure don't care about international best practises. They've probably never even heard of CROW. I hope they do improve things though, because where I live, they tend to copy whatever is done in Victoria...
There is definitely opportunity to start prioritising bikes along this route. Intersection by intersection! Especially the low use dirt roads for starters
Kildorary Rd is an example of the kind of thing I see here in California and when I was riding in Wisconsin a week ago. Crossing a slow street and yet cyclists are told to STOP first. Not yield (because the USA doesn't understand yield signs) On the Iron Horse Trail nearby there is a stop sign every few hundred meters as it crosses quiet residential streets. Of course, no adult stops. Bad design
I live in Christchurch NZ and major cycle lanes or busy roads always have lights that stops cars when cyclist or pedestrian approach and wants to cross....
@@T0mMy56 yeah, Brisbane has some really good cycling infrastructure like that. Bicycles get priority at some intersections and there are physical barriers between bike lanes and car traffic.
Well pedestrian crossings near roundabouts with raised paving have recently been installed around the Geelong/South Geelong area. Several on Yarra Street, Swanston Street, and Bellerine Street. I use them frequently and have not yet had a car not give way to me.
In Norway, yes. They will stop, but you must not take it for granted. It is the culture and attitude that matters. If car drivers think they can behave just like sharks in the waters, they will.
We have a few crossing made of submerged storm-water drains here in Melbourne and that works well. I don't imagine these would be too expensive to install.
Ja, ich kenne all dies. Hier in CH ist es auch nicht besser: schlechte Fahrrad Infrastruktur. Lange und schlechte Unleitungen von Baustellen für Fahrradfahrer; Fahradwege, die oft über steile Rampen und schlechte Wege führen; Fahrradwege, die oft zweite Prioritäten bei Kreutzungen etc haben. Es braucht wohl noch ein paar Jahre, bis die Politiker und Verkehrsplaner merken, dass, wenn die Infrastruktur für den Labgsamverkehr top ist, es auch besser für den Autoverkehr wird. Eine gute Verkehrsinfrastruktur für Fahrradfahrer bringt mehr Menschen auf das Fahrrad und entlastet damit den Autoverkehr😅
I've been complaining about this for a long time. This is why "car" infrastructure is almost always more efficient than "bicycle infrastructure". Even on segregated lanes following a trunk road, often the crossings have stop signs for cycles, but not for cars. Even with no stop signs, it's still wise to slow down and prepare to yield as cars will frequently not give way. Who needs this efficiency more: a motor vehicle with 200 hp or a bicycle that might make, generously, 1/4 hp?
In Vancouver and North Vancouver, Canada cycling infra is generally getting pretty good but you still see this kind of physical evidence everywhere that cycling is a nuisance to city engineers and no matter how pretentious a name they give a route, how many media are at the ribbon cutting, or how good they want to look to environmentalist voters, or how much they want to impress their peers at conferences, no matter if the traffic pattern is 100 bikes and pedestrians for every 1 person in a car, cars get zero signs and bikes get a half dozen, cars get a smoothly radiused curve and bikes get to zig-zag all over the place, cars get no traffic calming and bikes get a narrowing cattle gate with bollards and railings and other obstructions.
It's the same thing here with the multi-use paths crossing the streets. It's always yield to the car traffic and not the other way around ever. I see it as basically a license for the car drivers to mow down the cyclists, which they will. It's arse-backwards and it always has been.
If a car driver hits a pedestrian for any reason they're going to have a tough time proving that they're not at fault. Unless the pedestrian is dressed head to toe in black at night and jumps out on to the road from a bush you're required to stop for them by law and will be held responsible if you don't. Bikes are obligated to follow the same rules as cars, so obviously they have some responsibility to prove that they were using the road safely and legally if they're involved in an accident. A pedestrian has assumed right of way, no matter where you see one, you're required to drive in a way that's safe for them. It's illegal to walk on many raised freeways for example, but you're still likely to blame for running somebody over on them. When driving you're required to look for hazards and avoid collisions at all times. That's the law. Right of way never changes that.
I hope km wrong. But i think most people of commute in a car - included the sunday bike warrior - sees bicycles (with no motor or engine) as toys. And tgat is the #1 problem
It didn't seem like a whole lot of people were using the route. It's a catch 22 sometimes, it isn't worth spending the money if only a few people want to use the tracks, but if you spend the money to make them safer and more convenient then more people will use them. People regularly say that they'd cycle more if the infrastructure was there, but it's hard to know how many people would actually.
