They also have moree cyclists so the drivers actually look out for them.

In message 6 you say you were traveling at “15.5 mph (20kph)”. 20 kph is only about 12.5 mph — what speed were you *actually* going? (-:

If it really was 20 kph — ugh. As a bicycle commuter from Portland, Oregon, I find that I will *average* about 13 mph on an hour-long commute, and that includes all the stop lights and hills and dogs on long leashes and….

The essence of our separated system is that there are two sorts of traffic which both have their own type of driveway/path and which only cross each other’s path at right angles.
Ideally only where the speed difference is very low (e.g. where cars can only do 30kph) cyclists and cars use the same part of the street. And then we do everything exactly the same way you are used to do it.

The feared conflict at intersections is the ‘right hook,’ right-turning cars hitting cyclists going straight through. That’s why I’m out well into the right lane as I pass through intersections. When stopped at intersections I’m either well out into, and blocking, the right lane so people can’t turn in front of me, or, time and traffic permitting, I’ll have merged into the left lane so I can wait with the rest of the straight-through traffic and not block right-turn-on-red traffic in the right lane. If you are planning to go straight through but are to the right of people who are turning right, you’ll get hit.

Pedestrians would be wise to look and make sure the right-turning motorists are actually yielding to them. Because pedestrians are hardly moving, this is easy. And they can stop in one step if the have to. A cyclist at 25 or 30 km/hr can’t pause and look back for right-turning traffic. The motorist can fairly easily avoid pedestrians who are more-or-less right in front of him. The cyclist going 25 or 30 km/hr, though, is way back up the road. Remember that I’m assuming that nearly every time, the motorist will not encounter a cyclist, and won’t be ready for the rare conflict. You’re probably used to there being cyclists present nearly every time someone turns, and they’d darn well better be careful.

I really don’t see the problem with “looking”. A driver who makes a turn (left or right) and who doesn’t look will miss pedestrians as well and they have the right of way over turning cars here too. (I don’t think that is different anywhere else.) A driver overlooking pedestrians is in my opinion not qualified for driving.

I take it you have never driven over a Dutch speedbump in high speed. We all do it… once. You are lucky if you didn’t smash your head.
These bumps DO make you drive slow!

We (Americans, anyway) are still left with the question of how the Dutch make left turns. You’re trapped to the right of the right-turning traffic, and can’t just merge over to the leftmost lane for a normal left turn.

- This road is a typical heavily used major artery in the city of Utrecht. It is one of several connections between the ring around the historic city center and the city’s inner ring road from which cars can reach freeways. The ring road crosses this street at the major junction video 1 ends with and video 2 starts with. Many residential areas are connected with the city center by this road. That it is a main road is also clear from the yellow color this street has on the Google map of which Jeroen provided a link.

- It is not the main road from Utrecht to Amsterdam, not since the late 1950s when the A2 freeway was finished. There Jeroen is correct.

- The main objective of this movie was to show that the city of Utrecht did an excellent job here. Within the limitations of a width of the street that was designed in 1812 they succeeded in putting in all today’s functions and traffic and still make the street safe and pleasant to use for all groups of users (Peds / Cyclists/ Motorized traffic). Moreover the street’s attractiveness has notably improved since 2000 when the current design took shape. It can be seen by new better quality shops, less empty buildings and an overall improvement of the street’s (busy) atmosphere.

- Cycling in general did indeed decrease from the 1950s onward in the Netherlands, as it did in the rest of the world. But the assumption of John that cycling decreased because of these facilities is not correct. From about 1975, when major cycling facilities started to appear in Dutch cities, not only did cycling increase again, it became a lot safer too. (The risk of non-fatal injury is 30 times higher in the US than it is in the Netherlands. Data from ‘Making cycling irresistible’). On any given day there can be a lot more cyclists than you see in this video, because it was filmed on a Monday afternoon in School Summer holidays.

- No Dutch cyclist will perceive the current layout of this street as being pushed to the margins of the street. Nor will they see the side streets as death traps. On the contrary. I have used this street on a daily basis in the early 1980s and I know how terribly dangerous it was to have to ride with the cars, busses and trucks. There was always danger of being doored. Parking cars had to cross the cycle lane and did that in high numbers. Cyclists were a lot less visible for turning cars, because of the sharper angle when cyclists are nearer. (They are more ‘behind’ a car that way, now they are more to the right of a car that already did turn before it has to give way to the cyclists). The speed of turning cars (and that of approaching cars from the side streets) is a lot less now because the cycle path and the pedestrian area is raised, also increasing safety. David explained that very clearly in his comment.

- This current design is not only safer, it feels more pleasant too. It shields cyclists from moving traffic by the parked cars. Pedestrians benefit as well: they are even further away from the driving cars and busses. They have both parked cars and a bicycle path between them. The clear curb between the cycle path and pedestrians makes that the latter stay out of the cycle path naturally. (At least most of the time.)

- I cycled this street in an average speed of circa 15.5 mph (20kph). That is slightly above average hence the overtaking of cyclists. But it is well within safe margins. I would have done it even faster without the camera in one hand. I was never able to reach that average in the 1980s when I was riding on the road with motorized traffic.

- Designs like this are very well possible in the US or elsewhere. In fact examples do exist already. See here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neotint/3844333926/

As you can see on the map there is a highway called A2 that runs parallel to the Amsterdamsestraatweg. Everything in Utrecht is constructed in a way that it’s much more efficient to drive to the nearest onramp of a highway. The Amsterdamsestraatweg is way to slow by car. That’s why it has become such a quiet street.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.111249,5.061607&spn=0.032048,0.083599&t=h&z=14