12 ms·

Changes in Dutch streets throughout the years (photo album)

156 points by Vinnl 5y ago

dgudkov 5y ago
I didn't realize the Netherlands resembled America so much back then. It really puts things into perspective.
dirtyid 5y ago
Can someone comment on streetlife during dutch winters? 20m bike ride for everyday errands during summer is tolerable. But 40m walk during winter and I'm biasing towards private vehicle. I suppose if transit is reliable, which covid squeeze on my transit agency has made public transit last few weeks more miserable than it should be.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  Ugh, winter is terrible, and I wouldn't do a 40m walk for transportation in winter (though I wouldn't quite feel up for that in summer either). And yes, I do dress well. That said, every day errands are usually no more than a 10-minute walk, which is fine. Also, 40m by bicycle is fine too, since you get warm when cycling. Though technically I guess that counts as private vehicle.
royjacobs 5y ago
Most photos seem to come from Utrecht, a large city in the center of The Netherlands that has been very busy purging cars from the city center in recent years. Since you can reach the city very easily by public transport (and is very easy to traverse on foot or by bike) it is quite delightful to be in. Up until the 1970s there were plans to add a freeway that would cut right through the city. Some of that infrastructure did get built (visible in the photos that now show a canal again) but thankfully they didn't demolish too many historic buildings along the way... If you are interested in the ways that The Netherlands tries to keep its cities comfortable and reduce car-centricness (car-centricity?) I can recommend YouTube channel "Not Just Bikes".
- watt 5y ago
  I wonder just _who_ were those people making those awful, awful plans. Were they being poisoned by lead? How do they live with themselves.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    I think no government is perfect. Probably the people making those awful plans, look now to Netherlands and think about other problems. Maybe people responsible for https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/narco-state-netherlands-the-slippery-dutch-slope-from-drug-tolerance-to-drug-terror-a-4c064859-9faf-495f-b1f7-c74900910568 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/narco-state-neth... will have problem to live with themselves because of that in the future too..
  - Arnt 5y ago
    Someone who might well have met some of those planners once said that "the advantages of privately owned cars are mostly individual, the disadvantages are mostly communal". AIUI in the sixties, city planners in many places tried to bring those advantages to more individuals within their societies. And how do they live with themselves? Well, they were mostly the same people who planned the traffic changes in .nl from the seventies onwards, so I imagine they're mostly quite happy.
  - mpol 5y ago
    It was the new way of thinking. Concrete buildings were modern, old stuff was just old stuff. There was no real insight in what highways would mean, it was all new. In Zwolle similar stuff happened. They tore down an old church for a square concrete building (V & D) and there were plans to have the highway run through the historic centre, which was seen as good for the shops. Luckily that highway was diverted to 100m next to the historic centre. That mayor is now known as the "sloopburgemeester" or "tear down mayor". It is hard to predict the future, but luckily there is now more thought put into which buildings to preserve. But even then I wonder what whill happen to the ugly buildings of the 1960s, will they all be torn apart, or are there some that we already can see as valuable.
spodek 5y ago
Role models! Everyone should watch the channel Not Just Bikes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A, by a guy who moved to Holland and learned what makes those transformations possible, in my opinion. The videos are short, informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Hopefully action-provoking too, since my country, the USA, can use a lot of that change. People here act like it's impossible, but they thought so there too. It's possible and role models help.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  The country of Netherlands has a higher population density than the actual town (with grid streets and medium size lots) I live in. Throw in the mostly empty county the town is in and Netherlands is ~35 times denser. The same things aren't going to apply to such a different situation. Of course cities in the US can do better, but lots of things just aren't going to be very practical in most of the country by area.
  - zachkatz 5y ago
    http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths... See excuse #3, "our population is too spread out"
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      You miss my point. The Netherlands has really nice inter-city bicycle infrastructure, the thing my region lacks (it's easy enough to get around on quiet grid streets). They aren't in any way affordable, so we designate the US highway shoulder as a national bicycle route. There's a not-yet-connected separated path growing between here and the smaller town ~10 miles away, but the local casino paid for a bunch of that!
      - zachkatz 5y ago
        Cycling infrastructure is cheaper to build than not to build: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/06/cycling-infrastructure-is-cheaper-to.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/06/cycling-infrast...
ekianjo 5y ago
If you look at Beijing you would see the exact opposite of such pictures
- mastax 5y ago
  Yeah, it's interesting to me how China (and Hong Kong, etc.) have seemed to follow the discredited Le Corbusier model of tall isolated residential towers surrounded by trees and roads. Perhaps it's a mistake or perhaps it's a requirement for density? Medium density development like Barcelona or Brooklyn is really surprisingly dense—enough for almost everywhere in the western world. China has just far more people, though, so maybe they need to go taller.
everyone 5y ago
This is what progress looks like. So many places in the world continue to regress despite even being wealthy.
- refurb 5y ago
