Do bike lanes cause more traffic congestion? What the research says | Hacker News Reader

Do bike lanes cause more traffic congestion? What the research says

cbc.ca

16 pointsaspenmayer62 comments

Living in a city it doesn't surprise me at all that traffic is better if there are more options to get where you want. Where I live the bicycle is the fastest way to get anywhere within a 10 km radius and especially during rush hour.

But it is not enough to count the meters of bicycle infrastructure — it is also important to know how far you can go on it without being faced with situations where you have to ride on the street. What also matgers is the quality of the infrastracture, with lanes with a paint seperation and bicycle paths on walkways being the worst and separate infrastructure with hard barriers being the best.

I wish anybody would know the joy of cycling in the Netherlands or in Kopenhagen, it is truly a good form of transportation that just requires the infrastructure to be good.

Same. Since moving to the Netherlands, I have yet to find a reason to purchase a car. For some things, I will rent a car for a day or two, but mostly, there is no reason to own one here.

Cycle infrastructure needs to be continuous, feel safe to ride, and exist where people actually go to, not near the riverside.

Build them and they will come.

Cycle infra is not only cycle lanes. Cycle lanes are needed only where cars move fast (>30kmh). What is even more important is traffic calming in residential streets. LTNs, modal filters etc. Build for people, not cars.

>Build for people, not cars.

Do you mean build for pedestrians and cyclists, not motorists?

They mean building infrastructure that is able to sustain more trips per hour while also reducing the risk of deadly collisions, noise and air pollution.

By providing convenient and safe infrastructure for people who walk, take transit and bike around we gain safer more pleasant neighborhoods that also allow more people to get around in their neighborhood.

The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.

Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?

> The risk of deadly collisions, particularly when most people are going 30-50 km/h in the city and driving modern cars, is already low.

The probability of a pedestrian being killed when a motorist strikes them with their vehicle depends very strongly on the speed of the vehicle. At 30kph the risk is less nearly 0%, but it rises rapidly to 50% when the impact happens at 50kph[0]. Would you take those odds? I wouldn't. Especially given that motorists tend to interpret speed limits as minimums rather than maximums.

> Modern cars are also quiet with emissions nothing like the cars of our grandparents.

I live next to seven lanes of traffic. Modern cars are not remotely quiet. Their emissions are not limited to what comes out of their tailpipe, either. You must include the microparticles that are emitted from the tires, the asphalt and the brake pads [1].

> Can you elaborate on what you mean by trips per hour and how one is supposed to conveniently commute outside of one's neighborhood, particularly with small children and shopping?

Public transit. Bicycles. Living in a neighborhood with mixed use buildings. I have never had a driving license and my family with two small kids has somehow figured it out with a combination of the above. Many others do the same. It is not rocket science. The first step is ditching the car.

[0] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4315878/

How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h? If the pedestrian doesn't literally jump in front of the car from an somewhere he's visually obscured, there's usually time to stomp on the brakes. I've done it multiple times with cyclists riding in the wrong direction on the bicycle lane, over crosswalks where they should be dismounting, or just plain "jaycycling".

We clearly have different views on what's quiet and what's not. If I'm on my terrace I can hear cars when they drive past, but not inside my home and it being a 30 zone it doesn't bother me. Were you forced to live next to seven lanes of traffic, where I assume the limit is much higher than 30-50 km/h?

I don't have much to say about tire particles and whatnot. Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?

If you've never gotten a license, it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried. I tried cycling for about a year and a half. I learned I don't like sweating profusely in summer, getting rained on in spring or fall, or riding on snow in winter. I can drive to work and drop my child off at kindergarten in 15 minutes, with a bicycle and a trailer it would take me more than 45 if the weather is good. I don't need to hurry home after grocery shopping and I only need to shop once every week or two, as opposed to two to three times a week if I'm limited to what I can fit into a backpack, and I don't need to drink tap water since I can fit a few crates of mineral water in my trunk. The risk of getting my car stolen is lower than my bicycle getting stolen, which has happened in the past. You're absolutely right, it's not rocket science. Foe me the choice is clear.

