De Lijn tests anti-slip safety layer on Ghent’s streetcar tracks

In Ghent, the Flemish public transport company De Lijn is testing an anti-slip coating on metal covers and switch rails to make streetcar tracks safer for cyclists. Several media outlets, including the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, are reporting this. De Lijn will now continue monitoring and evaluating the pilot project.

As every city cyclist has already experienced, with or without painful consequences, road covers and switches can become dangerously slippery in rainy weather. Therefore, they have been given a rough anti-slip coating in a few places in the city of Ghent, such as near the City Hall in the historic center.

According to De Lijn, this experiment fits into a larger project. For example, De Lijn previously experimented with half-filling the streetcar tracks in the area that belongs to Emile Braun Square and Catalonia Street. This is precisely because many tracks and switches converge there, which causes many cyclists to fall.

The metal surfaces in the area have also been roughened there to make it less unsafe for cyclists.

Rubber filler doesn’t work

Every year, some 500 cyclists in Ghent end up in the emergency room after falling on the tracks. Just last month, the Travelers’ and Cyclists’ Union issued a report saying that existing remedies, such as a proprietary rubber filler in streetcar tracks there, do not work for the time being—the stuff disappears after only a few months.

In the meantime, the city did take some measures to increase safety. For example, arrows or bicycle icons were placed on the road surface to show cyclists the safest place to ride to cross a streetcar track. Many bollards and obstacles have also been removed near streetcar tracks in recent months.

Furthermore, the report recommends further eliminating high berms and other height differences and making the road layout more “forgiving”—read: softer—so that if you fall, you don’t hurt yourself seriously.