The fact that this bike lane is separated from car traffic makes it better than 95% of bike lanes in the US. The worst "bike lane" I've personally seen is in Bend, OR where they painted a picture of a bicycle on the shoulder of Highway 97, which is a 4-lane interstate-style highway with speed limits of 55mph with on and off ramps.
Yeah, this is a better than 1st world problem. I'm in Southern California and I would *love* this awful bike lane. Sure, pedestrians are around, but it is largely separated and the cars going in are going slow? Sign me up. Sounds great.
i've been to bend and i know exactly what you're talking about. not only is it on a shoulder, but it keeps crossing high speed on/off ramps. when i saw it on a road trip i did a double-take and could not believe just how mind-numbingly bad of a design choice it was. you're not going to get people out on bikes with stuff like that, which just sours other people on the idea of bike lanes.
Petition to retitle that article: worst SEPARATED bike lane in the world. I've been on worse bike lanes and even they certainly aren't as bad as they can get! This one is at least still separated from deadly traffic. Honestly, even though it winds, simply smoothing the turns out would do wonders. But it's absolutely the worst for the amount of effort put in..
This is a valid point. I actually don't even think it's the worst bike lane in the world. I think Alex Robb in the video is right. It's bad. But it's not all that bad.
Yeah. People who called it the worst bike lane have not seen actually bad bike lanes. There are lanes where you have to dismount every 20 meters because there are road connections from a stroad and there is just pedestrian crossing that you cannot legally cross on a bicycle. Or one that is straight but it is littered with traffic signs, lamp posts and billboards, so you have to weave and duck to avoid it all. And on top of that, it is shared with pedestrians. Or a bike line that has 200m and starts nowhere and ends nowhere so it just exists without anyone using it but council is proudly showing it as "you see, we did something for cycling this year!"
Yeah absolutely agree. Here in Canterbury UK there is a "bike lane" that travels alongside a dual carriageway filter lane, before crossing it and firing you directly into the 70mph (120km/h) dual carriageway at 90° to the traffic flow. It's actually part of a "National Cycle Route". 🤦🤦🤦
Holy hell didn’t realise you came to my city. And yes that bike lane does kinda suck…. Worst thing is Edinburgh actually has some really lovely segregated cycle ways that cross the city from north to south and east to west, however they’re planning to convert a chunk of them to tram routes. 🤯
This bike lane is great because it enables me to feel comfortable to cycle into the town centre from my flat in Leith. I am uncomfortable cycling on the road uphill, as I just don't feel fast enough. Having this route makes a big difference for me. The chicanes are absolutely insane, and they cause pedestrians to randomly walk in front of you constantly. I have had so many near misses with people just completely paying no attention. I also love that it's an undulating nightmare that plays havoc on my wrists. Better than a car flying past at 30mph giving 20cm of space though, like I'd get going along Easter Road instead
In Colorado Springs, Colorado our few bike lanes could almost all be voted worse than the one in this video. Many of our bike lanes are random 1 mile (1.6 km) sections that are are scattered around the city and do not connect to each other. Just to get to the bike lane you may have to ride multiple miles on the roads with the cars.
It’s great that you travelled to our cold, windy city to make this video! It’s always very valuable to hear an outsider’s perspective. I live on the other side of Edinburgh, so luckily I don’t have the horror of cycling along Leith Walk very often!
Our city of just shy of a million people doesn't even have a bike lane. It's taken years just to get a mostly* daily bus route in a few sections of the city. I'm all for improving existing infrastructure, but I wouldn't complain too much. That place genuinely looks like a lovely place to live.
A really useful watch. I went to Edinburgh for four or five days and took my bike. From memory it was a pro bike city and there's been plenty of news about Scotlands commitment to active travel. The Scottish grass always looks greener from England!! Anyway, I was surprised by my 'very mixed' experience of riding there. My best experience was riding the ex railway lines through Leith, these are brilliant and at least one runs parallel with the one in the video. My worst was riding on the roads, lots of cobbled roads and really bad potholes in the tarmaced ones. I also rode the bike lane in the video, a slower journey certainly but not unpleasant and definitely preferred to the killer potholes and cobbles!!
I nominate Highland Ave in Salem MA for worst bike lane in the world. It's a pained line alongside a highway with absolutely insane drivers and no lighting, I've only ever seen someone riding a bike on it once.
@@Shifter_Cycling it is the lane where runners go because they don't want the sidewalk, and then they try to push cyclists into car traffic. I wish I was joking >.
@@Shifter_Cycling "bike gutter" and "murder strips"(based on the fact that statistically they're more dangerous than no provision for bikes at all) are the usual ones around here.
@@Shifter_Cycling Have you seen the research that shows that painted advisory lanes increase deaths/injuries? In a recent podcast Chris Boardman (Active Travel England) said "We actually found that if you do it the old way, you kill ten percent more people than doing nothing, and you get no uptake because it doesn’t make people feel safe. If you build to LTN 1/20 properly and continuously, you get at least - between twenty and sixty percent increase in uptake and you halve the number of deaths. " LTN1/20 is the UK's specification for bike lanes - although it isn't mandatory.
@@Shifter_CyclingA few years ago, the word of the year in Belgium was "moordstrookje". It vaguely translates to cute little murder strip. But unfortunately, these things are still way too ubiquitous.
City council holding a contractor accountable for a bad job? What is that? I've never head about it. Typical course of action is for the council to claim that it was not their fault, they can do nothing and then actually do nothing. I think the city of Edinburgh should be applauded just for that alone.
Cycled up and down there recently! Not the best route at all, but it is so nice being separated from cars that I still like it 😅 Really hoping Edinburgh can keep up the work and finally join up all its separate bits of cycle routes - theres so much potential here
Agreed. I'd love to see the new Haymarket to Roseburn cycleway extended past the zoo and through Corstorphine. These new segregated cycleways are fantastic to ride on.
The worst cycle lane I have ever experienced is the descent of Kingston Hill and Kingston Vale (which are names for the same road, the A308) in the London borough of Kingston on Thames, from the top of the long hill to the junction with the A3. There is a detached lane on both sides of the hill. Going up is bumpy with constant steep ramps, bus stop signs and shelters obstructing the lane, obscure kerbs up and down on the edge of the path, and legbreaker posts broken off and lying in the middle of the lane, but it's not utterly bad because climbing slows you down and you can usually see things in time. Going down on the other side through the same terrain is lethal. The last time I went down it in the dark, with a 1700 lumen headlight to help me, I rode off an invisible kerb and fell into the road. Now if I have to go there I stay in the main roadway and ignore the motorists hooting at me. It's safer.
I was in Edinburgh last year. I didn't bike on that lane but walked beside it. The lane disappears on some parts and on other parts it merged with the sidewalk. It was super weird!
I was in Edinburgh last year. Great place, but possibly the least pedestrian-friendly city I’ve ever been to. The traffic lights prioritise cars and buses to a ridiculous extent. You end up with enormous crowds of pedestrians before you finally get a green walk light.
My city has a similar problem. I think they wanted to make sure that if a car runs a red light right after it goes from yellow to red, there are not yet any pedestrians on the crossing. So what they did was they made the green light for pedestrians turn on a few seconds after the one for the cars. Now any cars turning right can get a good running start before they hit them. And the green light for pedestrians lasts a maximum of 15 seconds on major roads.
Edingbrough is one of the worst cities in the world for traffic. There is not enough space for everyone to get about, due to the age of the city and how much it has grown. I was a lorry driver for a few months in Edingbrough for a cash and carry and I could not hit targets due to the congestion and lack of parking to do the deliveries, so I quit. I still visit Edingbrough as is my local city but normally use the park and ride which is connected to the tram system. The tram is fast convenient and cheap.