I still don't know what you mean by trips per hour.

> How often do collisions with pedestrians occur at 50 km/h?"

Enough to kill several dozen people every year in my city and severely injure over a hundred, according to official statistics.

> it surprises me you're so against something you've never tried

I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors. Whether or not driving would be convenient for me is not the issue -- the issue is how it makes our neighborhoods dangerous, noisy and dirty. I don't want to be responsible for that.

Other people only care about what is convenient for themselves. I get that. I see it every day.

Trips per hour means exactly what it says. Single occupancy four-wheeled vehicles are the least efficient mode of transportation in terms of throughput (people moved per hour). [0]

> Are you just as much against microplastics in food and cosmetics?

Textbook whataboutism. Do you believe that I need to be some sort of monk-like hippy vegan to be opposed to traffic in my neighborhood? Or is it okay for some regular person to care about something that you don't care about?

[0] https://transformative-mobility.org/multimedia/passenger-cap...

You must live in a gigantic city if several dozen pedestrians die in car accidents every year. In the entire country of Germany last year a total of 177 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents where cars were involved and the driver at fault.

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkeh...

>I have plenty of experience with what it is like to walk and cycle in busy streets, and I do not wish to force that upon my neighbors

I wouldn't want to force people into things in general, period. From what I can tell, most people are just fine with a car-centric lifestyle. Barely anyone is evangelizing to cyclists that they should give up their bicycles and drive cars instead. I wouldn't want to force you to drive a car. I can tell you about the many benefits but I'll do so without moralizing or finger-wagging and ultimately the choice is yours. The same can't be said of many bicycle activists, they seem to be just fine with using any and all means to shove their lifestyle down everyone's else's throat.

You didn't respond to my question as to whether you were forced to live next to seven lane traffic, so I'll assume it was a choice. Why would you choose to move there in the first place if you hate the sound of cars so much? That's the rough equivalent of a car enthusiast deciding to move to Amsterdam and then complaining about the cyclists on the road.

From what data does your infographic draw from?

The "whataboutism" is to determine whether your particle concerns are limited to cars, which indicates an ideologically driven anti-car crusade, or whether particles of everything and anything in general disturb you in your everyday life.

>What also matgers is the quality of the infrastracture, with lanes with a paint seperation and bicycle paths on walkways being the worst and separate infrastructure with hard barriers being the best.

I partially disagree: I'd rank lanes with paint separation the very worst, and bicycle paths on walkways as being in the middle. Painted lanes are extremely hazardous and deadly to cyclists, whereas bicycle paths on walkways are only somewhat hazardous to pedestrians. They're not great like the separate lanes with hard barriers as you said, but they're not nearly as horrible as trying to get cyclists to ride alongside fast-moving cars and trucks.

Bicycle paths on walkways are also hazardous to cyclists - and stressful, at least in London where there’s a lot of pedestrians and they uniformly ignore the markings and treat them like any other path. Crashing into a pedestrian is certainly less bad than being crashed into by a car, but most cars do pay attention and try not to hit you (regrettably not enough, admittedly), and you can make good progress.

I think I prefer to be on regular unseparated road, at least in busy areas where road users are used to cyclists. Rural or suburban areas are a different matter, the relative speeds of road traffic and number of pedestrians no doubt flips the trade off.

>Bicycle paths on walkways are also hazardous to cyclists - and stressful

I never said they were great, just better than riding alongside cars. I ride on walkways every single day here in Tokyo, frequently very, very, very close to pedestrians; it IS stressful trying to dodge the chaos of pedestrians and also other cyclists who are all crammed together on narrow sidewalks. It's still better and safer than riding with cars, which is why all the other cyclists here (esp. mothers with children) do it too.

>but most cars do pay attention and try not to hit you

It doesn't matter: just one car not paying attention will likely kill you, or at least cause lifelong injuries. Running into a pedestrian is not at all likely to cause such trauma: the masses and the speeds are both far, far less.

