Why Do Successful Traffic Designs from Abroad Often Fail When They Are Brought to China?

credit to Melissa & Chris Bruntlett https://x.com/modacitylife/status/2082366409061900309

The Case of the Dutch Fietsstraat

Over the past few years, Beijing has invested heavily in improving its cycling environment. New bicycle lanes have appeared, existing lanes have been widened, intersections have been redesigned, and various forms of “bicycle priority” signage and pavement markings have become increasingly common.

According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport, by 2024, Beijing had completed 201.5 kilometers of bicycle-priority markings in the central urban districts and Tongzhou. Among these treatments is one idea that will look very familiar to anyone who has cycled in the Netherlands:

Fietsstraat.

But there is a problem. Many drivers in Beijing have absolutely no idea what it means.

What Is a Fietsstraat?

Fietsstraat literally means “bicycle street” in Dutch. The basic idea is very simple: Bicycles are the main users of the street. Cars are allowed, but they are guests.

A typical Dutch fietsstraat is easy to recognize. It often has red pavement, prominent bicycle symbols, low motor-vehicle speeds, and signs carrying the well-known phrase: “Auto te gast” — Cars are guests.

In practice, the street is designed so that motorists understand that they should drive slowly, respect cyclists, and avoid treating the road like a normal car-dominated street. Most Dutch fietsstraten are designed for relatively low motor-vehicle volumes, and many operate in 30 km/h environments. The important point is that a fietsstraat is not simply a sign placed beside an ordinary road. The road itself, the traffic environment and the expected behavior of drivers all work together

Beijing Has Started Using the Same Idea

Beijing has been aggressively improving its cycling network in recent years. The city has introduced bicycle-priority markings, colored pavement, bicycle-specific intersection treatments and other measures intended to give cyclists clearer and more continuous road space. Official plans explicitly emphasize improving cyclists’ right of way and creating bicycle-priority environments.

On some streets, you can now see signs and markings that clearly borrow from the Dutch bicycle-street concept. The message seems straightforward:

Cyclists have priority here. Motorists should treat them with greater care.

At least, that is what the designers intend. But what does the average driver think when they see it? That is where things become interesting.

I Asked Chinese Road Users What They Thought

credit to Melissa & Chris Bruntlett https://x.com/modacitylife/status/2082366409061900309

Recently, I posted about this type of bicycle-priority sign on Xiaohongshu, one of China’s largest social media platforms.

I wanted to know something very simple: Does this sign actually change the way people drive?

The responses were surprisingly consistent. Roughly 90% of the comments said that the sign was essentially useless during everyday driving. Not because people disagreed with bicycle priority. Not because drivers deliberately wanted to ignore cyclists.

The most common reason was much simpler: They did not know what the sign meant.

Some drivers had seen it before but had never been told what they were supposed to do differently.

Should they slow down? Are they allowed to overtake cyclists? Do cyclists have legal priority? Does the sign impose a new speed limit? Are cars still allowed to enter? What happens if a driver ignores it? For many people, none of this is clear.

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“It Only Becomes Useful After an Accident”

One comment appeared again and again in different forms: “It may be useful when the police determine responsibility after an accident, but it doesn’t really affect how people drive beforehand.”

I think this is an important observation.

The real purpose of traffic signs should be to change behavior before a crash happens.

If a sign only becomes meaningful after two road users collide and the police need to decide who was responsible, then something has gone wrong in the communication process.

A driver should understand the message at the moment they see the sign.

If 90% of road users have to search online afterward to find out what it means, the sign is not functioning effectively as a traffic-control device.

The Missing Piece Is Education

This, in my view, is the biggest problem with simply importing a foreign traffic concept. The physical infrastructure may arrive. The sign may arrive. The pavement marking may arrive. But the education surrounding it does not necessarily arrive with it.

Think about how drivers learn ordinary traffic signs.

Before obtaining a driver’s license, Chinese drivers study them for the written driving test, commonly known as Subject One (科目一).

Drivers learn:

• what a stop sign means;
• what a no-entry sign means;
• what different lane arrows mean;
• who has priority at different intersections.

The signs work partly because millions of drivers have been explicitly taught what they mean.

But if a completely new type of bicycle-priority sign suddenly appears on the street without being incorporated into driver education, how exactly is a driver supposed to know what to do?

They cannot be expected to understand a Dutch traffic concept simply by looking at a bicycle symbol painted on the road.

A Sign Alone Is Not a Traffic System

This was also reflected in the suggestions people left under my Xiaohongshu post.

Some argued that these streets should have camera enforcement, so drivers who violate bicycle-priority rules face an actual consequence.

Others suggested that the concept should be included in Subject One of the driver’s license examination, so every new driver learns what a bicycle-priority street means before getting behind the wheel.

Others wanted clearer signs explaining the expected behavior directly—for example:

Slow Down

Yield to Cyclists

Do Not Overtake Cyclists

rather than assuming that everyone already understands the concept of a fietsstraat.

These suggestions point to the same issue.

If a city wants to introduce a new traffic rule or a new type of street, it may also need supporting measures such as:

• driver education;
• clear legal definitions;
• road design that naturally encourages slower driving;
• enforcement;
• cameras where appropriate;
• consistent pavement markings;
• public information campaigns.

The sign is only one component.

Importing the Sign Is the Easy Part

There is nothing wrong with learning from the Netherlands. In fact, there is a great deal Chinese cities can learn from Dutch cycling design. The Netherlands has spent decades developing streets where cycling is safe, convenient and normal.

The problem begins when we assume that importing the visible part of a successful system will automatically reproduce the same result.

A Dutch fietsstraat works because motorists already operate within an environment where bicycle streets, low-speed streets and bicycle-priority infrastructure are familiar concepts.

In Beijing, putting a similar sign beside a road does not magically give millions of drivers that same background knowledge.

And that is exactly what my informal Xiaohongshu survey revealed. Most people were not rejecting the rule. They simply did not know the rule existed. That is a very different problem.

Conclusion

The lesson from the fietsstraat example is actually quite simple: We cannot import a foreign traffic sign and expect it to solve a traffic problem by itself.

If we introduce a new concept, we also have to introduce the knowledge required to understand it. That may mean changing driving-school materials.

It may mean adding the rule to the driver’s license examination. It may mean clearer road markings. It may mean enforcement cameras. It may mean explaining the concept to the public before installing hundreds of signs. Otherwise, we risk creating a strange situation:

Traffic engineers know exactly what the sign means. The people actually driving past it every day do not.

And if that happens, even a very good traffic design can become little more than a piece of street decoration.