We also have this problem in London and it's incredibly rare to see a cycleway anywhere in the city that has priority over or more green time than any car traffic, even on roads where bicycle traffic now outnumbers car traffic! But there are some positive signs and exceptions that are worth mentioning. In Hackney near London Fields there's a cycleway that contains a Toucan crossing (a side by side pedestrian and cyclist zebra crossing) which means actual priority over motor traffic. On the Greenway in east London there are a couple of road crossings where although you still have to push a beg button, the lights start changing instantly. And on CS2 there are some quite large junctions where the green time for cyclists is at least equal to the left-turning traffic that conflicts with the straight-ahead movement for bikes. (Bikes still get less green time than cars do when going straight-ahead but I'll take the win.) This is the sort of thing the Fietersbond in the Netherlands campaigns and lobbies for. I can only assume that one day Britain and Australia will both have an equivalent organisation.
The reason why bike trails get down prioritized at crappy grade crossings is the same reason why cars have to yield to trains, higher speeds, higher stopping distances than your bike. If you have a crappy grade crossing that is the safest way to do things and the most annoying. This is why you should SEPARATE the traffic and either take the bikers above or below the road... But the initial cost is fairly high for doing that though.
Uses less fuel for cyclists to stop than it does for cars. A lot of people have disabilities or other health issues that make cycling difficult. There is efficiency in fuel usage and vehicular maintenance to keep motoring running as smooth as possible.
I disagree. Expecting a cyclist to constantly stop and build up speed again will require more energy than the motorist. Just because a cyclist doesn't run on petrol doesn't mean that they aren't burning their potential energy to produce work. Further, expecting a cyclist to stop before crossing makes it take much longer to cross than slowing and treating it as a yield, meaning the cyclist is in danger for much longer. Crossings should prioritize the more vulnerable road user whenever possible.
@@Kattbirb I bet you vote for Labor, Teals or Greens and you are worried about climate change. Then get out of the way of cars as they use more energy, hello...
@nikkipedro No, you're not. Might as well have gone on a tangent all about parsnips for all the good that random point is worth. And taken at face value, that line of thinking is how the United States got Turn on Red laws, where a motorist is permitted to turn on a red light, leading to thousands of needless and completely preventable deaths every year. It's very faulty logic.
In the U S where I live lots of bicycles use the automobile roads and I rarely see bike riders stop for stop signs. They have some sense of entitlement that they are above the law. Also in the USA at least, Gasoline taxes fund a large part of the construction and maintenance cost and bicycles contribute zero.
It's safer for cyclists to yield at stop signs, because it allows the cyclist to spend less time in the intersection (and because cyclists have every incentive to yield appropriately). More and more areas are noticing the safety statistics and adjusting codes to bring road regulation up to date. And bikes and roads are older than cars. Besides, this video is about a cycling and foot path that cars have nothing to do with
What State do you live in? You may have an Idaho Stop law where Cyclists are not required to stop for their safety. Edit to add: cars are heavily subsidised, and your fuel tax and registration don't cover diddly. What taxes Cyclists pay more than covers their use as bikes don't wear out roads.
Bicycles don't damage the road surface but cars do. In the US, the gas tax and car registration fees only covers 50% of roadway costs. The other 50% comes from general taxes, which everybody pays. That means people who don't drive a car are SUBSIDIZING those who do drive a car. So actually those bicycle riders are paying for MORE than their fair share of the road costs. But here you are complaining about the people who pay more of their share than you do and who subsidize your lifestyle.
because car pay Rego and don't give crap about also having a car i have 3 motorcycles and pay Rego on all even when I can only ride one at a time and also because most of you think I am on a pushbike so i don't have to follow the road rules like riding on the road when you have a bike lane
@@Kattbirb Congratulations, you've just won the award for stupidest comment of the day. Cars use the least amount of fuel when travelling at speeds above 45Mph, hence why fuel economy is always best on motorways and A-roads. At slow speeds they use far more fuel to travel the same distance, making pollution far worse.
@@PointNemo9 Not true for electric cars. For my electric car: I get the highest energy efficiency at lower speeds. ICE cars just have so much overhead (70% of the fuel is wasted) that their break-even speed is much higher.
Isn’t this a bike path that traverses roads? The cars have right of way because they’re on the road and pay registration which contributes to the cost of the roads. There’s no confusion there. It’s great that the council have maintained the paths (the sealed section) and left them available for recreational use rather than just ripping the up or using them for rezoned residential or commercial use. But raised bike paths? Over the road intersections? How many bikes use this path? How much would that cost? Who would pay for the infrastructure? Bike riders? Doesn’t look like it would pass a feasibility test. The council could (and instead should) paint some zebra crossings on the road, add some signage and lights etc to let cars know where the bikes cross. That’s just being responsible and ensuring it’s safe for drivers and bike riders alike.