I used to live in Edinburgh nearly a decade ago, Leith Walk was a big part of my commute, when I heard that it had gotten a bike lane by my former neighbour, I thought - finally! Seeing this video makes really surprised. Edinburgh was a very good biking city even before the improvements. I left in 2017, right when they had passed the rule that cars have to keep a 1mtr separation from bikes.
A bike lane at pedestrian grade with random zigs and zags everywhere sounds like an improvement on the Singaporean government's modus operandi. They would have also added some road crossings with no signals, stripes, or traffic calming, and if you are lucky, you might also get some bridges with five flights of steep stairs and a wee ramp on the side of the steps to get over the road (and if there are proper full ramps you cannot ride over them and renta-cops spend a great amount of their time policing that). Never, ever must the precious, entitled car drivers have their space taken away, but pedestrians and cyclists can fight it out. Next year, cyclists veering onto the pedestrian side of a path if there is a painted bike path will receive large fines, which would be fine if all those painted cycle paths weren't full of pedestrians who don't notice the exact same path is painted two different colours. Oh, and we have to mention the complete insanity of having rules for e-bikes that are too hard for any of the major bike brands to provide their pedal-assist e-bikes here, but at the same time lose enough to make common cheap bikes that take 2-minutes of fiddling to become throttle-controlled electric motorcycles.
I live in supposed biking Mecca Amsterdam and this looks quite a bit like the bike lane along the major Nassaukade/Stadhouderskade road. Because it is new the Edinburgh one is only missing the parts where tree roots have turned the bike lane into a mountain bike trail. But it is still mostly separated from the road, so it can't be the worst.
I live in Leith and cycle to work on the westside of Edinburgh and I'm happy enough using the Leith Walk bike lane during quieter times. The problem is lack of space on the narrower sections that tend to be busy with pedestrians. As Rob said, it's pretty good once you get past Brunswick Road / McDonald Road on the way up but a bit ropey between there and the Foot of the Walk, particularly the section at Steads Place.
That is a total nightmare Whole of Scotland has a sketchy network of bike lanes that range from amazing to absolutely insane gravel . The one thing is common is that they are all badly interconnected or just stop and disappear completely. The other issue is once they blow the budget on the build they fail to maintain it leaving brambles and rotten leaves on the route. There is one leaving Glenrothes towards Dundee which throws you back into the A92 mincer
When I went to London then Edinburgh last year I was amazed by the number of cyclists in London and surprised by the lack in Edinburgh. It's good to see things are changing for the better, though.
Where I live there are far worse (dangerous) painted bike gutters that I would never ride, nor have I ever seen anyone else ride. Along roads and stroads with 3 lanes of cars going 50+ mph, plenty of opportunities to get hit by right-turning cars, etc.
Better than STL where the bike line is a yellow sign that says to yield to bikes, but only space is in the road or the sidewalk and five or more lanes of traffic going 45 miles an hour.
It was cool to talk with you during the Premiere, enjoy our Paris bike lanes! This Edinbourgh bike lane looks bad when it's crowded, you don't see where to zigzag. But people seem to go straight ahead when they can, problem solved. At least it isn't close to the tram tracks.
There is another bike lane in Edinburgh near the braid hills Hotel to the south side. It just suddenly merges with car lanes at all traffic islands, despite the fact the rest of it is segregated
Maybe that lane should just have been part of a wide multi-use path, like the wide sidewalks of Osaka, rather than having a narrow zig-zag same-grade 'lane'. But yeah, for worse, consider any painted bike gutter in a door zone.
Oh man, come to Dunedin, NZ. That bike lane has nothing on the incomprehensible mish-mash of dead-end, highway crossing death-paths they've tagged onto roads.
The worst bike lane in the world is the Peña Boulevard route to Denver International Airport. It's literally just the shoulder of a highway and you have to cross exit lanes to stay on it.
There are also some great tracks that used to be train lines coming from outside the city to the centre. Watch out for the tram lines on Princes Street though very slippery when you turn on them as I found to my cost.
The lack of turns on rail or canal paths is a significant negative. Not getting run over by a vehicle driver is a overwhelming positive. Roads are designed for vehicles , but provide an adequate shoulder.
Our lovely city is great to get around via the bicycle and it is trying to improve. Personally as a resident of Edinburgh, if given an ultimatum, I’d rather have last minute poorly, designed segregated cycle lanes than no cycle lanes on a pothole filled main road. Yes, pothole filled roads, we have a lot of those in Edinburgh. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed some nicer rides in Edinburgh with many of the cycle paths we do have (Roseburn path etc. . .) and enjoyed your visit. Hopefully the next time you visit in the near future, our cycling infrastructures would have improved.
Got a bike recently and really agree. Lots to improve, but I think we have a decent set of options with the NCN and the quiet routes down to hawthornvale or granton
Yep. Used to live in Edinburgh, now in Dunfermline. This is better than SO MANY painted bike gutters that just ... end ... Both places are VERY hilly and at every possible place cyclists are indicated to yield to all other road users, very frustrating. UK needs a zebra crossing standard that includes bikes and one for 20mph zones that can just be painted stripes on the road. Our extremely safe zebra crossings are too expensive to fit & run and can't be over road ends - it limits them too much for councils to make curb level zebra crossings the standard way 20mph streets join together.
Yes, the potholes are terrible. I recently came off my bike due to hitting a deep pothole in Sighthill Industrial Estate that I didn't see due to the fact that it was raining and the pothole was full of water. The sheer amount of utility works are mostly to blame for the shockingly poor state of Edinburgh's streets.
My partner and I recently visited a neighbouring city we hadn't been for a long time and he was like look! a new bike lane, it looks great! About 30 seconds later, a cyclist rides in our lane because a huge city bus was blocking 100% of the bike lane. But I bet it's still better than nothing.
I've seen worse bike lanes. Imagine a bike lane that is about 3/4 the width of your steerer, every 20m it loses a bit more width because the tree plots partially cut into it, also those trees lean over the bike lane so you actually have to ride on the side walk to not hit your head, and the surface is pushed up by roots so that unless you have a full sus MTB or you're bunny-hopping over them, you will get a hip fracture before arriving at your destination. This is a description of some of the bike lanes in Berlin. So this "oh, it's not straight, so it's the worst bike lane in the world" could only have been written by someone very sheltered. Sure, it's not great, and definitely poorly planned, but it's nowhere near "the worst in the world".
I have biked a few times in Berlin and the launching ramps provided by the roots are truly next level. Some Fahrradstraßen (Bike Roads?) are pretty great though.
We have some of that like that and in London too. It's in the suburbs, it's old and a narrow one lane with tree roots. It's also expected to be two ways so you and the rider coming the opposite way play chicken to see who ends up on the narrow pedestrian path next to it. You need to duck some places because trees aren't trimmed regularly. At some park and allotment gaps there's overgrown folliage on the pedestrian path so that bit can't be used. That means pedestrians and cyclists going both ways are share the same narrow path where a person can only walk single file. The there's a resting bay for HGVs so the cycle path disappears and you need to share the small pavement for pedestrians. That's narrower because of poles and a leaning metal one that some vehicle bent by mounting the pavement. Still annoying as it is you're not sharing the road with traffic going a lot more than 55 mph and at least most parts you have the trees and grass verge buffer. I've come across a car wreck or two on that A road. There's flowers where someone has died and once I came across a pedestrian who had be knocked down by a pedestrian crossing. When there's a tailback going a few miles long you're sailing when the drivers are stuck getting grumpy. When the traffic is crawling the drivers go in zombie mode and ignore the traffic lights at pedestrians crossing. They keep going on green. People get stuck on the islands in the middle of the busy road when that happens. The newer built ones are mostly set to a better standard than the old ones.
