Compared to other countries yes. But I still see plenty of motorist that drive way too fast, and don't (want) to stop for cyclist, because they see us as secondary. "I'm a big car, Rawwrrr! get out of my way!"
A great point. No amount of design or civil engineering will win if there isn't an overall attitude to care about people that are on bikes or walking. I've seen the care my Dutch relatives take to make sure they are giving others the right of way, and I see way too much driving in America that gives no room for others... The "Me First" attitude is socially backwards and dangerous.
@@SledgeOfHouseHammer Just applying Dutch style infrastructure to situations in the US, don''t help. You need to start building villages, towns and cities different and I'm not talking about the infrastructure. How far away lives your closest neighbor? For me, that answer is 1 meter or 3 feet on the other side of the wall. For a lot of the US, that answer is 50 feet or more. Such leads to a street in the Netherlands, serving some 400 people. The same size street in the US, serves 10. My neighborhood has about 60 homes. In a same area size neighborhood in the US, there are less then 10 homes. I don't see it happen in the US, that 'Dutch' (read: non-American) style neighborhoods will be build everywhere. You need to increase your population density and no, that does not mean to open the borders for another 300 million people, that means to accept smaller housing, building them close together. Yes that means you have less space around your home. so what? If I take a look on streetview of a suburb in the US, I see many small wooden homes with an enormous not-taken-care-of yard and a huge pickup truck on the private driveway. Here you won't find that. When the home costs about 400.000 Euro, the car in front of the house is more like 40.000 Euro. I get the feeling that in the US, having a big car is more important then having a good home. We do that different. The population density in the Netherlands, makes the infrastructure in this country possible.
@@Jila_Tana just applying the infrastructure won't recreate the Netherlands, but it does help. Protected bike tracks and protected intersections work anywhere, and suburbs have plenty of space to give to bicycles.
@@mindstalk I don't want to come across as 'the know-it-all.' For the Dutch, living in closer quarters wasn't a choice; it was a necessity due to limited space. In contrast, for many Americans, having more space and privacy is a deliberate choice. I recognize that the 'right to not have immediate neighbors' and the resulting privacy are deeply ingrained in U.S. society. I'm not claiming that the Dutch way is better; it's simply different. To illustrate the disparity: living in the Netherlands like much of the American population does would require significant wealth. Purchasing 5 acres of land in rural Netherlands could cost around €300,000 just for the land. Adding a house could easily bring the total to €800,000. This makes such living arrangements unfeasible for most of the population here, while in the U.S., it's relatively common. More towards your comment : Not needing protected bicycle paths everywhere is also due to the fact that those people in cars, also own bicycles. Everyone bikes every so often. Me stepping into a car, doesn't mean that I suddenly hate bicycles. I am a biker myself, every day getting groceries : Bicycle. And that goes for everyone (95%) else as well. Here it is not 'us vs them'
I think that the real answer to "Why won't the Dutch build protected cycle paths everywhere?" is that we have not yet conquered the rest of the world. But we will get to that when we turned the rest of the oceans into more polder with our mecha windmills.
The real reason is we don't need them, dutch peoeple are much more social then Americans for example. Biking in New York is a adventure for sure. Did that two years ago when visiting family.
HAHAHHA, the Dutch are really not omniscient and I have seen them make many mistakes when it comes to thinking about how to achieve something. But many Dutch inventors want to develop the wheel themselves too often instead of adapting what works well elsewhere. but when it comes to infrastructure, we often don't have to look at others, we already know very well how it should be done.
very important aspect and a major problem with bike lanes in America: They are often build in places, where many European countries (especially Germany and Belgium follow the same concept) wouldn't build any - wasting money and only creating conflicts (both social and traffic wise), which are totally unneeded. Meanwhile on American main roads, where separated infrastructure is absolutely needed, nothing happens.
American lanes are almost twice as wide as european lanes. Maybe if you paid 10 dollar a gallon of fuel like we do, you wouldn't feel the need to transport your overinflated ego with a V6
@@kailahmann1823 Please bear in mind that in the Netherlands, bikes were a primary mode of transport before cars were available to 'the masses'. So bikelanes weren't built exclusively to promote the use of bicycles, but as a solution to an existing problem, the number of traffic related deaths among cyclists. Maybe if cycling becomes a, generally accepted way to get around, the infrastructure will evolve. However, getting adults out of their cars and kids out of a schoolbus and on a bicycle, might be a bit complicated... But i am not an expert....😉
@@BernardBakker That was the same in the US. People travelled by other means before cars arrived, mostly walking and cykling before the car was made really inexpensive. Trams were huge in US as well. The truth is that there are American cities that have increased the average speed on the through traffic street by removing a car lane (or two) and replacing them with separated bike lanes. They also have introduced plenty of roundabouts as well, and improved parking by replacing worthless (from a tax perspective) ground level parking lots with parking garages, allowing for denser and mixed use building zones, all paid for by the increas in tax income from the higher density of population. A shorter way to walk from your parked car where you want to go, and visiting several stores before going back to you car (for the same walking distance as visiting one store before) certainly reduced traffic a lot. Separate cycling infrastructure came much later, after the cities in US, as well as most European cities (including Amsterdam), where carified (ruined) during the 1950s and 1960s.
@@57thorns After having traveled a few times (by car) through the United States, I am still amazed by the one-sided mobility mix in the US. One can choose between the car and ...? Except for a few cities, urban public transport seems to have little to offer, for longer distances, the car or the plane are the only options. Where in the Netherlands the bicycle is often the solution for the 'last mile', to and from a tram stop or a train station, this 'problem' is non-existent in the US, even for the last mile you need the car. What makes the US to not invest in public transport, not only bike paths, but also trams in urban areas, light rail to connect urban areas with the suburbs and (high speed) trains for longer distances?
Great of you to point out that there are still many asphalt roads where 30km/h is the principle but not adhered due to the road design. The road on which I live is currently undergoing a redesign where they’re narrowing it and changing the surface from asphalt to bricks. This will also give pedestrians much needed extra space as I feel that many Dutch pavements are too narrow.
As a Dutch/Japanese Citizen Seeing a LOT of footage from my old neighbourhood (Graafsewijk in 's-Hertogenbosch) in this video does my heart good ♥ seeing that i grew up there since my parents moved here from Japan when i was 4 Dutch bike path infrastructure in Den Bosch is good, learned to ride my first bike in the Cypresstraat
Saw the Thumbnail and was instantly like: That's looks like De IJzeren Vrouw, (a pond/park). It's been on my route for cycling to my grandparents my entire life 😁
I live on a street in Utrecht that will be changed from 50 to 30 km/h later this year! Very glad about this - it will reduce noise and hopefully some through traffic as well.
Wou dat ze dat zouden doen met de "grote" weg in mijn dorp. Veel verkeer in de spitsuren aangezien het de snelste weg is tussen meerdere dorpen. Als het naar 30kp/u zou gaan zouden ze eerder via de grotere wegen gaan
@@rickdubbink Uh nee, dan rijden mensen gewoon met 50 door omdat onzinnige regels die een meerderheid slachtofferen voor een enkeling, nooit gehoorzaamd worden.
Very great point! I live in a little village in the Netherlands, and despite having very little or no dedicated bike lanes, it's still very safe to cycle because the streets are very narrow cobblestones with lots of raised intersections, speed bumps, and bollards to deflect car traffic to only the main roads. If you don't let cars use your neighborhood as a through way, then you don't need bike lanes! Only when there's higher speeds or lots of car traffic (which it should be attempted to not have at all)
in the U.S., we sometimes call these slow, mixed-traffic areas “bike boulevards” or “neighborhood greenways” when they are included as deliberate parts of cycling networks
Yes, but in the US the "bike boulevards" are just decoration. The streets are rarely traffic clamned, there are still stop signs, they still have through traffic for cars, and speed limits are too high. They're often used to get cyclists out of the way of drivers on busier streets and as an excuse not to build separated cycling infrastructure on main roads. They are vastly inferior to a Dutch fietsstraat.
Yeah but they're quite ineffective and usually still wide streets that are easy to speed through. I've cycled on both those in the US and through neighborhoods in the Netherlands, and there's a huge difference. More changes need to be made to make them safer in US cities such as more traffic calming.
I was in Eindhoven recently and the new 30km/h speed limit on the main road that goes through the residential area was super weird. From the feel of the road you get the idea that it's a 50km/h road, but they just slapped the new lower speed limit on it and call it a day it seems. I hope they take steps to make sure the road also naturally feels like a 30km/h road, otherwise I expect a lot of people to miss the speed limit.
It took us several decades to get where we are today here in the Netherlands, it didn't happen overnight. So yes it is absolutely possible in Canada as well, it just takes time but it also takes enough people who want to realize that change. But you guys have internet to bring people together on this, we didn't have that back then so it should be easier to find like-minded people and get organized. Oh and us Dutchies complain a lot, that helps too to get change 😂 Warm greetings from the Netherlands. 🌷
and i like to add to Babzv comment: while it took decades for us (The Netherlands) to get here, now other nations can benefit from our mistakes and experience. and so if a place really wants to shift to being more people friendly instead of just car friendly, they can just contact the Dutch Cycling Embassy (a group of people with a lot of knowledge and expertise about cycling infrastructure) and have them help out with what could work and what won't work for your place. don't try to reinvent it, benefit from decades of research and trail and error and just pick the things that would work in your area. as long as you make sure it's a consistent network, and not just a few bike lanes spread throughout your city. that's one of the most common mistakes made by cities that build some bike infrastructure
@@ChristiaanHW I totally agree. I find frustrating seeing cities all over trying to reinvent the wheel when the Netherlands has this amazing tried and tested method. Perhaps Montreal is slowly realizing this, as the city has a plan to build its first Dutch-style protected intersection soon.
Probably the biggest factor in keeping speeds down in residential (and industrial) areas is not the speed limit but the use of right-priority junctions, which force drivers to be wary of each other.
That is designated car parking area yes. Wide sidewalk to the right of the cars on the right (behind the trees), narrow one to the left of the cars on the left.
The idea behind this way of parking is that it 1) makes the street visually narrower so people drive slower, 2) creates a dual use space when there are no (or few) cars parked it doubles as a sidewalk/safer playspace for kids
There's almost always a rectangle of different paver used in these kind of raised parking lanes to indicate where the parking spaces are and what areas are to be used as a sidewalk. It is not so clear on the photo in the video but underneath the blue car you can see the difference in paver.
Yes, they make you lose way less momentum than a normal speed bump. They sometimes also taper off near the sides of the road where u usually cycle anyways. Normal brick speed bumps are not too bad tho, the plastic "temporary" ones are usually the worst offenders, they are slippery when wet and have a ridge which is extra uncomfortable.
The city of Hilversum just placed two of those annoying plastic ones. ON A BIKE LANE, just east of the main station. Despite several complaints to the city council they insist they were right in putting them there. So sadly not all cities are like Amsterdam and Utrecht. Hilversum seems to enjoy pandering to cars and giving cyclists a difficult time.
As a person born in 1966, I have seen and experienced the changes towards bike-friendly infrastructures first hand. It used to be a dangerous thing to ride my bike in the dark from the city to my hometown, with no seperate bikelanes on a 80 km/h street. Now its much more safe with seperate bikelanes and reduced speedlimit. On the other hand, the amount of motorised traffic has increased dramatically.
The lowering of the speed to 30 kph and flow times of traffic through a city also has proven the main argument of many people that "lower speeds makes travel times longer and thus should be avoided" isn't true. The average speed while crossing through a city is about 26 kph as there is a lot of accelerating and slowing down in between traffic lights/intersections/roundabouts/etc.. A lower maximum speed, closer to the average is helping to maintain the flow, allowing more vehicles per kilometer street (shorter distance between vehicles possible and less harmonica effect due to stopping/accelerating traffic). And the main arguments for lowering the speed are less accidents because of shorter stopping distances, less injuries because of lesser impact by lower speed, less pollution and lesser sound/vibrations due to the lower speed (which are mainly reported by citizen along these roads).
As always, the "I want to drive faster" arguments are completely annihilated by experiments that provide real data. Psychology is a huge part of it. I notice this a lot when I drive on a road in Lelystad that was originally meant to be a 70/80km/h road, but it's now 50. It just feels like you're crawling along and I really have to watch that I'm not going over the speed limit. That's why people always complain about this stuff, because it feels like going slower, while the difference in time you get there is negligible. Going 130km/h saves you a couple of minutes of time, hurray. Let's say you have a 45 minute commute. Depending on where you live, you may be spending 30 minutes on the highway. Then the time you save is roughly 7 minutes. But this difference is completely nullified when you have to wait 15 minutes in traffic regardless. Only for really long commutes can you see the difference. It also really depends on where you live. AFAIK, provincial roads are always only really 100km/h at the maximum, usually 80
Honestly what Utrecht does - 30kmh on all streets with no separate bike path - is exactly what feels naturally right everywhere and I stand fully behind this on becoming the main rule nationally. Maybe this could push municipalities to respond by separating the bike lanes because they are 'frustrated' by the 'lower speeds'. Which is a win in my book.
the funny thing is, 30 is often quicker than 50, better flow of traffic, more options for roundaboits instead of traffic lights etc. and innbuay cities its more often than not a challange to get to 50 anyways.
in most cities (especially during rush hour) the average speed is often not even 30km/h during trips. so when you make (almost) all roads in the city 30km/h the improved flow will cancel out the short distances you can "floor it". meaning it won't take you any longer in most cases where they go from 50km/h to 30km/h. but it does make the roads safer, and if something happens the results are often way less drastic (less damage to vehicles and less severe injuries) so if you look at it with a non-biased view, you will see no measurable impact to travel times (they may even get a bit shorter). and at the same time a much safer and pleasant city environment.
