Cycling in the Netherlands was an eye-opening experience that made us at the same time more hopeful and more pessimistic about the future of our cities back home in North America.
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37 Comments
Correction: At 2:15, we refer to the Dutch having painted bike lanes. However, while the white lines and symbols are paint, the red is dyed asphalt. It would be more accurate to describe these as "unprotected" or "unseparated" lanes. We regret the error. (Still had a great time in the country.)
I think there are more differences than just the bike infrastructure. I mean, it was not like The Netherlands put in all these bike paths and then the country started cycling. No, it was the other way around. Everyone was cycling, and when cars seemed to take over, lots of deadly accidents happened, and only thenthey built dedicated bike lanes.
Another difference, which is kind of similar ot the first one, is that Dutchies bike from a very early age. And not just for fun. Most kids go to school by bike. First on their parent's bike, but from the age of 6 or so often on their own bike, and not long after that, they bike to school by themselves. They get traffic lessons at school and they learn from their parents how to behave in traffic. Many kids bike long hours to high school, and later college. Most don't get their first car before they have a serious job. That means that every Dutch person basically is a cyclist. They only become motorists(?) after, if at all. So every motorist knows what it's like to be a cyclist, and the treat them respectfully. They know what children in traffic can be like, because they've all been one. That makes it much more safe for cyclists in The Netherlands.
And another thing is the law, which kind of builds on to the last point. Because as a motorist, you are potentially driving a deadly vehicle, and a cyclist or pedestrian is not, the law is not on your side. When something happens between a car and a 'weaker' road user as it is called, the car is always responsible, by default. That makes cars even more careful when they're dealing with cyclists, pedestrians, or even scooters. It's the cars responsibility that the situation ends well.
All I'd like to say is that it's not just infrastructure. You need a whole culture of cycling to make it work. Everyone has to be 'in'. And I don't think you can force that culture on a city or even a country. It needs to develop over decades. First get people to cycle, then have hunderds of children killed each year like we used to have in The Netherlands, then your governments will be ready to make laws and make safe bike paths. I'm afraid you can't do it the other way around.
I've seen several comments about how bike sharing would be cheaper than OV-fiets for (part of) a commute. What you fail to understand is that many employers encourage their employees to travel by public transport by giving* them an OV-card that allows them free travel between their home address and the place of employment, which often includes the use of an OV-fiets. So there's no cost to the employee for using an OV-fiets. People generally only use them in that context OR for infrequent day trips to a city/town where they don't have their own (second) bicycle or something.
*Or they refund the employee for their public transport costs, which is more common when working for an employment agency.
Sorry, OV fiets is…MORE expensive? It's like €4 a day!? It's absurdly cheap
Another thing beyond bike lanes is the expectation that a home comes with a place to store a bike (or a few). I am sure there are exceptions, but every house and apartment I can remember from the Netherlands had some facility for this. Often it's a storage shed that can also hold other things, sometimes it's a shared bike parking for multiple apartments.
Outside the Netherlands, I have seen many places where you could own a bike, but there would be no convenient place to keep it. In the Netherlands, homes are deliberately designed to accommodate bicycles, which makes owning one a lot more convenient.
4:54 Red first class seats in trains, make our bike lanes inconsistent and confusing? What a stupid joke! Red is NOT exclusive to anything. You are degrading our infrastructure with silliness, to compensate for your own infrastructure's stupidity. This is called jealousy, and say's more about you than about our bike lanes.
4:04 WHAT!? No way! I actually thought that was somewhere in the Netherlands untill I saw the signs. Can't believe that part of Vancouver looks just like a typical place in NL
Canadians always are happy to be in Holland; a good escape from Trudeau….
Why is this voiced by AI
8:00 don’t forget not just bikes
You did not cover the rural areas into a great extent. The network goes down to sand roads with a separate 30 cm wide bicycle lane of excellent quality. The route node network is very helpful and unique to plan trips in the country side. Also in newer and smaller cities you experience wil be far better than in the big cities. Where I live travelling on bike inside the town is faster that any other means. You almost always have right of way and the bicycle network is as much as possible completely separated from the roads for cars.
Remember people, bikes(bicycles) outnumber people in The Netherlands by 1.3, yes this means a lot of people own 2 bikes 🙂
Politians who argue against cycling infrastructure clearly demonstrate their lack of vision and knowledge.
They should find another job!
This video just makes me want to hop on my bike.
I think you have a misconception about 'snorfiets'.
Most researchers on mobility put a comfortable range for biking at distanced up to roughly 5km (In fact a lot of the people you see on 'road bikes' will be going further than that). Above that powered transport is usually necessary. Snorfiets and Bromfiets, whilst annoying since they occupy the same path as bikes, are still much better than cars in this respect, and so the criticism should be leveled at cars, with these vehicles on the bikes because of cars rather than complaining about cars.
