The Award for Best Dressed “Cyclists” Goes to Vienna, Austria
You could say it was mostly just jeans, a nice coat, and maybe a scarf and hat… But it was a symbol that riding a bicycle was clearly just a normal part of daily life, and not something you had to dress differently for… This could be culture, or it could be enabled by the streets and bicycle infrastructure design…
The way people dress might seem trivial, but when people don’t need to wear hi-viz, it’s a strong indicator that the network is safe and people feel comfortable using it… Maybe hi-viz was never a thing here, I’m not sure, but even in Vancouver it might be more sports clothing, maybe Lululemon and Arcteryx, which is fine, but here there was so much denim, wool coats, scarves, nice shoes, that it really stood out…
As I said in the intro, it just seemed that riding a bicycle was a normal way to get around, a way that didn’t require you to dress any differently than if you were to drive or take the bus… Anyway, let’s get into it, but think about people’s clothing choices as well as the infrastructure, and think how we can get there in Canada or wherever you may be reading from…
The Bicycle Street
The bicycle street above was probably the thing that caught my attention about Vienna before we went. It was a must-see, but I didn’t expect to see it so soon… Just a block from the train station, the sun is lighting up some red asphalt across the street... We had booked the hotel well in advance, and I had no idea where the train station was in the city until we arrived, but it turns out that the bicycle street took us pretty much from the train station to our hotel. Coincidences don’t get much better than that, so follow along as we discover it in our first hour in the city… Early on, there is a traffic signal on what seems like a pretty small intersection. I wonder if it could have just been a stop or yield on the side street…
A little further down the street, an intersection where the bicycle street does have priority… There’s quite a bit going on here and I think it could be simpler… If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you’ll know I’d have put a continuous sidewalk right across the side street, and they’ve done something similar in some ways, but not in others. The paving carries through, it’s partially raised, but there’s a small difference in elevation between the crossing and sidewalk, the curb return is still there, and the crosswalk markings are still there. Relative to a conventional intersection, it’s better than not doing all those things, but they seem like half measures when it could have been so good! The crosswalk markings across the bicycle street are a nice add though, something not often given any consideration…
As the bicycle street twists and turns around the church in the last image, pockets of light make for some interesting photos of people using the bicycle street. Daycare must have just been finishing up.
If you’ve been on bicycle or urbanism social media in the weeks prior to this blog post, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some photo or video of the grand opening of this street. It was pretty neat to be there just as they were finishing the final segment. Below the road is paved, but they’re still working on the sidewalk on the far side…
A little further down, the final section is being constructed, interestingly with the poured concrete foundation for the stone curbs. You’d never see that without seeing it in construction… Note the cargo bike squeezing along the very narrow sidewalk…
Some construction signage with renderings and a map of the project. I’m guessing this is also showing detours during construction, but I never bothered to translate it… I also wanted to see the construction… Many people on bikes were squeezing along the very narrow sidewalks along with pedestrians…
The start, or end of construction, depending on your perspective…
Continuing to the Hotel
We took a left just past the construction and found this bike shop making bikes look good!