Exactly this - and yet when the government in Wales tried to implement a 20mph (32kph) limit on many urban roads, there was so much anger and protest about the country 'grinding to a halt' that eventually they had to reverse most of the changes at great expense. It is so easy to counter the false headlines around speed limits slowing traffic down, bike lanes causing congestion, pedestrian zones killing businesses etc etc with evidence to the contrary - but people just don't listen. I wish everyone was taught Dutch-style urban design at school - then perhaps maybe more people would be aware of how beneficial it is!
@@iamjoestafford ye its interesting, in the Netherlands, TNO, a research company, did traffic similations, over 20 years ago. and they saw that behaviour in traffic is basically the Only cause of traffic jams. nice example (highway), when you hit the brake light once, then traffic can stop 1 km back. because of ppl reacting to the breaklights.
Could you please make a video about "standard practice of priority from the right for cars"? I'm from the UK and this seems very weird to me. Priority is always for the main road and cars entering from side roads have to give way/yield to the main road. I thought priority from the right was only done in France in the past and that it had gone out of fashion and was disappearing. I've been to the Netherlands 3 times now and have not noticed priority from the right anywhere while being there, so either I just don't understand the system or I'm completely blind if it is indeed "standard"?
There isn't really much to say but "At intersections and side roads, traffic from the right always has priority unless traffic signs or signals indicate otherwise." (from: www.refugeehelp.nl/en/ukrainian-refugee/article/100129-traffic-regulations-in-the-netherlands). So yes that means on every intersection where there are no traffic signs or traffic lights. We don't have "main roads" and "side roads" unless that is defined by traffic signs and then the general rule does not apply anyway. But in 30km/h zones by definition there are no traffic signs, so there traffic from the right (including cyclists!) has the right of way on all intersections.
@@BicycleDutch That is interesting. So just to confirm by way of 2 examples: If you're on Amandelstraat in Utrecht and you want to turn right into Ahoornstraat, or you're on Pijnboomstraat and you want to turn right into Amandelstraat, you can just go without giving way to traffic from the left? And conversely, if you're driving along a main road like Amandelstraat, if you see a car trying to enter from a "side" road to your right, you have to slow down and let them in? Meaning you have to constantly pay attention to cars entering your path from the right hand side? If true, that is wild to me. That NEVER happens in the UK. When you approach a "T-Junction" there are always Give Way signs and markings, indicating that you are on the minor road and must give way to the traffic on the busier road you are entering.
@mdhazeldine No, there you have to give way to traffic on Ahornstraat. When you exit Amandelstraat you leave a 30km/h zone. There is a sign saying that and also the continuous sidewalk gives it away. When leaving a 30km/h zone you always have to give way. But the answer to your next question is "Yes". If you would go north in Amandelstraat to the intersection with Elsstraat you would have to give way. This time because Elsstraat is from the right. That also goes for the the next two intersections of Amandelstraat with Larixstraat and Rietstraat. But then Pijnboomstraat is from the left, so traffic coming from there has to give way to traffic in the Amandelstraat, because there that street is coming from the right. So yes, you do have to pay attention to traffic from the right for every side street and let them go first in such zones where all streets are equal. There is one exception to the stanard priority from the right and that is that of the "exit-construction". Originally intended to prevent traffic coming from a driveway having priority under the right over left default rule. The rule is now: when you have a level change (going down from a kerb/curb) you have to give way. This exception is now sometimes mis-used (or maybe re-used in a clever way) to cheat a bit and have priority intersections inside a 30km/h zone after all, without the need for signs or road markings.
@@BicycleDutch Ah very interesting. I can see how that works in low speed zones because you're going slow enough to pay attention. Looking around at Google Maps a bit more, I see there are actually many scenarios that are similar to the UK where you have "sharks teeth" to indicate "give way" from a side road to a main road, so perhaps the Netherlands is not as different as I first thought, but the priority from the right in 30kph zones is definitely not done here. 99% of the time we have our equivalent of sharks teeth (a double dashed line) on T-junctions or cross roads to indicate priority (which is usually given to whatever is considered the main route), however in a small number of cases where no markings exist, the official rule is that there's "no priority". You just have to figure it out. This only happens in very low traffic residential areas. One final interesting example from NL is Vleuten (suburb of Utrecht). If you go along Marssenseweg from the highway and continue into Schoolstraat into the town centre, you can see that before 2010, it used to be 60kph all the way into the town centre and there were yellow diamond signs to indicate it was a "priority road" (a concept we don't have in the UK). Now it has been turned in to a 30kph zone and the diamond signs have gone. All the raised curbs have been removed and it's now all flat, with no road markings. So am I right in thinking that now, if you are on Schoolstraat, you must always give way to cars from the right, even though that is clearly still a "main road" going through the town? If so, then that means the increasing number of 30kph zones in NL is also hugely changing road priorities at junctions everywhere. You may not consider this a big deal, but to people from other countries, I think it very much is. Perhaps that's worth a video?
@@mdhazeldine I'm a little confused by your confusion. I'm a sixty year old Dutchman, and 'vehicles from the right have priority, unless a sign says otherwise' is something we all learn here as the basic main traffic rule from early childhood. As far as I'm aware, this is also the rule in surrounding countries. Checking this priority rule is second nature to everyone; we even use it to decide who goes first when two bikes meet at an intersection. The priority rule for the 30 km/h zones isn't different or new; it's exactly how it works for any intersecting road at any speed: you assume right goes first, unless you see a 'you are on a priority road'-sign (which of course has a 'you don't have priority'-counterpart on the other road). It's so ingrained that we even tend to stick to the rule when walking.
In England giving up road space for cycling will be key to reduce traffic. Right now there is a lack of protected cycling infrastructure outside of London and too many roads lead to the same places. Where I live they are unlikely to create protected cycling paths on roads so it will mean using existing infrastructure to create the cycle networks and also to places people want to go to, as well as safe places to store and lock them up. Work places and schools also need to part of this to encourage people out of their cars.
When it comes to speed limits, Sweden has them all: 30 km/h on domestic streets and outside schools. 40 km/h in roads surrounding domestic zones and some larger through traffic roads. 50 km/h as the base speed in built up areas. 60 km/h when 70 is too much and 50 is too slow. 70 km/h is the base speed outside built up areas, and in high traffic roads cutting through bult up areas. 90 km/h is the default speed for a paved rural road (more or less) in good shape. 80 km/h is the speed when the 90 km/h road is not maintaned properly or have lots of traffic and incidents. 100 km/h on 1/2 roads or 1/1 roads with a central division (typically cable barrier) 110 km/h and 120 km/h is for 2+2 dual carriage motor ways. Of course, the local municipality can just set any speed limit really, so there are plenty of intersting things like slowing down from 80 or 90 to 60 or 70 when there is a road crossing. (all combinations are possible including 80-70 and 90-60). Mostly is is just a mess to keep track of what the speed limit is, as any general rules like the ones I listed above are far from consistent.
I’ll simply say that I love living in the Netherlands! I moved here from England, and have no regrets. Ik zeg gewoon dat ik het heerlijk vind om in Nederland te wonen! Ik ben hierheen verhuisd vanuit Engeland en heb er geen spijt van.
That was my plan and I even had job offers on the table - but then the Brexit transition period ended, I lost the automatic right to live and work across the EU, and I'm far too old to retrain in a job that I could get a visa for. It destroyed my dreams. So now I just visit a couple of times a year and cry every time I come home!
Our city in Drenthe had lots of these grey asphalt streets and upgraded them for... another grey asphalt in the same lay-out lol. Very car friendly. :)
50 kph is fine where there are separated cycle paths. In my town (Apeldoorn) there are some long, straight roads where the speed limit is 30 kph and which have unseparated red cycle lanes, but there are alternative 50kph routes for cars. These have separated cycle paths and are mostly not lined with houses. To reduce the speed limits on these roads would be unnecessary, impractical and probably politically impossible. Wales, a hilly country where few people cycle so not exactly comparable with the Netherlands, recently introduced a blanket 20 mph (roughly 30 kph) speed limit in towns, which has been so unpopular and unsuccessful that many roads are now having their speed limits changed back to 30 mph.
There's an interesting 30 km/h road in Amsterdam called Amstelveenseweg (at least the section around Van Nijenrodeweg). It has many many small white ridges applied at the edges of the road that make driving fast and swerving even a little noticeable if not uncomfortable. This feature is uncommon if not unique, and unexpected because it's otherwise not built like a 30km/h road at all: very straight, plenty wide & long. I can only assume the government is unwilling to alter it too much because it would hamper ambulances going to the nearby VU AMC hospital. Sadly I can find no pictures of it online and Google Maps is not up to date pictures as of Jan 2025.
As a former bikemessenger and hobbycyclist i can tell you still have to be carefull, dont aspact everybody gives way when needed, been in several accidents were i had the bennefit and still ran off my bike. its not the big wonderland!
Going to say it over and over until people understand it, but the Netherlands isn't just great for bikes, it's great for cars also, since my average speed is way closer to what the street actually indicates.
Yeah but now it is starting to get annoying at some places. 30km/h is very annoying at important connecting roads. Im fine with most 50 roads converting to 30 but there are some cases where it is out of place. I hope they keep a nice balance to the roads where it will be nice to travel with all vehicles.
It will lead to Utrecht for the Utrechters, them being inhabitants of the city of Utrecht, not inhabitants of the province of Utrecht. In a way it will contribute a little to less social cohesion on the scale of the province, and a bit more cohesion on a local scale.
I really don't understand how a 30km/h limit in built up areas would cause confusion. You remove all "30 zone" signs and put up "50" signs on main roads, after every intersection.
Interesting. Over here they're actually broadening the main street in anticipation of an increased volume of car traffic (more than twenty trees will need to make room for that).
From what I hear when talking to people who drive in Middelburg, it comes down to wanting to be comfortable instead of cold. Almost everything and even nearby towns are within reasonable cycling distance. If those people decide to cycle instead of drive, it should be a significant reduction in cars on the roads where most people cycle.
Because cars are second class citizens in residential areas. The only thing we need to change is to make the sidewalks connected instead of the roads to make that even more clear.
I can't say for certain because I don't own an electric car, but wouldn't lower 30 kph speed limits be advantageous to electric car owners because they would use less juice versus 50 kph speeds? And that would mean less time charging, and fewer chargers being able to charge more cars? Just some thoughts that popped into my head...
Yes, and also: electric cars make way less noise at 30 kph, since you won't hear their engine, and the sound from the wheels on the road is reduced due to the low speed :)
30km/h is really a sweet spot for traffic. - at that speed the chances of being hurt badly after a collision are way less than at higher speeds (the jump between 30km/h and 50km/h is really shocking) - the cars don't make much noise - because of the lower speed the traffic flow is more consistent and thus often better. - drivers have more time to react to surprises, like a child or animal suddenly walking into the street and so much more.
@@ChristiaanHW carbrains will you tell that driving slow is more dangerous cause they get distracted (one of the many things I heard). They even tell you that not making noise is worse cause you don't see other cars.
@@ChristiaanHW This is also where EVs have the advantage in terms of noise. At higher speeds, tire noise starts to become dominant. So EVs for a quieter city only make much sense at lower speeds
In the UK there is a fair and "controversial" amount of 20mph (32khp) zones. Part of that controversy is that these limits seem to also apply to cyclists and is impacting cycling events/races that either cannot use the routes that they used previously or are having to detour if possible. Is this affecting Dutch cycling events/races and if not how is this the case?
You mean to tell me that when there is a rally car event they expect the cars to obey the speed limits? Or is this just when cycling? Normal cycling yes speed limits apply, so no tour the france racing in a 'woonerf'.
I live in a place where many cyclists come to ride their laps, especially on weekends. Of course it is annoying when a herd of thirty to forty middle-aged men in lycra thunder downhill into our village. And because they cycle in a group, they think that their lap times are more important than the safety of other road users (yelling at a child or an elderly person to get lost if they cross a zebra crossing when they are cycling is not OK). If an 'official' (organised) competition or cycling tour is held, the organisation will either adjust the route in such a way that other traffic is not affected too much and often, at points where such a tour crosses other traffic, traffic controllers are deployed. During major cycling competitions, the route is often temporarily closed to other traffic.
@@feikodelavieter7515 This is why I specifically wrote "events/races" organised by the Dutch cycling organisation or whoever. Amstel Gold at the highest level but naturally there must be many. The impact in the UK is for one day races and the familiar 10mile (16km) time trial but would also apply potentially to stage races where they go through or the stage starts or ends in at 20mph zone and the same for places they pass through en route.
@@feikodelavieter7515 maybe this is a 'cultural' difference. When 'we' in the Netherlands organise an event involving three people or more, we are used to involve the local council for the nessecary permits, organize a first aid station, have a waste-management plan etc... Maybe this is a but different abroad, the Dutch 'verenigingscultuur', is uniquely Dutch.
@@derekevans1932In the Netherlands, during 'official' cycling competitions, the race route is temporarily closed to other traffic. Any speed limits are not enforced during the race. As I indicated earlier, this does happen during competitions, but is less common during 'tours'. However, to organize a tour, you will need permission/a permit from the municipality. This is because you may cause inconvenience to other road users or residents along the route. When applying for such a permit, you will have to indicate which route will be followed and how you will guarantee the safety of participants, any spectators and other road users. I assume that when such a permit is granted, the local police officer will be notified so that he knows what is happening and he will not be so stupid as to schedule a speed check for cyclists at exactly that moment (incidentally, I have never heard of anyone getting a fine for cycling too fast).
I'm German, but my partner lives in the Netherlands, therefore I'm regularly in your country (Provincie Noord Holland). I noticed that the by far greatest majority of Dutch cyclists are very disciplined and follow the traffic rules, which makes them predictable, even as a car driver. I know what to expect. Ok, I understand that there are some exceptions, especially with teenagers riding illegally modified electric "fat bikes". In Germany it often seems that cyclists see themselves as ecological warriors and above the law, which makes them very unpredictable. on the road.
