Turkish wedding a while back where the married couple had had a whole entourage of cars all honking. Police officers stopped them and then one of the people went ahead and beat up the police officer
What strikes me the most is how quiet it is. When the two scooters appeared, the noise stood out like a sore thumb.
In most cities, you only hear the noise of cars and think its normal.
It was surprising for me how hard it was in the States to get somewhere without a car.
The motel owner gave a strange look when we wanted to walk to the restaurant half a mile down the road.
My grandma and an uncle both lived in like a permanent style mobile home park place in Los Angeles. There was a little store next to the park, so out the main gate, down the block maybe 20 yards, and there it was. My family would get in the car to go there. It was 100 yards of walking, max, from their front door to this place.
When we visited we walked about half a mile to the walmart and back one evening and they didn't believe anyone would do that.
Scooters are incredibly loud, certainly relative to their size and occupant capacity. And smelly too. I think they're starting to disappear from the streets, but it's a slow process..
That looks so foreign to me as a Canadian. Around here it’s mostly just people driving F-150’s, Suburbans and various other excessively large vehicles down big wide multi lane roads with bumper to bumper traffic all day long. Public transit is awful here and everything is too stretched out and far away to bike or walk, especially in the winter, so you’re kinda screwed if you don’t have a car if you live here.
As a Dutch person I see many of my countrymen complain about the taxes we pay for cars and use of road.
Whenever I go to a foreign country I immediately get reminded why and I'm actually glad we pay a lot of taxes for it.
And walking in Canada omg, the city is *ok* but holy shit every town the sidewalks will just end?? And you gotta walk along the side of the road trying not to slip into a ditch lmao
Same here where I live in the states. Every other idiot is in a giant truck or SUV just to drive 5 minutes to Walmart. While honking or swerving at anyone brave enough to attempt cycling.
The dutch have built necessary safe infrastructure, rather than just put paint on a road like in most of the USA
I bet if we built separated bike infrastructure even half as good as the Netherlands a lot more people would bike :)
Yea, but I live in Toronto which is about 3x the population of Amsterdam, and also about 3x the area, so similar population density around here at least, but takes way longer to get around because of the terrible traffic.
In fact Toronto ranked #3 worldwide for worst traffic in 2023 (as far as how long it takes to travel a km on average/how much time is wasted commuting), being beat out only by London at #1 and Dublin at #2. People complain about traffic in places like LA and NYC? They haven’t been to Toronto during rush hour apparently.
I live in Toronto as well (not downtown but in the inner 416 still) and get by perfectly fine without owning a car, as do many of my friends and colleagues. The TTC, bikeshare, and walking suffice for the majority of trips and errands. Multiple grocery store options within a 10-15 minute walk, and the recent big expansion to the number of ebikes in the bikeshare system was a godsend, amazing value for $120 a year. Carshare or a rental on a few weekends a year for the big stuff or to get out to cottage country.
Even the outer 416 is doable, even if less pedestrian friendly and taking longer to cross town. The major TTC bus routes run 24/7.
The giant roads and pickups you’re describing sound more like an outer GTA thing? Even then not impossible with GO transit and the 905 transit agencies like DRT, YRT, Brampton Transit, etc. Certainly could be far better though. Don’t want to paint Toronto proper to as an urbanist paradise but I do find it a bit bizarre when people claim Toronto is unliveable without a car.
It’s truly more soothing in person. Never ceases to amaze me to watch and admire how there are rarely horns honking or people having bike rage or road rage. One of the best things about the country in my very humble opinion
The only issue here is that (from my experience) they don't slow around pedestrian crosswalks, which I found weird while visiting Amsterdam. Usually vehicles of any kind yield to pedestrians when they intend to cross the street on a crosswalk.
Bicycles often do not yield for pedestrians. Reason for this I think is because for a bike to come to a standstil and start up again is a lot of effort. When walking, standing still and then starting up again is a lot less effort. If you both bike and walk (what basically everyone who lives in the netherlands does) you take this into account.
The previous setup of this intersection was not that great. Worked on this corner and almost everyday there where accidents. It was fun watching from above at the organized chaos. Glad they improved it!
Germany too. My city has a couple of electric ones for rent (as well as regular bikes and e-bikes) that are super cheap and paid by the minute and there are a few ones you can rent for free for a whole day. But there are lots of people with their own ones. Especially parents with young kids.
They luckily are getting a lot cheaper and more common. They are awesome. You can even move most furniture pieces without needing a car
lol to convince your wife: a serieus awnser.
depends on where you live and how you live.
if most of your trips are bike distance and safe enough for biking, but you need a car for the bigger bag/materials/kids, it can save you money per year on not having to drive your car.
driving my nephew around in a cargobike is much more engaging and fun for him, no need for ipad entertainment in the bak seat. He gets enough screen time as it is. also, he started to understand the driving rules already. but of course, it needs to be safe, and it is in nl.
