A couple months ago, I undertook my biennial pilgrimage to my native country of Belgium, visiting family and friends and, as usual, catching up on savoring the best chocolate and beer on the planet. For the geographically challenged, Belgium is a little European country  wedged in between France and the Netherlands, and also bordering Germany and the microscopic “Grand Duchy” (I like the sound of that term in English) of Luxemburg. While biking for transportation is not as prevalent as in the Netherlands or Denmark, Belgians have an equally passionate love affair with everything bicycles and most of all with everything bike racing and cyclocross.

While over there, I made sure to get some time in on my Belgian bike and take a pulse of how cycling has been faring lately. With all the recent buzz here in Portland about bike boxes, cycletracks and bike boulevards, I was keen to explore what improvements to their bike infrastructure the Belgians have come up with in the last years. I also wanted to find out whether bike commuting is still as popular among kids and adolescents, as it was during my school days (in the 70′s and 80′s). In this post, I’ll share some impressions about cycle tracks and other types of common bike facilities in Belgium, and more precisely in Flanders and Brussels, where most of my relatives live…

Old-school cycle track, next to a super-narrow strip of sidewalk.

- Cycle tracks – or what Belgians call “fietspaden” – have really mushroomed in the last 10-20 years and they have now become the most common type of bike infrastructure along busy arterial roads in the cities and along heavy-traffic provincial/suburban roads.

-  While cycle tracks are not new in Belgium, what has changed in the last decennia is the improved design standards and the quality of materials used for cycle tracks. They used to be made of dilapidated tiles, concrete slabs or cheap asphalt and they often blended in with either the road or the sidewalk. Nowadays, the cycle tracks are mostly made with higher grade asphalt and painted in a very distinct brick red.

Newer two-way cycle track featuring red colored tiles or paint, protective barriers between cyclepath and roadway, and more signage.

- Old-school cycle tracks often used to be nothing more than a section of the sidewalk where cyclist were allowed to ride. Newer cycle tracks tend to feature a much better separation with the road (featuring trees, hedges, railguards, bollards, elevated curbs, etc) and a better visual separation with the adjacent sidewalk.

Two-way cycle track signage.

- There has been a relatively recent proliferation of two-way cycle tracks at one side of the road, typically the side that features the lowest number of intersecting roads. I personally like the two-way cycletracks. Instead of trying to fit in a narrow cycle track or bike lane at each side of the road (like they used to do back in the days), the thinking has now shifted towards providing a wider bi-directional cycletrack, on which you can comfortably ride two or three abreast and change to single-file whenever you encounter cross traffic. A bit like riding on the Eastside Esplanade, the Springwater Corridor, or the bikepath along HWY 26 (from 217 to Sylvan). This type of cycletracks seems to be a good fit for any roads where there is not an ongoing stream of cyclists in both directions. At intersections, cars are reminded of the two-way nature of the cycle track through special signage (see photo).

Bike box and bike lanes in the center of Brussels.

- In the inner city of Brussels, cycle tracks are not very common, or at least not as common as in Amsterdam or other Dutch cities. But they do have painted bike lanes on some busier arterials, which is quite the progress from 20-30 years ago, when Brussels had a very bike-unfriendly reputation among Belgians.

- A couple years ago they introduced bike boxes in Belgium, but I only saw a couple of them in Brussels. The Belgian bike boxes aren’t as pretty and visible as the Portland ones, because they don’t feature any color.

One way street... except for bikes! (Click for larger image)

- One of the best things in Belgium (besides beer, frites, waffles and chocolate) is that cyclists are allowed to ride counter-flow on most one-way streets. That probably sounds nuts to many Americans, but surprisingly, since its introduction in the early 90′s, this policy hasn’t resulted in an increase in head-on collisions. Actually, rather the opposite: drivers tend to drive more carefully and slower when they have to watch for counter-flow bike traffic. And bicyclists have the advantage of being able to get around much easier and faster in the cities.

- Another typical Belgium traffic treatment that I like, is the “no vehicles – except local traffic an bikes” sign. It’s a very common sign in residential neighborhoods, used to reduce cut-through traffic. Cops do occasional stings to enforce these traffic signs, and if you happen to drive through such a neighborhood, without living there or having a valid local destination, they’ll give you ticket. And if you claim that you are on your way to visit a friend, you better know someone living there, because the cop will follow you to make sure you are not making something up. Either way, these signs turn streets in these neighborhoods into de facto “bike boulevards”, even if the average Belgian doesn’t have a clue what that term means.

A Belgian ad for the popular "Blikvanger".

- Finally, one of the craziest, official (!) bike facilities that you’ll see along Belgian cycle tracks is the so-called blikvanger, which translates as either “can catcher” or “eye catcher.” The thing looks like a giant basketball hoop and it’s designed to get kids and teens to dunk their empty soda cans and candy wrappers in while biking by, and help curb roadside littering. The ones that I saw on my bike rides, were all filled with cans, so I guess it’s working.

If you like to see a ton of other great examples of state-of-the-art Belgian bicycle facilities, make sure to check out the Vademecum Fietsvoorzieningen of the Flemish Department of Transportation, which includes complete chapters on cycle tracks and public bike parking (both in .pdf format, featuring lots of photos). Just don’t ask me to translate the whole thing!

Next up: Biking to school – any kids in Belgium still doing that?