I feel like it might be a British thing of giving names to local things which are ridiculously over-the-top - like Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester which had a concrete wall people called the „Berlin Wall“
I've generally found that the roots on Berlin's bike lanes can be dealt with by standing up in the pedals whenever you see one coming. I am, however, also fairly sure that those roots could yeet you over the handlebar if you don't know what you're doing. And of course, you should be quite wary whenever you encounter a bike path covered in leaves in fall. Many of the worst ones barely get any use; noone knows why. In some cases, the city just gave up and turned them into parking instead. There's also a funny one at the Dahlem-Dorf metro station where the bike lane makes up the waiting area of a bus stop.
I nominate Collins St in the middle of Melbourne for worst bike lane. It's barely more than the width of your bike itself, constantly disappears where parking spaces get in the way, and otherwise wedged between busy traffic & car parking spaces with no separation other than the lane markers. I don't know why they even bothered.
But why not look at your neighbors in the Netherlands? To prevent this from happening! Our streets in general are less wide than in Edinburgh (love the city by the way, one of my favorites!) but we still cater for trams, bikes, cars and€ pedestrians. To be fair, especially in Amsterdam pedestrians get a rougher deal, with bikes ruling the road. But Utrecht, Groningen, Haarlem and so many other cities could have been used as an example on how to do things right from day one.
As an engineer, it's one thing when you trying please everybody by designing down to the absolute minimums given in the national design guidance, and it's another when you stop even trying to follow the general priciples, as you can see for this bike lane in the loading bay area zigzags. There's certainly worse bike infrastructure about, but there really should not be stuff being built now by local or national government which is supposed to follow design standards and doesn't. I imagine a lot of the backlash was that feeling of not getting what was promised in a new build.
Almost the entirety of the network here in Seville, Spain is like that if not worse, I estimate about 40% of its 200 kms of bike lanes are like that, about 35% is worse, so that + a design made by someone who never rode a bike and only used a car + slippery as hell green paint + never been maintained. The other 25% is actually fine, just barely too narrow for a bakfiets and unmaintained, but otherwise they are good enougth. I am sure that my mountain bike that I use exclusively on the city is rateling itself down constantly for a completely unrelated reason....
@@Nynke_K I dont think the zigzagging here is that anoying, at least is kinda smooth most of the times, when I think of the worst feature here it has to be the constant abrupt little up and downs.
The Scottish guy has it right, the goal is for people to get to work, kids to get to school. I think the point of any bicycle lane is to make it safe for schoolchildren to bike to & from school.
They ( the council ) put in this great seperated bike lane near my house , makes getting my children to school on bicycles fantastic and quick but for some reason there was no upgrade to the school from the main path that goes past so there’s this 500metre ride on the sidewalk shared with pedestrians getting to the school as well .
The UK, like the USA, absolutely fails to learn from other countries, believing that their circumstances are unique. You could take any road of similar width and use in Amsterdam and straight up copy the design over to Leith Walk.
Saw the vid title. No... he cant mean... never thought id see you here. Worst thing about it (use is several time a week) is the bike lane lights are not part of the road lights. So while cars have a green light bikes will have a red (presumably to avoid left hooks) The bike lights only change in a combined pedestrian crossing phase, which of course is as far apart and as short as possible so you're not getting in the way of cars.... Couple of them have the crossing button box on a sperate pole beside the bike lane. At least a half dozen lights with a near guaranteed 1-3 minute at every one makes for a slow 1.5km
I lived in Leith for a long time (sadly moved away a few years ago), cycle commuting daily on Leith Walk for about a decade, and I will tell you that I *never* used this bike lane -- until they closed the whole road off for tram works and it was the only place to cycle. I'd just use the road instead. The other side (uphill) was just as bad in another way, in that the road part of Leith Walk has priority over cars entering from side streets at unsignalled junctions, but at least at the time it was installed, the *bike path* had to yield at every side street, so you lost all your momentum. So again, I'd just use the road unless I was carrying something awkward or cumbersome, or was very tired. From your videos it looks like they might have fixed that since I left, though, at least on the upper part of the street. All that said, I started writing this comment mostly to tell you about some *even worse* cycling infrastructure in the neighbouring district of Broughton (a painted-bicycle-gutter-type bike lane that ends abruptly partway up a steep hill, on a high-speed road) -- but, as I said, I've moved away. I checked the images on google maps to see if they've fixed it since I left, and it turns out they have!
I've come to realise that as much as I want them to fix some of the sub-standard protected bike lanes they've built in London, it's still better value right now to build new bike lanes somewhere else in the city. I'd much rather have a network of connected mediocre bike lanes than one awesome lane that has been rebuilt ten times with incremental improvements. That said, if they can get the contractor to do it for free, why not do that AND build a new one elsewhere?
Exactly I like to ride a bike around new cities that I visit and far prefer a crappy network of separated bike/multiuse paths over a couple nice bike paths isolated in downtown or wherever they stick them. I can visit most parts of the city and better choose my itinerary for the bike ride.
This bike lane doesn't actually look that bad, by UK standards even. I've seen 2 worse bike lanes in London, 1 lane section in Colliers Wood, where the southbound traffic has to weave around a pair of parking spaces that's used by a business selling 'Bathroom Equipment', and another bad bike lane Eastbound in New Malden, where the Royal Borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames decided that for a short section of the bike path that motorists should be allowed to park ON the lane, not next to either side of the path!
Compared to many (most?) cities in the UK Edinburgh’s cycle network is pretty good. That’s not to say it’s great by any means and the general condition of the road surface is terrible for all road users. It’s clear a fair amount of money has been spent on this particular lane but the reality is it throws pedestrians, cyclists and motorists into conflict. Surprisingly, to me, London seems to be one of the more progressive cities for cyclists, as can be seen on the London cycle routes TH-cam channel. Even though some of the routes can be convoluted there does seem to be a cohesive approach to making viable and usable routes from the London Boroughs
That is definitely not the worst bike lane in the world. I don't even know how one would imagine the one in Bucharest alongside the river Dambovita with one-way roads on each side, but I'll try to explain it. The bike line was painted on the sidewalk on the left side of the street (a street where you drive on the right side) right next to the river, leaving the right sidewalk for pedestrians. Parked cars, of which there are hundreds if not thousands are the least of the annoyance. Every time you encounter a bridge perpendicular to your path (bridge goes left), and there are a few, approximately one every 500 meters, you don't simply cross the junction and move forward; no, you have to cross all the lanes to the right (alongside your path), then cross all the lanes across (perpendicular to your side), and finally cross all the lanes across back on the side of the river. Basically, you cross 3 sides of a square every time you meet a junction and want to go forward. If you want to cross one of those bridgess to come back, well, you are in for a treat. You don't just make a left and another left; oh no, you go right, forward, left (longer, including the bridge), left, left and right. That might have been changed now (one would hope), but last time I rode, that's how it was.
I feel that planning guys pain. Here in the UK we allow a very loud minority to hold projects up indefinitely. Any project like this will have huge pushback from: motorists, pedestrians and local shops. It's a miracle that anything got done at all.
That one is way better than the one I use for my commute here in Bogotá, Colombia. Imagine the same thing, but with pot holes, way more intersections with cars (where they have priority and cyclists have to go down to street level and go up again, using very bad ramps), disconnections every couple of meters, etc.
You haven't seen the bike lanes in the Philippines. it's way worse than you've shown. Especially in the city, bike lanes are almost unusable Rectangular man holes that might puncture bike tires are common.
I occasionally have to ride a painted bike lane in LA which just completely makes you basically merge across a car lane with no protection to keep you out of the turn lane. The worst part is it’s on a giant stroad, the first time I rode the path I got *very* close to being hit and the driver behind me had to break pretty hard
Idk. I've been riding Milwaukee for many years and it has some bad sections (Division to North & Kedzie to Belmont, for example). But what I've seen described in the comments in other parts of the world (Asia, PNW) makes me think positively about biking home on Milwaukee in heavy rain... right now. Hopefully I make it.