  These are cities designed for the elite and wealthy. Reminds me of SF. “Why can’t we have more bike lanes?” - never said by a poor person.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    Where I live car ownership and wealth correlates very strongly. The poorest don't own any cars and rely on bikes and public transit. The richest own several. On the other hand, poorer people tend to live near major roadways and suffer from noise and air pollution. So it is in fact usually the poorer demographics who ask for more bike lanes.
  - wiseowise 5y ago
    What are you smoking? It's super affordable to use a bike compared to owning a car. I bought second-hand bike two years ago and didn't spend a euro on it.
  - mpol 5y ago
    No no, these cities are for everybody. Yes, the inner cities and in big cities the next ring of neighbourhoods are often expensive, prices drive out less wealthy people. But even if you live in a neighbourhood on the edge of a big city, or in an average town or village, you will see these improvements being made. And taking the bicycle into the city centre, these improvements are really for you. Even in the city with the least amount of cyclists, Almere, which is an overflow city for Amsterdam, there are continuous improvements. A city like Utrecht has highway bike lanes where you can get to the centre really fast.
  - reallydontask 5y ago
    That's another good argument against poverty not bicycles
  - 5y ago
zachkatz 5y ago
I'd like to contribute a collection of my own: changes in Dutch streets from 2008-ish to today, captured on Google Streetview: https://twitter.com/z_a_c_h_k_a_t_z/status/1464697711442206728 https://twitter.com/z_a_c_h_k_a_t_z/status/14646977114422067... Even in the last decade, they've still been hard at work upgrading streets, and even some of them more subtle redesigns are absolutely stunning. Dutch street design is really one of the wonders of the modern world, IMO.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- isoprophlex 5y ago
  Lovely link! A testimonial to the calming power of bricks over asphalt, bikes over cars and hedges over parking spaces.
  - zachkatz 5y ago
    And curves! The natural, flowing, yet carefully considered geometry of the intersections (basically, design affordance) is really something unique. The Dutch have spent the last ~50 years getting the fundamentals right (something cities all over the world are doing now), so now they can focus on sheer refinement.
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  There are two things I miss from my home country: hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), and the utterly amazing bike infrastructure and traffic design in general.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Can I send you some hagelslag? Puur? Melk?
    - vanderZwan 5y ago
      Haha, you're too kind. But my family already does so every once in a while and it's enough to keep me going :)
forinti 5y ago
I wonder how much resistance there was to these changes. In my country every new bike lane is a new battle. And after some initial progress, it seems governments have given up.
- the-dude 5y ago
  There is hardly or no resistance to these changes. The only vocal group would probably be shop owners fearing loss of traffic, loss of revenue. Well, it didn't pan out that way. Also, during the time of the transition there was a very vocal parents group ( mothers iirc ) who protested all the traffic deaths. And everybody uses a bike, even our Prime Minister.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Shop owners had a lot more to fear from something they couldn't even see: the internet.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      But this was much later. The transition from a car centered city to a bike/walk-centered city started around 1980 in Groningen.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Yes, that's true. But still, I'm pretty sure that even by the mid 90's with the writing on the wall plenty of shop owners didn't see it coming, and they were still very much against getting rid of their precious short term parking.
        the-dude 5y ago
        In the mid-nineties the writing was not on the wall, internet based sales were still a novelty well into the 2000s. Regarding the shop owners : maybe it is part of their problem and maybe they could reclaim a part of their clientele if only there was short term parking in the street ( for boomers ).
kypro 5y ago
While this is beautiful, in my city the anti-car policies have been very hard on my family. My dad unfortunately relies on his car to get to work and isn't wealthy enough to afford a home nearer the city centre to walk or bike. The constant removal of roads and introduction of clean air areas in recent years has made his commute very difficult now. I do wonder how this works for families? If you have a nice 4 bed family home in a Dutch city, how do you drive your kids to school, or to a holiday destination, etc? Is it anything like here in the UK where cities are increasingly inhospitable for working class people trying to raise families and only really work for students or those who are single and wealthy so can therefore afford a flat close enough to their office that they can bike? On another note I also used shop in my city centre regularly, but in the last 5 or so years I've started ordering most things from Amazon instead, not because I want to, but because it takes about an hour to get into the city now that they've removed several roads in favour of mostly unused bike and bus lanes. Plus, parking is increasingly hard and costs several pounds an hour these days. Sure, I could catch a bus, but that only really works if you're not buying much. I can't exactly carry a new desk or dinning room chair on a bus. I wonder if this is the reason that city centres seem to be increasingly filled with restaurants and lack shops other than a few convince stores? If I lived in a city I'm not even sure how I would do my weekly family shop without access to a car. Again, I guess I would need to order it online? Are these things not problems in Dutch cities?
