In the Netherlands there is actually an app you can report potholes (and other ‘public malfunctions’). I once dit this and they first temporarily patched the pothole within a day (!) and then really fixed it within a week or two. And they even updated me on that on the app 😅
I've been saying this lately: That car enthusiasts should loudly support public infrastructure projects, because their hobby gets worse the more drivers there are. Thanks for documenting this insight and proving it right.
I assume most the people live in rural places where driving is actually ok. Which is odd because obviously we would focus on public transportation in condensed areas. Generally, they hear the 'war on cars' crap and take it emotionally.
Honestly I feel like I’ve heard more opposition towards public transportation funding come from drivers that use their SUV’s as a bimonthly grocery getter than from car enthusiasts. That’s not to say that there aren’t car enthusiasts out there that are opposed to such ideas but they don’t seem to represent the loudest voice in the room usually if you know what I mean. I think a part of it boils down to voters not wanting their lifestyle to become more expensive through the raising of taxes even though they complain that the roads aren’t being fixed (sometimes due to taxes not being high enough to fund them). I remember a measure to raise taxes so sidewalks could finally be built in a part of North Seattle was struck down a couple years ago which really reminded me that we still have a long way to go until we can make our region accommodate all types of transportation and not prioritize just one
@@jarjarbinks6018 Maybe I should correct myself and say "very car dependent people". They should see how expensive (or rather, how cheap) would be for them to pay for much less congested roads and streets, by paying some taxes for public transportation.
@@DiThi I agree. At the very least public transportation often can make do with more users over time without being paralyzed by grid lock and requiring a huge expansion funded by taxes
As Dutch kids are used to cycle in traffic by themselves, they are more familiar with the 'rules of the road'. This helps when they become car drivers. In other countries learners have to concentrate on how to operate a car AND how to behave in traffic.
Im dutch at school you learn a bout bike rules and how act in a safe way you do tgat every year abd as kid you go every were wiht tge vike than you now how the rules are.
@@sjoerdglaser2794 compared to some of those amarican towns where you learn from your parents and park about 3 times to pass, I'm gladd we at least get propper lessons
I completely agree with this, having taken three tries to get my US drivers license (I kept letting my learners permit expire because driving was Terrifying). It wasn't until I was cycling regularly through my college town and getting a lot more practice paying attention to traffic that I finally felt more comfortable actually learning to drive. Now it was the driving that I needed to practice, without the stress about what the hell the people around me were doing.
I'm an avid car enthusiant. I love the sound. I love the engineering. I love the thrill and adrenalin. I love piloting my car at my and car's limits. I love investing in my skills when it comes to fabricating professional quality bits and pieces for my car. I love the culture and the wonderful people I've met through sharing this hobby. I hate driving. I hate having to get in a car and having to sit through 4 traffic lights and 3 stop signs to get to the parts store, that is in a bike-able distance. I hate putting myself and my so beloved car at risk of getting t-boned and seriously injured every single day. I hate the feeling of being absolutely isolated from the society, sitting inside a tin can. I hate putting useless mileage on my car. I hate looking at the wasteland of asphalt. I hate having to share the road with someone who can murder me and my friends just because he/she had a bad day or didn't get enough sleep. I wouldn't mind paying higher tax for gas if i didn't have to waste it on doing day-to-day chores. I hate putting so many bicyclists and pedestrians at risk. I hate driving in the US.
"I love piloting my car at my and car's limits." I hope you go to a race track when exploring these limits. As you can be a danger to others when going to your car's limits.
@@sirquasi The internet, where it seems the default assumption of some people is that everyone is a bad and dumb actor and they're out to save the world from malicious idiocy. Your comment clearly did not indicate someone who's a reckless driving enthusiast.
Most of the asphalt used in the Netherlands is zoab (zeer open asfalt beton) meaning it's actually designed to let water through in the top layer flowing it to the sides. So potholes do happen, especially in winter on the snelweg, however, we tend to fix these in a timely fasion and overnight to not cause delays during the day. Something you can do with asphalt, but not with normal concrete. Zoab has a huge safety benefit in the rain, you barely get that nasty splash up fog from the tires, improving visibility. This might even be worth a video.
Permeable pavement is great, however it costs more and has a significantly reduced maintenace period compared to normal asphalt, so it isn't a great option for american citites that are already struggling to maintain their infrastructure.
They say humor is a great way to raise awareness about an issue, especially one as absurd as car-centric traffic engineering, and your delivery was spot on. Thank you, NJB.
@@DouglasK my agency tried to go metric over 10 years ago (before my time) and the contractors and their politician friends had a meltdown and forced us back to English/Imperial. I still find as built plans in metric.
I frequently ride my bike in the Netherlands and I have to honestly say that the trafic management and spatial plannig of the Netherlands is amongst the best, if not 'the' best, in the world. And since I'm Belgian and it almost physically pains me to praise the Dutch, you can be sure I'm telling the truth..
in comparison to the dutch. Our public transport system is fucking awful. It has the worst possible comfort and most of the trains just smell like shit and piss. while Belgium has a huge cyclist culture, it's more of a sporting related culture than a "biking as transportation" culture. in that regard we could learn lots about the dutchies.
I try telling this to my friends and family, but their response is always "America is bigger than those small European countries" and I'm like... that's not even a reason for any of the US's infrastructure to be so shit.
just say the European Union has better infrastructure then they might get it. But honestly every day that pass by i am happy that I am not an American.
They say this (in the US and Canada) about railway electrification, too. It's too big, spread out etc. etc. Uh, Russia, China and India are continent size countries and they manage to do it. North Americans think they are "the best" at everything and refuse to learn from other places. Lots of cognitive dissonance and bad rationalizations for crappy, subpar infrastructure and outdated urban planning.
A friend in my planning program just thought she was incredibly lucky while driving, that every time she came to a light it turned green, until she realized it was just good design.
@@dutchman7623 In the old days? Even at this day, there are countless lights for cyclists with only one detection loop at the stop line. That is usually in smaller cities and towns.
I am a traffic engineer/advisor for a Dutch municipality but the videos always keeps me so glad I live in NL, by seeing the difference. Great video, for me it's an extra motivation to do the things in the municipality even better :)
“Most people want to avoid hitting pedestrians and cyclists, unless you’re a pickup driver in Houston or something.” Couldn’t have described Houston better.
Im a US cyclist who has had aggressive "elevated type" vehicles "try" to hit me / scare me; especially since the tRumpism influence has emboldened some people. This is legally "assault with a deadly weapon"
I’m a civil engineer here in the Netherlands, and it is great to hear you like the quality of our roads. When I drive outside of the Netherlands, I sometimes am shocked how bad, and especially unsafe, the roads are. Safety of the drivers/bicyclists/peds is the most important thing, and that also makes the roads in the Netherlands enjoyable to use. Predictability/consistency and good maintenance are a huge factor in this.
It indeed is. I moved from The Netherlands to Belgium and we are pretty far behind you but I see good progress here. Flandres is getting good roads apart from the concrete bicycle paths among some roads. Aalst is doing pretty good here!
@@martijnvangammeren1868 it's been a while since I drove down to Belgium, but I remember clearly feeling crossing the border by road texture alone, good thing it's being adressed though
I'm Romanian and of course Romania is far behind but I grew up in Italy and lived and work in 10 countries and visited more than 40. I can say that always I post on the social media how beautiful and clean are the street and how perfect is the infrastructure in NL. I send videos to all my family and friends almost daily. I think Dutch people are very smart in many ways. Now I live in NL and I'm very happy! The only bad thing is that in many countries they show Germany as a comparison like they are better, and they are comparing to Italy or Romania, but I have a video on Tiktok where I was in the border between NL and Germany and it looks like coming from Romania to Germany, but in this case, from Germany to Netherlands.
I wonder why the Netherlands has among the highest CO2 emission per capita in the Europe. It's nearly twice the number for Denmark, where cycling is also important; and the UK where conversely cycling is not as important and there are huge networks of roads across the country.
As a civil engineering student who wants to do something with traffic engineering/ transportation, I’ve grown to love this channel, and it’s been inspirational to me! My college town is pretty walkable compared to my hometown, and I’ve noticed all the benefits from watching your videos. Keep up the great work!
Dude, same. I graduated a year ago and this channel (and ones like it) have shown me a big part of why I miss my walkable college campus so much. I was able to live there without a car for 4 years and rarely felt burdened. I didn't major in civil, but hopefully you go on to make some positive changes!
@@satunnainenkatselija4478 Unfortunately the meme is currently just "make everything dense and also situate business together." Density causes massive problems. Really there just needs to be more commercial property within lower-density areas instead of huge tracts of residential zones that rely on external commercial districts.
As someone who is "geboren en getogen" in the Netherlands, seeing videos like these makes me realize how lucky I am in the regard to infrastructure. I recently passed the 1 year mark of having my driver's license and I am really happy with that, and of course within that 1 year I have met plenty of a-holes on the road or the occasional city that I personally find to be horrible with traffic. Yet, seeing these types of videos makes me see just how insignificant that is to the daily driving in the US or Canada, and thus how lucky I am in the Netherlands with the infrastructure!
The Netherlands isn't only better than North America in this regard, but also leader within Europe. I'm not sure wheter you guys are aware of it, but the Netherlands is the world leader in urban planning and traffic design. Just like Finnland is leader in education, Sweden is leader in Social Democracy, Switzerland is leader in participatory democracy and Germany is leader in industry. Greetings from Budapest. I wish my city would learn more from the Netherlands.
@@Heizler As a German I would kindly like to know what the benefit of industry is, and if I'm just not noticing it because we don't have any urban planning and traffic design, education, social democracy, nor participatory democracy.
@@KuK137 I know that Poland likes to follow the US generally, but how does it appear in infrastructure design? I've been there, but I haven't recognized it. By the way, as a Hungarian I can tell you that for us the worst possible insult is when people compare any of the Central European countries to Russia. 🤣
Dutchie here. A couiple of years ago I was in Florida, and my wife wanted to go to a large grocery store. Only about 1 km away so we decided to walk. Big mistake! Nowhere to walk along the (a I know now) stroad, crossing the stroad while fearing for my life (because some sidewalk just ended), walking further and eventually reaching my destination. We decided to take a cab home because of the danger. I was amazed, but now it just makes sense why I was amazed in the first place.
