Are there really too many bikes in Amsterdam?
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2013
- In June, the New York Times published a story headlined "The Dutch Prize Their Pedal Power, But a Sea of Bikes Swamps Their Capital" that instigated much debate (over 365 reader comments in one day) and a torrent of emails to the editor. The Times followed up by seeking a "dialogue" with its readers about the supposed "swamping" of Amsterdam by bicycles. Then came all the echoes of the Times narrative in other media.
So, are there really too many bikes in Amsterdam? On a recent trip to the Netherlands, I got to experience this "sea of bikes" first-hand, and I saw no true problems other than pockets of less-than-ideal bike parking accommodations.
Over 30 percent of trips in Amsterdam are done by bike, and many locals have decried the Times article as hyperbole. See what some of them have to say about the situation in this Streetfilm.
There aren't enough bikes anywhere.
What a great "problem" to have.
I visited Amsterdam last summer. Yes, there were many, many bikes. I can't imagine what it would be like if even half of those people were driving cars instead of riding bikes. Too many bikes? No way. Too many people? Maybe so.
If you dont mind me asking, how was it? The city, I mean. I've always wanted to go there and from what I've seen it looks really nice.
Definitely worth a visit. I was there in the height of summer travel season. It was like a big crowded party. A very interesting city and a lot of fun. But after a couple of days I was ready to move on. If I go back I'll try to go during a slower time of year.
Funny that you say that. I recently visited Copenhagen during January. At first when the chance arose I thought I would have rather go during warmer weather. After having gone I am thankful I went when I did. No crowds, no lines. Very nice! As for the bikes, dam there are a lot of bikes there. If I lived there I would get into the bike thing but here in the US where I live a bike is almost useless. Too many hills to even consider riding a bike as a commuter.
Nicholas lofa When visiting Holland, make sure to visit Amsterdam a few days and pass on to other cities like The Hague, Alkmaar, Delft etc. When you are from the US, consider to also visit Munich in Germany as this is a nice place as well.
@@markp.7165 E-bike? :-)
Its wonderful. There can never be too many bikes, because for each person not biking you have a person using a different form of transportation (which often would mean a car or scooter or what not). Much respect for Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. Looks very similar to Copenhagen where I live. Now if only more cities would follow suit...
what do they do when it snows?
Much traveled cyclist paths get sprayed with salt to melt the snow. Smaller cyclist paths (or some that are seperate from the roads) will not, people will generally cycle slower, be more cautious.
Personally I always cycle, I never even attempted to get my driving license and I make due. Only with truly extreme hailstorms, massive snow amounts or huge rainshowers I would turn to public transportation or walking.
+Jake The cyclist paths that are connected to the roads get cleaned every morning between 4 and 6 if it snows.
The seperate paths are being sprayed salt on so the snow/ice will melt.
Only some paths at farming areas or plains/forestries wont be cleaned.
+Jake, and it never snows xD
Though bikes are the main form of transport, buses, trams, and cars crowd the city. The people who ride these different forms of transport are also the same people who are using bikes, seldom is it one or the other 100% of the time. And for a city that focuses on riding bikes for health and good air quality the city of Amstertdam was filthy. Stop the littering!
Crazy that anyone could actually think having so many bikes in a city is a bad thing. It's the future in my opinion, something more cities should be adopting and to be honest there has been a lot of improvements. Most notably Malmo in Sweden, it's not quite Amsterdam sure. But it's one hell of an impressive step in the right direction. Even where i live in Edinburgh a city dominated by steep hills there are some noticible improvements being made to the infrastructure. So like it or not bikes are here to stay! just saying.... :)
I live in GEORGIA, USA & bikes are very popular. If I adapt to city life, I’ll get a bike for convenience.
Great ending shot of all the cars !!! Made me laugh!
Hahahah yea that was a good burn😂😂
what the fuck to many bikes ? if you change all bikes for cars you need 100 times more space its redicules
Too many bikes? Ok, try to replace them with cars.....
every bike is a car less on the streets. Imagine how the city would look and smell when every bike on the film was a car instead?