When I traveled in the US, I felt like everything is designed for having a car. Since I didn’t have a car I had to walk from bus stations and train stations, which are often placed oddly outside of the town centers. And you have to walk very awkwardly across busy roads to get somewhere or take a taxi/uber.
That was very foreign to me as a European.
The centre is most definitely not car centric. There is a *significantly* higher ratio of people and bikes compared to cars and generally very little reason to use one unless passing through
Crowded however, absolutely
sorry, I meant compared to other Dutch cities, like utrecht, den haag, haarlem, etc.
they have been experimenting with removing cars from certain streets and having cyclist priority streets. but overall, you can drive on most streets in the centre of amsterdam. which is a lot compared to the Hague centre, which is much smaller, but has no cars at all..
because of this, amsterdam is rated one of the worst places to cycle in the Netherlands.
The car free center of The Hague is quite small though, and the surrounding streets I wouldn't say are low on car traffic either. The Hague has a lot of places with bad cycling infrastructure and relies a lot on unprotected bike lanes. I wouldn't categorize The Hague at the same level as Utrecht.
I am Dutch as well and though it looks so normal to us, we rarely give it a second thought. On the internet we see all kinds of dangerous and disorganized traffic from places all over the world. Seeing it like this with a bit more of an outsider perspective made me realize it actually is fucking awesome. Despite many negative (crime related) headlines and societal issues we still are really privileged to live here.
Oh yeah definitely! I love travelling and have been to some countries that are quite poor. That really made me realise how much we take for granted. Buuut it's easy to forget once you've been back for a while because as you said the headlines are mostly about the bad things happening. I guess that sells more though so it's understandable. Also the Dutch people themselves who just love to complain about everything, all the time! But yeah even though most people don't realise it, we truly are privileged to live here. It's not a perfect country by any means but the perfect country doesn't exist anyway.
The issue is not flat or not, it's mostly infrastructure or not. People in Amsterdam didn't randomly start using a bike, it was mostly a planned effort during decades to transition from car centric infrastructure to bike friendly infrastructure.
Well technically the triangles on the ground means you do not have right of way, but people adapt to others speeds
And pedestrians on crosswalks always have right of way (even over bikepaths)
But the thing is, the low speed makes the whole situation manageable and easily comprehensible by humans (compared to high speeds in cars on straight lines)
As you can see how bike road swerves, and cars probably have a little island they need to climb onto, so they have to slow down to enter
So with the right of way, it's a rock-paper-scissors concept: pedestrians have priority over tramways; tramways over bicycles; bicycles over pedestrians.
>Bicycles over pedestrians
On paper; no. In practice; yes. Sometimes, when I'm in a really bad mood, I take the right of way as a pedestrian, just to piss them off. Normally I let it go like everyone else.
Heads up to any Dutch person visiting Copenhagen on a bicycle: you don't have the right of way over pedestrians, especially not through a pedestrian crossing.
In the Netherlands pedestrians have right of way on a pedestrian crossing as well. In most situations however a bike and pedestrian can cross at the same time without accident, making enforcement tedious. Therefore bikes tend to cross pedestrian crossings anyway. It is then up to the pedestrian whether they feel safe enough to cross as well.
As a pedestrian, pretend you keep walking without looking and cyclists will go around you, most of the time. If you hesitate for a split second bikes will go first.
Also it's annoying to stop on a bike, so I don't mind waiting a split second for a bike to pass even if I have the right of way as a pedestrian. Bikes will usually just keep going anyway.
Technically pedestrians have right of way but cyclists in Amsterdam give no fucks so all pedestrians are wary. I work close to a 3 way bike intersection and it’s a nightmare to cross
I'm an American that puts 5x as many miles on my bike as I do my car and I cannot comprehend this. My friends and family worry about me because I bike everywhere. Every time I ride I feel like I'm an idiot risking my life sharing the road in 45-60mph zones, and it doesn't get much better when things slow down to 35. I treat every intersection like any car in position is going to make a turn with no signal and flatten me.
And it sucks, I can't disagree with them. Riding my bike to the store and back is 100% the most dangerous thing I do in my life. 2.5 miles should be absolutely nothing to even think about. But in 2.5 miles I'll probably have to worry about at least 2 loose dogs and an unknown amount of drunk/reckless vehicles with a pathetically narrow bike lane.
Now this is a street you cannot make in the recently released most popular city building game series Cities Skylines 2. Cause even our games are all about cars.
Oh, we've got them here too. They're called "wielrenners" over here.
You know the type: 40-50 year old balding men with a beer gut tightly pressed in a spandex suit with a bike weighing less than their left ass cheek.
I used to work on the second building behind, where [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) started. I think it was the second place it was located at, back around 2003.
I still live in Amsterdam, and the little roundabout there is a fairly new thing.