I’m simply providing an alternative view; this is about perception of relative risks, so there is not an absolutely correct position. It might also be that in Tokyo the speed of traffic is higher or road users less conscious of cyclists so the risk of collision is worse, or that the conformance of pedestrians to the shared path rules is better, but in London my experience is that cyclists aren’t that fond of the shared paths.

Most collisions with cars are also not even likely to be as dangerous as you suggest - the really hazardous traffic is lorries, buses etc. I think you also downplay the risk of serious injury when colliding with a pedestrian - to both of you. This also confers potential legal risk, as you are the road user likely to be liable in this jurisdiction should a vulnerable path user incur a serious injury.

No doubt risk averse cyclists like mothers with children are likely to prefer these shared paths whatever the prevailing conditions, but that doesn’t mean they are outright superior and the specific context is likely to matter a great deal.

Correct, as a London bike commuter for over a decade I can confirm that nobody in their right mind uses a shared cycle path. They’re dangerous for pedestrians, and you can’t make any kind of decent progress on them as they’re filled with bins, lampposts, blind driveways, and best of all even bus shelters. Then when you get to the end of it at some random point you’re not expecting there’s no way of joining a road without having to cede priority.

Kids riding to school is the only use case they satisfy.

> Bicycle paths on walkways are also hazardous to cyclists - and stressful, at least in London where there’s a lot of pedestrians and they uniformly ignore the markings and treat them like any other path.

Play loud, obnoxious music from your bike using a portable speaker (or even your phone in a pinch). Doesn't conform to British cultural standards but greatly helps people get out of the way. Of course there's always those with their earphones/headphones so loud that they won't notice you, but it's a minority.

People living in the area would appreciate having less noise in their homes, whether it comes from car traffic, "loud pipes save lives", or anything else.

In open carry states: bike softly, and carry a big gun.

My experience in Hamburg, Germany as well, which is why I ranked them as equally bad, although as mentioned in my other response it ultimately depends on the city and on how it is implemented.

I couldn't agree more, in my experience in over a decade of daily bike commuting it was segregated bike lanes (Vancouver downtown) would lead to near misses almost weekly, I'd be biking up the hill and cars would regularly right hook me, the signage for cars was confusing, and being separated meant that the cars were not looking for you, they'd cross your path and 'right of way' doesn't mean much in a 20lb bike vs 4000lb car situation. My other pet peeve is bike lane roundabouts. A bike can go through a roundabout at 50km/h but you'll have a hard time stopping in time for a car entering the roundabout (who has the right of way if they're there first) Absolutely deadly and not considering the capabilities of bikes - or E-bikes - at all. On the other hand, getting your bike chops, and learning to drive defensively is a scary prospect for a newer cyclist, mistakes can be deadly, ride safe and keep your head on a swivel!

I live in a city where the bicycle paths on walkways are so bad that this distinction is hardly there — I certainly know I would take a well sized lane over a narrow, indistinguishable from the walkway with missing bricks and tree roots every day of the week, especially in pedestrian-heavy areas.

But that balance heavily depends on the city, how well behaved motorists are there, how crossings are implemented how many pedestrians are there and (in my case) which material was chosen for the non-street bicycle paths. In my city they used slightly darker bricks and no bicycle symbols — that is basically indistinguishable from the rest of the walkway for pedestrians and after a few years those bricks have the tendency to present you with a bone-shaking surface.

Safety is important and you are correct that painted on lanes kill more cyclists, but safety is not the only metric, comfort is also important or how uninterrupted you can ride, how stressful interaction with other people is, etc. And in a city with a ton of pedestrians and uncomfortable bicycle paths on walkways you need to be more on alert there than on the road.

TL;DR: Which one is better cannot be answered for every case without knowing the context.

I've cycled in both places and enjoyed it. The bicycle infrastructure is top-notch. I would note though that both places have a notoriously flat terrain and that helps.

The importance of flat terrain minimal since the invention of gears and, more recently, e-bikes. Too hilly? Shift to a lower gear.