I can just imagine how much cleaner their air comapred to other places. its not fully clean for sure but less of that God damn toxic fumes T.T
+Abdulrahman Alrehan Have you ever been in the Netherlands or Denmark? Everybody is talking about toxic fumes etc... I love the silence in our cities, here you can have a drink outside whitout shouting to each other :) Everytime i went to London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Brussels etc, i wake up stressed out with a headache :(
@@dutch-pcyclist1614 you can experience a carfume headache right in your own country, try rotterdam haha
@@dutch-pcyclist1614 I´ve been there in eindhoven, rotterdam and amsterdam and as soon as i got out of the airplane i could feel the extreme polluted air here in Lisbon as soon as i got back i wanted to go back to that clean air, peace and quiet. Cars cause air pollution, noise pollution and car sickness. Bikes cause happiness peace and quite and clean air.
I studied in Amsterdam and I never had any problems with bikes. Cars... yes.
First I was amazed that there are a lot more bikes in Amsterdam than in my city, and then I was more amazed that it was considered a 'problem' for them.
Good on ya for this video! That last scene sums up the stupidity of those journalists thinking. I'm currently doing everything in my power to move myself to the Netherlands because there are "too many bikes".
I would love to do the same. Spent two weeks there a couple of years ago and did NOT want to leave. Best of luck to you! I hope you make it there...
When you're on the highways near Amsterdam or other dutch big city, you realize there are still too many cars (applause though, for the big and growing number of electric and hybrid cars) and even in a country as the Netherlands, cycling infrastructure and public transportation can still be extended and improved.
New York City is a good example in the US for it's rates of public transport usage, but it's swamped by cars, and invaded by rats. Sooo... yeah
you mention nyc as a good example on a video about amsterdam? oh boy youre lost!
propaganda by car companies lol
My commute home yesterday while driving my car is 15 miles, it took me 2 hours! Our problem is we have way too many cars, Not bike! On the same commute on my bike it takes me 1 hour and 10 minutes on average. All traffic problems are caused by motorvehicles not bicycles.
HAHAHA! I just LOVE that little bit at the end. Hit the nail on the head! Maybe someday we'll abandon the urban sprawl mentality that enables our thirst for fossil fuels. I have hope.
it's so stupid to say to many bikes , if just half of the people on bikes got back into a car there would be total gridlock.
i love netherland especially for bikes !!! i apreciate all bikers !!!
+emadonn mc 12.000 km/year by bike ;) sold my car 6 years a go :D
great
Good man!
So the whole thing was about another US one eyed fictional focus on personal safety, freedom and whathavewe..
Like gun discussion, no matter how many innocent children murdered, always because the Real Hero was unavailable
Just imagine half those people on bikes were in cars with an average ocxupancy of 2. The entire city would be gridlocked. Back in reality the busiest commuter route in Amsterdam was closed at the start of the afternoon rush as a result of an emergency, all it resulted in was a minute of confusion before everything disipated. If that happens in any US city, thr whole city is gridlocked. By any measure, there is not a single bicycle too many in Amsterdam.
With the E bike there is no excuse to don t use a bicycle.
Imagine all these Bicycle people in cars... It would not improve the situation; it would make it far worse. Besides there is only a parking problem. Not a biking problem.
The NYT must have been having a laugh, surely? Far better a sea of bikes than a sea of cars!
There can never be too many bikes! Perhaps too many scooters along the bicycle lanes ;)
I completely agree with Henry Cutler, there is never too many bikes !
Een zee van fietsen is toch veel minder belastend voor het milieu dan een zee van auto's... AKA New York...
For non-Dutchies: This means: A sea of bikes is definively far less harmfull to the environment than a sea of cars is...
Automobiles haven't even taken over New York as they have elsewhere. That city is known as a city of train riders who also do a fair bit of walking. Now, for car overkill, look no farther than Houston . . .
AJ W Nou een zee van water lijkt me wat beter.