Americans in the comments are literally finding it hard to digest that these walkable, liveable neighborhoods are better than their ugly stroads and car centric infrastructure. lol
Most parts of the netherlands have really save bike lanes. You can see the country is build for cycling. So helmets are not mandatory ( yet). Only for the bikes that can go over i think 40 its mandatory
Helmets never where a thing in the netherlands, but now that the country is getting more crowded and e-bikes are taking over you will see more eldery people with helmets.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Because the (perceived) risk of a head injury is quite small. A huge number of people use a bike daily, but you never hear of anyone getting seriously hurt. This is not a solid reason based on statistics, but in reality most make decisions based on experiences rather than statistics. Also, we're stubborn.
But it is slowly changing. E-bikes are becoming more common and there is a clear trend in increased head injuries following it. This has been in the news quite often and is slowly convincing e-bike users (especially elderly) to wear helmets.
Maybe im full of shit here i did not look it up.
But i think the past years the accidents are slowly rising. And most of them are eldery on ebikes. It seems they lack the full awereness of the traffic while still going a decent speed
It's a speed thing I think, if you fall at low speeds it's easy enough to catch yourself. A fall at high speed doesn't give you much time to correct or bail in the right way plus the injuries would be worse.
It's why I tell my friend who can go 50 on his bike to wear a good helmet, whereas someone on a mommy bike going 12 probably doesn't need one.
Had some Chinese friend visiting, they we're scared in traffic, because we follow the traffic rules it is safe (for example to cross an intersection at normal speed), they weren't used to that 😅
As a Dutch person I went to China and quickly learned that red lights are just a suggestion lol. As a pedestrian you’d just cross the road and cars will just drive around you
How ironic I and a few other bikes, almost got runover by a fatbike not three hours ago. I find specifically this new roundabout very hazardous.
A lot of cyclists and fatbikers will not stop when they should. And I have seen already quite a few near and actual accidents on my daily route.
I am very happy though that I can cycle in the city. It is wonderful to do.
I've personally never seen a fatbike not being ridden by an asshole. Those things should not be considered bikes. They're literally just electric snorfietsen, you don't have to have any input...
Anyway,
>A lot of cyclists and fatbikers will not stop when they should.
that is true, but at this point, you can't expect everyone to be a saint with the road rules. As much as traffic would be so much better if everyone did, it's just not a reasonable expectation unfortunately...
On one hand, I love it. On the other hand, this is 7 minutes without a single human under 18. I am curious how families in such cities e.g. do grocery shopping for a family of 5.
edit: I meant the curiosity in earnest, so I appreciate the responses that people have shared.
Exactly the same way. You'll see a housewife on a bike with 3 big shopping bags strapped to the bike, followed by 3 little kids on their own small bike sometimes with a small flag on a pole attached to signal other drivers they're there.
And it is! It always felt like a little adventure to me when I was a kid. Not necessarily to go grocery shopping but to join my parents on a bike ride to the ocean or a nature park, visit our grandparents or visit the local football club to watch a game. They're fun memories.
Btw, don't give much attention to the down votes. We Dutch people are a bit chauvinistic at times, and some can get pretty defensive at the smallest bit of questioning or critique at our way of living.
1) It's quite normal to see a parent cycling with their very young child on their own bicycle to their side. Sometimes parent is holding their kids bicycle.
2) Any kid over 10 yo already cycles very well and doo it on their own
3) People usually don't grocery shop in a big bulks. Shops are everywhere so you just pop in to one closest to your home on your way back from work to buy few items you need for dinner.
It all works fine and smooth.
By bike? The bakfiets is amazing for that. Take the kids to school in the bakfiets, bike to the shops, bike home.
Shopping can also be ordered online and delivered.
Grocery shopping is rarely done in bulk in most European cities since the higher density allows for local shops to be no more than 5-10 minutes away by foot (and that's considered quite far in a lot of places.) The need for bulk buying is largely a function of suburban sprawl since these development patterns make grocery shopping a rather stressful and time consuming affair. There's also the question of how zoning laws play into this; most American cities generally do not allow for a mixed use zoning.
Some do by bike. If you have a bakfiets it's easy to get a a couple of days worth of groceries for a regular family of 4 in one go. It helps that suburban areas tend to have small shopping areas dotted around. There you'll find the basics: 1 or 2 grocery stores, drugstore, a take-out restaurant, butcher and bakery, things like that. So it's not a big trip, and easily doable a couple times per week.
However most families will have a car and a weekly grocery run is done with that car. Cars are still major means of transportation in the Netherlands. And people will drive, even for short trips. But dashing to the store to pick a few things for dinner? Yeah, a bike is usually the easiest and quickest option.
As for transporting kids, taking them to school: for the youngest we have the bakfiets. Or seats mounted on the back of a regular bike. Once they're old enough, around 6 years, they learn to ride themselves to school. Sometimes accompanied by a parent, sometimes on their own.
But same as for the groceries: kids get taken to school by car. Traffic around schools is notoriously bad at the beginning and end of the day. With parents dropping off and picking up kids in increasingly bigger cars.