Crossing through the Naschmarkt…
The people on bicycles keep coming in normal clothes. You’re maybe not surprised given the title and intro, but we were, literally, around every corner…
On the far side of the Naschmarkt, our first taste of the green surface treatment, which is somewhat common in Vienna, but obviously different from the red bicycle street we just walked along. I was curious at this point if this was a change in direction and these would revert to red at some point in the future… There are interesting tactile pavement markings to guide people to and through the crosswalks, but also a treatment in pavers across the bike path…
Our apartment was just around the corner from the location above, so we unpacked and settled in for a few days…
Wandering Around at Night
Our apartment lies just outside of the centre on the west side, so when we walked a few blocks north, i.e., not toward the centre, and found this largely pedestrianized street, it was a bit of a surprise… It was such a nice street to walk along, cars were allowed to some degree but there weren’t many… Plenty of well-dressed people on bicycles though…
Bromptons are quite common in Vienna, maybe because they have an official Brompton Junction Store in town… I’m a huge fan of my Brompton; it’s become the almost perfect machine for taking anywhere. It has custom bags that hold my camera in a way that’s quickly accessible and attach and detach easily. For someone that likes to bike around and take photos, be that for these blog posts or project site visits, it’s the almost perfect machine… The two big things I wished it had were a better gear range (I have the 2-speed) so I could ride more places with it and disc brakes as I live at the top of a big hill… So I had to pay the store a visit given they had the new G-Line version with wide-range hub gear and disc brakes, something that won’t be available in Canada until Spring 2025… We got there at closing time…
We walked into the centre and wow… Maybe like Budapest, the lighting plays a big part in it looking so magical at night, but Vienna was looking even more amazing than Budapest…
If we’re handing out awards… This wins the narrowest protected bike lane award…
There are many pedestrianized streets in the centre…
More Wandering
Leaving our place, the next day, this is the relatively new bike path that runs along the Naschmarkt. It features interesting pavement markings, a yellow line acting as a warning that you’re about to fall off a curb, and the white edge of the lane line slightly inset from that, essentially creating a small buffer. We’d probably do stamped concrete or something… I’d guess this is a bit cheaper, but you’ve seen the buildings… They’re not hurting for money it seems…
A little further along the street, an interesting take on a protected corner… The guy on the photo below left is able to carry straight through without negotiating the corner island, something some guidelines would suggest is more dangerous as a car slowing to turn right can be surprised by a person on a bicycle approaching quickly from behind. Whereas the bend-out approach would help improve sight lines between the person driving and riding a bicycle…
If you’re crossing here, you must stand side by side holding hands…
All of the pedestrian and bicycle crossing signals are a bit more creative than average… This one below changes from a cyclist standing with foot on the ground to one riding, while the person walking begins striding…
I mentioned the tactile treatments before, but they are worth sharing again: these raised pavement markings definitely look more detectable than score lines in the concrete, and not much worse than the tactile tiles we use whilst perhaps offering more flexibility in application…
Bi-directional protected corners at a busy city centre intersection… It could maybe use some crosswalk markings on the bike path… Scooter share is quite common around the city too… I can’t actually recall if there were shared bikes too…
Back in the pedestrianized centre… Again, we need more streets like this in North America… Cough… Robson Street…
Wandering around little back streets, this interesting Woonerf pavement marking made an appearance… Like the prior cities, not really mimicking the true intent of the Dutch residential Woonerf…
Daycare parking…
More pedestrian streets… Grand buildings… And Brompton’s…
Not many spaces, but Vienna might also win the award for fanciest bicycle parking…
The Hofburg is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, built in the 13th century. It served as the imperial winter residence, and since 1946, it has been the official residence and workplace of the president of Austria. I should have got a photo of this at night… Nice car park right in front of it too…
Moving across the street to the Museum Quarter, there are more green protected intersections, people riding in normal clothes, and grand buildings in the background… I’m actually curious is people walking or riding have priority in these locations…
That pedestrian street we saw last night starts just by the Museum Quarter, with this interesting chicane creating planter and bench. There’s often a fear of quick-build solutions looking cheap, but they can look just as good as permanent infrastructure… But maybe such quick builds aren’t necessarily cheap…
Halfway up the pedestrian street is an interesting situation: a road crossing over the pedestrian street with a traffic signal controlling conflicts… It was interesting to see compliance here was pretty good when the pedestrian street largely has the benefit of strength in numbers, and the crossing is pretty short… Below, you can see one guy running across while most wait, but I expected more to do the same…
Testing Brompton’s
With a day walking around the centre yesterday, it was time to rent some bicycles for the day and explore a little further out… On the way to the rental store… I figured I should grab a couple of photos of some signs on the way… Another example of the one-way except for bicycles signage in yet another country… We should do this more on our local streets… And that Woonerf sign used in the wrong context again in my opinion…
There was only one place we were renting bikes from on this leg of the trip... Brompton Junction Vienna… Unfortunately, we couldn’t rent the one below… But we did manage a test ride on it, both regular and electric versions. While we only rode a few minutes up and down a nearby street, it was clear that this new machine felt a lot more like a regular bike than the normal Bromptons we have, that the electric version feels great like most electric bikes typically do, that the bigger wheels feel more confidence-inspiring and comfortable, and that the disc brakes stop you better like they typically do.
