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Dutch cities were not made for cars. Cars are the guests. Thats the difference between the US and the Netherlands: by the time Dutch people started to buy cars

Dutch cities were not made for cars. Cars are the guests. Thats the difference between the US and the Netherlands: by the time Dutch people started to buy cars in the 1960s cycling had been a popular means of transportation for half a century.

philmander 7y ago
This isn't accurate. They were not made for bikes. Is was only in the 70s and 80s when there was a revolution in the introduction of cycling infrastructure. https://www.google.com/amp/s/bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011...
- speleding 7y ago
  The parent post was claiming the cities were not made for cars, and that is accurate. Dutch cities grew organically over the centuries, if there was any design it would have been for pedestrians, horse drawn boats and carriages.
  - philmander 7y ago
    I should have said "misleading"
AlecSchueler 7y ago
That's actually not accurate. The Dutch were as car mad as anywhere between 1950 and the 1970s. The cycling culture that developed subsequently was hard fought for by activist groups throughout the late 60s and 70s, before being implemented across the country by various city councils in the 1980s and then developed further with national level infrastructural improvements in the 1990s. There's lots of good documentaries on YouTube about the change, highly recommended if you're interested in urban planning or in the possibilities for introducing cycling infrastructure. In Utrecht one can see many roads which have multiple cycle lanes and pedestrianised parks along the middle. These roads were originally developed as 4 lane highways for automobiles before modernisation.
- dep_b 7y ago
  It's still true people were using a lot of bicycles even when there were a lot of cars in city centers. They were just more prone to get an accident with a car as cars were allowed to drive faster and basically could come everywhere. We got the bicycle amenities not because we wanted to stimulate people using them but because too many people (especially kids) died riding them.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  Might you or anyone else have a good link for one of these documentaries that you might recommend? Cheers.

philmander 7y ago

This isn't accurate. They were not made for bikes. Is was only in the 70s and 80s when there was a revolution in the introduction of cycling infrastructure. https://www.google.com/amp/s/bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011...

speleding 7y ago
The parent post was claiming the cities were not made for cars, and that is accurate. Dutch cities grew organically over the centuries, if there was any design it would have been for pedestrians, horse drawn boats and carriages.
- philmander 7y ago
  I should have said "misleading"

AlecSchueler 7y ago

That's actually not accurate. The Dutch were as car mad as anywhere between 1950 and the 1970s. The cycling culture that developed subsequently was hard fought for by activist groups throughout the late 60s and 70s, before being implemented across the country by various city councils in the 1980s and then developed further with national level infrastructural improvements in the 1990s. There's lots of good documentaries on YouTube about the change, highly recommended if you're interested in urban planning or in the possibilities for introducing cycling infrastructure. In Utrecht one can see many roads which have multiple cycle lanes and pedestrianised parks along the middle. These roads were originally developed as 4 lane highways for automobiles before modernisation.

dep_b 7y ago
It's still true people were using a lot of bicycles even when there were a lot of cars in city centers. They were just more prone to get an accident with a car as cars were allowed to drive faster and basically could come everywhere. We got the bicycle amenities not because we wanted to stimulate people using them but because too many people (especially kids) died riding them.
bogomipz 7y ago
Might you or anyone else have a good link for one of these documentaries that you might recommend? Cheers.