Here in the US, there's been a lot of noise made about those 737 Max planes crashing. But think about this: the 737 Max carries 230 people at full capacity. In 2022, traffic fatalities in the US were 42,514. That's 185 PLANES FULL OF PEOPLE, or 3.5 planes going down every week. The Dutch have shown how to make safe, highly maintainable roads and bike paths, but in the US we don't even think about how bad these statistics are. I was born in the wrong country, I swear.
You could move. 42 thousand people is an insane statistic. Even on a population as large as the US. Thats about three times as many per capita as the Netherlands, and over 50% higher than the European average. Which includes southern and eastern europe where traffic laws are mere suggestions and drivers licenses come free with a tray of cigarettes.
In The Netherlands we actually investigate car crashes like plane crashes to see if the road design could have lead to the accident and if so it usually gets changed.
I like that you are Scottish. Beautiful country. We went to Scotland on a holiday and drove all over. And saw lots of cyclists that summer. Now to us Dutch the Scottish roads do not favour cycling at all: high speeds and winding roads are very bad combinations for cycling. Yet people still did, as the land is simply stunning. So I immediately thought that there would be great opportunities for Scotland to attract some serious bike tourism... if they'd just get their heads round it. See we have these recreational bike paths here in NL made from crushed sea shells. Very cheap to make, very low budget in maintenance and very smooth to ride on. Make some long paths, say from Inverness to Skye, or a round trip, connecting several points of interest but separate from big roads, and you'd have an instant hit. Do make sure you can buy food and drinks along the way and pass some B&B's and you're right on point. Most difficult point is only to convince the land owners to cooperate.
On my first trip to the Netherlands (many years ago) I was stunned to see a mum pedalling past the front window on the school run...with the kids strapped to two old chairs fixed to the front of a bakfiets. So much more sensible than around here, where all the roads are completely gridlocked at school time with mummies driving their kids to the school gates in order to avoid them being run over by all the other mummies driving their kids to the school gates.
First the positives not mentioned in the video. The Delta works encompass all the country. All sea and riverward dunes and dikes are on "delta height" now. Also the Afsluitdijk (pre WW2) and the Noordoostpolder (during WW2, a lot of shot down English pilots could hide in the man made swamp) are worth mentioning. The Delta works cost more money than the Apollo project to put men on the moon, and it was just as complicated. An engineer told me that even some new maths had to be invented to do it. All sciences, applied or theoretical were busy with it from the fifties to the eighties. And the project is still ongoing (has been for a thousand years). Now the Afsluitdijk is made higher and stronger with stronger pumps to pump out the water from the IJsselmeer. Why? Because of climate change. Then the negatives: Because of post ice age isostatic depression, oxydation of peat and sea level rise, we will eventually lose the battle. But that will take a century or two. Then, we can proudly say that we kept nature at bay for 1200 years and did everything we possibly could. But, we are a stubborn breed. We fought the much larger British at sea five times (and lost half the time) and partially that was during our bloody war of independence that lasted 80 years. A world record still unbroken. With only 2 million people against the world's superpower Spain at the time (and sometimes France England and Münster joined Spain against us unfortunately). Not for nothing the heraldic saying on the weapon of the Netherlands is "Je Maintiendrai" (I will endure).
all cycle paths started in the 1970s, more and more people were killed in traffic, especially children. after extreme protests, cities started experimenting with good cycling infrastructure
I lived in Glasgow for years , and I really tried to commute to work by bike but it was mission impossible😉. Here we grow up riding bikes, learning the rules of the road at school. Most of us ride a bike and drive a car and therefor we know how vulnerable we are on the bike. It's a transition that takes time, and it helps a lot that our country is super flat. There are cities in the UK like Cambridge that are getting there and I truly believe that having students helps massively as they benefit the most from a "free" ride.