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  Public transportation is good here, which is the answer to most of your questions. > now that they've removed several roads in favour of mostly unused bike and bus lanes. Why don't you bike or take the bus, then? > If I lived in a city I'm not even sure how I would do my weekly family shop without access to a car. Before the pandemic, we did it entirely on bike. On the other hand, Dutch cities are designed differently, where markets are interspersed with the housing itself. In fact, we used to just walk to the supermarket about 200m away, but then a bigger version of that supermarket opened up 5 minutes bike ride away, so... Checkout is super-fast - shopping is so fast many people go every day, if only to get fresh bread. When I lived in New York, we would have one big shop once a week, it was such a chore. ---- In your world, we all drive cars and destroy our biosphere. Is that really what you want for your children?
em500 5y ago
I get the idea, but the differences in weather and/or color filters strike me as a tad manipulative.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  You mean that they should have used 70's photographic gear and film for the 'now' shots?
  - alamortsubite 5y ago
    The parent makes a fair point (and period vs modern tech really isn't the issue). But even if the photos were on completely equal footing, I think the genius of the improvements shown would be no less stunning.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      I don't think it is possible to bring the old photographs up to the same level as the ones for the new situation, it is probably hard enough to find such photographs in the first place. So the only way that I can think of would then be to make the new photographs with old processes and gear. That would be a funny exercise in itself.
kmlx 5y ago
looks great! however when I lived in the Netherlands (Den Haag and Amsterdam) there were a number of issues I encountered that were not so apparent: - trams are pedestrian killers and bike accident machines. and they move through city centers, where density is huge. as such trams would constantly hit people. i had my bicycle wheels stuck in tram lines countless times, every single time i got stuck i fell on the pavement. and the pavement was usually a brick road, which hurt me twice as much as tarmac. - the dutch use big and heavy dutch bikes. this means that an accident with one of those bikes leads to a lot more hospitalisations than with a light race bike. and since those dutch bikes are so big and heavy, they're really really slow, but it's their weight that produces accidents. the upside is that those dutch bikes have some big wheels they don't get stuck in tram lines. - there were too many bikes. had to be written. bike users in the netherlands seem entitled to own every part of the road. there were traffic jams full of bikes. there were fights between bike users. there were drunk people on bikes, lots of them. - bike theft is constant and prevalent across the country. you can't really buy a nice bike and not have it stolen. seems weird since everyone bikes, but it is what it is. insurance is a must. had mine stolen from outside my home, from in front of a bar, from in front of a supermarket, from inside one of those secure bike lockers. - a regular pastime of dutch people is to throw stuff into their canals. cars, bikes, they just throw them for kicks. insurance is a must, again. - a friend owned a car. you can't really live in the dutch countryside without owning a car. but good luck trying to enter a city center with a car. also good luck parking anywhere inside a city. and even if you find a spot you will get a fine if one wheel crosses or sits on top the parking line. this makes it into a weird two-tier society. you want to go to the city center? then you'll need to park outside the train station. - living in a suburb and travelling to the city center means using a taxi (extremely expensive without reason) or using a slow tram. if it's winter and freezing, trams usually stop working. and then you'll have to use a bike. because it's winter you will get sweaty and smelly. but again, it is what it is. finally, there are many advantages to living in a dutch city. good train connections, lots of easy walks, a mentality towards integrating with nature, great minimalist architecture. but there are many downsides as well. besides the above points, there is extreme inequality, there are multiple types of citizenship (so only some are proper first grate dutch citizens), frugalness is a dutch trait, organised crime is rampant, everything is more expensive than any neighbouring country (people constantly move to Belgium for the lower taxes for example). after two years i moved out.
Vinnl 5y ago
Oh, some things to note: - The highway that was transformed into a canal actually used to be a canal originally as well. - The group of taxis on the Museumplein were there in response to the murder of a taxi driver [1]. I'm not sure what it usually looked like, but probably not back-to-back filled with taxis. [1] https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ad19c75a-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84 https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ad...
holoduke 5y ago
Amsterdam is gone mad with their anti car policy. Most people here I guess are in their 20 and 30s. Living in small apartments in bigger cities without children. For them it's fine. But once you reach 40 and have older children you need a car still, because it makes live much easier. Life is not only the city (fortunately) I actually left Amsterdam because of their insane car policy. At some point I wasn't able to park my car near my home anymore ,because they decided to reduce parking spots. Everyday I was commuting to a spot outside of the city where my car was parked. I now comfortably live in a village 30km outside of Amsterdam. I can park 3 cars if I want. That's also a reason why most people leave Amsterdam once kids turn 5 years old. The city is now only with 20s and 30s people. A pitty.
- refurb 5y ago
  Sounds like San Francisco. Perfect for young people without kids, but eventually most people leave for greener pastures (for parents). Nothing wrong with that. Kinda like how NYC (or at least Manhattan) has been for a while. You’re either young or fabulously wealthy - everyone else leaves.
  - sundaeofshock 5y ago
    SFUSD is the sixth largest school district (by student population) in California, and the largest in the Bay Area. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/ceflargesmalldist.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/ceflargesmalldist.asp
    - refurb 5y ago
