Posts
Blog Post 1: About Me
Hello! My name is Brian Staes, I am a Civil Engineering PhD student at Oregon State University. I am creating this blog to capture my experiences studying abroad in the Netherlands during the summer of 2023.
I am originally from Lakeland, Florida and went to Florida Gulf Coast University in Ft. Myers for my BS in Civil Engineering and then later on the University of South Florida in Tampa for my MS in Civil Engineering. Outside of schoolwork and research I am interested in playing golf, tennis and snow boarding (although it is kinda difficult to snowboard in Florida!) and some video games.
I have been at Oregon State University since 2020 where I have worked on ODOT projects related to safety and ITS equipment as well as FRA projects related to rail infrastructure resiliency towards natural hazards. Although, my true passion lies with traffic flow theory, especially instances of extremely dense, long segments of congestion.
I am extremely exited to join this class and go on the trip to the Netherlands as this will be my first time outside of the US. That being said, there are things I am interested in observing that are not common in the US, predominately my understanding of the deeply integrated biking prevalence in the Dutch society. Such an example is outlined in (Pucher & Buehler, 2008) where they identify some of the key aspects that makes cycling so positively adopted in the Netherlands and some other European countries. Those prominent factors include: traffic calming measures in neighborhoods, connectivity along highly utilized paths and especially at intersections and to all forms of public transportation, cycling information campaigns, bike parking and lastly vehicular restrictions through taxation and other limitations.
Through scanning roadways amongst the various cities in the Netherlands the unique architecture and the more generalized urban planning that has been/exists in those cities. It appears to me the roots of the individuals that live in these urban environments are in a sense more connected than those in the US, perhaps leading way towards large scale unity culturally and socially. it is indeed these aspects amongst others that I would like to tap into while I am there; to obtain a more universal perspective of human interactions and the possibility of this novelty to disperse itself into US communities.
John Pucher & Ralph Buehler (2008) Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, Transport Reviews, 28:4, 495-528, DOI: 10.1080/01441640701806612
Blog Post 2: City Cycling CH6
The concept towards various levels or classifications of bicycle paths, can absolutely be indicative of an increased utilization by the public. Furth makes the argument detailing an individuals perception of comfort for cycling, which directly counters the theories behind vehicular cycling. From a personal perspective, if and agency were to utilize the dutch selection matrix tool, it would provide those individuals who do not wish to take the risk of cycling to perhaps alter their way towards cycling. Possibly even leading towards higher mode share and thus a cyclical process of utilization and increased funding towards biking.
As for an understanding of Forester and the VC philosophy, on one hand I can understand the bicyclist having a presence in the roadway to which the driver would need to consider the biker as another vehicle. That being said the construct of having bicyclists on higher speed facilities anything over 25 mph is just dangerous. Although risk calculations take into account exposure, potential to have an accident and finally the severity; in these higher speed facilities the severity is almost always a casualty. Can the concept of defensive driving also be initiated for biking?
It appears also this belief was not intended to be utilized by everyday commuters but these more bicycle racing clubs that seem to classify themselves into a different category of cyclists. This variation in connotation of a cyclist is identified within a framework of utility cycling (Aldred, 2015). A specific separation of identity less found in the Netherlands, within the US cycling tends to fall into two paradigms: leisure and pleasure, and is less considered on its utility to satisfy trips. Such is the case where particular groups voice their concerns for specific types of infrastructure be considered to accommodate their desired use case of cycling, which might not lead towards increased adoption for the broader public.
Aldred. (2015). A Matter of Utility? Rationalising Cycling, Cycling Rationalities. Mobilities, 10(5), 686–705. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2014.935149
Response towards walking vs. biking travel time estimations: Walking
Route goes through neighborhoods near where I live to Kearney Hall. This route allows for both walking and biking with an estimated distance of 2.2miles. Take into consideration an average walking speed of ~3 mph (MUTCD, 2003) this would equate to a 44-min trip duration (Looks like Google maps also uses near 3mph as the default walking speed).
Of course, we did not mention any of the paths going across intersections and the possible delay that might be imposed in traversing those locations. Despite this the path is going through neighbor hoods and will not seem to encounter any major intersections. With the below description for biking if it were to take the same path it would be nearing the 3x as fast range in speed, however the cyclist would be in the shared streets envioronment.
