The Dutch Solution for Safer Sidewalks – Continuous Sidewalks

These continuous sidewalk keep popping up everywhere in Switzerland, but as always in this country local authorities couldn't bother to follow the same guidelines so we ended up with a different design for each and every city and village in the country. Some cities nailed it while others completely missed it, with steep inclines that make it pretty difficult for bikes to climb over. Of course the worst of these popped up in the least bike-friendly cities like my hometown, because city officials there probably never rode a bike in their adult life

I much prefer the London design. I don't like the idea of cars driving on pavement. It's not utilised often enough though.

It looks all very confusing if you don't know what's going on. If I ever go to the Netherlands, now I know never to rent a car.

Another small benefit of the raised sidewalk: no (or much fewer) HUGE puddles waiting for you when you step onto the street

Simple solution to multiple problems. Brilliant. Unfortunately, this is an idea from Europe, so it's automatically a communist plot to deprive Americans of their religious liberty.

I think my only concern with this (entirely from the visuals in the video and never actually having encountered a continuous sidewalk IRL) is if i was approaching the sidewalk in my car from the same direction as the car at 1:09, the way the sidewalk continues visually would make it a little difficult to tell where the area of the sidewalk I am allowed to drive over ends and the rest of the sidewalk begins, if that makes sense. The yellow lines at 1:37 are excessive and I agree with you about how it signals to the driver the purpose of the space, but they do also clearly delineate the border of the space. If there was a line of a different shade of brick in the 1:09 example that delineated how far left or right I can go into the sidewalk I would be more comfortable with it.

I could also just be way overthinking it and it's fine in practice. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, it's difficult to describe with text.

here in Canada walking is so dangerous since car is legal to turn even traffic light in RED! in Hong Kong people walk so quick and safe, no cars can go in Red light!! impossible to change in Toronto??? any idea?

I got excited when i saw one of these for the first time in a failed first attempt at mixed use zoning in my county.

Either Europe is in future or USA is living hell.

I use a motorised wheelchair and Continuous Sidewalks would certainly improve things. Bike lanes would also. Gatineau, Québec is not that great for both accessibility and safe and wide sidewalks to accomodate two motorised wheelchairs passing each other. I use this example because sidewalks should be wide to accommodate "trafic" in both directions. The width and hight of sidewalks is also dangerous to falls (tip overs) of wheelchairs.

@Not Just Bikes: Could you do a video about the numbers of car-bike and car-pedestrian related accidents?
I think that will be an eye opener for the USA if this data is available.

I like this concept. Looking forward to more vids and visiting the Netherlands to experience it first hand

My Alma Mater (MTSU) put these in several years ago. They really work well and are very helpful for disabled students on mobility scooters

0:11 Finley a view of the narator.

Absolutely agree! Even on the rare occasion when there are continuous pavements in the UK, having them road-coloured is most definitely a stupid idea. It simply reinforces the culture that cars are more important than people, and is an opportunity missed. UK cycle and footpath crossings are generally not fit for purpose, often intimidating and downright dangerous. When will the UK get its act together and so encourage active transport? My fear is that it will simply continue to talk the talk but take little if any action. Motorists dominate and therefore they generally get what they want, and they certainly aren't keen about ceding any road space to pedestrians or cyclists. Absolutely pathetic ☹️

In Turin, Italy (a really car friendly city), there’s literally one continuous sidewalk that separates the road from the main station parking and you can really see that is incredibly safer than normal crossings, both as a pedestrian/cyclist and as a driver.

I want to marry a sidewalk now.

More like I'm jealous of your sidewalks.

Yeah it's quite interesting. you can really feel when infrastructure is built for the walker or for the car. the dipping down of the sidewalk onto the road means that cars get annoyed at people, when it should be people walking who have the right of way. That being said, living in a car dependent place, only city centers would have a chance to implement this sort of sidewalk. New developments too. It would be nice to see some mixed use development around the major transport hubs. You have me convinced on all these points and I will endeavour to visit amsterdam.

Crosswalks (the two white lines) are raw where I live. Very rare. And generally, drivers just ignore them & pull up to the front most white line or even further. But yeah I really like this idea: have the car be the one intruding on the walking space instead of the person intruding on the driving space. Instead of putting the car first so drivers feel like they own the space & scream at people to "get out of the road!" make it clear that people walking belong there.

It's also frustrating that even if people acknowledge the stop sign, they mostly end up stopping in the middle of the pedestrian crossing

Fisrt time ever hearing about sidewalk safety. For a good reason. Thats not a thing. In every place I've been to.

I think it's worth pointing out how at 1:53 the people crossing the road waited, although the car yielded in the end. The lad sends his thanks and this is all nice, but I much prefer how you can just saunter onto the road in most European city. When this was filmed the car had right of way but now in the UK the pedestrian does, but people haven't adapted fully yet