The town of Goes is one of many Dutch places with a raised roundabout for motor traffic, that can be bypassed when you are walking or cycling, on a lower level. At many locations, this is called a “bear pit”, but that doesn’t seem to be a tradition here. Maybe because it is much more recent than the other examples.
An elderly couple cycles at Tiendenplein in Goes, at the bottom of the raised roundabout. The cycle underpass is used by all types of cyclists.I visited the town of Goes last year, because it was one of the 5 finalists to become best cycling city of the Netherlands. Goes didn’t win the title, but the jury and I agreed that it was a town with a very good cycling climate. The town has a circular road that carries most motor traffic around the town centre. This road is the connecting road between the through route, in this case the motorway A256, west of the town, and the access streets people can use to reach the end destinations. A distributor road such as this one is therefore designed to carry a lot of traffic safely and has no other functions. This means there is no parking and there are no end-destinations (at least as few as possible). That also means cycling is separated from it. Just last week, Mark Treasure, chair of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, explained this key principle of Dutch sustainable safe road design in a clear and comprehensive post.
The raised roundabout for motor traffic at Tiendenplein in Goes, with the cycle underpasses. It is a two-lane roundabout (with an added separate bus lane in the foreground). This is considered outdated and dangerous design. (Picture Goes municipality) Number of motor vehicles per day in 2011 at the Tiendenplein roundabout in Goes. (Picture Goes municipality)The intersections in this distributor road are all designed to make them less dangerous. Some are roundabouts, with circular cycleways around them, some are standard intersections with underpasses for cycling. They haven’t always been that way. The raised roundabout at Tiendenplein, that I show you in this post, started as a standard four-arm intersection that was replaced in 1997. This was done because too many accidents happened here. Unfortunately they chose a two-lane roundabout, although much safer than a traditional crossroads, two-lane roundabouts have a bad safely record because weaving from one lane to the other gives a much higher risk of accidents than single lane roundabouts.
The main through routes in Goes with the projected daily motor traffic volumes for 2030. In the red dot the roundabout of this post. (Picture Goes municipality)The roundabout at Tiendenplein has four arms for motor traffic. To the west one gives access to the motorway, to the north and south we find the ring road “Ringbaan-West” and the east arm gives access to the town centre. Because the roundabout is at the west end of the town, and because there are bi-directional cyclepaths on the town-side of the roads, there is no need to cycle to the northwest of the roundabout. That means there are only three arms for cycling. The designers in the 1990s were clever enough to design a T-Junction for cycling at the bottom of the raised roundabout. They didn’t come up with a useless three-arm cycle roundabout as they did in Sint Michielsgestel. It looks much more like the Berenkuil in Utrecht, that also has a T-Junction at the bottom. This may change, however, the town of Goes wants to change this intersection and it may look more like the four-arm cycle roundabout in Arnhem.
The bottom of the roundabout with the cycle T-junction in the centre. The two standing objects and the tiles on the wall of the cycle underpass together form one work of art called ‘Inner Circle’.There is an obligation in the Netherlands to beautify underpasses with works of art. I’ve shown you exceptional examples such as the Silly Walk in Eindhoven, but almost all underpasses have some sort of art work. This roundabout in Goes has a work of art that is appropriately called “Inner Circle”. It was placed in 2003, but it had to be restored in 2015. The tiles in the art work had been damaged by the weather. Artist George Schade was happy with the restoration. The work has got a different feeling now, because other tiles were used than the original tiles that were no longer available. The new tiles have a different size and they have stronger colours. The artist also changed some of the patterns. He said “the work has a better look and feel now, but the original meaning and symbolism have been retained.” ‘Inner circle’ consists of a cylinder, a quarter cylinder, a prism and a beam. The artist said these objects symbolise the regional centre, the social centre, the crossroads and the quarter cylinder, of which the tip points to the town’s main church, represents the spiritual centre.