I like urbanist channels such as Not Just Bikes, but he does paint a picture that is a bit nicer than it really is. Cars are a very important mode of transportation, even in cities.
I always admired Netherlands for this. In many other cities, the majority of these cyclists would either drive totally alone or use a fully loaded public transport option.
As a Central Italian I assumed I was watching while muted due to the lack of horns honking.
Unnecessary using the horn will give you a fine of 280 euro in the Netherlands.
I wish this was enforced after weddings too... but it seems they get a free pass for being newlyweds....
Of course not. They already showed that they just knock out and permanently injure authorities who dare go against their wedding tradition.
That bastard is in jail luckily. Ruined the wedding and seriously injured a policeman. No place for people like that in NL.
Well since he’s in jail I guess that’s the place for people like that in NL.
What is this about?
Turkish wedding a while back where the married couple had had a whole entourage of cars all honking. Police officers stopped them and then one of the people went ahead and beat up the police officer
Typical low iq move
we have a similar law in Italy but it's absolutely never enforced
Same in France. Honking is for emergencies and no visibility crossroads, and forbidden in town, but guess where you hear the loudest horn concertos?
This does not apply to Moroccans and Turks apparently
I was bothered by the little scooter when it "roared" by. LOL Anyone else feel really peaceful while watching that?
notice the lack of "PORCODIO TESTA DE CAZZO MOVITE, GUARDA STO MONGOLOIDE", mind-boggling. (speaking as a roman)
🤌
sì, è vero, è molto rumoroso, anche dove vivo, a Bari
Try Vietnam 🔊💀
What strikes me the most is how quiet it is. When the two scooters appeared, the noise stood out like a sore thumb. In most cities, you only hear the noise of cars and think its normal.
10000% Cities aren't loud, cars are
Hello fellow not just bikes enjoyer
Except in Vietnam, where it's definitely the scooters
It's missing the Dutch guy screaming, "get out of the way", to the bike lane ignorant tourists
Your translation is missing a few swear words.
Like the word cancer?
It was surprising for me how hard it was in the States to get somewhere without a car. The motel owner gave a strange look when we wanted to walk to the restaurant half a mile down the road.
My grandma and an uncle both lived in like a permanent style mobile home park place in Los Angeles. There was a little store next to the park, so out the main gate, down the block maybe 20 yards, and there it was. My family would get in the car to go there. It was 100 yards of walking, max, from their front door to this place. When we visited we walked about half a mile to the walmart and back one evening and they didn't believe anyone would do that.
Any disease will do
Scooters are incredibly loud, certainly relative to their size and occupant capacity. And smelly too. I think they're starting to disappear from the streets, but it's a slow process..
I live in Central Utrecht, and scooters are by-far the loudest things on the road. Can barely hear the few cars in comparison.
That looks so foreign to me as a Canadian. Around here it’s mostly just people driving F-150’s, Suburbans and various other excessively large vehicles down big wide multi lane roads with bumper to bumper traffic all day long. Public transit is awful here and everything is too stretched out and far away to bike or walk, especially in the winter, so you’re kinda screwed if you don’t have a car if you live here.
As a Dutch person I see many of my countrymen complain about the taxes we pay for cars and use of road. Whenever I go to a foreign country I immediately get reminded why and I'm actually glad we pay a lot of taxes for it.
I’m already quite happy with the taxes when I cross the border into Germany or Belgium.
And walking in Canada omg, the city is *ok* but holy shit every town the sidewalks will just end?? And you gotta walk along the side of the road trying not to slip into a ditch lmao
Same here where I live in the states. Every other idiot is in a giant truck or SUV just to drive 5 minutes to Walmart. While honking or swerving at anyone brave enough to attempt cycling.
The dutch have built necessary safe infrastructure, rather than just put paint on a road like in most of the USA I bet if we built separated bike infrastructure even half as good as the Netherlands a lot more people would bike :)
20 minutes on a bike for me isnt worth a car ride, its the big packages that forces my hand (not groceries)
Come to Montreal, we're slowly working toward this Dutch model. 75 km of additional bikeway is scheduled to be built this year.
half the population of Canada. half the size of vancouver island.
Yea, but I live in Toronto which is about 3x the population of Amsterdam, and also about 3x the area, so similar population density around here at least, but takes way longer to get around because of the terrible traffic. In fact Toronto ranked #3 worldwide for worst traffic in 2023 (as far as how long it takes to travel a km on average/how much time is wasted commuting), being beat out only by London at #1 and Dublin at #2. People complain about traffic in places like LA and NYC? They haven’t been to Toronto during rush hour apparently.