Tunnels might be cheaper and can be repurposed as flood control measures. I'm pretty sure the bloke in the video just wants the traffic lights to favour the bikes more. If it's not a very busy path then it seems reasonable to reduce the delay in waiting for the lights to change. As he pointed out, pedestrians and bikes are crossing before the light changes and cars are stopping for nobody. It would be preferable if the cars that have to stop anyway just stopped sooner and the pedestrians crossed while the light was protecting them. Sperating the signals in to two crossings for each direction with an island in the middle would also help at a much lesser cost than bridges or tunnels. Many pedestrians would not bother to trigger the light when they realise they only have to cross one or two lanes at a time. You can also have the crossing staggered to reduce the overall amount of time that the light remains red.
@@SineN0mine3 Fair enough. Sounds like they need some meetings with council, good consultation and negotiation. Seems safety for all stakeholders would be a good objective to aim for.
Car registration does not pay for roads. If it is anything like North America: the fees go into general revenue, and the car infrastructure costs far more than is collected in road tax.
Let me answer your question with another question: who should be prioritised at intersections? a) 2-3 tonnes of steel & composite moving at sufficient velocity to require substantial time & distance to lose all momentum, or b) maybe 50-120kg of lycra-wrapped meatsack balancing on a flimsy tubular frame? Think carefully about your answer before committing now - no takey-backsies!
It doesn't take substantial time or distance to slow down a car/truck, and it's also very easy because the car has an engine, powered brakes, and at least 4 wheels. The priority should go to the most vulnerable user.
The more vulnerable road user should always be prioritized. The weenie in a two-tonne, air conditioned wheelchair should wait instead of risking killing pedestrians and cyclists.
Just about the only positive I see in this bicycle infrastructure is that it's not in the gutter. So...this infrastructure for bikes is not a failing grade??
Yes. I'd really love to know what the ridiculous delays in traffic lights on pedestrian and bicycle crossing is all about. Surely this only leads to frustration for both pedestrians and cyclists, and for cars that often stop for no reason as the person has being sick of waiting has already crossed .
This one annoys me no end. One that comes to mind is the pedestrian crossing on Springvale Rd near Whites Lane. Can take several minutes while in the meantime you get several gaps in the traffic and you're waiting around looking stupid.
@@bradl7439 I just asked about this at VicRoads here: www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/contact-us/feedback-and-enquiries
and suggested that they watch the whole video as well.
Good work Carlo!
Gardeners Rd Rosebery in Sydney has a similar crossing that takes quite a but of time to go green for pedestrians and bike riders.
If enough of you call and complain that the delays are longer than one car traffic cycle, they might fix it.
Every single one of those crossing would have had flashing lights and boom gates if they were in operation today. I think a raised crossing and call buttons that actually stop traffic ASAP without waiting a minute or more should be the bare minimum of such a high-profile trail as this one. And yes, I’m a new viewer and now subscriber to your channel 👍🏻
We have this situation in the US as well. Even when the rail trail has more users than the cross street.
Yup. On a rails-to-trails conversion in the PNW, there's a spot where trails users have stop signs to yield to *golfers going from one part of the course to another*. I make the joke that I guess the freight trains that used to come through there had to stop and yield to golfers crossing the rail line...
@@NicholasIstre I think I might engage the thought of committing a little "Guerilla Urbanism" and turn the stop signs the proper way.
This bothers me because every other street is for cars. 99% of streets are for cars, so you'd at least think they'd give that 1% of space for other modes priority over cars, right? Nope, on that last remaining 1% they also prioritize cars over everything else. It's like if a public park was 99% for golf but on the remaining 1% where you're allowed to picnic, they insist on playing golf there too so you can't even picnic there. It's absurd how much we subsidize car use over everything else despite the tremendous costs to society.
For sure the trains had priority when they ran on that route.
My understanding of long wait times after pressing the beg button is that they are hoping to batch pedestrians up so that more of them cross at once and fewer pedestrian phases are needed, providing more green time to cars. This is most likely based on the results of traffic simulations. Of course, as you describe, the results are very different in real life because real pedestrians cross in gaps rather than obediently waiting over a minute for the green man and drivers end up stopping at a red light when no one wants to cross. Another longer-term outcome of this is that fewer people choose to cycle and walk because they know that the level of service is poor unless you are in a car, meaning that batching pedestrians isn't even possible because they are too infrequent, making the long wait time pointless. It doesn't even achieve a better level of service for drivers, only a worse one for pedestrians and cyclists.
