It's not just in the Netherlands. For what I can understand the difference between the US and Europe, almost everywhere in Europe, we have small grocery stores in every neihborhood, even in big cities. I live in Lisbon, capital of Portugal, and I have 3 different grocery stores in a walking distance of less than 10 minutes. In the US, residential areas dont have that, they dont have a good public transport system, so they have to drive to a big supermarket. I go almost every single day to the supermarket for my daily meals ingredients. Thats why, also in the US, they have gigantic refrigerators, they have to get their groceries once or twice in a month. And thats, also why, in Europe we eat better products with better quality, a lot more fresh food ingredients. Greetings to you all from Protugal!
That's a good point. When I was living in Australia and New Zealand they had far fewer small grocery stores and had a few large ones in centres. You had to ride down major routes to get to those places which were often not built for bike traffic.
I live in the netherlands and i have 1 turkisch supermarket within 100 meters next to it is a turkisch bakery. Of i go 100 meters the otherway There’s a Dutch bakery. Then whitin 1,5 km there are 2 albertheijns 2 jumbo’s 1 Lidl, 1 Aldi and 1 nettorama what are al supermarkets. Thats all walking distance. Within 3 km there’s alot more. Also gas stations and lot of other stores are within walking distance.
Same in (non rural villages excluded) Germany: 2mls around me: 2 Aldi, 1 Lidl, 2 Netto (discounter like Aldi), 1 Penny (also a Discounter), 1 Woolworth, 3+ 1€ shops, 6 Bakeries, 1 turkish supermarket, 2 Chinese restaurants, 2 Italian Restaurant, 1 McDonalds, 3 Italien ice shops/coffees and many more.
The city is Utrecht, center of the Netherlands. The tower is called the Dom Tower - ‘dom’ being a type of cathedral/ large church of which it is a part (although the connecting part between the church and the tower was destroyed in a storm. The tower is also famed for its large array of (large) bells which are rung regularly by members of the Utrecht Bell Ringers Guild (Utrechts Klokkenluiders Gilde) of which I am a member.
@@klaasdeboer8106 To be fair tornadoes are far more common in other places than many realise. Probably because they tend to be weaker elsewhere while building materials tend to be stronger (brick or stone rather than wood). You have to hit such buildings a lot harder to take out the main structural walls, the windows sure and even the roof due to the wooden supports. But the walls that is like EF4+ territory when they are made of stone or brick, granted those are extremely rare in those places too but they are possible and a EF4 may raise some of those to nearly the foundations, EF5 can damage those too pretty much nothing but a hardened bunker is surviving one of those.
Canadian here, I recently visited the Netherlands and can answer your question about driving. You see, unlike North America and the terrible way we design our cities around cars and expand outwards into sprawl, the Netherlands designs their cities to be compact and really maximizes their use of space. Their cities are designed around people, so the city itself is a destination, not something you have to travel through. Notice how everyone lives relatively close by? That’s exactly the point. When you are in a Dutch city, EVERYTHING is close by. Between cities and towns they have really nice highways and roads, but once you get to the city you’ve arrived at your destination. Everything is available around you so driving within the city is pointless and would be a waste of time and space. Imagine your house for a moment. You wouldn’t drive your car from your living room to your bedroom, because the distance is too close and your house is designed to be used by people, not cars. Well Dutch cities treat their cities like a giant house that everyone shares, and the outdoor space becomes an extension of your living space. It’s incredible, quiet, and very peaceful. Our cities are loud and obnoxious while theirs I can enjoy a coffee outside a café in complete tranquility. DE coffee became an extension of my living space, being a very comfortable walk away. There were also half a dozen small grocery stores all around me that were an easy walk to access, like simply stepping across the street to access your pantry, only this pantry is much bigger than a household pantry and the food is always fresh. There is literally no need to go buy hundreds of dollars worth of food to fill up your house, with a bunch of it going to waste. Simply go outside and grab the things you want to eat, when you want to eat them. The Netherlands really opened my eyes to how much better life can be, and has kind of ruined Canada and the US for me because driving 10-20 minutes to an overcrowded mall along ugly strodes for a family supply of groceries sucks.
"You wouldn’t drive your car from your living room to your bedroom" ... wait you can fit a car in your hous? I can only fit my bike in it :P on a serious note: "Notice how everyone lives relatively close by? That’s exactly the point. When you are in a Dutch city, EVERYTHING is close by. " While this is true for big cities this is not always the case for smaller cities, because some small cities don't have there own supermarkets but the nearby city does so some people need to go further distances its still not far compaired to indeed the US or Canada but for us dutchies its still far :P
@@tjaytje that’s where public transport comes into play, it significantly increases your walking distance. It just needs to be designed well to be efficient, which it often isn’t in North America because of how cities are designed around cars and sprawl It’s like one problem compounds the other.
@@Viennery I wouldn't say people use public transport alot to get their daily groceries done. Those folks tend to get a weekly or bi-weekly load...by car ofcourse because carrying 6 full bigshopper bags on a bike is just asking for trouble tbh. Then again I have been spoiled all my life with atleast 2 supermarkets within walking distance. 5 at the moment even (granted walking distance is 45 to 60 mins total for me, about 30 on bicycle) It's even in my daily routine and I feel weird when I haven't been to the store for a day. :')
Fun fact, the tower was separated from the church by a tornado in 1673 (-ish) and the debri was not cleared for 200 years. Fun fact number 2: Under the square in front of the church there is an undergound museum displaying remnants of the Roman castellum from 2000 years ago. Personally, I think Utrecht is more beautiful than Amsterdam, but the tourists have a different taste, I guess.
@@ronaldderooij1774 I think most tourists would agree with you, it's just that Utrecht is less know by tourists compared to the touristtrap we call our capital...
@@woutersplinter4981 "to the touristtrap we call our capital" Lets keep the tourists over there, please. There is no fun in living inside the amusement park....plus, the tourists ... they walk on the bike lane! 😒😒😒
Where everyone in the world proudly boasts how much money they have had to spend on something, there is the Dutchman who is super proud of how little money they have spent on something! See the man in the video say with shame how much money he had to pay for his new bike!!😂😂😂😂
"Everyone in the world proudly boasts how much money they have to spend" is an exaggeration, to say the least. The whole world is not as vulgar as the USA.
It is not a fair comperison. There are a lot of supermarkets in the Netherlands where you can easely go to by car. With free parking. At the Australian supermarket bikes wheren't even aloud. Still a lot of us Dutchies use the bike:)
Being a Dutchie living in Adelaide (South Australia) the cycling infra structure here is 3rd world. Funniest thing is that politicians here claim that Adelaide is the cycling capital of Australia and already have spend millions.
I didn't quite understand what he said there, I thought maybe he meant he went over 5km by about 500 meters, so 5500m total? But yeah 500m total could be very possible too!
Liked the comparison. But the Albert Heijn was in a busy city. There are supermarkets out of the city center where 90% of people use the car to do groceries.
@6:10 With regards to the degree of convenience of driving a car: it really depends on where you live and where you need to be able to go. Generally high density, mixed zoning, neighborhoods (like the one in the video) are pedestrian/bike oriented. Many people live here that hardly ever have to use a car. And owning (parking) a car in such neighborhoods is generally expensive. Outside these older, more central quarters, the Netherlands has more recently built predominantly residential neighborhoods as well. People living there own about a car per household on average. However, these neighborhoods are a lot denser than American residential zones and all have decent to excellent pedestrian/cycling infrastructure. Besides: a school, bus stop, supermarket, hair dresser, and a few other shops are never more than 3/4 of a mile away (often closer) and a proper town center is seldomly more than 3-5 miles away. So for many day to day activities people can still get by without a car. In the end this means that in the order of 80% (my ballpark estimate) of dutch people can freely choose to not live a car dependent life.
Wazzup Charlie! 💪 So basically what they do in city centres in the Netherlands is they make it not attractive to go there by car. For example the parking costs are way to expensive. They rather have the cars outside the centre also for the exhausts etc. So the good parking is always outside the city centre. The town is "Utrecht"
Not much effort needed to make it unattractive for cars though. The old cities were not build for cars but developed within the limits of city walls. Streets are too narrow and lots of them restricted to one way driving which makes driving through them hard like being in a maze. Most cities like Utrecht will have supermarkets around the old city center though with either parking lots of garages where families go for the bigger weekly shop.(nowhere near as big as supermarkets in the US though)
@@annehoog yea, and you can see that back in Rotterdam because in the second world war it got blown up so it's a newer city and you can get almost everywhere with the car.