We don't know any beter than to use the bike to go somewhere, we grew up with bikes since age 4 never thought about the environment or mentality. We just ride bikes, it's in our dna😉🧡
In the UK the infrastructure just isn't there, and making a few bikepaths where motorists and cyclists keep crossing into each other just leads to animosity between both parties, imagine my horror when the tour de france start was in the UK a few years back (think it was 2017 ish) and i saw the teams cycling along the shoulder on the motorway (for practice i assume) and every one thought that was a good idea with cars flying by at 100+ kph 😧
2:55 late 1960's 1970.. residents of every city where fed up with people getting hit by the then favoured cars. When a governemnt worker lost a child to a fatal accident, he wrote an open letter to a main newspaper, and it spread like wildfire. Everywhere groups where founded, and collectively protested against the "Child murders"by car drivers. The demanded safe streets in cities for their children, protests became bigger and bigger, and then came the oil crisis, carr free sundays, and finally governements came through. Cities where built like USA cities and like in Germany..carfriendly. Cities like Groningen divided their innercity in mega blocks that didn't allow through traffic, but passage for bicycles. Store owners where against.. customers would not come if cars aren't allowed in town anymore.. Didn't realising cars dion't do the shopping, people do, and more people can fit in a city if you remove the cars, it worked, shops are still in the city and the town is carfree, alwmost 50 years later, and now it it the most walkable, clean air city in the world. And the most quiet, you can actually hear birds sing and people chat when walking there.
1. It's small, flat and has an insanely high population density. Ideal conditions for a biking and public transport infrastructure to lift off. 2. The country was born out of necessity for political powers to collaborate to fight for its independency. This egalitarian, collaborationists consensus culture called the "polder model" you still find everywhere in daily society and really helps to get stuff done without being stuck in a political fight for too long.
Main reason for bikes are our small distances. I live in a suburb in Rotterdam. I work in the centre of the city and it takes me 15 minutes. It takes me 30 minutes to Delft and 50 minutes to Den Haag. Waiting for a bus takes 10 minutes.
Story i was told as a kid about why our infrastructure is so good these days is that after WW2 when we were rebuilding, the stuff we did was all kinda meh quality because our government wasn't too happy to spend money for obvious reasons, so a few years later (trough democracy etc) the government eventually did acknowledge the fact that stuff was meh & then to most people's surprize (we didn't know they had that sort of money as we were still getting squeezed a bit under the pretense of "we just had war") paid some Americans an obscene amount of money to make us a few fancy highway junctions for the main highway of the country, that within a year was actually completely torn down because it was so terrible.. 🤷♂😂 They replaced it with a Dutch design that seemed much better on paper and did work much better in practise, to this day, which lead the government to the realization that they are better off making use of our 'dutch ingenuity' instead of bring in foreigners to fix the infrastructure problems we had at the time, so (also in an effort to make amends a bit for the money thing) they just made a pretty sizable arm of the government dedicated to infrastructure, ocean defense, etc etc. Poured a LOT of money into it & then hired thousands of people. As we can all see a few decades later it was a good call to spend that money, now we're pretty much a "model infrastructure" for most of the world 👍 Infrastructure spending has gone down over time but a few years ago the government gave itself a big pile of cash again to start upgrading all ocean defenses for the next 100 years or something, so it's going to continue like this i guess, in a way i suppose infrastructure is one of our newest commodities, among the many we had already 😉
The thing about using the cycle paths, you don't really have traffic jams with cyclists, not easily anyway, so even if 100 cyclists use a path daily, they won't show up like a line of cars would. The cycle path would also need to be well designed. There are incredibly badly designed cycle paths out there that are actually more dangerous than no cycle path at all. This is one of the reasons some cyclists in the UK and US (probably elsewhere as well, but I know about specific groups in the UK and US) oppose cycle paths; they've been burned by bad paths before, and cost cutting, endless debate about doing it at all, compromises about the design to appease drivers etc, mean the good and safe design almost never gets built. So if a cycle path is unsafe it make sense that cyclists would rather avoid it. And of course, the problem with a cycle path (or any other path or road really) is that it needs to go somewhere. Just building a single path (or just a few) doesn't really do much. You need a network or paths and roads that connect many places with each other. If you only have one road from A to B, but you need to go from C to D, that one road is a bit useless to you, and you're not going to use it, even if you would love to drive on a road instead of over a grassy field. Same with a single (or only a few) cycle paths, if none of them go where you need to go, you're not going out of your way to cycle on the path. Especially that last bit gets missed easily I find, cyclists in the Netherlands always have a place on the road, whether that is a separated track, or a lane, or if it's a very quiet and slow road a shared road for all, you can cycle everywhere. There is always a cycle path no matter where you need to go, you don't have to think about it. Everything is connected. Without a network it's hard to use bicycles as transport, but at the same time, you need to start somewhere. A single cycle path isn't really a network, not yet anyway.
