Removing a motorway to bring back the original waterway [445] 

I hope we do this soon with feminism. It had its run now it's time to stop the madness!

it wasnnt a mistake, water is ugly

@Hans Zandt Your comment stands proof that Feminism still has ways to go

@@hirondelle8734 modern feminism isnt about equality

@@anselmbachmobil5064 modern feminism isnt about equality

I'm a millennial but I feel the same way. The dramatic music really gets on my nerves.

MeatNinja being a millennial probably makes you more likely to dislike that kind of editing

I want an MLG dubstep montage edit of this now

And the repetition... And the terrible information density... Argh 🤦‍♂️ I grew up watching lots of them, but nowadays as an adult I can barely stand them.

Absolutely. These days I find that you can learn far more about any given subject by spending ten minutes reading the Wiki than by watching an hour long Discovery or National Geographic documentary. The American style of documentary making, with 'recaps' every ten minutes to accommodate their endless advertisement breaks, has spread worldwide so that even formerly intelligent providers such as the BBC have been forced to adopt it. Great if you have the attention span of a gnat, not so good if you actually want to understand a topic.

As a Utrechter I can say that we are very happy this project was completed this month!

I spent a few days there a couple of years ago, what a beautiful place. Holland is the best you are very lucky.

Presumably if it had been finished the whole town centre would have just filled the whole place up with cars constantly, sidewalks would have shrunk it would have been crowded and noisy and dangerous. Its a shame in a way all that time money and effort to do something major just change back again, but on principle it's it's good the complete motorway was prevented in the first place.

@@leifcian4288 I suppose they never needed another freeway in the first place, that's why they could easily kill it... It's a small city of merely half a million residents, with plenty of peripheral freeways hugging the historic center. It's sad to see so much land wasted for a canal (as if there's not enough water...) instead of redevelopment, but it was their choice.

@@jmi5969 well its very subjective to say its wasted, its historical open space that provides pleasant aesthetics and breaks up the dense hustle bustle of the town centre. There could also be various activities going on around the canal periodically as well, in my city there is an old boat that seems to be permanently in the same place as restaurant...

Explaining counter-intuitive systems to voters is reaaally difficult. So you can have the objectively right stance but if your voters don't understand your stance then you'll never stay in office long enough to implement it.

No! This is a complete misunderstanding of the situation. 50 years ago, they built a motorway around the historical centre (in the canal) so that cars could bypass it. The city grew in those 50 years. Now they built a motorway around the city and removed cars from the now enlarged city centre.

no, you used circular reasoning, no one misunderstood anything. Roads dont fix traffic, they never have, thats simply a fact proven by all examples everywhere. @@acceleratedsloth

They forgot to report on the anguish of so many having to do business in Utrecht standing in line in their cars for so many hours because of this. I would be interested to know if jobs moved from the city center to elsewhere because of this project in Utrecht. I honestly do not know the answer or wether that would be good or bad. That is a political debate.

Is there any follow-up regarding traffic? Did the removal of the short highway increase travel time or did it barely make a difference?

Ronald de Rooij went there last year on holiday, even went down the canals plus the town centre no lack of shops or businesses it was booming busy.

I think compared to the 1970's much of the daily motor traffic has been moved to a ring highway surrounding the city center more broadly (so not the highway you saw on this video, but a much bigger ring). The old city center of Utrecht today has become much less attractive to cars because of strict rules and better alternative roads going around it. Also underground parking facilities mean that tourists and day-travellers don't take their car into the city.

What is your hometown, Paolo? And what is the exact project they are, unfortunately, executing now?

+Mario Hendriks that monumental building was indeed demolished for the shopping mall. Today we cannot imagine something like that to happen.

+Peter Harris that is really shocking! I hadn't see destruction on that scale yet!