It looks better than the one separated two way lane in downtown Ottawa that zig-zags from one side of a major street to the other and then just kind of ends still downtown on the major street.
Good to end this report in an upbeat tone. I've actually ridden a lot worse cycle lanes than that one, but having cycle lanes at all was at one time unheard of. Suggestion to town planners and road building enterprises: If you want to know how to build effective infrastructure for cyclist, take a trip to the Netherlands.
i live in the area and i usually opt to cycle on a nearby (quite busy!) road rather than take that bike lane because it's a nightmare. people always cycle on the wrong side so you end up having to stop a lot more than you would just taking the road.
That cycle lane looks completely fine to me. The lack of verticl seperation is a huge plus when there aren't a lot of pedestrians around since it makes it easier to ignore the zigzags. Maybe I just have low expectations. Where I live, the bike lanes are 1) not particularly wide, 2) full of bumps and holes, 3) flooded with water whenever there's rain, 4) covered in piles of leaves in autumn, 5) not cleaned with snowploughs when there's snow, 6) covered with sand so you can't even brake safely, 7) In the center of the city, they don't exist at all. Instead, you get to drive on the main road. You know, where all the buses are. I have no idea how someone thought this would be a pleasant cycling experience.
In Glasgow we have a proliferation of bike lanes mostly removing two car lanes. You can now cycle south from the city centre for four miles on new segregated cycle lanes which is a huge bonus for cyclists, but not at all good if you use public transport. Bus services which would carry you swiftly down bus lanes and into the city have now turned into a thirty minute drag as two one way lanes for cyclists leaves only two one way lanes for buses, cars, trucks etc. A couple of problems showed up in that the bus stops deposit passengers onto the cycle lanes and lots of older people struggle to understand that, especially when the one way cycle lane ( did i mention there's one either side of the road) is used as a two way lane resulting in accidents with pedestrians. They are now extending the cycle lanes out another two miles through the local shopping area and once again removing bus lanes to put in cycle lanes. There you have it folks, we now have gridlock going in and out of the city unless the pensioners decide to take a bike rather than the bus.
The one between Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK is bad. Planned by someone in London who never visited, cost £7million and isnt used as it also snakes all over, never gets gritted in winter and several times stops abruptly into bus shelters.
this is actually pretty cool, the zig zag pattern makes you go slower as it is on the same level as pedestrians for me a good bike lane, at the end of the day its a commute route not a desirable destination. lets be humble adn appreciate these projects.
You've come to pretty much the same conclusions I have about it - not ideal, but better than nothing(since they were never going to stop private car traffic on the Walk). Honestly the biggest issues I have with it aren't the bendy bits or the bus stops(peds seem to mostly now have gotten the message and stopped just gormlessly standing in the lane next to stops - a few even bother to cross at the marked points hah), it's that like most cycle lanes here they *still* insist on laying the tarmac by hand because everyone's too cheap to buy the specialized machinery, so especially on any downward gradients they end up being real boneshakers to ride unless you have suspension. That's an irritation for me, but it stops my pal using it altogether because he has back pain - cycling *would* be a perfect mode of transport for him since pedalling doesn't hurt him while walking does, but between the hand-laid cycle tracks and our patchworked and potholed and occasionally cobbled(because heaven forfend we accept that it's not the blinkin' 1600's anymore and treat the city centre like a city centre rather than a "conservation" theme park) streets it can't be for him. I'm also not as optimistic about the future as your man from Spokes there. We're still mired in consultations and whinging from drivers over *one* School Street(a *temporary* road closure of a single street to private traffic during drop off and pick up hours) in Corstorphine; there's currently a project being worked on to join the North Edinburgh Path Network at Roseburn to the Union Canal that doesn't actually go all the way to the canal, which part is being "delivered as part of a separate project" that's also been stuck in the concept/planning phase for going on a decade now; and fundamentally there's still just no sign the local council are actually interested in confronting and overcoming the tiny minority of angry carbrains and disingenuous "disability rights" orgs who drag this stuff out for years and years. Indeed, they quite like the status quo, as it lets them make big promises at election time and then have endless excuses for why they never deliver on them that aren't technically their fault(except insofar as their cowardice is the only reason those failures happen at all, but that's easy to dissemble about especially since the media are as conservative about active travel as they are everything else). London and Glasgow are just getting on with it, but not us, oh no, this is Edinburgh dontcha know, everything here has to be *bespoke* and get full agreement from every tartan-trewed, Land Rover-humping posho in the New Town just in case they have an urgent need to haul fifteen fridges and their granny's great dane through whatever area you're proposing to improve. Give you an example - six months ago the council published their plan for the city centre with great fanfare, including a provision to finally divvy it up into "zones" that you can't drive through with cars only gain access, including a closure that would basically pedestrianise a street that really needs it. Within a month the plan was then a *phased* plan and they were going to do it a little bit at a time. By last month even the most basic closure, that badly needed pedestrian one, had been backburnered because of "questions over funding"(as if they need central government funding to put a couple of sodding bollards on a road). It's a beautiful city but it's absolutely mired in mindless conservatism.
I believe that all city centres should be car-free. Only loading/unloading allowed and that should be at night or with a special permit. Once you spend time in car-free centres, it feels so good to just walk or cycles freely. It is incredibly frustrating and uncomfortable to be in a beautiful city centre but surrounded by cars, their noise and smog. 😷
The fact that this bike lane is separated from car traffic makes it better than 95% of bike lanes in the US. The worst "bike lane" I've personally seen is in Bend, OR where they painted a picture of a bicycle on the shoulder of Highway 97, which is a 4-lane interstate-style highway with speed limits of 55mph with on and off ramps.
The longer I ride a bike, the most afraid of riding on highway shoulders I get.
Yeah, this is a better than 1st world problem. I'm in Southern California and I would *love* this awful bike lane. Sure, pedestrians are around, but it is largely separated and the cars going in are going slow? Sign me up. Sounds great.
Thats insane, the people who put that bike lane on the highway should really have to drive it in its full length.
yep. The design standard here even looks quite good - it's just way to much stuff on way to little space.
i've been to bend and i know exactly what you're talking about. not only is it on a shoulder, but it keeps crossing high speed on/off ramps. when i saw it on a road trip i did a double-take and could not believe just how mind-numbingly bad of a design choice it was. you're not going to get people out on bikes with stuff like that, which just sours other people on the idea of bike lanes.
Petition to retitle that article: worst SEPARATED bike lane in the world. I've been on worse bike lanes and even they certainly aren't as bad as they can get! This one is at least still separated from deadly traffic. Honestly, even though it winds, simply smoothing the turns out would do wonders. But it's absolutely the worst for the amount of effort put in..
This is a valid point. I actually don't even think it's the worst bike lane in the world. I think Alex Robb in the video is right. It's bad. But it's not all that bad.
Yeah. People who called it the worst bike lane have not seen actually bad bike lanes.
There are lanes where you have to dismount every 20 meters because there are road connections from a stroad and there is just pedestrian crossing that you cannot legally cross on a bicycle. Or one that is straight but it is littered with traffic signs, lamp posts and billboards, so you have to weave and duck to avoid it all. And on top of that, it is shared with pedestrians. Or a bike line that has 200m and starts nowhere and ends nowhere so it just exists without anyone using it but council is proudly showing it as "you see, we did something for cycling this year!"
Yeah absolutely agree. Here in Canterbury UK there is a "bike lane" that travels alongside a dual carriageway filter lane, before crossing it and firing you directly into the 70mph (120km/h) dual carriageway at 90° to the traffic flow. It's actually part of a "National Cycle Route". 🤦🤦🤦
I like how you continually get new voices on your channel. It was good to hear Robb's perspective.
I love hearing from locals in situations like this. I'm glad you like it too.
