Hong Kong NW Territory Cycling Infrastructure

I was expecting to see good cycling infrastructure while visiting China. I'd read a few stories highlighting how the status of the bicycle has fallen quite a bit in the past years and how cycling is not considered as a sport. Clearly, there is considerable status in having a car much as it is in the U.S. and on warm summer days in Hong Kong, I understand the usefulness of air conditioning. This post hopes to share the good and bad of Hong Kong cycling infrastructure.

One of the observed problems (which I will cover in more details later) is behavior of cyclists, but that's party a response to the lack of comfort they feel while using the facilities. It is partly due to conflicts from the other users of the streets, but also from the infrastructure provided. I liked the succinct comment I found with a quick search at http://www.whatsonningbo.com/health47.html:  "44 percent of people in Beijing use their cars to travel distances of less than 5 kilometres. Most of these journeys could be made on a bicycle. So creating an environment to enable this social change is vital. 
Duan Liren, a traffic consultant for Beijing municipal government, says first and foremost Chinese road users need to understand the concept of Right of Way on bicycle. "If a thief steals 100 yuan, you know it's illegal. Actually this is as wrong as a vehicle driving in a bicycle lane." 

2-way Cycletracks were provided on many of the streets we were on.
At intersections, they use bollards to slow traffic to insure yielding.

As much as right of way and behavior is important, quality infrastructure is critical for people that want to use the facilities that are built. This post is a summary of some cycletrack elements we saw in the Northwest Territory of Hong Kong. In general, the City seems heavily influenced by British traffic (driving) standards and much like I have seen in London, most of the cycling infrastructure was not present on many of the major streets. London is making major strides to change that by committing to a new plan just this past March.  It's not just London that is making bold steps, but cities like New York City among others in the U.S., yet similarly there there are occasional challenges to this new infrastructure.

A weekend mountain biker weaves through the cars that are parked near the bollards.

Bollards at the intersections made it impossible to cycle side by side
with another person continuously. 

During our tour from a local we got to see some of the urban infrastructure. The visit and cycling tour in the NW Territory was a good opportunity to experience the infrastructure from a local's perspective.    The tour guide gave us a troup of the area nearby his home and then out into the “Wetlands, New Towns & Heritage Trails”.

The bollards took varioius form. In order to keep cars out of the facility, signs were placed
at numerous locations even at some locations is might have been unnecessary. 

A private driveway introduced a curve which made this intersection difficult to traverse, especially for a younger rider that may not be as confident on their bike.  

     

Signal IntersectionDesign: Bicycle Lane & Left Side Mixing Zone on 1st Ave

This person chose to weave through the left turning traffic to the left, so as
to avoid the conflict. The next vehicle is in queue, so this is a relatively
safe movement, as long as someone doesn't pull from the adjacent through
lane into the parking on the farside. In the next picture, you can see a
concrete barrier that protects against that.  

This person passes the vehicle on the right and then moves back into
the marked area. This picture also shows the bus on the right hand side
they have a bus priority lane in red on the right hand side of the street. 

   The mixing zone in NYC was something that I had wanted to spend some time looking at because when I first thought of the idea, I didn't know how well it would work. My past visit to NYC suggested that it was something so new that they weren't sure how it would work, but they did know that it eliminated the need for a bicycle signal movement that is separated in time from the left turning traffic, essentially providing a permissive left across the bicycle lane, which requires motorists to look back before making the left turn to see if a person on a bicycle is approaching.
Generally, it was a new concept to me and upon visiting this location, I was curious to see how folks were using the intersection.

The NY Times did a Q&A about the lanes and the engineer from NYC offered the following:  “this ‘complete street’ treatment has been shown to decrease injuries by up to 58 percent for everyone using these streets, whether on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle.”

The second question on the Q&A is about traffic signal timing, which is a bonus for those that clink on the link. 

A little more research shows that the NYCDOT did some initial work on this back in 2009 as covered by StreetFilms. NE Multnomah Boulevard is Portland's first foray into mixing zones and it includes buses and that should something that the City studies with one of its summer interns. 

Day 4 - Tour of Rijswijk and Den Haag and Discussion on Designing Multimodal Intersections - Day 4

Tour of Rijswijk and Den Haag

On the fourth day we had a tour of the suburb between Delft and The Hague, which is Rijswijk. Paul Wiggenraad, our host from TU Delft, is a resident of 25 years, so he has seen much change in traffic safety that he could share with the students. We had several stops along the way including the Den Haag train station. The Hague has two main stations, HS and Central (former SS), originating from two railway companies Hollandse Spoor (spoor is Dutch for railway) and Staatspoor (private company operating the lines built by the state). In 1938, these two merged in the Dutch National Railway systems. HS is a station on the Old Line (Amsterdam-Haarlem-Leiden-Den Haag-Delft-Rotterdeam) and SS is the terminal of the Utrecht-The Hague Line. 

The new entrance to the Den Haag HS station is modern. 

During the rebuild of the station, they added some fantastic
 bicycle tunnels underneath the old tracks. Pedestrians have similar access.

The station building dates from 1893 and is built in the classic Dutch style.
Obviously, much different than the backside of the building. Trams cross in front of
the station here and create a busy street that is a bit daunting to the first time visitor.

Along the Tour we stopped at a bicycle box that was used along the canal.
The vehicular travel lane is 7 feet wide, the bike lane is 4 feet and the opposing travel lane is 7 feet.
On-street parking is 6 feet and it was evident by all of the vehicles tight against the curb
and with their wheels (the larger ones at least) on the stripe to indicate parking.

We ended up on several bicycle highways, this particular overcrossing gave us
 a nice view of the cycletrack on the right hand side of the street, complete with the
separated right turn lane (note the stop bar set back 50 meters or more. The intent of
the setback is to limit the ability to make right turn on red and to improve visibility.
This sort of treatment has to reduce vehicluar capacity considerably.
It is worth nothing that the off-ramp to on-ramp movement (through at the signal crossing, in
other words what would be moving from from left to right in this view) is not allowed.
That movement could physically happen, but it isn't specifically allowed.  

Critique of Current Manuals

Upon returning to Delft, we had to resolve an issue with a flat tire and then we had a lecture on what we've seen and how that might be incorporated into our cities. Peter provided a summary of some of these elements as well as some of the limitations of the following documents.
AASHTO Bike Guide
NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide
He then proceeded to show the video: Junction Design the Dutch Way, after which  he advocated for designs of this nature with the students. The compromise for pedestrians is of interest and should be carefully considered. This is a subject worthy of more debate.

Separation of Through Cyclists from Right turning Traffic 

Peter Furth indicated that the Dutch manuals suggest separation of the right turning traffic and the cyclist movement when the right turn is greater than 150 vehicles.