Bike Lanes

Bike lanes are one of the most-discussed topics among cyclists, even non-cyclists. Everyone has an opinion on whether they should exist, and if so what they should look like. I’d looked at this earlier in a Bisikletforum thread “Are bike lanes useful, necessary, should they be built?”. Two years later I wanted to write something more organised here. This will also be this blog’s first post.

”Everywhere in Europe is a bike lane”

This is the popular line in every cycling debate:

“I want to ride a bike but there’s no bike lane — Europe has bike lanes everywhere apparently.”

So nobody in Europe was cycling, then one day someone said “let’s build bike lanes” and all of Europe started riding? According to a Guardian article, if we take Amsterdam as an example, its bicycle use rate — close to 100% in the early 1900s — began dropping critically in the 50s and 60s as purchasing power rose. As a result, accident rates climbed. In 1971, 3,300 fatal traffic accidents occurred. More than 400 children lost their lives in traffic accidents. In response, the best-known protest campaign — Stop de Kindermoord (Stop the Child Murders) — was organised.

A mother who joined the protest, van Putten, said: “The city was torn down to make way for cars. We weren’t happy with the changes happening in society — they affected our lives. The streets no longer belonged to the people who lived on them, but to the big traffic flows. That made me very angry.”

Stop de Kindermoord activists kept going with civil disobedience: blocking accident-prone intersections with tables, hosting meals on roads, reclaiming streets from cars. Lawmakers gave them meetings; they met the Prime Minister. The result: Stop de Kindermoord was absorbed into the municipality, and the chosen solution was woonerf — paved streets with speed bumps forcing cars to go slowly.

Two years after Stop de Kindermoord formed, a second group emerged — First Only Real Dutch Cyclists’ Union. They drew attention with megaphone protests, three-wheeled bikes, and painting unofficial “rogue” bike lanes on streets at night with coloured paint. A group member, Tom Godefrooij, said: “We could have been caught by police, but we’d get newspaper and politician attention, and eventually our bike lane. Even in the 70s there were politicians who knew that focusing on cars would cause problems.”

The 1973 oil crisis quadrupled oil prices. The Dutch government, to enforce energy saving and offer a new lifestyle, launched “Car-Free Sundays”. Children could enjoy streets again without cars. During one of these car-free Sundays, a cyclist named Maartje van Putten and her companions rode their bikes through a tunnel where cyclists were not permitted — and their ride ended at the police station.

Toward the end of the 1980s, after years of protest, politicians realised a car-centric transport plan wasn’t realistic and switched to a bicycle-centric one. The process started with bright red, highly visible bike lanes painted on roads; by 2019 Amsterdam had over 35,000 km of bike lanes.

So what about Turkey?

Don’t we have bike lanes? Of course we do. But unfortunately each of these lanes has advantages and disadvantages. Before going through them one by one, let’s talk about the most pressing disadvantage of having a bike lane somewhere:

TURKISH ROAD TRAFFIC CODE, Article 66 — The following rules apply to bicycle, motorised bicycle, and motorcycle riders. (a) If a separate bike lane exists, bicycles and motorised bicycles are prohibited from riding on the motor road.

Because of this article, if there’s a bike-designated section on a road, riding on the motor road becomes a violation. No matter how unusable, bad, or dangerous the bike lane is — when you share the road with motor vehicles, you are in violation. This is the first legal loophole we should object to as cyclists.

Bike lanes integrated with pedestrian paths / coastal walks

The Büyükçekmece Municipality claims this is Istanbul’s first bike lane — and it’s an example of this style. As you can see in the photo, it’s continually invaded by pedestrians and creates hazards. Either you constantly warn pedestrians, or — as also visible in the photo — you ignore the rules and squeeze through gaps. Definitely not suitable for road cycling or training. Specific to Büyükçekmece: because non-grip paint was used, it gets dangerously slippery when wet, adding extra risk. Still, fine for a cyclist out on a short outing on an empty coast, maybe on a rental bike.

A better example is the bike lane on Izmir Kordon. But here too — because there’s no physical barrier separating pedestrians from cyclists — a pedestrian can suddenly jump into your path. And pedestrians walking through without noticing/knowing/caring about the bike lane create hazards: you end up with the problem of having to warn everyone in order to ride.