Total admiration for Robb and the campaign, and impressed that the council listened. Thanks for covering this story
Erm. I think his name is Alex.
Got jumpscared by seeing my regular cycling route haha
Holy hell didn’t realise you came to my city. And yes that bike lane does kinda suck….
Worst thing is Edinburgh actually has some really lovely segregated cycle ways that cross the city from north to south and east to west, however they’re planning to convert a chunk of them to tram routes. 🤯
This bike lane is great because it enables me to feel comfortable to cycle into the town centre from my flat in Leith. I am uncomfortable cycling on the road uphill, as I just don't feel fast enough. Having this route makes a big difference for me.
The chicanes are absolutely insane, and they cause pedestrians to randomly walk in front of you constantly. I have had so many near misses with people just completely paying no attention. I also love that it's an undulating nightmare that plays havoc on my wrists.
Better than a car flying past at 30mph giving 20cm of space though, like I'd get going along Easter Road instead
In Colorado Springs, Colorado our few bike lanes could almost all be voted worse than the one in this video. Many of our bike lanes are random 1 mile (1.6 km) sections that are are scattered around the city and do not connect to each other. Just to get to the bike lane you may have to ride multiple miles on the roads with the cars.
The important thing is that the city wants to improve. I’d rather live a city that’s progressing than one that’s stuck in the past.
It’s great that you travelled to our cold, windy city to make this video! It’s always very valuable to hear an outsider’s perspective. I live on the other side of Edinburgh, so luckily I don’t have the horror of cycling along Leith Walk very often!
Our city of just shy of a million people doesn't even have a bike lane. It's taken years just to get a mostly* daily bus route in a few sections of the city. I'm all for improving existing infrastructure, but I wouldn't complain too much. That place genuinely looks like a lovely place to live.
A really useful watch. I went to Edinburgh for four or five days and took my bike. From memory it was a pro bike city and there's been plenty of news about Scotlands commitment to active travel. The Scottish grass always looks greener from England!! Anyway, I was surprised by my 'very mixed' experience of riding there. My best experience was riding the ex railway lines through Leith, these are brilliant and at least one runs parallel with the one in the video. My worst was riding on the roads, lots of cobbled roads and really bad potholes in the tarmaced ones. I also rode the bike lane in the video, a slower journey certainly but not unpleasant and definitely preferred to the killer potholes and cobbles!!
I nominate Highland Ave in Salem MA for worst bike lane in the world. It's a pained line alongside a highway with absolutely insane drivers and no lighting, I've only ever seen someone riding a bike on it once.
It actually seems pretty good? A protected bike lane that has some bends in it is way better than a sharrow or a painted line next to car traffic
Maybe it's time we stop calling painted bike lanes by that name. Maybe something catchy would be better, like "suicide zones" or "Dante's gutter."
@@Shifter_Cycling it is the lane where runners go because they don't want the sidewalk, and then they try to push cyclists into car traffic. I wish I was joking >.
@@Shifter_Cycling "bike gutter" and "murder strips"(based on the fact that statistically they're more dangerous than no provision for bikes at all) are the usual ones around here.
@@Shifter_Cycling Have you seen the research that shows that painted advisory lanes increase deaths/injuries? In a recent podcast Chris Boardman (Active Travel England) said "We actually found that if you do it the old way, you kill ten percent more people than doing nothing, and you get no uptake because it doesn’t make people feel safe. If you build to LTN 1/20 properly and continuously, you get at least - between twenty and sixty percent increase in uptake and you halve the number of deaths. " LTN1/20 is the UK's specification for bike lanes - although it isn't mandatory.
@@Shifter_CyclingA few years ago, the word of the year in Belgium was "moordstrookje". It vaguely translates to cute little murder strip. But unfortunately, these things are still way too ubiquitous.
The bike lanes in Cambridge Massachusetts are worse. They're not separated from traffic and drivers will go into them.
City council holding a contractor accountable for a bad job? What is that? I've never head about it. Typical course of action is for the council to claim that it was not their fault, they can do nothing and then actually do nothing.
I think the city of Edinburgh should be applauded just for that alone.
Cycled up and down there recently! Not the best route at all, but it is so nice being separated from cars that I still like it 😅 Really hoping Edinburgh can keep up the work and finally join up all its separate bits of cycle routes - theres so much potential here
Agreed. I'd love to see the new Haymarket to Roseburn cycleway extended past the zoo and through Corstorphine. These new segregated cycleways are fantastic to ride on.
The worst cycle lane I have ever experienced is the descent of Kingston Hill and Kingston Vale (which are names for the same road, the A308) in the London borough of Kingston on Thames, from the top of the long hill to the junction with the A3. There is a detached lane on both sides of the hill. Going up is bumpy with constant steep ramps, bus stop signs and shelters obstructing the lane, obscure kerbs up and down on the edge of the path, and legbreaker posts broken off and lying in the middle of the lane, but it's not utterly bad because climbing slows you down and you can usually see things in time. Going down on the other side through the same terrain is lethal. The last time I went down it in the dark, with a 1700 lumen headlight to help me, I rode off an invisible kerb and fell into the road. Now if I have to go there I stay in the main roadway and ignore the motorists hooting at me. It's safer.
I was in Edinburgh last year. I didn't bike on that lane but walked beside it.
The lane disappears on some parts and on other parts it merged with the sidewalk. It was super weird!
I was in Edinburgh last year. Great place, but possibly the least pedestrian-friendly city I’ve ever been to. The traffic lights prioritise cars and buses to a ridiculous extent. You end up with enormous crowds of pedestrians before you finally get a green walk light.
My city has a similar problem. I think they wanted to make sure that if a car runs a red light right after it goes from yellow to red, there are not yet any pedestrians on the crossing. So what they did was they made the green light for pedestrians turn on a few seconds after the one for the cars. Now any cars turning right can get a good running start before they hit them. And the green light for pedestrians lasts a maximum of 15 seconds on major roads.
Edingbrough is one of the worst cities in the world for traffic. There is not enough space for everyone to get about, due to the age of the city and how much it has grown. I was a lorry driver for a few months in Edingbrough for a cash and carry and I could not hit targets due to the congestion and lack of parking to do the deliveries, so I quit. I still visit Edingbrough as is my local city but normally use the park and ride which is connected to the tram system. The tram is fast convenient and cheap.
I used to live in Edinburgh nearly a decade ago, Leith Walk was a big part of my commute, when I heard that it had gotten a bike lane by my former neighbour, I thought - finally! Seeing this video makes really surprised.
Edinburgh was a very good biking city even before the improvements. I left in 2017, right when they had passed the rule that cars have to keep a 1mtr separation from bikes.
Really nice to hear a positive perspective.
A bike lane at pedestrian grade with random zigs and zags everywhere sounds like an improvement on the Singaporean government's modus operandi. They would have also added some road crossings with no signals, stripes, or traffic calming, and if you are lucky, you might also get some bridges with five flights of steep stairs and a wee ramp on the side of the steps to get over the road (and if there are proper full ramps you cannot ride over them and renta-cops spend a great amount of their time policing that).
Never, ever must the precious, entitled car drivers have their space taken away, but pedestrians and cyclists can fight it out. Next year, cyclists veering onto the pedestrian side of a path if there is a painted bike path will receive large fines, which would be fine if all those painted cycle paths weren't full of pedestrians who don't notice the exact same path is painted two different colours.
Oh, and we have to mention the complete insanity of having rules for e-bikes that are too hard for any of the major bike brands to provide their pedal-assist e-bikes here, but at the same time lose enough to make common cheap bikes that take 2-minutes of fiddling to become throttle-controlled electric motorcycles.
Hi! I hope you had a great time in Scotland! Can we expect a Glasgow video soon?
