[Ep. 1113] The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is a city in transition. I originally started filming Utrecht because of its cycling infrastructure. Looking back over seventeen years of footage, I realized I have documented something much bigger: the transformation of an entire city. From a car-centric city Utrecht is rapidly changing into a city for people, both residents and visitors. Less space for cars, more for walking and cycling. Added green makes the city also more resilient to climate change.
More information in the blog post: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/?p=27893
See also the playlist with all the video’s the excerpts in this video come from: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeBHBRS9J4CY
37 Comments
Which change in Utrecht surprised you the most, or what's the biggest 'excuse' you hear in your own city?
I visited Utrecht twice. The first time in 2011 or 2012 and last year (2025). I noticed many of the changes. I really like what has been done and I really like the city. I love the vibe of the place.
I love your videos, they do a great service to document this city! I am very grateful to live here. I think it is only a bit tragic to see @1:40 an advertisement for €2 coffee, I do miss that!
congrats on her transition bro
So jealous!
Prachtig
Het is absoluut baanbrekend hoe deze designers onze straten, pleinen en wegen zo kunnen herinrichten om het leefbaar te maken.
I grew up in Utrecht and sometimes I miss the old Utrecht, when it was more quieter and less crowded. I feel like there where less cars 17 years ago than today, even though its more centered on bikes these days. I've used a bicycle my whole life though, I dislikes cars. I even don't go to the city center anymore on saturdays because it's just too overwhelming for me. I love what they have done with the canal here. There are some amazing changes and you get some and you loose some.
I have a question but first feel like I have to give some context from Poland. Since the collapse of communism in 1989 new infrastructure became strongly car-oriented. Only in the last decade have some major cities started seriously prioritizing public transport, cycling, and walking. Unfortunately, this has created a major social split and heated discussions.
Many suburban residents see cars as the purest form of "freedom" and sometimes even for good reason: they simply live in areas where no other option is realistic. As a result, ANY policy reducing car dependence is seen as an attack on them. There are even big social media groups presenting car owners as the most oppressed social group. The cause for this oppression is of course comes from changes like narrowing 3-lane street to 2-lane with a bus/bike lane, replacing parking spaces with sidewalks and/or trees + stuff like introducing low-emission zones, or encouraging a shift away from diesel cars but that's another topic.
The communication from Polish city officials is usually poor. Sometimes it feels like ideas are imported from “the West” without any attention to local context. Also, it's usually hard to see a concise plan – it's mostly cases like "we've added X kilometers of bike lanes" last year. Are they connected in any reasonable way? * shrughs *
Urban planning in Poland unfortunately largely collapsed after 1989, and for the last 30 years the 'free market' shaped most suburbs. Some residential areas were built with almost no access to public services, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dependent on cars while nearby cities (where people work) now try to "fight cars". I feel like more people start seeing lack of urban planning as a huge problem and we're slowly making some progress but it's so painful.
But yea, back to the point. Utrecht is often mentioned in Poland as an example of successful urban transformation. Opponents obviously present it as a threat or even a horror scenario, where people are supposedly forced to cycle and give up cars.
So my question is: how did people in the Netherlands, and specifically in Utrecht, react when the shift toward less car-dependent cities began? How do they feel about it now? How did officials communicate these changes, and what was the public reaction at the time? Did you have to deal with the city sprawl at the time? Like I have so many questions how did it go for you. Thanks for reading, appreciate any insights into this history.
(Sorry for a long text. I needed to let some stuff off my chest).
Every other city in the world , eat your heart out
Utrecht was always beautiful except for the station area, I was always ashamed of that ugly concrete desert. When project “CU2030” started, 2030 sounded so far away but fortunately the biggest changes were visible in the first years already. 4 more years to go but already it’s a city I can be proud of as soon as visitors step off the train, without me having to explain “hold on we’ll get to the good part later”. 😅
Atchitects and city planners in the 60s really had no idea what they were doing.
Having just moved to the Netherlands within the last 5 years, I can almost not imagine those places in your video as they were just a few years before! So much street parking and small pedestrian paths!
I hope we do a lot more of this type of work in the UK. The opposition to it is relentless and vicious, from every car and van driver it seems.
And people still trying to tell us we need cars in our city centers to keep the businesses alive, what a joke
Stadje ❤
The smartest cities are getting smarter and will soon shrink to the size of "the 15-minute cities" for their inhabitants.