A key takeaway from the dutch bicycle facility selection matrix are a comparison to the path identified from google maps to bike on ,versus what type of facility for biking that should be offered based on the road features itself(speed, volume). Although, volume is not readily available, the speed limits for the diagram to the right are 35mph and then 25mph as you get closer to the school. Based on the matrix it would have been best and entirely possible that the higher 35mph segment would indeed have a cycle track instead of paint based bike lanes.
As mentioned previously there is an inherent reliance for cyclists to operate to a particular extent within mixed traffic. Whether this be crossing an intersection after being on a cycle track or functioning within a bike lane with the only separation being a painted surface. With this in mind there must be an ability for the transportation system to overcome the potential stress involved for larger acceptance and utilization. Furth indicates utilizing wider bike lanes enhances this aspect, or taking it even further having physical barriers promotes its utilization. The core idea from my observations is the facilities need to not be solely designed for expert riders, but making an allowance or designation towards the commuter population or normal riders will have the most profound impact on that particular cities cycling system and subsequently the acceptance for this type of policy.
Response towards walking vs. biking travel time estimations: Biking
Interestingly enough, when switching to the few bicycle paths, they are all roadways that have bike lanes themselves, similar to the terminology from furth; simple stripping that depicts the bike lane. Moreover, if one were to use the route suggested from walking, those would be the first level of separation, shared streets. As fofr the average speed calculations, google maps is giving a reading of 11.5 mph.
Similar to walking above, taking this particular route the cyclist would need to go through 6 stop lights and several stop signs. With this in consideration, and given instantaneous velocity profiles for reaching the max preferred speed of travel (ignoring acceleration time) if we say at worse case the cyclist arrives right as the light turns red and would need to wait an entire cycle (C-effective green of that direction) say 1-minute each light: this would thus be 18-minute total travel time. Moreover, we need to park the bike simply at the rack, locking it which might take an extra minute: 19-minutes total therefore and average speed of 7.3 mph. So, still over twice as fast than walking.
Blog Post 3: Video Review
Cycling in the US from a Dutch Perspective: it is almost apparent individuals that bike in the US need to have Courage. "People cycle on specific tracks and not to get from A to B". This quote from the video is really eye opening in a sense. It is almost as if large sections of the US develop their biking infrastructure from this standpoint. it is a side-request (especially from what I have observed in Florida). Despite this, there will of course be areas outside of cities that do not have bike paths at all as the area between cities in the US can be incredible. Notice the first image the bike lane could have been on the other side of the vehicles near the curbs just like in the Netherlands image below.
Pretty much even the best cities in the US do not even come close to the way some of the Netherlands infrastructure are setup. There is physical separation, either cars, trees, poles, bollards etc. to really generate a permanence of the structure.
Cycling Amsterdam, Utrecht Netherlands: Cars invading bike lanes, cars with left turns curb raised separated paths, vehicles, trees and bollard used as barriers. Bike parking along the route.
Noticed in this short clip the bicyclist rang their bell and the other biker in front instinctively moved out of the way.
Bicycle light towards the exterior of the road clocking off the vehicular turning movent and through movement so they do not get hit. Also the cross street where the vehicle is waiting for the signal is so far away from the street itself. There is the raised curb, bike path and then the pedestrian path before where the vehicles queue to turn onto the main street. Just comparing the videos it is not even close the type of environment that exists. This type of separation is known as unbundling (Schepers et al., 2013). Within an unbundling framework, there is specific grade separation between all modes of travel,especially
at intersections, which was proved to reduce fatalities and crashes, and increase the volume of cyclists.
Also there is a separate cross walk for pedestrians and then another for bikes further separating all of the differing modes of travel. This separation might alleviate tension between more forceful bikers to pedestrians and also drivers to bikers.
Schepers, P., Heinen, E., Methorst, R., & Wegman, F. (2013). Road safety and bicycle usage impacts of unbundling vehicular and cycle traffic in Dutch urban networks. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 13(3), 221-238. https://doi.org/10.18757/ejtir.2013.13.3.3000
Blog Post 4: Initial Impressions
After the first day, riding a smooth train from the Netherlands airport, walking up out of the station in Delft to an expanse of busses, trams, bikes, canals and surreal building architecture, I was awestruck. The first thing I noticed is the shear volume of people that have their inherent transportation method being biking. Not only the people biking themselves, but the individuals along the roads, either pedestrian or vehicular traffic that is also in tune with the system that has been created here in the Netherlands.
As someone who has not biked since middle school, I was not completely aware of the possibility for this mode of travel to indeed be a considerable percentage of the populations desired travel method for not only commute trips but all trips in general. The connectivity of the entire system leaning towards bikes was also unexpected and has lead to the volume of adoption that was immideatley present when entering the city for the first time (Pucher & Buehler, 2008).