You know, i enjoy cycling as much as many others. But in the end, it is an illusion. Motorized biking is already making the lanes dangerous. And i have seen bike rage more often than i did in cars. So, in the end, we will just go again the same road, with how we ended up with cars: we want to go from A to B, sometimes as a leisure activity, sometimes regular, sometimes in a rush. Thats why we used cars or motor bikes (And to avoid mass transport in metal boxes, heh).

Personal anecdote: I wanted to paint my apartment. It was so hard to get someone to do it. Because no one wanted to come to the city. The effort to find parking nearby was not worth the hassle to just paint my little apartment.

We will see where this goes to and how we will change or rebuild the cities. But surely not for bikes only.

Biking is good for your health in ways driving will never be.

You can't just look at biking from a purely transportation lens. It's better for your population for other reasons as well, having your people exercise regularly saves you millions in healthcare costs.

Not only that, but bikes do factually use less space than cars. Which frees up space for other things in the city.

I think public transportation is important to complement bikes, you're not supposed to bike to the other side of the city.

But people already use bike lanes with bikes that have a motor. They do not care about health benefits. Thats maybe a reason for us health buffs.

And no one argues about the advantages from bikes. But there are arguments for cars too. Or for planes. And for any other mode of transportation. Thats why the exist. :)

That is not necessarily true, I know multiple people who switched to electric bikes.

The first effect for them is that they ride the bike more, because they know when they are exhausted or there are nasty hills they can add more of the motor in. So unless people (like delivery people) ride only with the motor, them using the bike more is already a win.

This is going in the right direction. Increased adoption of small electrified vehicles in densely populated areas to replace the larger and more dangerous large vehicles especially trucks/SUVs. In the end we could have roads for small EVs and walkways for people, and no cars/trucks like we have today.

I do not know. In asia you have heavy usage of scooters. And still you have congestion. Its always about amounts and how traffic can be directed, no matter the mode of transportation.

Asia just has more people and density. What would the congestion be if each small vehicle was instead the size of a full-sized car or truck?

Even if they did, since they allow more people to move around town, wouldn't that be a net win? Every person on a bike is one fewer car on the road; less danger to others, less noise, less air pollution. By disincentivicing car use, fewer people will choose to drive, which is a win for everybody outside the vehicle.

Research really doesn't matter if policies are increasingly determined by culture wars. While major capitals are catching up to Denmark and the Netherlands, Kai Wegner in Berlin is busy cancelling bike and pedestrian infrastructure plans while drummning up antagonism between drivers and cyclists.

On the other hand, in Berlin you also get entire blocks threatened with being forced to move out because the "temporary" covid-era bike path which never went away causes problems for the fire department in case of an emergency evacuation.

https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/streit-um-radwege-in-de...

(Article in German)

Yeah, current cities are not built to maintain all possible modes of transportation. And so you had a short interruption of a city favouring bikes and causing all kind of chaos, while everyone else had to suck it up. And so the pendulum swings, and someone else is trying to work out the city transportation problem. Personally, i wanted a privileged skateboard lane, but no lobby for that.

Kantstraße is a bit of an extreme case because there was previously no bike lane at all and it’s an especially dangerous area for cyclists. I’m fairly certain the solution is not to reverse all investment in bike infrastructure, it’s just a knee jerk reaction to win the vote of a certain demographic.

The article mentions the law being proposed in Ontario requiring approval for putting in more bike lanes... but what about the strong mayor laws? If the city can just veto whatever comes from the province, does it matter?

Title edited for length:

Do bike lanes really cause more traffic congestion? Here's what the research says

https://archive.is/OIX0u

CBC doesn’t paywall

Good to know! I add archive links to my submissions and others that I come across on HN that I think could benefit from an archive, as a courtesy and to keep the thread clear of low-hanging fruit drive-by complaints about interstitials, pop-ups, and other distractions or annoyances that archive links sometimes avoid, so that discussion and efforts can flow more freely, sooner. It's easier sometimes just to archive everything, just for uniformity and posterity.

