Dispatches from Berlin

I am criss-crossing the wide and quiet streets of Germany's capital in early and chilly March sun, and trying to take lessons on how to make a city friendly to cyclists.

The early cynic in me shouts out - bomb it! The wide boulevards, holding roads some fifty metres across, with pavements of a dozen more, not to mention tram lines, cannot fail to provide enough room for everyone and more besides. Rebuilding our medieval road systems to accomodate such thoroughfares would require wholesale reconstruction of our city centres. The situation seems hopeless.

And yet, there are lessons.

Simple things are done, instead of being and afterthought. Road furniture exists, and is still plentiful, but is regulated to a single strip that divides pavement from roadway. There are no surprise bins in off-road cycleways, and pedestrians only dodge each other, not the road.

Importantly, cyclists are provided for without exception. There is always a marked lane along every major road. They are given five or ten seconds explicit grace at traffic lights by their own, separate signals. The roads are well-kept, with 30kph limits on all minor roads.

Drivers can still be aggressive, but I have only seen that aggression shown toward other drivers. People feel safe. Almost the only helmets I have seen have been on Segway riders.

Establishing cause and effect here is difficult, and there are a whole host of natural componding factors - the flatness of the terrain being a primary one - that may amplify any differences. Nevertheless, it is a cause for hope. Full separation does not seem to be necessary - just full provision, with appropriate speed limits and faith in the state of the infrastructure; faith that it will be in a state fit to ride; faith that it will be treated for the conditions; faith that it will lead you to anywhere that you might want to go. Faith that it won't lead you forks-first into a flight of stairs or waste bin.

It seems simple. That is the greatest reason for hope of all.

Good trails!