The earliest misunderstanding in this chain is probably that mode choices are inelastic and that we should "predict and provide" capacity. In reality, the capacity choices road engineers make influence the mode choices that the public make which makes building roads for the predicted rise in motorists a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back in the 1980s, studies in Australia showed very poor pedestrian compliance with signalised crossings if the wait was more than 30 seconds. I guess the traffic engineers don't care about real-world human behaviour.
I sometimes wish our bike trails/routes were looked after by a proper state entity start-to-finish, similar to how VicRoads manages arterials. Currently it seems like in order to have a good network we need every single council to get its act together, and one council failing to do so (like in this video) can just ruin a route for everyone. Meanwhile VicRoads puts painted bike lanes on highway interchanges like that's helping anyone.
Something akin to VicRoads for bikes? - Careful what you wish for !
It’s all one council for the trail in this video!
Are you willing to pay use fees like motor vesicles pay in the form of License fees and gas taxes or do you just want to free load off of peoples tax dollars that don't ride bicycles ?
@WesB1972 Carbrained logic. Automobiles are heavily subsidised.
But to answer the question, if I got the proper, safe infrastructure that cycling needs and turned my home into Copenhagen, I absolutely would pay my fair share. It would certainly be cheaper than paying for car infrastructure as we do now.
You better be careful what you wish for. The fees you mention go nowhere near covering the cost of car infrastructure, and bicycle infrastructure is far, far cheaper.
I feel this. I commute into town daily from Whittington, and the crossings on my way, especially St Albans Rd having no refuge, are never fun. Bump outs, raised crossings, and narrowing or chicanes on the road to slow cars on the lead-up would make these especially busy crossings so much nicer
The Okeefe rail trail (from Bendigo) has far less intersections but when I rode it last was just gravel. Where it is means that it's virtually entirely for social riding as it's location doesn't make it suitable for a commuting route. Would really be nice to see a nice tarred rail route that actually has separated road crossings.
Wow, even here in the craphole of Columbus, GA we have priority on our rail trail crossings!
Happens almost everywhere. Dorset Golf Course in Croydon (Victoria). Trawalla Rd into the golf course is a dead end. Very little traffic as it's only people going to and from the golf course that use the road at this point. But despite the road having little humps before and after the crossing to slow traffic, the road STILL gets priority over the shared path that crosses it. And there's the usual 'Shared Path Ends', 'Give way' and shared path signs on both sides of the crossing.
If the shared path can't get priority over a few vehicles going to and from a golf course, what hope have we got anywhere else?
They can use cameras / induction loop to detect bikes approaching light controlled crossings and triggering them so the bike doesn't have to stop.
Though I think they should just put a train back in again - or put in a tram.
Yeah the Boundary rd crossing is sketchy.
Good work mate! Awesome to see some Geelong specific vids
We have a similar issue here in Seattle, WA, USA. There's an excellent bike trail called the Burke-Gilman trail, but many of the road crossing have stop signs for cyclists. This can be problematic for a couple reasons:
1. The state of Washington has an "Idaho Stop" law, meaning cyclists are allowed to roll through stop signs as long it's safe to do so. This means cyclists will generally blow through the intersection, which can lead to some close calls.
2. Cars generally yield to cyclists anyways even though they have the right of way. This adds even more confusion because you can't predict the driver's behavior when approaching the intersection.
Frankly I don't understand, if drivers already yield to cyclists as a courtesy, why they don't just codify it by changing the signage to match human behavior?
Cars yielding to everybody. Peak Seattle.
I've ridden this many, many times over the years and you know, I've just realised after watching this just how brainwashed I had become into thinking that cyclists are second class transportation citizens and just have to put up with risking their lives even on so called "bike paths".
Excellent video I’m commenting for the algo!
I think in terms of the faster crossings for cars, its more to do with energy conservation that anything else, cars are much bigger than bikes obviously, and they take a lot more energy to stop and speed up again, so reducing the amount of times a car needs to slow down and speed up on a journey is usually priority on quicker roadways like that.
Great idea! Making them 30 km/h zones should reduce the amount of accelerating a motorist will have to commit to while improving safety for everyone. Win-win!
