I lived and worked in Ballarat for a while. I loved running and riding laps around Lake Wendouree.
One thing I was always very wary of though was the tram tracks running parallel to the bike lane.
Back then I was mainly working on the design and development of regional road safety infrastructure projects (so didn’t do much inner-city stuff). But I do remember some works happening just up the road from this incident where there had been a particularly nasty section. Riders had to cross the tracks at a horrible angle.
The upgrade there was simple but clever. It allowed riders to cross the tracks much closer to ninety degrees. I liked it so much that when Safe System Solutions Pty Ltd hosted an Indonesian delegation I took them out there and got the old VicRoads crew to walk them through the works. (I’ll drop a photo from that visit in the comments).
Anyways, I digress. The crash in this video is an interesting one. It highlights one of the challenges with any tracks or rails that run parallel to the riding line.
People riding bikes do not travel in a perfectly straight predictable line. They move around hazards. Things like cars, dogs, kids, parked vehicles, other riders… and the list goes on.
When riders need to deviate sideways, even slightly, a narrow tyre meeting a rail groove will end badly.
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I lived and worked in Ballarat for a while. I loved running and riding laps around Lake Wendouree.
One thing I was always very wary of though was the tram tracks running parallel to the bike lane.
Back then I was mainly working on the design and development of regional road safety infrastructure projects (so didn’t do much inner-city stuff). But I do remember some works happening just up the road from this incident where there had been a particularly nasty section. Riders had to cross the tracks at a horrible angle.
The upgrade there was simple but clever. It allowed riders to cross the tracks much closer to ninety degrees. I liked it so much that when Safe System Solutions Pty Ltd hosted an Indonesian delegation I took them out there and got the old VicRoads crew to walk them through the works. (I’ll drop a photo from that visit in the comments).
Anyways, I digress.
The crash in this video is an interesting one. It highlights one of the challenges with any tracks or rails that run parallel to the riding line.
People riding bikes do not travel in a perfectly straight predictable line. They move around hazards. Things like cars, dogs, kids, parked vehicles, other riders… and the list goes on.
When riders need to deviate sideways, even slightly, a narrow tyre meeting a rail groove will end badly.
————-