After WW2 the country had to be build up again. People had no money for cars. So when the new road design started, Bike lanes were implemented in the design. Cheap and safe transport .
We work together, but in Britain people like to doff their caps to someone who is perceived to be intelligent but only has more status like Reece Mogg. The Dutch aren’t impressed by toffs😂 and work for a greater good. Brits want to be on top and they don’t care how they get there
Its only in the bigger citys where public transport is good, in most smaller places there is nearly notting of public transport, and you will need a car , or willing to bike 5 km plus to get somewhere
No, it hasn’t always been this way. With the economic growth after WII the ownership and use of cars was increasing similarly to anywhere else in Europe. We even filled in some canals to be able to accommodate all these cars in some cities. Due to an increase in traffic accidents and deaths, especially amongst children, people started protesting in the 70’s and demanded more room for children to play and saver cycle infrastructure. The municipalities and government listened which lead us on the path to where we are today. Edit: this was mentioned in the video as well, I hadn’t gotten that far when you asked the question 😊 Being such a densely populated country we need save and efficient alternative modes of transport. Otherwise we would be in constant gridlock. Mainly in inner cities car use is discouraged and most videos on cycling in NL focus on those urban areas. We still have a lot of car traffic though, despite our frequent use of a bike. We have more cars per capita compared to the UK for instance (both just below European average).
History has a prominent role. From the beginning of the Dutch republic , culture rappidly changed being the first breaking witn royal hiërarchic hegenomy in Europe. It resulted in the golden age which wouldn't have occured if it didn't fight for it's independence. Can you imagine that during the golden-age there was no analfabetisme and women were relatively for that time independent. In cities houses were build for workers. (hence the still existing smaller houses in between the historic canals) This Dutch society brought many inventions in art, science, ingeneering and so on. (like the invention of the fire-brigade that led to preserve so much architecture of the 16th and 17th century; while other European cities and capitals had their 'great fire'. Thus f.i. Amsterdam has not the late 18th and 19th-century 'Grandeur' that became Paris, London or London. (London and Paris were even smaller than Amsterdam of that time, can you imagine ? What's left of all this is still the 'republican' fact that the Dutch are relatively an independent bunch. (Even the King is not really a king, he is still a descendent of the republican 'father' of the Netherlands. Stadholder (or stateholder) William of Orange. Fun fact : king William of Orange of England was in fact stadholder of the republic. He crossed the North-sea with a few hundred ships and a few thousend soldiers to restore protestantism in England (surprisingly didn't have to fight, he was WELCOMED by the English. King William then used his Dutch experience to manage England to become a greater power than the Dutch republic was before.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Amsterdam was never larger than either London or Paris. The other thing is that William of Orange (or Stadtholder Willem III) was indeed welcomed by the protestant people of the UK, but not by the catholics. He is still a hero to the Northern Irish protestants, but for catholic Irish he is seen as a massmurderer. It is true that the reign of William moved the center of financial power from Amsterdam to London.
@@jeanpierreviergever1417 you'll have to look it up , this part of my bubble, Amsterdam at the top of it's prosperity was indeed, be it for a relatively short period bigger than London (before the great fire) or Paris. So before the late 18th and 19th-century extention of both cities. Look it up. the second part of my bubble seems to have your approval. Thank you.
Yes, we were the first to say goodby to a king with a declaration of independence. But then we created the stateholdership that was in fact hereditary... And from 1806 we were a kingdom, again. Our king was french. And somehow this stateholderfamily managed to get back in 1814 and become a real royal family. Btw, the Dutch king is a real king, truly. But not a descendent of stateholder Willem I. And for the present day: the Netherlands are getting as mad as the USA in 2016, voting for a far right politician. Yes, our biggest party is a non-democratic party. It has only one member who decides everything in the party. So far, so good for being an independent bunch... Sheep seems to fit better.