0:24 You can see the boat tour getting a sad face for speeding doing 8 mph/kph
Speaking of swamps; isn't that what they say? The canals in Amsterdam are made up of one meter of water, one meter of bicycles and one meter of mud?
myrsa3000
prolly yeah, i think you forgot the 1 meter of pee of all the drunks after a night out
roaringfire357 Hahaha yeah I guess that as well
There’s too many cars in every American city and town. I’d much rather have too many bikes. I wouldn’t live in a place where I had to drive everywhere
Cars/vehicles are designed for long distances, harder routes to move larger/heavier amount of things and get you to the destination faster........ Weather is also factored in etc ....not for a city or short distances or easy routes.......when you ride your bicycle you are also exercising, vehicle you sit and press a gas or electric pedal so it's a bit lazier on the body which is built to move around .......therefore both come in handy but you have to decide in which circumstances they can be used best.
Geleerd van Groningen.. maar net als gas.. : "we zullen het daar maar niet over hebben.."
Reminded me of those wicked underground bike parking spaces in Japan. And of Mexico City, we do bike a lot here too, but not in that level.
In the Netherlands we do have them now. The underground bike parking in Utrecht is the largest in the world. But they are everywhere.
What a weird article to publish. Is the author suggesting we drive instead? Or abandon all vehicles and start walking?
The ending was -perfect-
A lot yes, too many not !
gotta ,move over there i love bikes,good style of life.
"It's gonna look like it's 1878." Baseeeed
Every 'technology', 'solution' or 'development' brings about its own problems. The fun thing is we learn to work with them and find new solutions. It is not hard to see that the problems that arise when the whole city moves around on their own bikes are much, much easier to solve than issues with cars in inner cities. The most simple argument is the space one person takes up when moving around in a car versus on a bike. So bikes seem to be the solution, not the core problem.
I mean... let's be real. There are definitely too many bikes in parts of Amsterdam: parked, weaving in and out, clogging the cycle lanes, veering onto pavements to take short-cuts... That is an effect of the ever increasing popularity of the city, which in turn is probably at least in part the result of the city being so liveable and with such a great public (living) space. However, let's not infer from that that it is a bad thing to use cyclefriendliness to make your city better. For starters:
1) An attractive, less poluted, more friendly city is plainly a good thing.
2) As mentioned by a few other people: if you were to try and move all of these people around for their daily activities using cars you would have a gridlock that just wouldn't ever resolve.
3) Most of the cities in the US are so far from this extreme that there is really no need to worry about this issue yet...
Do they get ice or snow? If so....yikes. I'm surprised the bikes don't have canopies.
Stupid question, never to much bicycles. (except the wrecks)
It was much to many, if every biker should use his own car.
Car-free inner city makes total sense in Amsterdam, the innercity is so slim builded you don't want to drive there. They should just provide enough parking outside the innercity car-free belt
To less.
Imagine they all comes with a car.
Far better than cars , and there toxic fumes . Just be cause you don't see them , etc. I wish my country Scotland , had your infrastructure , and attitude to bikes .
I love it!
I would rather have way too many bikes than having too many cars anytime
wow i love all bikes !!!
too many cars??? YA FUCKIN THINK??
@2:19 the challenge of constantly riding in a peloton is addressed.
Well, you have to measure again i guess, new regulations in April.
No more mopeds on the cycling path, lets see how that works out this summer!
Kan niet wachten tot ons stadje helemaal auto vrij word!
I just spent three weeks in Amsterdam and I don't think there are too many bikes in the city. I do believe that bike riders, cars, and pedestrians don't mix very well. Bikes and cars have the right of way, and there are almost NO EXCEPTIONS to that rule. With the speed and mindset of riders it creates a dangerous environment both for pedestrians and less experienced riders. It would be great if a better division between riders, cars, and pedestrians existed. If U.S. cities aspire to be like Amsterdam you have two challenges: cars and geography. Anericans, for the most part, do not want to give up there air conditioned cars to pedal up a hill on hot days. Secondly, Amsterdam is flat, which makes it conducive for a bike riding culture. If an area has nice temperatures, room for cars, bikes, walkers to work together, and is relatively flat you might be a candidate for a bike centric community. Good luck Seattle you have an up hill battle.
what do they do in winter?