To be fair, Dutch cities are also pretty good at just not having sidewalks. I've been in several situations where I had to walk in the bicycle lane because there just wasn't a sidewalk or the sidewalk just ended.
@@JackFou, speaking as a Canadian, I wish we had such alternatives when the sidewalk ends or is non-existent on a stroad. I fear cyclists much less than cars. If the stroad has a raised curb and clipped grass margin, then I have an alternative to a sidewalk, but *only* during spring/summer/autumn. Winter is hair-raising for a pedestrian on a North American stroad.
In the small (but terribly crowded), southern California beach town where I used to live, there were some stretches of the highway that could've been made safer for pedestrians by simply creating a small, paved foot path. But they refused to do it because they have "rules" about how wide sidewalks have to be now. So instead of making an improvement, they made nothing, and left it as a 2 foot wide strip of dirt, where in some spots, it was blocked by a pole or something and you had to step out into the street. So dumb.
@@daniellepijpers8173 On my first day in Leiden I ended up getting off at the wrong bus stop near the edge of the city and I had to walk back on the bicycle lane. Granted it wasn't exactly in the middle of the city but my hotel was right there.
Some thoughts no one will read: I'm a motorcyclist myself and involve myself in online motorcyclist communities. There's a stark contrast between US dominated communities and Dutch communities. I think this is mostly a result of better road infrastructure and better driver etiquette. Riding a motorcycle is approached in a much more negative manner in the US than here in the Netherlands. It's considered too dangerous by many Americans. I think that riding a motorcycle in itself isn't (unacceptably) dangerous, but when you as a 20 year old ride your 1000cc supersport bike for the first time without proper training (and no, MSF is not a proper training) on a pothole stroad filled with angry, frustrated, impatient and poorly trained car drivers, then yeah, stuff tends to get a little hairy. One thing I'd also like to remark is that whenever I see dashcam or GoPro footage of a road or traffic, 9 out of 10 times I immediately recognize it when it's recorded in The Netherlands. Not because I know the place, but there's something about Dutch roads that makes them very easily identifiable as Dutch. I think that's because of the way the road is designed and maintained but I can't exactly put my finger on it. Oh yeah, one final thing about car enthusiasts The thing is, when people say they're car enthusiasts they don't mean being stuck in traffic in their middle class SUV's. They mean they like to oggle BMW M7-series and Porsche 911's and Lamborghini SomethingItalianSounding's. Saying you're a car enthusiast as an argument in favor of car centric design is just dumb.
Yes, riding a motorcycle is WAY less dangerous in the Netherlands for many reasons. I couldn't imagine riding a motorbike on a six lane stroad full of large SUVs and pickups. 😬
I know a former motorcyclist (in America) that tells a story about having to punch the side a van because it tried to mere into his lane without looking, and how it wasn't unusual.
Here in the UK our perception of motorcyclists is unfortunately pretty warped. We tend to see them as 'bad drivers', though the reality is that the minority sets our opinion for the majority. There's always going to be that one biker lane splitting at 100mph and scaring the hell out of you as you didn't even see them coming. There's always going to be that one biker doing 80mph in a 40 right on your bumper because you're simply too slow doing 10mph over the speed limit. I'm all for motorbikes but it's not really my jam, I like more wheels personally! Though I still find myself thinking "Wow, a sensible motorcyclist?" when I see someone keeping a safe follow distance and not lane splitting in unsafe situations. Of course it's the same for cars right? See a BMW doing 150mph on the motorway one time and now your perception of every BMW driver is that. :)
Being a car enthusiast usually means appreciating cars with character. Personally I couldn't care less about shiny new cars, but old and/or unique cars have so many aspects which can be enjoyed. Aside from comfort or speed, new cars have little going for them to be interesting. For example, driving a 30-year old Citroen with pneumatic suspension, that's an experience.
I don't even mind that cars need to take a longer route. Every minute you spend walking or cycling is a physical activity, and while it can be fun and healthy, for transportation it makes sense to give them the shortest route. Cars are climate controlled boxes with comfortable seats and stereos. As a driver, I don't really mind having a trip that's 5 minutes longer than the what direct route would be.
5 minutes longer if you`re not in traffic is already quite a distance. Like 4-5 blocks further. For most good infrastructure choices the added time is more like 1-2 minutes. (not even counting factors like easyer to find parkingspot because less people in a car.)
I'm a person who actually enjoys driving my car. I'm much happier taking a longer route to my destination if it means a more enjoyable experience. My preferred route to work is longer but it has less traffic lights so that means less stopping and starting and more actual driving.
@@cebo494 To be fair induced demand will tend to always result in the equilibrium trip time for all available modes being around the same. At least in most realistic scenarios if one mode is faster people will tend to move to it which increases traffic for the faster mode and reduces it elsewhere. This even works for transit after all increased ridership leads to longer dwell times at stops and stations more people to get through a finite number of doors takes longer. Pretty much the only time this doesn't work is when some modes are intentionally made so crap that 90% of the population would never dare use them whether because they are unsafe or just horrendous for some other reason or that they simply don't exist at all.
@@cebo494 hmmm not so much with Ebikes in urban zones, in the UK most of our city speed limits are 20mph, my Ebike does 35mph and gets 30-80 miles depending how I ride, most of the time I go faster than the cars by about 30%....cya! Barely use my car now, good riddance I say
"People don't normally like to hit pedestrians unless you're a pick-up driver in Houston." Shots fired! Luckily he's facing felony charges after much public outrage.
those people who designed netherland's infrastructure really deserve an applause from the world... we all come to know these stuff only because of youtube creators like you.. like seriously, this is real stuff and there is no way we can know these things from traditional media like tv.. i really appreciate your content thanks man!!!
Thanks for the shoutout! I totally agree that driving here in the Netherlands is much less stressful and enjoyable! I still love cycling to do my day to day stuff as well!
The point about Dutch drivers being better is very underrated IMO. I live in the Netherlands, and I have several friends and family members who never drive, simply because they hate it and it stresses them out and because they recognize that they aren't very good at it. So they don't even have a licence anymore. They can afford to make that choice because there's plenty of alternatives, everyone is better off because you don't want to be driving on the road with other drivers who are super stressed out and not confident in their abilities while driving.
That. I have driver's license that I don't even use really. I am half decent driver when I get into it but honestly it is just a pain in the ass to drive. I avoid it whenever I can.
@@Turtle1631991 I can relate. I didn't drive a single time in my two years of living in the Netherlands. I am a decent driver, even after all this time. But I'd rather avoid driving if I have an alternative. And the Netherlands have so many safe and efficient ways to go about.
This. I too have always found driving stressful. But living in a car dependent country, you can't do anything about it. I'm glad people in the Netherlands have good alternatives.
That is what sucks about living in the UK. I don't feel confident about my driving skill, so never even took my test. I don't want to drive, but my life is fucking awful because of it. Want to go do something fun? either sit on 3 different pissmobiles for 2 hours, or take a 20 minute drive.
@@rjc0234 I really dislike driving but unfortunately in Poland the situation is similar unless you live in a center of a big city or in very close proximity to it. Wanna go to the gym or pool few kilometers away? Either time everything perfectly to get on a bus that goes every 30-40 minutes or drive for 7 minutes. It's still not even half as bad as the US though, I can't imagine having to drive even to buy myself some basic groceries.
10:00 Another aspect is that a lot of drivers in car centric countries get pissed off with pedestrians and cyclists because they never get to experience what it is like to walk or cycle in traffic. Nearly every driver in the NL is also a cyclist, which makes them much more understanding of other people in the public space such as roads or streets. Drivers in car centric societies such as the UK see cyclists as a nuisance because they see them as a group fundamentally different from them. It's almost akin to xenophobia, anger towards a group of outsiders because you never mix, you never experience the same things.
Yes, every day when I'm cycling there will always be cars and trucks letting me cross the road in front of them, even when they have the right of way. I do it too when driving because I know it takes so much more time and energy to stop and get going again.
I lived in England for 2 years and it was common to have bicycle traffic on the side inches from cars. In the US this would get you killed. No one is used to any of this because it isn't normal. It's easy to criticize the US when you don't have the issues we have here to deal with. Put mass transit everywhere, make bicycles a norm and over time people would adapt. But it's not possible with a country so large.
We have 4 cars in my household, literally one for each person, not because we are “car enthusiasts” (although I do enjoy cars to an extent), but because it is the only way we can go to work/school in my asphalt garden of a city. I thought that was completely normal until your videos, suffice it to say I will be looking into learning some dutch lol
@@Millen91 I didn't just compare income numbers dumbass, I also compared cost of living. Dutch would tax 28% income on $50k while America would tax 16%. So you make less, spend more, and pay more in taxes. Tell me exactly what a low income person gets in the Netherlands from their taxes that they wouldn't get in America?
As a starting civil engineer in The Netherlands it is nice to see/hear that the systems we use to make streets safer and more pleasant to ride on are working! Love the vids keep it up!
Ok hope youre not the one ruining Leidens roads then. Its like theyre trying to create confusion to slow everyone down at the same time and make people very aware by not putting any indicators down of how to drive. Its just 6-7 different roads, bike and car coming together and turning into a mess with people looking at eachother trying to find their way. Also removing clear seperations between bike lanes and sidewalks is another genious way to make things less Dutch with unknown purpose.
Lol the pothole you recorded at 12:02 has recently been fixed! I really hated that pothole when on the motorcycle, especially as it was in the left lane
@@NotJustBikes lol, I live in Montreal, supposedly the best city to cycle in North America, and there’s potholes bigger and deeper than this everywhere. Plus the bike lanes, even the one or two protected ones are filled with large cracks and potholes, that make it really uncomfortable to ride unless you’re on a mountain bike. Oh and some are there since 2019. Not to mention the gutters placed so you can trap your wheel into it.
DUI (Driving Under Influence) drivers are a huge problem in the USA too, just for those exact same reasons. We've got a lot of bars and restaurants in The Netherlands too, but because they are within walkable or bicycle reach from urban area's it's less of a problem. And for further distances there's viable alternatives like public transport. But in the USA, due to zoning, the distances are too far apart and you HAVE to use a car because that's mostly the only available infrastructure. Even if you're impaired and really shoudn't be on the road at all.