The bike infrastructure wasn't always so well spread out, in the 1950s and 60s road and city design was also very car centric. But unlike other countries we did see that it needed to change. The cities started to become gridlocked, dangerous, noisy and polluted places and the emphasis on developing other modes of transport started to grow. But don't think that the car plays a minor role in the Netherlands of today, it still takes the largest share of people movements, but just not everywhere. Larger cities like Amsterdam, Utrecht or Rotterdam see more people taking the bike or public transport as it is quicker and more convenient than searching for a parking space, our city centers aren't 50% parking space like downtown in American cities, our cities are full of life not only at office hours but especially after those hours. The road network intended for motorised traffic is also very well designed and maintained, take a drive in an average American city and then in the Netherlands and you will discover that the smaller roads actually can handle more traffic than the square maze of stroads in American cities. Visiting the UK a lot, and also driving there I have to say that the road network in the UK isn't only cyclist unfriendly, it is largely obsolete. Traffic on major trough roads is funnelled trough populated areas and cities and ring roads around these are more the exception than the rule. The motorway network has large gaps causing lots of lock ups on existing motorways and local roads. And I have seen streets in cities where you need a Land Rover to get trough the potholes. It's not all misery however as there are lovely country roads as well to drive my old MX-5 around, you just don't must be in a hurry.
If more people go on a bike,the mentality changes for ever!Just like the mentality changed when all people could bye a car!Those two mentality's has followed echt other up.Like they say it in the video.But the mentality to go more on your bike than in your car has a far better future.And its cheaper,a very present character of the people in the Netherlands.Get everything cheap.
I think the main way to implement this type of cycling culture isn't just to throw down the infrastructure. A government really need to double down on it. Proper cycling propaganda campaign, lots of education, and prop up a good domestic bike industry. This all needs to be properly adapted to the situation in the country. The main issue is do we see this campaign working in today's world and what government would go through such lengths?
I was born in 1987 in Rotterdam. Cycling is a big thing in the country. We even have this fake cycling drivers licences we give to kids aged around 10-11 years old. I have even given the exams myself in the past, it's a fun day haha!
What ... it's not fake. I'm a teacher myself and we take safety very serious. We had to fail a few pupils who misbehaved on the bikes. They had to the test over, and behaved much better and safer.
"...being egalitarian to actually work together and do things... ...well-designed but it's through the Dutch people and their mentality... ...as just their intelligence, their education... ...great engineers" Well, you've actually just summed up a bunch of key things to be proud of, though here it is concerned to be normal.👴😉😁 However, it's amazing that surely not the whole combination, but probably little of them are common in most other countries. Is it because the Dutch had to "make their country", and the only way to do it is to work together, while in other countries the emphasis is more on individual prosper?👴🤔🤷♂
this is how the movement started and it happened in Amsterdam not in Rotterdam ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YY6PQAI4TZE.html and it went on like this 3.35 starts the report of the demonstrations ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XuBdf9jYj7o.html enjoy
I fear, next gen Dutch will be way more obese. Although next gen is cycling as well, it’s all electronic supported E-bikes. The electrical support takes away the cardio build up during cycling.
Trust me, the Bike Nation defeated us a long time ago. Planet of the Bikes. I ain't a coward but I won't *uck with the Bikes (are they hearing me ... ?) H-E-L-P
the most places are well design like Rotterdam The Hague, Rossendaal, Tilburg, and Breda, but Amsterdam is a absolute fail in traffic design traffic has no space and that can cost many dangerous accident and very safety moments
The bikelane map is a bit weird because we in the Netherlands live close together on a flat bit of land. Almost all nature here is gone. It's hardly impossible to not hear cars even in the most remote bits of terrestrial nature. Germany and Belgium seem to have much more nature and thus way less of a reason to fill that with bikelanes. The Utrecht bit seems like it's impressive but it would be much healthier if you lived on cycling distance from the place you work or go to school. Every minute sat in a car or train is basically the same for you health wise. Applying the same infrastructure to less densely bit of land doesn't automatically improve it..
