mobility_matters channel

Major bike thoroughfare to downtown & other points west of the freeway closed for street bridge reconstruction...but wait! There's a separate peoples' bridge over the creek. A workaround that keeps active transport flowing. It's so quiet without the usual car traffic, I could hear the creek as I went over.

Modified roundabout for intersection of five streets. Two streets are exit-only for cars. One is enter-only for cars. People on bikes can access all directions - as can pedestrians. This is near an elementary school & is intended to improve access to and from the neighborhood. At this point, construction still in progress, but it is already much better than the stoplight that had to accommodate all the directions. Much smoother surface too!

Even with the smaller footprint, you can see the U.S. engineer's aversion to slowing drivers: angles of the entry/exit lanes, width of the travel lane plus a truck apron.

Safe passing? Double yellow on a winding hilly road. Thanks to the oncoming driver for slowing down & moving away from the passing jeep, everyone made it home safely that day.

Sure, everyone will tell you how easy it is to walk or pedal a bike around Utrecht, how you can use the ubiquitous bike paths to the train station, and that there are thousands of bike parking spaces in the underground parkade in the city center -- which is also the Central train station. Sure, that's all great (ok, excellent), but those yellow buses are a smooooth ride. Shock absorbers are the best!

On this day the weather kept shifting from sun & gusty wind to fog and back.

Music: Cliffs of Moher, JuliusH (via Pixabay)

It's always a good idea to remember when the bus barn empties and buses head out for the afternoon school pickup. lol

(ALT clip of 10 or so bright orange schoolbuses leaving a parking lot from multiple exits and all heading towards us)

I'm usually biking along busy, car-packed city streets, so this ride was a relaxing contrast. The few cars that we encountered have been edited out - although I saved one in particular to show the width of the roadway for two-way traffic.

Music: "calm background" by Ivymusic

The Sky Road is just outside of Clifden in the Connemara region (west coast of Ireland), and is 150 meters (492 feet) above sea level.

Music: "Inspirational Background" by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net

Bike ride up to the Sky Road in Connemara and pedaling along the road to the lookout.

Music by Diamond_Tunes via Pixabay

Bike ride on shared streets. There are numerous street design elements that help this be a comfortable & safe ride: red pavement used for bike priority (and bike-only), center rumble strip of bricks to alert drivers about slow driving, narrow lanes & narrow streets, bollards that restrict car through-traffic...see anything else?

This canal now connects to the one shown below.

Watch --> Major transformation of Utrecht canal, from Bicyle Dutch https://youtu.be/fePpwYCs_JM