Why would the designers of the park remove the existing bicycle paths around the park and force bicycle traffic through it without any defined facilities? Obviously that would make their park far less pleasant to wander around in. Had they ever been in a park before? Had they ever ridden a bicycle before? I suppose the good news is that since they did absolutely nothing with the space the bicycle paths used to be, it should be fairly straightforward to rebuild them. Shame they wasted the people's money removing them.
Given the ever-increasing and often excellent improvements to the cycling infrastructure in Den Bosch, this is truly astonishing! Style over function and its a disaster. And it's both terrible and tragic that someone died due to such thoughtless design. I'm genuinely astonished this was given the OK to be developed in such a cycle friendly city.
This is what happens if someone in the city council decides this is a special location so it should be turned into some sort of a public art exposition so they can add something interesting to their CV. To get the best most special design a contest is held. The winning design may look interesting, but does nothing extra for usability, while it still costs extra compared to a merely functional design. Do NOT change infrastructure work into artistic prestige projects. The art designers can put their art on our roundabouts if the roundabout itself is functionally designed, but keep them out of anything traffic has to interact with. Best example in Den Bosch is the *Bartenbrug* where 12 million euros where spent over 13 years for a small bridge ruclips.net/video/HI6uJtm20SY/видео.html
@@VinnieFarsheds Yes indeed. And I can't imagine how much tax-payer money they now need to spend to put this right! I believe those who designed and implemented this should pay the remedial costs - and NOT the taxpayers who have already been fleeced...
@@LazyDaisyDay88 Same goes for the Well in the city center that they first removed and then replaced. Or what about the pavement on the market place. The people selling goods arent happy with that new pavement. Or what about the Bartjesbrug. Or what about..... Etc etc etc. We Bosschenaren are always happy when people from outside the city come and design new stuff for our city. Especially if they have to tear down the old fronts of buildings to replace it with complete JUNK which does not fit the rest of the buildings. Modern right next to historical buildings. It is ridiculous. But ey, nobody complains. We keep spending our tax money. Nobody gives a damn about it, or so it seems. If people did actually give a damn about it, they would have stopped paying taxes and gone onto the streets to protest about it. And they would kept protesting as long as needed until things actually changed. But that wont happen as long as people are still able to buy enough food to stay alive. We will see what happens when the stores run empty due to drought and all the rest of it.....
A few months ago I was working in Den Bosch and took a break at that square. When I arrived it appeared desolate, but after some minutes a lot of cyclists came past and I was quite surprised it turned out to be a main cycling route. You could hear the constant noise of bicycles driving uncomfortably over that curb. The hedges around the narrow path caused some near misses. Everything seemed to be designed to discourage cycling...
The car friendly design from 1960 was made because ALL national traffic between north, south, east and west crossed this point. Three major highways crossed here N2, N59, N65. It was a good temporary solution to the enormous congestion in and around the city. In the early 1970's the A2 was completed, east of the city, to replace the N2. Later the N65 was connected to the A2 by the new A65. In the 1980's the N59 was upgraded to A59 and a completely new part of the A59 was build north and west of the city. Only in 2010 the last part of the circle was completed, connecting A59 to the A2 and A65 on the south west side of the city. A little later the local north south connection (old N2) was replaced with a new road west of the railway. This took away all through traffic from this location. The complex traffic square lost its function and could be redesigned for local traffic only, because within the city it is still an important connection point. Because all new A routes had their own gas stations, the gas station at this square could be removed. Leaving a big open space, where the soil had to be replaced because of oil pollution during decades. Also, during the removal of soil and sand, an archaeological study could be done because the area had a big gate in the city wall, demolished a hundred years ago to allow more traffic to pass. And there had been a big famous windmill, also demolished for progress. A temporary design was made to enable traffic to continue, while sanitation and research took place. Roads and bicycle paths were placed at the edge to keep the center area free for mentioned purpose. At the same time a contest was launched for a new design. Several plans came in, restore the double roundabout that was there after the gate was demolished, bring back the gate in symbolic form and use it for bicycles and pedestrians, restore the gate in a modern sculpture and use it for small events, etc. Because of finances the municipality has to compromise on these beautiful but expensive designs. There everything went wrong, a modern stainless steel outline of the old gate (very transparent) was replaced by hedges that are not transparent, in the pavement the rectangle of the historic drawbridge was integrated, which made a nice curvy route for bicycles impossible. New ideas about full separation of bicycles away from car routes put an end to the paths on the edge. All of this has lead to this horrific design. Coming from the hospital (four hospitals merged into a single new big one) cyclists have to go from the Vlijmenseweg all the way to the Willemsbrug to cross the river, cycle back on the other bank to the bicycle crossing, back on the other side of the road, and again if you want to cycle to the Parklaan. so over a birdsview distance of only 150 meters, they have to do the same thing FOUR times. Bicycle users do not all want to be lead to the Vughterstraat! Parklaan and Westwal are hardly reachable, and you end up crossing bus lanes, car lanes, and pedestrians. Compared to the 1960 design this is ten times worse for bicycles. Though not fully separated, you could cross directly in an almost straight line to where you wanted to go. And every crossing of lanes was guarded by traffic lights! Not one merge of bicycles and pedestrians occurred! While bicycles crossed the river on a narrow curb separated path on the Willemsbrug, pedestrians used the pedestrian-only bridge. And though it doesn't feel comfortable cycling next to a truck combination, both followed the same route without need or possibility to bend off. Simply stay within your lines and you'll be safe. A complete new design is needed immediately! A design that respects the CROW guidelines. Probably with a good bicycle bridge across the river from Vlijmenseweg to Chalet Royal, and a path direct to the Parklaan. And a roundabout-like design, pedestrians on the outside separated, bicycles separated, and cars and buses on the inside. Full mode separation!
@@BicycleDutch Yes, and you still say: Look at all the green space we got now. I say: Look at all the green space the A2, A65 and A59 took away only a mile from here, over 1000 times more. Was it necessary? Yes, we do not yet have a solution for the enormous amount of traffic that passes our city. To get less cars on this spot, an enormous amount of green space was sacrificed, and we got just a little bit back. We both agree that the situation of this area is incredibly bad, and should be resolved immediately. When I ended up on this spot, I had to stop and look around, thought I took a wrong route because I wanted to go to the Parklaan. Immediately bicycles swerved around me and everything jammed up. When I continued and had to cross into the Vughterstraat, were I did not want to go, I got the impression I truly did something illegal, that I shouldn't be there. And MeToo ended up at the stairs thinking, the bridge is gone... in broad daylight, a normal curb would have stopped me in time. A normal bicycle path to the bridge so I can see where to go, is no luxury, when it's hidden between the trees.
A a Brit, on the one hand, it's encouraging to know that the Dutch aren't always perfect, but of course it's horrible that someone died and it seems like a terrible waste of money to build amazing bike lanes and then rip them up to build this. I guess they were going for the whole shared space idea, where everyone has to slow down use their brain to look out for each other. It looks like the main problem here is that it's too complicated, wiggly and there are too many blind corners, so you can't see what's coming. Why did the local government let this pass and get built if it didn't follow the very well developed guidelines? Surely they should have forced a re-design?
@@Schokland2007 It can work well with cars, if done properly. There's been some successful examples in the UK, like Exhibition Road in London or Poynton in Cheshire.
just reminding me of the very expensive cycle lanes built in South East London that got blocked off & diverted onto main road for building developments in multiple places & closed off with 90° barriers within less than a year of the cycleway's grand opening. Money spent is clearly not proportional to the benefit to road users if the design is fundamentally flawed & there's no oversight to preserve effective existing transit paths.
Dank je voor de update van het Wilhelminaplein. ik zat er al op te wachten totdat je dit gedrocht zou gaan behandelen. Het is absoluut onbegrijpelijk dat het verkeerstechnische aspect volledig ondergesneeuwd is geraakt bij het vermeende esthetische aspect met verwijzing naar de geschiedenis van de plek. Ik neem deze plek vaak in de oost-westrichting (Parklaan-Willemsplein) en ik vraag me elke keer weer af welke route ik nu het best zou kunnen nemen. Het is verbijsterend dat in een stad die 11 jaar geleden het predicaat 'fietsstad' heeft gekregen zoiets heeft kunnen bedenken. 'Prestaties in het verleden boden geen garanties voor de toekomst'.