And it is happening more and more. In the centre of Zaandam, a town not far from Amsterdam, the old canal that got filled in 1858, was opened back up again in 2011, allthough be it in a far more 'contemporary' style than it originally was. Even though the canal has been filled again, the name of the street still gives away a history from long ago, as the street still bears the name 'Filled Canal' (Gedempte Gracht) In Purmerend, my hometown, somewhat 18 km's above Amsterdam, plans to bring back the old canal the 'Where' at the place where now lies an important motorway, are dating back for the last 10 years. So far there has never been a decision that will bring the water back (and to be honest, I don't know if that would be a good idea) but there are always people that bring up this topic around election-time.

Well, the structure needed maintenance after fourty years, no doubt,. So not all money was wasted. And having good traffic in cities before the internet age was more important than it is now. Lots of things had to move physically then, whilst now it is done electronically. So I think the motorway served its purpose until it was worn. A city is not meant to be beautiful, remember! It has to fulfill social and economic functions. A city is a tool for survival of many, many people, not a museum.

+Patrick94GSR "Wow that is really amazing, in more than one way." Ironically, almost all of Utrecht is one way only and getting around is a pain in the ***. Now, getting around doesn't just hurt there, it is nearly reaching my glands. The Netherlands is vastly overcrowded, we actually get traffic jams that are longer than the entire country on it's longest axis regulairly. And then they do dumb shit like this and most of you are "Wow, look at that!". Meanwhiles, they plunge the entire country's logistics down the toilet on an unprecedented scale. Our government actually thinks that having services proportionate to the amount of people that pay tax for it, is a bad idea. If you have 100 people driving a car and paying for a road, in the Netherlands when that becomes 200, and the revenue doubled, we will start actually using LESS of the revenue for that same road, and spend the rest on add campaigns to make us drive less.

Sadly many Southeast Asian and South Asian nations repeating the same mistake.

Yep, boomers in the 60’s and 70’s didn’t care about historical nature or buildings, we’re here to fix it

MARIN come to my country in 2021 and I can show you a lot of things going wrong all over.

Yeah the hippie movement and communism

Yes i agree...like dey replaced steam locomotives with diesel and ugly looking electric locomotives

suites you sir...🤣

Couldn't suppress a chuckle. Well done sir.

Kim Philipp Möllgaard - Better swim fast.

😂😂😂

A boataway.

So continuing their dying, got it. Dying cities.

@@matthewfarrell317 The contrary.

Yeah, we need sidewalks, stairs, and bicycle paths. To heck with the elderly, handicapped, and similar. They can stay at home, out of the way. Luckily, most Europeans now seem to agree.

@@robinstewart6510 You are sick, did you know that?

@@someperson2965 .. Lol. Well, if I'm sick, I'm certainly not alone. Europe is very unfriendly to those I listed.

Yes, literally. Not figuratively or metaphorically! :-D

Aren't there mosquitoes in Utrecht?

@@bri1085Jep, but one canal more won’t make a big impact in mosquito populations. They generally live where the water is still, whereas a body like this would always have some movement.

Give it 10 years and there will be proposals to replace the canal with a ring road and the project will be conducted by the heirs to the present business, or their predecessors!

​@@geoffnottage8894 No, I feel like cars are becoming increasingly disliked, the most likely outcome is the canal being replaced with a new 50 lane cycle ring-road

@@geoffnottage8894 There is 0% chance of that happening in Utrecht. You haven no idea what you're talking about.

ill bet you £50 that doesnt happen@@geoffnottage8894

The same in the city Leiden where i lived. A lot of the mainstreets have the name gracht in it. There are talks going to dig up some. But the main problem is money.....

They had the very same plans for the Amsterdam canals. Luckily, the sixties rebel spirit put an end to that, and only the Wibaut - Weesperstraat axis was built straight thru old neighborhoods. Today a metro subway runs underneath, but the car lanes have been reduced in width, and see a lot less car traffic today !

