[maelito]

Bike lanes are everywhere in most big cities in France too... But they're bad, very bad.

We desperately need this principle of elevated bike lanes that cars should be worried to cross.

I have code an open-source framework to assess the cyclability of territories : https://villes.plus

It only takes into account quality bike lanes, based on OSM data, run every trimestre.

For instance, painted bike lanes or shared bus lanes are excluded.

Amsterdam's score is around 90 %.

The best French city, Strasbourg, has around 45 %. There is some inherent variability as each run takes random points among a data set to build the segments to be tested.

[lqet]

> Bike lanes are everywhere in most big cities in France too... But they're bad, very bad.

We once cycled from Germany to Colmar in France. Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wJU4GLWrmqF9EDes8

Of course it isn't much better in Germany.

[david-gpu]

> Cycling through Colmar is indeed a scary experience, especially if you have a trailer with a small child in it

I don't mean to detract anything about what you just said.

At the same time, my first thought when I clicked on the link was something like: "Woah, that is pretty nice; a painted bike lane and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast".

We have a long way to go for most of North America to become friendly to cyclists.

[lqet]

> We have a long way to go for most of North America to become friendly to cyclists.

Also for pedestrians, in my experience. When I first visited the US 10 years ago, I wanted to leave the hotel to get to a nearby public transit stop to go into town. On the map, it was a distance of around 500m from hotel to transit stop (Market Center in Dallas). But getting there was quite an ordeal. This was the pedestrian walkway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gvduBGYMQfxSVxcFA, it ended in a dirt path by the side of the road after a few meters. There was a better walkway on the other side of the road, but it was impossible to safely cross it without walking for nearly 700 meters into the other direction.

[trompetenaccoun]

The way this looks it could be more dangerous than having no bike lane at all. Drivers will see this as a sign that the big lane belongs to them. Bike riders must expect someone in the parked car to unexpectedly open the door at any time and hit them. There have been many deadly accidents where bike riders got "doored" just like that. Also imagine you have two trucks crossing paths and bikes on the side. Or a trailer with a child like the user said.

That bike lane is a nightmare.

[david-gpu]

I agree with most of what you've said, and yet as a utility cyclist I can tell you that this is nicer than many of the streets I need to ride when I leave my home.

Let me reiterate that I don't say this to dismiss the importance of improving that street. On the contrary, I am simply lamenting how bad things are here [0].

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/nurAWCzcBW98TxFm8?g_st=ac

[mytailorisrich]

> and a single narrow main lane each way so cars can't go very fast

You're underestimating French drivers here ;) . Also on that picture the main lane is not considered narrow at all in France/Europe, it's quite comfortable to speed.

The only way to limit speed is speed cameras and speed bumps (both are also becoming ubiquitous in the UK).

China is what I imagine the US with bike lanes would look like.

[maelito]

Remember that the east of France is considered the top place to cycle... Well except Paris and its recent revolution.

[lqet]

I agree, the bike infrastructure in Paris is now quite good. If only cyclists in Paris would start to stop at red lights, especially at pedestrian crossings (this is a problem everywhere, of course, but in Paris it seems to be particularly bad).

[simgt]

I'm still failing to understand why the urbanism departments are so bad in councils of even our big metropolitan areas. We could just contract with corps like Copenhaguenize to get to the state of the art right away when rebuilding roads, but "on a des idées" so why not improvise? Or it's just corruption and favoritism...

Nice project though, might ping you for something related :)

[david-gpu]

> run every trimestre

From another non-native speaker, the term you are looking for is "quarter". As in: a quarter of a year, as 12/4=3 months.

[maelito]

Thanks ! I wonder though if native english speakers understand it instantly, or no.

[Freak_NL]

Of course they do, unless they've been skipping their biology classes. Trimester is a common word for the three month periods of a pregnancy:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trimester