Possibly education is a part of this. Nearly all Dutch primary schools include lessons and a test about traffic rules in one of the final grades, so participants are usually 10-12 years old. The test has photographs of a traffic situation and questions on what to do next, or who has right of way, etc. The other part of this is practical: students are asked to check their bikes safety, and then use it to navigate traffic following a set route through the schools neighbourhood, while volunteers (often parents) monitor their behaviour at key points along the way. This initiative is over 90 years old, so by now the vast majority of people who grew up in NL have at least had some exposure to traffic rules and riding a bike, even if they never took a formal exam (such as for a drivers license).
As a Dutch having cycled in some German cities, I was surprised as well by the often crazy behaviour of German cyclists. Even in a city with lots of bikes like Oldenburg. The Germans I asked said that if they felt unsafe or didn't know the rules at a certain place, they would simply ride on the footpath. Whereas I would have chosen the main road in most of those cases. The German tourists in my current hometown often end up on the footpath even when there is a clearly marked cycle path next to it. It seems that "do not cycle on the footpath" is more ingrained in the Dutch, even if many (me included) break that rule so now and then for a shortcut.
We have traffic exams in our primary schools. But a lot of the knowledge is simply transferred by parents, older siblings or kids in the neighborhood. Not wanting your kid to die is a pretty strong incentive to teach it about biking, using sidewalks etc. My mom used to bike with me to school until she thought I was capable enough on my own, think age 7 or 8, thereabouts. The other thing is that people that drive cars know that kids are unpredictable and they'll adjust speed.
@@RikSolstice We have (or at least had, when I was in primary school back in the early 1970s) this in Germany as well. A grandfatherly older police officer, who would visit the schools and teach basic traffic rules. But many cycloists in Germany see themselves as eco-warriors and rebels, who think that traffic rules do not apply to them and that everybody else has to get out of their way. They commit the same offences against pedestrians, which they critizise if they are carried out by car drivers. And in my rural region in summer we have cycle racing clubs, who use the country roads for their private Tour de France style races, blocking the whole road and constantly weaving in and out to pass each other. It is an ideological thing, different from the Netherlands, where a bike is seen as a means to get from A to B. Mind, I would like to use my bike more for daily use (next supermarket is 10 km away from my home), but the region is very hilly and you already need to be in very good shape to do this. Back in Duesseldorf I used to cycle to work every day. It was mostly flat, like in the Netherlands, with some moderate hills inbetween for some cardio exercises.
If there is enough space and the cycle lanes are wide enough, then they should be kept in place in the roads that get reduced to 30kph. Because many of those will still be the main routes for cars.
They have started rolling this back, as far as I know - there was so much anger and opposition that the Welsh government basically had to apologise and promise to reverse most of the changes :(
@iamjoestafford there was a bid to have it scrapped but the government voted against it. There is a process to have roads reverted but they have to go through a bunch of red tape and meet certain guidelines.
We have those "fietsstraat" areas in Middelburg, but the roads are wide enough for cars to pass and very smooth. This leads to a lot of drivers honking at cyclists to get out of the way, while they have the right of way on that road. I wish the local government would place some speeding cameras cause I have not see any drivers, apart from the very polite German tourists, driving the speed-limit of 30 km/h. Heck, it's not uncommon to see someone drive 3 times that speed, because the roads are so smooth and wide. It's a wonder there are not more accidents on these roads.
Where I live, I can imagine bollards being put in to block off rat running on just a few streets. It would make such a massive difference for cycling and for the residents, and it would cost practically nothing. But they’ll never do it. It’s really sad that we’re deprived of a better quality of life. Even at this late stage of the climate crisis. What better solution could there be? But they don’t care.
I hate this latest trend of making all streets 30 km/hour. Even main roads with separate cycle paths are now limited to 30km/hour. People ignore the signs and still drive 50. While it still feels like you should have priority over small side streets you should give way to a car from the right. It's very counter-intuitive. I am a 36 year old Dutchman having cycled all his life and just now owning a car since last year.
It wasn't easy in the Neatherlands too. But like many changes that are for the good of all they get implemented, people complain while getting used to it. Start with that speed around schools, it will make such a difference.
The problem there is that the roads are for 'all' traffic. @notjustbikes calls this 'stroads', the mixing of a street (to get to a local destination) and a road (for through-traffic which would benefit from higher speeds). A lot of the smaller streets could easily have traffic calming and thus enable mixed use, provided the people who are going elsewhere entirely can choose the road built for faster speeds and with less junctions.
I think this is one of those cases where you created the culture first and then it becomes less of a necessity. It must be really quiet around those streets.
Nah the culture grew out of the way the cities are built. The US is so individualistic and wants their own big house and lawn and everyone drives because the cities after the 50's were built to be sprawling car dependant places.
Nah, the Dutch street designs have changed quite a bit since I learned to cycle in the 80s. Even the older inner cities have had huge changes from car-dominated to bike and pedestrian friendly. There are plenty of videos that show these changes. The red pavement indicating bike lanes was a new fad in the 90s and I never expected it to become such an important part of traffic navigation. The only real difference for urban areas is that cycling was never only a leisure thing, but has been a serious mode of transport for part of the population, so there was no start from zero. Also, fuel is quite expensive here.
Undoubtedly, the Dutch have led the way when it comes to urban planning for cyclists. But elsewhere its a different picture. Outside the larger cities, car-dependency (and road freight) is still growing and there are more vehicles on the roads than ever before. Perhaps that is simply the future divide most countries face? Its not a criticism - just the reality of where we currently are.
Outside the cities they are building bicycle highways. A good example is the F59 between Oss and Den Bosch. This is also because of the electrical hybride bicycles which are mostly quicker than the old only manual bicycle. If the bicycle highways will be grown a lot and most of the people buy a faster electric bicycle it will be a good solution for bicycle traffic between cities and villages.
Depends a little on how you look at it. Options for public transport outside of urban areas remain problematic, car ownership (nr. of cars per capita) is still increasing, but the number of kilometers travelled by car per capita remains more or less the same, in proportion to distances travelled by public transport or bike. The roads getting busier is simply the result of the increased population.
Public transportation is crap outside of urban areas, I definitely think this is a big factor. Where my parents live, everybody has a car. Though cycling infrastructure is very high quality, I have to walk 30 minutes to the bus station to go to a city that has a train station (I don't have a bike there, and of course I can't leave one of theirs at the station outside). Now I live in the Randstad, and the difference is night and day: I live
@@spicybaguette7706 What do you mean 'of course I cannot leave a bike at the station'? I just got a €50 bike with a €150 lock and just let it camp out with its 200 mates at the station.
Holland is the best country to cycle hands down......and created its own cyclke road to cycle... have we got that in the uk or any other country in the world???? NO
1)What is most striking to me in this video is how nobody was wearing a helmet, even children! Why? What is their argument/philosophy behind not wearing a helmet? 2) I am also curious to know how prevalent bike theft if and how it is combated?
1) All these bicycle paths and 30 zones have made cycling so safe that helmets are not necessary. 2) Bicycle theft is quite common especially in big cities and around train stations. The primary antidote is to lock your bike with a chain to a tree or traffic sign, so it cannot be removed without advanced tools. That would make stealing not worthwhile for the average bike. With the rise of expensive e-bikes that is different. Not sure what those people do, I am glad my bike is cheap 😂. Many train stations also offer (underground) parking space with survaillance.
1) At this moment, most Dutch adult cyclists learned to ride a bike before there was such a thing as a bike helmet. There is, at the moment, no (political) support for making this mandatory (however, government tries to make helmets mandatory on 'fatbikes'). I suspect that this will happen 'someday', but then there must be sufficient support among the population. 2) Just like rain, bike theft is an integral part of life in the Netherlands. Many Dutch people have two (or more) bikes, an old banger to ride to the station, or to the pub in the evening. A second, nice bike for recreational rides on sunny days.
There is also a case made that requiring to wear a helmet creates a barrier to ride a bike. That barrier will lead to decreased amount of cycling. It can be that the health loss of people taking the car instead, is larger than the health gain by wearing a helmet. The fast majority of serious injuries by people cycling are elderly. Maybe it's smart for them to wear helmets, but you can't really create such a law for older people only.
About bike thefts. They are here. But we do have an insurance for that as well. So you still have some money back if it happens. You can prevent most thefts by locking your bike with an extra lock on designated spots or fence/streetlight.
no they dont slow down anything really. The briks are there for permeate some rainwater they last very long and the maintenance is easy(compared to asfalt) they can withstand allot of traffic and vehicles. Drivers can go hard on them even in living area's but speed bumps prevents higher speeds, more airtime means slower vehicles.
Kraneweg in Groningen really needs a redesign. Cars can easily speed on smooth asphalt where there's not even a cycle suggestion lane. If you look on the local news site sikkom there's about a traffic accident every year. Yes I know it's an important bus route, but this is getting ridiculous
For the citizens living in the city's the trend towards more 30 km/h zones is beneficial. However, for a region as a whole, where the city's still have a main function for working and shopping/cultural activities is is less clear. The more rural areas will depend more on car as the main means of transportation, as public transport to/from these areas is too expensive and the distances for cycling are too big. Making P&R-locations at the borders of the city's is very expensive and often space is also limited. Here in the Netherlands the city's demand most of the available money for investments for and running of public transport, so an improvement of public transportation in rural areas isn't happening. Travel speeds for cars in the city will reduce and travel times will rise. This makes going to the city unattractive. The city's create a virtual wall around then, a bit like in medieval times. People will want to move to the city (higher housing prices) or work will move to the outskirts. So the way forward is a more whole approach.
Besides the fact that the bicycle is seen as a fully-fledged means of transport in the Netherlands and not as a toy for health freaks. There is something else that is often missing in these kinds of videos (however excellent this video is, my compliments!). Cyclists (incl. e-bikes), pedestrians, mopeds, mobility scooters and I think even people on horseback are seen as 'vulnerable road users'. In the event of a collision involving a car and a vulnerable road user, the driver of the car is held liable for at least fifty percent of the damage in almost all cases (a few very exceptional situations aside), even if the motorist is not at fault. This means that motorists usually drive carefully when they share the road with cyclists. Unfortunately, this often also means that some cyclists think they are invulnerable when they participate in traffic. In addition, almost all Dutch children, when they are about eleven years old, receive traffic lessons at school, these lessons are concluded with an exam, in which they have to put what they have learned into practice. Finally, getting a driver's license is not very easy in the Netherlands, a candidate has to take two exams, theory and practice. Both exams are certainly not easy.
To add: Children in the Netherlands receive traffic lessons on bike; their bikes are checked during the exam for functioning lights and brakes and they bike a designated bike route through the city to test their skills. However: recommended, not mandatory.
To me is more likely that motorist are careful because they use bikes too, they grew up in a society that got more bike friendly, or they have friends and family who cycle. "Finally, getting a driver's license is not very easy in the Netherlands, a candidate has to take two exams, theory and practice. Both exams are certainly not easy." In which countries isn't the case?
@@tiapina7048 Of course, one does not exclude the other 😉. I would gladly leave scientific research into the effect of non-infrastructural measures on road safety versus previous experience as a cyclist to a traffic expert who still needs a topic for a PhD research. I think that the combination of infrastructure, cycling culture and insurance measures together make the Dutch cyclist relatively safe. And yes, the requirements for obtaining a Dutch driving license are higher than, for example, the requirements in the US. The Dutch requirements are not as high as the German requirements, where even first aid training is a mandatory part of the driving course.
These shared 30 kmhs roads are often fine for an experienced cyclist, but I'm not convinced they're always the best solution for _all_ cyclists. E.g. in my hometown I know of at least 2 instances of a main cycle route that feeds into a cluster of elementary schools, and that on the way passes by a shopping centre. In both cases, those routes were originally built with seperated bike paths. And in both cases, those have now been replaced with mixed 30 kmh traffic. Meaning that the wobbly 8 year old biking to school by herself now has to mix in with the stream of SUVs going to the stores to buy a pack of milk. Naturally, many parents don't like that, and then decide to bring their 8 year school by car (in an SUV, of course). Which convinces even more parents that the route isn't safe to bike...
Available space, associated cost and lack of need. You don't need a separate bike path next to every single road when cyclists have plenty good ways to get around. As for the 30km zones, tbh the cyclists are the true terror in those, and that's prior to fatbikes. Not minding their environment, not adhering to their place in the road, often even going counterflow to save 2 seconds
I found it interesting the 900x900 areas. I suppose it is to have a balanced amount of safety for cyclists and pedestrians and not "take away" too much to the motor vehicle users. It sounds like a nice way. But I wonder if that affected the way that people have been chosing where to live. If you have a family or want to start one you would look for an accomodation inside one of the 30km/h space ... has this caused the house problem in the Neatherlands?
I don't think it's caused the housing problem. Sure, people might have a preference for some places, and at some point in time that may have caused prices to rise more in certain neighbourhoods. But the current problem is that there are simply way less houses than people looking for a house. Many people will tell you (im)migration is the problem, but the numbers indicate it's more complicated than that. There is not one cause for the problem, just like there is not one solution.
No, a failure to build for rent homes for lower incomes is at fault, as well as investors buying up starter homes to rent out at inflated prices. Couple that to elderly staying longer in their large paid off houses creating a log jam in the home owner market and you get a shortage.
I know someone that said 30 kph should not be on bypass and other roads because of traffic congestion in intersections. And I heard they give fines for 31 kph, I think it's ridiculus
Same thing happened when snelweg speeds were reduced to 100 km/h, making them the same speed as autowegen despite having wider lanes, matrix boards, hard shoulders, no traffic lights and longer merging lanes. I'd propose lowering the speed of autowegen to 80 km/h and lowering the residential zones down to 20 km/h to at least have a clear distinction, though then you're still left with design speeds being higher than speed limits, but I think we'll just get used to that.
In an accident between a car and a bicycle or pedestrian, the car's driver is at fault. That's the law. No discussion. So bicycle and pedestrians are protected by law.