I don't think they MAKE city centers not attractive for cars....these city centers are mostly 100's of years old and were not originally built for cars and parking.
the concept is: why do you need a big clumsy car capable of going a hundred miles an hour, if you only have to go three miles? it's like, why would you put on a coat if you're visiting your friend three doors down? you'd have to go all the way to the coat rack, put it on, zip it up, then walk 30 feet, zip it down, take it off, put it on their coat rack - and do all of that again when you go back home. for what? Dutch infrastructure is just comprehensively having all of these little shortcuts for bikes everywhere - so getting on that bike is the logical choice. - so more people take their bike, and one more bike on the road is one less car. so no congestion
For use in the city you would never use a new bike, they got stolen! Especially because most people have no safe place to put them. You just buy a cheap third hand bike, as long it is usable.
the innercity is mostly car free or 1 way roads. Outside the city centers, cars are used more. I travel for work from Eindhoven to Dordrecht and every day i am in traffic jams, multiple. while we have a very good road infrastructure. Makes me realize we have a lot of cars! I never bike anywhere even though i have 2 bikes. When i was 16 i got my moped and a car and motorcycle at 18. i had to bike so much to school when i was a kid that i got totally fed up with it. i take the motorcycle or car and avoid city centers. so its not uncommon for Dutch people to travel many miles by car within the netherlands. Like me as a commuter almost 3000 miles per month. Almost every family has a car, and most of them have 2 cars per household. We all just have bikes as well. Use them in busy parts or to just enjoy nature and people take routes set out specially for that purpose. People living in villages use them a lot too, when less then 2 or 3 miles on average. Otherwise they just tend to take the car. also lot of people do grocery shopping with cars in villages and outside busy big cities. Cant carry that much on a bike. PS> i could have summarized all the above as: we have lazy people in the netherlands too ... and I am one of em :P
Glad you said it because this video makes it look like everyone in NL rides their bicycle every day. Also most of the people they interviewed who said they don't even own a car were students who usually don't own cars because they simply can't afford them as cars are stupidly expensive in NL compared to for example Belgium or Germany. I guess I am one of the lazy ones as well. I live in Zeeland and going to work in Rotterdam by bike would take me 3 hours or more so even if I would be fit enough to cycle 108 km every day I'd have to leave home at 5 am to get to work on time. Also I think they should have filmed this at a discount supermarket like Lidl or Aldi which are hardly ever located in a city centre. Not saying that people don't go to those stores by bicycle but there are way more people going there by car than in the city centre of Utrecht. Also people with big families will more likely do their grocery shopping by car at least once a week to buy heavy items that are not easily transported on a bicycle. I also agree with you that traffic sucks in NL especially around Eindhoven and the Randstad. Sometimes I get the impression that these types of videos show a rather romantic version of NL. Not everyone lives in a city. I live in a village with approximately 2500 inhabitants. There is 1 small supermarkt and 3 churches and if you want to see a movie, go see a concert, shop for clothes etc. it's gonna be a 45 minute drive by car. Also public transport isn't as great here than in the Randstad (area around the 4 cities Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht).
25:58 Standing at a height of 112 metres, the Dom Tower is the iconic symbol of Utrecht and the tallest church spire in the Netherlands. It is about 700 years old. They started to build in the year 1312. In 1674 a tornado destroyed the mid-section of the Domchurch and since theat time the Dom Tower stands alone proudly in the centre of Utrecht Netherlands
I live in a town attached to Utrecht called De Bilt. The big tower is indeed a leftover from an old church. A big part of the church was destroyed in a big storm but what was left is beautifuly restored. If you want you could take all the stairs up the tower and have an amazing view of the city!
I'm Dutch. Just over 2 years ago I bought a new bike: haggled it down to € 2750. True, a Bosch mid-drive ebike, but stil, I don't mind saying how much I bought the bike for be cause I bought quality. True enough, though, I wouldn't ride and park her (esp. over night) in the big cities.
I’m an Aussie who went to Amsterdam in 2019, bikes were everywhere. And they have right of way over pedestrians and go really fast. I nearly got hit twice… I was scared to cross the road..
When you come to live here, you’d better get used to the metric system. Kilometers and meters etc. Kilo and grams and we don’t use Fahrenheit but Celsius for temperature. It’s much easier and more logical 😊
They only ask these questions in the big cities. I live in the north east, in a village. I cycle or walk a lot but for groceries which are heavy, I rather take my car. But in the big cities its the way to get around
Dank je well Charlie! Ik heb een paar van je video's bekeken en vind ze erg leuk. I live in the UK and have enjoyed You Tube now for about 4 months or so. I' m an old guy you know. It's nice to see people being positive about my home country. That's all really. I forget what is nice and good about my country because I have lived abroad for so long now. Keep going buddy!
5:31 Driving is actually better for car drivers, but that's for medium and long distance journeys. Going by car for a short journey is actually discouraged. Cities often do this by connecting neighborhoods using bicycle paths with bollards to block off car traffic, while routing car traffic via some main roads that often take a detour around the neighborhoods instead. And in historic city centres a lot of the roads are one-way which can make it a bit of a hassle to ensure you make the correct turns to get to the destination street. That's why the bicycle is a better option on short journeys. Direct access to inter-neighborhood cycle paths, being allowed to ride in both directions on a one-way street, and no need to find a parking spot or pay for parking.
When my kids where little, I had kids sitting on my bike. Big bags on the bike full of groceries ,a bag on my back and one on the handlebar. A lot of kilo's on the bike several times a week. Even in the rain, snow, wind or hot sun. 😁( or in the dark) When the man said those little bags are to heavy Ilmao 🤣 The woman finds it to heavy whith her daughter on the bike. And when it gets dark. Well... I am proud. And it also helpt me stay healthy. 💚
Well, you gotta look at things in perspective here. That Albert Heijn was in a location that wasn't suited for cars so offcourse noone drives to it in their car. But not all grocery stores are in locations that are inconvenient for cars. Another thing to take into consideration is what's on your shopping list. When I go to the bakery for bread or the butcher for meat and cheese, or do some light groceries shopping, I'm not going home with massive bags. Those are some things you can easely carry while on a normal bicycle. But other times I go to a supermarket, have a full shopping cart and then there's simply not enough room to carry it all home on a regular bicycle (if you have a bakfiets, which i don't, it might be possible) so I take a car. What this video doesn't show is that for those large shopping trips that require a car, those same people will drive to a different Albert Heijn or some other grocery store that's within the same radius of there home or maybe even a bit further. For this survey to give real comparable data, the interviewer should have surveyed people leaving the grocery store so he could survey people who left with similar shopping carts. those dutch people planned ahead and knew they could carry all their groceries on their bikes, but those australian shoppers, we don't know if they go home with a large shopping cart that's impossible to carry home on a bike, or a small one that would give them the option to choose between bike or car. The real solution is to have both options available. If you don't need to do all shopping by car you can reduce parking lot sizes , but then you need infrastructure for walking/cycling which wasn't the case in the area around the australian grocery store. That's the only lesson to be learned from this video. The name of the game is options, not forcing one or the other. Give people options and they will choose what's most convenient for them at any time.
"... But other times I go to a supermarket, have a full shopping cart and then there's simply not enough room to carry it all home on a regular bicycle ..." Many (if not most) Dutch people buy fresh food. Meaning, they go to the grocery store more often (I grocery shop just about every day). This also means you need less groceries per visit. And this in turn means that it rarely happens you cannot cary your grocery shoppings by bicycle or bag. "... The name of the game is options ..." There are in The Netherlands. Just about every Dutch shopping centre has a car park facility. Despite that, and because of the Dutch infrastructure, most Dutch people grocery shop by foot or bicycle. And when you need a lot of groceries, say for a 50 persons weekend party, you can shop by car. Though healthy lazy Dutch people shopping by car for a single loaf of bread do exist too. Note (trivia): I sold my car in 2015. I rent a car in the rare occassion I need one (on average about once a year for 1 week). I bought a 2-wheeler cargo bicycle instead (I also own 4 other bicycles). That is my "car". As illustrated in, see: ibb.co/wdHQQCr (Ikea shopping, 40 km round trip)
Quite a few of them mentioned not owning a car so I doubt they will go hire a car to drive further away. They'll just cut the groceries trip in half and go twice, or hang heavy bags from their bike and walk. Or borrow the supermarket cart to walk everything home and then return the cart. But you are correct that this was not the average supermarket in the Netherlands.
Usually I'm filling up my bike trailer with more food than people are putting in their cars. I can fit 2 entire shopping carts no prob 🤣How often are you carrying more than 250 lbs ?
@@jakesaari7652 I understand you can and do load a lot of groceries on your bicycle configuration. So can I. I have a 2-wheeler cargo bicycle. But most cyclists or pedestrians do not have a trailer. Those people shop more often for less items. But I assume you only wanted to show the possibility of bulk shopping using a bicycle.
There’s a bit of a skewed outcome here, it’s in the center of a busier old city with a lot of students. I live on top of a hill, in a small village with just a tiny shop for forgotten groceries, so I do my groceries by car. Usually on my way home from work, in my 16 km drive, there are at least 10 supermarkets to chose from. The biggest “USA style” is not even comparable, because it’s located cleverly, in a football (soccer) stadium with a mix of business you don’t need everyday. One’s underneath a train station and the rest all in residential areas, with adequate parking. As much as I get tickled by all the praise the Netherlands is getting, I want to counter it a bit. Since it sometimes is presented as if cars are an anomaly and everyone is surgically attached to our bikes. I personally do a big shop every now and then, but get more during the week for fresh produce, doesn’t feel bad because I’m on the road anyway then.
@@therealdutchidiot Well its more for the grand tours , i used it several times riding from ijmuiden to luxembourgh. up to the belgian boarder it works perfect than it gets a bit bumpy .
@@missrachel513Hang on, don't you know that youtube is english???????????????? How dare you curse in another language????????? Just kidding, I'm swedish, that was just my latest haul from an american tourist (and I'm not meaning the channel producer, he is obvoiusly not an idiot). Stroopwafel looks tasty, I wonder if I can use my "kruskavel" I use for making "knäckebröd" or my iron for making "rullrån" to make it? Ha det fint, sommaren är kort men ät gott.
😂😂😂 I know exactly where that's is filmed. 🙂 Het Stichtse! You can exclusively get there by walking or by bike..... No way you would drive with your car to that Albert Heijn. 😂😂😂 I love Utrecht. It's the most beautiful city in the Netherlands.
If you go to one of them tiny supermarkets in the middle of a city like amsterdam it's mostly for pedestrians and cyclists, in the suburbs are bigger supermarkets with parking lots, but the one where these interviews were was definitely one of those tiny Albert Heijns. It's not like they deliberately make it harder to go there by car, but there's per definition way less parking space in a historic city center like that. The tiny supermarkets are for small shopping sprees too, like they won't hold much choice of every product so you can make do with getting product that fits in your school or bike bag, people who want to shop for more don't go there, they'll take a car and go to a large supermarket. There's a difference.