We have an anecdote in Germany, that one criteria by which one chooses their favourite bar/pub has to be that it's in crawling-distance from your home.
What I also appreciate on Dutch highroads is the ZOAB asphalt. The incredible visual effect and safety of driving on ZOAB vs standard closed asphalt makes driving in the rain almost the same as driving on dry roads. Perhaps also something to show in your great series!
but is that asphalt good for northern climates? I mean, people complain about Canadian asphalt, but go to countries with no heavy winters, and they have much better asphalt too.
I don't even need to look at the signs to know I'm driving across the Dutch-Belgian border, haha. Even when it's not raining anymore, but just wet, you instantly get hit with a cloud of water, when crossing border. Don't know if dutch asphalt is the best, I do know that belgian asphalt sucks. ;)
@@Imfil I would say yes, because the open structure of the asphalt drains the water quickly to the gutters on the side and from there to the storm drains, so it has no chance to build up and freeze and this way destroy the asphalt. With closed Asphalt there are cracks in the asphalt, that is just inevitable, but water cant go anywhere so when it freezes the asphalt gets damaged. But ZOAB is more susceptible to wear and tear, it needs to be replaced about every 10 years of so... In which the Netherlands road construction workers have become extremely good btw... Most of the time it just takes ONE weekend to remove the top layer and replace it with a new layer and on Monday Morning you be surprized with a prestine new black ZOAB highway, with all new white lines and markings as well... Most road construction takes place during the night and In The Netherlands we are not shy to close off a complete highway for a couple hours and get on with it immediately.. The A9 Highway I use to commute to my work at Schiphol, about 40Km, has seen its ZOAB top layer replaced in just one or 2 weeks... so every night another portion is closed off and new pavement is applied... And this way the construction workers work their way through the whole of the Netherlands. Highway closures during the day are seldomly used, so hardly any traffic delays because of construction sites, I think this is awesome, and you immediately notice when crossing the border, like in Germany there are so many construction sites where traffic has to slow down, very annoying.
@@Imfil No zoab isn't suitable for Northern climates when the water in the asphalt freezes before it drains out of the zoab, it will crack up the asphalt and serious potholes are the result. Every year after winter or sometimes even during winter many repairs are to be made. But when the roads are intact zoab is a dream to ride on in the rain.
@@Imfil ZOAB-(very open asphalt concrete) requires more maintainance than regular asphalt DAP(solid asphalt concrete), but the process of replacing a damaged part is way more easy than regular asphalt, repaired patches are so neat that you cannot see it's a repaired patch compairing it with the surrounding road. This repairing goes on all year round, even after an accident the repair crews repair the road before putting it open for traffic. During winter we pre-salt the roads so the ice cannot form within the ZOAB, otherwise it would freeze up the road and destroy it easly. The Netherlands is a small country and has one of the highest infrastucture taxations globaly, So we can easly pay for the maintainance. If we would be a poor country this ZOAB concept would not work.
Yeah his videos have basically convinced me to move to the Netherlands when I’m old enough. I always knew I wanted to live in Europe for a while, but now I know specifically that the Netherlands is king
@Stijn well compared to the usa the tax isn't even that high. While we pay healthinsurance and a higher incometax we still recieve more for out value. For example health care and welfare.
@@TimPennings Yeah. Did you know that in US schools are actually funded from local property taxes? The poor neighborhoods end up with very little money while those that could afford private school get very good public schools and people will near bankrupt themselves getting overpriced houses so they can send their kid there. I would honestly struggle to come up with more idiotic scheme.
So this is making me wonder, what is the difference in our political systems that enables the Netherlands to plan with reason and logic but not North America? Today I had to drive from Exhibition Go to Yonge and Bloor and I need answers.
There's a lot of evidence that it just came down to luck plus some well-timed activism. Stop de Kindermoord + the oil crisis at just the "right" time, plus a few good politicians in power. A lot of the political changes, like cancelling urban highway plans, passed by only 1 or 2 votes. There are plenty of morons here too.
@@NotJustBikes put more stress on this pls. Just the fact (or opinion) that some things are better in the NL currently, doesn’t mean the people are visionaries or carry the wisdom of the gods. As much as people tend to say cars or cycling is ‘our culture’ or ‘in our DNA’, that can change over a (few) generation(s).
The problem with American politicians is they never admit when another country has a better idea. The US only implements their own ideas. That’s why we’re the only Western country that doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t have national healthcare, and doesn’t have this nice city planning, among other things. We get jealous of other places and plug our ears instead of embracing better things.
Does that imply that you don't like your roads/infrastructure? If so, what don't you like about it? (I'm American and interested in other ways of fixing transportation because obviously it's flawed)
This video is a fantastic demonstration that all these ideas aren't anti-car, they're _anti-traffic._ I've yet to meet a person who, however much they loved their car and hated the very idea of other modes of transportation 'taking away the road' from their precious vehicle, liked the traffic that prevented them from enjoying their car to the fullest. [edit]: I love the idea of variable speed limits on major highways depending on traffic volume. You can totally calm down or eliminate the 'ripple' caused by someone slowing down that starts spreading back down the road and slows traffic to a crawl for no discernable reason by just slowing people down that fraction preemptively.
I'm Dutch and I quite like driving. Imagine my disappointment when I rented a nice car in Florida for my holidays. Driving is terrible there. The traffic lights take massive amounts of time to turn. It's no wonder people are busy on their phones while waiting. And the road design is so unintuitive and it makes driving stressful. I did make me think. Dutch people are probably horrible drivers in places like America because they are used to road design telling them what to do instead of looking out for themselves. As a side note. I think it's funny you highlight Amsterdam as a great city to drive. I personally really dislike driving in Amsterdam due to it being too crowded. Plus the parking costs really discourage going there by car anyway. But for outsiders like me they have a really cheap park and ride offer at the rai. You get a massive discount on parking if you take the metro. Which is now my default way of travelling to Amsterdam.
I did a holiday in the SW of the US and actually did quite enjoy driving there. All I ever seemed to do is drive a dead straight road for about three hours, take one right turn and then arrived at my hotel. That was pretty convenient.
@@night6724 hahaha, the first point you made about the school system is easily defiable by just one simple google search. the dutch school system ranks way higher compared to the US,. Furthermore, Amsterdam, boring? maybe now in this time, but normaly there is always someting going on, for everyone! all ages, interests or religious believes. I'm glad your day was good, just dont ruin other people's day. lots of love to everyone.
@@night6724 Are you sure about that, sweetheart? Most atheists in the US are atheists BECAUSE they read the ** bible cover to cover. Even the ** church of Satan quotes the bible all the time.
As an architect/urban planner in the US Great Lakes region... it is overwhelmingly frustrating trying to push against the dominance of the personal car. I do what I can through my own work and local council/planning department. How did you get out? What was the route you took to move to the Nederlands?
I'm dutch and i must say i was surprised how i never looked at our train system as a giant national metro system. It is true, you can go almost everywhere by train and the occasional bus or metro. Only places where the train isn't your best bet are Friesland, Drenthe and Zeeland
As a huge "car guy" myself, I'm getting all giddy over this Dutch street engineering. I wish the roads here in the US were like that. Imagine being able to just enjoy your car 99% of the time without having to deal with long excessive stop lights and traffic.
Unfortunately cars are wildly expensive to buy/own here. Nonetheless I'm still gonna buy my first car in a few months even though I really don't need one with how good public transport is lol.
This might be one of your best videos because its target audience is DRIVERS. I think everyone who "gets it", gets it. But we need more content like this, where drivers (the ones who we need to convince because those are the politicians and voters) are gently prodded in the right direction.
I've been to the Netherlands and I gotta say the driving was really nice there, when I was actually behind the wheel. This video gives me a really good explanation for why. -A pickup driver from Houston that doesn't want to run over cyclists
@@TheViolatorinator As a regular cyclist (95% of the time) living here in Fake London who also drives (5% of the time) a li'l Hyundai Elantra GT, I appreciate you not wanting to kill cyclists and/or tiny cars! 😅
Totally agree. I’m a major petrolhead and I absolutely want to have a car in my garage. This doesn’t imply I always want to use it. I now live in the Netherlands and even if I could afford a car I don’t really need it. I if I buy one, that would be just to use it in the weekends or enjoy it in my free time. I still have my own vehicle, the bicycle, which still gives the sense of freedom I need, and also gets me anywhere instantly. The only con, if I lived in a city with hills and valleys, would be the need of an e-bike.
Here’s a common Dutch jab at Belgium that is actually true: you can feel where the border with Belgium is because of the sudden and dramatic decrease in road quality.
@@JoshYxVdM better not praise their drivers. when driving to belgium i always take full insurance on my rental, antwerp was pure horror to drive, so many maniacs. Its really different. But belgium has other qualities
Tbf, Antwerp is by far the worst city in Belgium to drive in/through. And because it's the most widely used route to cross between BE and NL, I'm convinced it's single handedly responsible for our bad road quality cliché (though the averge quality isn't helping either). Going to Grevelingen for a day or weekend of sailing, crossing the border is a genuine culture shock every time
People are always confused when they find out that I am both a car enthusiast and a part of the #fuckcars movement. I like driving and other cars get in the way of my driving experience.
Your channel completely changed my mind on car ownership. I used to think I could never live in a place like the Netherlands and now I wish that we optimize just like they did. I showed my sister this channel on and after that she was much more inclined for us to move to the Netherlands if we can as the United States becomes more and more unliveable. Like many people, we'll just make our money off of America and live somewhere else.
"There's no solution to traffic congestion except viable alternatives to driving" - how I wish more people understood this when they protest about cycling and walking infrastructure investment!
@Will Swift look up "induced demand". For something like a train you want induced demand. But personal cars are so inefficient that you will never build your way out of congestion.
@Will Swift furthermore, in most cases, the cost is _zero,_ since the marginal cost of adding one additional driver to a highway that already exists is... well... nothing. Charging money per car is unsustainable, fails to resolve other externalities of cars like urban sprawl, endless asphalt, and the terrible air quality, and still results in traffic.