Een reactie in het Nederlands want het betreft het land waar ik in woon en leef. Het doorvoeren van alleen maar 30km zones door elke stad is leuk, maar het moet wel werken. Te veel wordt er gekeken of het een verbetering is in het algemeen, en dat is het vaak ook wel. Doch mag er net zoveel rekening mee gehouden worden dat er een goede doorstroming van verkeer moet kunnen plaatsvinden. Een ringweg is immers geen woonerf! Dat er maatregelen worden genomen om het voor fietsers en wandelaars veiliger te maken steun ik voor 100%, maar de auto voor 100% verbannen is niet haalbaar. Een opmerking; De snelste route tussen twee punten is vaak geen treinverbinding of een OV verbinding. Iets te veel wordt er gekeken naar steden waar veel mensen dicht bij elkaar wonen en werken en gedacht wordt dat iedereen op fietsafstand van zijn of haar werk woont. Maar er zijn genoeg werkgevers welke op ongebruikelijke plaatsen gevestigd zijn en geen 24/7 goede OV verbinding heeft. Als een autorit er 15-20 minuten over doet en hetzelfde stuk per OV dan is de keuze snel gemaakt.
ring wegen en N-wegen zullen nooit 30km/u worden, dus dat is geen probleem. het hele idee is juist dat je bijna alles in de bebouwde kom 30 maakt en een aantal wegen aanwijst als 50km/u om de doorstroming goed te houden. maar momenteel is het zo dat 30 de uizondering is (volgens the regels) en 50 de standaard. terwijl in steden het grootste gedeelte van de wegen voor bestemmingsverkeer is (woonwijken, winkelgebieden, scholen etc). dus ipv standaard 50 en dan tig borden moeten plaasten met 30 erop, is het idee om die situatie om te draaien, naar: overal in de bebouwde kom 30, tenzij anders aangegeven. en buiten de bebouwde kom blijft alles gewoon hetzelfde. we hebben die wegen nodig om het verkeer om de stad te sluizen (de ringweg) of om van A naar B te gaan.
@@ChristiaanHW dat klopt, maar veel doorgaande wegen binnen steden of dorpen zijn geen N-wegen. In een grote stad alle wegen 30km wegen maken is niet altijd verstandig.
@@ChristiaanHW een goed argument dat het gemakkelijker is om een paar wegen een 50km bord te geven terwijl de rest 30km zone is. Men moet dan wel de doorgaande wegen behouden. En als ik kijk naar de aanpassing op de Marnixlaan hebben ze daar iets verkeerds gedaan. In Deventer hebben ze jaren geleden ook besloten de N348 (gelegen binnen de gemeentegrens vanaf de A1) een 50km weg van te maken en dat terwijl er nergens in de verste verte een fiets of wandelpad aanwezig is of kruist. Het had prima een 70km weg kunnen blijven.
Waar ik woon is fietsen sneller dan een auto omdat de weg architecten compleet doorgeslagen zijn. Ook wanneer ze situaties veranderen doen ze maar half werk. Het lijkt wel of ze zelf nooit op de weg zitten alleen maar als een zombie theoretisch werken. Persoonlijk denk ik dat ze het doen zodat ze altijd werk blijven houden. Wat ik niet begrijp waarom de politiek mensen niet stimuleert om meer te gaan fietsen, bv met subsidie voor (elektrische)fietsen. Ipv daarvan geven ze het wel voor elektrische auto's die niemand kan betalen.
@@StarsAtNight1 Dat de tijd dat je besteed om ergens te komen per fiets beter is dan per auto kan ik iets bij voorstellen, maar niet als de afstand dat gefietst moeten worden pas korter is qua tijd omdat ze de auto wel heel erg verdrongen hebben. Wat je veel in nieuwbouwwijken ziet is dat er geen binnendoor-routes meer zijn voor auto's, dat is niet perse iets slechts want het bevorderd het gevoel dat je in een rustige straat kan wonen en niet dat je straat misbruikt wordt als sluiproute. Kies je ervoor om je boodschappen per auto te doen, zou je om moeten rijden, wat bijna automatisch langer duurt. Iets wat je ziet in nieuwbouwwijken zoals ik al omschreef. Voor woon-werk verkeer zou dat niet mogen gelden, want immers bevinden niet alle werkgevers zich op fiets afstand. Men zou altijd een goed alternatief moeten bieden als ze de auto daadwerkelijk willen verbannen. Maar helaas is dat ook weer niet zo. Eens stimulans om te veranderen van automobilist naar fietser zou naar mijns inzien inderdaad veel meer bevorderd mogen worden en niet alleen de automobilist bestraffen omdat ze (bijna) niet anders kunnen. Degene die wel hun patroon kunnen veranderen mogen er ook voor beloond worden. Immers zorgen dezen dan ook voor veel minder verkeer op de weg. Slijtage aan auto's omdat ze korte ritten maken is ook een ding. Korte ritten zijn ook veel vervuilender.
@@StarsAtNight1 Amsterdam always has been a city with a relatively large immigration background, starting in the 16th century. The only time period where that was not the case was during the French occupation. Nice try, though.
@@StarsAtNight1 Leo & Jan Lucassen, Migratie als DNA van Amsterdam, 2021 Fred Feddes, 1000 Jaar Amsterdam, 2012 Geert Mak, Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam, 1995 Toegang tot de stadsarchieven van Amsterdam geven je ook een goed inzicht aangezien bijvoorbeeld de overlijdensregisters uit de 18e en 19e eeuw ook afkomst en geboortesteden vermelden. Veel Duitsers trouwens.
@@longbow857 Not true. Putting aside that it is all over the town, you can even have them on (smaller, often the thinnest) overland roads (probably where people were speeding). If you go from one small town center to another small town center through a village, you might jump 20 or even more of those in the quarter hour you need.
I agree wholeheartedly, because in my town, Puremerend, there;s a area called Purmer Zuid, where there are so many high speedbumps (every 30-50 metres which is rediculous), that it makes travel by car or by bike practically a nightmare. There isn't any height restriction nationwide on these speedbumps to my knowledge. I prefer the gradual bumps and spread out more widely. Also I like the chicanes, for they make travel a lot more comfortable, especially for emergency services, So it's not all hunkey dory I'm afraid in the Netherlands.
A general speed limit to 30kph would be annoying for those riding S-Pedelecs. There wouldn't be much reason anymore to buy one. They already banned them from cycle paths. I am not sure If I like the direction this is going.
Pedelecs are not ment for these area's, and are for the speedbike lanes outside these area's . For kids who cycle to their schools , the pedlecs are the most dangerous other participant. The kids won't hear them, and the look the same as other bikes.
A maximum speed of 30 km/h applies to all traffic, cars, buses, even dog carts. So also for speed pedelecs. As long as the speed pedelec does this in a safe, responsible way, it can cycle past the stationary cars when it is busy. Just like a motorcycle in a traffic jam drives between the stationary cars. So you will certainly not be slower on your speed pedelec!
@ you missed my point. Limiting to a general 30 km/h speed limit makes it even more irrelevant buying a S-Pedelec. I personally do not like that artificial limitation.
@@Vardraq agreed, in a urban area, where the speed limit is 30 km/h, buying an ebike, which has a max. speed of 25 km/h might be a better option. However, as @8020erwin also remarks, speedpedelecs are best used for commuting between area's, distances at of least 10(?) kilometres, between towns. In my view using a speedpedelec in an urban area only is indeed a waste of money. Finally, just making sure that we aren't missing each others points, I mean a speed limit on a road, not a speed limiter, installed on a speedpedelec 😉.
if it makes the city a more pleasant and safer place i think that small percentage of citizens with a speed pedelec are going to have to find it in themselves to adjust.
Although it is nice to see a video with a romantic view on ones country, I have to add that in reality this all is not as positive as it seems in this video. In reality it means cyclist are just going everywhere without looking at anything. Traveling by car in cities has become a huge irritation. And from the other side the speed bumps on straight streets increase noise and pollution because cars are constant breaking and then making speed again. Inner cities are slowly losing the shops because lots of car people don't want the hassle of getting to the shop anymore in the inner cities. Besides crazy parking fees, one has to be lucky to not hit a cyclists and be prepared to go slower through traffic then cyclists. The dislike for people on bicycles is growing fast in Th Netherlands.
Yes they are absolutely needed. As the population of netherlands increases and mixed used of sidewalks increases there will br accidents. You can barely walk arpund in Amsterdam or Den Haag because you are constantly on the lookout for the next delibery driver or scooter or bike trying to ride into to make a point. The reason why they dont isnt becuase theyre smart or careful or strategic, its becuase netherlands is a tiny country with limited space. There is literally not the space to put a 2m path around every building and road. They bad way it works now is becuase od this, and it only works because there arent overcrowded streets (yet) and a cukture that understands and follows bike traffic safety
But those speed bumps are often more an irritation than anything else. Cyclists can also be irritated by the costly bumps. The Netherlands is NOT considering a 30 km/hr maximum. Only leftist politicians do this and many are very much against it. As vehicles drive around longer (and slower) air pollution and traffic jams increase. So, in tight neighborhoods with playing children: excellent. On through-roads we see in Amsterdam statistics that they have gone too far and the limits are totally political only. While the nations moves towards an electrification of cars, many of the 'over done' regulations prove to be just costs without benefits. The narrator only takes a very single sided approach, unfortunately. Most, by far, travel-distance in The Netherlands is by car. It is automotive innovation which provides the largest benefits towards cleaner air, less noise and even safer streets. All these items seem skipped.
You wrote @nas4apps, "The Netherlands is NOT considering a 30 km/hr maximum. Only leftist politicians do this" that is simply not true. A large majority of the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) has voted *for* a motion (proposal) to lower the speed limit to 30km/h in 2020. Not only that, but also: "The idea is supported by various national organisations, including the Road Safety Research Institute (SWOV)" The government has been studiying the consequences such a change would have since that time. That qualifies as "considering" in my book. trans.info/en/a-european-country-wants-to-limit-the-maximum-speed-in-built-up-areas-to-30-km-h-206960
Please, get rid of the cycle paths in the city, next to roads. These paths facilitate using your phone, cyclists also cycle on the wrong side of the street. As a pedestrian these cycle-paths take room from the side-walk, as do parked bicycles as well, and crossing the street is actually crossing 3 streets now. All drivers on 1 central road, footpaths on both sides, and hopefully small garden patches in front of the buildings. These cycle paths facilitate stupidity and ignorance. When you use a bike, pay attention to the traffic or you will be hurt. Only cycle when you are proficient, the same as with any other vehicle on the public road.
But that would just make cycling more dangerous, travel time for cars will increase, and people may opt to take a car instead, which is bad for traffic, increases polution and wear on roads. As well as a less safe road
@@bfiftytwo1155Because everyone goes on the road at the same time. I don’t, I go to the office by car and start at 07:00 to 15:00. Avoid rush hour this way.
A lot of it is the fact that (almost) every Dutch driver grew up being “the bicyclist”.
Awareness and Empathy are powerful safety factors.
Compared to other countries yes. But I still see plenty of motorist that drive way too fast, and don't (want) to stop for cyclist, because they see us as secondary.
"I'm a big car, Rawwrrr! get out of my way!"
Yeah but I think design plays a bigger part.
@@BoviDaze Start to change things is not easy at the start. But we know more and more people see it is working and it is helping them.
@@SharedSpacesCities Oh definitely.
A great point. No amount of design or civil engineering will win if there isn't an overall attitude to care about people that are on bikes or walking. I've seen the care my Dutch relatives take to make sure they are giving others the right of way, and I see way too much driving in America that gives no room for others... The "Me First" attitude is socially backwards and dangerous.
The fact that somebody who knows nothing about urban design, feels all of this unconsciously while living in Nederlands, that is beautiful to me.
To you it's just another day. To most of us in North America, it's new and desirable.
@@SledgeOfHouseHammer Just applying Dutch style infrastructure to situations in the US, don''t help.
You need to start building villages, towns and cities different and I'm not talking about the infrastructure.
How far away lives your closest neighbor?
For me, that answer is 1 meter or 3 feet on the other side of the wall.
For a lot of the US, that answer is 50 feet or more.
Such leads to a street in the Netherlands, serving some 400 people.
The same size street in the US, serves 10.
My neighborhood has about 60 homes.
In a same area size neighborhood in the US, there are less then 10 homes.
I don't see it happen in the US, that 'Dutch' (read: non-American) style neighborhoods will be build everywhere.
You need to increase your population density and no, that does not mean to open the borders for another 300 million people, that means to accept smaller housing, building them close together. Yes that means you have less space around your home. so what?
If I take a look on streetview of a suburb in the US, I see many small wooden homes with an enormous not-taken-care-of yard and a huge pickup truck on the private driveway.
Here you won't find that.
When the home costs about 400.000 Euro, the car in front of the house is more like 40.000 Euro.
I get the feeling that in the US, having a big car is more important then having a good home.
We do that different.
The population density in the Netherlands, makes the infrastructure in this country possible.
@@Jila_Tana just applying the infrastructure won't recreate the Netherlands, but it does help. Protected bike tracks and protected intersections work anywhere, and suburbs have plenty of space to give to bicycles.
@@mindstalk I don't want to come across as 'the know-it-all.' For the Dutch, living in closer quarters wasn't a choice; it was a necessity due to limited space. In contrast, for many Americans, having more space and privacy is a deliberate choice.
I recognize that the 'right to not have immediate neighbors' and the resulting privacy are deeply ingrained in U.S. society. I'm not claiming that the Dutch way is better; it's simply different.
To illustrate the disparity: living in the Netherlands like much of the American population does would require significant wealth. Purchasing 5 acres of land in rural Netherlands could cost around €300,000 just for the land. Adding a house could easily bring the total to €800,000. This makes such living arrangements unfeasible for most of the population here, while in the U.S., it's relatively common.
More towards your comment : Not needing protected bicycle paths everywhere is also due to the fact that those people in cars, also own bicycles.
Everyone bikes every so often.
Me stepping into a car, doesn't mean that I suddenly hate bicycles. I am a biker myself, every day getting groceries : Bicycle.
And that goes for everyone (95%) else as well.
Here it is not 'us vs them'
I think that the real answer to "Why won't the Dutch build protected cycle paths everywhere?" is that we have not yet conquered the rest of the world.
