Lesson:Protected Intersections for Bicyclists

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them outloud.

1. Are the streets very busy in your city? Why?
2. If so, is there any plan or organization responsible for reducing its problems?
3. Do you like to ride bikes? How often do you ride bikes?
4. Do you use bicycles as a means of transportation? How often and where?
5. How can people be encouraged to use bicycles more often to move from one place to another?
6. Do you think drivers lack respect for bicyclists in traffic? If so, why do you think that is?
7. Are you afraid of riding bikes on the streets? Why?
8. How far is your house from your work/daily activities? How do you get to these places?
9. Are bikes, skateboards and roller skates possible traffic solutions for the future? Why?
10. Do you think there are still cities with no traffic problems? If so, name one.

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   average

DT   absolutely

DT   paint

DT   tracks

DT   curbs

DT   buffer

DT   intersections

DT   ambiguous

DT   dash

DT   lane

DT   lead

DT   crossing

DT   straight

DT   strand

DT   refuge

DT   setback

DT   barrier

DT   yield

DT   threefold

DT   bend

DT   radius

DT   encourage

DT   hook

DT   setback

DT   barrier

DT   yield

DT   threefold

DT   bend

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

Transcript:

Urban planners and designers have finally figured it out: If your city is designed so that you can bike instead of drive, it will be a happier, healthier place to live. We know that protected bike lanes are the key to getting the average person to consider traveling by bike. Sharing busy traffic lanes with cars is absolutely unacceptable. And separation by a line of paint is often not enough. Protected bike lanes - also called cycle tracks - use curbs, planters or parking to buffer bicyclists from moving cars. But there's still a problem. The protected bike lanes lose their benefits when they reach intersections. The buffer falls away and you're faced with an ambiguous collection of green paint, dashed lines and bicycle markings.
One popular configuration is called the mixing zone. Where cars and bikes share the lane. It doesn't matter how safe and protected your bike lane is, if intersections are risky stressful experiences. We need to make intersections just as safe and secure as the lanes that lead into them. What the protected bike lane needs, is the protected intersection. Modeled after Dutch intersection design, the Protected Intersection brings the physical protection along with you as you ride through the crossing. A collection of design elements makes left turn simple and secure. Right turn is protected and fast and provide straight through movement that minimize or eliminate conflicts from turning cars.
With this design, riders will never feel stranded, exposed or unsure of where to go and how to get there. There are four main elements to protected Intersection designs: A corner refuge island; a forward stop bar for bicyclists; a setback bike and pedestrian crossing and bicycle-friendly signal phasing. The corner refuge island is the key element that makes these intersections function. This island brings the protective barrier from the bike lane far into the intersection. Think of it like a curb extension for bicyclists. The island physically separates bicyclists as they make right turns. And provides a secure refuge for those waiting at a red signal protected from moving cars. Paired with the corner refuge island is a forward stop bar for bicyclists. While people driving must stop back behind the crosswalk, people on bikes may yield to pedestrians and stop at a waiting area farther ahead in the intersection. Bicyclist turning left also use the space to wait when making a left turn. The advantage of this design is threefold: the forward stop location makes bicyclists incredibly visible to drivers waiting at a red light; the physical distance - ahead of cars - gives bicyclists an effective head start when the light turns green. And the distance to the road the bicyclists need to cross is greatly reduced. In Protected Intersections, the bike lane bends away from the intersection, creating a setback bicycle and pedestrian crossing. In contrast to conventional bicycle crossings that run next to moving cars, the setback crossings provide the space and time for everyone to react to potential conflicts. The critical dimension is one car length of space between the traffic lane and the bicycle crossing: Around six meters. This space is often already present in the parking and buffer space of the protected bike lane. With this design, drivers turn 90 degrees to face the bike lane before they even cross it, making people on bikes highly visible and out of the drivers' blind spot. To allow for adequate reaction time for all users, use a small effective corner radius to encourage a slow driver turning speed of five to ten miles per hour.
The last element of a Protected Intersection is the use of bicycle specific signals and bicycle friendly signal phasing. Just as important as the physical design of the intersection is the use of signals to control how and when different people can proceed. At its most secure, a protected signal phase for bicyclists will use red signals to prevent any conflicting car turning movements. There's no risk of right or left hooks from cars when they are prohibited from turning where bicyclists are traveling through. A variation of the protected signal phase is to give all car movements a red signal and all bicyclists movements a green. This simultaneous green phase gives full reign of the intersection to bicyclists, allowing through movements in all directions at once.Left turns in one stage and even full u-turns through the intersection. Even at high volumes, bicyclists are good at negotiating shared space and will have no trouble staying out of each other's way.
When it's not possible to prohibit conflicting movement entirely, an alternate approach is to provide a leading bicycle interval. This is a head start green light for bikes of anywhere from two to five seconds. It provides them a little extra time to get rolling, enter the intersection and maybe even clear it completely before people driving start to move.
Taken together, these design elements create a safe clear experience for all people using the street. Signals control movements, refuge islands create protected spaces and proper positioning of crossings and conflict points provides everyone with the time and space necessary to react to potential risks. While the Protected Intersection design is unconventional and non-standard in the US, so were protected bike lanes only a few years ago. Using these design concepts, planners, designers and engineers can bring the protection of their bike lane into the space where people need it the most. And finally, provide a safe place for people of all ages and abilities to ride.

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs talking about which solution(s) could be implemented to improve traffic in your city. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

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