@Will Swift we live in a real world. however cool these things might be, its better if it stays a fantasy for the most part. but i guess youre just trolling a bit right?
9:30 I feel like this aspect deserves its own video. Getting your license in the Netherlands is supposedly the hardest in the world, and many people I know fail on their first try. This way, you have a very solid gatekeeping for making sure everyone really knows traffic and is aware of their surroundings when driving a car. In the Netherlands, learning to drive is not about the physical skills of driving, it is much more about becoming aware of other traffic and people in the public space.
It's even harder in Germany. When I still lived in the Netherlands, we always had respect for German drivers, unlike the Belgian, and French drivers, who are some of the worst.
@@hymeringfamily9711 no. French and Belgian roads are designed by the equivalent of a 4 year old brain, thats true. But they drive normally on normal roads. I can attest to that, as a Luxembourger who sees hundreds of French cars every day. 0 difference. Well designed roads → good driving. If you drive in the middle of nowhere in France on a road with disappeared lines, stupid corners, zero warnings, then eveyone will drive more dangerously. But if you drive on a decent quality road with clear signage, even an Indian can drive correctly.
A highlight point: Providing alternative transport options for people unwilling to drive is a great approach. Because not everyone has the talent to drive.
When you talked about people, even those who have cars, getting their groceries by foot or bike or bus etc. I realised that I have never had to take out the car to get to a doctors appointment. (I live in Germany. Used to live in a small town and now in Hamburg, a big city. But it still applies). All my grocery shopping can be done by foot or with a 5 to 10 minute bus ride. It's great. I'd hate having to drive through busy streets just to get something to eat. Or even just a coffee. When I lived in Utah for a few months we'd always have to hop in the car if we'd want a cup of coffee. Here, I legit walk a few minutes and usually have the choice between multiple cafes and there's no cement desert in front of them. Anyway, hopefully North American cities can learn a thing or two from Netherlands and other European cities. Great Video!
We wont... we never learn... because we think our way is the best way... because majority of people never traveled outside of US, and believe that the best way to do something is the way we do it in US... that's why we don't have metric system, don't have universal healthcare or have mixed use zoning laws.
Sort of hilariously during the pandemic restaurants were “celebrating” having invented street patio seating as some “new innovation” And I was like “congratulations you invented Europe you idiots”
Your channel is therapy for me that I am not alone in thinking this way. I've lived in both the Benelux and in the U.S. and am currently in a Strodian Nightmare City. There are "streets" here, in residential areas, that resemble airplane runways more than a street. If you count every lane, from the right turn lane, driving lanes, left turn lanes, on both sides, there is a NINE LANE road next to house where kids are supposed to use a crosswalk to reach a park. Posted limit is 35mph; well with wide lanes, great visibility, and straight-as-an-arrow construction for miles, the average speed is probably more around 55mph (I'm not exaggerating). Every day I scream to myself how it could be improved but I suspect it is just too difficult; the math too hard, because every street is drawn out in a perfect North/South-East/West grid with stoplights every 15 feet. Driving is an absolute nightmare when you then incorporate the separation of housing and commercial areas. If I need milk, the map says its only 3km and 10 minutes to the nearest store, but that is by car on a four lane street that connects to a six lane road and with EIGHT stoplights along the way. Sorry kids, we are out of milk again.
The fact that you live in a city and have the closest supermarket 3km away is far worse. I live in a town of 20,000 and I have 2 supermarkets on a 10 minute walk (about 900m) and 4 other supermarkets in a 8 minute bike ride or a 30 minute walk (about 2.5km). I never ever go by car to the supermarket, the grocery, the bakery or any other shop in town, because I hate the search for a parking spot. Everything is in walkable or bikeable distance. I recently moved and for the first time of my life, I’m 59, I live in a neighborhood without shops. I now have to go to the town center (the 30 min walk) or to an adjacent neighborhood (the 10min walk) for shops. It keeps me in shape.
No milk today, my love has gone away The bottle stands for lorn, a symbol of the dawn No milk today, it seems a common sight But people passing by, don't know the reason why
A low speed yet fluent traffic is also better for the environment and your purse since all that energy for quick acceleration and repetitive breaking is a constant loss... Those strodes really encourage inefficient energy usage. It's mind boggling how designing an infrastructure will always have such grant influence on the life's of basically everyone. It's a huge responsibility...
Oh trust me the Dutch love burning their fuel at red lights. Every time I drive there I understand why theres speed cameras everywhere. If they weren't, the Dutch would destroy everything on and around every road.
As an Italian living for 4 years in the Netherlands, I always start to get angry/stressed when have I go back and visit my family for a vacation because... driving in Italy is an absolute nightmare!!! Dutch roads are so smooth, speed limits are respected, and my bycicle-loving husband can get anywhere with his bike while I take the longer, but always blissfully-empty-of-traffic route. And don't make me get started on the traffic lights with detection system! Dutch roads are simply amazing :D
I dare your husband to go to work to 30km away of your house. The reality is netherlands is a village compared with the rest of the world. Not even 17 million habitants lol. Is like some cities in the world. Amsterdam is smaller than my hood.
I drive a black Volkswagen Golf and I'm offended that I'm not included. I've got my friends black Seat Ibiza, Tesla Model S and BMW driver with sunglasses to back me up.
@@paulelderson934 I have to admit, I went through my footage of driving, and the worst drivers were Seat and VW drivers. I mean, don't get me wrong, Audi drivers deserve it, but the joke just didn't work with "Seat" or "Volkswagen."
What counts for driving Audis, also counts for parking Mercedes and BMWs. Their drivers have the antisocial habit of not being able to park their car between the lines. Leaving other car drivers searching longer for an empty parking spot, while they occupy two parking spots.
This channel has almost single handedly convinced me to move the the Netherlands. Part of me feels guilty for wanting to leave the asphalt blighted landscape that is my home. Seeing this has me wanting to change my major to Urban Planning, so I can eventually come home to fix it.
@@dojadog4223 checking out apartments rental costs in The Hague are 87% higher where I live. Literally everything is more expensive except for gasoline. Oh and jeans. A studio apartment that is 88 sq meters costs $2100 a month where I live. In a city of 102,000 people.
I have lived in car centric cities my whole life and I always thought that the solution to traffic was to add more lanes. I then read something about New Zealand in beginning of the pandemic prioritizing their pedestrian / bike users to lessen car traffic and public transport congestion. It's heartbreaking to realize that the solution was so simple and mundane. Walking must be the primary mode of transporting ones self, all other devices come next.
yea, adding lanes is like trying to widen a funnel by only widening the top part with the bowl, because sooner or later all the cars will still have to deal with the same bottlenecks like freeway exits and traffic lights. traffic engineers in the US are too dumb to realize this, and we end up with car-dependent hellholes like los angeles and houston
Perhaps the best example of how the "Just Add More Lanes" school of thought just doesn't work is the Katy Freeway in Houston. That monstrosity is, no joke, 26 lanes wide... And it never reduced traffic congestion at all after it was expanded in the mid-2000's. It only made it worse. For reference, Houston is only the fourth most populous city in the US, behind Chicago, though not by too much. Chicago doesn't have anything like the Katy, but instead has a fairly robust (by North American standards) public transit system... Seems to work a lot better.
@@andrewlucia865 Yep, the problem with a massive freeway is that the freeway isn't the destination or the origin. Lots of traffic that comes on and off from other highways and surface streets, and all 26 lanes gets you then is more complicated entrances and exits. Freeways don't scale very well past about ~5 lanes each way, it just becomes too complicated.
I just rewatched this video again after driving around Limburg for two weeks. The first day was disorienting, because without all the stop signs I was thinking people would crash into me. But I quickly learned how exceptional the drivers were in my 700 km of driving. You are spot on with your assessment of how things are there. Love the turbo round abouts 👍👍
Its crazy how America is considered a "First World Country" or the "Greatest country in the world" (to Americans) but you can make a 15 minute video literally comparing asphalt and it completely shatters the ideas and years of brainwash going on in my head about the country I was raised in, the broken infrastructure, our obsession with cars and the western way of living. And that's not even your intention! but I guess its a case of "if the shoe fits". NJB braking social and psychological barriers and not even realizing it LOL Or does he? ahaha City Planner/Activist lol I kid. Great video!
Americans do have this weird idea about being number 1 at everything even though they are not n1 in anything except obesity. I don't understand what the west has to do with what is said in this video because at this point every country in western Europe is still part of the western world. It's just Americans that believe anything different is socialist.
Years ago I was shocked to learn that only one third of US senators had a passport. If you haven't seen the world then you can believe statements that back up your belief that your country is the greatest, the most free, the best standard of living etc, despite so much of the world having left you behind years ago.
America is literally bankrupt. And just economical.... If you take All the assets minus all of the debt, they are 60.000 dollar per citizen (all 331.000.000) short. And this increases every minute.
We were camping in Zeeberg, short walk to the tram then straight into Amsterdam Centraal. An American lady was repeatedly asking about parking etc. The lovely girl on the desk just kept saying - do not take your car into the city. But I've driven for years all over the states - please, do not take your car into the city. This lady from the US couldn't cope with the idea of not having her car within walking distance of a particular store or museum that she wanted to visit When I drive from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam my car never leaves the campsite. It is the most pleasant driving experience ever. Most Dutch drivers are cyclists themselves. They have exceptional awareness of other people on the road with them and the roads are immaculate. As NJB says at the end you need to know when to ditch the car and get a tram and whenever possible just get on your bike or walk. The biggest problem I see in North America is that there is no other choice. It's the car or nothing - not even walking.
Sometimes I wonder if Americans actually have a somewhat correct sense of scale for Amsterdam. The city centre is about 5 kilometers in diameter. Something that takes around an hour to walk if you are atleast somewhat healthy. In other words; You don't even need a bike when visiting these cities and to be honest biking on busy bike paths isn't the most pleasant experience either.
@@martijn9568 well you cant blame americans, its ingrained in their minds that cars is the only way of moving, and if they can fit their cars in their houses then they will use it to get from the living room to the kitchen,
@@martijn9568 then again, a bicycle traffic jam slows you down less than a car traffic jam. bicycles simply use road space way more effectively and have a smaller following distance. so in my opinion a busy cycling path is better than a busy road
@@charlestonianbuilder344 was raised in the usa, and can tell you I was pressured to drive. Always preferred walking, biking, and consistently disappointed about public transportation. Caught a lot of guff for that, from peers and even close family members.