But we will get to that when we turned the rest of the oceans into more polder with our mecha windmills.
The real reason is we don't need them, dutch peoeple are much more social then Americans for example. Biking in New York is a adventure for sure. Did that two years ago when visiting family.
HAHAHHA, the Dutch are really not omniscient and I have seen them make many mistakes when it comes to thinking about how to achieve something. But many Dutch inventors want to develop the wheel themselves too often instead of adapting what works well elsewhere. but when it comes to infrastructure, we often don't have to look at others, we already know very well how it should be done.
love the Dutch
Hahaha😂 Thanks I needed that!
very important aspect and a major problem with bike lanes in America: They are often build in places, where many European countries (especially Germany and Belgium follow the same concept) wouldn't build any - wasting money and only creating conflicts (both social and traffic wise), which are totally unneeded. Meanwhile on American main roads, where separated infrastructure is absolutely needed, nothing happens.
Exactly. American bike advocates and city officials love to install bikelanes on "easy parts" that don't even need them in the first place
American lanes are almost twice as wide as european lanes. Maybe if you paid 10 dollar a gallon of fuel like we do, you wouldn't feel the need to transport your overinflated ego with a V6
@@kailahmann1823 Please bear in mind that in the Netherlands, bikes were a primary mode of transport before cars were available to 'the masses'. So bikelanes weren't built exclusively to promote the use of bicycles, but as a solution to an existing problem, the number of traffic related deaths among cyclists. Maybe if cycling becomes a, generally accepted way to get around, the infrastructure will evolve. However, getting adults out of their cars and kids out of a schoolbus and on a bicycle, might be a bit complicated... But i am not an expert....😉
@@BernardBakker That was the same in the US.
People travelled by other means before cars arrived, mostly walking and cykling before the car was made really inexpensive. Trams were huge in US as well.
The truth is that there are American cities that have increased the average speed on the through traffic street by removing a car lane (or two) and replacing them with separated bike lanes. They also have introduced plenty of roundabouts as well, and improved parking by replacing worthless (from a tax perspective) ground level parking lots with parking garages, allowing for denser and mixed use building zones, all paid for by the increas in tax income from the higher density of population. A shorter way to walk from your parked car where you want to go, and visiting several stores before going back to you car (for the same walking distance as visiting one store before) certainly reduced traffic a lot.
Separate cycling infrastructure came much later, after the cities in US, as well as most European cities (including Amsterdam), where carified (ruined) during the 1950s and 1960s.
@@57thorns After having traveled a few times (by car) through the United States, I am still amazed by the one-sided mobility mix in the US. One can choose between the car and ...? Except for a few cities, urban public transport seems to have little to offer, for longer distances, the car or the plane are the only options. Where in the Netherlands the bicycle is often the solution for the 'last mile', to and from a tram stop or a train station, this 'problem' is non-existent in the US, even for the last mile you need the car. What makes the US to not invest in public transport, not only bike paths, but also trams in urban areas, light rail to connect urban areas with the suburbs and (high speed) trains for longer distances?
Great of you to point out that there are still many asphalt roads where 30km/h is the principle but not adhered due to the road design. The road on which I live is currently undergoing a redesign where they’re narrowing it and changing the surface from asphalt to bricks. This will also give pedestrians much needed extra space as I feel that many Dutch pavements are too narrow.
We have lots of 20mph roads in London but they're all asphalt unfortunately
As a Dutch/Japanese Citizen
Seeing a LOT of footage from my old neighbourhood (Graafsewijk in 's-Hertogenbosch) in this video does my heart good ♥
seeing that i grew up there since my parents moved here from Japan when i was 4
Dutch bike path infrastructure in Den Bosch is good,
learned to ride my first bike in the Cypresstraat
Casa Mia lol
Saw the Thumbnail and was instantly like: That's looks like De IJzeren Vrouw, (a pond/park).
It's been on my route for cycling to my grandparents my entire life 😁
Kom er al mn hele leven, mooi vissen daar!
This is what intelligence with proper application looks like!
I live on a street in Utrecht that will be changed from 50 to 30 km/h later this year! Very glad about this - it will reduce noise and hopefully some through traffic as well.
Will they implement traffic-calming measures to reduce the speed?
Wou dat ze dat zouden doen met de "grote" weg in mijn dorp. Veel verkeer in de spitsuren aangezien het de snelste weg is tussen meerdere dorpen. Als het naar 30kp/u zou gaan zouden ze eerder via de grotere wegen gaan
@@rickdubbink
Uh nee, dan rijden mensen gewoon met 50 door omdat onzinnige regels die een meerderheid slachtofferen voor een enkeling, nooit gehoorzaamd worden.
@@SVEVelsen er zijn al chicanes en een school zone. Ook naast een kanaal, mensen rijden niet snel hard hier gelukkig
Als een Amsterdammer: het is superfijn, ik gun jullie hetzelfde!
Very great point! I live in a little village in the Netherlands, and despite having very little or no dedicated bike lanes, it's still very safe to cycle because the streets are very narrow cobblestones with lots of raised intersections, speed bumps, and bollards to deflect car traffic to only the main roads.
If you don't let cars use your neighborhood as a through way, then you don't need bike lanes! Only when there's higher speeds or lots of car traffic (which it should be attempted to not have at all)
in the U.S., we sometimes call these slow, mixed-traffic areas “bike boulevards” or “neighborhood greenways” when they are included as deliberate parts of cycling networks
Yes, but in the US the "bike boulevards" are just decoration. The streets are rarely traffic clamned, there are still stop signs, they still have through traffic for cars, and speed limits are too high. They're often used to get cyclists out of the way of drivers on busier streets and as an excuse not to build separated cycling infrastructure on main roads. They are vastly inferior to a Dutch fietsstraat.
Yeah but they're quite ineffective and usually still wide streets that are easy to speed through. I've cycled on both those in the US and through neighborhoods in the Netherlands, and there's a huge difference. More changes need to be made to make them safer in US cities such as more traffic calming.
I was in Eindhoven recently and the new 30km/h speed limit on the main road that goes through the residential area was super weird. From the feel of the road you get the idea that it's a 50km/h road, but they just slapped the new lower speed limit on it and call it a day it seems.
I hope they take steps to make sure the road also naturally feels like a 30km/h road, otherwise I expect a lot of people to miss the speed limit.
The intersection at 04:06 in Den Bosch is still pretty terrible for anyone coming from one of the side streets
You reminded me of Chriet Titulaer. That put a smile on my face.
So glad that there are still people who remember Chriet Titulaer 😂
I love this concept of separating travel surfaces. I hope it makes it way to other countries. My hopes are low for Canada, sadly for me.
Start to be part of one of the groups that want to make the change.
It took us several decades to get where we are today here in the Netherlands, it didn't happen overnight.
So yes it is absolutely possible in Canada as well, it just takes time but it also takes enough people who want to realize that change.
But you guys have internet to bring people together on this, we didn't have that back then so it should be easier to find like-minded people and get organized.
Oh and us Dutchies complain a lot, that helps too to get change 😂
Warm greetings from the Netherlands. 🌷
and i like to add to Babzv comment:
while it took decades for us (The Netherlands) to get here, now other nations can benefit from our mistakes and experience.
and so if a place really wants to shift to being more people friendly instead of just car friendly, they can just contact the Dutch Cycling Embassy (a group of people with a lot of knowledge and expertise about cycling infrastructure) and have them help out with what could work and what won't work for your place.
don't try to reinvent it, benefit from decades of research and trail and error and just pick the things that would work in your area.
as long as you make sure it's a consistent network, and not just a few bike lanes spread throughout your city.
that's one of the most common mistakes made by cities that build some bike infrastructure
@@ChristiaanHW I totally agree. I find frustrating seeing cities all over trying to reinvent the wheel when the Netherlands has this amazing tried and tested method.
Perhaps Montreal is slowly realizing this, as the city has a plan to build its first Dutch-style protected intersection soon.
Thanks again BicycleDutch, your videos should be mandatory for politicians/ city designers around the world. Groetjes uit Spanje op fietsreis.
I really love to see those green chicanes, it brings life to the street, feels good
Probably the biggest factor in keeping speeds down in residential (and industrial) areas is not the speed limit but the use of right-priority junctions, which force drivers to be wary of each other.
1:24 is that a sidewalk or are cars supposed to park there? i guess the curb angle gives away it is parking?
That is designated car parking area yes. Wide sidewalk to the right of the cars on the right (behind the trees), narrow one to the left of the cars on the left.
The idea behind this way of parking is that it 1) makes the street visually narrower so people drive slower, 2) creates a dual use space when there are no (or few) cars parked it doubles as a sidewalk/safer playspace for kids
Pelssingel in 's-Hertogenbosch.
There's almost always a rectangle of different paver used in these kind of raised parking lanes to indicate where the parking spaces are and what areas are to be used as a sidewalk. It is not so clear on the photo in the video but underneath the blue car you can see the difference in paver.
At 3:13 when you mention cyclist-friendly designed speed bumps - is the gradual gradient of the bump what makes the one shown cyclist-friendly?
Yes, they make you lose way less momentum than a normal speed bump. They sometimes also taper off near the sides of the road where u usually cycle anyways.
Normal brick speed bumps are not too bad tho, the plastic "temporary" ones are usually the worst offenders, they are slippery when wet and have a ridge which is extra uncomfortable.
@@twanheijkoop6753 Thank you so much for your answer :)
The city of Hilversum just placed two of those annoying plastic ones. ON A BIKE LANE, just east of the main station. Despite several complaints to the city council they insist they were right in putting them there.
So sadly not all cities are like Amsterdam and Utrecht. Hilversum seems to enjoy pandering to cars and giving cyclists a difficult time.
As a person born in 1966, I have seen and experienced the changes towards bike-friendly infrastructures first hand. It used to be a dangerous thing to ride my bike in the dark from the city to my hometown, with no seperate bikelanes on a 80 km/h street. Now its much more safe with seperate bikelanes and reduced speedlimit. On the other hand, the amount of motorised traffic has increased dramatically.
sorry about the increase... human wants to be fast :(
There is still no metro in Utrecht, sad!
Zoetermeer would be a good example. its very well designed with main roads, roundabouts, tunnels etc etc
The lowering of the speed to 30 kph and flow times of traffic through a city also has proven the main argument of many people that "lower speeds makes travel times longer and thus should be avoided" isn't true. The average speed while crossing through a city is about 26 kph as there is a lot of accelerating and slowing down in between traffic lights/intersections/roundabouts/etc.. A lower maximum speed, closer to the average is helping to maintain the flow, allowing more vehicles per kilometer street (shorter distance between vehicles possible and less harmonica effect due to stopping/accelerating traffic).
And the main arguments for lowering the speed are less accidents because of shorter stopping distances, less injuries because of lesser impact by lower speed, less pollution and lesser sound/vibrations due to the lower speed (which are mainly reported by citizen along these roads).
As always, the "I want to drive faster" arguments are completely annihilated by experiments that provide real data. Psychology is a huge part of it. I notice this a lot when I drive on a road in Lelystad that was originally meant to be a 70/80km/h road, but it's now 50. It just feels like you're crawling along and I really have to watch that I'm not going over the speed limit.
That's why people always complain about this stuff, because it feels like going slower, while the difference in time you get there is negligible. Going 130km/h saves you a couple of minutes of time, hurray. Let's say you have a 45 minute commute. Depending on where you live, you may be spending 30 minutes on the highway. Then the time you save is roughly 7 minutes. But this difference is completely nullified when you have to wait 15 minutes in traffic regardless. Only for really long commutes can you see the difference. It also really depends on where you live. AFAIK, provincial roads are always only really 100km/h at the maximum, usually 80
Honestly what Utrecht does - 30kmh on all streets with no separate bike path - is exactly what feels naturally right everywhere and I stand fully behind this on becoming the main rule nationally. Maybe this could push municipalities to respond by separating the bike lanes because they are 'frustrated' by the 'lower speeds'. Which is a win in my book.
the funny thing is, 30 is often quicker than 50, better flow of traffic, more options for roundaboits instead of traffic lights etc. and innbuay cities its more often than not a challange to get to 50 anyways.
in most cities (especially during rush hour) the average speed is often not even 30km/h during trips.
so when you make (almost) all roads in the city 30km/h the improved flow will cancel out the short distances you can "floor it".
meaning it won't take you any longer in most cases where they go from 50km/h to 30km/h.
but it does make the roads safer, and if something happens the results are often way less drastic (less damage to vehicles and less severe injuries)
so if you look at it with a non-biased view, you will see no measurable impact to travel times (they may even get a bit shorter).
and at the same time a much safer and pleasant city environment.
Exactly this - and yet when the government in Wales tried to implement a 20mph (32kph) limit on many urban roads, there was so much anger and protest about the country 'grinding to a halt' that eventually they had to reverse most of the changes at great expense.
It is so easy to counter the false headlines around speed limits slowing traffic down, bike lanes causing congestion, pedestrian zones killing businesses etc etc with evidence to the contrary - but people just don't listen. I wish everyone was taught Dutch-style urban design at school - then perhaps maybe more people would be aware of how beneficial it is!
The average lifetime speed of a Dutch car is less than 50kph anyway. In most countries it's about the same.
@@iamjoestafford ye its interesting, in the Netherlands, TNO, a research company, did traffic similations, over 20 years ago. and they saw that behaviour in traffic is basically the Only cause of traffic jams. nice example (highway), when you hit the brake light once, then traffic can stop 1 km back. because of ppl reacting to the breaklights.
@@repelsteeltje90 absolutely, i am from Zoetermeer, where we have fairly decent / good traffic flows, but even then its far below 50 avg.
Could you please make a video about "standard practice of priority from the right for cars"? I'm from the UK and this seems very weird to me. Priority is always for the main road and cars entering from side roads have to give way/yield to the main road. I thought priority from the right was only done in France in the past and that it had gone out of fashion and was disappearing. I've been to the Netherlands 3 times now and have not noticed priority from the right anywhere while being there, so either I just don't understand the system or I'm completely blind if it is indeed "standard"?