In het verleden werden de hoofden/ lichamen van veroordeelde misdadigers buiten de stadspoort ten toon gesteld.. Nu vind ik dat net wat te cru voor de ontwerpers en verantwoordelijke wethouder(s) maar misschien kunnen jullie wat met foto's doen :D
Eerlijk gezegd heeft mijn stad nog een ontzettend lange weg te gaan voor ze überhaupt in de buurt kunnen komen van eerdere winnaars van die prijs, hier doet men ook rare dingen (in Purmerend). Een brug die een nieuw brugdek kreeg werd gemaakt van een lichter composiet-materiaal dat op het voet- en fietspad-gedeelte van een lichtere ondersteunende constructie was voorzien om zo naast het toch al lichtere materiaal nog meer reductie in gewicht te kunnen bereiken. Dit maakte echter wel dat men stelde dat er absoluut geen auto's of vrachtwagens op dat deel van het nieuwe brugdek mochten komen want dan zou de constructie beschadigen (ik vraag mij nog steeds af of dat is toegestaan, ongelukken zijn immers een ding, net als de politie die in de gauwigheid ergens een auto moet parkeren na een ongeluk en dat in het verleden een paar keer op deze brug heeft gedaan door deze op het voetpad te zetten). Je zou dan kunnen stellen dat je het brugdek zo ontwerpt dat het probleem van het willen weren van automobilisten zeer expliciet bij de automobilisten wordt neergelegd door het maken van een hoge stoeprand aan de kant van de rijbaan voor auto's. Fietsers hebben dan als enige risico dat bij het naderen van deze rand ze er vanaf kunnen vallen en zo gewond kunnen raken, maar meer ook niet. De gemeente Purmerend besloot echter dat het beter was een mat-chromen, ronde rail aan te brengen van zo'n 6-7 cm hoog om te voorkomen dat het verlaten van de autorijbaan te gemakkelijk werd. Deze rail was echter door de mat-chromen uitvoering ervan in het donker nauwelijks zichtbaar, en door de lage hoogte een prima object om lelijk over te vallen. De Fietsersbond klaagde dat het raar was om het probleem zo nadrukkelijk bij fietsers te leggen (met ook dat dit soort dingen norm-technisch niet opgelost moeten worden met maatregelen aan de kant van een fietspad, maar juist andersom, juist vanwege de kwetsbaarheid van fietsers, die in dit geval bij het vallen over de rail op de autorijbaan zouden belanden) en de gemeente beloofde beterschap en de processen rondom vernieuwingen van bruggen te herzien, en plaatste voorafgaand aan de rail aan beide kanten reflecterende vaantjes. Een aantal jaar later werd een andere brug op dezelfde wijze vernieuwd, en men besloot het nog een stukje erger te maken: niet alleen kwam er aan BEIDE kanten van het fietspad het centrum uit een pittig hoge stoeprand te liggen, men besloot dit fietspad ook nog eens te versmallen ten opzichte van vroeger, en omdat er aanvankelijk geen belijning was, was het in het donker slecht zichtbaar dat deze versmalling er aan kwam. Het rare is dat aan de andere zijde van de brug de stoep niet op dezelfde wijze is opgehoogd....er ligt nog steeds een debiel hoge stoeprand tussen fietspad en rijbaan, maar waarom daar de stoep wel gelijk ligt met het fietspad, ik snap het niet. www.google.nl/maps/@52.5101036,4.9503642,3a,70.2y,85.46h,60.54t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZ65O8YTA13MfxwRLERC9bQ!2e0!5s20150501T000000!7i16384!8i8192 En dat nadat men bij de eerste brug al gewezen was op de situatie van "Hey, zo doen we dat normaal niet", gewoon nog een keer doen...
Grappig dat ik ook nog wat leer van comments lezen, ik heb nooit geweten dat dit plein eigenlijk Wilhelminaplein heet. Ik kende het niet anders dan het Heetmanplein, iedereen die ik ken noemt het ook zo. Blijkbaar heet de ontwerper van dit plein Heetman met zijn achternaam.
Groningen en breda hebben ook al de prijs ooit gekregen voor beste fietsstad. En groningen legt nu nieuwe fietspaden aan die meer rolweerstand hebben en harder slijten. en breda ligt helemaal vol met drempels. echt om gek van te worden. dus volgens mij is gewoon ieder jaar een andere stad aan de beurt voor die prijs of ze het nu verdienen of niet. Maar wat ze in het filmpje hebben gedaan is ook echt van de zotte ja.
Seems like the archeologists and the landscaping department designed it together, not the traffic department. Terrible mistake. Just rip it out and come up with a proper design. And spend some money on it. Good cycling infrastructure is very cheap in the long run
Glad this is featured on your channel. The area has a budget conscious feel to it. 30x30 tiles, standard concrete curbs, some hedges. Drawing a functioning layout with the existing materials shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's still a waste of time and money ofcourse, and you could argue that as a main entrance to the historic city centre, it is not very representative of the beauty and class of old Den Bosch.
This entire situation makes me feel like the city contracted a garden/park design firm instead of the usual public spaces folks who know to keep traffic in mind. Clearly traffic wasn't considered here whatesoever.
This would qualify as excellent bike infrastructure in Switzerland, because the only thing we're capable of building is simple painted bike lanes. Also the curb at 2:27 looks a lot more flat that the new curbs we build. It's really sad to see that the worst the Netherlands can build, is actually better than the best infrastructure we come up with in Switzerland...
@@WanderingAroundAZ I bet. But many cities there are actually doing something about it. Many build actual protected bike lanes and even protected intersections. There are no such intersections in Switzerland. We just slap a small bicycle logo on a sidewalk and call it a day. Or paint a bike lane that disappears right before a dangerous junction. And every time cycling advocacy groups ask for real bike infrastructure, local governments always reply that there aren't enough cyclist and there's not enough budget for that. But strangely enough, there seem to be enough budget to build junction with 4 or more car lanes
@@Mikolaj_u It indeed is moving in a right direction, but as usual it's extremely slow and local governments are making only tiny adjustments here and there, and larger projects barely have bike infrastructure. Sure it's better than before, but it's still awful. Take the newly constructed road near the future HESAV Campus in Lausanne. It will be filled with students and is very close to other campuses, and yet the road has been designed with only the car in mind (even though students don't have cars in general). There are a few narrow bike lanes here and there, that are often sandwiched between 2 car lanes. Sure it's better than nothing, but is it good enough? I think not. And the worst is that local politicians are touting this as an exemplary project that has great bike infrastructure... What a sick joke
I love that car that parked in the shared space and put their flashers on. I especially love that they were there for long enough that you got shots of it from many different angles.
You describe the two cycle.ways as "perfectly good" when I would describe as them as "gold plated" I literally do not think I have ever scene tracks of such high standard in the UK, even the pavement looks like the builders actually care about workmanship. What's even more astonishing is they then removed them 😢 Did a Dutch company design these two tracks and then a British company design what replaced it, sure looks like it.
Oh man, I feel you.... The moment he said "perfectly good", I paused to look at that piece of perfection, pretty much everyone else would kill for😂. Seriously though, what I would give to have that level of bike-infra anywhere in Germany...and they just bulldoze it for hedges😢.
Whenever I go through that area I always feel like the square is still unfinished. Thankfully I don't go through that area often, and if so, it is often late enough that it is relatively quiet. I didn't realize that was the location of the late tiktokker, I thought that was somewhere more rural. But all the more reason to change the flow of traffic through the area. Now there are also a few other areas where the bike infrastructure needs a good update, such as along the Zuid-Willemsvaart, right in front of the gasthuis kwatier , and Tolburgstraat. The former I would imagine will be updated once all construction is completed of the new housing. But the latter, around the entrance to the parking garage...I haven't got a clue how they're going to fix that if they are at all. There are probably plenty of other locations that need to be fixed, but those two stand out the most to me as I go by there so often.