The other aspect that I'm surprised you didn't get into more is the safety factor: Every morning commute through heavy traffic, those traffic jams were frequently caused by people who got into an accident and didn't make it. Even if the Dutch approach was slower, it beats having a significant chance of lifelong disability or even death every work day.
I mean even in Germany, the cities are less care centric in comparison to the US. Not as good as the Netherlands but still less. And Germany is literally THE car nation with one of the biggest producer and the invention of it.
As a Japanese living in Canada, I truly understand your feeling. Driving in Ottawa is very difficult, most drivers are extremely aggressive, the asphalt quality is awful and the public transport is inexistent. The sad thing is that here you MUST own vehicle because the public transport is extremely inefficient. Here we have "LRT" where the government spent millions to built but it interconnects from nowhere to nowhere.... it's completely useless
thankfully Ottawa's finally taking transit a little more seriously with the (horrendously deployed) Confederation LRT and soon the upgraded Trillium line - it's a start
Oh please. Way to be overdramatic. I have travelled to Ottawa multiple times and well as multiple cities in Europe and Ottawa is probably one of the easiest cities to drive in. I also regularly travel in Montreal which is arguably much worse than Ottawa and it's not ''very difficult''. Just pay attention to the road and you will be fine. I'm much rather take my comfortable car than be stuck in an overcrowded metro/bus during rush hour.
Yeah lol the whole idea behind the LRT was that EVENTUALLY there would be city centers around its stops. Like wtf? Eventually? What's it gonna do in the meantime?
I just wish we could get (good) small cars here in the U.S.... I don't want to drive a 2 ton, 4 meter long SUV just for a single person... But everyone here keeps buying them due to lax laws and corresponding market demand.
@@burgeryoufoundbehindthegrill You do know that there are small and light offroad vehicles. No not talking about atvs but proper offroad capable cars that aren't the size of a barn.
@@burgeryoufoundbehindthegrill So how many US Americans are stuck with such developing world grade infrastructure? I dare to claim not more than a tiny fraction of the number of SUV and proper off-road vehicles drivers in the country.
The demand has largely been created by car manufacturers who were desperate to find a way to continue to profit from selling cars when fuel efficiency and safety standards got stricter on smaller vehicles. Since light trucks (SUVs and pickups) were exempt from these new rules it made sense for car manufacturers to start pushing them, especially since it was easier to turn them into a luxurious "living room on wheels" without having to design around things like not killing pedestrians or not killing the planet.
Damn you completely covered a topic that I've had in my head for awhile. Eventually I'd love to interview abunch of "car channels" and see what their take is on modern traffic and urbanism solutions. Edit: Savage line about cyclists in Houston oof
As a Armchair urbanist, would you consider moving into somewhere in European union where there's excellent infrastructure, if you work situation etc. would allow it?
I'm a huge car guy and I'm all over this content. I want cars to be something people want to buy and enjoy like a motorcycle, not something feel like they HAVE to buy to get around. If there are more cyclists around that means less people out on my country roads to thoroughly enjoy!
@@alanthefisher Have you been to Germany before? It's quite good transit and biking wise compared to North America, but it's certainly not as good as the Netherlands unfortunately.
Another benefit of having speed limits that make sense together with the design of the road is that cars that turn onto a road have an easier job of determining the speed of approaching cars, leading to less accidents at junctions and less time required to judge the situation before making a turn.
Yup. When I turn onto a stroad, I regularly wait 3x longer than many people, because my depth perception isn't great, and there's no way I'm going to dart out into traffic and get hit just because I got the timing wrong (or misjudged my car's performance).
As a Dutch person who is currently living abroad for a year, it's incredible that one of the things you make me miss most is good infrastructure! I can tell from first hand experience just how essential it is to quality of life, and I will most certainly be moving back to the Netherlands after my year abroad is done!
You briefly mentioned the stricter driver's license requirements, and I think they deserve more than one sentence. When I started doing my license here in Germany, knowing all the things I would have to do, I checked what the requirements in the US were and I was shocked. You just pay a fee, do a theoretical test and a practical test and you're fully "qualified" do drive in the US. That's a bit oversimplified, but it's basically that. I had to take 14 mandatory theory lessons before attempting the theoretical test. I then spent a year (which is a time greatly inflated by covid, normally it takes a few months) with a driving teacher doing everything from driving in my hometown of 9k people to driving on the Autobahn network. I finally have my license now, and I can confidently say that I know how to properly drive a car and how to follow the rules, which by the way includes paying attention and giving way to pedestrians and cyclists, even in a very car-friendly/focused country like Germany. I know how to safely and efficiently get to where I need to go and I can be sure that everyone else has learned these things as well, which is comforting (even if there are still assholes on the road). I also know, having visited them several times, that the drivers of my neighboring countries, such as the Netherlands, have gone through very similar training.
Don't forget that they can get a license at 16 already, and the (extremely) dumb rule of turning right at a red traffic light, that rule scares the shit out of me as a cyclist
@@jbird4478 that was so fucking terrifying. We have "BF17" in Germany, which basically means you can start your driver's license at 16 1/2 years, so that you get it done by the time you're 17. At that point, after you've fully qualified and spent half a year with an instructor in a car with two sets of pedals, you're allowed to drive with your parents, and only with your parents (or any select person) if they have a license with no significant offenses in the last year. Once you're 18, you're allowed to drive on your own. My teacher told me that people who do BF17 turn out to be safer drivers later.
@@jetseverschuren When the location makes sense, I actually like the right turn on red light idea. You still have to stop, look and then go (if you can obviously) also you are only aloud to go to the right most lane, so no cutting of other traffic. It just helps with a bit of extra traffic flow. Edit; typo
While i agree with the stringent practical tests, the theoretical ones sound like a slap in the face of anyone intelligent enough to learn it all in one sitting. I would much prefer it if anyone with a license would have to do a repeating test every year to keep their license valid. Of course it would be inexpensive to do that re-test, sort of subsidized by the government. But it would assure that whomever is out there on the road is actually still capable of operating a vehicle safely and correctly. Because i see it all too often... Someone takes their license, then they play nice between 3 and 6 months and then they start making idiot decisions and drive without due care. Especially playing with their phone and even leaning down to grab something they dropped at their damn feet... WHILE GOING 90 km/h (55 mph) !
The fact that we don't know any worse is likely helping us maintain this standard, as every minor flaw will be noticed by the "spoiled" citizens and there will be some pressure to fix it. I must say just traveling to any other European place for vacation even will make me appreciate our infrastructure for a good while before it becomes the norm again (as well as nice tasting drinkeable tap water etc)
An interesting addition to the subject of traffic lights in The Netherlands; the smart traffic lights report their status to a central system, that data can be used in apps like Flitzmeister to display the light color in the app; but also quickly determine a better route based on traffic light behavior.
I drive roughly 2000km a week in The Netherlands. And never have i seen a pothole, had a conflict because of bad infrastructure or hit someone walking/cycling. Yea traffic is bad, but easily avoidable. There are many roads which lead to my destination and even if you end up in traffic, the view outside is still nice to look at.
That's the feeling of having the choice that make a huge difference! In France, especially in Paris, many people have not yet understood that cycling can be a choice and think that the only possible choice is the car!
@@NotJustBikes I hope. I know Paris is investing a lot into making their city greener, with more public space and parks and trees, so hopefully they’ll also try to work towards bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure as well. I mean they’ve already got one of the world’s best metros, so now all they need are bikelands and superblocks
I’ve only been to Paris a few times as a tourist but it felt really walkable (especially with the metro). It felt less congested than real London where I currently live. I grew up in Canada with stroads aplenty so maybe I’m biased though.
I was born and live in the Netherlands. I’m so used to these things that I never thought it was anything special. I like your videos because they show an outside perspective and help me appreciate the little things. Thank you for your videos!
Im Dutch and when I crossed over to Belgium I had alot of anxiety as I found the roads and othwr drivers very frustrating and unsafe. It is as if its a free-for-all. In NL we seem to drive on easy mode.
That's true i'm not dutch or belgian but drive with my car from albania to northern eu countries i can say dutch roads are the best in the world only swizerland have infrastucure same as in netherlands
Yes but i have found out that a lot of traffic jams is due to people not using the passing lane properly. They will pass someone who is doing a 100 by doing a 102 and there by creating a long column behind them that makes it almost impossible for exits and entrances to the highway. Its why at most traffic jams here its not related to a accident. Its just people being scared. Even driving instructors here say there is nothing wrong with going a little faster to pass someone.
This touches on a point that occurred to me recently, when you mention the better drivers in the Netherlands. There are so many bad drivers here in Canada, and in the US too. I expect the fact, which everyone is at least unconsciously aware of, that you need a car to even participate in society here, has pressured us into issuing licenses to people who really aren't good enough drivers to deserve them. Whereas in properly-built, functional countries they can afford to have appropriately rigorous standards.
Driving is like singing. But you only sing in your bathroom if you’re a bad one, when you can get a licence and drive everywhere if you are a bad driver. And no matter the number of lessons, you’ll still remain a bad singer/driver.
@Lex Bright Raven And if that driver that didn't actually deserve their license goes on to cause an accident that injures/kills somebody, or themselves? I do see what you're saying. I wouldn't exactly want to tell somebody they'd just failed either. That shouldn't be an excuse though and it certainly doesn't make them a shitty person, because it's 300 dollars against a danger to life on the road.
Everytime I watch one of your videos I have serious reactions: frustration, anger, envy, and a longing to live in a place that recognizes the needs of it's citizens. Thank you for shining a light on these issues!!!!!
I've lived in a small city of about ~50k people, just below the Randstad area, close to Rotterdam. In the past 2 decades, all but one traffic lights for cars have been replaced by roundabouts, and the bicycle and footpaths have gotten a major overhaul with bridges and tunnels to cross roads. It looks a lot better and feels even safer than before.