+Blue Skies weather or no weather you ride your bike because for many people it is your main mode of transport and while public transport is decent it often takes way longer to get anywhere. In Amsterdam getting anywhere on bike tends to beat the car and public transport time wise.
In Copenhagen most people bike year round. I certainly do. It really needs to be a nasty snow storm for me to switch to public transport.
I live in Canada and cycle year round
Nobody is made of sugar, you don't die from riding your bikes in the cold or rain.
Blue Skies In Scandinavia we have a saying: there is no bad weather, there is bad clothing..
Be inspired & see what's happening 👍
To many bikes in Amsterdam?Welcome to Amsterdam.People from all around the world!Bicycle Amsterdam greetings.Whe can do a deal?
To be fair, they might not take this problem seriously enough.
I am só done with the fresh air, só fed up with the constant exercise and the swiftness of reaching my destination. Come ón, there must be a better way to travel?
Whenever I close my eyes and think of better times, I smell the smog, hear the loud growling of engines and loud cars honking and I dream of mayonaise-stains on the seat and my two sweaty, fat hands gripping the steeringwheel and moving absolutely nothing but one foot at the time to push the pedals.
(Yes this is sarcasm, don't worry.)
Amsterdam is not really busy with bikes
There are not to many bikes. There are to many tourists...
Say no too many bikes it’s like saying there too many people! Just imagine the congestion of all those people in cars
You need to be aware of the cycle lanes, it's easy to get run over by one, but it's better than loads of cars everywhere, no toxic fumes to breath in. More cities should be like this. You don't see any obese people either which is great.
11thHourSalvation.. The smell of cannabis is 'much' better than gas-oil ;)
Lol, agree!!!
The answer comes at 1:03
Imagine open a bike shop in Amsterdam.
One thing I notice watching all these bike videos from Amsterdam is that there are no obese or fat people.....I see that alone as a huge plus for this type of culture. Challenges present everywhere for everything, this should be the way transport is in all countries IMO
We have fat and obese people here in the Netherlands as well.. But even these people cycle. Some people are just sensitive to get fat/obese. A former collegue of mine, in 1987, said to me: I get fat just when I look to a cookie.. Yes, he literally said it that way!! So obese people don't always have an unhealty way of living.
Imagine all those bikers driving around in cars instead. That would be hell. Right now, it's an incredibly pleasant city to live in. Better than most capital cities, exactly because most people get around on bikes instead of cars. If we could get rid of the remaining cars, it would get even better. Of course you're always going to need trucks to supply shops, ambulances and cars for other special purposes, but for simple personal transportation inside a city, a car is terribly inefficient.
Car owners pay a lot of taxes. Bike owner don't. Hmm. Do you see why news and governments are mad? :)
you do know that little money from car taxes are contributing to road infrastructure
Dutch roads are in excellent condition.
Just because you own a car doesn't mean you're supposed to be able to go everywhere. This is where peoples mindset is wrong. You're not paying for privileges.
Often there are special gates for cardholders to enter central areas, but they are for trucks supplying businesses in set parts of the day.
True Kevin, you can argue that its a lot more expensive to keep the roads and related needed infrastructure at high quality then what you need for cyclists.
Besides, taxes are high, bit relative to income taxes its not a huge tax. We pay a lot of taxes in general, but relatively its atleast easily observable where that money is going.
I am a translator by profession, and one of the (few) advantages with my line of work is I end up reading all sorts of weird stuff. One of the things I translated a year or two ago was an analysis regarding biking in Copenhagen (which is the other bike capital of the world).
So, with all the taxes we pay on cars and fuel (and they are HUGE in Denmark, among the highest in the world), cars still represented a net loss to society and biking represented a net gain. They had arrived at a specific figure, which I cannot remember, but basically every time someone drove it was an average net loss of XX cents and every time someone biked it was a net gain of XX cents to society.
This figure took into account everything from infrastructure costs and wear&tear to the effect on your health.