Very informative and nicely put together. No nonsense and everything is so nicely explained. And that all within 4 and a half minute is just amazing. Great video!
Sounds like the UK. Even the standards for cycle infra design stipulates that shared use pavements should not be used unless there is limited space etc. They should be separate cycle tracks and yet everywhere is new shared pavements even where space is not an issue.
The old lay-out was a planning marvel. The way the roads where connected and how traffic flowed was really cool to see. I am not saying it was perfect, due to the old layout, driving into oncoming traffic or exiting the intersection into a completely different direction than intended was pretty standard for a lot of first time users of this intersection. So changing the intersection in 2014 made it much easier to navigate and stimulated traffic to use the newly build bypass roads around the city. Without these bypass roads there would be too much traffic flowing trough this intersection. All in all this was a big succes. I have been a driving instructor in s'Hertogenbosch untill 2012. I know the area and visit the city once every couple of years. I went there recently and was really annoyed about the current layout. It downright dangerous now. The cyclist safety was majorly improved in 2014 and has been undone in the latest "update". City council should shame themselves.
Good to see you pointing out that we still make mistakes in our infrastructure planning. It will be interesting to see if the city planners and aldermen will change the design. And how quickly.
I was quite flustered seeing myself in this video right at the point (2:20) where the narrator said: "And it is a miracle that things don't go wrong more often". I hope this isn't a bad omen... 😂
This is shocking the plans even went forward knowing Dutch standards. Do you expect this design to last long before is redesigned again? It's also confusing why they removed perfectly good cycling paths.
It probable was a temporarly situation until the final design would get in we ussually don't go for red "stoeptegel" in the final design for longer lengths of road.
Well, it looks better as only asfalt, but this seems to be made by someone who never before made anything that has to do with bikes. (and also didn't take that aspect very seriously)
Thank you for this insightful video. On paper this square is on the shortest possible route to my work, yet i actively avoided it as best i could. At several occasions I had to get of the bike or break suddenly because of traffic or pedestrians. Now i understand why it has this weird unituitive design and will take another route.
I don’t even know what’s going on in half the footage of this intersection, I’ve cycled all over the Netherlands for my entire life, and that says a lot about the safety of this thing.
I live in Den Bosch, this isnt the worst of it by far. The Zuidwillemsvaart between the Kasterenbrug and Citadellaan is the most uncomfortable place to participate in traffic. You should really check it out!
What they did wrong here is simple. It's okay to mix pedestrian, bicycle and motorized traffic in inner city centres with limited space and speeds, like 'fietsstraten' with 30kmh max speeds. But as soon as you leave those zones - mostly the historical inner cities - you've got to seperate the traffic flows. They did this quite well with the bike lanes and reconfiguration into two T-junctions of this square. But the designers of the 'new' square completely misunderstood that the concept of mixing all traffic flows and rely on self-regulating traffic is not opportune here. Beats me why the city council decided for this design. Even the use of those small bricks for cycling are uncomfortable to say the least. And usually those brick-paved surfaces don't stay nice and flat very long.
I feel like 'shared space' is becoming far too common and seen as a goal instead of a means to an end. Such a large amount of available space to have wide, smooth segregated paths for the major cycle route, and they're forced together with pedestrians on a cobblestone square with narrow hedges, why?
Thanks for showing mistakes of conception in bike paradise land ! 😊 As a developer, I’m often not able to propose decent bike paths due to poor knowledge of basic cyclists behavior by decision makers : it ends just like this public space…sometimes worse. Your video shows that when you have high standards, you find problems that would be taken for improvements in an other country !
Frankly, I do not think this would pass in new installations in much of America anymore. I think that the United States does much better than this in places where people are thinking there will actually be significant numbers of people using the infrastructure.
Came over here from @notjustbicycles. I am somewhat torn between “what a fuckup” and “I would love to have such luxury problems.” Greetings from Germany.
Would you be able to add an aerial view of the new display and compare with the existing situation ? That would be interesting too ! Thanks for the video
See the blog post with several of those; link in the description, but here it is: bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2022/09/07/where-%ca%bcs-hertogenbosch-got-things-wrong-for-cycling/
Whoever it was they need to lose their accreditation as designers, for the safety of the public. The politicians who approved the design also better get kicked out next election.
I have been living in den bosch all my life and ye not everything is incredibly safe, but if you pay attention to your surroundings you shouldn't have any problems in that area. I have been driving as a thuisbezorgd delivery driver for 2 years now and i never had any problems.
You guys have temporary bicycle lanes? In my town in Germany, I'd be quite shocked to see smooth asphalt that isn't riddled with poor maintenance and potholes!
If they wanted to recreate the past, or harken back to it, they could have done so in far more effective ways, and if they wanted people to cycle across the plaza, that could have been managed better, too. This is a disaster, quite literally, it seems. Edit: I made a typo and did not notice for more than a year.
As someone who crosses that bridge almost daily, the main issue I have is how I can never see incoming traffic on the bridge. Today I almost collided with a bunch of new students holding watermelons (I'm not making that up) and I didn't because I knew how blind it was. It really is unclear which path to take, but to be honest the whole Westwal, Sint Janssingel and Willeboissingel is a pain in the butt. People dont stick to the pedestrian paths at all. I don't blame them, it is terrible designed. It is a miss-mash of different designs that I even struggle to figure out how to improve.
If you want to make another "got it wrong" video you should be doing one on the city of Leiden. There it's not just one square, it's the majority of new bicycle infrastructure that goes wrong. And it's such a shame as the city has the potential to be a perfect bicycle city, but somehow they can't get it right.
@@jUQMtDmf It's actually a combination of a terrible standard design of the bicycle lanes in the city center and the major crossings. The standard design doesn't stand out enough to the sidewalk, so there are always people walking on the bicycle lanes. This is even more confusing on the crossings, like the situation at the Lammermarkt - Nieuwe Beestenmart or the route from the Lammenschansweg onto the Korevaarstraat. And close-by to the last one the crossing Levendaal - Oranjeboomstraat - Sint-Jorissteeg. The whole route between the station and the Breestraat is also one big mess with the busses and bicycles sharing the same lanes. The 7 year old girl who lost her life last year when she was run over by a bus was an accident because of poor street design. On a lighter note, the city lacks clearly marked bicycle network with logical routes, especially between the different locations of the university.
0:55 Looks pretty good at this point. They should have just left it. Why do we need to "develop" every open space. What they have done now is a disaster!
It reminds me of where I live, in Melbourne, Australia. The bike lanes are terrible. We have e scooters, e skate boards, fully electric bikes that don't obey the law and police that don't seem to care.
When they rebuild the bridge they should take away the stairs and attach them to the side of the bridge. That way, the stairs and bridge would not be parallel. Just turn onto the bridge and make another sharp turn if you need to go down. Idk..I don't make bridges.
I live in Antwerp (Belgium) and this intersection reminds me of the countless infrastructure projects that my city messes up. They all look nice on a piece of paper, but they are full of flaws and completely ignore human behaviour.
Wow, I like the concept of shared space, and I know some places where it works well, but here it seems a terrible idea. Keep us posted on developments.
The ambiguous steps vs. bridge situation can be avoided by installing a small fence in front of the steps, spaced out enough to allow pedestrians access from either side. A cyclist heading towards the steps with the impression of a bridge being there would see a fence blocking their way and avoid continuing. I don't know the efficacy of such an approach, but I think it would be a simple and effective way to stop such incidents. The bridge absolutely still needs to be wider, the square redesigned for separate walking and cycling paths, and the removed paths reinstalled. I'm curious, what will be done with the old bridge? My hometown in California has a number of nice steel frame pedestrian bridges, many of which are narrow for shared use, but would be appropriate for reuse elsewhere in the city where fewer bridges are installed for pedestrians and cyclists. One unit could be used as a two way pedestrian only bridge, or a one way bicycle only bridge. And wider bridges suitable for comfortably mixed foot and cycle traffic can be installed in their place. If a bridge is structurally unsuitable for relocation and reuse, that's understandable, but otherwise it would be a very good thing for a city to reuse.