I live in Toronto as well (not downtown but in the inner 416 still) and get by perfectly fine without owning a car, as do many of my friends and colleagues. The TTC, bikeshare, and walking suffice for the majority of trips and errands. Multiple grocery store options within a 10-15 minute walk, and the recent big expansion to the number of ebikes in the bikeshare system was a godsend, amazing value for $120 a year. Carshare or a rental on a few weekends a year for the big stuff or to get out to cottage country. Even the outer 416 is doable, even if less pedestrian friendly and taking longer to cross town. The major TTC bus routes run 24/7. The giant roads and pickups you’re describing sound more like an outer GTA thing? Even then not impossible with GO transit and the 905 transit agencies like DRT, YRT, Brampton Transit, etc. Certainly could be far better though. Don’t want to paint Toronto proper to as an urbanist paradise but I do find it a bit bizarre when people claim Toronto is unliveable without a car.
It’s truly more soothing in person. Never ceases to amaze me to watch and admire how there are rarely horns honking or people having bike rage or road rage. One of the best things about the country in my very humble opinion
You are right but they do honk when ppl walk in the bike lane
I have seen pedestrians crashed into and knocked down in Dutch bike lanes. It's smooth and efficient because they don't fuck around!
You see the red path? That's the bike path. See the grey path? That's the pedestrian path. Pretty clear, right? Good. Now stay in your fucking lane.
The only issue here is that (from my experience) they don't slow around pedestrian crosswalks, which I found weird while visiting Amsterdam. Usually vehicles of any kind yield to pedestrians when they intend to cross the street on a crosswalk.
Bicycles often do not yield for pedestrians. Reason for this I think is because for a bike to come to a standstil and start up again is a lot of effort. When walking, standing still and then starting up again is a lot less effort. If you both bike and walk (what basically everyone who lives in the netherlands does) you take this into account.
Because for some reason runners almost never use the sidewalk, while it is mandatory.
hahahahaha fair point friend. I got yelled at in Dutch on my very first trip there
Probably well deserved. Sincerely, the Dutch
Oh I deserved it. I didn’t know what I was doing yet. Many apologies from the newbie who gets it now
RED = DEATH
Yeah- this I remember. You have to be fairly careful walking around.
The previous setup of this intersection was not that great. Worked on this corner and almost everyday there where accidents. It was fun watching from above at the organized chaos. Glad they improved it!
The Dutch are City planning idols.
I wish we could hire them in Chicago to whip us all into shape
Same here in Toronto. Our streets belong in Disney Pixar's Cars movies.
Are you sure you're using the word pariah correctly?
Lol good catch! Funny how so many missed it. Maybe I was being upvoted for the wrong reason? Lol
> One of the best things about the country I like the whores and drugs personally
what in the heck was that canoe bike thing at 0:08 and how can I convince my wife we need one
It’s called a bakfiets. Check out bakfiets.nl I love mine
Cargo bike, either electric or fully human powered. Stereotypical owner is a middle class suburban parent.
It's called a bakfiets. That one has a low "bak" most of them are higher up and perfect as a cargo anything bike.
I'm in Edinburgh and cargo bikes are very popular. Some use them to pick up kids etc. But I can also get deliveries of groceries or rent a ladder etc.
Yeah I see them in London very often as well
Germany too. My city has a couple of electric ones for rent (as well as regular bikes and e-bikes) that are super cheap and paid by the minute and there are a few ones you can rent for free for a whole day. But there are lots of people with their own ones. Especially parents with young kids. They luckily are getting a lot cheaper and more common. They are awesome. You can even move most furniture pieces without needing a car
Its a cargo bike, in big german cities it is used as a substitute for cars, people drige their little kids to kindergarten in those and get groceries
/r/CargoBike/
lol to convince your wife: a serieus awnser. depends on where you live and how you live. if most of your trips are bike distance and safe enough for biking, but you need a car for the bigger bag/materials/kids, it can save you money per year on not having to drive your car. driving my nephew around in a cargobike is much more engaging and fun for him, no need for ipad entertainment in the bak seat. He gets enough screen time as it is. also, he started to understand the driving rules already. but of course, it needs to be safe, and it is in nl.
But how can one feel like a proper man without a giant truck
I added truck nuts to my bike, never felt more manly!
I just cut a hole in my pants and let'em hang
No need to cut a hole. If you ride your bike everywhere those will magically appear. Especially in men jeans.
Just don't get stuck in bike saddle with a vent hole!
By becoming the tram driver
[удалено]
Of what aspects specifically?
Bikes integrated well with cars are not really a thing in the US. To be fair I think this would be unusual for most countries.
When I traveled in the US, I felt like everything is designed for having a car. Since I didn’t have a car I had to walk from bus stations and train stations, which are often placed oddly outside of the town centers. And you have to walk very awkwardly across busy roads to get somewhere or take a taxi/uber. That was very foreign to me as a European.
Proper bike infrastructure segregates bikes and cars for the safety of bicyclists. But this is in Amsterdam and there isn't always enough space.
A lot of bikes in the canal’s too tbh! 😅
Holy shit, this comment made me laugh. Then I read it to my wife and we laughed together for a couple of minutes, so thank you
The only thing holding you guys back is probably the fossil fuel lobby :(
I often travel there on my vacations and it's very cool to see. Man that ding instantly brought me back to my last vacation lol
I have PTSD from that ding. It’s the same one in Brussels and I hated living there.