@@Kattbirb That could work, but you would still encounter the issue of vehicles having to lose speed and come to a stop and then accelerate again, Unfortunately without money there are never good solutions that benefit both parties, and the government in this case has chosen cars to have full priority due to the higher throughput compared to the bikes and people walking through the trail. In truth, waiting at a give way for a few minutes, be it a car or a bike/ped, doesn't make much of a difference to the journey, but because the car outputs so much more carbon emissions they are always going to have priority since a vehicle travelling at a constant speed has the least emissions. It all comes down to how much money the govt is willing/has to spend on projects like this, especially for the main roads, they cant lower speed limits due to the same energy conservation issues, and changing the speed limit doesn't really help cyclists cross the road other than maybe giving them a better chance if they ride out in front of a car.
I think in an ideal world they would make an under or overpass for cyclists and peds but they are expensive, usually in the ballpark of 500,000 to 1 million for an overpass, maybe a bit more for an underpass.
The more you think about simple problems like this the more you realise how chaotically complex they are
@toesmasher2138 This is incorrect on several points. Cars do not have greater throughput. Busses, light rail, trains, and bikes (during rush hour) all have better throughput than cars. For example, a "mostly empty" bus with 6 to 10 people on it is moving more than 6 to 8 cars do, as private cars are rarely used to transport more than one person.
Government "chooses" the Auto and Oil industries that lobby billions of dollars a year to gain a privileged place in infrastructure.
The fact that private cars emit so many carbons and microplastic, as well as stress-inducing noise, that they should be moved out of cities. Keep them on motorways where they are the most efficient and limit intra-city traffic to local movements.
The issue is definitely difficult, but solutions to it are actually really simple when all the BS and emotional outbursts are removed from it.
I did write a reply but it was deleted and I really don't feel like writing it all again, so Im just gonna shorthand it all
- Cars by themselves don't have greater throughput than bikes and peds, but, taking the entire day into account. Cars, trucks, busses, and other commercial vehicles in total will always outnumber bikes and peds.
- Light rail and trains are outside the scope of this discussion (also light rail and trains are basically the same thing)
- Also, a mostly empty bus with 6-10 people, if one went by the crossing per hour, that number of people would still likely total more than the number of bikes using the cossing
- I see what you are saying public transport is better, which it is, but tell the govt that
- Yes you are right, Oil companies do like throwing money around to gain priority, it does happen
- Private cars and light commercial vehicles, in terms of emissions in the transport sector, do emit the majority of emissions, at 61%, however, in total, the total emissions for the entire sector of transport (trains, planes, boats, cars, trucks) only amounts to just over 10% of emissions, so vehicles should not be the thing to focus on
- Microplastics are actually not emitted by vehicles, rubber emitted from tyres being abraised by the road surface is referred to as microplastic, but it isn't.
- Yea noise definitely causes stress, which comes back to public transport. However, this electric car nonsense is making that problem even worse
- I think once public transport is in a place that can handle restrictions of vehicles into cities, then yea, but we just don't have the money
Lastly, everything is uber expensive, I said before that under and overpasses can cost between 500,000 and 1 million, well I was wrong, it costs around 13k to 39k aud per linear foot. Which would mean either would end up costing 500k minimum at least, not including maintenance and operating costs. While a simple traffic light system can cost between 500,000 and 2 million+ depending of a few factors.
You continue to miss the point.
Busses use roads, yes, but they can have bus specific lanes enabling bus rapid transit and not get stuck in traffic.
I'll concede the trains, but Light rail moves along rails placed in roadways, so they are absolutely within the perview of road traffic. And they beat private cars for throughput very thoroughly.
Yes, bikes rarely convey more than one rider, same as cars, but they take a fraction of the space. Thus why cars do not scale well for moving people.
And as for emissions, it's less about how much, as an EV fan I'm not trying to make arguments about climate change, but it's more about *where*. All these emissions from private cars in cities mean it's directly impacting everyone in the area. From the exhaust, the micrplastics or even just the constant noise of tires.
Then for the economics, even if it costs the same for private car infrastructure as it does for transit and bikes, the car infrastructure requires constant maintenance, costing cities hundreds of millions of dollars every year, more than the measly gas and registration fees could ever cover.
Cars aren't the answer. Their ubiquity is a symptom of worse issues like government incompetence if not abject corruption.
It's shocking that there aren't even crosswalk markings. Paint is not infrastructure, so having only such paint is a sore spot, and for 4-lane traffic, those at least have beg-button flasher things in my city. But to not even get painted crosswalk markings... what a slap in the face.
