Bicycle Highway: Delft to Rotterdam
Team: Garrett Boyle, Matt Duranleau, Kyle Deshon, and Carloline Lucas.
Route Description
Our route along this bicycle highway began at the southwestern corner of TU Delft’s campus. Following Rotterdamseweg, which parallels the Delftse Schie canal, the route passed through the small hamlet of Zweth and the neighborhood of Kandelaar. After about 4 kilometers, this road turns into Delftweg and the highway officially enters the Rotterdam city area. The highway follows Delftsweg and another canal and continues south slightly west of the Rotterdam centrum. However, before reaching this point, our route became slightly different from that of the actual bike highway, as we took a left and followed E19, a major highway connecting Rotterdam and the Hague, before crossing another major highway E25. This is because signs pointing to the Rotterdam centrum differed from the best path for bicycles through the area. Assuming that the simplest route would follow the signage, we continued south along Statenweg, which features one-way cycle tracks until reaching Maas Bicycle Tunnel. This is where the actual bicycle highway also ends, and also an important connection that brings bicyclists underneath the main Rotterdam waterway to the other side.
Route Statistics
The statistics for our route are detailed in Table 1 below:
Table 1 – Route Yield, Stop, Crossing, and Surface Statistics.
| Route Length: | 14km |
| Grade Separated Crossings: | 4 |
| Yield Points: | 10 |
| Stop Lights: | 5 |
| Smooth Surface Percentage | ~75% |
On the route from Delft to Rotterdam you have priority for much of the way. It is only when you approach and enter Rotterdam that you encounter stop lights and yield points much more common. All of the stop lights and more than half of the yield points we encountered were at the end of the route immediately before and after entering the city of Rotterdam. Once we were in the city proper we no longer counted the stop lights and yield points.
We estimate that roughly 75% of the highway surface was smooth asphalt. The highway was entirely asphalt when following the canal and vehicle highway. When the route entered Zweth and Rotterdam proper we encountered some areas made of brick and pavers.
Photos
Along the route we took several photos of places of interest. Each photo is accompanied by a description of why we think the site was noteworthy.
[slickr-flickr search=sets set=72157656513161161]
Follow-ability and Overall Impression of the Route
From TU Delft to the small hamlet of Zweth, the bike highway was abundantly clear. It was also an extremely comfortable ride with smooth pavement, no turns (it was along side a residential road and a canal) and few crossings. Plus, where there were crossings, cyclists had the right of way. However, when we reached Zweth, we were given three paths to take. Continue straight, cross the river and continue straight on the other side, or take a left. The main issue at this intersection, is that there are no signs to show where each direction is headed. We were forced to travel a short way in each direction in order to find signs that show where each road is going. But once we found the sign for Rotterdam, we knew we were in the right direction. This problem could be easily remedied by adding signs at the intersection. It is worth mentioning that the road to Rotterdam is the one where you continue straight. The potentially confusing part of this section of the trip is that we had to travel through the center of Zweth which does not have the same bike friendly infrastructure as the previous section of the bike highway. But once we reached the other side of Zweth, we found ourselves on another welcoming section of the bike highway, and it was once again smooth sailing.
Just before the place where S114 crosses over the bike highway, the cycle track ends and all cyclists are forced to ride in the street without any bike lanes. The street is not busy, so it is not particularly unnerving in that way, however it did worry us because we thought we had taken a wrong turn. From then on, we just followed signs for Rotterdam which took us through small towns that no longer had the feel of a bike highway. We partly knew that we weren’t on the bike highway anymore but since we were so close to Rotterdam we just kept going.
It turns out that we were suppose to continue on the road with no bike lanes (Delftweg). However, where we went astray was when we reached the intersection with Schielaan. There was a red bike sign for Rotterdam pointing to the left, so we took that street when we should have stayed straight toward Delftshaven.
Better signage along this route would have improved the experience greatly – it was never quite uncomfortable to ride along this route, but having to spend extra time wayfinding and scoping out different directions was not optimal. For those short segments during which bike facilities were minimal, any kind of red pavement or arrows showing where to go would have been appreciated. Overall the follow-ability of the route was satisfactory. Although we still got to Rotterdam, we took the wrong path, and when there were turns in the road, the signage needs improvement.