Nice Bicycle Infrastructure
We’re talking Nice, the City in France here, but the infrastructure could also be described as nice. Take a wander and occasional bike ride along some of the protected bicycle infrastructure.
Protected bike lanes, but conflict still persists at intersections
During our recent trip to the Netherlands we arranged to meet up with my parents elsewhere for part of the trip. I wasn’t totally set on Nice at first, thinking as it lies next to Monaco, that it’s just a playground for the rich. But looking at online maps, and seeing bike paths leading from the airport along the waterfront and a few more in the city centre, it seemed like there was some stuff worth seeing. Bike infrastructure isn’t a mandatory requirement for vacations but having the Brompton’s with us, we were keen to get some use out of them wherever we were.
If you haven’t read Travelling with a Brompton Bicycle, my first blog post of the new website, you can get into the details a bit more than I’ll go into here. But to recap, we checked our Bromptons in as regular luggage in Eindhoven, flew to Nice, awaited their arrival on the conveyor, and as we opened them, prayed they were still in one piece. They were, and we unpacked them in the airport, unfolded the bike, folded the bike suitcase up, strapped it to the Brompton bag that was our hand luggage, and off we went along the waterfront bike path to our hotel.
The waterfront bike path
Actually the hardest bit here was finding the way to the bike path which I knew was just out front of the terminal, but could I see a sign to get there? I could see car parking and I could see fencing between that and the bike path. We got there after a few wrong turns in the parking aisles and were soon on our way.
The road was pretty busy and noisy, there was a pretty solid looking concrete barrier next to the bike path, and we had to go past out hotel to a crossing and then backtrack to the hotel due to the large block size and limited crossings. No big deal, then a car turning right almost takes us out when we have the walk sign. Nice welcome to France! We make it to the other side and roll along the sidewalk to our hotel. That’s a whole other story…
The Waterfront
Heading out from the hotel, we take the bike path further along the waterfront towards the city centre. Top marks for allocating the waterfront to people walking and rolling. Looking back through the years, back in 2016 there was three lanes of traffic heading toward the centre and a narrow two-way bike path separated by paint from the pedestrian realm. In 2017, it reduces to two vehicle lanes with a palm tree boulevard separating people from traffic and the bike lane appears wider and with a small grade separation from the pedestrian realm. At the east end, the bike path transition to on-street with bollards separating people driving and cycling or scooting. Click the thumbnails below to view in higher resolution.
My only small complaint would be the bollards at every pedestrian crossing. They do very little except create a hazard! However, if we must have bollards, I did like that they give you quite a warning of that approaching hazard. Perhaps something we could adopt in North America where hazards are unavoidable. This guy was distracted by the Ironman race, but did notice just in time…
The bollards are unnecessary, but the warning markings could be useful elsewhere.
Bi-Directional Protected Bike Lanes
Heading into the centre there are a variety of bi-directional bike lanes, some with minimal separation, some with very nicely landscaped buffers from traffic, some with some sort of driveway crossings, some floating stops with and without crosswalks to them, people skating, scooting, cargo biking, and regular biking, getting around or delivering food.
Uni-Directional Protected Bike Lanes
Further in, there were also some uni-directional bike lanes with very little space to pass, some just with concrete curb, some with with large planters, sometimes protecting them, and sometimes not. Either way there’s a bunch of space used by those planters that could be used for passing or riding side-by-side. I’m thinking it maybe used to be bi-directional which led to issues at intersections…
The Centre
The very centre, like many European cities includes many largely pedestrian streets and plazas, this being one of the main ones.
The Marina
The Marina lies at the end of the airport tram line, i.e., it goes from the airport along the waterfront, through the centre where it’s underground and pops back out at the Marina where people on two wheels have a habit of riding on their back wheel.
On one day my parents took the train to Antibes and we biked there along the waterfront path that extends all the way there to meet them for the rest of the day. The path was of varying quality and design, but on the whole, we felt safe the whole way. Below are a few short videos at various points along the pathway.
We left Nice the same way we arrived, pedalling to the airport, folding the bike, unfolding the bike suitcases, packing everything up, and checking them in as regular luggage.