S105 (Sint Annastraat), Nijmegen
Christine Lai
Previous Design
S105, or Sint Annastraat, used to be a 2+2 lane distributor road with bike lane and parking along both sides. No dimensions could be found for this version, but it likely was the same width as the current cross-section (about 70 feet) and left little room for the sidewalk and trees, or even smaller lanes for both bikes and cars. The speed limit was 50 km/h (the default speed for urban areas). Bicycles rode in the door zone between a parking lane on their right and fast, multilane traffic on the other side. Pedestrians had to cross four lanes, though most likely they had crossing islands halfway.
Then in 1997 Sustainable Safety was introduced to road design in the Netherlands. The new policies dictated that local traffic should not be mixed with fast-moving through traffic, bikes should be separated from heavy car traffic, and a road must be easily recognizable as either a local residential road, or a distributor road intended to carry through traffic.
Facing the safety criteria of this new policy, the old design fared very poorly. The road was mixing local residential traffic with the travelling through traffic. Bikes were riding right next to fast-moving multilane traffic, with interference from a parking lane and risk of being doored.
However, there was insufficient space to create a dedicated cycle track AND provide the parked cars that residents needed in this older part of town, so another alternative had to be found.
Current Design
At s105 123, Nijmegen
The new design makes this street a 1+1 lane distributor road (a major downsize from the original 2+2) flanked by service roads roads on each side. The inside lanes have a 50 km/h speed limit, while the service roads are local access roads with a 30 km/h speed limit. A pair of raised medians separate the through travel lanes from the service road. Along the service roads there is a parking / tree lane in which parking spots alternate 3-to-1 with trees (three parking places, then a tree, then three more parking spaces).
This service road is also intended as the bike route, providing cyclists a car-light, protected cycle route all the way down the street.
In accordance with Sustainable Safety, the new design separates the fast-moving through traffic from the slow bikes and local cars. It allows the through traveling cars to stay separated from the local residents pulling into parking spots near their homes. It keeps cyclists physically separated from fast traffic. In this way, instead of one road trying to serve conflicting functions, it is really two roads in one, with each of them providing only functions that are compatible with each other.
Shown here are images of the street driving Northbound and Southbound, respectively, and a cross-section view of the road at S105 123. This cross-section is standard for most of the length of the street.
This design is a standard layout found in locations around the Netherlands such as Den Bosch, formally known as s’-Hertogenbosch.
In Den Bosch, Graafseweg was designed as a through road with access roads from its inception, unlike the road in Nijmegen in which service roads were added later.