      SF has the lowest percentage of kids of any major city in the US
  - wiseowise 5y ago
    Except it's nothing like they describe. I live in Amsterdam and use bike everyday, I constantly see families on a cargo bikes and they couldn't have been happier.
throwaway55421 5y ago
I mean, it's all cute and sustainable I guess for me on the edge of it all. Until the road outside my house is pedestrianised. Then I move further out and everything I do pollutes more, heh. There's a balance between 0 cars and all cars.
burlesona 5y ago
The transformation is amazing. It’s also deeply discouraging that this kind of change takes 40 years. I long to live in a city built for people instead of cars, but for that to exist in the US so I don’t have to cut off my extended family the way that moving abroad would do. But realistically I won’t live long enough, even if some US city decided tomorrow to copy the Netherlands model verbatim.
- zachkatz 5y ago
  Optimistic note: It doesn't have to take 40 years. One of the reasons it took so long in the Netherlands (ignoring the politics for a moment, which were not as smooth sailing as many assume) is because the Dutch were, literally and figuratively, paving the way—they had no other country to copy. Protected bike lanes, protected intersections, protected roundabouts, bike superhighways, best-practice bike parking and curb design and bike lane texture and lighting...it was all more or less invented by the Dutch, which took time. But now that the Dutch have spent 40 years figuring out what works, other countries are free to copy all of it. (The Dutch have even translated their best-practice guide into English: https://crowplatform.com/ https://crowplatform.com/) Of course, construction takes time. But it doesn't have to take 40 years—you can accomplish a lot with political will and quick-build infrastructure (see: Paris [1]). I think most US cities (NYC, Boston, Portland) could start looking like the Netherlands in about 10-20 years as soon as they get serious about infrastructure. [1] https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1472894991177371648 https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1472894991177371648
  - burlesona 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing, I wasn’t familiar with CROW, but it looks very helpful! I see your point about it being easier to copy as well. That is good reason for optimism. Cheers!
  - Someone 5y ago
    There’s also https://dutchcycling.nl/en/bestpractices https://dutchcycling.nl/en/bestpractices (not a good site; I suggest clicking “Download the Full Book”)
  - 5y ago
sktrdie 5y ago
I moved to the Netherlands (Amsterdam) a few years ago. I think the main reason the quality of life is so high here is because of the bike infrastructure and how it took over the cars. This to me is the main reason cost of housing in the cities has skyrocketed - the lack of cars has a profound positive feedback loop towards the quality of life here. Everything you want to do in the dense city (from shopping to entertainment) happens faster, safer and happier using bikes. No matter how much you love cars, they're just too big for the density of a city. But at the end of the day people are in charge of this decision. If the majority of people don't see that bikes are better they will not vote for legislation that will build more bike infra. It's a testament that Dutch people actually prefer bikes over cars.
- Muromec 5y ago
  >This to me is the main reason cost of housing in the cities has skyrocketed - the lack of cars has a profound positive feedback loop towards the quality of life here. Or it's just investement funds. We have a chance to find out in 2022.
- darknavi 5y ago
  What about things like PEVs? Do you see many people using things like OneWheels in Amsterdam? I'd love to zip around the city and be able to have everything at my fingertips without a car.
  - Scarblac 5y ago
    You see them sometimes, but they're not road legal and seem pretty pointless when everybody already has one or more bicycles.
squarefoot 5y ago
Never been in the Netherlands, although I've a relative living in Amsterdam, but should I one day visit the country, I'll make sure to take a trip to Delft. I saw a few pictures of that town years ago and it literally conquered me.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  Bon voyage! Delft won't let you down.
zppln 5y ago
I think one needs to be a bit careful about copying this. I've noticed a similar anti-car trend (I don't mind bike lanes) in my country in recent years, but the cities are kind of too small for it to work. When they make it impossible to park in the city centers people who already rely on their cars for their daily lives just stop going there and go to the malls in the outskirts of the city instead. And once the customers stop coming to the city centers, the shops go out of business and you no longer find anything but coffee shops and supermarkets there anymore.
- Someone 5y ago
  I wonder where you live, in that cities are smaller than Dutch ones. The photos are from Utrecht, population 360,000, and Amsterdam, population 1,2M. Looking at https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities, Amsterdam is #469 and Utrecht is #1053 (Dallas is #383, Tucson #1047). Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands. And that’s by population. Area-wise, I expect many US cities to be even larger.
  - karlkeefer 5y ago
    Area-wise, most US cities are much bigger than European ones, but that's actually part of the problem. Huge amounts of our housing stock is kind of far from everything else, making biking much less appealing.
  - zppln 5y ago
    Sweden. A city with the same population of Utrecht would make it the 4th largest in the country. The cities I had in mind are much smaller than that.
    - Someone 5y ago
      Utrecht also is 4th in the Netherlands. Comparing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_the... to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_..., the curve drops off a bit faster in Sweden. I think the main difference is population density, though. At about 1/25th that of the Netherlands, if all else would be equal, distances between cities and villages will be 5 times as large. That would make many cycling trips that are doable in the Netherlands (say from a 25,000 population village to the nearest 100,000 population area) impractical.