An aerial picture of the current Tiendenplein. A raised two-lane roundabout for motor traffic and a separate cycle network underneath it. Clearly visible is the red T-junction for cycling in the centre of the roundabout at ground level. (Picture Goes municipality) Detail of the “desired development” from the town’s report in which the plan is reviewed to see if it is in line with town planning and environmental regulations. It shows the T-Junction will be changed into a cycle roundabout, that seems too complicated. (Picture Goes municipality)
The work of art may look different now, but the entire raised roundabout of Tiendenplein in Goes will look a lot different soon. Goes has decided it wants to develop the area north-west of the intersection. A big chain of home improvement supply shops wants to open a mega-store here. A big Chinese restaurant and a few other entrepreneurs want to open new locations as well. That means a new access road to the area must be constructed. Plans have already been made to change the four-arm roundabout into a five-arm roundabout. The council takes this opportunity to make some changes. The late 1990s two-lane roundabout will be changed into a much more modern and safer type of turbo-roundabout. To make the new area accessible for cycling, a new, fourth, bicycle underpass to the north-west will also be constructed. That makes it necessary to change the cycling T-Junction in the centre of the roundabout. Considering the volume of cycling at this location, a standard four-arm crossroads just for cycling would be more than enough. I’ve seen them work with much higher volumes! But unfortunately, the plans reveal the town of Goes chose a different solution. A cycle roundabout seems to have been designed for the bottom of the pit. We know from the Sint Michielsgestel, and the Eindhoven examples, that that can feel like over-engineering for cycling. We can only hope local stakeholders will have told the designers that in time. The end report, from July 2016, on which the council decided to go ahead with this development, shows the cycle roundabout. Hopefully it is not going to be built like that.
Video of the cycling infrastructure of Tiendenplein in Goes.
Goes is a cute Dutch town worth a stop. It is isolated but surrounded by beautiful, flat fields which are surround by the sea.. The sea front (and good beaches) are however a bit far to cycle to for most people and so are any larger towns where a diversity of food, goods and services can be found.
For avid cyclists, cycle to Vlissingen, take the bicycle/pedestrian ferry to Breskens and cycle on a dedicated, perfect cycle path on top of high sand dunes overlooking the sea to Cadzand an Zee. A ride you will never forget! Truly panoramic and spectacular! In the summer bring a bathing suit and go for a swim along the way at one or more of the many life guarded beaches!
The T-junctions under the roundabout reminds me of Stevenage, UK—but done much better. Like Stevenage, the aerial photographs show how cyclists have to take long detours and ramps to avoid the gentle curves of the direct route for motoring. Like Stevenage, it looks very easy to get lost because of all the changes in direction on the cycle paths without being able to see the surroundings. The main difference is that Goes retains and improves its existing cycle network when re-developing an area—instead of just ripping out the cycleways and replacing them with box-store motor car `parks’, which they then graciously let us cycle in…
The cycle roundabout looks quite reasonable, when the visibility is too restricted for a crossroads at moderate approach speed. If that is the issue, then why not make it a turbo roundabout, too? It would be even more complicated as a magic roundabout :-)!
I wonder if you’ll ever make a blog post about the way that urban planning and zoning shapes the way that cycling happens. Not when that was intended from the beginning like Groote Wielen, but when things are redesigned. Do you have big box stores in the Netherlands? I didn’t see any, but I like the fact that I didn’t.
I agree, that roundabout design isn’t useful for cyclists. I wouldn’t even think that a crossroads would need turning lanes for cyclists in that even busier Utrecht location.
There’s absolutely big-box in netherlands, tons. Like everywhere else, they’re located at the fringe of the city along with all the major car focused infrastructure.