+Huib Roggenkamp The Netherlands has lots of buitenwijken (suburbs) but most of them where build with the bicycle in mind. One can get from the suburb to the centre of the city faster by bike than by car because of the direct bikepaths. Mark has several posts about this on his blog bicycledutch.wordpress.com/

i have biked every day for one year from the suburb of Zoetermeer (north eastern side) to The Hague center (20 km from door to door). I can tell that it is not an option if you love life or your healthy old age. I was mostly in bed by 20.30h exhausted by 2 hours per day biking, even after training myself for a year. Not a life. Don't tell me to do it ever again. But I did it! EVERY DAY for a year as planned.

+Ronald de Rooij Well done! Did you ever think about getting an electric bike?

Did you know that in the country side that is daily live for tons of high school students going to school?

20km total or just 1 way?

It's called brutalism and it was a real building style. Arguably, no one really liked it.

redtails cool I never knew that. Though your slightly off, its official term is "brutalist architecture". Going to have to look it up. Thanks I have a feeling it's inspired by Hitlers Atlantic Wall.

There are a few exceptions of brutalist buildings that are remarkable enough to be liked, but most is too, well, brutal for its surroundings and the people living there. But don't start bulldozing too fast, they thought the same thing of art nouveau in the past, it was seen as too expensive to maintain, and too kitschy. We can't grasp nowadays why our ancestors tore these beautiful buildings down...

You can't argue about style. The difference with brutalism is that at the time it was built, no one liked it. and no one likes it still

You might not agree with this list, but I found this item on BBC: www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160606-ten-beautiful-brutalist-buildings

Yes, and nice things like that make cities more attractive to businesses and tourists creating additional revenue most people don't even think about.

No, a city has to fulfill functions. It is a tool for human needs. It is not meant to be a museum unless you can make money for your citizens by being a museum (like Amsterdam).

That's a subjective perspective. IMHO, it's very important for a city to preserve its history.

Ronald de Rooij you are right the big question is what is the function of the city. I am happy the canal returned and I think it will benefit Utrecht in the medium to long term. It makes the place a city want to visit, inhabit and do business in.

@@NavidIsANoob History like ethnic composition perhaps?

@@kofola9145 No. In fact, in the 4 years since I made that comment, I've changed my position and now agree with the first response. While preservation of architectural history is important and should be prioritized, it should come second to fullfilling the needs and functions for society.

Yes, a city of the future should rely on public transports and renewable energies.

@@Fred_the_1996 That and of course biking and walking.

@@NeoDerGrose yes

@@Fred_the_1996 And local food production, like Paris did before the industrial revolution...

Meh

Yeah, the area was boring and loud. There was a patch of grass, but nobody would spend time there because all the cars made it uncomfortable. Now on a sunny day you’ll see tons of people on boats, or laying in the grass, having a picnic. Sure, maybe we have more traffic jams in the area during rush hour, but it’s such an improvement in every other way.

Actually, Utrecht is not the only city to have done it. Seoul did it as well. They returned a river where they once build a motorway over it (granted, they now have to pump massive amounts of water into the river to keep it flowing) and the strangest thing is that traffic in the city improved.

@@Hans-gb4mv Boats can carry lots of cargo. The lack of huge trucks in the road most likely have something to do with it. That and ferry boats decongested the road

@@bmona7550 those re not navigate able waters

@@Hans-gb4mv Navigable by what? Canal boats such as used in the UK only need 2 1/2 feet of water

London has paved over so many of their rivers that they aren't entirely sure where all of them _are_. There are lists of places you can hear them running underneath streets and buildings.

Yeah it's because most of Holland is below sea level. Some guy once put his finger in a hole in the sea wall where water was flowing through and he single handedly saved the country from disappearing below the ocean waves.

In Potsdam they unearthed parts of an ancient channel. And it is still ongoing. Step by step. Because some roads need to be redesigned. The channel is partly ready but not filled with water everywhere.

the US has states larger than the entire country. of course it needs more highways

@@gabba1gabba1hey But you don't need main roads that passes through the city itself AND has driveways like if it's a small street.

@@cola98765 the majority of our freight is delivered by trucks and our country is huge and spread out, we absolutely need more highways and wider roads.

Different country, different situation, and different needs.