I think this video doesn't shows the complete story. Don't forget that by far most people in the Netherlands do their groceries by car because it's more convenient for them. Most Dutch people do their groceries once a week on a Friday or Saturday for the whole week and of course they have to carry a lot of heavy grocery bags with them.
It's not fair comparison. If they were at a supermarket outside a city center, you'ld find the majority of the shoppers coming by car. But still, surely more cyclist than at a comparable location in Australia (or the US, or Germany, or the UK, or basically anywhere except Japan and Denmark).
If you know the metric system it is much easier: 1km = 10ha = 100dam = 1000m (meter) = 10000dm = 100000cm (centimeter) = 1000000mm If you have 1ha (hectare) of land, you own 100 by 100 meter. etc. etc.
In Denmark in the big cities the problem is like stated in the video about Amsterdam very difficult to find a parking spot, the cities are old and filled with small streets, plus the politicians have favored bicycling for decades -people bike because it's easier, faster and you get exercise -outside the cities people don't bike a lot -it also depend weather people are shopping in a big mall or shopping inside the cities, more people use their car to go to the mall. But we have mostly small supermarkets all over , and people shop fresh groceries several time a week, we often go shopping only for fresh milk and fresh meat or fruit ect. without conservation
I do want to note that this video seems a bit biased. They've picked a Dutch supermarket that is in the middle of an old, historic city centre with no real parking space for cars. While these do exist, those supermarkets are a minority. We have tons of supermarkets here with their own parking lots right next to good roads for car traffic, and I think you'll see that about half the people shopping there do actually come by car. The vast majority of our supermarkets see a good share of people come in by car. Would have been a much fairer comparison to inverview at a Dutch supermarket with good car access instead. When you ask the car drivers why they didn't come by bicycle you'll get the same excuses the australians make. Heavy groceries, it's getting dark, weather isn't all that good, it's windy, too lazy, etc. At least the australians actually have a good reason, cycling is dangerous there because there's no bicycle infrastructure. We Dutchies can't use that excuse.
If you're in any of the big popular cities, which most foreign people move to then yeah bicycle is better for getting around because it's densely populated and parking is a hassle, however if you live slightly out of the major city centers then you'll find that a car is more practical, rent is cheaper and it's less crowded. In my opinion life outside the center is much better. I only go to the city to party, meet friends or if there is some kind of event going on.
Parking is quite expensive in NL, bking and walking cheap. And public transport is well organsed affordable and always whitin walking/biking distance. In Friesland its quite common for kids biking 30. Kms a day to go to school and back home again. Heck. I used Rollerskate in my younger years, I wouls skate almost everywhere or took public transport for long distance or because of bad weather. Rollerskating was even faster than using a bike. I dont have a car because I dont need one, everything is within walking distance really. And else I use public transport in case of long trips OR becase of the weather (we have'4 seasons a day sometimes). I dont understand car oriented countries, ive seen so manny vids from the USA and know how utterly bad the infrastructure is 'planned' and sorry how bad it is upkept in most cases. We are bold, we speak up for ourselves, we dont like to waste time thus wont 'beat around the bush'. Find me a pothole in NL that does'nt is or get fixe asap, you will not be able because we complain about it asap and much if need be LOL
I was staying with friends in North Carolina and I wanted to go on a bike the Target. It was not far. Maybe 10 minutes or so They act if I was crazy for even suggestion it. I was also not allowed to bike outside their neighborhood. In the weekends they put their bikes in a van and drove to an hiking and biking area to bike for a couple of ours. Inside cities, villages and townships bikes go over cars. The country rebuild the infrastructure to accommodate bikes. They promote bikes and a lot of employers are giving their employees a bike. Their is an arrangement with the government. The employers get a part of the costs back. By the way, you should not take Utrecht as an example for the whole country. I live in a city on the coast and almost every supermarket has a big parking place or underground garage but still most people go on their bike or walk
Hah, you were good on your guess about 'the European guy' ;) As a European I thought he would be from Austria, but Switzerland is close enough I suppose.
one of the tactics that are used is to make a bunch of streets around the center one-way streets for cars and the actual city center would largely be car free... but there are parking garages around the edge too, so you can still go most of the way by car.
Dutch people can transport insane amounts of stuff on their bikes too. Holding a case of beer with one hand behind your back while it rests on the luggage rack behind the seat is easy. Dutch people ride their bikes like Cossacks ride their horses.
9:33 I kinda know her... she looks a bit grumpy perhaps but she s a very sweet lady. This is the Albert Heijn in the "twijnstraat". A small street at the edge of the actual city center. motorised traffic is highly discouraged in that area. There is basically no place to park your car. You can only really go to that super by bike or walking.
Today I rode 64 km (just short of 40 miles), ON AN ELECTRIC BICYCLE, just to get away from where I use to be. First I took my bike on the train to get about 20 km (just short of 12,5 miles) away from the city. Out and about. Then I just improvised until my bum got sore, and I just followed a straight line home. See the world! Ride a bike! Or you can take a plane anywhere and still be standing there....
It just depends on where exactly you ask these questions. In a 1000 yo city center there is no parking lot. So people that live in the old city center can't have cars...It may take decades for them to get a parking permit. And the supermarket will not knock down 10 historical buildings to create a car park. If you get outside the old city center people will have cars, a driveway and the supermarket will have a parking lot... However it will be different. because each residential neighbourhood will have it's own non-residential facilities (small supermarket, pharmacy, medical center, some take out food or maybe even a bar.) It will always be in biking distance and for many people even in walking distance. But whenever I do more than a days shopping (we do home cooked meals at least 5 times a week) I do take the car.
5:40 Most streets in the Netherlands (and Flanders where I live) are driveable by car. But usually especially in cities they make it so that through traffic is impossible, so they send you on loops in and out of the city center back to larger ring roads, and often these streets are restricted to local traffic. This all makes it that driving a car through a city center is more inconvenient than biking or walking. And also take into account that before these traffic plans were implemented, cars were allowed everywhere here too, and entire cities were stuck in perpetual grid lock. So now, even though it's more inconvenient to drive, it's often faster than before to go the indirect route by car now, than the direct route was before traffic plans. The most important thing about traffic plans like these is not that it makes driving inconvenient, but that it takes people who don't need to drive out of their cars and into/onto other modes of transport, freeing up space all over (both on the road and in parking) for people who have no choice but to drive. And also important is that a city with less cars around simply becomes a much more pleasant place to live, shop, work, etc. It's as simple as that. People in the Netherlands own and drive cars. They just don't use them for every little thing they need to do, especially if it's under 5km. And it makes traffic better and more pleasant for everyone, including drivers. That's what the not just bikes video was also about.
I am Dutch and I was in Dallas couple years ago. And I walked on the pavement. And I was stopped by the police twice. What is the problem? What can we do for you?
5:42 that street may look like a drivable street, but it is very common for streets like this to be closed for motorized vehicles during the day. Or you may need a permit.
If u wanna park in a city center, you have to drive there, which often isn't quicker than cycling if it's within about 5km, you have to find (and pay for) a parking spot, you have to walk from your car to a store, you have to pay your ticket afterwards or remember to turn off you parking app. OR you could just cycle a couple of minutes and park pretty much right in front of the store for free.
It was filmed in Utrecht, and the big tower is the Dom in Utrecht. They have a fantastic train station as well. It's HUGE. I was there a week ago for the Dutch Film Festival. It's a very beautiful city. 😍
Where I’m from in Australia, it’s very hilly. The City near me is at the bottom of a mountain. We don’t have bike lanes everywhere. It sound wonderful but I can’t see my local government spending extra money for bike lanes . My local Council is trying to push it though. My local Council has managed to get a bike lane from one township to another 😁
It is very hilly where I live as well. People have lived here for thousands of years with the hills and without bike lanes. It is also common for people to use the hill here as an excuse not to cycle.
I also live in Sydney; thankfully, my local council started to invest in biking infrastructure about twenty years ago and is now beginning to see the benefits. The local council's most recent bike plan took into account e-bikes and micro-mobility; one of the new bike paths they are planning to build is quite hilly. One reason the local council decided to proceed with this bike path is that everyday citizens can easily do it on e-Bikes.
I recently bought a new bike. It is a Batavus Dinsdag Exclusive plus, belt drive with a Shimano Alfine 11 speed internal gear hub and disc brakes. I am really happy with it! It is such a pleasure to ride on. It costed €1400,-
It's the city of Utrecht. The tower is the famous "Dom" tower approx 110 metres high. On and aroundthe area of this tower the Romans started building the first fortifications around 50VC. The tower itself was built during and after 1254 VC.
I have my Driver licence for little over 3 years now. But I still go by bike everywhere almost every day, It's usually faster as well when you don't need to go all the way to a different city. This also the reason I still don't own a car. You usually pay a lot of money to park your car in a city and most of the time the parking spots are far away from the center, so you still have to walk all the way to the store anyway.
You do realise that the sign in Australia was saying “No Bicycles/Skateboards/Skates/Animals” IN the actual shop premises, right?😂 Otherwise you can ride a bike anywhere except a Motorway. Australians are more dependent on cars compared to The Netherlands because Australia is 186 times bigger. The cities are more spread out. Australians tend to do one large grocery shop per week or fortnightly. Australia is a lot younger too, so of course the roads are built to accomodate cars & cycling is more likely to be done as an activity/sport. Now despite all of this, riding bikes is still fairly popular. Just not the main mode of transport.