You forgot to mention that there would be no bike network it would actually connect to, that it would take 10 years to complete and be twice as expensive, and then ultimately removed because one of four impact studies was not conducted.
This reminds me how long I haven't been in the city. I have not seen the new situation yet. Bad design might be understandable if you had to deal with limited space, or with monuments like the city gate if it still existed. But they had a wide open space with nothing but grass. A blanc canvas to make it perfect.
Het Heetmanplein was altijd al een Bossche specialiteit - een nachtmerrie voor de minder ervaren automobilist. Het is duidelijk dat het een specialiteit en nachtmerrie moest blijven.
Wow this is so bad on so many ways. How did this end up being just a throughway for bikes and pedestrians considering how many designs were proposed? It doesn't look at all appealing as a park, because there doesn't seem to be nearly enough spaces designed for it to be used as a park. The visually impaired crossing doesn't even seem to have tactile tiles on the other side of the crossing, there also is that is dirt and that garbage container right in the line of the crossing, so if the visually impaired person veers even slightly off course they will end up tripping in the dirt or crashing into the garbage container. Why does there seem to be no path at all marked in some ways to guide cyclist this space and to let pedestrian know to avoid the bike "lane". The access to the bridge also appears to have somewhat of a blind corner and has that little half fence for apparently no reason (usually you would have that if the bridge is meant to be accessed from a specific angle, but since the whole area before it is a biking space the fence doesn't make sense. The visibility to the stairs is also blocked by the trash container. The zigzags are probably the worst design part of this whole thing. The people should protest this by cutting down part of the hedges, put down some of those metal sheets that are put down sometimes for temporary bicycle paths and chalk the are up to create paths for the different traffic using the space. The whole space should be redesigned, make it functional, safe and a actual usable park area.
stuff like this happens once in a while, people notice it and immideatly start complaining. A couple years earlier they had to completely redesign a roundabout barely 1km away from this cause it was once again badly designed for cycle traffic (it was a downward slope causing cyclist to enter the roundabout with too much speed, so they build a bridge isntead). If I had to guess, within a year there will have been so many complaints that a redesign is planned.
At first I was like: "oh boy... "shard spaces" those are terrible! We've got it bad over here in Nijmegen with the shared space in front of the train station"... but then as the video went on I realised that our shared space is not nearly as terrible as this one!
Almost all of my family in holland lives in den bos; and to think I tell all of my American friends how great out engineering is, I guess nobody’s perfect
Shared space is horrible, as a pedestrian I want to be able walk around without constantly worrying about colliding with cyclists (or cars) every second
This intersection has been a pain in the local government's backside since my Granddads days. Apparently it used to be a sort of double roundabout configuration! ikr...
In general there is not enough attention for a smooth road for both pedestrians, cyclists and cars. Especially now the fast bicycles are seen as the future daily traffic, the roads must be without curbs and holes.
Well he drowned. So yes, he did end up in the water via the stairs. dtvnieuws-nl.translate.goog/nieuws/artikel/20-jarige-jongen-komt-te-water-in-den-bosch-en-overlijdt?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
There are two 'exits' from a curvy street very close to each other. The first to stairs down to the river and the second to a bicycle/pedestrian bridge. You know you have to turn to the right, and somewhere between the trees... but in the dark, rain, wet shiny pavement, and a completely changed lay out, a mistake is easily made. A deadly mistake. Only when you made the sharp turn to the right, you can see ahead, but than it's too late because the stairs start immediately, no time to stop if you do not see the expected bridge, you are tumbling down.
I think there is an argument for the lack of predictability. The idea being that when people are unsure of an area, they will move more slowly and cautiously.
As an American frustrated by our public apathy toward bike & ped safety, it's nice to know that the Dutch aren't perfect either. Sad about the moped rider who died though :_(
Went for a walk there litterly a couple days ago and was just very confused as I had many of the same toughts. Still don't know how it got aproved, hopefully the city fixes it in a couple of months couse geez.
What happened here is they had a competition. Then by mistake they had the list with results upside-down and so the worst design came on top. And instead of admitting this mistake they just doubled down and just went with it. I am from Den Bosch and cross this place very often, and it is just worse in every single way to the empty grass field that was there before. Quite impressive to spend so much money to make a decent space so shit for no reason.
This is still way better for any other country standards until you pointed out what was wrong explicitly. I only wish Dutch engineers could help revive Bengaluru, India!
Alot of the time I'll watch a video about some 'bad infrastructure design' in the NL and find myself thinking "I can see the point being made, but I'd still kill for something like this in the UK" however this instance is truly breathtaking, how badly they messed this up! What were the designers possibly thinking?
Trouble is it's the poor stuff like this that then gets imported to the UK because its easier, cheaper etc. It's only the rare occasion we actually get the good stuff like the truly Dutch cycle roundabout in Cambridge and that's probably because Cambridge council commissioned a Dutch company to design it.
![Road signs and regulations for cycling in the Netherlands [195]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/x-cYZo5kToM/mqdefault.jpg)
Why would the designers of the park remove the existing bicycle paths around the park and force bicycle traffic through it without any defined facilities? Obviously that would make their park far less pleasant to wander around in. Had they ever been in a park before? Had they ever ridden a bicycle before?
I suppose the good news is that since they did absolutely nothing with the space the bicycle paths used to be, it should be fairly straightforward to rebuild them. Shame they wasted the people's money removing them.
Well, if they hadn't removed them, people would choose to ride the cycle paths instead, thus make the design flaw too obvious ;-)
Don’t worry I know they wasted the people’s money you don’t have to tell me directly 😂
Given the ever-increasing and often excellent improvements to the cycling infrastructure in Den Bosch, this is truly astonishing! Style over function and its a disaster. And it's both terrible and tragic that someone died due to such thoughtless design. I'm genuinely astonished this was given the OK to be developed in such a cycle friendly city.
This is what happens if someone in the city council decides this is a special location so it should be turned into some sort of a public art exposition so they can add something interesting to their CV. To get the best most special design a contest is held. The winning design may look interesting, but does nothing extra for usability, while it still costs extra compared to a merely functional design.
Do NOT change infrastructure work into artistic prestige projects. The art designers can put their art on our roundabouts if the roundabout itself is functionally designed, but keep them out of anything traffic has to interact with.
Best example in Den Bosch is the *Bartenbrug* where 12 million euros where spent over 13 years for a small bridge ruclips.net/video/HI6uJtm20SY/видео.html
@@VinnieFarsheds Yes indeed. And I can't imagine how much tax-payer money they now need to spend to put this right! I believe those who designed and implemented this should pay the remedial costs - and NOT the taxpayers who have already been fleeced...
Vergeet niet dat ze over 20 jaar nog een lintje krijgen voor verdiensten aan de samenleving
Even the ‘style’ isn’t that impressive. Did they run out of money, or something?
@@LazyDaisyDay88 Same goes for the Well in the city center that they first removed and then replaced.
Or what about the pavement on the market place. The people selling goods arent happy with that new pavement.
Or what about the Bartjesbrug.
Or what about..... Etc etc etc.
We Bosschenaren are always happy when people from outside the city come and design new stuff for our city.
Especially if they have to tear down the old fronts of buildings to replace it with complete JUNK which does not fit the rest of the buildings.
Modern right next to historical buildings.
It is ridiculous.
But ey, nobody complains.
We keep spending our tax money.
Nobody gives a damn about it, or so it seems.
If people did actually give a damn about it, they would have stopped paying taxes and gone onto the streets to protest about it. And they would kept protesting as long as needed until things actually changed.
But that wont happen as long as people are still able to buy enough food to stay alive.
We will see what happens when the stores run empty due to drought and all the rest of it.....
A few months ago I was working in Den Bosch and took a break at that square. When I arrived it appeared desolate, but after some minutes a lot of cyclists came past and I was quite surprised it turned out to be a main cycling route. You could hear the constant noise of bicycles driving uncomfortably over that curb. The hedges around the narrow path caused some near misses. Everything seemed to be designed to discourage cycling...
The crazy thing is that the city has some pretty excellent cycling infra very nearby, makes me wonder who signed off on this mess?
That staircase is terrifying, I do hope they do something about that soon. One death is already way too many.