Scary stuff. Surprising that crossings are not even marked. The road lanes are so wide. Same problem here in France that cycle paths do not get priority even when they have hugely more traffic than the road that crosses them. Cycle crossings are normally well marked, the road lanes narrowed and drivers very respectful. Quite often there is a pedestrian crossing which seems to be taken as a bike priority crossing. Often cycle lanes are much faster than dedicated cycle paths because cyclists have rights the same as other vehicles.
Because those funding the infrastructure don't care about international best practises. They've probably never even heard of CROW. I hope they do improve things though, because where I live, they tend to copy whatever is done in Victoria...
There is definitely opportunity to start prioritising bikes along this route. Intersection by intersection! Especially the low use dirt roads for starters
Kildorary Rd is an example of the kind of thing I see here in California and when I was riding in Wisconsin a week ago. Crossing a slow street and yet cyclists are told to STOP first. Not yield (because the USA doesn't understand yield signs) On the Iron Horse Trail nearby there is a stop sign every few hundred meters as it crosses quiet residential streets. Of course, no adult stops. Bad design
Because the car lobby is massive while the bike lobby is like three people.
Would you really trust a car to stop if they were the ones faced with a give way sign at a crossing?
Not really, but raised crossings would slow the drivers down so the impact is less severe than it would be in the current arrangement!
I live in Christchurch NZ and major cycle lanes or busy roads always have lights that stops cars when cyclist or pedestrian approach and wants to cross....
@@T0mMy56 yeah, Brisbane has some really good cycling infrastructure like that.
Bicycles get priority at some intersections and there are physical barriers between bike lanes and car traffic.
Well pedestrian crossings near roundabouts with raised paving have recently been installed around the Geelong/South Geelong area. Several on Yarra Street, Swanston Street, and Bellerine Street. I use them frequently and have not yet had a car not give way to me.
In Norway, yes.
They will stop, but you must not take it for granted.
It is the culture and attitude that matters.
If car drivers think they can behave just like sharks in the waters, they will.
We have a few crossing made of submerged storm-water drains here in Melbourne and that works well. I don't imagine these would be too expensive to install.
The music you played for a few seconds in between segments should be a bit more quiet to match the volume of your voice.
Thanks, I’m just an amateur trying to create some change in my local area!
Ja, ich kenne all dies. Hier in CH ist es auch nicht besser: schlechte Fahrrad Infrastruktur. Lange und schlechte Unleitungen von Baustellen für Fahrradfahrer; Fahradwege, die oft über steile Rampen und schlechte Wege führen; Fahrradwege, die oft zweite Prioritäten bei Kreutzungen etc haben. Es braucht wohl noch ein paar Jahre, bis die Politiker und Verkehrsplaner merken, dass, wenn die Infrastruktur für den Labgsamverkehr top ist, es auch besser für den Autoverkehr wird. Eine gute Verkehrsinfrastruktur für Fahrradfahrer bringt mehr Menschen auf das Fahrrad und entlastet damit den Autoverkehr😅
I've been complaining about this for a long time. This is why "car" infrastructure is almost always more efficient than "bicycle infrastructure". Even on segregated lanes following a trunk road, often the crossings have stop signs for cycles, but not for cars. Even with no stop signs, it's still wise to slow down and prepare to yield as cars will frequently not give way. Who needs this efficiency more: a motor vehicle with 200 hp or a bicycle that might make, generously, 1/4 hp?
but if we make the cycling infrastructure good then people might use it and then they wont keep buying cars. CARS ARE THE REASON WE EXIST! 😨
In Vancouver and North Vancouver, Canada cycling infra is generally getting pretty good but you still see this kind of physical evidence everywhere that cycling is a nuisance to city engineers and no matter how pretentious a name they give a route, how many media are at the ribbon cutting, or how good they want to look to environmentalist voters, or how much they want to impress their peers at conferences, no matter if the traffic pattern is 100 bikes and pedestrians for every 1 person in a car, cars get zero signs and bikes get a half dozen, cars get a smoothly radiused curve and bikes get to zig-zag all over the place, cars get no traffic calming and bikes get a narrowing cattle gate with bollards and railings and other obstructions.
8:03 instead of bridge trolls, we get unmarked crossing plovers
Nice pickup, I hadn’t noticed the plover (Australian Bird for overseas viewers) in the footage.
It's the same thing here with the multi-use paths crossing the streets. It's always yield to the car traffic and not the other way around ever. I see it as basically a license for the car drivers to mow down the cyclists, which they will. It's arse-backwards and it always has been.
If a car driver hits a pedestrian for any reason they're going to have a tough time proving that they're not at fault.
Unless the pedestrian is dressed head to toe in black at night and jumps out on to the road from a bush you're required to stop for them by law and will be held responsible if you don't.