Alan Frost so... what you are saying is that we should ban cars if not 100% necessary ( long distance commuting, heavy loads or emergency) and we should more often bike? ... hmm aren't those some surprising facts
take example
Better than too many bikes than too many motorcycles
First second I’m already triggered. Yes, we stack our bicycles, but when we stack them we take as much space as 20 parking spots, except it gives room for 2000 bicycles. How much money did Ford pay to have the NYT run this article? I mean come on. That parking facility is literally being used for what it’s there for. You seriously can’t be looking at a parking facility and be amazed to see the facility is being used. If Amsterdam Central Station would be in the US, our canal would have been a massive parking lot.
Well,its of course beautifull to ride a bike in Amsterdam.But.....All the shops with for instance electronics or washing machines and sort of are disappeared.Because people cant get with their car into the central city.All those had to move to places outside the central ring. That happened years ago when buying online wasnt even possible.Nowadays it isnt a problem anymore,but for cities who want to follow the example of Amsterdam has to know that this gonna happen.You cant have a shop in the inner city with goods that are to heavy and bulky to transport with a bike.
There is a Mediamarkt at the Oosterdok, a stone's throw from Amsterdam Central Station. That's at least one shop where you can get electronics and appliances within the city center.
Also, there is no location that cannot be reached by car if you must, and no appliance too big or heavy to transport by cargo bike. The point of infrastructure in Amsterdam and cities in the Netherlands in general is not to make using a car impossible, but to make bicycles, walking and public transit as practical as possible so you have to think twice before getting in a car.
Obviously you haven't seen dutch people in Amsterdam transporting washing machines, furniture, and all kinds of other things on their cargo bikes. Believe me, it's a current occurence. We can transport anything on our bike and we do.
rather too many bikes, than any amount of cars.
love it
The NY-Times asked if there are too many bikes? :D What's that for a stupid qustion anyways? Imagine, that all those people riding bikes would take a car. The traffic would be like horrible. It would be like... in NY :D
More bikes. Less cars.
I notice… NO SMOG😎
I thought Dutch bikes were well built and now people describe most of them as junk bikes. Only problem with their bikes is their not made with lots of gear selection to deal with severe winds, hills or bumps. Gotta have all those gears.
They are well built, most people have more then 1 bicycle. I have a "junk" bicycle, I use it just for when i'm going out too a club or bar, I don't want my good bicycle being outside the whole night especially with all the drunk people around.
well most of their bikes have internal gear hubs.7 gears are enough i think.
Beware of scooters though, the law of the jungle applies!
Weesfietsen, daar irriteer ik mij aan.
+robox91 In Leiden hebben ze ooit een stickeractie gehouden, als de sticker na twee weken nog op je zadel zat haalde ze je fiets weg...
It's much better to have car parking spaces everywhere.
Really? A car is much bigger than a bicycle, It would take 5 times space as much space than a bicycle does.
too many bikes? dafuq...
Now 5 years later we can admit they were right.
The obligatory joke here is that Amsterdam is 1 bike short, and this explains why 150.000 bikes are stolen each year ;).
You hardly see anyone on a bike with a helmet. And, there are virtually no "cool" bikes around ... nearly all of them look like 1970s bikes.
Hilmar Thor Bjarnason there r no hills to clinb M8, no special gear necessary.
Hilmar Thor Bjarnason if you have a fancy bike, it will get stolen.
+Hilmar Thor Bjarnason Dude have you ever bin in Amsterdam? Every lock of the bike is worth more than the bike itself... lel If you have an expensive bike it will be stolen and you see it aigan but than there is an junkie riding it...
Amsterdam is the best bicycle city in the world.
actually it's not, it's too crowded.
Even Rotterdam is better suited while travelling from A to B. Just the city doesn't tickle my fantasy, and if you want to visit the Rijks museum, good luck to find it in Rotterdam..
I'll take the busy bikes over the busy cars.
Visit Utrecht, Groningen or Nijmegen. Much better by far
yes more cycles and yes I own a car yes I prefer to cycle
my right ear found it interesting
What kind of bullshit idiotic word do we live in that we ask "are there too many bikes?"
To much in Amsterdam but the real problem is they are not following the rules specially the bikers in the night are driving high or drunk without lights.
cute, usa funded propaganda