What if it only kills TikTok stars?
@@FrietjeOorlog I don't think this is the right place to have dark humor
@@FrietjeOorlog a small price to pay
@@purplegill10 this is *precisely* the right place for dark humor
@@FrietjeOorlog lol quick build more stairs
The car friendly design from 1960 was made because ALL national traffic between north, south, east and west crossed this point.
Three major highways crossed here N2, N59, N65. It was a good temporary solution to the enormous congestion in and around the city. In the early 1970's the A2 was completed, east of the city, to replace the N2. Later the N65 was connected to the A2 by the new A65. In the 1980's the N59 was upgraded to A59 and a completely new part of the A59 was build north and west of the city.
Only in 2010 the last part of the circle was completed, connecting A59 to the A2 and A65 on the south west side of the city. A little later the local north south connection (old N2) was replaced with a new road west of the railway. This took away all through traffic from this location. The complex traffic square lost its function and could be redesigned for local traffic only, because within the city it is still an important connection point. Because all new A routes had their own gas stations, the gas station at this square could be removed. Leaving a big open space, where the soil had to be replaced because of oil pollution during decades. Also, during the removal of soil and sand, an archaeological study could be done because the area had a big gate in the city wall, demolished a hundred years ago to allow more traffic to pass. And there had been a big famous windmill, also demolished for progress.
A temporary design was made to enable traffic to continue, while sanitation and research took place. Roads and bicycle paths were placed at the edge to keep the center area free for mentioned purpose. At the same time a contest was launched for a new design.
Several plans came in, restore the double roundabout that was there after the gate was demolished, bring back the gate in symbolic form and use it for bicycles and pedestrians, restore the gate in a modern sculpture and use it for small events, etc.
Because of finances the municipality has to compromise on these beautiful but expensive designs.
There everything went wrong, a modern stainless steel outline of the old gate (very transparent) was replaced by hedges that are not transparent, in the pavement the rectangle of the historic drawbridge was integrated, which made a nice curvy route for bicycles impossible. New ideas about full separation of bicycles away from car routes put an end to the paths on the edge.
All of this has lead to this horrific design.
Coming from the hospital (four hospitals merged into a single new big one) cyclists have to go from the Vlijmenseweg all the way to the Willemsbrug to cross the river, cycle back on the other bank to the bicycle crossing, back on the other side of the road, and again if you want to cycle to the Parklaan. so over a birdsview distance of only 150 meters, they have to do the same thing FOUR times.
Bicycle users do not all want to be lead to the Vughterstraat! Parklaan and Westwal are hardly reachable, and you end up crossing bus lanes, car lanes, and pedestrians. Compared to the 1960 design this is ten times worse for bicycles. Though not fully separated, you could cross directly in an almost straight line to where you wanted to go. And every crossing of lanes was guarded by traffic lights!
Not one merge of bicycles and pedestrians occurred! While bicycles crossed the river on a narrow curb separated path on the Willemsbrug, pedestrians used the pedestrian-only bridge. And though it doesn't feel comfortable cycling next to a truck combination, both followed the same route without need or possibility to bend off. Simply stay within your lines and you'll be safe.
A complete new design is needed immediately! A design that respects the CROW guidelines. Probably with a good bicycle bridge across the river from Vlijmenseweg to Chalet Royal, and a path direct to the Parklaan. And a roundabout-like design, pedestrians on the outside separated, bicycles separated, and cars and buses on the inside. Full mode separation!
Thanks for the history lesson, I love hearing about these nuances!
There is a video about the 2013/2014 reconstruction with some background information about that indeed: ruclips.net/video/RzmWxn1Sfz8/видео.html
@@BicycleDutch Yes, and you still say: Look at all the green space we got now.
I say: Look at all the green space the A2, A65 and A59 took away only a mile from here, over 1000 times more.
Was it necessary? Yes, we do not yet have a solution for the enormous amount of traffic that passes our city.
To get less cars on this spot, an enormous amount of green space was sacrificed, and we got just a little bit back.
We both agree that the situation of this area is incredibly bad, and should be resolved immediately.
When I ended up on this spot, I had to stop and look around, thought I took a wrong route because I wanted to go to the Parklaan. Immediately bicycles swerved around me and everything jammed up.
When I continued and had to cross into the Vughterstraat, were I did not want to go, I got the impression I truly did something illegal, that I shouldn't be there.
And MeToo ended up at the stairs thinking, the bridge is gone... in broad daylight, a normal curb would have stopped me in time. A normal bicycle path to the bridge so I can see where to go, is no luxury, when it's hidden between the trees.
A a Brit, on the one hand, it's encouraging to know that the Dutch aren't always perfect, but of course it's horrible that someone died and it seems like a terrible waste of money to build amazing bike lanes and then rip them up to build this. I guess they were going for the whole shared space idea, where everyone has to slow down use their brain to look out for each other. It looks like the main problem here is that it's too complicated, wiggly and there are too many blind corners, so you can't see what's coming. Why did the local government let this pass and get built if it didn't follow the very well developed guidelines? Surely they should have forced a re-design?
Oh yes, the shared space idea. Around CS in Amsterdam it works fine but there cars are not allowed.
@@Schokland2007 It can work well with cars, if done properly. There's been some successful examples in the UK, like Exhibition Road in London or Poynton in Cheshire.
@@mdhazeldineneither of these are good examples, they do not work well, read the many blog posts on them. For the reason as above, too much traffic.
@@David-bi6lf I have read positive stories about them, but perhaps I haven't heard all sides of the story.
just reminding me of the very expensive cycle lanes built in South East London that got blocked off & diverted onto main road for building developments in multiple places & closed off with 90° barriers within less than a year of the cycleway's grand opening.
Money spent is clearly not proportional to the benefit to road users if the design is fundamentally flawed & there's no oversight to preserve effective existing transit paths.
Dank je voor de update van het Wilhelminaplein. ik zat er al op te wachten totdat je dit gedrocht zou gaan behandelen.
Het is absoluut onbegrijpelijk dat het verkeerstechnische aspect volledig ondergesneeuwd is geraakt bij het vermeende esthetische aspect met verwijzing naar de geschiedenis van de plek. Ik neem deze plek vaak in de oost-westrichting (Parklaan-Willemsplein) en ik vraag me elke keer weer af welke route ik nu het best zou kunnen nemen.
Het is verbijsterend dat in een stad die 11 jaar geleden het predicaat 'fietsstad' heeft gekregen zoiets heeft kunnen bedenken. 'Prestaties in het verleden boden geen garanties voor de toekomst'.
Ook esthetisch is het om te janken.
In het verleden werden de hoofden/ lichamen van veroordeelde misdadigers buiten de stadspoort ten toon gesteld.. Nu vind ik dat net wat te cru voor de ontwerpers en verantwoordelijke wethouder(s) maar misschien kunnen jullie wat met foto's doen :D
Eerlijk gezegd heeft mijn stad nog een ontzettend lange weg te gaan voor ze überhaupt in de buurt kunnen komen van eerdere winnaars van die prijs, hier doet men ook rare dingen (in Purmerend).
Een brug die een nieuw brugdek kreeg werd gemaakt van een lichter composiet-materiaal dat op het voet- en fietspad-gedeelte van een lichtere ondersteunende constructie was voorzien om zo naast het toch al lichtere materiaal nog meer reductie in gewicht te kunnen bereiken.
Dit maakte echter wel dat men stelde dat er absoluut geen auto's of vrachtwagens op dat deel van het nieuwe brugdek mochten komen want dan zou de constructie beschadigen (ik vraag mij nog steeds af of dat is toegestaan, ongelukken zijn immers een ding, net als de politie die in de gauwigheid ergens een auto moet parkeren na een ongeluk en dat in het verleden een paar keer op deze brug heeft gedaan door deze op het voetpad te zetten).
Je zou dan kunnen stellen dat je het brugdek zo ontwerpt dat het probleem van het willen weren van automobilisten zeer expliciet bij de automobilisten wordt neergelegd door het maken van een hoge stoeprand aan de kant van de rijbaan voor auto's. Fietsers hebben dan als enige risico dat bij het naderen van deze rand ze er vanaf kunnen vallen en zo gewond kunnen raken, maar meer ook niet.
