Category Archives: Urban planning

Advanced stop line

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Politicians who appreciate riding bikes as a transforming force towards sustainable cities use to support advanced stop lines on streets. An advanced stop line is a special infrastructure in those streets in which there is not bike lines, so bicycles and cars share them. It can also appear in roads with no segregated bike line. As you can see in the picture, bikes have a reserved area just before the traffic light so that cars can not occupy it while in red. The reserved area can be colored in green or red to highlight the place for bikes:

The ideas behind this, or why the advanced stop line is so important, are fundamentally four:

– Bikers become extremely visible to car drivers since these persons just need to open their eyes to see the riders.

– Bikers do not inhale pollution from the cars they have on their backs, or at least they do so at a much less rate.

– Conflicts between bikers and car drivers are reduced because this solution makes clear who is the first to start moving after the traffic light is green.

– Traffic is calmed due to cars can not reach an excessive speed the moment the traffic light is green.

Bicycle architecture biennale

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Architecture is everywhere in human settlements, cities and villages, and has been developing since human beings left caverns according to needs, available resources or their being styles. Regarding bicycles, architecture plays an specific role in easing displacements in bikes. It had to be tortuous riding from one place to another centuries ago, where there should not be proper roads as we know them now. Thanks to architects, engineers and intelligent people infrastructures have been improved and they are still evolving.

Similarly as architectures specialized in buildings or bridges, some of them have decided to redirect their careers into bike infrastructures. They deal with problems such as what road surface is better for bicycles riding on it, bike line on the sidewalk or on the road (better on the road), how to connect two bike lines at different height, and so on. Analogously, bike-specialized architects hold events to share the best projects on this subject.  For example, the Bicycle architecture biennale took place in June 2019 by the hand of BYCS (the organizer) as part of the mission 50by30, which aims at reaching 50% of shifts by bike by 2030. On this occasion, improvements on roads were taken into account as well as on buildings. Yes, it can sound like an utopia the fact of allowing entering bikes into a flat from streets with particular improvements having with bikes on mind. But it was also an utopia for cars in the past century. Who knows if it will popularize in this century.

Finally, architects, designers and urban-planners debated about an eternal issue: What is better: functionality or aesthetics?, without coming to an agreement.

Curious sign

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As cities change towards a more human and sustainable perspective, governments include traffic regulations and special traffic signs like the following:

I took the photo in Pamplona, but you can see it in lots of cities. It means no entry streets except for bikes, which do can ride in the two ways. Of course, riders should put extra attention to the vehicles and people they come across when moving against car traffic. In fact, this sign is presented at the beginning of a pedestrian area in which vehicles different from bikes run like fire trucks, police cars, ambulances or delivery vans.

Pamplona bike line

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Pamplona is one of those cities in the north of Spain full of trees and vegetables thanks to the raining weather they enjoy. Pamplona is also a good place to ride. It has experienced a urban bike development in recent years, partially because of the new bike infrastructures. Here you can see one of these examples:

A bike line in an avenue is shown in the picture. It follows the exact sketch as the car lines, but additional elements are presented. Zebra crossings indicate bikers the pedestrian priority to cross the avenue, go to the trash cans or access the bus stop (the begging starts at the right of the image). Moreover, this effect is reinforced by the yield symbols. These double signals establish without any doubts who has right of way here. Furthermore, the arrow with the bike indicates the direction of travel. By the way, there is a second, one-way bike line opposite to the aforementioned one since this is a two-way avenue. Finally, beyond the trash cans, you can see an open surface which was a car line in the past. Thanks to the urban transformation, pedestrians gain space.

To sum up, intelligent bike infrastructures separate spaces for bikes, pedestrians and the rest of ways of transportation.