We took a medium and large, and they didn’t feel all that different to me at 5’10”. I could live with both, but would probably go with the recommended medium to have a slightly less stretched-out ride… As for the regular or electric version, I’m still on the fence there… The new hub gear on the non-electric version provides much more range than my 2-speed and would be more useful, without the risk of running out of power. It also accepts my camera bags that work with the regular Brompton mount but can’t be mounted to the electric version… Definitely leaning this way…
While we couldn’t rent a G-Line, we were able to rent the conventional Brompton, and in the electric version that I’ve never used before, and was definitely curious about. We rented the 4-speed Electric P-Line and it definitely made getting around much easier than my 2-speed non-electric version. It was interesting to see how much the battery drained under both my wife and I, with my bike using up the battery much quicker due to me being heavier…
We both generally left it in the lowest level of assist which was fine to give us a little boost whilst still using some of our own power, and the 4-speeds allowed us to get up overpasses pretty easily, even with that lower power setting. This gave us the most possible range, and looking back we spent almost four and a half hours riding, did 33.6km and 119 metres of climbing. We switched bikes near the end when I dropped down to one bar, and my wife still had three. Maybe I just dipped to one and my wife was just about to dip to two, who knows…
When I think about using one of these at home, my commute to work and back is 20km but has ~350m of climbing so I would probably be able to make it… But a trip say to Downtown Vancouver and back wouldn’t be possible, which is also the case with my Rad ebike today… At least this one can be folded up and taken on the bus though…
We set off toward the Donaukanal that runs north-south through the city, and slightly west of the main Danube river, figuring that would be a good option to follow for a bit… It begins in the centre, walls lined with graffiti…
The pathway features these wayfinding pavement markings which I think are a great addition for any long linear pathway, letting you know easily how far it is to various destinations including food and washrooms… Of course, you could just use sign posts too…
Fairness Zone… Could use one of those on Budapest transit… But we pass in and out of these fairness zones along the canal… Which I assume means maybe there’s more scope for conflict and you should be considerate of your fellow pathway users… Peak Vienna bicycle chic here…
Crossing over the canal, we finally see someone in hi-viz, but I’m guessing the clothing choice here is more work related than bicycle related… Big traffic queues on the right...
Large channelized islands with pedestrian and bicycle crossings on the road, but again, no crossings for pedestrians over the bike path…
A little further along, and green makes another appearance in a big way. First, the intersection does have a protected corner on the far side in the photo below left, but not so protected on the nearside. Everywhere else we’d seen green surface treatment, it had only been at intersections, but as we rotate to the right, you can see this green carpet is rolled out all the way along the street. I guess we should follow it…
It carries on around the corner, and all the way along the next street toward a large park… Maybe we could have kept it continuous across this little side street…
We took a bit of a spin around the park then worked our way back into the outskirts of the city, first working our way up over the highway via a very conventional overpass…
Then, staying elevated on a second bridge structure that takes us over the canal, then continues for some distance over rail yards before dropping us down via a spiral ramp onto the bi-directional bike lanes you see below right…
Prior to the red bicycle street at the start of the blog being built, I think this bicycle street design was typical, and possibly still used today as a lower-cost option to the red asphalt. The huge pavement marking and the repeating bicycle symbols make it clear this is a bicycle street, although I don’t recall any other form of traffic calming…
Working our way back to the centre, I notice the bike signals have two reds, but I don’t recall if they all had this… Apparently it’s just for redundancy in case one fails… At one crosswalk with no cross-traffic on the right, a sign with a bicycle and through arrow suggests “nach halt”, which means it’s ok to proceed through on a red light if it’s clear, I think after stopping first… Essentially a stop as yield condition, similar to that in Paris, similar to the Idaho Stop… This is a recent change and you can read more about it here, along with some other interesting bicycle policy changes…
Finally, we couldn’t miss a ride along the red bicycle street on the way back…
We handed the Bromptons back, which were by far the best rental bikes we had on the trip, but at a cost that was far more than anywhere else too. With little expectation, we found that Vienna is a pretty great place to walk and bike around, and was definitely worth the visit… At this point, we were just about at the end of this trip, but with a flight home from Amsterdam, we had to finish up with a few days in the Netherlands, which is coming up in the next blog post…