I live in supposed biking Mecca Amsterdam and this looks quite a bit like the bike lane along the major Nassaukade/Stadhouderskade road. Because it is new the Edinburgh one is only missing the parts where tree roots have turned the bike lane into a mountain bike trail. But it is still mostly separated from the road, so it can't be the worst.
I live in Leith and cycle to work on the westside of Edinburgh and I'm happy enough using the Leith Walk bike lane during quieter times. The problem is lack of space on the narrower sections that tend to be busy with pedestrians. As Rob said, it's pretty good once you get past Brunswick Road / McDonald Road on the way up but a bit ropey between there and the Foot of the Walk, particularly the section at Steads Place.
That is a total nightmare
Whole of Scotland has a sketchy network of bike lanes that range from amazing to absolutely insane gravel . The one thing is common is that they are all badly interconnected or just stop and disappear completely. The other issue is once they blow the budget on the build they fail to maintain it leaving brambles and rotten leaves on the route.
There is one leaving Glenrothes towards Dundee which throws you back into the A92 mincer
This bike lane is a wonderful metaphor for the complete bonkersness of life. I use it daily. Talk about the lack of a lane to the top of Leith street.
When I went to London then Edinburgh last year I was amazed by the number of cyclists in London and surprised by the lack in Edinburgh. It's good to see things are changing for the better, though.
Georgia Ave in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. Paint slapped on a 4 lane highway.
Where I live there are far worse (dangerous) painted bike gutters that I would never ride, nor have I ever seen anyone else ride.
Along roads and stroads with 3 lanes of cars going 50+ mph, plenty of opportunities to get hit by right-turning cars, etc.
We have bike lanes like that in Surrey, BC but then there are also power poles and traffic signal poles on those curves.
Ugh, we have this in Calgary too. Cities seem fine to put power poles on cyclist and pedestrian routes but don't think about putting them on a road 🤷🏽
@@Shifter_Cycling --cars-- Trucks are heavy enough to knock poorly placed poles down.
I got some in Houston, TX that I gotta get footage of. They are a doozie!
Better than STL where the bike line is a yellow sign that says to yield to bikes, but only space is in the road or the sidewalk and five or more lanes of traffic going 45 miles an hour.
It was cool to talk with you during the Premiere, enjoy our Paris bike lanes!
This Edinbourgh bike lane looks bad when it's crowded, you don't see where to zigzag. But people seem to go straight ahead when they can, problem solved. At least it isn't close to the tram tracks.
There is another bike lane in Edinburgh near the braid hills Hotel to the south side. It just suddenly merges with car lanes at all traffic islands, despite the fact the rest of it is segregated
Maybe that lane should just have been part of a wide multi-use path, like the wide sidewalks of Osaka, rather than having a narrow zig-zag same-grade 'lane'.
But yeah, for worse, consider any painted bike gutter in a door zone.
Oh man, come to Dunedin, NZ. That bike lane has nothing on the incomprehensible mish-mash of dead-end, highway crossing death-paths they've tagged onto roads.
The worst bike lane in the world is the Peña Boulevard route to Denver International Airport. It's literally just the shoulder of a highway and you have to cross exit lanes to stay on it.
There are also some great tracks that used to be train lines coming from outside the city to the centre. Watch out for the tram lines on Princes Street though very slippery when you turn on them as I found to my cost.
The lack of turns on rail or canal paths is a significant negative. Not getting run over by a vehicle driver is a overwhelming positive.
Roads are designed for vehicles , but provide an adequate shoulder.
Nothing beats motorpacing on a proper road behind a Volvo 240 .
Our lovely city is great to get around via the bicycle and it is trying to improve. Personally as a resident of Edinburgh, if given an ultimatum, I’d rather have last minute poorly, designed segregated cycle lanes than no cycle lanes on a pothole filled main road. Yes, pothole filled roads, we have a lot of those in Edinburgh. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed some nicer rides in Edinburgh with many of the cycle paths we do have (Roseburn path etc. . .) and enjoyed your visit. Hopefully the next time you visit in the near future, our cycling infrastructures would have improved.
Got a bike recently and really agree. Lots to improve, but I think we have a decent set of options with the NCN and the quiet routes down to hawthornvale or granton
Yep. Used to live in Edinburgh, now in Dunfermline. This is better than SO MANY painted bike gutters that just ... end ...
Both places are VERY hilly and at every possible place cyclists are indicated to yield to all other road users, very frustrating.
UK needs a zebra crossing standard that includes bikes and one for 20mph zones that can just be painted stripes on the road. Our extremely safe zebra crossings are too expensive to fit & run and can't be over road ends - it limits them too much for councils to make curb level zebra crossings the standard way 20mph streets join together.
Yes, the potholes are terrible. I recently came off my bike due to hitting a deep pothole in Sighthill Industrial Estate that I didn't see due to the fact that it was raining and the pothole was full of water. The sheer amount of utility works are mostly to blame for the shockingly poor state of Edinburgh's streets.
Roseburn is being removed to make way for trams.
@@superducker7899 unconfirmed at this point.
My partner and I recently visited a neighbouring city we hadn't been for a long time and he was like look! a new bike lane, it looks great! About 30 seconds later, a cyclist rides in our lane because a huge city bus was blocking 100% of the bike lane. But I bet it's still better than nothing.
I've seen worse bike lanes. Imagine a bike lane that is about 3/4 the width of your steerer, every 20m it loses a bit more width because the tree plots partially cut into it, also those trees lean over the bike lane so you actually have to ride on the side walk to not hit your head, and the surface is pushed up by roots so that unless you have a full sus MTB or you're bunny-hopping over them, you will get a hip fracture before arriving at your destination. This is a description of some of the bike lanes in Berlin.
So this "oh, it's not straight, so it's the worst bike lane in the world" could only have been written by someone very sheltered. Sure, it's not great, and definitely poorly planned, but it's nowhere near "the worst in the world".
I have biked a few times in Berlin and the launching ramps provided by the roots are truly next level.
Some Fahrradstraßen (Bike Roads?) are pretty great though.
We have some of that like that and in London too. It's in the suburbs, it's old and a narrow one lane with tree roots. It's also expected to be two ways so you and the rider coming the opposite way play chicken to see who ends up on the narrow pedestrian path next to it. You need to duck some places because trees aren't trimmed regularly. At some park and allotment gaps there's overgrown folliage on the pedestrian path so that bit can't be used. That means pedestrians and cyclists going both ways are share the same narrow path where a person can only walk single file. The there's a resting bay for HGVs so the cycle path disappears and you need to share the small pavement for pedestrians. That's narrower because of poles and a leaning metal one that some vehicle bent by mounting the pavement.
Still annoying as it is you're not sharing the road with traffic going a lot more than 55 mph and at least most parts you have the trees and grass verge buffer. I've come across a car wreck or two on that A road. There's flowers where someone has died and once I came across a pedestrian who had be knocked down by a pedestrian crossing. When there's a tailback going a few miles long you're sailing when the drivers are stuck getting grumpy. When the traffic is crawling the drivers go in zombie mode and ignore the traffic lights at pedestrians crossing. They keep going on green. People get stuck on the islands in the middle of the busy road when that happens.
The newer built ones are mostly set to a better standard than the old ones.
I feel like it might be a British thing of giving names to local things which are ridiculously over-the-top - like Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester which had a concrete wall people called the „Berlin Wall“
I've generally found that the roots on Berlin's bike lanes can be dealt with by standing up in the pedals whenever you see one coming.
I am, however, also fairly sure that those roots could yeet you over the handlebar if you don't know what you're doing.
And of course, you should be quite wary whenever you encounter a bike path covered in leaves in fall.
Many of the worst ones barely get any use; noone knows why. In some cases, the city just gave up and turned them into parking instead. There's also a funny one at the Dahlem-Dorf metro station where the bike lane makes up the waiting area of a bus stop.