Just remembered an intersection from my town onto the main road into Luxembourg city, was planned for years to be converted into a roundabout. Instead they replaced the priotity signage with a red light.😂 fucking pricks man. Improved through traffic as well, we're the only ones who got fucked.
@@edipires15 it's not a mess, it's pretty good. Only problem is peak hours but there's nothing you can do. Luxembourg is a 120k pop. city, but like 300k people work in and around it.
@@blanco7726 it is a mess, if your destination isn’t in Luxembourg or Esch region you’re pretty much spending 2 hours or more in public transport, and that’s outside rush hour. (I know that because I live there as well and use public transport on a daily basis)
As A Dutch company we needed and have an agent in Texas where everything is bigger, better an more expensive until he had to come over for a quite sophisticated project. For three days on end I had to listen to his ‘BIG’ stories until we reached FloraHolland the biggest flower auction in the world and showed him the ‘refrigerator’ of this auction which is supposed also the biggest in the world 51.800m2 (to comparison, all the refrigerators and freezers in the city of Amsterdam do have a total of 40.000 m2! His voice finally came down a bit until we drove trough the city of Rotterdam were the Euromast is situated with it’s 185 meters of height. He asked me watch it was and I said to him that I didn’t had a clue coz it wasn’t there yesterday. He became more silent until we drove trough the city of Eindhoven (hometown of Philips) were the traffic is controlled by traffic lights and what they call ‘the green wave’, between the distance of the traffic lights are signs who tells the motorist to drive a specific speed to the next traffic light to go on green. The rest of his stay he remains in deep thoughts! That’s Holland 🇳🇱 or the Netherlands or the Dutch whatever you want to call us 👍😂🤷🏻
Yeah, those stroads tunneling you through the seas of parking with a dead looking reef of shopping here and there - just one look and I get depressed. No wonder road rage is such a thing there. I would want to rage too!
Yet americans are still richer on average, but they only want to be rich to be able to buy their own small kingdoms of luxury and comfort, in gated communities, the rest of the country can rot away for all they care. I never understood that mindset, those rich folks also have to get out in 'the wild' I would be ashamed if I saw how sloppy my country is
3:05 "There is no solution to traffic congestion, except viable alternatives to driving." Seriously, this sums up your channel in one sentence. You should plaster it across several long frames in each video you produce.
This is one of the biggest things that people that are against bike and public transport fail to realize. They think that if you give space to bikes and public transport, all of a sudden there is going to be all these people on bikes and all these buses taking up space, yet the car traffic will remain the same, which in most NA just does not make sense. It's not like those people that will be riding bikes and taking public transport didn't exist before, they did they were all in a car before. So if you get those people out of their cars and on to bikes and into public transport vehicles, that means they will no longer be in cars, which means you wouldn't need as much space to hold all those cars. If you are someone who HAS TO drive a car because you have no other choice, then you should want to get those other transport options to be better, because that means there will be less people in cars for you to compete for road space over. If a bus system takes up one lane in a 3 lane road, but reduces cars by 40% isn't that better? You get rid of 33% of the road while getting rid of 40% of the cars, it's really simple. and these numbers totally ignore the fact that a bus is usually the size of 3-4 cars while at the same time having about 3 times the seating capacity .
I think your math underestimates the effectiveness of buses. You compared seating capacity on bus vs car, but the average bus is usually more filled than the average car. I've not often seen buses at less than 50%, but I rarely see cars with more than 1-2 people in them. A bus at half-capacity would have 50-100% more seating than 3-4 cars at max capacity. More realistically, at three-quarters capacity, a bus would be 4-5x the capacity of 3-4 cars with 2 people in them, which I don't even think is that much for commutes.
@@Robert-hb8fo I did underestimate the capacity of a bus, but that was only to give the car somewhat of a chance. Cars absolutely only have 1 or 2 people in them at most and any decent bus route will typically have more people on them that it's seating capacity because people get on and off. The fact that a bus only needs to have say 6 people on it for any duration of it's trip to be better than a typical car (which I'm giving a generous 1 1/2 people in each car), which any bus line should easily be able to achieve just makes things worse for cars. So, yes I totally gave the car the best case scenario, but even in that scenario the bus "wins" easily.
Dude. With this one video you have just utterly slayed the entire reason for your channel. This is the one video that I will share with every meathead who opposes bike infrastructure from now until forever.
The left turns in this video on those Canadian roads gave me so much anxiety, how do people do that everyday? I can't even remember being in such an awful traffic situation in the Netherlands ever, or even in Western Europe.
You won't find yourself in a situation like this even in Eastern Europe where road infrastructure is generally worse than Western Europe. Even on wide multiple lane boulevards without central guardrail (which are not many), this type of left turn is mostly prohibited.
Yup, and this is totally normal with stroads. There are many videos and articles about the dangers of left-turns like this, but the "solutions" proposed by the traffic engineers he interviews are insane. They just don't get it.
I drove in Switzerland on my vacation there. It was a night and day difference compared to the US. It was such a pleasant experience that I looked forward to driving during my stay. The road design and driver etiquette is immaculate. I came back to the US and realized just how bad it is here. It was actually because of that that I found your channel. I wanted to look into it more so I searched up some stuff on youtube and came across your channel. edit: the video is on my channel if anyone is interested
Sometimes I think we're literally becoming like Russia over time, with bad roads and overall infrastructure, a tired power grid, and ogliarchs literally looting the country and making profits overseas. America is a pale shadow of what it was even 35 years ago.
I needed a video like this. As someone from car-centric America I've loved learning about the walkability of the Netherlands, but again, being from car-centrica, I've got a slight obsession with cars, and especially motorcycles. It's good to hear that if I decide to escape this place that even driving is better in one of my top 3 places to live.
Here’s another classic bonus of driving in a non-car-dependent country: the selection of cars doesn’t suck. In the US, nearly every car on the road is a “crossover”, a marketing term for mediocre cars marketed as SUVs that are really just hatchbacks that pointlessly weigh hundreds of pounds more than they need to and have a high CG. In countries with less car dependency, hardcore car enthusiasts make up a much larger chunk of the market for new cars (since the people who don’t like driving aren’t buying cars) so the genres of cars available are usually things like hatchbacks, wagons, and sedans which enthusiasts usually find a lot more palatable. Additionally, manual transmission take rates are generally much higher in non-car-dependent countries. Thanks for bringing this up. As someone who is both a car enthusiast and an urbanist/NIMBY-hater, I really appreciate this perspective and will probably send this video to people who say that driving is terrible outside America in the future.
Don't worry, the crossover has taken over the Netherlands (and Europe) too. The best selling cars here is the Kia Nir, with Volvo XC40 not far behind. Western Europe has an aging population, which leads to two things: governments that enact policies that are financially favourable to older people (especially home owners), so expensive new cars are mainly sold to older people, and a high demand for cars with a higher seating position, which are easy to get into with an aging body.
Manual transmission cars are more fun to drive than automatic ones if you are not stuck in traffic, so I am not surprised that manual cars are the preferred option in non car dependent cities.
My parents (both Dutch) spent a long holiday in the US once. They got a huge discount from the car renting service because they rented the tiny stick shift Fiat panda. Which was a little horrifying experience when they were on a highway, and from both sides they were overtaken by ginourmous trucs.
SUVs are very popular here in Czechia, despite the country being flat as a pancake and the public transport system being great too. And there's nothing wrong with automatic transmissions; in fact, the average driver here over-revs so badly that an automatic almost certainly would improve their mileage and emissions (both noise and fumes).
10:02 “..or take public transportation to a football game.” Hearing this, I remembered how awful most of the spaces around stadia in the US and Canada are but how wonderful (mostly) it’s in Europe. Particularly when I visited Amsterdam, the public space around the Johan Cruyff Arena and Bijlmer station is extraordinarily good. No need to use a car to get there, just take a bike, walk or public transport on the metro, sprinter or whatever
@@ewoutbuhler5217To add: Make sure the "T" in "The Netherlands" is a capital "T" a lowercase "t" in "The" is a no no unless "the" is not in front of Netherlands which sounds weird without "The" Infront of it. Living in The Netherlands is great.
@@gstar1084 to be fair, that was basically every country on the planet, and I can guarantee it still wasn't nearly as bad as the US would had both of those problems turned up a notch
I was in Brazil recently again (Minas Gerais) and traffic there is just completely the opposite. There is no direction whatsoever and everybody just does as they please. Every time you get into a car is like saying a prayer: I hope no one crashes into me. There are potholes everywhere, no traffic lines, dangerous crossings and perhaps worse: a great many people who get behind the wheel while drunk. It's even worse in the city, and state of Rio de Janeiro. I used to go for a drive every night just to relax. You can practically drive with your eyes closed in comparison to Brazil and it would still be safer. Thanks for making this!
Car enthusiasts are simple people, there are three things we primarily enjoy about cars: 1) Freedom to go wherever there is a road, particularly routes that would be arduous on foot/bicycle because of distance and/or elevation and, usually, offer spectacular views. 2) Driving fast. There's a strong mental component to it, concentration, knowing what to do, doing it right etc. There's the adrenaline rush too, if you get it wrong you could get badly hurt etc. 3) Nerding out on the technology that goes into a car and, possibly, customising the car to your preference. All of those things benefit from less traffic, less interruption and more beautiful surroundings. No car nut wants to sit in rush hour traffic, or even drive in a city for that matter. As a car nut myself I'd much rather have the walking/cycling/public transport options that allow me to keep a car that is less practical but more fun to drive and only drive when I want to go out driving for fun. As it stands I sometimes have to drive through London inner city traffic which sucks bollocks. I just don't feel safe enough among that traffic on a bike. London needs a lot more cycling infrastructure.
That's why I don't understand those Ferrari etc rentals in the middle of Paris. You can finally drive a fast car - at 40 km/h if you're lucky. Not to mention the risk of damaging the car...
It's really weird that some drivers want more drivers on the road, especially worse drivers who don't have a passion for it or give it less thought. I fly quite a lot for work (pre pandemic mainly), it's as if I told everyone to fly more for vacation even though they're usually the most annoying to fly with. I'd much rather have less people standing in the check-in queue for 30 mins to realize at the counter that they need to get their batteries out of the suitcase.