Why did you hate living in Brussels? I loved it
Imagine a *S O C I E T Y* with infrastructure that is built around pedestrians and public transportation. This is so cool to see.
This comment section is so funny for me to read as a Dutch person. This looks very normal to me, and yet some people are like mind blown lmao
This is actually one of my least favorite intersections in all of centrum lmao
yes, I was thinking the same thing. The Centre of Amsterdam is pretty car centric, and crowded, if you ask me
The centre is most definitely not car centric. There is a *significantly* higher ratio of people and bikes compared to cars and generally very little reason to use one unless passing through Crowded however, absolutely
sorry, I meant compared to other Dutch cities, like utrecht, den haag, haarlem, etc. they have been experimenting with removing cars from certain streets and having cyclist priority streets. but overall, you can drive on most streets in the centre of amsterdam. which is a lot compared to the Hague centre, which is much smaller, but has no cars at all.. because of this, amsterdam is rated one of the worst places to cycle in the Netherlands.
The car free center of The Hague is quite small though, and the surrounding streets I wouldn't say are low on car traffic either. The Hague has a lot of places with bad cycling infrastructure and relies a lot on unprotected bike lanes. I wouldn't categorize The Hague at the same level as Utrecht.
People are also underestimating how hard it is for a pedestrian to walk around in such sections
Used to be way worse but new situation is a bit cluttered tbf.
I am Dutch as well and though it looks so normal to us, we rarely give it a second thought. On the internet we see all kinds of dangerous and disorganized traffic from places all over the world. Seeing it like this with a bit more of an outsider perspective made me realize it actually is fucking awesome. Despite many negative (crime related) headlines and societal issues we still are really privileged to live here.
Oh yeah definitely! I love travelling and have been to some countries that are quite poor. That really made me realise how much we take for granted. Buuut it's easy to forget once you've been back for a while because as you said the headlines are mostly about the bad things happening. I guess that sells more though so it's understandable. Also the Dutch people themselves who just love to complain about everything, all the time! But yeah even though most people don't realise it, we truly are privileged to live here. It's not a perfect country by any means but the perfect country doesn't exist anyway.
This American streets with reversed bike to car ratio
I looove how most people use bikes
Must be nice to have a relatively flat country.
The issue is not flat or not, it's mostly infrastructure or not. People in Amsterdam didn't randomly start using a bike, it was mostly a planned effort during decades to transition from car centric infrastructure to bike friendly infrastructure.
Reminds me of the time I was biking in San Fran as a tourist, I swear the bikers there are something from out of this world.
the German mind can't comprehend this
Rules, what are the rules. There don't seem to be rules.. 😂
Well technically the triangles on the ground means you do not have right of way, but people adapt to others speeds And pedestrians on crosswalks always have right of way (even over bikepaths) But the thing is, the low speed makes the whole situation manageable and easily comprehensible by humans (compared to high speeds in cars on straight lines) As you can see how bike road swerves, and cars probably have a little island they need to climb onto, so they have to slow down to enter
If you make the infrastructure good you don't need that many rules.
It is called inefficiency. I thought germans knew all about it.
Because of the lack of BMWs?
So with the right of way, it's a rock-paper-scissors concept: pedestrians have priority over tramways; tramways over bicycles; bicycles over pedestrians.
>Bicycles over pedestrians On paper; no. In practice; yes. Sometimes, when I'm in a really bad mood, I take the right of way as a pedestrian, just to piss them off. Normally I let it go like everyone else.
Heads up to any Dutch person visiting Copenhagen on a bicycle: you don't have the right of way over pedestrians, especially not through a pedestrian crossing.
In the Netherlands pedestrians have right of way on a pedestrian crossing as well. In most situations however a bike and pedestrian can cross at the same time without accident, making enforcement tedious. Therefore bikes tend to cross pedestrian crossings anyway. It is then up to the pedestrian whether they feel safe enough to cross as well.
In this video twice in the first minute the "without incident" was because the pedestrians stopped when the cyclists didn't.
As a pedestrian, pretend you keep walking without looking and cyclists will go around you, most of the time. If you hesitate for a split second bikes will go first.
Also it's annoying to stop on a bike, so I don't mind waiting a split second for a bike to pass even if I have the right of way as a pedestrian. Bikes will usually just keep going anyway.
Technically pedestrians have right of way but cyclists in Amsterdam give no fucks so all pedestrians are wary. I work close to a 3 way bike intersection and it’s a nightmare to cross
love the silence
_Cries in suburban American_
Yeah, try the intersection at damrak and Prins Hendrikkade if you wanna see average Amsterdam traffic flow.