De gemeente Purmerend besloot echter dat het beter was een mat-chromen, ronde rail aan te brengen van zo'n 6-7 cm hoog om te voorkomen dat het verlaten van de autorijbaan te gemakkelijk werd.
Deze rail was echter door de mat-chromen uitvoering ervan in het donker nauwelijks zichtbaar, en door de lage hoogte een prima object om lelijk over te vallen.
De Fietsersbond klaagde dat het raar was om het probleem zo nadrukkelijk bij fietsers te leggen (met ook dat dit soort dingen norm-technisch niet opgelost moeten worden met maatregelen aan de kant van een fietspad, maar juist andersom, juist vanwege de kwetsbaarheid van fietsers, die in dit geval bij het vallen over de rail op de autorijbaan zouden belanden) en de gemeente beloofde beterschap en de processen rondom vernieuwingen van bruggen te herzien, en plaatste voorafgaand aan de rail aan beide kanten reflecterende vaantjes.
Een aantal jaar later werd een andere brug op dezelfde wijze vernieuwd, en men besloot het nog een stukje erger te maken: niet alleen kwam er aan BEIDE kanten van het fietspad het centrum uit een pittig hoge stoeprand te liggen, men besloot dit fietspad ook nog eens te versmallen ten opzichte van vroeger, en omdat er aanvankelijk geen belijning was, was het in het donker slecht zichtbaar dat deze versmalling er aan kwam.
Het rare is dat aan de andere zijde van de brug de stoep niet op dezelfde wijze is opgehoogd....er ligt nog steeds een debiel hoge stoeprand tussen fietspad en rijbaan, maar waarom daar de stoep wel gelijk ligt met het fietspad, ik snap het niet.
www.google.nl/maps/@52.5101036,4.9503642,3a,70.2y,85.46h,60.54t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZ65O8YTA13MfxwRLERC9bQ!2e0!5s20150501T000000!7i16384!8i8192
En dat nadat men bij de eerste brug al gewezen was op de situatie van "Hey, zo doen we dat normaal niet", gewoon nog een keer doen...
Grappig dat ik ook nog wat leer van comments lezen, ik heb nooit geweten dat dit plein eigenlijk Wilhelminaplein heet.
Ik kende het niet anders dan het Heetmanplein, iedereen die ik ken noemt het ook zo. Blijkbaar heet de ontwerper van dit plein Heetman met zijn achternaam.
Groningen en breda hebben ook al de prijs ooit gekregen voor beste fietsstad. En groningen legt nu nieuwe fietspaden aan die meer rolweerstand hebben en harder slijten. en breda ligt helemaal vol met drempels. echt om gek van te worden. dus volgens mij is gewoon ieder jaar een andere stad aan de beurt voor die prijs of ze het nu verdienen of niet. Maar wat ze in het filmpje hebben gedaan is ook echt van de zotte ja.
Seems like the archeologists and the landscaping department designed it together, not the traffic department. Terrible mistake. Just rip it out and come up with a proper design. And spend some money on it. Good cycling infrastructure is very cheap in the long run
You can indicate former walls and stuff by stripes and colored bricks. No need to rebuild the actual defensive works!
@@youteacher78 that was the actual first plan, but it was deemed too expensive, now we have the worst of both worlds.
They could just rebuilt the actually nice Cyclepaths and make some visually distinct pedestrian crossings, they dont even have to rebuilt the Park
Glad this is featured on your channel. The area has a budget conscious feel to it. 30x30 tiles, standard concrete curbs, some hedges. Drawing a functioning layout with the existing materials shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's still a waste of time and money ofcourse, and you could argue that as a main entrance to the historic city centre, it is not very representative of the beauty and class of old Den Bosch.
If the designers love tight turns and hedges so much, they could have used it to make the entrance to the stairs safer.
This entire situation makes me feel like the city contracted a garden/park design firm instead of the usual public spaces folks who know to keep traffic in mind. Clearly traffic wasn't considered here whatesoever.
As someone who goes to school there and regularly cycles through the city I can't do anything but agree with this.
This would qualify as excellent bike infrastructure in Switzerland, because the only thing we're capable of building is simple painted bike lanes. Also the curb at 2:27 looks a lot more flat that the new curbs we build. It's really sad to see that the worst the Netherlands can build, is actually better than the best infrastructure we come up with in Switzerland...
Interesting. I was under the impression that Switzerland is moving in the right direction infrastructure-wise
Come to America. It's even worse here.
@@WanderingAroundAZ I bet. But many cities there are actually doing something about it. Many build actual protected bike lanes and even protected intersections. There are no such intersections in Switzerland. We just slap a small bicycle logo on a sidewalk and call it a day. Or paint a bike lane that disappears right before a dangerous junction. And every time cycling advocacy groups ask for real bike infrastructure, local governments always reply that there aren't enough cyclist and there's not enough budget for that. But strangely enough, there seem to be enough budget to build junction with 4 or more car lanes
@@Mikolaj_u It indeed is moving in a right direction, but as usual it's extremely slow and local governments are making only tiny adjustments here and there, and larger projects barely have bike infrastructure. Sure it's better than before, but it's still awful. Take the newly constructed road near the future HESAV Campus in Lausanne. It will be filled with students and is very close to other campuses, and yet the road has been designed with only the car in mind (even though students don't have cars in general). There are a few narrow bike lanes here and there, that are often sandwiched between 2 car lanes. Sure it's better than nothing, but is it good enough? I think not. And the worst is that local politicians are touting this as an exemplary project that has great bike infrastructure... What a sick joke
@@alainterieur4837 Oh dear, sounds pretty much the same as here in UK
I love that car that parked in the shared space and put their flashers on. I especially love that they were there for long enough that you got shots of it from many different angles.
You describe the two cycle.ways as "perfectly good" when I would describe as them as "gold plated" I literally do not think I have ever scene tracks of such high standard in the UK, even the pavement looks like the builders actually care about workmanship. What's even more astonishing is they then removed them 😢 Did a Dutch company design these two tracks and then a British company design what replaced it, sure looks like it.
Oh man, I feel you.... The moment he said "perfectly good", I paused to look at that piece of perfection, pretty much everyone else would kill for😂. Seriously though, what I would give to have that level of bike-infra anywhere in Germany...and they just bulldoze it for hedges😢.
Whenever I go through that area I always feel like the square is still unfinished. Thankfully I don't go through that area often, and if so, it is often late enough that it is relatively quiet. I didn't realize that was the location of the late tiktokker, I thought that was somewhere more rural. But all the more reason to change the flow of traffic through the area.
Now there are also a few other areas where the bike infrastructure needs a good update, such as along the Zuid-Willemsvaart, right in front of the gasthuis kwatier , and Tolburgstraat. The former I would imagine will be updated once all construction is completed of the new housing. But the latter, around the entrance to the parking garage...I haven't got a clue how they're going to fix that if they are at all.
There are probably plenty of other locations that need to be fixed, but those two stand out the most to me as I go by there so often.
Very informative and nicely put together. No nonsense and everything is so nicely explained. And that all within 4 and a half minute is just amazing.
Great video!
In Belgium, we build such places all the time. It is hard to convince road developers that cyclists are not the same as pedestrians.
Sounds like the UK. Even the standards for cycle infra design stipulates that shared use pavements should not be used unless there is limited space etc. They should be separate cycle tracks and yet everywhere is new shared pavements even where space is not an issue.
The old lay-out was a planning marvel. The way the roads where connected and how traffic flowed was really cool to see. I am not saying it was perfect, due to the old layout, driving into oncoming traffic or exiting the intersection into a completely different direction than intended was pretty standard for a lot of first time users of this intersection. So changing the intersection in 2014 made it much easier to navigate and stimulated traffic to use the newly build bypass roads around the city. Without these bypass roads there would be too much traffic flowing trough this intersection.
All in all this was a big succes.
I have been a driving instructor in s'Hertogenbosch untill 2012. I know the area and visit the city once every couple of years. I went there recently and was really annoyed about the current layout. It downright dangerous now. The cyclist safety was majorly improved in 2014 and has been undone in the latest "update". City council should shame themselves.