@@gabba1gabba1hey If it wasn't for restrictive zoning laws forcing nearly all of the country to aggressively fracture homes and business miles apart, we wouldn't need so many wide roads just to go grocery shopping.

Canals are definitely nicer, but highways also serve a purpose transporting all the shit you buy in those city centers. I would have buried that highway, and only made it for trucks. Built some recreational parkland on top of it.

@@bmw803 I doubt heavy cargo trucks are even allowed to enter the city center of Utrecht.

⁠@@hendman4083Trucks are allowed, but I think only early in the morning. I used to work in a shop downtown and we’d get our cargo at like 6 am, and all motor vehicles were gone from the pedestrian areas by the time the shops opened.

So with moving the car park underground, the mayorship have not made the city less car friendly, rather hide the uglyness and waste that is mass coverage car parking. It is a half good compremisise, turning the underground car park into a bike one that would be nicer and more human friendly

I'm sure the good people of Amsterdam will be delighted to call Utrecht the world's smallest provincial city. *smirks*

They actually did that in Amsterdam with a few canals but they now turn the roads in canals again cause in the city center there are no cars allowed.

You have to see it within the time. At the time they thought of thiis, everything was about modernization. The solutions we have now (for instance in Utrecht, just hadn't been thought of yet. Also: the old buildings were, back then, much more "old junk" then now, where everything is renovated. The 60's were the times where anything seemed possible and we hadn't learned the value of old stuff yet. It is too bad that it destroyed so much, but it just could not have been any other way. Nowadays we know how to combine the old and the modern. We just didn;t know back than. ("We" - I was one when they decided to mute the canal...)

A city is a tool for man's aspirations and needs. It is not a museum. Lots of things needed to be done physically back then, that can now be done electronically. Hence more traffic in the city back then, hence change the city to accomodate that. Not museums, remember, unless you can make so much money by being a museum (like Amsterdam).

How is reverting to medieval technology progress?

Planners back then be like: Remove everything old and beautiful and replace it with concrete and automobiles. It's truly sad that many buildings in non-communist European countries that were able to survive WW2 were demolished because idiocy of copying everything USA was doing back then.

@@reichtangleanschluss509 Well the USSR (not really Communist), completely destroyed the historical significance of Königsburg (Kaliningrad) by destroying lots of the old sites such as the Castle.

​@@aidenkornic9464 Königsberg sadly wasn't only one to suffer. Viipuri (Vyborg) for example has many buildings that were either demolished, or left without proper maintache, leaving the city look like what is was back in 1945.

We do to as well. You can be that in 30-50-100 years they will look back at how stupid we were. Imagine wasting valuable land for parking lots?, it almost seems like some sort of madness. Or the fact that we seem unable to live in harmony with nature. Why arent all rooftops full of flowers, bushes and trees?.

You're looking at that with 100% hindsight though. If traffic was as bad as the video suggests, then options to alleviate it would be limited. They may honestly have gone with what they felt was the best option at the time, given the trends. 50-60 years from now, this change could be reverted. It's just too hard to predict.

True. Same with other cities that needs a waterway and to have a motorway or bypass built outside of the city.

Because society works on time and money. If you spend all your time commuting rather than working, then society comes to a halt, and you starve to death. Long story made short. You're welcome.

@@googleanti-speech7618 so people will starve to death if they don’t pave over everything with highways? Lol.

​@@cameroncalzone8860 Literally. You act surprised?! What do you think we fly the cow by plane? or how about the fuel to the tractors, or how about the tractors themselves, or how about the crops, or how about the orchards. Without roads you just simply won't have these things. Everything would be locally grown and produced only. Guess what......Cities don't have farms n crops in the middle of them. How dense are you?

@@googleanti-speech7618 other countries manage just fine

@@cameroncalzone8860 What other countries? and to whom do you compare?

after being decreased to half the value

There are no houses along the canal just office blocks

Yes, Canada, yeah! All go to CANADA sshhhhh

In a good way or a bad way?

JimmyG in the no way was that a road way