Their system also had incredible connectivity with the other modes of public transportation: bus, tram and heavy rail. As shown in the middle image there were numerous busses with low headway to which there is also a biking facility right underneath the station to complete peoples first/last mile trips. lastly cars are still present in the city; they are not entirely removed from society just not considered as such a prominent role of transportation like the US has done.
John Pucher & Ralph Buehler (2008) Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, Transport Reviews, 28:4, 495-528, DOI: 10.1080/01441640701806612
Blog Post 5: Facility Assignment 1: Signalized Intersections - phasing/movements
We decided to take-on a fairly large intersection that is just south of the Social Hub at Westlandseweg & Nieuwe. The intersection going east- west-bound has four lanes, two through lanes and singular right and left-hand turn lanes. The north-south directions each are two-lane with a single through-left lane and a right turn lane. There is also priority EB/WB lanes going through the center of the intersection for trams and busses. As for pedestrian and bike infrastructure, there are EB/WB bike and pedestrian lanes on the North and South side of the road, however only one set of bike and pedestrian lanes going NB/SB on the west side of the intersection. The configuration for vehicular movement and vulnerable user movements are shown above in the three lower diagrams, with pedestrian and bike in red, vehicular movement black and the tram/bus in green.
The dimensions for the lanes are as follows: all pedestrian and bike lanes were set to 4m and all vehicular traffic set to 3m. It should be distinguished the singular bike and pedestrian path going N/S on the West side of the intersection only had only lane where as the other pedestrian and bike paths had two lanes, although not twice the size but 5m.
To the left is the recreated cycle phases that could be patched together from videos taken. Based on our observations, the cycle started with through movements from the EB/WB directions which also included pedestrian and bike signals on those directions as well (movements and phases are used interchangeably here for ease). Following this was a left turn movements from the EB/WB directions and also right turn movements from the NB/SB directions. We also observed the priority signal change for the bus/tram line where as the vehicles are approaching the intersection the current phase is ended and gets reverted back to phase 1. After this, it goes to the phase that would have been next. For instance if the cycle was in phase 3 when the bus/tram approached, after the phase for the bus/tram it would go back to phase 4.
Following this was phase 3, where it seemed there was usually more traffic wanted to make a right-hand turn from the WB direction so there was a dedicated signal in there. Phase 5 was interesting as this was similar to an all red at the intersection however it was only green for all pedestrian and bike movements. Lastly Phase 6 was to clear out the SB approach. One characteristic that was difficult to observe were internal signals on on through for the pedestrian and bikes. For instance there is actually 3 signals for pedestrian and bikes in all directions. Some of the time all 3 would be green for them to pass and other times only the first signal or last signal. We are unsure how this fits into the phases. To be clear too, all pedestrian, bike left-turn and right-turn lanes are actuated.
Blog Post 6: Photo Assignment 1
Speeltuin Wilhelminapark - Pedestrian Zone
The photos to the left are of the Speeltuin Wilhelminpark which is within the city limits of Delft. Although other parks are not mentioned within this blog; the other parks I had passed all had these signs. Another thing to note is the material of the walking surface within the park. The other photo is from one of the small bridges within the park and it is observable that the material is a hardened sand and shell mixture. Although it is not terrible to bike over that surface it is not that smooth and would promote walking instead.
Scheffels, E., Bond, J., & Monteagut, L. E. (2019). Framing the Bicyclist: A Qualitative Study of Media Discourse about Fatal Bicycle Crashes. Transportation Research Record, 2673(6), 628–637. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198119839348
Blog Post 7: Difference between Lakeland and Delft
Lakeland Florida has 120k population in 2022 with an area of 195 square km where Delft has almost 100k however has a spatial coverage of 24 square km. Lakeland is located in Polk County. In the year 2019, 6700 bicycle crashes occurred with 156 fatalities in the State, Polk county accounted for 136 crashes and 7 fatalities. Although it is not the worst county in the state, it follows a similar trend. To put things into perspective, when googling bike paths or even bike lanes in Lakeland the only results that show are for specific parks that have mountain bike type of facilities. There are some bike lanes near the downtown area as shown to the left (although this is still considered a park near Lake Hollingsworth) and compared to a typical cross section below that, however for the remainder of the city it is assumed bikes will either use sidewalks or will simply ride in the road itself. In general there are only two types of individuals that ride bikes in Lakeland, either for exercise/leisure or for sporting. In my personal opinion I would absolutely never ride a bike in Lakeland, a simple search for bicycle fatalities in Lakeland Florida and there are numerous deaths per year, most of which involve hit and runs.
