Protected Intersections are Safer for Everyone

Posted on by Rik

Protected intersections are the safest way to design intersections for everyone.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, take a look at this video from Bicycle Dutch about “junction design, the Dutch cycle-friendly way.” You can also read the article that explains this design further. It’s short, concise, and free of engineering speak. The narrator takes you through the conversion of a standard US intersection that already has bike lanes and sidewalks into a a full protected intersection that physically separates the bike lanes from the motor vehicle lanes.

Benefits of Protected Intersections:

  • Increases visibility of people on bikes and people at crosswalks

  • Separates people on bikes from motor vehicles with curbing

  • Eliminates weaving and merging of cars and bikes before the intersection

  • Eliminates right- and left-hook crashes

  • Creates safe two-stage turns and eliminates “bike boxes” that strand people on bikes in the middle of the intersection.

Protected Intersections aren’t new

This type of intersection design has been around for over 50 years. They’re the standard design in the Netherlands, where street design prioritizes safety and comfort for people on bikes.

Alta Planning & Design wrote a great history of this intersection design back in 2015. “Evolution of the Protected Intersection” is a great deep dive that profiles the few that had been built in the years up to 2015 and goes back as far as an early 1970s design of this kind of intersection in California.

In the same year as Alta’s document, MassDOT published their Separated Bike Lane Planning & Design Guide. It has been widely heralded among traffic engineers and planners as the gold standard of how to design these in a US context.

The “Dutch junction design” video by Bicycle Dutch shows real-world examples of how these intersections are designed and how people use them to get around.

Dutch roadway design principles

The Dutch have very clear principles for their roadway and cycle path designs. Here in the US, roadway designs are based on federal highway standards, so even our local streets often look and behave like miniature interstate highways with bike lanes and sidewalks just tacked onto the edges.

Here are some key Dutch principles that I wish the US would adopt in street design:

Separation

This idea is often described as “unbundling” or “unraveling” of travel modes. Sometimes it means physically separated bike lanes and sidewalks. Sometimes it means that specific streets are prioritized for to motor vehicles, bicycles, or pedestrians. Sometimes it’s a focus on travel networks – complete bicycle, walking, and driving routes that don’t compete with one another.

Comfort

This is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a subjective feeling of what it’s like to use a street. Is the cycle path wide enough to ride side by side? Is the sidewalk accommodating all the storefront activity? Is it easy to cross the street? In the US we use the phrase “all ages and abilities,” but that doesn’t capture the same essence of “comfort.”

Directness

How do you get from A to B? Is there a clear path? The Dutch recognize that bicycling needs to be as direct as driving (or more direct, especially in built up areas where driving is discouraged), and they make tremendous efforts to accomplish this.

How do we get protected intersections built?

Good question, eh?

Residents need to engage with local planners, project engineers, and elected officials to let them know that these kinds of improvements are important to them.

Here are some things you can do:

  • Attend local hearings and project review meetings. Speak up and ask “Why isn’t this a protected intersection?”

  • Tell your local elected officials that you want safer streets for biking and walking, and show them examples of protected intersections. Email has really become the most effective way to reach them.

  • Talk to town staff and planners at local traffic hearings.

  • Tell the Cape Cod Commission that you want to see protected intersections. The Commission oversees all of the major funding for road rebuilding projects on Cape Cod, so they have lots of influence over what gets built.

  • Discuss road safety with your neighbors, friends, and family, and introduce them to this concept of separated, comfortable, and direct intersection design for people who are walking and biking.

  • Learn more about protected intersections by checking out the documents and videos in the Resources section below.

Resources

Bicycle Dutch explains the protected intersection, Youtube video, 2011.

Evolution of the Protected Intersection (PDF), Alta Planning, 2015.

Protected Intersection Design webinar, YouTube video, Alta Planning, November 1, 2015.

Biking Safely Through the Intersection: Guidance for Protected Bike Lanes (PDF), National Institute for Transportation and Communities, February 28, 2019.

Contextual Guidance at Intersections for Protected Bicycle Lanes (PDF), Youtube video, National Institute for Transportation and Communities, February 28, 2019.

Common Crashes Between Bicyclists And Drivers, League of American Bicyclists, Youtube video, May 1, 2022.

Choosing an All Ages & Abilities Bicycle Facility, Urban Bikeway Design Guide, NACTO, accessed on October 20, 2023.

Bikeway Selection Guide, FHWA, February 2019.

MassDOT Separated Bike Lane Planning & Design Guide, Chapter 2 (PDF), MassDOT, 2015.