Finnaly someone who understands bikers arent some low life losers , and car guys arent some evil people who want the world to burn from global warmimg. As a walking, bycicle, motorcycle,car guy I appreciate your opinion greatly !
2:30 "changing speed limits based on congestion because drivers travelling slower have less space between cars and make better use of the road". MIND. BLOWN. I have NEVER understood why there's temporary lowered speed limits in rush hour, I just thought "Why would I drive slower, I'll just drive as fast as I can to get where I'm going, and out of the way of every body else".
Another reason why slower speeds reduce congestion is because the speed differences get smaller, for instance between cars and trucks. Many tail-backs (and accidents) are caused by slow traffic mixing in with high-speed traffic.
Also I would like to add that because we most cycled and walked to our destinations when we were younger, we are more experienced with bike and walking behaviour when we do get our driver lincense when we become 18. At least I noticed that when I started driving I would be more careful when getting into a corner because I knew how it would be for the biker around the corner etc.
Ah yes, it has been a while since I got super jealous of the Netherlands...and on the same day where where Climate Town took a hot dump on my gas range dreams.
@@chrisdejonge611 Oh man, 100% jealous. I've wanted an induction cooktop for a while. Admittedly, I also want a gas wok range, but hopefully they'll have some nice commercial grade ones that use induction that I can buy whenever I finally get a house.
@@kenbob1071 But those cooking shows are right, gas is often better for cooking. (From a culinary point of view, I don;t know about energy conservation and economics)
As a car guy I agree with all of this, the roads in my country are relatively similar to those in the Netherlands (although we still have a long way to go) and I wouldn't have it any other way. Cities should always be built primarily for people instead of cars, as you mentioned this actually results in cities being better for cars. I drive to school and I sometimes get frustrated when I have to stop for 1 minute at a traffic light, then I think about what others have to go through and suddenly it doesn't feel so bad anymore
One more note on the speed limit topic that I know you've mentioned in another video: roads in NL automatically slow drivers down, and because we only have 15 (very rare) , 30, 50, 80, 100 and 130 kph, most of the time we can eyeball how fast we can drive or we're slowed down in some natural way. Another thing that you've mentioned in other videos. Drivers Are cyclists, so they're naturally gonna be more careful because they know what a cyclist might do in a certain situation.
Well i see 60, 70, 90, 110 and 120 a lot too. But youre right, the uniform street design tells us what kinda street it is, and if youre in doubt a sign will tell you. Long live our drivers theory manual
We actually have more different speed limits in The Netherlands. You’ve missed 60, 70 and 120. In the city you basically have 4 different speeds. 50km/h is normal. 15km/h is used for “woonerven” where there are often children playing on the streets and as far as I know these streets are always paved with bricks and never asphalt. Then there is 30km/h which is becoming more and more common. It’s designed with zones, so the speed doesn’t change back to 50 as soon as you turn onto another street. And last there is 70km/h for some longer distance high traffic volume roads. But it’s not very common. Outside the cities and with the exception of highways 80km/h is the norm. And at places where a lower speed limit is applied its 60km/h. Or with higher limits it’s 100km/h. The difference is most often visible from road markings beside the signs. On the highways 100km/h is the standard during the day. Only on few places 80km/h is used for very specific safety or environmental reasons. In the night there is less standardization. 130km/h should be the norm, but around many cities speeds are still limited to 100km/h as during the day due to safety concerns and often noise levels. Around some nature areas speeds are limited to 120km/h due to pollution. And the 80km/h parts during the day keep that limit during the night. For me as a frequent driver, all this is very logical and I rarely mistake the speed limits. But I do know several people, native Dutch even, that don’t drive as often and do sometimes find it confusing. Especially on highways at night.
@@pawernielsbroek3971 have not seen any 120 road since they changed it to 130 many moons ago, but you are probably right that there might still be some 120 roads.
As a person who loves cars, loves driving, and makes his living from writing about cars, amen to all of this. I live in an American city where you can feasibly live without a car, and it's wonderful when I can go eat, shop and do every day things without having to drive.
I was not surprised at all to see my small city of Baton Rouge make a cameo in your video. It's the epitome of every issue you bring up. Everything is a stroad with 15 streetlights, complete lack of viable alternatives to driving, and every commute is a Hobbesian struggle for mere survival. Ranked the third-worst traffic for mid-size cities, and yet when the city tries to place a roundabout people lose their damn minds.
As an American I really hate stroads. Perfect example, at 6:24 you can see the white car of the left trying to enter the stroad, but barely misses the on coming traffic of the other car. Idc if you're the world best driver, we are humans we make mistakes. It scares me every time cause if either driver makes a mistake at that moment nobody can stop and you have an accident. That moment is just begging to be an accident.
Ever since moving out of my parents house at 19-ish I've been living in Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Breda, Rotterdam and back to Amsterdam) and I have never, ever felt the need to get a drivers license. I am one of many Dutch natives in their 40's who just couldn't be arsed getting a license and a car and pay taxes and insurance and stupendous prices for fuel when there are bikes and public transport. And living in Zuid-Oost riding a bike means I can safely bike from my house to Arena and Bijlmerplein without ever having to cross a busy road and a commute to the top of Spaarndammerstraat takes me about 50 minutes. I wouldn't want anything else. I'm thoroughly enjoying your videos and love the new perspective they give me on things I've been taking for granted.
@@pyellard3013 but how many time do you need to move really bulky items. And at that time you can either have it delivered or rent a van for 1 day. Still cheaper than having a car.
@@koenven7012 Highing is a bit of a hassle and add it such factors as picking up famaily and friends (especially elderly), late night travel and some places being difficult to reach by public transport.. Then there are advantages.. I guess it depends on one's lifestyle.. I like to leave the City regularly to reach the countryside.. It is more difficult and travel time restrictive by public transport...But, yes, one dosent need a car in a city that provides good public transport and bicycle support.
@@pyellard3013 That I can understand. My father is in a wheelchair so I know all about needing a car even though my commute is possible by bike (not public transport the way I have to go). Especially since public transport here in Belgium sucks big time for people in wheelchairs. That was actually a lot better in London: all busses adapted, no need to reserve in advance and as we were on holiday, it didn't really matter that it took a bit longer by bus then it would have taken by subway.
I accidentally designed my life in US to be able to bike/walk everywhere and noticed that with better path options of walking/biking I would choose slightly longer or slower routes that were prettier. Did it without realizing and it made me so much happier that I thought I realized I hated driving. Recently got a car again and the rare times I drive have some good scenery. I learned I hated driving down poorly maintained, ugly paths.
5:36 this is actually a distinction by design. If you have a green *arrow* , you are guaranteed to have a clear path through the intersection, without having to give way. If you have a green *light/circle* , you may need to give way to other traffic.
Green arrow, I don't need to worry. Green circle, check to see if it's clear. And there are sometimes a combination. It's a green circle and then there's a couple seconds during rush hour when before it goes red, you get a green arrow. This way it helps clear cars on that lane.
@@ItsATrap614 keep attention yes, but it's the fault of the one who jumped if that happens. I don't know how it's in Netherlands, but in Poland we have: - green circle: you can go, just watch out for people turning and for everyone else if you are turning yourself. - "full" green arrow (that replace green circle): you are only one on this path try to keep traffic flowing as there should not have conflict with anyone. - "side" green arrow (used only with circle light config): if you are turning right, treat red light as a stop sign, give way to pedestrians and other drivers. (there is no "turning right on red" without that light here)
@@cola98765 It's different here, but that's a matter of law: the driver should've paid attention so they get the blame, unless intent can be proven. Right turn on red doesn't exist here at all.
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In the Netherlands there is actually an app you can report potholes (and other ‘public malfunctions’). I once dit this and they first temporarily patched the pothole within a day (!) and then really fixed it within a week or two. And they even updated me on that on the app 😅
I've been saying this lately: That car enthusiasts should loudly support public infrastructure projects, because their hobby gets worse the more drivers there are. Thanks for documenting this insight and proving it right.
I assume most the people live in rural places where driving is actually ok. Which is odd because obviously we would focus on public transportation in condensed areas. Generally, they hear the 'war on cars' crap and take it emotionally.
Honestly I feel like I’ve heard more opposition towards public transportation funding come from drivers that use their SUV’s as a bimonthly grocery getter than from car enthusiasts.
That’s not to say that there aren’t car enthusiasts out there that are opposed to such ideas but they don’t seem to represent the loudest voice in the room usually if you know what I mean.
I think a part of it boils down to voters not wanting their lifestyle to become more expensive through the raising of taxes even though they complain that the roads aren’t being fixed (sometimes due to taxes not being high enough to fund them). I remember a measure to raise taxes so sidewalks could finally be built in a part of North Seattle was struck down a couple years ago which really reminded me that we still have a long way to go until we can make our region accommodate all types of transportation and not prioritize just one
@@jarjarbinks6018 Maybe I should correct myself and say "very car dependent people". They should see how expensive (or rather, how cheap) would be for them to pay for much less congested roads and streets, by paying some taxes for public transportation.
@@DiThi I agree. At the very least public transportation often can make do with more users over time without being paralyzed by grid lock and requiring a huge expansion funded by taxes
exactly. stupid drivers hating on bus lanes and cyclists are braincell deprived.
As Dutch kids are used to cycle in traffic by themselves, they are more familiar with the 'rules of the road'. This helps when they become car drivers. In other countries learners have to concentrate on how to operate a car AND how to behave in traffic.
That is an excellent point that I'd never even considered.
Then again, that is how every Dutch viewer seems to react to these videos. 😂
I was probably the exception. This is how I thought it would be to get my driver's license. But it still took over 60 lessons
Im dutch at school you learn a bout bike rules and how act in a safe way you do tgat every year abd as kid you go every were wiht tge vike than you now how the rules are.
@@sjoerdglaser2794 compared to some of those amarican towns where you learn from your parents and park about 3 times to pass, I'm gladd we at least get propper lessons
I completely agree with this, having taken three tries to get my US drivers license (I kept letting my learners permit expire because driving was Terrifying). It wasn't until I was cycling regularly through my college town and getting a lot more practice paying attention to traffic that I finally felt more comfortable actually learning to drive. Now it was the driving that I needed to practice, without the stress about what the hell the people around me were doing.