Clicking links on HN can cause websites to go down so having an archive is really appreciated.

This is a good point!

By the time you need an archive, it may already be too late to make one.

Don't delay; archive today.

The only case where bike paths do generate congestion is when you add them to roundabouts. This is done atrociously in Denmark, effectively negating all benefits of roundabouts—-most likely the reason there are barely any roundabouts in agglomerations.

There is one example in particular (the one between Ørestads Boulevard and Grønjordsvej for any locals reading this). Cycles have right of way, which prevents cars from exiting the roundabout smoothly. At rush hour, this very quickly generates massive queues (in comparison with the amount of traffic), and can sometimes get completely gridlocked.

Granting anyone—busses, streetcars, pedestrians, bicycles—priority over CARS is verboten right, because that 'blocks traffic'.

You are being snarky. GPs point is literally that the main benefits of a traffic circle - safety and uninterrupted flow - are negatives by how the roundabout is shared with bikes… thus it could have been a different style of intersection if the plan was to share with bikes.

I'm being snarky because I believe that giving traffic other than cars priority at crossings and in roundabouts is the way to go.

I live on a busy city street; traffic has become worse and worse and it has become ever more difficult to cross the street. This has in recent years been alleviated by two means: some unmarked crossings with a traffic island between the lanes, meaning now you have a relatively safe spot that allows you to cross while paying attention to one direction at a time. The other is a zebra crossing where cars have to stop for crossing pedestrians. The latter works very well and I much prefer it to the traffic islands and to the traffic lights that are further down the street.

And yes the cars (and cyclists) have to stop for pedestrians, but that is intentional: yield to the weaker one. Besides traffic has become so congested overall that it's not like there's any measurable time lost for the car driver, and who ever accounted for the endless waiting times that pedestrians have to endure at traffic light crossings when walking the city? In any event the daily traffic jam is definitely not caused by bicycles or pedestrians, with or without priority given to them—it is 100% caused by cars.

Hard disagree, even as a pedestrian it doesn't make sense to have right-of-way over cars. They de facto have it anyway since I'm not suicidal. It's annoying as hell when cars stop for me, like no just go you'll be past me by the time I take one step you're wasting your own time by stopping.

And when there's a continuous stream of cars and no window to cross batching everyone at signaled intersections is more efficient and safer for everyone. Everyone stops at reds and you can physically see them stopped. A zebra crossing on a busy street just takes one person not seeing you.

When you go to Poland they have zebra crossings all over the place, they favor them over pedestrian traffic lights. The entire country disagrees with you.

But I agree that you have to exert some care and judgement when using a zebra crossing. You must look and be prepared for the (in my experience, in Germany) occasional driver who speeds instead of stopping.

I cannot entirely share your warm affections for traffic lights, for that I've had too many perilous events where entitled reckless drivers think they can drive like assholes with impunity.

At least where I live pedestrians at intersections share their green phase with the cars in the same direction and the cars turning right and left, meaning you potentially have a green light but a steady stream of cars coming from left behind you (they mostly are slow having stopped anyway, but the do crawl up from behind) and left front of you (those in some intersection tend to come with a certain speed they picked up when crossing).

At least in areas where people live pedestrians must always have, in principle, right of way. As my driving teacher told me, you as a driver have to look both ways and prepared; yes, a pedestrian is not allowed to cross here, but then you as a driver are not allow to run over the guy either.

Interesting point of view, but very far from what I said. I think blocking any traffic, be it pedestrian, cyclist or cars is bad.

I would also wager that forcing cycles to cross over car roads is terrible from a safety perspective, exactly because both are going at speed, and both are in each other’s “dead angle”.

In this article[1], they claim 70% of accidents in roundabouts are due to cars not seeing cycles. I do believe that drivers in Copenhagen are by-and-large more acquainted with cyclists popping up, but still. The same article documents an experiment in France where cyclists are invited to occupy the middle lane of the roundabout, and just behave as a car would. It makes them more visible (both by cars in the roundabout and those trying to enter), and removes the number of “exceptions”.