This is not a good example of the centre of Utrecht. Almost all big cities have it like this. It's done on purpose, almost car free. I live in a small town and I don't really use my car. We use our bikes for almost everything my wife and kids. In the morning you see so many kids on the bike to school. It's just how it is.
When you have a stroopwafel, put it on a hot cup of coffee or tea first and leave it for a while. The sirup will melt a little and the taste is even better.
Stroopwafel top tip: Get yourself a cuppa and let the stroopwafel rest on top of the cup for a minute. The hot tea will warm up the stroop (syrup) in the waffle. Enjoy!
In Austria we have also many bycicle lanes and many people riding bycicles. Not so many as in the Netherlands, but there come regular new ones. I live in the second largest town in Austria and it is the bycicle capitol here!
its depends on where you live! big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, and all those famous Dutch cities, the inner cities of those cities is mostly car-free or are in cases like Rotterdam and Amsterdam have 1-way roads. Outside the city centers, and outside the big city cars are used more and the roads are wider, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are nightmares to drive and find a parking spot! And also parking is really expensive! so using a bike is reasonable, especially if you live close by, and you only have to get a few things. but most people use bikes for everything because it's cheaper than taking the bus, except if the place you have to go is too far to go on bike then you have to take a bus or tram,or the metro but most people choose the bike in a heartbeat.
I always go by car to my supermarket near my house. But in this clip it's about a supermarket in the citycentre. The citrycentre is not for cars, you have underground parkinglots on the site on in the citycentre. But most people don't live in the centre. the centre is for walking and parts for biking. My bike was 800 when it was bought almost 17years ago hahahah
21:44 looks slightly misleading. comparing a city center grocery store with one that doesn't seem to bwe in a city center. The Netherlands do have shopping-areas/grocery-stores outsite the city center similar to the one shown from Australia, but with space to park your bike.
keep in mind many european cities are old and back then they didnt need wide roads between buildings. i think in the US youre lucky if buildings last 30 years meanwhile in europe you find streets with buildings over 100 years many many places.
When I look at this video I feel proud of my little country. Until last june I hadn't ride a bike for 21 years because I lost my leg. I went around in a scootmobiel. I gaint a lot of weight and became deabetic. I don't like to ecxercise. But last june a got an electrical trisicle. I can ride a bike again and I simply love it. I rented a trailer so I could take it with me when we went to France last summer. Lost 8 kg is 6 months. It has an app were I can keep track of how far I have riden. In november I hit the 1000km point.
Aussie here. Spent $42,000 on my new MX5 (Miata) in 2003. Spent $1,500 on my bike but it’s too dangerous to ride anywhere in Sydney as the infrastructure has never been developed and most car drivers display absolute contempt for cyclists and absolutely don’t want to share the roads with them. I would love to ride more for health and the environment. I used to ride my bike over my car at least 50% of the time in Adelaide as the infrastructure is there, but I don’t now that I live in Sydney.
In the Netherlands drivers are by law always legally responsable for damages to pedestrians and cyclists. They are always at fault and held accountable. A different mindset for drivers is enforced that way.
@@anneliesaltena As it should be. Cyclists and pedestrians are more vulnerable than drivers by several orders of magnitude, and drivers should pay heed to that fact.
As said below, it's Utrecht and it's Dom tower. Utrecht has a major university, which explains the vast amount of bikes, because most students own bikes, not cars.
This is a bad comparison to compare old world cities to new world...new world cities generally don't have large populations in the city centres...this area..while it does have some highrise apartments usually tends to only house businesses. Amsterdam has very compact, close together buildings that have shops on the street level...but look up and nearly everything is residential.
Flevoland, a Dutch province, did not even exist before 1960. It used to be part of a lake (IJsselmeer) which in turn used to be a sea before 1930 (Zuiderzee). Meaning, every city and infrastructure on Flevoland is "new". Most likely newer than most of the cities and infrastructure of your country. And yet ... there is good bicycle infrastructure on Flevoland. Better than some of the "old" Dutch cities. Please stop inventing excuses.
@@wimahlers There is no excuse...but remember that the US, Australia, Canada and some other places aren't the size of a postage stamp like the Netherlands is. The Netherlands new or old is of higher density, most things people need are close by. The real way to make a comparison is to compare a rural area of the Netherlands to a suburban area of other countries cities. Most, if not all services are much further apart. I live in a city of 1.3 million...this city covers a surface area of 3,260 km2...Amsterdam has I think around 2.5 million and is squeezed to an area of only 219 km2...just my city with 1.3 million is larger in area than the Randstad area of the Netherlands.
@@stevenbalekic5683 "... My city is around 190 years old ..." I bet it is not. The way you describe your city I bet it was founded 190 years ago and bulldozed down less than 100 years ago to accommodate a car centric city.
Not everybody in the Netherlands lives in the center of a city, I didn't and because of my work, I only had time to do all shopping once a week for four persons + always having a lot of visitors dropping by and staying for a meal. i always found it important to have a home where friends and friends of my kids always were welcome to stay. Maybe not typical Dutch, but I always hated households where nobody were welcome without an appointment. Having said that....no way that I could have done 'my kind of shopping' on a bike. The people in your videos are mostly students, older or people alone that has the time to do some shopping every day. That s not reality for a busy household with kids and working parents in the Netherlands. Yes,- we use a bike when it is practical (going to the market) but belief me.... outside the center of a city, you will find more cars than bikes in front of the supermarket.
The bicycle/ train combo is very common. I owned 2 bicycles for work. 1 to get to the train station and one parked at the destination train station. No traffic jams. I miss it.
I live in a town with 25000 people and we have 5 grocery stores. Almost every small town has one. We also have a ‘buurtsuper’ this translates to neighborhood grocery store
hey charlie! there’s a big difference between downtowns in the netherlands and small towns or suburbs. Parking costs a lot more downtown, and the busy streets are designed for the comfort of the pedestrians and cyclists. In suburbs and small towns it’s very comfortable and easy to go by car, but even there, cycling is encouraged
In The Netherlands its just incentivized to go by bike for short distances, so short distances are often way faster by bike then by car. But going long distances its very nice and easy to go by car.
It's Utrecht. Kinda like Amsterdam without the tourists. The tower is the Dom tower, the highest church tower in the Netherlands. Used to be part of a huge church, but the middle collapsed, so now there's a square behind the tower and behind that is the rest of the church. Utrecht is a student city, but also considered the capital of the Dutch catholic church.
The city is UTRECHT. THE TOWER IS THE "dom tower" 125 meter tall Old cathederal church left over. Also one of the highest towers of any Old historical building in The Netherlands.
In any case nobody answered yet what city that was with all the bikes around 25:21 That is Utrecht, and the street they showed is the Zadelstraat. You can see the Dom, the cathedral tower, at center in the rear. Then they cross one of the or probably the oldest bridge in Utrecht. Then they turn right onto the Oudergracht. Near the Dome are some good restaurants . And across the bridge on the corner on the left with the yellow sun screen you have a "coffeeshop' for coffee ;)
It's not just in the Netherlands. For what I can understand the difference between the US and Europe, almost everywhere in Europe, we have small grocery stores in every neihborhood, even in big cities. I live in Lisbon, capital of Portugal, and I have 3 different grocery stores in a walking distance of less than 10 minutes. In the US, residential areas dont have that, they dont have a good public transport system, so they have to drive to a big supermarket. I go almost every single day to the supermarket for my daily meals ingredients. Thats why, also in the US, they have gigantic refrigerators, they have to get their groceries once or twice in a month. And thats, also why, in Europe we eat better products with better quality, a lot more fresh food ingredients. Greetings to you all from Protugal!
That's a good point. When I was living in Australia and New Zealand they had far fewer small grocery stores and had a few large ones in centres. You had to ride down major routes to get to those places which were often not built for bike traffic.
Same here in the netherlands i have 9 in walking distance. 2 of them are polish 1 is arabic and the rest are basic supermarkets.
I live in the netherlands and i have 1 turkisch supermarket within 100 meters next to it is a turkisch bakery. Of i go 100 meters the otherway There’s a Dutch bakery. Then whitin 1,5 km there are 2 albertheijns 2 jumbo’s 1 Lidl, 1 Aldi and 1 nettorama what are al supermarkets. Thats all walking distance. Within 3 km there’s alot more. Also gas stations and lot of other stores are within walking distance.
@@Broeders.Burgers And 17 kebab shops.
Same in (non rural villages excluded) Germany: 2mls around me: 2 Aldi, 1 Lidl, 2 Netto (discounter like Aldi), 1 Penny (also a Discounter), 1 Woolworth, 3+ 1€ shops, 6 Bakeries, 1 turkish supermarket, 2 Chinese restaurants, 2 Italian Restaurant, 1 McDonalds, 3 Italien ice shops/coffees and many more.
The city is Utrecht, center of the Netherlands. The tower is called the Dom Tower - ‘dom’ being a type of cathedral/ large church of which it is a part (although the connecting part between the church and the tower was destroyed in a storm. The tower is also famed for its large array of (large) bells which are rung regularly by members of the Utrecht Bell Ringers Guild (Utrechts Klokkenluiders Gilde) of which I am a member.
That storm was a tornado american style!!
You guys are awesome! I very much enjoy and appreciate the creativity and variety coming from the Dom tower bells.
@@klaasdeboer8106 To be fair tornadoes are far more common in other places than many realise. Probably because they tend to be weaker elsewhere while building materials tend to be stronger (brick or stone rather than wood). You have to hit such buildings a lot harder to take out the main structural walls, the windows sure and even the roof due to the wooden supports. But the walls that is like EF4+ territory when they are made of stone or brick, granted those are extremely rare in those places too but they are possible and a EF4 may raise some of those to nearly the foundations, EF5 can damage those too pretty much nothing but a hardened bunker is surviving one of those.