There isn't really much to say but "At intersections and side roads, traffic from the right always has priority unless traffic signs or signals indicate otherwise." (from: www.refugeehelp.nl/en/ukrainian-refugee/article/100129-traffic-regulations-in-the-netherlands). So yes that means on every intersection where there are no traffic signs or traffic lights. We don't have "main roads" and "side roads" unless that is defined by traffic signs and then the general rule does not apply anyway. But in 30km/h zones by definition there are no traffic signs, so there traffic from the right (including cyclists!) has the right of way on all intersections.
@@BicycleDutch That is interesting. So just to confirm by way of 2 examples: If you're on Amandelstraat in Utrecht and you want to turn right into Ahoornstraat, or you're on Pijnboomstraat and you want to turn right into Amandelstraat, you can just go without giving way to traffic from the left? And conversely, if you're driving along a main road like Amandelstraat, if you see a car trying to enter from a "side" road to your right, you have to slow down and let them in? Meaning you have to constantly pay attention to cars entering your path from the right hand side? If true, that is wild to me. That NEVER happens in the UK. When you approach a "T-Junction" there are always Give Way signs and markings, indicating that you are on the minor road and must give way to the traffic on the busier road you are entering.
@mdhazeldine No, there you have to give way to traffic on Ahornstraat. When you exit Amandelstraat you leave a 30km/h zone. There is a sign saying that and also the continuous sidewalk gives it away. When leaving a 30km/h zone you always have to give way. But the answer to your next question is "Yes". If you would go north in Amandelstraat to the intersection with Elsstraat you would have to give way. This time because Elsstraat is from the right. That also goes for the the next two intersections of Amandelstraat with Larixstraat and Rietstraat. But then Pijnboomstraat is from the left, so traffic coming from there has to give way to traffic in the Amandelstraat, because there that street is coming from the right. So yes, you do have to pay attention to traffic from the right for every side street and let them go first in such zones where all streets are equal.
There is one exception to the stanard priority from the right and that is that of the "exit-construction". Originally intended to prevent traffic coming from a driveway having priority under the right over left default rule. The rule is now: when you have a level change (going down from a kerb/curb) you have to give way. This exception is now sometimes mis-used (or maybe re-used in a clever way) to cheat a bit and have priority intersections inside a 30km/h zone after all, without the need for signs or road markings.
@@BicycleDutch Ah very interesting. I can see how that works in low speed zones because you're going slow enough to pay attention. Looking around at Google Maps a bit more, I see there are actually many scenarios that are similar to the UK where you have "sharks teeth" to indicate "give way" from a side road to a main road, so perhaps the Netherlands is not as different as I first thought, but the priority from the right in 30kph zones is definitely not done here. 99% of the time we have our equivalent of sharks teeth (a double dashed line) on T-junctions or cross roads to indicate priority (which is usually given to whatever is considered the main route), however in a small number of cases where no markings exist, the official rule is that there's "no priority". You just have to figure it out. This only happens in very low traffic residential areas. One final interesting example from NL is Vleuten (suburb of Utrecht). If you go along Marssenseweg from the highway and continue into Schoolstraat into the town centre, you can see that before 2010, it used to be 60kph all the way into the town centre and there were yellow diamond signs to indicate it was a "priority road" (a concept we don't have in the UK). Now it has been turned in to a 30kph zone and the diamond signs have gone. All the raised curbs have been removed and it's now all flat, with no road markings. So am I right in thinking that now, if you are on Schoolstraat, you must always give way to cars from the right, even though that is clearly still a "main road" going through the town? If so, then that means the increasing number of 30kph zones in NL is also hugely changing road priorities at junctions everywhere. You may not consider this a big deal, but to people from other countries, I think it very much is. Perhaps that's worth a video?
@@mdhazeldine I'm a little confused by your confusion. I'm a sixty year old Dutchman, and 'vehicles from the right have priority, unless a sign says otherwise' is something we all learn here as the basic main traffic rule from early childhood. As far as I'm aware, this is also the rule in surrounding countries.
Checking this priority rule is second nature to everyone; we even use it to decide who goes first when two bikes meet at an intersection. The priority rule for the 30 km/h zones isn't different or new; it's exactly how it works for any intersecting road at any speed: you assume right goes first, unless you see a 'you are on a priority road'-sign (which of course has a 'you don't have priority'-counterpart on the other road). It's so ingrained that we even tend to stick to the rule when walking.
In England giving up road space for cycling will be key to reduce traffic. Right now there is a lack of protected cycling infrastructure outside of London and too many roads lead to the same places.
Where I live they are unlikely to create protected cycling paths on roads so it will mean using existing infrastructure to create the cycle networks and also to places people want to go to, as well as safe places to store and lock them up. Work places and schools also need to part of this to encourage people out of their cars.
When it comes to speed limits, Sweden has them all:
30 km/h on domestic streets and outside schools.
40 km/h in roads surrounding domestic zones and some larger through traffic roads.
50 km/h as the base speed in built up areas.
60 km/h when 70 is too much and 50 is too slow.
70 km/h is the base speed outside built up areas, and in high traffic roads cutting through bult up areas.
90 km/h is the default speed for a paved rural road (more or less) in good shape.
80 km/h is the speed when the 90 km/h road is not maintaned properly or have lots of traffic and incidents.
100 km/h on 1/2 roads or 1/1 roads with a central division (typically cable barrier)
110 km/h and 120 km/h is for 2+2 dual carriage motor ways.
Of course, the local municipality can just set any speed limit really, so there are plenty of intersting things like slowing down from 80 or 90 to 60 or 70 when there is a road crossing. (all combinations are possible including 80-70 and 90-60).
Mostly is is just a mess to keep track of what the speed limit is, as any general rules like the ones I listed above are far from consistent.
I’ll simply say that I love living in the Netherlands!
I moved here from England, and have no regrets.
Ik zeg gewoon dat ik het heerlijk vind om in Nederland te wonen!
Ik ben hierheen verhuisd vanuit Engeland en heb er geen spijt van.
😊😊😊❤
Same here.
My regret is that I didn't move to the Netherlands 20 years ago LOL
I moved here from the USA and have never regretted it once! I'm so grateful to live here
That was my plan and I even had job offers on the table - but then the Brexit transition period ended, I lost the automatic right to live and work across the EU, and I'm far too old to retrain in a job that I could get a visa for. It destroyed my dreams. So now I just visit a couple of times a year and cry every time I come home!
Our city in Drenthe had lots of these grey asphalt streets and upgraded them for... another grey asphalt in the same lay-out lol. Very car friendly. :)
Then again. No one lives in Drenthe anyways ;) some even say it doesnt excist at all
50 kph is fine where there are separated cycle paths. In my town (Apeldoorn) there are some long, straight roads where the speed limit is 30 kph and which have unseparated red cycle lanes, but there are alternative 50kph routes for cars. These have separated cycle paths and are mostly not lined with houses. To reduce the speed limits on these roads would be unnecessary, impractical and probably politically impossible. Wales, a hilly country where few people cycle so not exactly comparable with the Netherlands, recently introduced a blanket 20 mph (roughly 30 kph) speed limit in towns, which has been so unpopular and unsuccessful that many roads are now having their speed limits changed back to 30 mph.
There's an interesting 30 km/h road in Amsterdam called Amstelveenseweg (at least the section around Van Nijenrodeweg). It has many many small white ridges applied at the edges of the road that make driving fast and swerving even a little noticeable if not uncomfortable. This feature is uncommon if not unique, and unexpected because it's otherwise not built like a 30km/h road at all: very straight, plenty wide & long. I can only assume the government is unwilling to alter it too much because it would hamper ambulances going to the nearby VU AMC hospital.
Sadly I can find no pictures of it online and Google Maps is not up to date pictures as of Jan 2025.
As a former bikemessenger and hobbycyclist i can tell you still have to be carefull, dont aspact everybody gives way when needed, been in several accidents were i had the bennefit and still ran off my bike. its not the big wonderland!
Going to say it over and over until people understand it, but the Netherlands isn't just great for bikes, it's great for cars also, since my average speed is way closer to what the street actually indicates.
Yeah but now it is starting to get annoying at some places. 30km/h is very annoying at important connecting roads. Im fine with most 50 roads converting to 30 but there are some cases where it is out of place. I hope they keep a nice balance to the roads where it will be nice to travel with all vehicles.
@heimdall4148 i agree, I hope they don't go overboard as a way to cheap out of not making separate bike lanes and keeping 50kmh
Crying in Italian😢
Mamma mia 😭🤌🏼
0:25 where was that clip taken?
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@@BicycleDutch thank you
I wish New York did half of this. Progress is soooooo slow :(
Make New York city New Amsterdam again! 😉
It will lead to Utrecht for the Utrechters, them being inhabitants of the city of Utrecht, not inhabitants of the province of Utrecht. In a way it will contribute a little to less social cohesion on the scale of the province, and a bit more cohesion on a local scale.
I really don't understand how a 30km/h limit in built up areas would cause confusion. You remove all "30 zone" signs and put up "50" signs on main roads, after every intersection.
Anyone else picking up weird buzzing or feedback in the audio for this video?
Interesting. Over here they're actually broadening the main street in anticipation of an increased volume of car traffic (more than twenty trees will need to make room for that).
From what I hear when talking to people who drive in Middelburg, it comes down to wanting to be comfortable instead of cold. Almost everything and even nearby towns are within reasonable cycling distance. If those people decide to cycle instead of drive, it should be a significant reduction in cars on the roads where most people cycle.
Because cars are second class citizens in residential areas. The only thing we need to change is to make the sidewalks connected instead of the roads to make that even more clear.
I can't say for certain because I don't own an electric car, but wouldn't lower 30 kph speed limits be advantageous to electric car owners because they would use less juice versus 50 kph speeds? And that would mean less time charging, and fewer chargers being able to charge more cars? Just some thoughts that popped into my head...
@@lawrencefalk8714 Yes, it's true. EVs are very efficient at that speed.
Yes, and also: electric cars make way less noise at 30 kph, since you won't hear their engine, and the sound from the wheels on the road is reduced due to the low speed :)
30km/h is really a sweet spot for traffic.
- at that speed the chances of being hurt badly after a collision are way less than at higher speeds (the jump between 30km/h and 50km/h is really shocking)
- the cars don't make much noise
- because of the lower speed the traffic flow is more consistent and thus often better.
- drivers have more time to react to surprises, like a child or animal suddenly walking into the street
and so much more.
@@ChristiaanHW carbrains will you tell that driving slow is more dangerous cause they get distracted (one of the many things I heard). They even tell you that not making noise is worse cause you don't see other cars.
@@ChristiaanHW This is also where EVs have the advantage in terms of noise. At higher speeds, tire noise starts to become dominant. So EVs for a quieter city only make much sense at lower speeds
In the UK there is a fair and "controversial" amount of 20mph (32khp) zones. Part of that controversy is that these limits seem to also apply to cyclists and is impacting cycling events/races that either cannot use the routes that they used previously or are having to detour if possible. Is this affecting Dutch cycling events/races and if not how is this the case?
You mean to tell me that when there is a rally car event they expect the cars to obey the speed limits? Or is this just when cycling? Normal cycling yes speed limits apply, so no tour the france racing in a 'woonerf'.
I live in a place where many cyclists come to ride their laps, especially on weekends. Of course it is annoying when a herd of thirty to forty middle-aged men in lycra thunder downhill into our village. And because they cycle in a group, they think that their lap times are more important than the safety of other road users (yelling at a child or an elderly person to get lost if they cross a zebra crossing when they are cycling is not OK).
If an 'official' (organised) competition or cycling tour is held, the organisation will either adjust the route in such a way that other traffic is not affected too much and often, at points where such a tour crosses other traffic, traffic controllers are deployed. During major cycling competitions, the route is often temporarily closed to other traffic.
@@feikodelavieter7515 This is why I specifically wrote "events/races" organised by the Dutch cycling organisation or whoever. Amstel Gold at the highest level but naturally there must be many. The impact in the UK is for one day races and the familiar 10mile (16km) time trial but would also apply potentially to stage races where they go through or the stage starts or ends in at 20mph zone and the same for places they pass through en route.
@@feikodelavieter7515 maybe this is a 'cultural' difference. When 'we' in the Netherlands organise an event involving three people or more, we are used to involve the local council for the nessecary permits, organize a first aid station, have a waste-management plan etc... Maybe this is a but different abroad, the Dutch 'verenigingscultuur', is uniquely Dutch.
@@derekevans1932In the Netherlands, during 'official' cycling competitions, the race route is temporarily closed to other traffic. Any speed limits are not enforced during the race. As I indicated earlier, this does happen during competitions, but is less common during 'tours'. However, to organize a tour, you will need permission/a permit from the municipality. This is because you may cause inconvenience to other road users or residents along the route. When applying for such a permit, you will have to indicate which route will be followed and how you will guarantee the safety of participants, any spectators and other road users. I assume that when such a permit is granted, the local police officer will be notified so that he knows what is happening and he will not be so stupid as to schedule a speed check for cyclists at exactly that moment (incidentally, I have never heard of anyone getting a fine for cycling too fast).
I'm German, but my partner lives in the Netherlands, therefore I'm regularly in your country (Provincie Noord Holland). I noticed that the by far greatest majority of Dutch cyclists are very disciplined and follow the traffic rules, which makes them predictable, even as a car driver. I know what to expect. Ok, I understand that there are some exceptions, especially with teenagers riding illegally modified electric "fat bikes".
In Germany it often seems that cyclists see themselves as ecological warriors and above the law, which makes them very unpredictable. on the road.
It's much easier to respect the rules when the infrastructure is respectable.
Possibly education is a part of this. Nearly all Dutch primary schools include lessons and a test about traffic rules in one of the final grades, so participants are usually 10-12 years old. The test has photographs of a traffic situation and questions on what to do next, or who has right of way, etc. The other part of this is practical: students are asked to check their bikes safety, and then use it to navigate traffic following a set route through the schools neighbourhood, while volunteers (often parents) monitor their behaviour at key points along the way.
