I live in San Francisco and we’re one of the best cities for cycling in the US. But far from perfect.
10% of our cycle lanes are either separate cycle paths, or have a physical barrier between cyclists and cars. [The most common type](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/San_Francisco_bike_lane_Market_Street.jpg/2560px-San_Francisco_bike_lane_Market_Street.jpg) is painted green, and have thin metal poles.
But there are still weird things like there is a section of a 80kph motorway that only has a painted lane ([example 1](https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/gallery/2012_conventionalbikelane/conventionalbikelane_chapelhill.jpg)). Or having a cycle lane between 2 car lanes ([example 2](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/26/bike-lanes-legal-protections_h.jpg)).
How is the cycling infrastructure where you live? Is it good? Is it shit?
18 comments
Not very good here in Palermo.
There are some bike lanes, but they are not well cared for,not widely used.
Too many cars and scooters here,too much traffic! Most people think riding a bicycle is too dangerous.
Home city in Belgium? Very good.
Cycling infrastructure has existed for decades, but has seen massive improvements lately.
Current place of residence in Italy? Non-existent.
Probably one of the best in the world i am from the Netherlands.
Not very good. There are a lot of delivery cyclists in Moscow and they all use sidewalks due to the lack of proper bicycle paths.
I believe there is none in my town. There’s no need to have it, we all cycle on the roads, the cars are slow, only 90 km/h.
I live in Northern Germany, and it’s okay. There are some very dangerous places (these are usually crossings where the bike lane is in both directions, but the cars only look at one direction before turning) but there are separate bike lanes more often than not (with various degrees of maintenance) I used to live in the south, and in cities like Mannheim for example, it’s way worse.
San Francisco is pure horror for cycling! To many hills… (ok, I did enjoy cycling there)
The infrastructure here (The Netherlands) is quite well. And the entire country is flat, that’s nice too. Well maintained continuous cycle paths, good signs for priority at junctions/crossings. Traffic rules protecting cyclists too.
Greetings from Copenhagen (from an American) – It is utterly fantastic. A few key aspects that stand out to me coming from years of biking in Manhattan/SF/Vegas.
* There are bike paths that are elevated by a curb which keeps cars out entirely
* Bike traffic is 90% of the time one way
* You don’t need to lock your bike _to_ anything. We have simple locks under the seat that lock the back wheel to the frame and that’s it. Leave it anywhere, takes 2.5 seconds to lock and unlock. (Obviously don’t do this with a $10k racing bike)
* Separate signals for bikes
* Car traffic in the city is typically designed to be going very slowly. There are a couple of exceptions, but the speed differential between bikes/cars is much lower than anywhere else I’ve been.
It’s terrible in Prague. It’s mostly an afterthought.
Berlin is too big to generalise, but where I live, it isn’t great for commuter cycling.
Many residential streets around me are paved with uneven stone and there are no bike lanes or paths independently of those streets. Once you get on the main street to cycle towards other parts of the city (say, to work), painted bike lanes are intermittent, meaning you go off and off the main road (or you illegally stay on the pedestrian path) every 100 meters.
Some 80% of those separate bike lanes are horrifically damaged (so bad that it actually counts as a defence if the traffic police asks why you aren’t using them).
Where I’m moving next, within the city, looks better.
Very good. There’s a reason we’re famous for cycling everywhere. 🙂 If you want to see what it’s like, have a look at notjustbikes on youtube.
In my city it’s pretty good, but it does have some gaps. Plenty of two-lanes separate paths, and a whole lot of mixed used tracks, shared with pedestrians, which are perfectly fine given that the local riding style has average speeds around 10km/h. Everybody seems to disappear as soon as it rains, though.
Very slowly progressing, mainly partially turning sidewalks into cycling paths.
I live in a student city in Sweden and it is pretty fantastic, but I believe the smaller towns and other municipalities here are not as great for cyclists. I s’pose it generally depends on where you are, but after living in Canada for 20 years anything here seems pretty damn good in comparison :0
It’s quite okay in Den Bosch, but there are still a lot of streets that need improvement.
Bad compared to Oulu or Joensuu or other university cities here but farely decent for a town 20k in size and Eastern Finland’s snow loads.
I recently visited US for a work trip and I got a real culture shock from the lack of biking or walking lanes. Compared to that it’s a biking heaven in here.
But still nothing like NL, Denmark or Ã…land.
small town in Ireland – there’s nothing
From what i’v seen so far Poland is way ahead of Ireland in this department. Most common way of implementing it is placing it a part of the side walk, not the road itself eg like in [here](https://twojezaglebie.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/57852679_1142150489299596_117994799004385280_o.jpg), [dedicated lanes](https://www.zdiz.gdynia.pl/images/stories/aktualnosci/rower11.jpg) on roads also exist, but i feel are way less common. Outside cities (if there is) it’s usually a lane separated from the road [like here](https://kujawsko-pomorskie.pl/pliki/2021/wiadomosci/20210726_sciezka/foto_01.jpg). The coverage in cities is decent nowdays, but there are still some dead ends
Depends on what you compare it to, to most of the US fanstastic, to the Netherlands really shitty.