Actual Dutch designed and implemented this disaster? Hard to believe. Hopefully your evaluation will bring people to their senses! Excellent video !!
Good to see you pointing out that we still make mistakes in our infrastructure planning. It will be interesting to see if the city planners and aldermen will change the design. And how quickly.
I was quite flustered seeing myself in this video right at the point (2:20) where the narrator said: "And it is a miracle that things don't go wrong more often". I hope this isn't a bad omen... 😂
This is shocking the plans even went forward knowing Dutch standards. Do you expect this design to last long before is redesigned again?
It's also confusing why they removed perfectly good cycling paths.
It probable was a temporarly situation until the final design would get in we ussually don't go for red "stoeptegel" in the final design for longer lengths of road.
That temporary bike lane was better than most of the permanent ones we have here in Canada! Separated by a small brick wall, no less!
Well, it looks better as only asfalt, but this seems to be made by someone who never before made anything that has to do with bikes. (and also didn't take that aspect very seriously)
Thank you for this insightful video. On paper this square is on the shortest possible route to my work, yet i actively avoided it as best i could. At several occasions I had to get of the bike or break suddenly because of traffic or pedestrians. Now i understand why it has this weird unituitive design and will take another route.
When you mentioned the completely preventable death, it went from terrible to inexcusable! What a nightmare!
I don’t even know what’s going on in half the footage of this intersection, I’ve cycled all over the Netherlands for my entire life, and that says a lot about the safety of this thing.
Now i know how to pronounce the Duke’s Forest 😃
I'm looking at this on Google Maps and they could so easily redesign this into a functional area while keeping the original feel and idea...
I live in Den Bosch, this isnt the worst of it by far. The Zuidwillemsvaart between the Kasterenbrug and Citadellaan is the most uncomfortable place to participate in traffic. You should really check it out!
Maybe they're waiting until the construction works end, but it's taking forever.
In Delft is de situatie bij CS en Phoenixstraat ook rampzalig ingericht. Wees welkom om er een video van te maken.
Ga zo door, groetjes.
What they did wrong here is simple. It's okay to mix pedestrian, bicycle and motorized traffic in inner city centres with limited space and speeds, like 'fietsstraten' with 30kmh max speeds. But as soon as you leave those zones - mostly the historical inner cities - you've got to seperate the traffic flows. They did this quite well with the bike lanes and reconfiguration into two T-junctions of this square. But the designers of the 'new' square completely misunderstood that the concept of mixing all traffic flows and rely on self-regulating traffic is not opportune here. Beats me why the city council decided for this design. Even the use of those small bricks for cycling are uncomfortable to say the least. And usually those brick-paved surfaces don't stay nice and flat very long.
I visited ‘s-Hertogenbosch in early August, cycled here and thought about this very thing. As always, detailed and well laid out criticism!
I feel like 'shared space' is becoming far too common and seen as a goal instead of a means to an end. Such a large amount of available space to have wide, smooth segregated paths for the major cycle route, and they're forced together with pedestrians on a cobblestone square with narrow hedges, why?
Thanks for putting out this video. It is indeed a mess of a place for cyclists. Unclear sight lines, different materials…
Thanks for showing mistakes of conception in bike paradise land ! 😊 As a developer, I’m often not able to propose decent bike paths due to poor knowledge of basic cyclists behavior by decision makers : it ends just like this public space…sometimes worse. Your video shows that when you have high standards, you find problems that would be taken for improvements in an other country !
Good to see some American style ped and cycle paths being implemented in other countries!
Frankly, I do not think this would pass in new installations in much of America anymore. I think that the United States does much better than this in places where people are thinking there will actually be significant numbers of people using the infrastructure.
Came over here from @notjustbicycles.
I am somewhat torn between “what a fuckup” and “I would love to have such luxury problems.” Greetings from Germany.
Seems sometimes the policymakers here have a city skylines-esque approach to real life design of public spaces they will never use themselves.
Would you be able to add an aerial view of the new display and compare with the existing situation ? That would be interesting too ! Thanks for the video
See the blog post with several of those; link in the description, but here it is: bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2022/09/07/where-%ca%bcs-hertogenbosch-got-things-wrong-for-cycling/
@@BicycleDutch awesome, thank you
wow this is strikingly bad. I wonder if it was a non-dutch design firm....
Maybe it was us germans. Planing: 3 years construction: 5 years costs: 20 million €
😂
Whoever it was they need to lose their accreditation as designers, for the safety of the public. The politicians who approved the design also better get kicked out next election.
@@allesdurchprobiert more like English 🙄
Wow! This looks like something Brisbane City Council would build.
Come on Chris Australian cities could build in for more conflict points without even trying.
Yup, I agree it actually got less safe for all parties involved.
It's like they designed that place to be a perfect example of what to never do in design and development of a shared space.
Partij tegen de Burger doet het goed in Den Bosch zo te zien
I have been living in den bosch all my life and ye not everything is incredibly safe, but if you pay attention to your surroundings you shouldn't have any problems in that area. I have been driving as a thuisbezorgd delivery driver for 2 years now and i never had any problems.
You guys have temporary bicycle lanes? In my town in Germany, I'd be quite shocked to see smooth asphalt that isn't riddled with poor maintenance and potholes!
If they wanted to recreate the past, or harken back to it, they could have done so in far more effective ways, and if they wanted people to cycle across the plaza, that could have been managed better, too. This is a disaster, quite literally, it seems.
Edit: I made a typo and did not notice for more than a year.
Literal disaster because it killed that poor TikToker, Rest In Peace.
It feels sad to look at this and think "that's a really good bit of infrastructure" and then realise it actually is good to what we have in the UK.
As someone who crosses that bridge almost daily, the main issue I have is how I can never see incoming traffic on the bridge. Today I almost collided with a bunch of new students holding watermelons (I'm not making that up) and I didn't because I knew how blind it was. It really is unclear which path to take, but to be honest the whole Westwal, Sint Janssingel and Willeboissingel is a pain in the butt. People dont stick to the pedestrian paths at all. I don't blame them, it is terrible designed. It is a miss-mash of different designs that I even struggle to figure out how to improve.
If you want to make another "got it wrong" video you should be doing one on the city of Leiden. There it's not just one square, it's the majority of new bicycle infrastructure that goes wrong. And it's such a shame as the city has the potential to be a perfect bicycle city, but somehow they can't get it right.
Which places are you thinking about?
@@jUQMtDmf It's actually a combination of a terrible standard design of the bicycle lanes in the city center and the major crossings. The standard design doesn't stand out enough to the sidewalk, so there are always people walking on the bicycle lanes. This is even more confusing on the crossings, like the situation at the Lammermarkt - Nieuwe Beestenmart or the route from the Lammenschansweg onto the Korevaarstraat. And close-by to the last one the crossing Levendaal - Oranjeboomstraat - Sint-Jorissteeg.
The whole route between the station and the Breestraat is also one big mess with the busses and bicycles sharing the same lanes. The 7 year old girl who lost her life last year when she was run over by a bus was an accident because of poor street design.
On a lighter note, the city lacks clearly marked bicycle network with logical routes, especially between the different locations of the university.
0:55 Looks pretty good at this point. They should have just left it. Why do we need to "develop" every open space. What they have done now is a disaster!
It reminds me of where I live, in Melbourne, Australia. The bike lanes are terrible. We have
e scooters, e skate boards, fully electric bikes that don't obey the law and police that don't seem to care.
You've just discribed the UK....
very good video !! and very informative too
When they rebuild the bridge they should take away the stairs and attach them to the side of the bridge. That way, the stairs and bridge would not be parallel. Just turn onto the bridge and make another sharp turn if you need to go down. Idk..I don't make bridges.
I live in Antwerp (Belgium) and this intersection reminds me of the countless infrastructure projects that my city messes up. They all look nice on a piece of paper, but they are full of flaws and completely ignore human behaviour.
Would it help to email this video to certain people?
Een ambtenaars inbox vullen met mails is altijd leuk
Well done, man. Great presentation.