Bikes are obligated to follow the same rules as cars, so obviously they have some responsibility to prove that they were using the road safely and legally if they're involved in an accident.
A pedestrian has assumed right of way, no matter where you see one, you're required to drive in a way that's safe for them.
It's illegal to walk on many raised freeways for example, but you're still likely to blame for running somebody over on them.
When driving you're required to look for hazards and avoid collisions at all times. That's the law. Right of way never changes that.
they should've kept the level crossing gates that block the way for cars and give priority to the users of the railway.
I hope km wrong. But i think most people of commute in a car - included the sunday bike warrior - sees bicycles (with no motor or engine) as toys. And tgat is the #1 problem
It didn't seem like a whole lot of people were using the route. It's a catch 22 sometimes, it isn't worth spending the money if only a few people want to use the tracks, but if you spend the money to make them safer and more convenient then more people will use them.
People regularly say that they'd cycle more if the infrastructure was there, but it's hard to know how many people would actually.
Ah yes: the "there is not enough demand for a bridge because so few people are swimming across" reasoning.
I suspect it is because the maintenance staff need to use a truck...
We also have this problem in London and it's incredibly rare to see a cycleway anywhere in the city that has priority over or more green time than any car traffic, even on roads where bicycle traffic now outnumbers car traffic! But there are some positive signs and exceptions that are worth mentioning. In Hackney near London Fields there's a cycleway that contains a Toucan crossing (a side by side pedestrian and cyclist zebra crossing) which means actual priority over motor traffic. On the Greenway in east London there are a couple of road crossings where although you still have to push a beg button, the lights start changing instantly. And on CS2 there are some quite large junctions where the green time for cyclists is at least equal to the left-turning traffic that conflicts with the straight-ahead movement for bikes. (Bikes still get less green time than cars do when going straight-ahead but I'll take the win.)
This is the sort of thing the Fietersbond in the Netherlands campaigns and lobbies for. I can only assume that one day Britain and Australia will both have an equivalent organisation.
never did so few ask so much from so many
No surprise unfortunately
The reason why bike trails get down prioritized at crappy grade crossings is the same reason why cars have to yield to trains, higher speeds, higher stopping distances than your bike.
If you have a crappy grade crossing that is the safest way to do things and the most annoying.
This is why you should SEPARATE the traffic and either take the bikers above or below the road... But the initial cost is fairly high for doing that though.
Uses less fuel for cyclists to stop than it does for cars. A lot of people have disabilities or other health issues that make cycling difficult. There is efficiency in fuel usage and vehicular maintenance to keep motoring running as smooth as possible.
I disagree. Expecting a cyclist to constantly stop and build up speed again will require more energy than the motorist. Just because a cyclist doesn't run on petrol doesn't mean that they aren't burning their potential energy to produce work.
Further, expecting a cyclist to stop before crossing makes it take much longer to cross than slowing and treating it as a yield, meaning the cyclist is in danger for much longer.
Crossings should prioritize the more vulnerable road user whenever possible.
@@Kattbirb I bet you vote for Labor, Teals or Greens and you are worried about climate change. Then get out of the way of cars as they use more energy, hello...
@@nikkipedroWhat an interesting non sequitur
@@Kattbirb I am right though aren't I. 😝
@nikkipedro No, you're not. Might as well have gone on a tangent all about parsnips for all the good that random point is worth.
And taken at face value, that line of thinking is how the United States got Turn on Red laws, where a motorist is permitted to turn on a red light, leading to thousands of needless and completely preventable deaths every year. It's very faulty logic.
Because cars pay to use the road.
Cyclists do too, and the taxes drawn from Cyclists actually subsidizes drivers, since bikes don't wear out the roads.
In the U S where I live lots of bicycles use the automobile roads and I rarely see bike riders stop for stop signs. They have some sense of entitlement that they are above the law. Also in the USA at least, Gasoline taxes fund a large part of the construction and maintenance cost and bicycles contribute zero.
It's safer for cyclists to yield at stop signs, because it allows the cyclist to spend less time in the intersection (and because cyclists have every incentive to yield appropriately). More and more areas are noticing the safety statistics and adjusting codes to bring road regulation up to date.
And bikes and roads are older than cars. Besides, this video is about a cycling and foot path that cars have nothing to do with
What State do you live in? You may have an Idaho Stop law where Cyclists are not required to stop for their safety.
Edit to add: cars are heavily subsidised, and your fuel tax and registration don't cover diddly. What taxes Cyclists pay more than covers their use as bikes don't wear out roads.