Canadian here, I recently visited the Netherlands and can answer your question about driving.
You see, unlike North America and the terrible way we design our cities around cars and expand outwards into sprawl, the Netherlands designs their cities to be compact and really maximizes their use of space.
Their cities are designed around people, so the city itself is a destination, not something you have to travel through.
Notice how everyone lives relatively close by? That’s exactly the point. When you are in a Dutch city, EVERYTHING is close by.
Between cities and towns they have really nice highways and roads, but once you get to the city you’ve arrived at your destination. Everything is available around you so driving within the city is pointless and would be a waste of time and space.
Imagine your house for a moment. You wouldn’t drive your car from your living room to your bedroom, because the distance is too close and your house is designed to be used by people, not cars.
Well Dutch cities treat their cities like a giant house that everyone shares, and the outdoor space becomes an extension of your living space.
It’s incredible, quiet, and very peaceful. Our cities are loud and obnoxious while theirs I can enjoy a coffee outside a café in complete tranquility. DE coffee became an extension of my living space, being a very comfortable walk away. There were also half a dozen small grocery stores all around me that were an easy walk to access, like simply stepping across the street to access your pantry, only this pantry is much bigger than a household pantry and the food is always fresh. There is literally no need to go buy hundreds of dollars worth of food to fill up your house, with a bunch of it going to waste. Simply go outside and grab the things you want to eat, when you want to eat them.
The Netherlands really opened my eyes to how much better life can be, and has kind of ruined Canada and the US for me because driving 10-20 minutes to an overcrowded mall along ugly strodes for a family supply of groceries sucks.
"You wouldn’t drive your car from your living room to your bedroom" ... wait you can fit a car in your hous? I can only fit my bike in it :P
on a serious note: "Notice how everyone lives relatively close by? That’s exactly the point. When you are in a Dutch city, EVERYTHING is close by. "
While this is true for big cities this is not always the case for smaller cities, because some small cities don't have there own supermarkets but the nearby city does so some people need to go further distances its still not far compaired to indeed the US or Canada but for us dutchies its still far :P
@@tjaytje that’s where public transport comes into play, it significantly increases your walking distance.
It just needs to be designed well to be efficient, which it often isn’t in North America because of how cities are designed around cars and sprawl
It’s like one problem compounds the other.
@@Viennery I wouldn't say people use public transport alot to get their daily groceries done.
Those folks tend to get a weekly or bi-weekly load...by car ofcourse because carrying 6 full bigshopper bags on a bike is just asking for trouble tbh.
Then again I have been spoiled all my life with atleast 2 supermarkets within walking distance.
5 at the moment even (granted walking distance is 45 to 60 mins total for me, about 30 on bicycle)
It's even in my daily routine and I feel weird when I haven't been to the store for a day. :')
@@Viennery a lot of smaller towns don’t have that available either though..
The city is Utrecht and the massive building is the tower left from a medieval cathedral.
Fun fact, the tower was separated from the church by a tornado in 1673 (-ish) and the debri was not cleared for 200 years. Fun fact number 2: Under the square in front of the church there is an undergound museum displaying remnants of the Roman castellum from 2000 years ago. Personally, I think Utrecht is more beautiful than Amsterdam, but the tourists have a different taste, I guess.
I ❤ Utrecht!
@@ronaldderooij1774 I think most tourists would agree with you, it's just that Utrecht is less know by tourists compared to the touristtrap we call our capital...
It is called the “ dom toren = tower “
@@woutersplinter4981 "to the touristtrap we call our capital" Lets keep the tourists over there, please. There is no fun in living inside the amusement park....plus, the tourists ... they walk on the bike lane! 😒😒😒
Where everyone in the world proudly boasts how much money they have had to spend on something, there is the Dutchman who is super proud of how little money they have spent on something! See the man in the video say with shame how much money he had to pay for his new bike!!😂😂😂😂
LoL so true! 🤣👌
Haha true!
I would like to use this opportunity to boast about spending €30,- on my omafiets!
"Everyone in the world proudly boasts how much money they have to spend" is an exaggeration, to say the least. The whole world is not as vulgar as the USA.
@@JohannesBaagoe Fair point.
The older lady is a typical elderly slightly posh lady in the Netherlands (in the randstad area) Very assertive. No nonsense
It is not a fair comperison. There are a lot of supermarkets in the Netherlands where you can easely go to by car. With free parking. At the Australian supermarket bikes wheren't even aloud. Still a lot of us Dutchies use the bike:)
Not allowed in building is how I understand it. There are parking areas in car parks for bikes. More bike lanes are being installed.🇦🇺🎸⚡️
Yeah I live close to an Albert Heijn XL in a big city and the parking lot is huge and significantly bigger than the bike parking there
Being a Dutchie living in Adelaide (South Australia) the cycling infra structure here is 3rd world. Funniest thing is that politicians here claim that Adelaide is the cycling capital of Australia and already have spend millions.
being Dutch...40 years ago even Perth was better
The Swiss dude was actually joking and said that he travelled ~500 meters, which is half a kilometer.
I didn't quite understand what he said there, I thought maybe he meant he went over 5km by about 500 meters, so 5500m total? But yeah 500m total could be very possible too!
Liked the comparison. But the Albert Heijn was in a busy city. There are supermarkets out of the city center where 90% of people use the car to do groceries.
@6:10 With regards to the degree of convenience of driving a car: it really depends on where you live and where you need to be able to go.
Generally high density, mixed zoning, neighborhoods (like the one in the video) are pedestrian/bike oriented. Many people live here that hardly ever have to use a car. And owning (parking) a car in such neighborhoods is generally expensive.
Outside these older, more central quarters, the Netherlands has more recently built predominantly residential neighborhoods as well. People living there own about a car per household on average. However, these neighborhoods are a lot denser than American residential zones and all have decent to excellent pedestrian/cycling infrastructure. Besides: a school, bus stop, supermarket, hair dresser, and a few other shops are never more than 3/4 of a mile away (often closer) and a proper town center is seldomly more than 3-5 miles away. So for many day to day activities people can still get by without a car. In the end this means that in the order of 80% (my ballpark estimate) of dutch people can freely choose to not live a car dependent life.
Well put, W.
@@robinroest7518 it was somewhat of a wide-open door, to be honest, RRR.
Its so nice to ride the bike. You are outside, its relaxed and you clear your head next to the fact that its very healthy
Driving is really good outside big city's inside there are small roads and its really expensive to park your car in city's like Amsterdam
Wazzup Charlie! 💪 So basically what they do in city centres in the Netherlands is they make it not attractive to go there by car. For example the parking costs are way to expensive. They rather have the cars outside the centre also for the exhausts etc. So the good parking is always outside the city centre.
The town is "Utrecht"
parking is basically just all the money you got 😂😭
Not much effort needed to make it unattractive for cars though. The old cities were not build for cars but developed within the limits of city walls. Streets are too narrow and lots of them restricted to one way driving which makes driving through them hard like being in a maze. Most cities like Utrecht will have supermarkets around the old city center though with either parking lots of garages where families go for the bigger weekly shop.(nowhere near as big as supermarkets in the US though)
@@annehoog yea, and you can see that back in Rotterdam because in the second world war it got blown up so it's a newer city and you can get almost everywhere with the car.
I don't think they MAKE city centers not attractive for cars....these city centers are mostly 100's of years old and were not originally built for cars and parking.
Not true about parking, in Zwolle you can park in centrum for whole day for 6 euro 🤷♂️
the concept is: why do you need a big clumsy car capable of going a hundred miles an hour, if you only have to go three miles?
it's like, why would you put on a coat if you're visiting your friend three doors down? you'd have to go all the way to the coat rack, put it on, zip it up, then walk 30 feet, zip it down, take it off, put it on their coat rack - and do all of that again when you go back home. for what? Dutch infrastructure is just comprehensively having all of these little shortcuts for bikes everywhere - so getting on that bike is the logical choice. - so more people take their bike, and one more bike on the road is one less car. so no congestion
For use in the city you would never use a new bike, they got stolen! Especially because most people have no safe place to put them. You just buy a cheap third hand bike, as long it is usable.
the innercity is mostly car free or 1 way roads. Outside the city centers, cars are used more. I travel for work from Eindhoven to Dordrecht and every day i am in traffic jams, multiple. while we have a very good road infrastructure. Makes me realize we have a lot of cars! I never bike anywhere even though i have 2 bikes. When i was 16 i got my moped and a car and motorcycle at 18. i had to bike so much to school when i was a kid that i got totally fed up with it. i take the motorcycle or car and avoid city centers. so its not uncommon for Dutch people to travel many miles by car within the netherlands. Like me as a commuter almost 3000 miles per month. Almost every family has a car, and most of them have 2 cars per household. We all just have bikes as well. Use them in busy parts or to just enjoy nature and people take routes set out specially for that purpose. People living in villages use them a lot too, when less then 2 or 3 miles on average. Otherwise they just tend to take the car. also lot of people do grocery shopping with cars in villages and outside busy big cities. Cant carry that much on a bike. PS> i could have summarized all the above as: we have lazy people in the netherlands too ... and I am one of em :P
Glad you said it because this video makes it look like everyone in NL rides their bicycle every day. Also most of the people they interviewed who said they don't even own a car were students who usually don't own cars because they simply can't afford them as cars are stupidly expensive in NL compared to for example Belgium or Germany.
I guess I am one of the lazy ones as well. I live in Zeeland and going to work in Rotterdam by bike would take me 3 hours or more so even if I would be fit enough to cycle 108 km every day I'd have to leave home at 5 am to get to work on time.