This initiative is over 90 years old, so by now the vast majority of people who grew up in NL have at least had some exposure to traffic rules and riding a bike, even if they never took a formal exam (such as for a drivers license).
As a Dutch having cycled in some German cities, I was surprised as well by the often crazy behaviour of German cyclists. Even in a city with lots of bikes like Oldenburg. The Germans I asked said that if they felt unsafe or didn't know the rules at a certain place, they would simply ride on the footpath. Whereas I would have chosen the main road in most of those cases. The German tourists in my current hometown often end up on the footpath even when there is a clearly marked cycle path next to it. It seems that "do not cycle on the footpath" is more ingrained in the Dutch, even if many (me included) break that rule so now and then for a shortcut.
We have traffic exams in our primary schools. But a lot of the knowledge is simply transferred by parents, older siblings or kids in the neighborhood. Not wanting your kid to die is a pretty strong incentive to teach it about biking, using sidewalks etc. My mom used to bike with me to school until she thought I was capable enough on my own, think age 7 or 8, thereabouts.
The other thing is that people that drive cars know that kids are unpredictable and they'll adjust speed.
@@RikSolstice We have (or at least had, when I was in primary school back in the early 1970s) this in Germany as well. A grandfatherly older police officer, who would visit the schools and teach basic traffic rules.
But many cycloists in Germany see themselves as eco-warriors and rebels, who think that traffic rules do not apply to them and that everybody else has to get out of their way. They commit the same offences against pedestrians, which they critizise if they are carried out by car drivers.
And in my rural region in summer we have cycle racing clubs, who use the country roads for their private Tour de France style races, blocking the whole road and constantly weaving in and out to pass each other. It is an ideological thing, different from the Netherlands, where a bike is seen as a means to get from A to B.
Mind, I would like to use my bike more for daily use (next supermarket is 10 km away from my home), but the region is very hilly and you already need to be in very good shape to do this. Back in Duesseldorf I used to cycle to work every day. It was mostly flat, like in the Netherlands, with some moderate hills inbetween for some cardio exercises.
If there is enough space and the cycle lanes are wide enough, then they should be kept in place in the roads that get reduced to 30kph. Because many of those will still be the main routes for cars.
I look forward to seeing how the 20mph speed limit in Wales pans out. Perhaps there's scope for the same in the rest of the UK.
They have started rolling this back, as far as I know - there was so much anger and opposition that the Welsh government basically had to apologise and promise to reverse most of the changes :(
@iamjoestafford there was a bid to have it scrapped but the government voted against it. There is a process to have roads reverted but they have to go through a bunch of red tape and meet certain guidelines.
One thing i really dislike about these streets is how uncomfortable they can be to cycle on.
We have those "fietsstraat" areas in Middelburg, but the roads are wide enough for cars to pass and very smooth. This leads to a lot of drivers honking at cyclists to get out of the way, while they have the right of way on that road. I wish the local government would place some speeding cameras cause I have not see any drivers, apart from the very polite German tourists, driving the speed-limit of 30 km/h. Heck, it's not uncommon to see someone drive 3 times that speed, because the roads are so smooth and wide. It's a wonder there are not more accidents on these roads.
Where I live, I can imagine bollards being put in to block off rat running on just a few streets. It would make such a massive difference for cycling and for the residents, and it would cost practically nothing. But they’ll never do it. It’s really sad that we’re deprived of a better quality of life. Even at this late stage of the climate crisis. What better solution could there be? But they don’t care.
I hate this latest trend of making all streets 30 km/hour. Even main roads with separate cycle paths are now limited to 30km/hour. People ignore the signs and still drive 50. While it still feels like you should have priority over small side streets you should give way to a car from the right. It's very counter-intuitive. I am a 36 year old Dutchman having cycled all his life and just now owning a car since last year.
For reference, 30 km/h is about 18.6 mph. Sadly it would be a hard sell here in the US.
It wasn't easy in the Neatherlands too. But like many changes that are for the good of all they get implemented, people complain while getting used to it. Start with that speed around schools, it will make such a difference.
@@paolagrando5079 Street design does the trick. People automatically drove faster in the Netherlands too when streets were still wide and straight.
The problem there is that the roads are for 'all' traffic. @notjustbikes calls this 'stroads', the mixing of a street (to get to a local destination) and a road (for through-traffic which would benefit from higher speeds).
A lot of the smaller streets could easily have traffic calming and thus enable mixed use, provided the people who are going elsewhere entirely can choose the road built for faster speeds and with less junctions.
Wees blij, die achterlijke snelheid verwoest de automotor
@anitaberendsen9525 Hahaha, nee hoor
I think this is one of those cases where you created the culture first and then it becomes less of a necessity. It must be really quiet around those streets.
Nah the culture grew out of the way the cities are built. The US is so individualistic and wants their own big house and lawn and everyone drives because the cities after the 50's were built to be sprawling car dependant places.
Nah, the Dutch street designs have changed quite a bit since I learned to cycle in the 80s. Even the older inner cities have had huge changes from car-dominated to bike and pedestrian friendly. There are plenty of videos that show these changes. The red pavement indicating bike lanes was a new fad in the 90s and I never expected it to become such an important part of traffic navigation. The only real difference for urban areas is that cycling was never only a leisure thing, but has been a serious mode of transport for part of the population, so there was no start from zero. Also, fuel is quite expensive here.
Undoubtedly, the Dutch have led the way when it comes to urban planning for cyclists. But elsewhere its a different picture. Outside the larger cities, car-dependency (and road freight) is still growing and there are more vehicles on the roads than ever before. Perhaps that is simply the future divide most countries face? Its not a criticism - just the reality of where we currently are.
Outside the cities they are building bicycle highways. A good example is the F59 between Oss and Den Bosch. This is also because of the electrical hybride bicycles which are mostly quicker than the old only manual bicycle.
If the bicycle highways will be grown a lot and most of the people buy a faster electric bicycle it will be a good solution for bicycle traffic between cities and villages.
Depends a little on how you look at it. Options for public transport outside of urban areas remain problematic, car ownership (nr. of cars per capita) is still increasing, but the number of kilometers travelled by car per capita remains more or less the same, in proportion to distances travelled by public transport or bike. The roads getting busier is simply the result of the increased population.
Public transportation is crap outside of urban areas, I definitely think this is a big factor. Where my parents live, everybody has a car. Though cycling infrastructure is very high quality, I have to walk 30 minutes to the bus station to go to a city that has a train station (I don't have a bike there, and of course I can't leave one of theirs at the station outside). Now I live in the Randstad, and the difference is night and day: I live
@@spicybaguette7706 What do you mean 'of course I cannot leave a bike at the station'? I just got a €50 bike with a €150 lock and just let it camp out with its 200 mates at the station.
@justdadstuff5171 Because I do not have a bike there, I can't leave a bike of theirs at the station
You get a test at school ,like a car licence,at the age of 6 or 7.
you drove right past my house, thats surreal
Holland is the best country to cycle hands down......and created its own cyclke road to cycle... have we got that in the uk or any other country in the world???? NO
Meanwhile in Singapore we are riding on roads with 60km speed limits...
Meanwhile in the UK, we have to ride on roads with 110kph limits! And I have nearly been killed more times than I can count.
It's interesting how much of the UK has the look of "grey streets". Ugly asphalt roads that feel unsafe to cycle on.
There are even 10 km/h zones in residential areas without through-roads. "Woonerf". Basically the Dutch version of a cul-de-sac.
1)What is most striking to me in this video is how nobody was wearing a helmet, even children! Why? What is their argument/philosophy behind not wearing a helmet?
2) I am also curious to know how prevalent bike theft if and how it is combated?
1) All these bicycle paths and 30 zones have made cycling so safe that helmets are not necessary.
2) Bicycle theft is quite common especially in big cities and around train stations. The primary antidote is to lock your bike with a chain to a tree or traffic sign, so it cannot be removed without advanced tools. That would make stealing not worthwhile for the average bike. With the rise of expensive e-bikes that is different. Not sure what those people do, I am glad my bike is cheap 😂. Many train stations also offer (underground) parking space with survaillance.
1) At this moment, most Dutch adult cyclists learned to ride a bike before there was such a thing as a bike helmet. There is, at the moment, no (political) support for making this mandatory (however, government tries to make helmets mandatory on 'fatbikes'). I suspect that this will happen 'someday', but then there must be sufficient support among the population.
2) Just like rain, bike theft is an integral part of life in the Netherlands. Many Dutch people have two (or more) bikes, an old banger to ride to the station, or to the pub in the evening. A second, nice bike for recreational rides on sunny days.
There is also a case made that requiring to wear a helmet creates a barrier to ride a bike. That barrier will lead to decreased amount of cycling. It can be that the health loss of people taking the car instead, is larger than the health gain by wearing a helmet.
The fast majority of serious injuries by people cycling are elderly. Maybe it's smart for them to wear helmets, but you can't really create such a law for older people only.
@@gertjanhoeve2756people still have accidents on bikes which cars aren’t involved in…
About bike thefts. They are here. But we do have an insurance for that as well. So you still have some money back if it happens. You can prevent most thefts by locking your bike with an extra lock on designated spots or fence/streetlight.
I love cycling in the Netherlands. Germany should take an example.
If the road is pink..., it is a bike road where cars are allowed as guests.
no they dont slow down anything really. The briks are there for permeate some rainwater they last very long and the maintenance is easy(compared to asfalt) they can withstand allot of traffic and vehicles. Drivers can go hard on them even in living area's but speed bumps prevents higher speeds, more airtime means slower vehicles.
Kraneweg in Groningen really needs a redesign. Cars can easily speed on smooth asphalt where there's not even a cycle suggestion lane. If you look on the local news site sikkom there's about a traffic accident every year. Yes I know it's an important bus route, but this is getting ridiculous
For the citizens living in the city's the trend towards more 30 km/h zones is beneficial. However, for a region as a whole, where the city's still have a main function for working and shopping/cultural activities is is less clear. The more rural areas will depend more on car as the main means of transportation, as public transport to/from these areas is too expensive and the distances for cycling are too big. Making P&R-locations at the borders of the city's is very expensive and often space is also limited. Here in the Netherlands the city's demand most of the available money for investments for and running of public transport, so an improvement of public transportation in rural areas isn't happening.
Travel speeds for cars in the city will reduce and travel times will rise. This makes going to the city unattractive. The city's create a virtual wall around then, a bit like in medieval times. People will want to move to the city (higher housing prices) or work will move to the outskirts. So the way forward is a more whole approach.
👍👍👍
Besides the fact that the bicycle is seen as a fully-fledged means of transport in the Netherlands and not as a toy for health freaks. There is something else that is often missing in these kinds of videos (however excellent this video is, my compliments!).
Cyclists (incl. e-bikes), pedestrians, mopeds, mobility scooters and I think even people on horseback are seen as 'vulnerable road users'. In the event of a collision involving a car and a vulnerable road user, the driver of the car is held liable for at least fifty percent of the damage in almost all cases (a few very exceptional situations aside), even if the motorist is not at fault. This means that motorists usually drive carefully when they share the road with cyclists. Unfortunately, this often also means that some cyclists think they are invulnerable when they participate in traffic.
In addition, almost all Dutch children, when they are about eleven years old, receive traffic lessons at school, these lessons are concluded with an exam, in which they have to put what they have learned into practice. Finally, getting a driver's license is not very easy in the Netherlands, a candidate has to take two exams, theory and practice. Both exams are certainly not easy.
To add: Children in the Netherlands receive traffic lessons on bike; their bikes are checked during the exam for functioning lights and brakes and they bike a designated bike route through the city to test their skills. However: recommended, not mandatory.
To me is more likely that motorist are careful because they use bikes too, they grew up in a society that got more bike friendly, or they have friends and family who cycle.
"Finally, getting a driver's license is not very easy in the Netherlands, a candidate has to take two exams, theory and practice. Both exams are certainly not easy." In which countries isn't the case?
@@tiapina7048 Of course, one does not exclude the other 😉. I would gladly leave scientific research into the effect of non-infrastructural measures on road safety versus previous experience as a cyclist to a traffic expert who still needs a topic for a PhD research. I think that the combination of infrastructure, cycling culture and insurance measures together make the Dutch cyclist relatively safe.
And yes, the requirements for obtaining a Dutch driving license are higher than, for example, the requirements in the US. The Dutch requirements are not as high as the German requirements, where even first aid training is a mandatory part of the driving course.
These shared 30 kmhs roads are often fine for an experienced cyclist, but I'm not convinced they're always the best solution for _all_ cyclists. E.g. in my hometown I know of at least 2 instances of a main cycle route that feeds into a cluster of elementary schools, and that on the way passes by a shopping centre. In both cases, those routes were originally built with seperated bike paths. And in both cases, those have now been replaced with mixed 30 kmh traffic. Meaning that the wobbly 8 year old biking to school by herself now has to mix in with the stream of SUVs going to the stores to buy a pack of milk. Naturally, many parents don't like that, and then decide to bring their 8 year school by car (in an SUV, of course). Which convinces even more parents that the route isn't safe to bike...
Available space, associated cost and lack of need.
You don't need a separate bike path next to every single road when cyclists have plenty good ways to get around.
As for the 30km zones, tbh the cyclists are the true terror in those, and that's prior to fatbikes.
Not minding their environment, not adhering to their place in the road, often even going counterflow to save 2 seconds
I found it interesting the 900x900 areas. I suppose it is to have a balanced amount of safety for cyclists and pedestrians and not "take away" too much to the motor vehicle users. It sounds like a nice way. But I wonder if that affected the way that people have been chosing where to live. If you have a family or want to start one you would look for an accomodation inside one of the 30km/h space ... has this caused the house problem in the Neatherlands?
