A letter to Åbo Underrättelser: learning from Freiburg for better cycling

I wrote a little letter to the editors of Åbo Underrättelser concerning Turku / Åbos cycling policy. They translated it into Swedish (my swedish is not so god that I can do more then read the newspaper).

But here is the English original:

To the editors of Abo Underrättelser,,

In general there is a good cycling infrastructure in Abo – in my hometown Freiburg about 27% of all voyages are done by bike. We have achieved this through a variety of measures such as giving cyclists the first place in the queue at the traffic lights.
But for this we we have good solution: cyclists can pass the cars and wait in front of them.
This improves safety  for both drivers especially for trucks, as the chance of any person in a dead spot is reduced and it improves the feeling of safe cycling.
The costs are minimal: Painting the roads like this can be done when they are painted anyway and it usually reduces the space for cars by about 3 – 4 meters.

Yours Sebastian Müller

Most people from Freiburg probalby know that the picture was taken at the intersection of Eschholzstrasse and Lehenerstrasse.