You won't need cars. Everywhere in the world.
(c)"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
crazy how much more spacious streets are when on street parking is removed
Everything in the city of Utrecht has deteriorated; there is so much concrete and the Vredenburg has lost its charm. The beautiful round hotel is gone, and an apartment block stands where the market square used to be—there’s an ugly, egg-shaped building there now. I used to work at Hoog Catharijne; it was a fine building, not even old. Everything is too straight and modern for a city that is 900 years old.
It has become an ugly city.
So beautiful to see that. Generally seeing a place become MORE sustainable, liveable and nice instead of LESS, that seems rather like an exception to me. So glad to see these decisions they made in Utrecht. These changes didn' just fall out of the sky, they were made one by one.
heel erg bedankt. ik zal dit filmpje aan buitenlandse vrienden sturen. wat in utrecht lukte kan ook in andere landen en steden lukken.
I left Utrecht in 2008 after living there for almost four years, and already back then it was amazing. Always look forward to visiting every few years.
Next step, Westplein connected with Leidseweg.
Important to note is that since 2006 the city council has consistently been progressive and left leaning with the GroenLinks party being the only constant party who continuously participates in the municipal executive since that time usually working together with PVDA and D66 to form a coalition (though there have been other councils during that time aswell ofcourse). Voting is an important part of this transformation.
Can’t wait to move back… great video!
Not sure how many people have already mentioned this to you, but you are truly an exceptional urban historian. Thank you for all of your hard work over the years! Documentation like this is absolutely critical to inciting change and encouraging people to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Some of these made me gasp. Truly inspirational!
God I wish my city would do 1% of this change
Your voice is so calming, like I could use it to go to sleep.
And: everybody, really EVERYBODY, HATES it. It's a mess, it's a maze, it's horrible to visitors.
I wish Haarlem could be as brave as Utrecht. There's some efforts to re-green spaces, but there are still far too many cars on large busy roads that need to be redesigned.
Apparently the municipality is still able to make mistakes however. This week a new zebracrossing between TivoliVredenburg and Central Station appeared . So now pedestrians can “safely” cross a very busy bicycle path to wait on a small island for car traffic. This is just waiting for accidents, at already a dangerous intersection. This is btw at or near your famous snow video, so I think it is time again for a new video at this location and hopefully the municipality will wake up…
We appreciate your continued journaling of Utrecht's amazing infra, Mark.
I visited my friend in Utrecht 2 weeks ago. Back home in Czechia, I am nothing of a cyclist. This was my first time in the Netherlands and I was absolutely stunned about how convenient it is to ride a bike there and how practically it is connected to other modes of transportation as well (the train station with the bike garage below and buses as well also was a banger). Despite having rationally understood the benefits of the Dutch approach to the infrastructure before, still I had a little bit of the impression that people in NL are forced to ride bikes. No. You guys are invited to do so – in other words, the world-class level of the infrastructure is a positive motivation.
And in general, the points you're making on the public space quality are very valid. This was also my perception of the Netherlands and Utrecht in particular – not that big space for quite many people so it has to be used efficiently and be designed as welcoming for people to actively spend their time there. Nice to see that it was not always like this and that big changes in this direction are possible in quite a short period of time. 🙂
BTW I watched couple of your videos before my trip to make myself familiar and it was pretty accurate so I knew what to expect. Nevertheless, the expectations were exceeded. 🙂 Dank je wel for your inputs!
De mega fietsenstallingen zijn wonderbaarlijk. Echt mooie ontwikkeling in NL, de wereld.
I love my city!
Do you have any numbers for the decrease in traffic signals overall in Utrecht (if the overall number is decreased taking new developments and public transport priority corridors into account)? I think I have only experienced one signal being removed here in Aalborg, Denmark because a modal filter replaced the connecting road in the T-intersection. But a lot of new signals have been put up, existing intersections have been widened with additional lanes and for the whole municipality the number is expected to go from 150 intersections with traffic signal to 200 within the next 10 years.
It's unfortunately the default solution to just put up a new traffic signal here in Denmark and they are almost always "stupid" with pre-programmed intervals, that can change during the day, but will still give green light to no-one and create unnecessary waiting time for both cars, busses, bicycles and pedestrians.
On some short routes the travel time on bike can double if you catch all the red lights.
Amazing. I can only hope that cities in the uk can take note