Bicycles don't damage the road surface but cars do. In the US, the gas tax and car registration fees only covers 50% of roadway costs. The other 50% comes from general taxes, which everybody pays. That means people who don't drive a car are SUBSIDIZING those who do drive a car. So actually those bicycle riders are paying for MORE than their fair share of the road costs. But here you are complaining about the people who pay more of their share than you do and who subsidize your lifestyle.
because car pay Rego and don't give crap about also having a car i have 3 motorcycles and pay Rego on all even when I can only ride one at a time and also because most of you think I am on a pushbike so i don't have to follow the road rules like riding on the road when you have a bike lane
Pollution. Forcing cars to slow down and then accelerate back up to speed uses far more fuel than if they maintain a constant speed.
Perfect, let's make the constant speed slow, so they don't have to burn fuel accelerating.
@@Kattbirb Congratulations, you've just won the award for stupidest comment of the day. Cars use the least amount of fuel when travelling at speeds above 45Mph, hence why fuel economy is always best on motorways and A-roads. At slow speeds they use far more fuel to travel the same distance, making pollution far worse.
@PointNemo9 Then we should move the cars out of cities so they won't have to contest with other road users and they can move more freely. Win-win.
@@PointNemo9 Not true for electric cars.
For my electric car: I get the highest energy efficiency at lower speeds.
ICE cars just have so much overhead (70% of the fuel is wasted) that their break-even speed is much higher.
@@jamesphillips2285 no one asked about electric cars
Isn’t this a bike path that traverses roads? The cars have right of way because they’re on the road and pay registration which contributes to the cost of the roads. There’s no confusion there. It’s great that the council have maintained the paths (the sealed section) and left them available for recreational use rather than just ripping the up or using them for rezoned residential or commercial use. But raised bike paths? Over the road intersections? How many bikes use this path? How much would that cost? Who would pay for the infrastructure? Bike riders? Doesn’t look like it would pass a feasibility test. The council could (and instead should) paint some zebra crossings on the road, add some signage and lights etc to let cars know where the bikes cross. That’s just being responsible and ensuring it’s safe for drivers and bike riders alike.
Tunnels might be cheaper and can be repurposed as flood control measures.
I'm pretty sure the bloke in the video just wants the traffic lights to favour the bikes more.
If it's not a very busy path then it seems reasonable to reduce the delay in waiting for the lights to change.
As he pointed out, pedestrians and bikes are crossing before the light changes and cars are stopping for nobody.
It would be preferable if the cars that have to stop anyway just stopped sooner and the pedestrians crossed while the light was protecting them.
Sperating the signals in to two crossings for each direction with an island in the middle would also help at a much lesser cost than bridges or tunnels.
Many pedestrians would not bother to trigger the light when they realise they only have to cross one or two lanes at a time. You can also have the crossing staggered to reduce the overall amount of time that the light remains red.
@@SineN0mine3 Fair enough. Sounds like they need some meetings with council, good consultation and negotiation. Seems safety for all stakeholders would be a good objective to aim for.
Car registration does not pay for roads.
If it is anything like North America: the fees go into general revenue, and the car infrastructure costs far more than is collected in road tax.
why is any of this not a surprise😒
Let me answer your question with another question: who should be prioritised at intersections?
a) 2-3 tonnes of steel & composite moving at sufficient velocity to require substantial time & distance to lose all momentum, or
b) maybe 50-120kg of lycra-wrapped meatsack balancing on a flimsy tubular frame?
Think carefully about your answer before committing now - no takey-backsies!
It doesn't take substantial time or distance to slow down a car/truck, and it's also very easy because the car has an engine, powered brakes, and at least 4 wheels. The priority should go to the most vulnerable user.
@@baddriversofcolga Tell me you don't understand physics, without telling me you don't understand physics.
The more vulnerable road user should always be prioritized. The weenie in a two-tonne, air conditioned wheelchair should wait instead of risking killing pedestrians and cyclists.
@@lachlanbell8390 That is essentially a "might makes right" argument.
Bikes should be banned from the roads as they are dangerous and the riders don't have insurance or pay towards the upkeep of the highways.
You should do some research on how roads and highways are funded.
@@bikeroutebuddy settle down Princess, I wouldn't waste my time 🤣
@@kensClassicMelodies You should also research how dangerous driving is.
CARS should be banned from roads.
Just about the only positive I see in this bicycle infrastructure is that it's not in the gutter. So...this infrastructure for bikes is not a failing grade??
Not a failing grade, since the grading has to be on a curve, like in the USA. XD