in the Netherlands most people have 2 bicycle and some even have 3 or more 1 for travel for example to work or supermarked 1 for going out a cheap version caus it can get dammage or stolen or if your party was realy good you might forget were you parked it XD and some got a 3th one for sport light builded versions like the use in the tour de france, Alpe d'HuZes , or can even be a mountain bike for off-road
I have 2 bikes at home, one for me and a spare for visitors so we can bike to the beach together. Then I have one at my parents so I can get around town there, and usually when I get a new job I will buy a second hand bike there and park it at the train station so I can commute to the office a bit faster. So thats 4 bikes in total. Definitely worth it.
Lots of people also have bikes in different cities. Myself as well. I live in Den Bosch where I have a bike, but I frequent Eindhoven a lot, so I have a bike there as well at the train station. When I studied in Amersfoort I even had a 3rd bike over there as well to get me from the train station to the campus.
@@justmandy6572 So the answer to what happened hundreds of years ago is filling the country with people that have no intention to integrate, ever? There is not enough space, there are not enough homes, there is not enough money. Thinking that slowing down immigration equals racism says a ton about your intelligence.
That's exactly the difference you mentionned. When they want to implement something like that in the U.K. This means that the gouvernment wants to implement something. In the Netherlands it's the population that demanded this to be implemented in the 70's (Stop de kindermoord = Stop the child murder).
This was a huge change. I did not have to deal with something being implemented, I was born in 1965 and just learned how to ride a bike, just like everyone. When I went to highschool I had to bycicle 17 kilometers to get there, and there was no question any parent would bring us. I only was allowed to take the bus in december and january, because of the weather. So we just rode a bike, and it didn't hurt me. It is really common to see people of all ages riding a bike. It is healthy and convenient, I really like this culture.
I'd recommend the not just bikes channel. This creator has also lived in a lot of places around the world and he has a bunch of very insightful and appreciative videos of our infrastructure and videos, deep diving into history as well as pointing out impressive feats in planning and design. I've learned a lot from him and it made me appreciate it even more. youtube.com/@notjustbikes?si=YJTX4RWifmvNTydp
Yes, there are more bicycles than people. I’m on my own and I own 4 bicycles. And no. Amsterdam isn’t the standard of the Netherlands. Neither is my home town Utrecht, although it will soon pass both Amsterdam and Copenhagen on the ‘copenhagenize index’. About every midsize Dutch town or city perceives better than any international or large national alternative.
Amsterdam is always used in these videos but it has objectively the worst bike infrastructure of any city I have ever visited. Most of the center doesnt have any distinction between pedestrian, bike and car lanes, its complete chaos, with stoned tourists everywhere.
It's simple: "Necessity is the mother of invention." I'm a born and bred Dutchman who now lives in inner city Amsterdam. I'm retired now, but I spent some decades living in Australia working there. Australian cities are just the same as Canadian or US cities, and are the same car-oriented urban nightmare as in any city in those 2 countries. And the public transport is inadequate in all of them. I lived the same lifestyle, I loved my car, and it was constantly used - to get wo work (spending 3 hours of my day in slow traffic ), to get to the supermarket, to chauffeur kids to this and that and to go out in the evenings etc... But now, living back in Amsterdam, I do all those things, more quickly and more pleasntly, more cheaply, less stressfully and causing less environmental damage using my legs (mainly), sometimes my bike or with public transport that is ALWAYS THERE. The town planning makes it possible ...it's madness to drive a car to the supermarket where I live because there's no car park 😂. My whole pleasant lifestyle I don't even notice until Aussie friends visit me then they are AMAZED to learn that I don't even have a valid driving license anymore! What for? To me the answer is simple - we do it like this in NL because we HAVE TO! Your population density figures say it all. All these people per square kilometer here living close quarters, literally on top of one another needs good city planning and public service or it would be an unlivable chaos. And unhealthy.. In public transport, but also sewerage, water suply, garbage disposal, everything! I often sit at 9am peak hour, here inner Amsterdam, and watch the swarms of poeple RIDING THEIR BIKES to work on the busy road I live on.....I like to imagine how it would be if all those cyclists instead do as they do in Melbourne and drive a motor car to work. It would be a horror scene. So please don't be too amazed or impressed. Just like the even more amazing dykes that keep the sea from flooding us, the bicycle system is there and good simply because it's NECESSARY to enable an extremely high density population to live. So stop asking WHY 😂. - we have no choice.