It is no surprise from personnel experience such as this that Florida also has the highest fatality rate of bicyclists in the US. Outside of the lack of infrastructure for bicycling perhaps there is also a particular dogma that many Floridians have against cyclists. Even so, such occasions might also be the result of how the news of cyclist deaths are portrayed to them through media and news. It was identified that many news agencies when reporting on the death of cyclists portray the fault at the hands of the cyclist and not the driver; in situations where it was indeed the drivers fault the type of grammatical or lexicon was chosen to remove the safety considerations from the driver and put them on the shoulders of the cyclist (Scheffels et al., 2019).
To even conceive of making a comparison on Lakeland to Delft is a fools errand. There is simply no comparison. The ideologies of those in that city and in large part most of Florida cities see cycling as a sporting activity and nothing more. Obviously Lakeland is over x8 the size of Delft, it lacks in public transportation options and any bicycle connectivity. The majority of the roadways are in the 30-50 year old range and most do not even follow ADA guidelines. The most pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure you may see are sidewalks, which if they were not required I doubt they would exist.
Blog Post 8: Facility Assignment 2
Managing bicycling in shopping districts, pedestrian zones
This first photo assignment outlines the specific areas that are paths for pedestrians only. These areas are predominately found in high density urban areas where this is shopping and outdoor dining areas. Such is the case for the pictures to the right. These photos were taken while in Den Haag, where on the other side of the picture is the Binnenhof. Although there are similar signs where they do allow for biking within the pedestrian areas, in peak hour times it almost becomes impractical to go through an area on a bike and must walk it. Below is another picture of an area in Utrecht. This zone is also the delineator for vehicular traffic as well, with the bollards in the bottom left.
From my observations, when bicycling in these areas, the majority of the time they are accepted and you are allowed to go through the zone. That being said as these areas become more dense like in peak hours it becomes unrealistic to bike through and you may want to simply walk. Something that was very noticeable in all of these areas in different cities too, was the way in which pedestrians interacted with the cyclists. It was a kind of dance where everyone is just expecting you to continue moving as you approach them and people just naturally weave amongst one another, so the possible conflicts were simply dealt with by the individuals themselves and did not require some external force to govern it. To summarize there seemed to be very few areas that were specifically for pedestrians, and they would instead allow for cyclists to make the decision to bike or not. As mentioned before some of the areas Utrecth, and Amsterdam simply did not have room for cyclists in the smaller streets, an example to the right , where there is no sign to not bike or a pedestrian sign, it is just assumed you wont bike through there.
Blog Post 9: Photo Assignment 2
Underpass/overpass/bridge for bicycle connectivity
It was quite noticeable observing the funding going into the bicycle infrastructure. Although only a few pictures are generating a representation for the bicycle infrastructure specifically for connectivity, there were numerous examples. Below are just a few examples, to the left are both from the exterior ring of Houten, where this bicycle path goes all the way around the intersection, a total of 4 bridges for this one bike path. Another example was found towards the south of Delft at the Delft Campus train station where the bridge is for the trains themselves. What is also interesting at this location is the bike parking which is also underneath the track, and this path directly connects to it.
Another great example is the bridge in the bottom left corner where the bridge its self actually rotates to allow for maritime vessels to pass towards the larger lake area in Delft. There is another example that I did not myself visit, however, the Hovenring, in Eindhoven, is another perfect example on the Dutch peoples desire to not only have cycle connectivity, but to make it also a major focal point. An important note to be made too, is the locations of these more robust pieces of infrastructure, always seem to have several connecting links in close proximity as to provide quick access to cross major roads and waterways within loosing the cyclists ability to go around the obstacle and also not completely remove the other modes ability to access the areas.
Blog Post 10: Free Weekend Post
Outside of working on the blog during the free weekend and doing laundry, I did take a few bike rides within Delft. The first bike ride I went on was making a loop, going past the bridge towards the Technical University of Delft, all the way to their freeway N470. While I was going down the very large bike paths, I came across the Delft Campus station and noticed there was actually an underpass with the rail operating above. This is another demonstration on the value their society places with biking.
The other ride I went on was to Speeltuin Wilhelminapark. Coincidentally the park also had signs that indicated the park was for pedestrians only, and although I walked a small portion of the park I still ended up biking through most of it. There was some paths that were very narrow and you really could not bike there.