156 points by Vinnl 5y ago

I didn't realize the Netherlands resembled America so much back then. It really puts things into perspective.

Can someone comment on streetlife during dutch winters? 20m bike ride for everyday errands during summer is tolerable. But 40m walk during winter and I'm biasing towards private vehicle. I suppose if transit is reliable, which covid squeeze on my transit agency has made public transit last few weeks more miserable than it should be.

Vinnl 5y ago
Ugh, winter is terrible, and I wouldn't do a 40m walk for transportation in winter (though I wouldn't quite feel up for that in summer either). And yes, I do dress well. That said, every day errands are usually no more than a 10-minute walk, which is fine. Also, 40m by bicycle is fine too, since you get warm when cycling. Though technically I guess that counts as private vehicle.

royjacobs 5y ago

Most photos seem to come from Utrecht, a large city in the center of The Netherlands that has been very busy purging cars from the city center in recent years. Since you can reach the city very easily by public transport (and is very easy to traverse on foot or by bike) it is quite delightful to be in. Up until the 1970s there were plans to add a freeway that would cut right through the city. Some of that infrastructure did get built (visible in the photos that now show a canal again) but thankfully they didn't demolish too many historic buildings along the way... If you are interested in the ways that The Netherlands tries to keep its cities comfortable and reduce car-centricness (car-centricity?) I can recommend YouTube channel "Not Just Bikes".

watt 5y ago
I wonder just _who_ were those people making those awful, awful plans. Were they being poisoned by lead? How do they live with themselves.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  I think no government is perfect. Probably the people making those awful plans, look now to Netherlands and think about other problems. Maybe people responsible for https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/narco-state-netherlands-the-slippery-dutch-slope-from-drug-tolerance-to-drug-terror-a-4c064859-9faf-495f-b1f7-c74900910568 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/narco-state-neth... will have problem to live with themselves because of that in the future too..
- Arnt 5y ago
  Someone who might well have met some of those planners once said that "the advantages of privately owned cars are mostly individual, the disadvantages are mostly communal". AIUI in the sixties, city planners in many places tried to bring those advantages to more individuals within their societies. And how do they live with themselves? Well, they were mostly the same people who planned the traffic changes in .nl from the seventies onwards, so I imagine they're mostly quite happy.
- mpol 5y ago
  It was the new way of thinking. Concrete buildings were modern, old stuff was just old stuff. There was no real insight in what highways would mean, it was all new. In Zwolle similar stuff happened. They tore down an old church for a square concrete building (V & D) and there were plans to have the highway run through the historic centre, which was seen as good for the shops. Luckily that highway was diverted to 100m next to the historic centre. That mayor is now known as the "sloopburgemeester" or "tear down mayor". It is hard to predict the future, but luckily there is now more thought put into which buildings to preserve. But even then I wonder what whill happen to the ugly buildings of the 1960s, will they all be torn apart, or are there some that we already can see as valuable.

spodek 5y ago

Role models! Everyone should watch the channel Not Just Bikes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A, by a guy who moved to Holland and learned what makes those transformations possible, in my opinion. The videos are short, informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Hopefully action-provoking too, since my country, the USA, can use a lot of that change. People here act like it's impossible, but they thought so there too. It's possible and role models help.

maxerickson 5y ago
The country of Netherlands has a higher population density than the actual town (with grid streets and medium size lots) I live in. Throw in the mostly empty county the town is in and Netherlands is ~35 times denser. The same things aren't going to apply to such a different situation. Of course cities in the US can do better, but lots of things just aren't going to be very practical in most of the country by area.
- zachkatz 5y ago
  http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths... See excuse #3, "our population is too spread out"
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    You miss my point. The Netherlands has really nice inter-city bicycle infrastructure, the thing my region lacks (it's easy enough to get around on quiet grid streets). They aren't in any way affordable, so we designate the US highway shoulder as a national bicycle route. There's a not-yet-connected separated path growing between here and the smaller town ~10 miles away, but the local casino paid for a bunch of that!
    - zachkatz 5y ago
      Cycling infrastructure is cheaper to build than not to build: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/06/cycling-infrastructure-is-cheaper-to.html http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/06/cycling-infrast...

ekianjo 5y ago

If you look at Beijing you would see the exact opposite of such pictures

mastax 5y ago
Yeah, it's interesting to me how China (and Hong Kong, etc.) have seemed to follow the discredited Le Corbusier model of tall isolated residential towers surrounded by trees and roads. Perhaps it's a mistake or perhaps it's a requirement for density? Medium density development like Barcelona or Brooklyn is really surprisingly dense—enough for almost everywhere in the western world. China has just far more people, though, so maybe they need to go taller.

everyone 5y ago

This is what progress looks like. So many places in the world continue to regress despite even being wealthy.