I don't think it's caused the housing problem. Sure, people might have a preference for some places, and at some point in time that may have caused prices to rise more in certain neighbourhoods. But the current problem is that there are simply way less houses than people looking for a house.
Many people will tell you (im)migration is the problem, but the numbers indicate it's more complicated than that. There is not one cause for the problem, just like there is not one solution.
No, a failure to build for rent homes for lower incomes is at fault, as well as investors buying up starter homes to rent out at inflated prices. Couple that to elderly staying longer in their large paid off houses creating a log jam in the home owner market and you get a shortage.
Thanks both for the replies. Does the Neatherlands have many empty accomodations that the owners don't want to rent or sell?
Make an update about Amsterdam, limiting the speed of cars to 30km/h whenever there is t he possibility of cyclists on the same roads. T
People that ask this question are living in fear.
Nice pictures of The city of 's-Hertogenbosch.
Funily enough if they make 30 the standard accross most cities than e-bikes will probably be the biggest offenders when it comes to speeding
wow wow wow
Because we don't need them, basically everyone here uses a bike every now & then especially in more urban areas
Bikers and pedestrians are protected by law unless you jump in front of a car the person in the vehicle will be at fault
I know someone that said 30 kph should not be on bypass and other roads because of traffic congestion in intersections.
And I heard they give fines for 31 kph, I think it's ridiculus
Bicycle knowledge to sleep to:)
Same thing happened when snelweg speeds were reduced to 100 km/h, making them the same speed as autowegen despite having wider lanes, matrix boards, hard shoulders, no traffic lights and longer merging lanes. I'd propose lowering the speed of autowegen to 80 km/h and lowering the residential zones down to 20 km/h to at least have a clear distinction, though then you're still left with design speeds being higher than speed limits, but I think we'll just get used to that.
In an accident between a car and a bicycle or pedestrian, the car's driver is at fault. That's the law. No discussion.
So bicycle and pedestrians are protected by law.
Common misconception. The less vulnerable traffic is *presumed* to be at fault, *unless* it's clear the other party is at fault.
29.5 km/h zones would be even better.
Jij bent alleen hier om aandacht te trekken.🥱
Een reactie in het Nederlands want het betreft het land waar ik in woon en leef.
Het doorvoeren van alleen maar 30km zones door elke stad is leuk, maar het moet wel werken. Te veel wordt er gekeken of het een verbetering is in het algemeen, en dat is het vaak ook wel. Doch mag er net zoveel rekening mee gehouden worden dat er een goede doorstroming van verkeer moet kunnen plaatsvinden. Een ringweg is immers geen woonerf! Dat er maatregelen worden genomen om het voor fietsers en wandelaars veiliger te maken steun ik voor 100%, maar de auto voor 100% verbannen is niet haalbaar.
Een opmerking; De snelste route tussen twee punten is vaak geen treinverbinding of een OV verbinding.
Iets te veel wordt er gekeken naar steden waar veel mensen dicht bij elkaar wonen en werken en gedacht wordt dat iedereen op fietsafstand van zijn of haar werk woont. Maar er zijn genoeg werkgevers welke op ongebruikelijke plaatsen gevestigd zijn en geen 24/7 goede OV verbinding heeft. Als een autorit er 15-20 minuten over doet en hetzelfde stuk per OV dan is de keuze snel gemaakt.
ring wegen en N-wegen zullen nooit 30km/u worden, dus dat is geen probleem.
het hele idee is juist dat je bijna alles in de bebouwde kom 30 maakt en een aantal wegen aanwijst als 50km/u om de doorstroming goed te houden.
maar momenteel is het zo dat 30 de uizondering is (volgens the regels) en 50 de standaard.
terwijl in steden het grootste gedeelte van de wegen voor bestemmingsverkeer is (woonwijken, winkelgebieden, scholen etc).
dus ipv standaard 50 en dan tig borden moeten plaasten met 30 erop, is het idee om die situatie om te draaien, naar:
overal in de bebouwde kom 30, tenzij anders aangegeven.
en buiten de bebouwde kom blijft alles gewoon hetzelfde.
we hebben die wegen nodig om het verkeer om de stad te sluizen (de ringweg) of om van A naar B te gaan.
@@ChristiaanHW dat klopt, maar veel doorgaande wegen binnen steden of dorpen zijn geen N-wegen. In een grote stad alle wegen 30km wegen maken is niet altijd verstandig.
@@ChristiaanHW een goed argument dat het gemakkelijker is om een paar wegen een 50km bord te geven terwijl de rest 30km zone is. Men moet dan wel de doorgaande wegen behouden. En als ik kijk naar de aanpassing op de Marnixlaan hebben ze daar iets verkeerds gedaan.
In Deventer hebben ze jaren geleden ook besloten de N348 (gelegen binnen de gemeentegrens vanaf de A1) een 50km weg van te maken en dat terwijl er nergens in de verste verte een fiets of wandelpad aanwezig is of kruist. Het had prima een 70km weg kunnen blijven.
Waar ik woon is fietsen sneller dan een auto omdat de weg architecten compleet doorgeslagen zijn. Ook wanneer ze situaties veranderen doen ze maar half werk. Het lijkt wel of ze zelf nooit op de weg zitten alleen maar als een zombie theoretisch werken. Persoonlijk denk ik dat ze het doen zodat ze altijd werk blijven houden.
Wat ik niet begrijp waarom de politiek mensen niet stimuleert om meer te gaan fietsen, bv met subsidie voor (elektrische)fietsen. Ipv daarvan geven ze het wel voor elektrische auto's die niemand kan betalen.
@@StarsAtNight1 Dat de tijd dat je besteed om ergens te komen per fiets beter is dan per auto kan ik iets bij voorstellen, maar niet als de afstand dat gefietst moeten worden pas korter is qua tijd omdat ze de auto wel heel erg verdrongen hebben. Wat je veel in nieuwbouwwijken ziet is dat er geen binnendoor-routes meer zijn voor auto's, dat is niet perse iets slechts want het bevorderd het gevoel dat je in een rustige straat kan wonen en niet dat je straat misbruikt wordt als sluiproute.
Kies je ervoor om je boodschappen per auto te doen, zou je om moeten rijden, wat bijna automatisch langer duurt. Iets wat je ziet in nieuwbouwwijken zoals ik al omschreef.
Voor woon-werk verkeer zou dat niet mogen gelden, want immers bevinden niet alle werkgevers zich op fiets afstand. Men zou altijd een goed alternatief moeten bieden als ze de auto daadwerkelijk willen verbannen. Maar helaas is dat ook weer niet zo.
Eens stimulans om te veranderen van automobilist naar fietser zou naar mijns inzien inderdaad veel meer bevorderd mogen worden en niet alleen de automobilist bestraffen omdat ze (bijna) niet anders kunnen. Degene die wel hun patroon kunnen veranderen mogen er ook voor beloond worden. Immers zorgen dezen dan ook voor veel minder verkeer op de weg. Slijtage aan auto's omdat ze korte ritten maken is ook een ding. Korte ritten zijn ook veel vervuilender.
Amsterdam is a city where no native dutchman want to live anymore, using it as a example is not that smart.
Speak for yourself🙃
@@spicybaguette7706 In 2011 49.8% Had a immigrant background. In 2022 It was 55.8%
@@StarsAtNight1 Amsterdam always has been a city with a relatively large immigration background, starting in the 16th century.
The only time period where that was not the case was during the French occupation.
Nice try, though.
@ Show me the figures.
@@StarsAtNight1
Leo & Jan Lucassen, Migratie als DNA van Amsterdam, 2021
Fred Feddes, 1000 Jaar Amsterdam, 2012
Geert Mak, Een kleine geschiedenis van Amsterdam, 1995
Toegang tot de stadsarchieven van Amsterdam geven je ook een goed inzicht aangezien bijvoorbeeld de overlijdensregisters uit de 18e en 19e eeuw ook afkomst en geboortesteden vermelden. Veel Duitsers trouwens.
Wait what, why isn't it 10 minutes? Why aren't you trying to waste my time??
While the speed bumps are likely to be effective, as someone who gets slightly car sick those are a goddamn sickness. Literally.
Speedbumps are only in residental areas though. So it's only getting to the nearest road and no more speed bumps for you.
@@longbow857 Not true. Putting aside that it is all over the town, you can even have them on (smaller, often the thinnest) overland roads (probably where people were speeding).
If you go from one small town center to another small town center through a village, you might jump 20 or even more of those in the quarter hour you need.
I agree wholeheartedly, because in my town, Puremerend, there;s a area called Purmer Zuid, where there are so many high speedbumps (every 30-50 metres which is rediculous), that it makes travel by car or by bike practically a nightmare. There isn't any height restriction nationwide on these speedbumps to my knowledge. I prefer the gradual bumps and spread out more widely. Also I like the chicanes, for they make travel a lot more comfortable, especially for emergency services, So it's not all hunkey dory I'm afraid in the Netherlands.
A general speed limit to 30kph would be annoying for those riding S-Pedelecs. There wouldn't be much reason anymore to buy one. They already banned them from cycle paths.
I am not sure If I like the direction this is going.
Pedelecs are not ment for these area's, and are for the speedbike lanes outside these area's . For kids who cycle to their schools , the pedlecs are the most dangerous other participant. The kids won't hear them, and the look the same as other bikes.
A maximum speed of 30 km/h applies to all traffic, cars, buses, even dog carts. So also for speed pedelecs. As long as the speed pedelec does this in a safe, responsible way, it can cycle past the stationary cars when it is busy. Just like a motorcycle in a traffic jam drives between the stationary cars. So you will certainly not be slower on your speed pedelec!
@ you missed my point. Limiting to a general 30 km/h speed limit makes it even more irrelevant buying a S-Pedelec. I personally do not like that artificial limitation.
@@Vardraq agreed, in a urban area, where the speed limit is 30 km/h, buying an ebike, which has a max. speed of 25 km/h might be a better option. However, as @8020erwin also remarks, speedpedelecs are best used for commuting between area's, distances at of least 10(?) kilometres, between towns. In my view using a speedpedelec in an urban area only is indeed a waste of money. Finally, just making sure that we aren't missing each others points, I mean a speed limit on a road, not a speed limiter, installed on a speedpedelec 😉.
if it makes the city a more pleasant and safer place i think that small percentage of citizens with a speed pedelec are going to have to find it in themselves to adjust.
Although it is nice to see a video with a romantic view on ones country, I have to add that in reality this all is not as positive as it seems in this video. In reality it means cyclist are just going everywhere without looking at anything. Traveling by car in cities has become a huge irritation. And from the other side the speed bumps on straight streets increase noise and pollution because cars are constant breaking and then making speed again. Inner cities are slowly losing the shops because lots of car people don't want the hassle of getting to the shop anymore in the inner cities. Besides crazy parking fees, one has to be lucky to not hit a cyclists and be prepared to go slower through traffic then cyclists. The dislike for people on bicycles is growing fast in Th Netherlands.
Yes they are absolutely needed. As the population of netherlands increases and mixed used of sidewalks increases there will br accidents. You can barely walk arpund in Amsterdam or Den Haag because you are constantly on the lookout for the next delibery driver or scooter or bike trying to ride into to make a point. The reason why they dont isnt becuase theyre smart or careful or strategic, its becuase netherlands is a tiny country with limited space. There is literally not the space to put a 2m path around every building and road. They bad way it works now is becuase od this, and it only works because there arent overcrowded streets (yet) and a cukture that understands and follows bike traffic safety
But those speed bumps are often more an irritation than anything else. Cyclists can also be irritated by the costly bumps. The Netherlands is NOT considering a 30 km/hr maximum. Only leftist politicians do this and many are very much against it. As vehicles drive around longer (and slower) air pollution and traffic jams increase. So, in tight neighborhoods with playing children: excellent. On through-roads we see in Amsterdam statistics that they have gone too far and the limits are totally political only. While the nations moves towards an electrification of cars, many of the 'over done' regulations prove to be just costs without benefits. The narrator only takes a very single sided approach, unfortunately. Most, by far, travel-distance in The Netherlands is by car. It is automotive innovation which provides the largest benefits towards cleaner air, less noise and even safer streets. All these items seem skipped.
You wrote @nas4apps, "The Netherlands is NOT considering a 30 km/hr maximum. Only leftist politicians do this" that is simply not true. A large majority of the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) has voted *for* a motion (proposal) to lower the speed limit to 30km/h in 2020. Not only that, but also: "The idea is supported by various national organisations, including the Road Safety Research Institute (SWOV)" The government has been studiying the consequences such a change would have since that time. That qualifies as "considering" in my book. trans.info/en/a-european-country-wants-to-limit-the-maximum-speed-in-built-up-areas-to-30-km-h-206960
Please, get rid of the cycle paths in the city, next to roads.
These paths facilitate using your phone, cyclists also cycle on the wrong side of the street. As a pedestrian these cycle-paths take room from the side-walk, as do parked bicycles as well, and crossing the street is actually crossing 3 streets now. All drivers on 1 central road, footpaths on both sides, and hopefully small garden patches in front of the buildings.
These cycle paths facilitate stupidity and ignorance. When you use a bike, pay attention to the traffic or you will be hurt.
Only cycle when you are proficient, the same as with any other vehicle on the public road.
But that would just make cycling more dangerous, travel time for cars will increase, and people may opt to take a car instead, which is bad for traffic, increases polution and wear on roads. As well as a less safe road
You're welcome to check out the current 'herinrichting' where I live, they're doing exactly what you propose.
So basically, bikes are allowed to be faster than cars; as a Dutch car owner and a bike owner, car owners are discriminated against 100%.
Holland is a car hell. And one big traffic jam.. And even getting worse every day.
@@bfiftytwo1155Because everyone goes on the road at the same time. I don’t, I go to the office by car and start at 07:00 to 15:00. Avoid rush hour this way.
Huilie huilie
En als je pech hebt ook nog hysterische jongeren die huilend over het klimaat aan de weg geplakt zitten .
@robforge7667 Nonsense. Road signs that indicate a speed limit apply to all drivers, cyclists included.