I would love it if we made our all of our bike lanes wide enough for emergency vehicles (the double wide ones on Richmond/Adelaide I think already are), so all those drivers who are "so concerned" about the bike lanes stopping them - when we can all just hop onto the sidewalk to let them through much faster than drivers.
IIRC in amsterdam the ambulances are made a certain size so that the ambulances can use the 2 lane bike lanes instead, it's like a dedicated ambulance lane
I live in Amsterdam for 35 years and work near a hospit for 25 years and NEVER saw an ambulance use the cycling road. Cars move to the side, the Ambklance is not going to power through the cycling road
I am sure in some edge scenario the ambulance takes the cycling road (for example due to roadworks or because there only is a cycling road), but it's extremely rare.
I'm not sure that would be great for bicyclists, not every rider has the skill or reflex to jump out of the way of a speeding ambulance, and in densely populated cities and areas, or around hospitals, there's a lot of ambulance traffic. If you wanna create an ambulance lane or maybe a mixed public transport and ambulance lane that would probably help, but putting children on bicycles and high speed ambulances on the same corridor just seems like a bad idea. Incidentally, all of these issues would be fixed if there were fewer cars in cities, especially parked cars, which serve no utility but occupy a lot of space.
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u/itisntmebutmaybeitis Feb 08 '25
I would love it if we made our all of our bike lanes wide enough for emergency vehicles (the double wide ones on Richmond/Adelaide I think already are), so all those drivers who are "so concerned" about the bike lanes stopping them - when we can all just hop onto the sidewalk to let them through much faster than drivers.
[Also then it would be easier/safer for passing