I have a little axe to grind with the general design of the urban bike-architecture around Kanalveien in Bergen, which is part of my morning commute. The dedicated bike path coming from the south swings nicely via Kronstad X around the campus in case I want to get to the bike cage (top-left to (1) top-right)– it’s not a straight line, it adds a bit of uphill, but it’s still acceptable since it’s so nicely done! In fact I can hardly remember how it used to be a few years ago! Only caveat is the roundabout top-left, one of the two places in town where bikes actually have priority over cars, and you just have to anticipate that Driver McDriveface doesn’t yield. (In fact I just added the “Yield”-signs in OpenStreetMap, maybe this eventually percolates down into route-planners with an appropriate warning…)
In case I want to directly head to my “block” on campus or the carpark with the changing rooms (2), there’s a short er path from (3) either via the Posten-terminal, or if I’m on the acoustic bike, quickly carrying it up a flight of stairs and getting directly to the campus.
However, this variation requires me to cross Minde Allée, and oh boy does this get the blood pressure going.
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if I want to cross on the right-hand side (3b), I can use a zebra-crossing to get onto Kanalveien and pretend to be a car. Due to the eventually planned construction, there’s no sidewalk continuing in this direction. If I want to bike straight through the intersection, the detector-controlled traffic-light doesn’t register my bike :-/
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if I stay on the left-hand side bike path (3a), I have to beg at the traffic light for green light. The traffic light with the button is placed so close to the road, that your wheel basically dangles into the lane.
The tram is also crossing here, and wouldn’t it be nice if the (parallel) pedestrian/bike-crossings would have green when cars have red due to the tram (right-turns not withstanding)?
Let’s call the rule-lawyer
So I thought I’d do some digging in the regulations, and – lo! – it seems both cases are a bit fishy: detectors should detect bikes, and buttons must should be positioned not too close to the road. I think I saw something similar about the detector.
The latter is a clear concern (it’s a SHOULD, not MUST) in “Trafikksignalanlegg Håndbok N303 / 4.5.2 Detaljplassering av signaler”, web:
Avstand fra kjørebanen
Signaler som monteres ved siden av kjørebanen, bør ha en avstand på minst 0,5 meter fra nærmeste kjørebanekant.
There’s also a note in the draft “Sykkelhandboka V122”, PDF:
6.4 Skilt, trafikklyssignaler og belysning
Trykknapp bør heller ikke plasseres så nær kryssende kjørebane at det er fare for at forhjulet > på sykkelen kommer ut på skulder/kjørebanekant når syklisten skal betjene knappen.
This SHOULD (“bør”) means that there should be accompanying documentation with the Fylkeskommune why they thought it’d be okay.
Wherein someone else has opinions
So in preparation for the “FOI”-request for this supporting documentation, I dug around on what’s already on file for Kanalveien, and I found this beauty of a request to the kommune from someone who obviously drives car way too much too often through said roundabout top-left:
Sykkelvei krysser vei. Burde vært trafikklys.
I nordenden av Kanalveien i Bergen krysser en sykkelvei (vei nr 39) fylkesveien like ved en rundkjøring. For dem som kommer kjørende sørfra er det svært vanskelig å se syklistene som kommer rundt en sving i stor fart. Dette er også den eneste overgangen i Bergen der syklistene ikke må gå av sykkelen og der det heller ikke er lysregulert. Jeg har sett flere nestenulykker i dette krysset, og for sjåfører som ikke er lokalkjent, er det nesten umulig å vite at overgangen også gjelder syklister og at de dermed kommer i stor fart. Håper det går an å få lysregulert denne overgangen før noen blir påkjørt!
I’m paraphrasing this official message to the council which just drips of privilege:
- “There should be a traffic-light” – and we can presume that the correspondent doesn’t mean it’s perma-green for bikes unless a car comes, ikke sant?
- “The only bike-crossing in Bergen where bikers don’t have to push their bike across.” – no, I think it’s one of two and where are my blood pressure pills again?!
- “If you’re from out of town, you can’t know that bikes have priority” – oh sweet child, if we’d only have signs and road-markings. Oh, wait we do, see aerial photo in Exhibit B :-)
Maybe I should just suck it up and bike the long way round and try not to get bumped at the roundabout. I haven’t finished min-maxing my commute yet, anyways, gotta get the GPS-traces off the phone and see how much the different paths … differ. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s mostly a psychological thing. Oh, and do note: the bike-path is already a ca. 1.4km detour (6.6km vs. 8km) versus the direct line biking on roads from Nesttun.
Anyway, next time I bike (almost holidays here!), I’ll measure the distance between pole and road and see if this needs some more digging.
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