refurb 5y ago
These are cities designed for the elite and wealthy. Reminds me of SF. “Why can’t we have more bike lanes?” - never said by a poor person.
- adrianN 5y ago
  Where I live car ownership and wealth correlates very strongly. The poorest don't own any cars and rely on bikes and public transit. The richest own several. On the other hand, poorer people tend to live near major roadways and suffer from noise and air pollution. So it is in fact usually the poorer demographics who ask for more bike lanes.
- wiseowise 5y ago
  What are you smoking? It's super affordable to use a bike compared to owning a car. I bought second-hand bike two years ago and didn't spend a euro on it.
- mpol 5y ago
  No no, these cities are for everybody. Yes, the inner cities and in big cities the next ring of neighbourhoods are often expensive, prices drive out less wealthy people. But even if you live in a neighbourhood on the edge of a big city, or in an average town or village, you will see these improvements being made. And taking the bicycle into the city centre, these improvements are really for you. Even in the city with the least amount of cyclists, Almere, which is an overflow city for Amsterdam, there are continuous improvements. A city like Utrecht has highway bike lanes where you can get to the centre really fast.
- reallydontask 5y ago
  That's another good argument against poverty not bicycles
- 5y ago

zachkatz 5y ago

I'd like to contribute a collection of my own: changes in Dutch streets from 2008-ish to today, captured on Google Streetview: https://twitter.com/z_a_c_h_k_a_t_z/status/1464697711442206728 https://twitter.com/z_a_c_h_k_a_t_z/status/14646977114422067... Even in the last decade, they've still been hard at work upgrading streets, and even some of them more subtle redesigns are absolutely stunning. Dutch street design is really one of the wonders of the modern world, IMO.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
isoprophlex 5y ago
Lovely link! A testimonial to the calming power of bricks over asphalt, bikes over cars and hedges over parking spaces.
- zachkatz 5y ago
  And curves! The natural, flowing, yet carefully considered geometry of the intersections (basically, design affordance) is really something unique. The Dutch have spent the last ~50 years getting the fundamentals right (something cities all over the world are doing now), so now they can focus on sheer refinement.
vanderZwan 5y ago
There are two things I miss from my home country: hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), and the utterly amazing bike infrastructure and traffic design in general.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Can I send you some hagelslag? Puur? Melk?
  - vanderZwan 5y ago
    Haha, you're too kind. But my family already does so every once in a while and it's enough to keep me going :)

forinti 5y ago

I wonder how much resistance there was to these changes. In my country every new bike lane is a new battle. And after some initial progress, it seems governments have given up.

the-dude 5y ago
There is hardly or no resistance to these changes. The only vocal group would probably be shop owners fearing loss of traffic, loss of revenue. Well, it didn't pan out that way. Also, during the time of the transition there was a very vocal parents group ( mothers iirc ) who protested all the traffic deaths. And everybody uses a bike, even our Prime Minister.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Shop owners had a lot more to fear from something they couldn't even see: the internet.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    But this was much later. The transition from a car centered city to a bike/walk-centered city started around 1980 in Groningen.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, that's true. But still, I'm pretty sure that even by the mid 90's with the writing on the wall plenty of shop owners didn't see it coming, and they were still very much against getting rid of their precious short term parking.
      - the-dude 5y ago
        In the mid-nineties the writing was not on the wall, internet based sales were still a novelty well into the 2000s. Regarding the shop owners : maybe it is part of their problem and maybe they could reclaim a part of their clientele if only there was short term parking in the street ( for boomers ).

kypro 5y ago

While this is beautiful, in my city the anti-car policies have been very hard on my family. My dad unfortunately relies on his car to get to work and isn't wealthy enough to afford a home nearer the city centre to walk or bike. The constant removal of roads and introduction of clean air areas in recent years has made his commute very difficult now. I do wonder how this works for families? If you have a nice 4 bed family home in a Dutch city, how do you drive your kids to school, or to a holiday destination, etc? Is it anything like here in the UK where cities are increasingly inhospitable for working class people trying to raise families and only really work for students or those who are single and wealthy so can therefore afford a flat close enough to their office that they can bike? On another note I also used shop in my city centre regularly, but in the last 5 or so years I've started ordering most things from Amazon instead, not because I want to, but because it takes about an hour to get into the city now that they've removed several roads in favour of mostly unused bike and bus lanes. Plus, parking is increasingly hard and costs several pounds an hour these days. Sure, I could catch a bus, but that only really works if you're not buying much. I can't exactly carry a new desk or dinning room chair on a bus. I wonder if this is the reason that city centres seem to be increasingly filled with restaurants and lack shops other than a few convince stores? If I lived in a city I'm not even sure how I would do my weekly family shop without access to a car. Again, I guess I would need to order it online? Are these things not problems in Dutch cities?

