Tactile paving

[fanf]

In Britain there is a standard for tactile paving at the start and end of shared-use foot / cycling paths. It uses a short section of ridged paving slabs which can be laid with the ridges either along the direction of the path or across the direction of the path, to indicate which side is reserved for which mode of transport.

Transverse ridges

If you have small hard wheels, like many pushchairs or the front castors on many wheelchairs, transverse ridges are very bumpy and uncomfortable.

If you have large pneumatic wheels, like a bike, the wheel can ride over the ridges so it doesn't feel the bumps.

Transverse ridges are better for bikes

Longitudinal ridges

If you have two wheels and the ground is a bit slippery, longitudinal ridges can have a tramline effect which disrupts you steering and therefore balance, so they are less safe.

If you have four wheels, the tramline effect can't disrupt your balance and can be nice and smooth.

Longitudinal ridges are better for pushchairs

The standard

So obviously the standard is transverse ridges for the footway, and longitudinal ridges for the cycleway.

(I have a followup item with a plausible explanation!)

Comments

How we do it here

[(Anonymous)]

The standard here seems to be (I haven't checked design specifications) Portland Cement Concrete for the pedestrian parts and Bituminous Concrete (blacktop, tarmac, "asphalt") for the cycle parts. Sometimes instead of cast-in-place PCC they use 4x4 or 6x6 concrete pavers.

On the street where my office is located, there's a "cycletrack", and I got to see how this was built. The cycletrack, curbside tree/street furniture RoW, and pedestrian walkway are all built on top of a unitary cast-in-place PCC "bathtub". This is then covered with a layer of blacktop which forms the base layer for the pavers. Once the pavers are installed and locked together with polymeric sand, another layer of blacktop is laid between two stringer courses to make the cycletrack, which is then painted with arrows and cycle icons.