In most other countries cyclists are considered a nuisance by cardrivers. Part comes from the fact that the infrastructure forces the slower cyclist to maneuvre through the faster car traffic. In the Netherlands they are far more seperated. But also important: every cardriver in the Netherlands also a cyclist and rides on his bike regurarely. Therefor they can easier anticipate other cyclists and show more consideration to other cyclists. Which is not the case in lot of other countries.
What also helps in The Netherlands for cycling is a law. It simply states that if a car and a bike get in to an accident together, the driver of the car has to proof it's innocense. That way the cyclists are protected and cars will think twice before turning without looking. So even if the cyclist is clearly in the fault, it is still up to the driver of the car to proof that. That is the only law in the Netherlands (for as far as I know) what makes you not innocent until proven guilty. But it makes cycling a lot more save. Add on to the bikepaths, we even have build bridges, specialy for cycling. No cars (exept in emergencies ofcourse) are allowed on them. To cross, highways, railways or water. Or all 3 of them together. Steep clim for a flat country cyclist but it's a good training before work and after.
I find the Florida comparison a bit dumb to be honest.. the reason the houses are small is not only the infrastructure but also population density. There are enough smaller places with big houses in the Netherlands with still great cycling paths.
A lot of changes to a less car-dependent infrastructure hasn't been easy in the Netherlands either. It's been a long fight, and it continues until today. Being somebody who uses bicycles as well as a car (if necessary), what's not mentioned in this video, is that driving a car in the Netherlands has generally improved over the years with the improvement of the infrastructure for other modes of transport. If we had gone on the way we were going, the economy would have collapsed long ago as efficient transport of people and goods would no longer have been possible. Curious to see what changes I will see in the remaining time of my life, here in the Netherlands, as well as in the rest of the world.
Good summary, also keep in mind that the 70s are 50 years ago. The point is more to get a constant momentum and framework going so that change will be cumulative over time. Also regular maintenance is a big part too, as well as connecting the various projects together on a higher level. Things like always thinking about public transport if you build new neighbourhoods.
it came about because if people who had visions of how the country should operate but actually put into action and completed what they set out to do.secondly its a small flat country making it easier to complete major projects
While the Netherlands has been very good at creating connections, traffic slowdowns do exist in many places. To reduce emissions, there have been talks to bring down the number of flights from #Schiphol, specifically reducing its hub function. In my opinion, it would make more sense to tax airplanes on the basis of emissions, including full exemptions for planes that filter out the worst of kerosine's pollutants. But other airports need to do the same. #heathrow #gatwick #frankfurt #charlesdegaulle
The public transport network originates from before cars were commonplace. Besides horse and carriage, bikes and trains and streetcars (trams) were the only way for people to get around. A lot of cities in other countries have dismantled their public transport infrastructure and neglected their longer distance rail networks. Those are mainly used for freight and people drive cars on the highway. In the Netherlands, we managed to stop most cities from dismantling their rail networks and building highways through town centers. There were plans to do this in the 1950s and 60s, and make our cities look like American cities with highways and overpasses in urban centers, but they were thankfully never implemented in most places. The reason the inter-city rail network is so developed is that it is simply not possible to move all the people on their daily commutes on highways because of the population density. Millions of people that would otherwise be stuck in traffic jams for hours use the rail network every day, to commute to work and visit their family. There is a scientific law in traffic planning, which states that a commute by car will always take exactly as long as the next fastest alternative. If a route is faster by car, more people will take the car, until the traffic jams get so long that it is no longer faster than biking, walking or taking public transport. So, by making the alternatives faster and having enough capacity, we also make the road trips faster for car users. And the massive amount of time this saves everyone makes it economically very profitable for the country to heavily invest in upgrading rail infrastructure and bike paths. People who spend longer commuting, especially