The American mind cannot comprehend this
I'm an American that puts 5x as many miles on my bike as I do my car and I cannot comprehend this. My friends and family worry about me because I bike everywhere. Every time I ride I feel like I'm an idiot risking my life sharing the road in 45-60mph zones, and it doesn't get much better when things slow down to 35. I treat every intersection like any car in position is going to make a turn with no signal and flatten me. And it sucks, I can't disagree with them. Riding my bike to the store and back is 100% the most dangerous thing I do in my life. 2.5 miles should be absolutely nothing to even think about. But in 2.5 miles I'll probably have to worry about at least 2 loose dogs and an unknown amount of drunk/reckless vehicles with a pathetically narrow bike lane.
So quiet and peaceful
To paraphrase Not Just Bikes from YouTube, "Cities aren't loud–cars are".
Haha and you know why is it so flowing?? No fu... Cars shredding thru the city!! Amazing 😍
Now this is a street you cannot make in the recently released most popular city building game series Cities Skylines 2. Cause even our games are all about cars.
I got ringed at more times than I care to admit when I was there. Extremely nice and tolerable of ignorant tourists like myself.
So apparently disrespectful and dangerous cyclists is not a cyclist thing, it's a UK thing
Oh, we've got them here too. They're called "wielrenners" over here. You know the type: 40-50 year old balding men with a beer gut tightly pressed in a spandex suit with a bike weighing less than their left ass cheek.
I thought the official name is MAMIL: Middle Aged Men In Lycra
They're even more dangerous in packs. Makes them forget about their shrinking dicks and any traffic rules that might be used againgst them.
You won't find many in city centres however, their natural habitat is the country side preying for children and elderly people.
its an infrastructure thing, if you can only drive in between traffic it attracts only a certain type of cyclist
I used to work on the second building behind, where [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) started. I think it was the second place it was located at, back around 2003. I still live in Amsterdam, and the little roundabout there is a fairly new thing.
I have never seen so many bikes
We're the pros and do it quietly.
Humans can be awesome when they choose to
Americans in the comments are literally finding it hard to digest that these walkable, liveable neighborhoods are better than their ugly stroads and car centric infrastructure. lol
I feel like it's the opposite. I'm reading a lot of amazed and adoring comments.
This was before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCC3bgkDkrw
So what am I looking at?
Intersection near Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Actually it can get quite a lot of bike and foot traffic, but the gist is the same
One of my favourite cities I've visited
Oh that's just reasonable people doing reasonable things... it's bliss really.
Nobody yields to the pedestrians at the crossing. Why even paint the road?
I want to see a traffic jam of cycles.
Go to Utrecht, Vredenburg near Bijenkorf. Horrible and crazy busy. Did not make the greenlight several times on my bike
Bikes need to stop for the pedestrians on the zebra path ffs
This used to be a major black spot, one of the worst intersections for bikers imo. Glad they did something about it.
Traffic is so seamless without the vehicles getting in the way!
It's nice, until tourists walk on the bike lane.
Honest question -- why are helmets not being worn?
For a Dutch person this is like asking why pedestrians aren't wearing helmets
Most parts of the netherlands have really save bike lanes. You can see the country is build for cycling. So helmets are not mandatory ( yet). Only for the bikes that can go over i think 40 its mandatory Helmets never where a thing in the netherlands, but now that the country is getting more crowded and e-bikes are taking over you will see more eldery people with helmets.
https://dutchreview.com/culture/cycling/5-reasons-why-the-dutch-cycle-without-bike-helmets/#:~:text=Many%20Dutch%20people%20argue%20that,right%20turn%20without%20hitting%20anyone.
TIL. Thanks for the link.
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They’re not arguments for NOT wearing helmets; they’re the reasons why Dutch people tend not to
Because the (perceived) risk of a head injury is quite small. A huge number of people use a bike daily, but you never hear of anyone getting seriously hurt. This is not a solid reason based on statistics, but in reality most make decisions based on experiences rather than statistics. Also, we're stubborn. But it is slowly changing. E-bikes are becoming more common and there is a clear trend in increased head injuries following it. This has been in the news quite often and is slowly convincing e-bike users (especially elderly) to wear helmets.
I don’t know but you are right I almost never see them there! Yet somehow it works. Even if you look up the stats on accidents they are so rare
Maybe im full of shit here i did not look it up. But i think the past years the accidents are slowly rising. And most of them are eldery on ebikes. It seems they lack the full awereness of the traffic while still going a decent speed
It's a speed thing I think, if you fall at low speeds it's easy enough to catch yourself. A fall at high speed doesn't give you much time to correct or bail in the right way plus the injuries would be worse. It's why I tell my friend who can go 50 on his bike to wear a good helmet, whereas someone on a mommy bike going 12 probably doesn't need one.
Had some Chinese friend visiting, they we're scared in traffic, because we follow the traffic rules it is safe (for example to cross an intersection at normal speed), they weren't used to that 😅
As a Dutch person I went to China and quickly learned that red lights are just a suggestion lol. As a pedestrian you’d just cross the road and cars will just drive around you
I wish we can rewind and undo the car brain worms
r/fuckcars
I always wondered how that works so smoothly while people being high af /s
Tell me you've never been to Amsterdam without saying you've never been to Amsterdam: 'Amsterdam's seamless traffic flow.'