Bike lanes painted off from the motor road

The bike lanes referred to in “Europe has bike lanes everywhere” are mostly like this:

The bike lane above is in Zeytinburnu, which was in the news for becoming a barbeque parking area. If this had been a two-lane motor road, even short stops would have provoked other drivers and the parked vehicle would have been reported and towed. As is, since the lane reads as “already belonging to bikes” it’s easily declared a parking area. Through the Bisikletliler Derneği (Cyclists’ Association)‘s efforts, the Mobile EDS application was implemented and the area was temporarily cleared, but it’s not a permanent solution.

Stopping/parking is the main problem with this bike lane style. Also, when there are shops on the right side, either people park on the bike lane to unload goods, or they park outside the lane but unload goods over the lane. Still, if a bike lane has to be built, this is the most useful and lowest-cost option.

Another hazard with this style: drivers or passengers in vehicles parked alongside opening their doors without looking. Door-strikes are among the most common cyclist accidents.

Another problem is when the bike lane runs both directions on only one side of the road. If a vehicle parks in the lane this way, a cyclist trying to continue is forced into the lane of oncoming traffic. A very bad example of this was built in Riva — removed after public outcry. On a highway with a 90 km/h speed limit, a cyclist coming from the opposite direction could meet cars unable to take the corner without violating the bike lane, leading to serious crashes.

Bike lanes separated from the road with various barriers

This is one of the more popular types here. Unfortunately, the General Directorate of Highways and local governments — with terrific optimism — built these to prevent cars from entering the bike lane using plastic bollards which (as visible in the photo) never work. Even iron bollards built for the same purpose get ripped out by shopkeepers or residents to park cars.

The only configuration in this category that actually blocks cars is one with concrete or large plastic barriers. Of course, in that case it’s still hard to solve the motorcycle and moto-courier issue — they take over the pedestrian sidewalks anyway.

Is the problem the absence of bike lanes? Is the solution building more?

This part of the post is more subjective — speaking as a cyclist who’s been pedalling in Istanbul traffic for a while and uses the bike for transport: I think no! You can build bike lanes, you can install steel barriers between cars and bikes — the problem is that people don’t respect bicycles, and you’re powerless against that. The law gives you some rights. Dedicated bike lanes are built for you. But when a car or pedestrian violates them, no authority will protect your rights or enforce those laws except yourself. It’s not your job to explain to dozens of parked-on-the-bike-lane drivers that they’re violating the law and wait for them to fix it. Even when you photograph and report the violations, no enforcement has been applied since 2016 because of a legal gap. What would happen if you parked your bike in front of cars? The reverse doesn’t happen when a car parks in front of your bike. What if a pedestrian walked down a motor road pushing a stroller? They can easily do that in the bike lane and won’t even consider it wrong.

To go back to the beginning of the post: when similar problems happened in Amsterdam, the residents’ demand wasn’t isolating bicycles and pedestrians from cars — it was isolating cars from the city. The real problem is the assumption that cars are more important than bikes. Take the “1.5 metres of clearance when passing” rule most cycling groups advocate for. Our request to authorities shouldn’t be “let’s add such a rule” so much as how they will defend the rule once it exists. There’s no point in local government building kilometres of bike lanes if the municipal worker dumps sand in the lane, a car parks there, a pedestrian walks down it.

Unfortunately this is the root of the differences between us and the countries we usually look up to. In Chicago, parking in a bike lane is a $150 fine — and in 2015 it was issued 2,816 times, in 2016 2,766 times, in 2017 3,460 times. In Turkey it’s a daily problem every cyclist faces with no resolution path.

So what’s the proposed solution?

Cycling is a mode of transport, and isolating it from motor traffic is a futile effort. But lowering speed limits especially within cities, dedicating bike-specific lanes on high-speed/intercity roads, defending cyclists’ rights rather than seeing the bike as inferior to the car and a child’s toy — that’s the solution we need. Turkey already has cities with cycling culture, and in those places without needing to isolate bikes from cars bicycle transport has worked for years. When our request from city leaders becomes “let me go with my bike” instead of “let me go with my car”, “let me park my bike” instead of “let me park my car” — cycling-based transport will start to develop.

What do you think? Drop your views in the comments and contribute to this shared thinking.