stuck in traffic jams, are less productive, less healthy and less happy. Which is bad for the economy. And we like money. In the past couple years, billions of euros have been invested in renovating and rebuilding old train stations, building high speed rail lines and expanding the amount of parallel rails on many tracks. Talks have also started again about a rail line through Flevoland to connect the north and east of the country to the west faster, which was originally planned with the creation of the Zuiderzee polders but never realized. And the bike path network is constantly being improved on. About 10 or 20 years ago, the entire network was replanned and the old system of road signs and fixed tracks was replaced with a system of interconnected numbered points. So, if you want to bike from one city to the other and have a stress-free ride through nature with low car density, you can go online or buy a map and plan a route from your front door to the nearest point, and from there follow the signs to the next numbered point, lets say from 17 to 31 to 32 to 54 and then you are at your destination without having to memorize the entire route or constantly look at your map. You only have to memorize or write down a few numbers. Its very convenient. Safety of bike lanes and specifically places where bikes and cars intersect, are constantly being monitored. If there are too many accidents or near misses at a particular intersection, the government is legally obliged to make it safer, and if they dont, people can sue the municipality. As for the "sacrifice" of smaller homes, these houses shown in the video are probably about 130-150m2 living area, which is quite large, plenty of space for a family with 4 kids. More than enough. You can go much smaller without sacrificing any comfort. I live in a 100m2 4 bedroom house and yeah sure the bedrooms are small, but what do you do in there besides sleep and store clothes anyway? Its just more space which means more time spent cleaning. I wouldnt want to have to clean an American-sized home. The port of Rotterdam became so large, that we ran out of space for more docks. So we naturally had to build an entire new section of it out at sea. The part that sticks out of the coastline was constructed pretty recently, on artificial islands out on the shallows of the North Sea. It didnt exist a couple decades ago. Its one of the few man-made structures actually large enough to be seen from space, unlike the Chinese wall. From Schiphol you can take a train to Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht or Rotterdam and be there in half an hour or less. Its convenient if you need to catch a flight, parking at the airport is very expensive. The train station is located underground underneath the airort, and is currently undergoing major renovations, so there may be some delays, and crowding on the platforms. And I just want to say, love your accent.
in the Netherlands we keep adding more and more bike lines, and we keep improving said bike lanes. What was considered a great bike lane lets say 20 years ago, could be seen as flawed as they have been used for a while and anything wrong with said design is studied.
Okay, so some of the reason for the different responses to pro-bike measures and pro-public transport in the UK or other countries is in the Netherlands this was done because the population demanded it. So not top-down but the other way around. I think in most other European countries this is also the case.
We do have a lot of bikes here, but the number of bikes we are supposed to have grows per video. In reality bikes do get recycled or sold and shipped out by containers full every day. We still have a lot but it can never be 23 million
I own three bikes at the moment, sometimes four. Two at home, one for me and one for visitors so we can get around town or go to the beach without having to pay for car parking. Then one at my parents house so I can get around town there. And then if I work near a train station I get a bike to commute to the office instead of taking the bus. Everyone else I know owns at least one bike and people usually have a spare, or an old busted up bike, in their shed. 23 million seems pretty low, that means theres a bunch of people who dont own any bikes driving their cars everywhere to make up for all the people who own multiple bikes.
Car drivers also despise SOME cyclists in the Netherlands, too. City cycling is like a kind of survival run if you're in a hurry. This devolves people into running red lights, moving left and right quickly to get around obstacles. Yet, those same car drivers can be those same cyclists, just on a different day. So, they get angry, but they generally don't escalate into demanding changes. #cyclingculture
Had to endure a cycling holiday through NL as a kid. We went from Amsterdam to Enkhuizen, ferry to friesland and from there worked our way down to southern Limburg to the german Belgian border. This is a long way of saying,...... I hated biking more than 5 km (and my parents) ever since