TomSwirly 5y ago
Public transportation is good here, which is the answer to most of your questions. > now that they've removed several roads in favour of mostly unused bike and bus lanes. Why don't you bike or take the bus, then? > If I lived in a city I'm not even sure how I would do my weekly family shop without access to a car. Before the pandemic, we did it entirely on bike. On the other hand, Dutch cities are designed differently, where markets are interspersed with the housing itself. In fact, we used to just walk to the supermarket about 200m away, but then a bigger version of that supermarket opened up 5 minutes bike ride away, so... Checkout is super-fast - shopping is so fast many people go every day, if only to get fresh bread. When I lived in New York, we would have one big shop once a week, it was such a chore. ---- In your world, we all drive cars and destroy our biosphere. Is that really what you want for your children?

em500 5y ago

I get the idea, but the differences in weather and/or color filters strike me as a tad manipulative.

jacquesm 5y ago
You mean that they should have used 70's photographic gear and film for the 'now' shots?
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  The parent makes a fair point (and period vs modern tech really isn't the issue). But even if the photos were on completely equal footing, I think the genius of the improvements shown would be no less stunning.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I don't think it is possible to bring the old photographs up to the same level as the ones for the new situation, it is probably hard enough to find such photographs in the first place. So the only way that I can think of would then be to make the new photographs with old processes and gear. That would be a funny exercise in itself.

kmlx 5y ago

looks great! however when I lived in the Netherlands (Den Haag and Amsterdam) there were a number of issues I encountered that were not so apparent: - trams are pedestrian killers and bike accident machines. and they move through city centers, where density is huge. as such trams would constantly hit people. i had my bicycle wheels stuck in tram lines countless times, every single time i got stuck i fell on the pavement. and the pavement was usually a brick road, which hurt me twice as much as tarmac. - the dutch use big and heavy dutch bikes. this means that an accident with one of those bikes leads to a lot more hospitalisations than with a light race bike. and since those dutch bikes are so big and heavy, they're really really slow, but it's their weight that produces accidents. the upside is that those dutch bikes have some big wheels they don't get stuck in tram lines. - there were too many bikes. had to be written. bike users in the netherlands seem entitled to own every part of the road. there were traffic jams full of bikes. there were fights between bike users. there were drunk people on bikes, lots of them. - bike theft is constant and prevalent across the country. you can't really buy a nice bike and not have it stolen. seems weird since everyone bikes, but it is what it is. insurance is a must. had mine stolen from outside my home, from in front of a bar, from in front of a supermarket, from inside one of those secure bike lockers. - a regular pastime of dutch people is to throw stuff into their canals. cars, bikes, they just throw them for kicks. insurance is a must, again. - a friend owned a car. you can't really live in the dutch countryside without owning a car. but good luck trying to enter a city center with a car. also good luck parking anywhere inside a city. and even if you find a spot you will get a fine if one wheel crosses or sits on top the parking line. this makes it into a weird two-tier society. you want to go to the city center? then you'll need to park outside the train station. - living in a suburb and travelling to the city center means using a taxi (extremely expensive without reason) or using a slow tram. if it's winter and freezing, trams usually stop working. and then you'll have to use a bike. because it's winter you will get sweaty and smelly. but again, it is what it is. finally, there are many advantages to living in a dutch city. good train connections, lots of easy walks, a mentality towards integrating with nature, great minimalist architecture. but there are many downsides as well. besides the above points, there is extreme inequality, there are multiple types of citizenship (so only some are proper first grate dutch citizens), frugalness is a dutch trait, organised crime is rampant, everything is more expensive than any neighbouring country (people constantly move to Belgium for the lower taxes for example). after two years i moved out.

Vinnl 5y ago

Oh, some things to note: - The highway that was transformed into a canal actually used to be a canal originally as well. - The group of taxis on the Museumplein were there in response to the murder of a taxi driver [1]. I'm not sure what it usually looked like, but probably not back-to-back filled with taxis. [1] https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ad19c75a-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84 https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ad...

holoduke 5y ago

Amsterdam is gone mad with their anti car policy. Most people here I guess are in their 20 and 30s. Living in small apartments in bigger cities without children. For them it's fine. But once you reach 40 and have older children you need a car still, because it makes live much easier. Life is not only the city (fortunately) I actually left Amsterdam because of their insane car policy. At some point I wasn't able to park my car near my home anymore ,because they decided to reduce parking spots. Everyday I was commuting to a spot outside of the city where my car was parked. I now comfortably live in a village 30km outside of Amsterdam. I can park 3 cars if I want. That's also a reason why most people leave Amsterdam once kids turn 5 years old. The city is now only with 20s and 30s people. A pitty.

refurb 5y ago
Sounds like San Francisco. Perfect for young people without kids, but eventually most people leave for greener pastures (for parents). Nothing wrong with that. Kinda like how NYC (or at least Manhattan) has been for a while. You’re either young or fabulously wealthy - everyone else leaves.
- sundaeofshock 5y ago
  SFUSD is the sixth largest school district (by student population) in California, and the largest in the Bay Area. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/ceflargesmalldist.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/ceflargesmalldist.asp
  - refurb 5y ago
    SF has the lowest percentage of kids of any major city in the US
- wiseowise 5y ago
  Except it's nothing like they describe. I live in Amsterdam and use bike everyday, I constantly see families on a cargo bikes and they couldn't have been happier.