Also I think they should have filmed this at a discount supermarket like Lidl or Aldi which are hardly ever located in a city centre. Not saying that people don't go to those stores by bicycle but there are way more people going there by car than in the city centre of Utrecht. Also people with big families will more likely do their grocery shopping by car at least once a week to buy heavy items that are not easily transported on a bicycle.
I also agree with you that traffic sucks in NL especially around Eindhoven and the Randstad. Sometimes I get the impression that these types of videos show a rather romantic version of NL. Not everyone lives in a city. I live in a village with approximately 2500 inhabitants. There is 1 small supermarkt and 3 churches and if you want to see a movie, go see a concert, shop for clothes etc. it's gonna be a 45 minute drive by car. Also public transport isn't as great here than in the Randstad (area around the 4 cities Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht).
25:58 Standing at a height of 112 metres, the Dom Tower is the iconic symbol of Utrecht and the tallest church spire in the Netherlands. It is about 700 years old. They started to build in the year 1312. In 1674 a tornado destroyed the mid-section of the Domchurch and since theat time the Dom Tower stands alone proudly in the centre of Utrecht Netherlands
I live in a town attached to Utrecht called De Bilt. The big tower is indeed a leftover from an old church. A big part of the church was destroyed in a big storm but what was left is beautifuly restored. If you want you could take all the stairs up the tower and have an amazing view of the city!
But the big tower is not in the Bilt, but it is the Dom tower in Utrecht
@@mickeydejong8950 that's True! But i can see it from my house and its Just 10 min. to get there.. (by bike of course)
I'm Dutch. Just over 2 years ago I bought a new bike: haggled it down to € 2750.
True, a Bosch mid-drive ebike, but stil, I don't mind saying how much I bought the bike for be cause I bought quality.
True enough, though, I wouldn't ride and park her (esp. over night) in the big cities.
yep...problem overhere...bike theftst
2750 for a bike. literally way way way too much money. only becuse you are too lazy to use your legs? just sad. i hate ebikes.
I’m an Aussie who went to Amsterdam in 2019, bikes were everywhere. And they have right of way over pedestrians and go really fast. I nearly got hit twice… I was scared to cross the road..
When you are dealing with a bike on the same way you do with a car then everything is fine. Oh, and also never walk on the cycle path.
When you come to live here, you’d better get used to the metric system. Kilometers and meters etc. Kilo and grams and we don’t use Fahrenheit but Celsius for temperature.
It’s much easier and more logical 😊
@M Temuulen 100 m=1hm
@M Temuulen Unless it is one random part on a Mars Mission that insisted on being contrary to the doom of said mission.
They only ask these questions in the big cities. I live in the north east, in a village. I cycle or walk a lot but for groceries which are heavy, I rather take my car. But in the big cities its the way to get around
Dank je well Charlie! Ik heb een paar van je video's bekeken en vind ze erg leuk. I live in the UK and have enjoyed You Tube now for about 4 months or so. I' m an old guy you know. It's nice to see people being positive about my home country. That's all really. I forget what is nice and good about my country because I have lived abroad for so long now. Keep going buddy!
5:31 Driving is actually better for car drivers, but that's for medium and long distance journeys. Going by car for a short journey is actually discouraged. Cities often do this by connecting neighborhoods using bicycle paths with bollards to block off car traffic, while routing car traffic via some main roads that often take a detour around the neighborhoods instead. And in historic city centres a lot of the roads are one-way which can make it a bit of a hassle to ensure you make the correct turns to get to the destination street. That's why the bicycle is a better option on short journeys. Direct access to inter-neighborhood cycle paths, being allowed to ride in both directions on a one-way street, and no need to find a parking spot or pay for parking.
This was in Utrecht. I believe they said it in the beginning of the video
When my kids where little, I had kids sitting on my bike. Big bags on the bike full of groceries ,a bag on my back and one on the handlebar. A lot of kilo's on the bike several times a week. Even in the rain, snow, wind or hot sun. 😁( or in the dark) When the man said those little bags are to heavy Ilmao 🤣 The woman finds it to heavy whith her daughter on the bike. And when it gets dark. Well... I am proud. And it also helpt me stay healthy. 💚
I indeed thought the telephone ringing was in the video! :-))
Me too 🤗🤣
Well, you gotta look at things in perspective here.
That Albert Heijn was in a location that wasn't suited for cars so offcourse noone drives to it in their car. But not all grocery stores are in locations that are inconvenient for cars.
Another thing to take into consideration is what's on your shopping list.
When I go to the bakery for bread or the butcher for meat and cheese, or do some light groceries shopping, I'm not going home with massive bags. Those are some things you can easely carry while on a normal bicycle. But other times I go to a supermarket, have a full shopping cart and then there's simply not enough room to carry it all home on a regular bicycle (if you have a bakfiets, which i don't, it might be possible) so I take a car.
What this video doesn't show is that for those large shopping trips that require a car, those same people will drive to a different Albert Heijn or some other grocery store that's within the same radius of there home or maybe even a bit further.
For this survey to give real comparable data, the interviewer should have surveyed people leaving the grocery store so he could survey people who left with similar shopping carts. those dutch people planned ahead and knew they could carry all their groceries on their bikes, but those australian shoppers, we don't know if they go home with a large shopping cart that's impossible to carry home on a bike, or a small one that would give them the option to choose between bike or car.
The real solution is to have both options available. If you don't need to do all shopping by car you can reduce parking lot sizes , but then you need infrastructure for walking/cycling which wasn't the case in the area around the australian grocery store. That's the only lesson to be learned from this video. The name of the game is options, not forcing one or the other. Give people options and they will choose what's most convenient for them at any time.
"... But other times I go to a supermarket, have a full shopping cart and then there's simply not enough room to carry it all home on a regular bicycle ..."
Many (if not most) Dutch people buy fresh food. Meaning, they go to the grocery store more often (I grocery shop just about every day). This also means you need less groceries per visit. And this in turn means that it rarely happens you cannot cary your grocery shoppings by bicycle or bag.
"... The name of the game is options ..."
There are in The Netherlands. Just about every Dutch shopping centre has a car park facility. Despite that, and because of the Dutch infrastructure, most Dutch people grocery shop by foot or bicycle.
And when you need a lot of groceries, say for a 50 persons weekend party, you can shop by car. Though healthy lazy Dutch people shopping by car for a single loaf of bread do exist too.
Note (trivia):
I sold my car in 2015. I rent a car in the rare occassion I need one (on average about once a year for 1 week). I bought a 2-wheeler cargo bicycle instead (I also own 4 other bicycles). That is my "car". As illustrated in, see:
ibb.co/wdHQQCr
(Ikea shopping, 40 km round trip)
Quite a few of them mentioned not owning a car so I doubt they will go hire a car to drive further away. They'll just cut the groceries trip in half and go twice, or hang heavy bags from their bike and walk. Or borrow the supermarket cart to walk everything home and then return the cart. But you are correct that this was not the average supermarket in the Netherlands.
Usually I'm filling up my bike trailer with more food than people are putting in their cars. I can fit 2 entire shopping carts no prob 🤣How often are you carrying more than 250 lbs ?
@@jakesaari7652
I understand you can and do load a lot of groceries on your bicycle configuration.
So can I. I have a 2-wheeler cargo bicycle.
But most cyclists or pedestrians do not have a trailer. Those people shop more often for less items.
But I assume you only wanted to show the possibility of bulk shopping using a bicycle.
It is the Dom Tower in the city of Utrecht. In the province of Utrecht.
There’s a bit of a skewed outcome here, it’s in the center of a busier old city with a lot of students.
I live on top of a hill, in a small village with just a tiny shop for forgotten groceries, so I do my groceries by car. Usually on my way home from work, in my 16 km drive, there are at least 10 supermarkets to chose from. The biggest “USA style” is not even comparable, because it’s located cleverly, in a football (soccer) stadium with a mix of business you don’t need everyday. One’s underneath a train station and the rest all in residential areas, with adequate parking.
As much as I get tickled by all the praise the Netherlands is getting, I want to counter it a bit. Since it sometimes is presented as if cars are an anomaly and everyone is surgically attached to our bikes.
I personally do a big shop every now and then, but get more during the week for fresh produce, doesn’t feel bad because I’m on the road anyway then.
I go to school by bike over a 12km distance woth an heavy school bag partially over the 'knardijk'
Sheeeee you have a worse time then i did i bike 10km for 4 years to go to school lmao "door weer en wind"
You should lay your stroopwafel on a hot cup of coffee oar tea , it tastses much better then
Onzin
Fun fact the dutch GPS navigation system Tom Tom has also the cycling road /paths option . perfect for the long distance trips .
It's not that good though. Same with Google maps. The fastest way isn't always the best way.
@@therealdutchidiot Well its more for the grand tours , i used it several times riding from ijmuiden to luxembourgh. up to the belgian boarder it works perfect than it gets a bit bumpy .
@@marcusfranconium3392 True, but most people on bicycles don't do the grand tours. The app made by the Fietersbond seems to do a lot better.
The Dutch people have stroop wafels, oliebollen, hagelslag and theare one version of pancakes.
And almost every dutch person can talk English/American
20:34 Fun fact, this guy is a big time soap actor and appeared in two Dutch productions as, you guessed it, an Australian bloke.
It was a really nice touch when you started to eat the waffle.
Stroopwafel 🤤
@@missrachel513Hang on, don't you know that youtube is english???????????????? How dare you curse in another language?????????
Just kidding, I'm swedish, that was just my latest haul from an american tourist (and I'm not meaning the channel producer, he is obvoiusly not an idiot).
Stroopwafel looks tasty, I wonder if I can use my "kruskavel" I use for making "knäckebröd" or my iron for making "rullrån" to make it?
