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Absolutely need to plug Not Just Bikes, a youtube channel done by a Canadian living in The Netherlands about urban planning using Dutch infrastructure as the go

Absolutely need to plug Not Just Bikes, a youtube channel done by a Canadian living in The Netherlands about urban planning using Dutch infrastructure as the gold standard. Key points he makes are how bad North American environments are for child freedom. Its almost entirely due to NA urban planning prioritizing cars over everything else, making it just dangerous for anyone to try and walk anywhere, let alone children. A general difference is that Dutch urban planning prioritizes pedestrians, bikes, transit, then cars, in that order. Whereas in NA cars are really the only thing prioritized. My favorite video of his is about this exact topic, Why I Won't Raise My Kids in Suburbia [0]. This video completely changed my own life, motivating my family and I to move to a city from the suburbs, and fingers-crossed, eventually to The Netherlands. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

Beltalowda 5y ago
> Dutch infrastructure as the gold standard I don't think it's really a "gold standard"; it's more that everything else is so unbelievably atrocious that it looks like a "gold standard", but it's still incredibly car-dominated. I watched the video and it's not wrong: it's extremely common for children to cycle to elementary school on their own and it's mostly safe, but it doesn't really "prioritize pedestrians, bikes, transit, then cars, in that order"; cars are still very central in most traffic. Things are very slowly beginning to change, in some areas, sometimes. But it's very slow progress.
- spiderfarmer 5y ago
  I live near one of the cities shown in the video (Assen). Look it up on Google streetview. Most streets are dominated by bikes and pedestrians, not cars. Cars are mostly routed through streets are designed to accommodate them. Accidents are rare, but we can always do better. All accidents are documented and safety statistics are freely available here: https://swov.nl/nl/verkeersveiligheidscijfers https://swov.nl/nl/verkeersveiligheidscijfers

Beltalowda 5y ago

> Dutch infrastructure as the gold standard I don't think it's really a "gold standard"; it's more that everything else is so unbelievably atrocious that it looks like a "gold standard", but it's still incredibly car-dominated. I watched the video and it's not wrong: it's extremely common for children to cycle to elementary school on their own and it's mostly safe, but it doesn't really "prioritize pedestrians, bikes, transit, then cars, in that order"; cars are still very central in most traffic. Things are very slowly beginning to change, in some areas, sometimes. But it's very slow progress.

spiderfarmer 5y ago
I live near one of the cities shown in the video (Assen). Look it up on Google streetview. Most streets are dominated by bikes and pedestrians, not cars. Cars are mostly routed through streets are designed to accommodate them. Accidents are rare, but we can always do better. All accidents are documented and safety statistics are freely available here: https://swov.nl/nl/verkeersveiligheidscijfers https://swov.nl/nl/verkeersveiligheidscijfers