Then again I’ve never been to Berlin and I’m more of a Philly type of city person then a NYC type of city person.

I still hear where you are coming from on the need to better accommodate the 5 to 10km commute to work in some cities. However, I found riding in Munich to be pretty nice in most places even if the cycle track designs were a little old (I was last there more than 5 years ago, so things have probably changed for the better).

Also, Germany as a whole typically ranks around 3rd for highest level of bicycle commuting mode share of Western Industrialized nations, so they got to be doing something right.

I also don’t feel that “the political will of the automobile industry triumphs repeatedly” in Germany as you claim. True it must happens in Germany more when compared to Denmark or The Netherlands and the Modernist sure did a number on many German cities after the War, particularly in the north, but it is no where as bad as any English speaking country.

Germany and many other European countries came to the general realization that the automobile was subjugating their cities in the late 1960′s and has work rather hard to rectify that, some cities better than others. Here in the US we are just beginning to make that paradigm shift that Germany made 40 years ago.

And yes those interurban paths are more about recreation but that can’t bbe a bad thing. Plus a 10km (6 mile) or even 20km (12.5 mile) commute between towns becomes MUCH more appealing when you can concentrate on the sounds of nature and not be forced to listen for the next over taking car, time and time again.

So, like I asked in my first response, “How come nobody talks about all the traffic calming and bike/ped facilities in Germany at least in the blogesphere?”

Prost!

PS – I’m done working this tread but thanks for the feedback Todd.

I’ll agree that some German bike facilities are of questionable design but others are superb. On my last trip this May I cringed at the bicycle facilities I saw in Bamberg near the University but they looked like older designs like those in Munich. Newer facilities tend to be much better.

However my mom’s hometown of Bad Kissingen is a traffic calming dreamscape! The pedestrian amenities are some of the best I’ve seen anywhere only rivaled by other German towns. Since the traffic calming is so complete they don’t even use bicycle lanes in most places since traffic speeds and volumes are so low downtown (outside of the large pedestrian zone). And I’ve got hundreds of pictures to prove it (not on flikr however).

To top it off, the interurban bicycle network is a dream! There is practically never a need to have to ride on a road shared with cars if you choose not to. Many of these routes use glass smooth paved farm and forest roads, often not even in the same valley as the main motor road. What some German cities and town lack in modern Best Management Practices bicycle lanes they more than make up for it with the interurban routes.

Also don’t forget Germany is able to do all this while still being a car crazed culture and is the home of some of four of the largest car companies in the world. Talk about political will!

As for if the trees existed before road was paved: my hunch is no cause some roads had very new trees. I just ended up shooting some of this footage one day while exploring and kept running into block after block that had “tree-calming” on them. But I was never able to confirm with anyone as I was shooting other stories.

On the other hand, there’s some clear chicanery going on in the shot that starts at 0:48, that couldn’t be just from sidewalk trees. I’m guessing that it started as sidewalk trees that got the sidewalk nibbled away from them, and then it became an aesthetic: trees in the road. So then if you wanted to put in a chicane, you could do it with a tree.

Second, bikes are a subset of trees, i.e. trees are more important than bikes. (In an earlier version of “Lord of the Rings” the Orcs rode bikes but the Kiwi environment ministry asked for that to be changed as not to create a negative impression of cycling).

# 2 – Third, Andy B! There is no “Germany” in regards to national identity or quality of investructure – a new word I just made up right now by mistake which is – perhaps quite obviously – a mash-up (hipster for the Yiddish “misch mosch”) of investment and infrastructure, i.e. the built environment: I can speak mostly about Berlin and somewhat less about Munich… in the German capital the majority of cycling facilities on major streets (50kph streets) are on former pedestrian space. BAD! Aside from the obvious nastiness of that (risking peds while not slowing down or reducing the space of cars) it makes more timid, less experienced cyclists – and there are a fick of a lot of them – use the sidewalks even on small streets (also because the “car part” of the street might be a little too bumpy for their spoiled arschen). This makes it scary or at least annoying to walk, and the icing on the kuchen is that people don’t understand what a bell is for! At the very least people just accept it but not because of tolerance but – I argue – a misch mosch of being forced to accept oppression and a kind of perverted sympathy for cyclists because the “car part” of the street is in their view, for cars.

I have lived here for just over a year, but before that seven years in Prague. Even though crossing the “car part” of the street is worse in the not-so-cycle-friendly-but-slowly-getting-better Czech capital, at least one does not have to worry about cyclists on the sidewalks.

From a cycling consultant and dog-owning “intermodalist” or “post-cyclist”, small letters on purpose.

Oh! And how come nobody talks about all the traffic calming and bike/ped facilities in Germany?

Not just here but like in the entire blogesphere concerning livable streets.

Really! I’m stumped!

Shoot! I think the rest of the world has a long way to go to reach where much of Germany is today already. While probably not as completely bikeable at Denmark or The Netherlands (but damned close!), Germany is arguably the most pedestrian friendly country in the world and you here or see NADA!

Okay Clarence. That’s your next trip. Get Livable Streets to foot the bill and I’ll be you guide. (I’m only half joking!)

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=38.972357,-77.020422&spn=0,359.998283&t=k&z=20&layer=c&cbll=38.972355,-77.020566&panoid=NXHW6fE7Zy6Dy6R7yCCKuA&cbp=12,331.21,,0,16.88

I might even guess that some of those trees existed when the road was paved, and they were just left there.

As for tree in bike lane…why not? Sometimes bikes need to have their speed reduced as well. Traffic calming works for all modes.