this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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Desire Paths
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Desire paths Desire paths can be paths created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. The paths usually represent the shortest or most easily navigated routes between origins and destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
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The only thing I can think of is to force looking both ways before approaching the road crossing. This sort of slalom is common in the USA in advance of unprotected railroad crossings, although it's usually meant for pedestrians.
The painted lines suggest it's also meant for bicyclists, but then they didn't expect people would just go around? I'm not sure they fully penciled this one out.
I think the idea is to slow down the cyclists as they approach the intersection. But I bet cyclists going through it are too concerned about getting smoked in the kneecaps by that hard metal barrier if they don't go through the chicane exactly the right way to pay attention to what's coming at the intersection. Sounds like bad design. Good intentions don't necessarily mean good results.
In my Germany city of Kiel we have a cycling "highway" and it uses the same idea to slow down the cyclist when they approached a street but the main difference is that gates are much further apart. Which feels a lot better to cycle through!
Veloroute 10 is pretty nice.
Think you’d then slow down enough to have plenty of space before entering the roadway here