One of thing I ended up doing was joining some of the others on the trip to eat lunch on one of the boats that sits in the canal at De Delft restaurant where it also had a view of the old church. If I remember correctly I had a panini zalm (salmon panini) which was quite good! Unfortunately, I do not have photos of the sandwich!
Blog Post 11: Design Project
After experiencing the level of social and economic investments the Dutch people made into their bicycle infrastructure, it was an opportune time to investigate what potential approaches the Dutch use towards implementation on an existing roadway segment in Corvallis. With the assistance of other team members, we came up with a strategy to create a new strategy for NW Kings Blvd from Monroe Ave to Grant Ave in Corvallis Oregon. To the left is a map of the segment, with a total length of 0.8 miles and below are several typical cross sections of the facility. The two beneath are within a 40 ft cross section and then the other is a 50 ft cross section. The blue and red map displays the 40ft and 50ft areas of the entire segment.
Some other information about this roadway segment are the existing bike lanes, pedestrian facilites, number of intersections and the Corvallis Transit Authority bus route 5. There are a total of 4 intersections along this facility, 8 bus stops, and from a safety and AADT standpoint, there have been:
266 total crashes since 2012, 193 of which were at the 4 intersections, 13 along the segments and 13 pedestrian crash, however no fatalities, and on average 1000-2500 AADT. The typical traffic for this segment are towards the local school, Oregon State, and some of the commercial business, as well as local housing.
Despite the already existing bike lanes, this section has a unique opportunity to implement a separated bike path, connecting from north of the study area all the way to the campus. With the available lane space across the roadway segments themselves, and also have two of the intersections be a 3-way, this approach could be easily obtainable. With this understanding in mind, a series of recreated intersections are shown, demonstrating how the individual intersections would be altered to allow for this separated bike path.
As mentioned previously, two of the intersections have the capacity to allow for the cycle traffic on the separated bike path to not have to interact with any signals, promoting safety and efficiency for the cyclists. A key consideration, however, would be to remove the entire WB approach from NW Van Buren Ave. With this design in mind, there were also considerations for how the cross sections of the segments would take form, both for the 40' and 50' sections, and decisions on how to maintain transit access.
To continue, it would not be possible to completely remove the transit route, or even remove one of the directions. As such, a system was devised based off of bulb outs that are observed below, which are in Seattle, Washington. With this bulb out, the separated bike path would remain separated form the traffic stream and a small waiting area would be created to maintain street access to the public transportation.
Lastly, with the available space, the two cross sections were made. As can be seen below the wider, 50' segment would allow for greenery, for plats, shrubs or even trees if desire. It is with this design methodology that a use case to incorporate a separated bike path can be achieved, to not only improve mobility but to also invest in a typical dutch street design that might manifest more facilities like it in Corvallis.
Blog Post 12: Final Blog Reflection and Houten
I want to firstly thank all of the participants of this course, the diverse mentalities of everyone made the trip both enjoyable and informative of different peoples beliefs and lifestyles. I believe this trip has changed my perspective on both life and transportation engineering. I was once an individual that thought very similar to those in the section above describing Lakeland, Florida. Videos of the infrastructure and lifestyle of the Dutch people are not enough to describe how an entire society has decided to move away from focusing on vehicular traffic. The living environment produced from their decisions is incredible appealing and truly seems like one all-encompassing community where you mater as a person. It is quite difficult to comprehend how a series of transportation planning decisions can result in that outcome but it is evident everywhere in the Netherlands.
With that said, one of the last places to mention is the small city of Houten, on the outskirts of Utrecht. Our visit to Houten started at the train station, which is shown to the left. Just like most well thought out train stations in the Netherlands, there is ample bike parking beneath the train station and easily accessible and affordable rental bikes. Immediately when you leave the station there is a large bike path, which basically connects all across Houten. One of the unique characteristic s of Houten is its purposeful design to be incredibly connected for bicyclists, between these large series of residential pods. The concept is to make cycling within the city the most efficient mode to travel throughout the community. That being said there is still plenty of vehicular parking and traffic in the designated areas, as to not entire block off some needed vehicular traffic, this is observed below in the series of images, where there is indeed more parking in different areas of the city closer, or within the living areas. Lastly one unique feature of Houten are the inverted speed bumps along the bike routes. It seems that are really meant for individuals using mopeds or fast e-bikes to keep the paths safe.
