Cycling Outside Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

I'm visiting Beijing this week. I thought I'd share my observations.

First, the are a lot of bike share bikes. I had heard that there were a lot of them, but I was still surprised. The two biggest operators are both stationless, so people leave the bikes wherever they finish using them. It's rare to go more than 20m without seeing at least one shared bike available, and there will often be 20-30 lined up at a major intersection.

Second, the road layout is generally good for cycling. Most roads have what could be described as semi-segregated bike lanes. There will be two or three traffic lanes, then a boulevard with a fence, trees and often flowers, then a lane used by bicycles, motorbikes, small delivery vehicles and cars going to a parking space. That lane will have parallel parking and the entrance to any small parking lots. Larger lots for apartment complexes or large businesses will have turn offs directly from the traffic lanes. It's very similar to Belmont going through Belmont Village, but with bikes moved into the same lane as cars looking for parking.

This arrangement is used in the Netherlands in places as well.  In fact, service roads aren't uncommon here as well.  The difference is that in the Netherlands is that cars are prevented from using the service road as a through street, and are forced back to the main road every block, where as cyclists are provided a cycle path to continue to the next service road.  This prevents the situation which occurs in some places here where the service road becomes a shortcut for those angry about traffic on the main road and simply serves as more lanes of high speed traffic.  To be honest, the same effect could almost be achieved with some of our roads and the continuous strip mall/plazas they have along them lol.