I nominate Collins St in the middle of Melbourne for worst bike lane. It's barely more than the width of your bike itself, constantly disappears where parking spaces get in the way, and otherwise wedged between busy traffic & car parking spaces with no separation other than the lane markers. I don't know why they even bothered.
But why not look at your neighbors in the Netherlands? To prevent this from happening! Our streets in general are less wide than in Edinburgh (love the city by the way, one of my favorites!) but we still cater for trams, bikes, cars and€ pedestrians. To be fair, especially in Amsterdam pedestrians get a rougher deal, with bikes ruling the road.
But Utrecht, Groningen, Haarlem and so many other cities could have been used as an example on how to do things right from day one.
As an engineer, it's one thing when you trying please everybody by designing down to the absolute minimums given in the national design guidance, and it's another when you stop even trying to follow the general priciples, as you can see for this bike lane in the loading bay area zigzags. There's certainly worse bike infrastructure about, but there really should not be stuff being built now by local or national government which is supposed to follow design standards and doesn't. I imagine a lot of the backlash was that feeling of not getting what was promised in a new build.
The bike lane on the waterfront in Vancouver by the canada place and the convention centre is a contender in my opinion
Almost the entirety of the network here in Seville, Spain is like that if not worse, I estimate about 40% of its 200 kms of bike lanes are like that, about 35% is worse, so that + a design made by someone who never rode a bike and only used a car + slippery as hell green paint + never been maintained.
The other 25% is actually fine, just barely too narrow for a bakfiets and unmaintained, but otherwise they are good enougth.
I am sure that my mountain bike that I use exclusively on the city is rateling itself down constantly for a completely unrelated reason....
The zigzags in the Leith Walk bike path actually reminded me of Seville! Lots of zig zagging around bus stops there
@@Nynke_K I dont think the zigzagging here is that anoying, at least is kinda smooth most of the times, when I think of the worst feature here it has to be the constant abrupt little up and downs.
Same in Algeciras (Cádiz)
The Scottish guy has it right, the goal is for people to get to work, kids to get to school. I think the point of any bicycle lane is to make it safe for schoolchildren to bike to & from school.
They ( the council ) put in this great seperated bike lane near my house , makes getting my children to school on bicycles fantastic and quick but for some reason there was no upgrade to the school from the main path that goes past so there’s this 500metre ride on the sidewalk shared with pedestrians getting to the school as well .
"It zigs and zags everywhere. It's the worst bike lane in the world"
San Francisco: "That's what we should build on Valencia Street!"
Leith to Edinburgh is a lovely walk if you have time to do it.
The UK, like the USA, absolutely fails to learn from other countries, believing that their circumstances are unique. You could take any road of similar width and use in Amsterdam and straight up copy the design over to Leith Walk.
Well, they've earned their participation award. Which is better than not doing anything.
Saw the vid title. No... he cant mean... never thought id see you here.
Worst thing about it (use is several time a week) is the bike lane lights are not part of the road lights.
So while cars have a green light bikes will have a red (presumably to avoid left hooks) The bike lights only change in a combined pedestrian crossing phase, which of course is as far apart and as short as possible so you're not getting in the way of cars....
Couple of them have the crossing button box on a sperate pole beside the bike lane.
At least a half dozen lights with a near guaranteed 1-3 minute at every one makes for a slow 1.5km
This is one of my favourite bike lanes in the city now, feels so much safer to cycle here than on many others despite its obvious issues.
I lived in Leith for a long time (sadly moved away a few years ago), cycle commuting daily on Leith Walk for about a decade, and I will tell you that I *never* used this bike lane -- until they closed the whole road off for tram works and it was the only place to cycle. I'd just use the road instead. The other side (uphill) was just as bad in another way, in that the road part of Leith Walk has priority over cars entering from side streets at unsignalled junctions, but at least at the time it was installed, the *bike path* had to yield at every side street, so you lost all your momentum. So again, I'd just use the road unless I was carrying something awkward or cumbersome, or was very tired. From your videos it looks like they might have fixed that since I left, though, at least on the upper part of the street.
All that said, I started writing this comment mostly to tell you about some *even worse* cycling infrastructure in the neighbouring district of Broughton (a painted-bicycle-gutter-type bike lane that ends abruptly partway up a steep hill, on a high-speed road) -- but, as I said, I've moved away. I checked the images on google maps to see if they've fixed it since I left, and it turns out they have!
I've come to realise that as much as I want them to fix some of the sub-standard protected bike lanes they've built in London, it's still better value right now to build new bike lanes somewhere else in the city. I'd much rather have a network of connected mediocre bike lanes than one awesome lane that has been rebuilt ten times with incremental improvements.
That said, if they can get the contractor to do it for free, why not do that AND build a new one elsewhere?
Exactly I like to ride a bike around new cities that I visit and far prefer a crappy network of separated bike/multiuse paths over a couple nice bike paths isolated in downtown or wherever they stick them. I can visit most parts of the city and better choose my itinerary for the bike ride.
I think those zig zags near crosswalks might be nice way to do some simple traffic calming. although i agree it's not done perfect.
Perhaps the automobiles should be required to zigzag, maybe like on a Dutch woonerf?
@@Shifter_Cycling yes. Lets everybody zig zag. 😀
This bike lane doesn't actually look that bad, by UK standards even.
I've seen 2 worse bike lanes in London, 1 lane section in Colliers Wood, where the southbound traffic has to weave around a pair of parking spaces that's used by a business selling 'Bathroom Equipment', and another bad bike lane Eastbound in New Malden, where the Royal Borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames decided that for a short section of the bike path that motorists should be allowed to park ON the lane, not next to either side of the path!
What's most strange about this one is how well it has been built to a terrible design.
This is my daily route - stretch further up is a major upgrade but wow that bit is so so bad incredible that we have this shambles here. 🏴😎🙏
Compared to many (most?) cities in the UK Edinburgh’s cycle network is pretty good. That’s not to say it’s great by any means and the general condition of the road surface is terrible for all road users. It’s clear a fair amount of money has been spent on this particular lane but the reality is it throws pedestrians, cyclists and motorists into conflict. Surprisingly, to me, London seems to be one of the more progressive cities for cyclists, as can be seen on the London cycle routes TH-cam channel. Even though some of the routes can be convoluted there does seem to be a cohesive approach to making viable and usable routes from the London Boroughs
A nice video about a zigzag bike lane in Berlin is "BMX SHOW meets ZickZack-Radweg in Zehlendorf" here on youtube 🙂
That is definitely not the worst bike lane in the world. I don't even know how one would imagine the one in Bucharest alongside the river Dambovita with one-way roads on each side, but I'll try to explain it.
The bike line was painted on the sidewalk on the left side of the street (a street where you drive on the right side) right next to the river, leaving the right sidewalk for pedestrians. Parked cars, of which there are hundreds if not thousands are the least of the annoyance. Every time you encounter a bridge perpendicular to your path (bridge goes left), and there are a few, approximately one every 500 meters, you don't simply cross the junction and move forward; no, you have to cross all the lanes to the right (alongside your path), then cross all the lanes across (perpendicular to your side), and finally cross all the lanes across back on the side of the river. Basically, you cross 3 sides of a square every time you meet a junction and want to go forward. If you want to cross one of those bridgess to come back, well, you are in for a treat. You don't just make a left and another left; oh no, you go right, forward, left (longer, including the bridge), left, left and right. That might have been changed now (one would hope), but last time I rode, that's how it was.
Haven't taken my bicycle to Edinburgh yet, but the Glasgow cycling infrastructure is getting better and better. I'm really optimistic.
I feel that planning guys pain. Here in the UK we allow a very loud minority to hold projects up indefinitely. Any project like this will have huge pushback from: motorists, pedestrians and local shops. It's a miracle that anything got done at all.