Ha det fint, sommaren är kort men ät gott.
@@MsAnpassad oki
24:30 That's the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. You can cycle through it. And 25:35 is the Dom Tower in Utrecht.
😂😂😂 I know exactly where that's is filmed. 🙂 Het Stichtse! You can exclusively get there by walking or by bike..... No way you would drive with your car to that Albert Heijn. 😂😂😂 I love Utrecht. It's the most beautiful city in the Netherlands.
If you go to one of them tiny supermarkets in the middle of a city like amsterdam it's mostly for pedestrians and cyclists, in the suburbs are bigger supermarkets with parking lots, but the one where these interviews were was definitely one of those tiny Albert Heijns. It's not like they deliberately make it harder to go there by car, but there's per definition way less parking space in a historic city center like that. The tiny supermarkets are for small shopping sprees too, like they won't hold much choice of every product so you can make do with getting product that fits in your school or bike bag, people who want to shop for more don't go there, they'll take a car and go to a large supermarket. There's a difference.
I think this video doesn't shows the complete story. Don't forget that by far most people in the Netherlands do their groceries by car because it's more convenient for them. Most Dutch people do their groceries once a week on a Friday or Saturday for the whole week and of course they have to carry a lot of heavy grocery bags with them.
Top tip - lay your stroopwafel over the top of your hot tea/coffee cup, the syrup gets very soft and the biscuit gets slightly moist, delicious 😋
Lots of e-bikes in the Netherlands now, they cost €2000+ for a half decent one, but in the city that's probably not common.
It's not fair comparison. If they were at a supermarket outside a city center, you'ld find the majority of the shoppers coming by car. But still, surely more cyclist than at a comparable location in Australia (or the US, or Germany, or the UK, or basically anywhere except Japan and Denmark).
If you know the metric system it is much easier: 1km = 10ha = 100dam = 1000m (meter) = 10000dm = 100000cm (centimeter) = 1000000mm
If you have 1ha (hectare) of land, you own 100 by 100 meter. etc. etc.
I follow you quite a time now Charlie and The Netherlands is just the country to live, for you and you're family. You already have the Dutch attitude.
In Denmark in the big cities the problem is like stated in the video about Amsterdam very difficult to find a parking spot, the cities are old and filled with small streets, plus the politicians have favored bicycling for decades -people bike because it's easier, faster and you get exercise -outside the cities people don't bike a lot -it also depend weather people are shopping in a big mall or shopping inside the cities, more people use their car to go to the mall. But we have mostly small supermarkets all over , and people shop fresh groceries several time a week, we often go shopping only for fresh milk and fresh meat or fruit ect. without conservation
I do want to note that this video seems a bit biased.
They've picked a Dutch supermarket that is in the middle of an old, historic city centre with no real parking space for cars. While these do exist, those supermarkets are a minority. We have tons of supermarkets here with their own parking lots right next to good roads for car traffic, and I think you'll see that about half the people shopping there do actually come by car. The vast majority of our supermarkets see a good share of people come in by car.
Would have been a much fairer comparison to inverview at a Dutch supermarket with good car access instead. When you ask the car drivers why they didn't come by bicycle you'll get the same excuses the australians make. Heavy groceries, it's getting dark, weather isn't all that good, it's windy, too lazy, etc. At least the australians actually have a good reason, cycling is dangerous there because there's no bicycle infrastructure. We Dutchies can't use that excuse.
If you're in any of the big popular cities, which most foreign people move to then yeah bicycle is better for getting around because it's densely populated and parking is a hassle, however if you live slightly out of the major city centers then you'll find that a car is more practical, rent is cheaper and it's less crowded. In my opinion life outside the center is much better. I only go to the city to party, meet friends or if there is some kind of event going on.
Parking is quite expensive in NL, bking and walking cheap. And public transport is well organsed affordable and always whitin walking/biking distance. In Friesland its quite common for kids biking 30. Kms a day to go to school and back home again. Heck. I used Rollerskate in my younger years, I wouls skate almost everywhere or took public transport for long distance or because of bad weather. Rollerskating was even faster than using a bike. I dont have a car because I dont need one, everything is within walking distance really. And else I use public transport in case of long trips OR becase of the weather (we have'4 seasons a day sometimes). I dont understand car oriented countries, ive seen so manny vids from the USA and know how utterly bad the infrastructure is 'planned' and sorry how bad it is upkept in most cases. We are bold, we speak up for ourselves, we dont like to waste time thus wont 'beat around the bush'. Find me a pothole in NL that does'nt is or get fixe asap, you will not be able because we complain about it asap and much if need be LOL
That, is the very centre of Utrecht. And that tower is famous :)
I was staying with friends in North Carolina and I wanted to go on a bike the Target. It was not far. Maybe 10 minutes or so
They act if I was crazy for even suggestion it. I was also not allowed to bike outside their neighborhood.
In the weekends they put their bikes in a van and drove to an hiking and biking area to bike for a couple of ours.
Inside cities, villages and townships bikes go over cars. The country rebuild the infrastructure to accommodate bikes.
They promote bikes and a lot of employers are giving their employees a bike. Their is an arrangement with the government. The employers get a part of the costs back.
By the way, you should not take Utrecht as an example for the whole country.
I live in a city on the coast and almost every supermarket has a big parking place or underground garage but still most people go on their bike or walk
800 euros! you could get your whole family bikes
Hah, you were good on your guess about 'the European guy' ;) As a European I thought he would be from Austria, but Switzerland is close enough I suppose.
I guessed Denmark...
one of the tactics that are used is to make a bunch of streets around the center one-way streets for cars and the actual city center would largely be car free... but there are parking garages around the edge too, so you can still go most of the way by car.
the town is Utrecht and the building is the clock tower or the domtoren
Dutch people can transport insane amounts of stuff on their bikes too. Holding a case of beer with one hand behind your back while it rests on the luggage rack behind the seat is easy. Dutch people ride their bikes like Cossacks ride their horses.
9:33 I kinda know her... she looks a bit grumpy perhaps but she s a very sweet lady. This is the Albert Heijn in the "twijnstraat". A small street at the edge of the actual city center. motorised traffic is highly discouraged in that area. There is basically no place to park your car. You can only really go to that super by bike or walking.
Today I rode 64 km (just short of 40 miles), ON AN ELECTRIC BICYCLE, just to get away from where I use to be. First I took my bike on the train to get about 20 km (just short of 12,5 miles) away from the city. Out and about. Then I just improvised until my bum got sore, and I just followed a straight line home. See the world! Ride a bike! Or you can take a plane anywhere and still be standing there....
my bike cost my 3000 euros!
is ebike! (yes im dutch xd)
my normal bike cost my 1000 euros.
but have had it for a 8 years now!
It just depends on where exactly you ask these questions. In a 1000 yo city center there is no parking lot. So people that live in the old city center can't have cars...It may take decades for them to get a parking permit. And the supermarket will not knock down 10 historical buildings to create a car park.
If you get outside the old city center people will have cars, a driveway and the supermarket will have a parking lot...
However it will be different. because each residential neighbourhood will have it's own non-residential facilities (small supermarket, pharmacy, medical center, some take out food or maybe even a bar.) It will always be in biking distance and for many people even in walking distance. But whenever I do more than a days shopping (we do home cooked meals at least 5 times a week) I do take the car.
5:40 Most streets in the Netherlands (and Flanders where I live) are driveable by car. But usually especially in cities they make it so that through traffic is impossible, so they send you on loops in and out of the city center back to larger ring roads, and often these streets are restricted to local traffic. This all makes it that driving a car through a city center is more inconvenient than biking or walking.
And also take into account that before these traffic plans were implemented, cars were allowed everywhere here too, and entire cities were stuck in perpetual grid lock. So now, even though it's more inconvenient to drive, it's often faster than before to go the indirect route by car now, than the direct route was before traffic plans.
The most important thing about traffic plans like these is not that it makes driving inconvenient, but that it takes people who don't need to drive out of their cars and into/onto other modes of transport, freeing up space all over (both on the road and in parking) for people who have no choice but to drive.
And also important is that a city with less cars around simply becomes a much more pleasant place to live, shop, work, etc. It's as simple as that.
People in the Netherlands own and drive cars. They just don't use them for every little thing they need to do, especially if it's under 5km. And it makes traffic better and more pleasant for everyone, including drivers. That's what the not just bikes video was also about.
I am Dutch and I was in Dallas couple years ago. And I walked on the pavement. And I was stopped by the police twice. What is the problem? What can we do for you?
5:42 that street may look like a drivable street, but it is very common for streets like this to be closed for motorized vehicles during the day.
Or you may need a permit.
If u wanna park in a city center, you have to drive there, which often isn't quicker than cycling if it's within about 5km, you have to find (and pay for) a parking spot, you have to walk from your car to a store, you have to pay your ticket afterwards or remember to turn off you parking app. OR you could just cycle a couple of minutes and park pretty much right in front of the store for free.
It was filmed in Utrecht, and the big tower is the Dom in Utrecht. They have a fantastic train station as well. It's HUGE. I was there a week ago for the Dutch Film Festival. It's a very beautiful city. 😍
Where I’m from in Australia, it’s very hilly.
The City near me is at the bottom of a mountain.
We don’t have bike lanes everywhere.
It sound wonderful but I can’t see my local government spending extra money for bike lanes .
My local Council is trying to push it though.
My local Council has managed to get a bike lane from one township to another 😁
It is very hilly where I live as well. People have lived here for thousands of years with the hills and without bike lanes. It is also common for people to use the hill here as an excuse not to cycle.
use an e-Bike, there is no excuses for that. :-))
I also live in Sydney; thankfully, my local council started to invest in biking infrastructure about twenty years ago and is now beginning to see the benefits. The local council's most recent bike plan took into account e-bikes and micro-mobility; one of the new bike paths they are planning to build is quite hilly. One reason the local council decided to proceed with this bike path is that everyday citizens can easily do it on e-Bikes.