This leads into the second point which is that the urban area is not a self contained unit. Whatever mobility solutions are found for the city cannot exclude mobility options from the rural, which includes vehicles like snor and bromfiets for getting into urban areas. This is doubly true because cities essentially can never be self-sufficient for food and waste disposal due to the population density and lack of agricultural space, and thus cities cause an induced demand on rural areas for its food production. If the city is still going to need to import foods, and export wastes, then it need to think of ways to allow powered transport into the area, like bromfiets – especially since these are more preferable to cars.
So, the problem is much more complex than your presenting here, and while I agree I don;t like them on the bike paths, I'd still rather have them over cars, which are the reason why they are on the bike paths, because cars are just so unsafe.
When I look at the roads in Canada and USA I realize where our tax money goes to and what happens when taxes get lower and lower… pothole after pothole after crack in the roads
I live in Amsterdam and I can tell you that scooters and snorfietsen are not allowed on the most bikelanes.
Bike share systems here probably have it a bit more awkward than abroad, since everyone has their own bike.
Most important- Dutch bikes are very different, giving the rider necessary height needed in traffic so not only that you see better other users but we are more visible to cars which makes it safer.
1:10 Blue license plates are "Snorfietsen". They are allowed on most bike lanes except within Ring A10 Amsterdam and some other places. Yellow license plates are "Bromfietsen" and in most cities are required to be on the road within cities, except on most ring-roads.
Next ttime when you’re in the Netherlands: visit Almere.
A new city, build from the ground up with cycle paths in mind. There is no better place to ride a bike than there.
We (the Dutch) have bike lanes (fietstroken) and bike paths (fietspaden). A bike lane is a small lane that is directly attached to the car lane in that the car could use it when it's free to stop when people need to get out for instance. a bike path is physically separate from the can lanes and cars don't go on them (well, there are rare exceptions but they are 99.9% dedicated for bikes).
The way to implement this, is to do it gradually. Each time a road needs to be maintained or redone, bike infrastructure can be added. That's also why not everywhere in the Netherlands it's consistently good.
making it safer to cycle is not that hard….
just implement some laws that we have in the Netherlands that are designed to protect cyclists from motorised traffic. when you hit a cyclist with your car you're f**ked unless you can irrefutably proof that the cyclist was at fault. the downside of these laws are that a lot of cyclists take advantage of that and are very annoying road users.
i absolutely hate cyclists like that, they hardly ever indicate when they change roads and often don't even look around before changing direction…
but, because i'm on a bicycle too, i can collide with those (censored) cyclists without being found quilty of causing the accident. i used to work on my bicycle for ~10 years delivering the mail and i used very sturdy, heavy, bicycles to do that work. i still have a few of those bicycles and when i have to do a lot of shopping or transport something heavy i make use of the old "mules". they are strong enough to take an adult person on the back of the bicycle, something that "modern" bicycles can't stand without damaging them.
so, if i collide with another bicycle it is like the bicycle of my "victim" has met a "tank", my bicycle will hardly have a scratch, but the other bicycle can be a total "write off". i have "totalled" quite a few bicycles of the "road pirates" in the ~50 years of my cycling…
😈
3:04 lol just was there a few hours ago (it's very close to where I live), that feels somewhat weird 😀
The bicycle street or 'fietsstraat' actually has no legal status. Meaning the same traffic laws apply as on a normal street. Therefore bicycles have to make way for cars as usual.
Dutch people are so cheap that they can make riding a bike look cool.
I see you mentioning a couple of bike channels, i'd like to add @NotJustBikes to it . very good channel
I think the reason we dont have as good of bike share rental options is because everyone owns more bikes than they operate. So whenever we have a guest over who could use a bike, we just lend them that bike. Because everyone has their own the need for renting is low.
Gas powered scooters in cities often have criminals on them. They're trouble everywhere they show up.
Years ago, I worked in the Netherlands, A co-worker taught me a nifty trick about cycling in the winter! We dis-mounted both my bike tyres and then ran small screws from the inside to the outside in both tyres, you need a good plastic shield inside when you re-mount the tyres, Worked great with a little ice or snow, the screws do wear out, how some ever !!!!
CAR CENTRIC AMERICAN COMPLAINS ABOUT TINY MOTORIZED BIKES
PAID TROLL
As for Snorfietsen: I see less and less of them each year. The alternative, an electric bike, is cheaper in the long run, so many of the target audience have done away with the snorfietsen. About the only time I still see them is for commercial purposes.
I lived in Amsterdam for a year. I used to ride my bike from Amsterdam to Haarlem to a small coastal town called Zandvoort. All bike lanes no cars! Even along the beach (north-south) there is a bike lane! I loved it since I've been using a bike as transport since 2005. You can ride from city to city on a bike in the Netherlands.
love how at 1:20 you bemoan the presence of the scooters on the bicycle paths and then show two scooters with yellow plates which mean they need to be on the road not the cyclepath XD. So at least in that instance everyone agrees with your
'full bike rack' – shows not even 40 bikes..
Cars are romanticism, bikes are rationalism. Cars are catholic while bikes are protestant.