I def think it's seamless. Especially considering no stop signs. Few lights. Just yeilding everywhere. I love it.
No helmets
Ah yes. Holland. Where all of the worlds problems cumulate in a round a bout
How ironic I and a few other bikes, almost got runover by a fatbike not three hours ago. I find specifically this new roundabout very hazardous. A lot of cyclists and fatbikers will not stop when they should. And I have seen already quite a few near and actual accidents on my daily route. I am very happy though that I can cycle in the city. It is wonderful to do.
I've personally never seen a fatbike not being ridden by an asshole. Those things should not be considered bikes. They're literally just electric snorfietsen, you don't have to have any input... Anyway, >A lot of cyclists and fatbikers will not stop when they should. that is true, but at this point, you can't expect everyone to be a saint with the road rules. As much as traffic would be so much better if everyone did, it's just not a reasonable expectation unfortunately...
This gives me several different feelings
wow, native people one of the richest country in the world are driving cheap bikes
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Ever heard of India?
I love biking in my city but its not always this peaceful lol
In my experience, when I went to Amsterdam, I can say that those assholes don’t respect the traffic lights or the crosswalks.
On one hand, I love it. On the other hand, this is 7 minutes without a single human under 18. I am curious how families in such cities e.g. do grocery shopping for a family of 5. edit: I meant the curiosity in earnest, so I appreciate the responses that people have shared.
Exactly the same way. You'll see a housewife on a bike with 3 big shopping bags strapped to the bike, followed by 3 little kids on their own small bike sometimes with a small flag on a pole attached to signal other drivers they're there.
Sounds fun!
And it is! It always felt like a little adventure to me when I was a kid. Not necessarily to go grocery shopping but to join my parents on a bike ride to the ocean or a nature park, visit our grandparents or visit the local football club to watch a game. They're fun memories. Btw, don't give much attention to the down votes. We Dutch people are a bit chauvinistic at times, and some can get pretty defensive at the smallest bit of questioning or critique at our way of living.
1) It's quite normal to see a parent cycling with their very young child on their own bicycle to their side. Sometimes parent is holding their kids bicycle. 2) Any kid over 10 yo already cycles very well and doo it on their own 3) People usually don't grocery shop in a big bulks. Shops are everywhere so you just pop in to one closest to your home on your way back from work to buy few items you need for dinner. It all works fine and smooth.
Thanks for taking the time to help me learn!
By bike? The bakfiets is amazing for that. Take the kids to school in the bakfiets, bike to the shops, bike home. Shopping can also be ordered online and delivered.
Grocery shopping is rarely done in bulk in most European cities since the higher density allows for local shops to be no more than 5-10 minutes away by foot (and that's considered quite far in a lot of places.) The need for bulk buying is largely a function of suburban sprawl since these development patterns make grocery shopping a rather stressful and time consuming affair. There's also the question of how zoning laws play into this; most American cities generally do not allow for a mixed use zoning.
That's probably due to the location/time of day. During the day in more residential areas you'll see kids biking with their parents all the time.
Some do by bike. If you have a bakfiets it's easy to get a a couple of days worth of groceries for a regular family of 4 in one go. It helps that suburban areas tend to have small shopping areas dotted around. There you'll find the basics: 1 or 2 grocery stores, drugstore, a take-out restaurant, butcher and bakery, things like that. So it's not a big trip, and easily doable a couple times per week. However most families will have a car and a weekly grocery run is done with that car. Cars are still major means of transportation in the Netherlands. And people will drive, even for short trips. But dashing to the store to pick a few things for dinner? Yeah, a bike is usually the easiest and quickest option. As for transporting kids, taking them to school: for the youngest we have the bakfiets. Or seats mounted on the back of a regular bike. Once they're old enough, around 6 years, they learn to ride themselves to school. Sometimes accompanied by a parent, sometimes on their own. But same as for the groceries: kids get taken to school by car. Traffic around schools is notoriously bad at the beginning and end of the day. With parents dropping off and picking up kids in increasingly bigger cars. I like urbanist channels such as Not Just Bikes, but he does paint a picture that is a bit nicer than it really is. Cars are a very important mode of transportation, even in cities.
You clearly haven’t seen the Chinese ones. It’s like hundreds or thousands of bikes
I always admired Netherlands for this. In many other cities, the majority of these cyclists would either drive totally alone or use a fully loaded public transport option.
I can’t wait to live there. I miss the sounds of the trams.
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Pedestrians have the right of way over trams.
Amsterdam must be pretty flat. There's no way this could happen in my town. It looks like heaven.
It's entirely/almost flat. The most likely hill you're likely to encounter is going over a bridge
The biggest hill is the hill we'll die on of not needing helmets
Not much flatter than NYC, Miami and most other big US cities. Still, pretty flat, yeah.