I recently bought a new bike. It is a Batavus Dinsdag Exclusive plus, belt drive with a Shimano Alfine 11 speed internal gear hub and disc brakes. I am really happy with it! It is such a pleasure to ride on. It costed €1400,-
O yes a batavus is indestructable and a joy
tho ride.
Hey, that’s my beautiful city! 😍
It's the city of Utrecht. The tower is the famous "Dom" tower approx 110 metres high. On and aroundthe area of this tower the Romans started building the first fortifications around 50VC. The tower itself was built during and after 1254 VC.
I have my Driver licence for little over 3 years now. But I still go by bike everywhere almost every day, It's usually faster as well when you don't need to go all the way to a different city. This also the reason I still don't own a car. You usually pay a lot of money to park your car in a city and most of the time the parking spots are far away from the center, so you still have to walk all the way to the store anyway.
You do realise that the sign in Australia was saying “No Bicycles/Skateboards/Skates/Animals” IN the actual shop premises, right?😂 Otherwise you can ride a bike anywhere except a Motorway.
Australians are more dependent on cars compared to The Netherlands because Australia is 186 times bigger. The cities are more spread out. Australians tend to do one large grocery shop per week or fortnightly.
Australia is a lot younger too, so of course the roads are built to accomodate cars & cycling is more likely to be done as an activity/sport.
Now despite all of this, riding bikes is still fairly popular. Just not the main mode of transport.
This is not a good example of the centre of Utrecht. Almost all big cities have it like this. It's done on purpose, almost car free.
I live in a small town and I don't really use my car. We use our bikes for almost everything my wife and kids. In the morning you see so many kids on the bike to school. It's just how it is.
When you have a stroopwafel, put it on a hot cup of coffee or tea first and leave it for a while. The sirup will melt a little and the taste is even better.
Stroopwafel top tip: Get yourself a cuppa and let the stroopwafel rest on top of the cup for a minute. The hot tea will warm up the stroop (syrup) in the waffle. Enjoy!
In Austria we have also many bycicle lanes and many people riding bycicles. Not so many as in the Netherlands, but there come regular new ones.
I live in the second largest town in Austria and it is the bycicle capitol here!
The City at the end is Utrecht, one of the major cities in the Netherlands. That massive tower is the Domtoren, or Dom tower.
its depends on where you live! big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, and all those famous Dutch cities, the inner cities of those cities is mostly car-free or are in cases like Rotterdam and Amsterdam have 1-way roads. Outside the city centers, and outside the big city cars are used more and the roads are wider, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are nightmares to drive and find a parking spot! And also parking is really expensive! so using a bike is reasonable, especially if you live close by, and you only have to get a few things. but most people use bikes for everything because it's cheaper than taking the bus, except if the place you have to go is too far to go on bike then you have to take a bus or tram,or the metro but most people choose the bike in a heartbeat.
I always go by car to my supermarket near my house. But in this clip it's about a supermarket in the citycentre. The citrycentre is not for cars, you have underground parkinglots on the site on in the citycentre. But most people don't live in the centre. the centre is for walking and parts for biking. My bike was 800 when it was bought almost 17years ago hahahah
21:44 looks slightly misleading. comparing a city center grocery store with one that doesn't seem to bwe in a city center. The Netherlands do have shopping-areas/grocery-stores outsite the city center similar to the one shown from Australia, but with space to park your bike.
Charlie the part from 11:45 is absolutely hilarious 😂 very typical dutch guy and you hit the nail on the head there
keep in mind many european cities are old and back then they didnt need wide roads between buildings. i think in the US youre lucky if buildings last 30 years meanwhile in europe you find streets with buildings over 100 years many many places.
spot on...
The city tht you saw when the where cycling,is the city Utrecht.
That building that you sa was the DOM in Utrecht.
Love from a dutchie
When I look at this video I feel proud of my little country. Until last june I hadn't ride a bike for 21 years because I lost my leg. I went around in a scootmobiel. I gaint a lot of weight and became deabetic. I don't like to ecxercise. But last june a got an electrical trisicle. I can ride a bike again and I simply love it. I rented a trailer so I could take it with me when we went to France last summer. Lost 8 kg is 6 months. It has an app were I can keep track of how far I have riden. In november I hit the 1000km point.
I am so glad i was born and rased here t be able to enjoy the country by bicicle. Its so awesome. Proud to be a Batavarian.
Aussie here. Spent $42,000 on my new MX5 (Miata) in 2003. Spent $1,500 on my bike but it’s too dangerous to ride anywhere in Sydney as the infrastructure has never been developed and most car drivers display absolute contempt for cyclists and absolutely don’t want to share the roads with them. I would love to ride more for health and the environment.
I used to ride my bike over my car at least 50% of the time in Adelaide as the infrastructure is there, but I don’t now that I live in Sydney.
... and that is the tragedy (culture, attitude and infrastructure).
Aud or usd?
@@wvd07 AUD
In the Netherlands drivers are by law always legally responsable for damages to pedestrians and cyclists. They are always at fault and held accountable. A different mindset for drivers is enforced that way.
@@anneliesaltena As it should be. Cyclists and pedestrians are more vulnerable than drivers by several orders of magnitude, and drivers should pay heed to that fact.
As said below, it's Utrecht and it's Dom tower. Utrecht has a major university, which explains the vast amount of bikes, because most students own bikes, not cars.
love ur vids
This is a bad comparison to compare old world cities to new world...new world cities generally don't have large populations in the city centres...this area..while it does have some highrise apartments usually tends to only house businesses.
Amsterdam has very compact, close together buildings that have shops on the street level...but look up and nearly everything is residential.
Flevoland, a Dutch province, did not even exist before 1960. It used to be part of a lake (IJsselmeer) which in turn used to be a sea before 1930 (Zuiderzee). Meaning, every city and infrastructure on Flevoland is "new". Most likely newer than most of the cities and infrastructure of your country.
And yet ... there is good bicycle infrastructure on Flevoland. Better than some of the "old" Dutch cities.
Please stop inventing excuses.
@@wimahlers
There is no excuse...but remember that the US, Australia, Canada and some other places aren't the size of a postage stamp like the Netherlands is. The Netherlands new or old is of higher density, most things people need are close by. The real way to make a comparison is to compare a rural area of the Netherlands to a suburban area of other countries cities. Most, if not all services are much further apart.
I live in a city of 1.3 million...this city covers a surface area of 3,260 km2...Amsterdam has I think around 2.5 million and is squeezed to an area of only 219 km2...just my city with 1.3 million is larger in area than the Randstad area of the Netherlands.
@@stevenbalekic5683
Meaning, your fairly new city is build in the wrong and unsustainable way.
Change it.
@@wimahlers
Okay, we'll just demolish everything and rebuild in a more sustainable way. My city is around 190 years old
@@stevenbalekic5683
"... My city is around 190 years old ..."
I bet it is not. The way you describe your city I bet it was founded 190 years ago and bulldozed down less than 100 years ago to accommodate a car centric city.
Cool to see the AH across from my old high school.
Not everybody in the Netherlands lives in the center of a city, I didn't and because of my work, I only had time to do all shopping once a week for four persons + always having a lot of visitors dropping by and staying for a meal. i always found it important to have a home where friends and friends of my kids always were welcome to stay. Maybe not typical Dutch, but I always hated households where nobody were welcome without an appointment. Having said that....no way that I could have done 'my kind of shopping' on a bike. The people in your videos are mostly students, older or people alone that has the time to do some shopping every day. That s not reality for a busy household with kids and working parents in the Netherlands. Yes,- we use a bike when it is practical (going to the market) but belief me.... outside the center of a city, you will find more cars than bikes in front of the supermarket.
The bicycle/ train combo is very common. I owned 2 bicycles for work. 1 to get to the train station and one parked at the destination train station. No traffic jams. I miss it.
The more people riding bikes, the more space for cars.
I live in a town with 25000 people and we have 5 grocery stores. Almost every small town has one. We also have a ‘buurtsuper’ this translates to neighborhood grocery store
hey charlie! there’s a big difference between downtowns in the netherlands and small towns or suburbs. Parking costs a lot more downtown, and the busy streets are designed for the comfort of the pedestrians and cyclists. In suburbs and small towns it’s very comfortable and easy to go by car, but even there, cycling is encouraged
In The Netherlands its just incentivized to go by bike for short distances, so short distances are often way faster by bike then by car. But going long distances its very nice and easy to go by car.
It's Utrecht. Kinda like Amsterdam without the tourists. The tower is the Dom tower, the highest church tower in the Netherlands. Used to be part of a huge church, but the middle collapsed, so now there's a square behind the tower and behind that is the rest of the church. Utrecht is a student city, but also considered the capital of the Dutch catholic church.
The city is UTRECHT. THE TOWER IS THE "dom tower" 125 meter tall Old cathederal church left over. Also one of the highest towers of any Old historical building in The Netherlands.
In any case nobody answered yet what city that was with all the bikes around 25:21 That is Utrecht, and the street they showed is the Zadelstraat. You can see the Dom, the cathedral tower, at center in the rear. Then they cross one of the or probably the oldest bridge in Utrecht. Then they turn right onto the Oudergracht. Near the Dome are some good restaurants . And across the bridge on the corner on the left with the yellow sun screen you have a "coffeeshop' for coffee ;)
last part of the video is Utrecht. what you saw was the Dom Toren. its 112 meters high
"I wouldn't take my child..."
Lol here the child would get the groceries by bike