The German take on the cycle super highway...

[Vorpal]

A new, 60 mile route will connect 10 western cities including Duisburg, Bochum, and Hamm and four universities.

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/advoca ... icycling__

[gaz]

I want one, no make that n+1

[TonyR]

Really? A bi-directional cycle autobahn that is just 4m wide? That's just a standard 2m wide in each direction. Room for one cyclist to cycle each way. Not room for two to cycle along side by side chattin or room to overtake unless there is nothing coming the other way. Its not an cycle autobahn its a cycle country lane. Mix in a few pedestrians and dog walkers and you have your standard British cycle track. To meet the Dutch CROW standard it would need to be double that width.

[Stevek76]

Guess that depends if it's 4m surfaced plus some verge at the side so part of the cyclist can overhang. Eg the Bristol-bath path is mostly 3m + verges and sightly squeezy overtakes are done. It's far from ideal though and really should be aiming for more if it's going to be worthy of the 'autobahn' label.

[Vorpal]

4m? That's wider than many Dutch facilities, let alone British ones.

[Steady rider]

Is the surface made up from small blocks? Any other examples?

[pjclinch]

4m? That's wider than many Dutch facilities, let alone British ones.

But it's dedicated cycle infrastructure, and thus whatever it is and wherever it goes Tony will find something that "proves" it's rubbish...

[reohn2]

4m? That's wider than many Dutch facilities, let alone British ones.

It is even for four bikes(two abreast in each direction)to pass each other in the opposite direction(unless there's 2m high peripheral fences on each side),I really don't know what to say.
I sometimes wonder what people want or expect.
Realistically,like overtaking in a car,if I can't get past a slower vehicle than mine I wait until there's a safe gap in oncoming traffic then overtake with a safe margin between my vehicle and the one I'm overtaking.I can't see why that's such a hard concept to understand and put into operation for a cyclist with any degree of competence

To put things into perspective,cars travel on an awful lot of roads that are no more than 6 to 7m wide,average family cars are about 2.05m wide(with a Range Rover measuring 2.22cm )and HGV's slightly wider at 2.55m maximum allowable.
These vehicles can and do on a regular basis pass each other in opposite directions with a combined speed of 60mph.
Most bikes(MTB's aside) are no more than 600mm wide so for wobble room due to their two wheeled nature 1.2m is a generous width for bikes passing bikes IMO,which makes a 4m wide dedicated cycleway ample IMHO.

[mjr]

Most bikes(MTB's aside) are no more than 600mm wide so for wobble room due to their two wheeled nature 1.2m is a generous width for bikes passing bikes IMO,which makes a 4m wide dedicated cycleway ample IMHO.

I don't understand how you're fitting two bikes passing in 1.2m as "generous" when the dynamic envelope of a bicycle at typical speed is normally taken as 1m (it gets wider if you go slower). We have some awful Highways England 1.2m cycle track around the A47/A10/A149 junction and two cycles cannot safely pass unless one takes to the grass verge... so I often ride on the road in the "with flow" direction and only use the track in the contraflow direction - and as some of you know, I much prefer cycle tracks to busy roads.

However, based on the varying track widths I've ridden, I feel 4m is just enough for comfortable side-by-side cycling - if two groups of side-by-side riders pass, they'll have to interleave, but that seems to just work in practice without much conflict - and I suspect many English councils would build inadequate 2m for long-distance interurban in that situation. Norfolk would probably 3m with narrower sections whenever it got difficult. Highways England 1m.

[[XAP]Bob]

I took 1.2m to be a generous envelope, you still fit more than three of those on the track...

[reohn2]

We were discussing a dedicated cycleway 4m wide,in light of that,my post seems reasonable to me.
YVMV.

[Stevek76]

But that's 4m to take 50,000 car trips worth of people a day, and presumably a mix of cyclists and pedestrians. Obviously they won't be all in the same place given the length but consider that the daily cycle flow on the Bristol-bath path (mostly 3m plus verges) is in the very low 4 figures and that gets very uncomfortably busy in the morning peak.

I don't think it's unfair to point out that the aspirations of the path could be higher, particularly for something calling itself an autobahn for which the car equivalent would be 2x 13.95m of surfacing, not a 6m rural road.

[Steady rider]

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archive ... ing_en.pdf
Near the front figures are shown, 14k cyclists per hour 3.5m wide space.
the 60km length would also have a bearing, they probably know what they are doing.

I cycled from the bottom to top of Germany and found they have some idea, at least more useful then the UK approach.

[reohn2]

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/cycling/cycling_en.pdf
Near the front figures are shown, 14k cyclists per hour 3.5m wide space.
the 60km length would also have a bearing, they probably know what they are doing.

I think you're right,they do know what they're doing.I can't recall a single cycleway in NL being 4m eide and their bicycle use is one of,if not the largest,cycle using countries in europe.

I cycled from the bottom to top of Germany and found they have some idea, at least more useful then the UK approach.

Nothing beats experience of their facilities.

[Pete Owens]

Most bikes(MTB's aside) are no more than 600mm wide so for wobble room due to their two wheeled nature 1.2m is a generous width for bikes passing bikes IMO,which makes a 4m wide dedicated cycleway ample IMHO.

I don't understand how you're fitting two bikes passing in 1.2m as "generous" when the dynamic envelope of a bicycle at typical speed is normally taken as 1m (it gets wider if you go slower).

And that is figure even quoted in the rubbish british standards.

Add to it a minimum clearance of 0.5m either side of a cyclists (again from the UK standard) and you get a minimum requirement for a 2 way cycle-path of 3.5m - which the described path would meet assuming it is unsegregated shared use rather than

We have some awful Highways England 1.2m cycle track around the A47/A10/A149 junction and two cycles cannot safely pass unless one takes to the grass verge... so I often ride on the road in the "with flow" direction and only use the track in the contraflow direction - and as some of you know, I much prefer cycle tracks to busy roads.

But managing to improve on the worst crappness of UK (or even German) farcilities is hardly a ringing endorsement.

However, based on the varying track widths I've ridden, I feel 4m is just enough for comfortable side-by-side cycling - if two groups of side-by-side riders pass, they'll have to interleave, but that seems to just work in practice without much conflict - and I suspect many English councils would build inadequate 2m for long-distance interurban in that situation. Norfolk would probably 3m with narrower sections whenever it got difficult. Highways England 1m.

[/quote]
Indeed, so long as the whole width is available to cyclists, rather than subdivided with 2m for pedestrians and 2m for cyclists then a 4m wide path is sufficient for a lightly used recreational cycle path. However, this is being hyped as a "bicycle autobahn". The proposed volume of traffic - 50000 cars worth (presumably to justify the 180 million euro price tag) would be very busy and would indeed involve single file riding with no opportunities to overtake. Tony R is quite right to point out that it is more "country lane" than "autobahn".



Indeed - 4m is perfectly adequate for a lightly used recreational path