No, big box stores aka hypermarkets are banned in the Netherlands since the 1970s unless you’re a entrepreneur of course. This law has to do with this fact: when a supermarket leaves the community, the community falls apart. However, DIY, electronics, furniture (IKEA is the biggest of them) are legalised, because they’re non-food. Unfortunately it can change thanks to the classic liberal party of the VVD that got a law passed in which municipalities can just decide if there’s demand for a hypermarket instead of having to check for its usefulness in “actual regional demand”. Also the devastating force of webshops and “outlet centra” has its impact the small Dutch downtown. Still, the typical small Dutch supermarket still exists, but bigger supermarkets are slowly on the rise while villages are losing their village supermarkets. This wasn’t a process that could be stopped anyway. How are the hypermarkets coming back? At first the AH XL initiated this process with a sort of Walmart, but then way too small to be called a hypermarket. (max. 4000 m2) Now Jumbo has introduced their “Foodmarkt” (max. 6000 m2) which has the size of a hypermarket and they even have their own traiteur which will prepare the food inside the store. However, a Foodmarket only sells food and thus can’t be called a hypermarket and also has to be located in a city center.
BICYCLE DUTCH 
Goes is a cute Dutch town worth a stop. It is isolated but surrounded by beautiful, flat fields which are surround by the sea.. The sea front (and good beaches) are however a bit far to cycle to for most people and so are any larger towns where a diversity of food, goods and services can be found.
For avid cyclists, cycle to Vlissingen, take the bicycle/pedestrian ferry to Breskens and cycle on a dedicated, perfect cycle path on top of high sand dunes overlooking the sea to Cadzand an Zee. A ride you will never forget! Truly panoramic and spectacular! In the summer bring a bathing suit and go for a swim along the way at one or more of the many life guarded beaches!
The T-junctions under the roundabout reminds me of Stevenage, UK—but done much better. Like Stevenage, the aerial photographs show how cyclists have to take long detours and ramps to avoid the gentle curves of the direct route for motoring. Like Stevenage, it looks very easy to get lost because of all the changes in direction on the cycle paths without being able to see the surroundings. The main difference is that Goes retains and improves its existing cycle network when re-developing an area—instead of just ripping out the cycleways and replacing them with box-store motor car `parks’, which they then graciously let us cycle in…
The cycle roundabout looks quite reasonable, when the visibility is too restricted for a crossroads at moderate approach speed. If that is the issue, then why not make it a turbo roundabout, too? It would be even more complicated as a magic roundabout :-)!
I wonder if you’ll ever make a blog post about the way that urban planning and zoning shapes the way that cycling happens. Not when that was intended from the beginning like Groote Wielen, but when things are redesigned. Do you have big box stores in the Netherlands? I didn’t see any, but I like the fact that I didn’t.
I agree, that roundabout design isn’t useful for cyclists. I wouldn’t even think that a crossroads would need turning lanes for cyclists in that even busier Utrecht location.
There’s absolutely big-box in netherlands, tons. Like everywhere else, they’re located at the fringe of the city along with all the major car focused infrastructure.
No, big box stores aka hypermarkets are banned in the Netherlands since the 1970s unless you’re a entrepreneur of course. This law has to do with this fact: when a supermarket leaves the community, the community falls apart. However, DIY, electronics, furniture (IKEA is the biggest of them) are legalised, because they’re non-food. Unfortunately it can change thanks to the classic liberal party of the VVD that got a law passed in which municipalities can just decide if there’s demand for a hypermarket instead of having to check for its usefulness in “actual regional demand”. Also the devastating force of webshops and “outlet centra” has its impact the small Dutch downtown. Still, the typical small Dutch supermarket still exists, but bigger supermarkets are slowly on the rise while villages are losing their village supermarkets. This wasn’t a process that could be stopped anyway. How are the hypermarkets coming back? At first the AH XL initiated this process with a sort of Walmart, but then way too small to be called a hypermarket. (max. 4000 m2) Now Jumbo has introduced their “Foodmarkt” (max. 6000 m2) which has the size of a hypermarket and they even have their own traiteur which will prepare the food inside the store. However, a Foodmarket only sells food and thus can’t be called a hypermarket and also has to be located in a city center.