throwaway55421 5y ago

I mean, it's all cute and sustainable I guess for me on the edge of it all. Until the road outside my house is pedestrianised. Then I move further out and everything I do pollutes more, heh. There's a balance between 0 cars and all cars.

burlesona 5y ago

The transformation is amazing. It’s also deeply discouraging that this kind of change takes 40 years. I long to live in a city built for people instead of cars, but for that to exist in the US so I don’t have to cut off my extended family the way that moving abroad would do. But realistically I won’t live long enough, even if some US city decided tomorrow to copy the Netherlands model verbatim.

zachkatz 5y ago
Optimistic note: It doesn't have to take 40 years. One of the reasons it took so long in the Netherlands (ignoring the politics for a moment, which were not as smooth sailing as many assume) is because the Dutch were, literally and figuratively, paving the way—they had no other country to copy. Protected bike lanes, protected intersections, protected roundabouts, bike superhighways, best-practice bike parking and curb design and bike lane texture and lighting...it was all more or less invented by the Dutch, which took time. But now that the Dutch have spent 40 years figuring out what works, other countries are free to copy all of it. (The Dutch have even translated their best-practice guide into English: https://crowplatform.com/ https://crowplatform.com/) Of course, construction takes time. But it doesn't have to take 40 years—you can accomplish a lot with political will and quick-build infrastructure (see: Paris [1]). I think most US cities (NYC, Boston, Portland) could start looking like the Netherlands in about 10-20 years as soon as they get serious about infrastructure. [1] https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1472894991177371648 https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1472894991177371648
- burlesona 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing, I wasn’t familiar with CROW, but it looks very helpful! I see your point about it being easier to copy as well. That is good reason for optimism. Cheers!
- Someone 5y ago
  There’s also https://dutchcycling.nl/en/bestpractices https://dutchcycling.nl/en/bestpractices (not a good site; I suggest clicking “Download the Full Book”)
- 5y ago

sktrdie 5y ago

I moved to the Netherlands (Amsterdam) a few years ago. I think the main reason the quality of life is so high here is because of the bike infrastructure and how it took over the cars. This to me is the main reason cost of housing in the cities has skyrocketed - the lack of cars has a profound positive feedback loop towards the quality of life here. Everything you want to do in the dense city (from shopping to entertainment) happens faster, safer and happier using bikes. No matter how much you love cars, they're just too big for the density of a city. But at the end of the day people are in charge of this decision. If the majority of people don't see that bikes are better they will not vote for legislation that will build more bike infra. It's a testament that Dutch people actually prefer bikes over cars.

Muromec 5y ago
>This to me is the main reason cost of housing in the cities has skyrocketed - the lack of cars has a profound positive feedback loop towards the quality of life here. Or it's just investement funds. We have a chance to find out in 2022.
darknavi 5y ago
What about things like PEVs? Do you see many people using things like OneWheels in Amsterdam? I'd love to zip around the city and be able to have everything at my fingertips without a car.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  You see them sometimes, but they're not road legal and seem pretty pointless when everybody already has one or more bicycles.

squarefoot 5y ago

Never been in the Netherlands, although I've a relative living in Amsterdam, but should I one day visit the country, I'll make sure to take a trip to Delft. I saw a few pictures of that town years ago and it literally conquered me.

alamortsubite 5y ago
Bon voyage! Delft won't let you down.

zppln 5y ago

I think one needs to be a bit careful about copying this. I've noticed a similar anti-car trend (I don't mind bike lanes) in my country in recent years, but the cities are kind of too small for it to work. When they make it impossible to park in the city centers people who already rely on their cars for their daily lives just stop going there and go to the malls in the outskirts of the city instead. And once the customers stop coming to the city centers, the shops go out of business and you no longer find anything but coffee shops and supermarkets there anymore.

Someone 5y ago
I wonder where you live, in that cities are smaller than Dutch ones. The photos are from Utrecht, population 360,000, and Amsterdam, population 1,2M. Looking at https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities, Amsterdam is #469 and Utrecht is #1053 (Dallas is #383, Tucson #1047). Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands. And that’s by population. Area-wise, I expect many US cities to be even larger.
- karlkeefer 5y ago
  Area-wise, most US cities are much bigger than European ones, but that's actually part of the problem. Huge amounts of our housing stock is kind of far from everything else, making biking much less appealing.
- zppln 5y ago
  Sweden. A city with the same population of Utrecht would make it the 4th largest in the country. The cities I had in mind are much smaller than that.
  - Someone 5y ago
    Utrecht also is 4th in the Netherlands. Comparing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_the... to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_Sweden_..., the curve drops off a bit faster in Sweden. I think the main difference is population density, though. At about 1/25th that of the Netherlands, if all else would be equal, distances between cities and villages will be 5 times as large. That would make many cycling trips that are doable in the Netherlands (say from a 25,000 population village to the nearest 100,000 population area) impractical.