The Dutch Solution for Safer Sidewalks - Continuous Sidewalks

I watched a cyclist come within inches of getting run down by a motorist who decided to use the flimsy-bollard protected bike lane as their personal traffic dodging, high speed turn lane this morning. Which once again had me thinking, there must be a better way.

This video shows how the Netherlands makes their streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists through the use of continuous sidewalks. Instead of sidewalks ending at the curb to give way to the street, the sidewalk continues across the roadway and the roadway yields to it. The sidewalk maintains height and uses different surface materials, forcing cars to slow and yield to those using the sidewalk.

This video explores the basic concept of these safer sidewalks that are used everywhere in the Netherlands, but extremely rare (or poorly implemented) in other countries. This is an important part of the sustainable safety / vision zero efforts of the Netherlands to make streets safer for vulnerable road users.