It would be interesting to see a video on the shared space concept.
I struggle to think of anywhere I know where it works well (UK context).
Oh there was a massively fubar meeting or decision occasion where someone approved this mess. Would they get to keep their job?
I bet you this mess got them a promotion
Wow, I like the concept of shared space, and I know some places where it works well, but here it seems a terrible idea. Keep us posted on developments.
The ambiguous steps vs. bridge situation can be avoided by installing a small fence in front of the steps, spaced out enough to allow pedestrians access from either side. A cyclist heading towards the steps with the impression of a bridge being there would see a fence blocking their way and avoid continuing. I don't know the efficacy of such an approach, but I think it would be a simple and effective way to stop such incidents. The bridge absolutely still needs to be wider, the square redesigned for separate walking and cycling paths, and the removed paths reinstalled.
I'm curious, what will be done with the old bridge? My hometown in California has a number of nice steel frame pedestrian bridges, many of which are narrow for shared use, but would be appropriate for reuse elsewhere in the city where fewer bridges are installed for pedestrians and cyclists. One unit could be used as a two way pedestrian only bridge, or a one way bicycle only bridge. And wider bridges suitable for comfortably mixed foot and cycle traffic can be installed in their place. If a bridge is structurally unsuitable for relocation and reuse, that's understandable, but otherwise it would be a very good thing for a city to reuse.
Wow, this almost looks like something an American city would build…
Sadly it's still a major improvement over what we have here.
You forgot to mention that there would be no bike network it would actually connect to, that it would take 10 years to complete and be twice as expensive, and then ultimately removed because one of four impact studies was not conducted.
@@travisbeagle5691 that's depressing if true.
Thanks for another great video; I hope this hazard gets sorted soon!!!
This reminds me how long I haven't been in the city. I have not seen the new situation yet. Bad design might be understandable if you had to deal with limited space, or with monuments like the city gate if it still existed. But they had a wide open space with nothing but grass. A blanc canvas to make it perfect.
Het Heetmanplein was altijd al een Bossche specialiteit - een nachtmerrie voor de minder ervaren automobilist. Het is duidelijk dat het een specialiteit en nachtmerrie moest blijven.
I live in Den Bosch and totally agree that this area is not great to navigate as a cyclist!
They recently changed the part by the stairs and bridge. Now there is some greenery in between.
As bad as this is, it would an incredible improvement to have here in America...
I am in complete and utter shock that this was build in the Netherlands!
Wow this is so bad on so many ways.
How did this end up being just a throughway for bikes and pedestrians considering how many designs were proposed? It doesn't look at all appealing as a park, because there doesn't seem to be nearly enough spaces designed for it to be used as a park. The visually impaired crossing doesn't even seem to have tactile tiles on the other side of the crossing, there also is that is dirt and that garbage container right in the line of the crossing, so if the visually impaired person veers even slightly off course they will end up tripping in the dirt or crashing into the garbage container. Why does there seem to be no path at all marked in some ways to guide cyclist this space and to let pedestrian know to avoid the bike "lane". The access to the bridge also appears to have somewhat of a blind corner and has that little half fence for apparently no reason (usually you would have that if the bridge is meant to be accessed from a specific angle, but since the whole area before it is a biking space the fence doesn't make sense. The visibility to the stairs is also blocked by the trash container. The zigzags are probably the worst design part of this whole thing.
The people should protest this by cutting down part of the hedges, put down some of those metal sheets that are put down sometimes for temporary bicycle paths and chalk the are up to create paths for the different traffic using the space. The whole space should be redesigned, make it functional, safe and a actual usable park area.
The stairs need a few reflective bollards at the top to prevent any moped or bike access, even accidentally.
Even though I feel sorry for cyclists experiencing this, it is sort of fascinating to see that not everything in the Netherlands is perfect.
stuff like this happens once in a while, people notice it and immideatly start complaining. A couple years earlier they had to completely redesign a roundabout barely 1km away from this cause it was once again badly designed for cycle traffic (it was a downward slope causing cyclist to enter the roundabout with too much speed, so they build a bridge isntead).
If I had to guess, within a year there will have been so many complaints that a redesign is planned.
If they would do this in brussels it would be amazing and they would call it how the future wil look
At first I was like: "oh boy... "shard spaces" those are terrible! We've got it bad over here in Nijmegen with the shared space in front of the train station"... but then as the video went on I realised that our shared space is not nearly as terrible as this one!
0:33 That right there is some fine spaghett I can see why they at least tried to make it better xD
Almost all of my family in holland lives in den bos; and to think I tell all of my American friends how great out engineering is, I guess nobody’s perfect
If the city really wanted to throw away money I could have thought of better options.
A clear case of form over function. Designers that just enjoyed making this, without keeping practicality in mind.
Guess it goes to show how important input is to good design
This shows that bad design is dangerous and those responsible should be held liable.
There is a school which HAS landscape design in its program, not far from there. This must be an interesting case study for them.
Hoe dan ook beter dan toen ik tot 2000 op de Berewouthof in s'-Hertogenbosch woonde! 😇
Shared space is horrible, as a pedestrian I want to be able walk around without constantly worrying about colliding with cyclists (or cars) every second
Style over substance? It will be interesting what is done to fix it and how quickly?
A lot of your videos are near my place. I live in Den Bosch. Would love to host you for a coffee.
This intersection has been a pain in the local government's backside since my Granddads days. Apparently it used to be a sort of double roundabout configuration! ikr...
In general there is not enough attention for a smooth road for both pedestrians, cyclists and cars. Especially now the fast bicycles are seen as the future daily traffic, the roads must be without curbs and holes.
Wait, this actually killed someone already? Wtf???
Oh yes. A (apparently pretty famous tiktokker) was riding home on his moped and fell down the stairs. Not sure if he fell in the water.
Well he drowned. So yes, he did end up in the water via the stairs. dtvnieuws-nl.translate.goog/nieuws/artikel/20-jarige-jongen-komt-te-water-in-den-bosch-en-overlijdt?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
There are two 'exits' from a curvy street very close to each other. The first to stairs down to the river and the second to a bicycle/pedestrian bridge. You know you have to turn to the right, and somewhere between the trees... but in the dark, rain, wet shiny pavement, and a completely changed lay out, a mistake is easily made. A deadly mistake.
Only when you made the sharp turn to the right, you can see ahead, but than it's too late because the stairs start immediately, no time to stop if you do not see the expected bridge, you are tumbling down.
@@BicycleDutch that's aweful. Engineers need to be more responsible.
Even my US city, stuck 15 years in the past, wouldn't build a public space this bad!
I think there is an argument for the lack of predictability. The idea being that when people are unsure of an area, they will move more slowly and cautiously.
As an American frustrated by our public apathy toward bike & ped safety, it's nice to know that the Dutch aren't perfect either. Sad about the moped rider who died though :_(
Went for a walk there litterly a couple days ago and was just very confused as I had many of the same toughts. Still don't know how it got aproved, hopefully the city fixes it in a couple of months couse geez.
More of things they got wrong please!
My 2 cents of a guess, supposedly, somebody got "oiled" to approve this weird design...
What happened here is they had a competition. Then by mistake they had the list with results upside-down and so the worst design came on top. And instead of admitting this mistake they just doubled down and just went with it.
I am from Den Bosch and cross this place very often, and it is just worse in every single way to the empty grass field that was there before. Quite impressive to spend so much money to make a decent space so shit for no reason.
This is still way better for any other country standards until you pointed out what was wrong explicitly. I only wish Dutch engineers could help revive Bengaluru, India!
As sad as this is. It’s an order of magnitude better than the American south
Alot of the time I'll watch a video about some 'bad infrastructure design' in the NL and find myself thinking "I can see the point being made, but I'd still kill for something like this in the UK" however this instance is truly breathtaking, how badly they messed this up! What were the designers possibly thinking?
Trouble is it's the poor stuff like this that then gets imported to the UK because its easier, cheaper etc. It's only the rare occasion we actually get the good stuff like the truly Dutch cycle roundabout in Cambridge and that's probably because Cambridge council commissioned a Dutch company to design it.