It would most likely slow down car traffic, but that’s fine. The important thing is to not come to an absolute stop.

There’s also a study by CEREMA on how to enable cyclists to utilise and be safer in roundabouts: https://www.cerema.fr/fr/system/files?file=documents/2017/12...

[1]: https://13commeune.fr/actualite/ronds-points-quand-les-velos...

> Cycles have right of way, which prevents cars from exiting the roundabout smoothly. At rush hour, this very quickly generates massive queues

Isn’t that more a result of the roundabout being overloaded? That particular one can be quite full even in non-bike weather.

I’m not sure it is. 90% of the time it congests on a specific exit—the one going south, and this is entirely due to all the cycles coming from indreby that need to go to the residential area east of that roundabout.

Having grown up in France, I know the insane capacity that roundabouts can have, and I don’t think CPH traffic is anywhere near that. It’s just poor design in some places.

I see what you mean. The continuous stream of bikes in the (outer) bike lane trapping the cars that want to exit.

How do they do that in France? My only solution would be to merge bikes and cars ahead of the roundabout which requires some caution especially from the car drivers.

I've been wondering the same. To be fair, there were barely any bike lanes in the area I grew up, but roundabouts were legion.

I did explain one technique, where you basically have bikes enter the roundabout and "block" the inner lane as if they were a car, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41924222. I don't know if it's safer or not, but it is one technique that is legal in France since 2015, and an official recommendation to city planners.

Having a cursory look at Google Maps, I see four techniques: move the bike path completely away from the car road, force cyclists to dismount and behave like pedestrians (and use the zebras around the roundabout), allow cyclists to behave like cars and occupy the center lane(s), and the "bike path around the roundabout" technique.

I think both bike-path-around-the-roundabout and forcing cyclists to become pedestrians are equally terrible solutions. Moving the cycle paths away from roads is situational and doesn't really address the crux of the issue. I'll have to try and find more data/experience about the roundabouts that let bikes behave like cars and see how it is. Depending on the roundabout, that must be a harrowing experience.

I think building a pedestrian/cyclist bridge or tunnel could be a solid answer. Or maybe the other way around, because it's still mechanically easier for cars to go up an incline than for cyclists/pedestrians, at the cost of much, much more maintenance.

Congestion is caused by cars, not the roads. Carbrain is a real thing.

> Congestion is caused by cars, not the roads. Carbrain is a real thing.

Always "the other" are to blame.

And talking about "Carbrain": people are "thought" in school to not be interested about how things work. And this is the result.

There being too many cars is a fact, there being too much money being spent to built infrastructure for cars only to the detriment of alternatives—rail, busses, bikes—is also a fact. Blaming cars is not blaming the 'other', it is pointing at the culprit.

I believe you may be conflating opinion with fact, unless you add some qualifier like "based on potential throughput" or some such.

How many more decades of forced-to-own-a-car policy do you need? How many more suburban and rural areas in Europe and the US that had at some point decent public transport that they don't have now do you need? How many more kilometers of noisy highways cutting through the landscape and the urban space do you need? How many price hikes in public transport paired with impoverished services do you need? How many tens of thousands more miles of disused railroad tracks do you need before opinion becomes fact?

It's not "the other". I own a car and drive it regularly.

My WV Golf (which is basically a "small car" nowadays) is huge and unwieldy. It uses up more space than my office, it doesn't respond to "excuse me" and it can't even move sideways. When I place it on a road it blocks that road. People don't block roads.

Bikes block bike lanes. Or people block sidewalks. Cars block roads. Just the amount matters.

Squirrels block everything. Just the amount matters.

The fact is if you travel around anywhere you will not be blocked by people or bikes. This is a car problem. Or, rather, it should be their problem but becomes everyone's problem.

In train stations i am constantly blocked by people. Or subway stations. Or even in these metal boxes, oh my god, i chose my own metal box anytime of this congestion. ;)

Betteridge's Law applies.

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