Ah sorry you didn't make it over to Glasgow, would have been interesting to hear your comparative thoughts on some of our stuff here 😊
That one is way better than the one I use for my commute here in Bogotá, Colombia. Imagine the same thing, but with pot holes, way more intersections with cars (where they have priority and cyclists have to go down to street level and go up again, using very bad ramps), disconnections every couple of meters, etc.
You haven't seen the bike lanes in the Philippines. it's way worse than you've shown. Especially in the city, bike lanes are almost unusable Rectangular man holes that might puncture bike tires are common.
Looks like the Bowness Road bike lane in Calgary.
Not far off. But at least there's separation from pedestrians in Bowness on some parts of it.
In the UK cycle lanes are on the carriageway and cycle tracks are off road with full kerb separation
I saw the screenshot and knew it would be Leith Walk haha
I occasionally have to ride a painted bike lane in LA which just completely makes you basically merge across a car lane with no protection to keep you out of the turn lane. The worst part is it’s on a giant stroad, the first time I rode the path I got *very* close to being hit and the driver behind me had to break pretty hard
The dumbest one I've seen near me ends less than 1 mile short of a large recreation area.
Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago.
Case closed.
Idk. I've been riding Milwaukee for many years and it has some bad sections (Division to North & Kedzie to Belmont, for example). But what I've seen described in the comments in other parts of the world (Asia, PNW) makes me think positively about biking home on Milwaukee in heavy rain... right now. Hopefully I make it.
It looks better than the one separated two way lane in downtown Ottawa that zig-zags from one side of a major street to the other and then just kind of ends still downtown on the major street.
Good to end this report in an upbeat tone. I've actually ridden a lot worse cycle lanes than that one, but having cycle lanes at all was at one time unheard of.
Suggestion to town planners and road building enterprises: If you want to know how to build effective infrastructure for cyclist, take a trip to the Netherlands.
Tom / Shifter the best part of your video are the "comments" !!!
They should be standard reading for planners throughout the world.
Regent Ave in Winnipeg has by far the worst bike lane in the world. It's 2 feet wide painted lane that no one in their right mind dares to ride on.
Painted lanes are worse than this, I agree.
i live in the area and i usually opt to cycle on a nearby (quite busy!) road rather than take that bike lane because it's a nightmare. people always cycle on the wrong side so you end up having to stop a lot more than you would just taking the road.
Come to Winnipeg. Some pretty bad bike infrastructure here.
That cycle lane looks completely fine to me. The lack of verticl seperation is a huge plus when there aren't a lot of pedestrians around since it makes it easier to ignore the zigzags.
Maybe I just have low expectations. Where I live, the bike lanes are
1) not particularly wide,
2) full of bumps and holes,
3) flooded with water whenever there's rain,
4) covered in piles of leaves in autumn,
5) not cleaned with snowploughs when there's snow,
6) covered with sand so you can't even brake safely,
7) In the center of the city, they don't exist at all. Instead, you get to drive on the main road. You know, where all the buses are. I have no idea how someone thought this would be a pleasant cycling experience.
In Glasgow we have a proliferation of bike lanes mostly removing two car lanes.
You can now cycle south from the city centre for four miles on new segregated cycle lanes which is a huge bonus for cyclists, but not at all good if you use public transport.
Bus services which would carry you swiftly down bus lanes and into the city have now turned into a thirty minute drag as two one way lanes for cyclists leaves only two one way lanes for buses, cars, trucks etc.
A couple of problems showed up in that the bus stops deposit passengers onto the cycle lanes and lots of older people struggle to understand that, especially when the one way cycle lane ( did i mention there's one either side of the road) is used as a two way lane resulting in accidents with pedestrians.
They are now extending the cycle lanes out another two miles through the local shopping area and once again removing bus lanes to put in cycle lanes.
There you have it folks, we now have gridlock going in and out of the city unless the pensioners decide to take a bike rather than the bus.
Ah, the best-laid plans...
great video
It has character, I'd enjoy riding that each day!
Worst bike lane in the world? Wooo buddy, come visit San Diego, I’ll show you some real horror shows.
One in Paris is similar that runs parallel to the périphérique next to the tramlines
The one between Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK is bad. Planned by someone in London who never visited, cost £7million and isnt used as it also snakes all over, never gets gritted in winter and several times stops abruptly into bus shelters.
this is actually pretty cool, the zig zag pattern makes you go slower as it is on the same level as pedestrians
for me a good bike lane, at the end of the day its a commute route not a desirable destination. lets be humble adn appreciate these projects.
This still looks better than half of the core cycling network in Budapest.
The one by the station in Bologna is worse (north)
Got me ya.. click baiting git
I can show you bike paths that don't zigzag around poles. The poles are in the path...
Good job on the pronunciation 😂❤
You've come to pretty much the same conclusions I have about it - not ideal, but better than nothing(since they were never going to stop private car traffic on the Walk). Honestly the biggest issues I have with it aren't the bendy bits or the bus stops(peds seem to mostly now have gotten the message and stopped just gormlessly standing in the lane next to stops - a few even bother to cross at the marked points hah), it's that like most cycle lanes here they *still* insist on laying the tarmac by hand because everyone's too cheap to buy the specialized machinery, so especially on any downward gradients they end up being real boneshakers to ride unless you have suspension. That's an irritation for me, but it stops my pal using it altogether because he has back pain - cycling *would* be a perfect mode of transport for him since pedalling doesn't hurt him while walking does, but between the hand-laid cycle tracks and our patchworked and potholed and occasionally cobbled(because heaven forfend we accept that it's not the blinkin' 1600's anymore and treat the city centre like a city centre rather than a "conservation" theme park) streets it can't be for him.
I'm also not as optimistic about the future as your man from Spokes there. We're still mired in consultations and whinging from drivers over *one* School Street(a *temporary* road closure of a single street to private traffic during drop off and pick up hours) in Corstorphine; there's currently a project being worked on to join the North Edinburgh Path Network at Roseburn to the Union Canal that doesn't actually go all the way to the canal, which part is being "delivered as part of a separate project" that's also been stuck in the concept/planning phase for going on a decade now; and fundamentally there's still just no sign the local council are actually interested in confronting and overcoming the tiny minority of angry carbrains and disingenuous "disability rights" orgs who drag this stuff out for years and years. Indeed, they quite like the status quo, as it lets them make big promises at election time and then have endless excuses for why they never deliver on them that aren't technically their fault(except insofar as their cowardice is the only reason those failures happen at all, but that's easy to dissemble about especially since the media are as conservative about active travel as they are everything else). London and Glasgow are just getting on with it, but not us, oh no, this is Edinburgh dontcha know, everything here has to be *bespoke* and get full agreement from every tartan-trewed, Land Rover-humping posho in the New Town just in case they have an urgent need to haul fifteen fridges and their granny's great dane through whatever area you're proposing to improve.
Give you an example - six months ago the council published their plan for the city centre with great fanfare, including a provision to finally divvy it up into "zones" that you can't drive through with cars only gain access, including a closure that would basically pedestrianise a street that really needs it. Within a month the plan was then a *phased* plan and they were going to do it a little bit at a time. By last month even the most basic closure, that badly needed pedestrian one, had been backburnered because of "questions over funding"(as if they need central government funding to put a couple of sodding bollards on a road). It's a beautiful city but it's absolutely mired in mindless conservatism.
Ever been to Vienna? Ask for the cycle path around the Ring.
Maybe you should visit Prague - to see what bad cycling infrastructure looks like.
The new bike lanes in Bridgeland Calgary along McDougall look an awful lot like this
You should ride here in Greece
I believe that all city centres should be car-free. Only loading/unloading allowed and that should be at night or with a special permit. Once you spend time in car-free centres, it feels so good to just walk or cycles freely. It is incredibly frustrating and uncomfortable to be in a beautiful city centre but surrounded by cars, their noise and smog. 😷
Come to the Philippines. And we shall pray for you.