"Hallo meneer de fotograaf" (Hello Mr. Photographer) at 0:05
That's adorable
I'm an avid car enthusiant. I love the sound. I love the engineering. I love the thrill and adrenalin. I love piloting my car at my and car's limits. I love investing in my skills when it comes to fabricating professional quality bits and pieces for my car. I love the culture and the wonderful people I've met through sharing this hobby. I hate driving. I hate having to get in a car and having to sit through 4 traffic lights and 3 stop signs to get to the parts store, that is in a bike-able distance. I hate putting myself and my so beloved car at risk of getting t-boned and seriously injured every single day. I hate the feeling of being absolutely isolated from the society, sitting inside a tin can. I hate putting useless mileage on my car. I hate looking at the wasteland of asphalt. I hate having to share the road with someone who can murder me and my friends just because he/she had a bad day or didn't get enough sleep. I wouldn't mind paying higher tax for gas if i didn't have to waste it on doing day-to-day chores. I hate putting so many bicyclists and pedestrians at risk. I hate driving in the US.
"I love piloting my car at my and car's limits." I hope you go to a race track when exploring these limits. As you can be a danger to others when going to your car's limits.
@@martijn9568 Just read the whole comment.
@@sirquasi Eh, there was some leeway within you original comment, but I think I got my answer.
@@sirquasi The internet, where it seems the default assumption of some people is that everyone is a bad and dumb actor and they're out to save the world from malicious idiocy.
Your comment clearly did not indicate someone who's a reckless driving enthusiast.
You, my friend, should go live in Munich. Or maybe in a Dutch town adjacent to the German border. Unbeatable...
Most of the asphalt used in the Netherlands is zoab (zeer open asfalt beton) meaning it's actually designed to let water through in the top layer flowing it to the sides. So potholes do happen, especially in winter on the snelweg, however, we tend to fix these in a timely fasion and overnight to not cause delays during the day. Something you can do with asphalt, but not with normal concrete.
Zoab has a huge safety benefit in the rain, you barely get that nasty splash up fog from the tires, improving visibility. This might even be worth a video.
Some people have been trying to get zoab to be a thing here in the US, with not much luck though. Figures. Seems like a great material.
Practical Engineering did a video about it (permeable pavement). Apparently it's used at least in some places in the US.
Permeable pavement is great, however it costs more and has a significantly reduced maintenace period compared to normal asphalt, so it isn't a great option for american citites that are already struggling to maintain their infrastructure.
Much quieter as well
Also: quieter and no aquaplaning.
They say humor is a great way to raise awareness about an issue, especially one as absurd as car-centric traffic engineering, and your delivery was spot on. Thank you, NJB.
I liked the one about the metric system being better than imperial.
@@ultrademigod simple truth. Even the US military works in metric.
@@DouglasK The key word there is simple.
@@DouglasK my agency tried to go metric over 10 years ago (before my time) and the contractors and their politician friends had a meltdown and forced us back to English/Imperial. I still find as built plans in metric.
@@DouglasK NASA too
I frequently ride my bike in the Netherlands and I have to honestly say that the trafic management and spatial plannig of the Netherlands is amongst the best, if not 'the' best, in the world. And since I'm Belgian and it almost physically pains me to praise the Dutch, you can be sure I'm telling the truth..
BELGIE HOORT BIJ NEDERLAND HEUUUUHH
@@MrDisaster25 ik zou erom gaan janken? Volgensmij koloniseerd Nederland al een tijd geen landen meer. Rusland wel.
@@MrDisaster25 ik zie het probleem nog niet helemaal. Deze grap is al zou oud als Nederland
in comparison to the dutch. Our public transport system is fucking awful. It has the worst possible comfort and most of the trains just smell like shit and piss. while Belgium has a huge cyclist culture, it's more of a sporting related culture than a "biking as transportation" culture. in that regard we could learn lots about the dutchies.
🤣🤣🤣
I try telling this to my friends and family, but their response is always "America is bigger than those small European countries" and I'm like... that's not even a reason for any of the US's infrastructure to be so shit.
Tell them that that would be a good excuse if people had to cross counties for milk. However, the vast majority of trips are well in cycling distance.
just say the European Union has better infrastructure then they might get it. But honestly every day that pass by i am happy that I am not an American.
@@MrTaxiRob But it is not the best
You could still have human-sized cities scattered everywhere in America linked by highways or, better, trains, rather that big cities amd big suburbs.
They say this (in the US and Canada) about railway electrification, too. It's too big, spread out etc. etc. Uh, Russia, China and India are continent size countries and they manage to do it. North Americans think they are "the best" at everything and refuse to learn from other places. Lots of cognitive dissonance and bad rationalizations for crappy, subpar infrastructure and outdated urban planning.
The traffic lights for bikes turning green while you're coming close to it is one of the most satisfying things :)
That's true :)
*especially when you get priority when its raining 😄
A friend in my planning program just thought she was incredibly lucky while driving, that every time she came to a light it turned green, until she realized it was just good design.
Did a red ever really stop you or did you just "idaho" stop yourself.
@@dutchman7623 In the old days? Even at this day, there are countless lights for cyclists with only one detection loop at the stop line. That is usually in smaller cities and towns.
I am a traffic engineer/advisor for a Dutch municipality but the videos always keeps me so glad I live in NL, by seeing the difference. Great video, for me it's an extra motivation to do the things in the municipality even better :)
please allow Electric Unicycles.
Everybody in the Netherlands should see these video's. Especially kids.
“Most people want to avoid hitting pedestrians and cyclists, unless you’re a pickup driver in Houston or something.” Couldn’t have described Houston better.
or Americans better
Hey new Yorkers deserve some credit too
We don't care what or who you are just get the fuck outta our way
@@puppethound all real americans are pickup drivers.
Im a US cyclist who has had aggressive "elevated type" vehicles "try" to hit me / scare me; especially since the tRumpism influence has emboldened some people. This is legally "assault with a deadly weapon"
As a 4'11 girl - not tall enough to be seem in the mirror of a pickup - im not visiting Houston after this quote 😂
I’m a civil engineer here in the Netherlands, and it is great to hear you like the quality of our roads. When I drive outside of the Netherlands, I sometimes am shocked how bad, and especially unsafe, the roads are. Safety of the drivers/bicyclists/peds is the most important thing, and that also makes the roads in the Netherlands enjoyable to use. Predictability/consistency and good maintenance are a huge factor in this.
It indeed is. I moved from The Netherlands to Belgium and we are pretty far behind you but I see good progress here. Flandres is getting good roads apart from the concrete bicycle paths among some roads. Aalst is doing pretty good here!
@@martijnvangammeren1868 it's been a while since I drove down to Belgium, but I remember clearly feeling crossing the border by road texture alone, good thing it's being adressed though
I'm Romanian and of course Romania is far behind but I grew up in Italy and lived and work in 10 countries and visited more than 40. I can say that always I post on the social media how beautiful and clean are the street and how perfect is the infrastructure in NL. I send videos to all my family and friends almost daily. I think Dutch people are very smart in many ways. Now I live in NL and I'm very happy! The only bad thing is that in many countries they show Germany as a comparison like they are better, and they are comparing to Italy or Romania, but I have a video on Tiktok where I was in the border between NL and Germany and it looks like coming from Romania to Germany, but in this case, from Germany to Netherlands.
I am a Civil Engineer in India and dream about driving to Netherlands
I wonder why the Netherlands has among the highest CO2 emission per capita in the Europe. It's nearly twice the number for Denmark, where cycling is also important; and the UK where conversely cycling is not as important and there are huge networks of roads across the country.
As a civil engineering student who wants to do something with traffic engineering/ transportation, I’ve grown to love this channel, and it’s been inspirational to me! My college town is pretty walkable compared to my hometown, and I’ve noticed all the benefits from watching your videos. Keep up the great work!
Dude, same. I graduated a year ago and this channel (and ones like it) have shown me a big part of why I miss my walkable college campus so much. I was able to live there without a car for 4 years and rarely felt burdened. I didn't major in civil, but hopefully you go on to make some positive changes!
@@Razor7198 Unfortunately college is the only time most Americans can experience something like that.
@@satunnainenkatselija4478 Unfortunately the meme is currently just "make everything dense and also situate business together." Density causes massive problems. Really there just needs to be more commercial property within lower-density areas instead of huge tracts of residential zones that rely on external commercial districts.
As someone who is "geboren en getogen" in the Netherlands, seeing videos like these makes me realize how lucky I am in the regard to infrastructure. I recently passed the 1 year mark of having my driver's license and I am really happy with that, and of course within that 1 year I have met plenty of a-holes on the road or the occasional city that I personally find to be horrible with traffic. Yet, seeing these types of videos makes me see just how insignificant that is to the daily driving in the US or Canada, and thus how lucky I am in the Netherlands with the infrastructure!
Try driving in Poland. PTSD guaranteed.
The Netherlands isn't only better than North America in this regard, but also leader within Europe.
I'm not sure wheter you guys are aware of it, but the Netherlands is the world leader in urban planning and traffic design. Just like Finnland is leader in education, Sweden is leader in Social Democracy, Switzerland is leader in participatory democracy and Germany is leader in industry.
Greetings from Budapest. I wish my city would learn more from the Netherlands.
@@mikek9297 the dashcam vids alone will cause that.
@@Heizler As a German I would kindly like to know what the benefit of industry is, and if I'm just not noticing it because we don't have any urban planning and traffic design, education, social democracy, nor participatory democracy.
@@KuK137 I know that Poland likes to follow the US generally, but how does it appear in infrastructure design? I've been there, but I haven't recognized it.
By the way, as a Hungarian I can tell you that for us the worst possible insult is when people compare any of the Central European countries to Russia. 🤣
Dutchie here. A couiple of years ago I was in Florida, and my wife wanted to go to a large grocery store. Only about 1 km away so we decided to walk. Big mistake! Nowhere to walk along the (a I know now) stroad, crossing the stroad while fearing for my life (because some sidewalk just ended), walking further and eventually reaching my destination. We decided to take a cab home because of the danger. I was amazed, but now it just makes sense why I was amazed in the first place.
To be fair, Dutch cities are also pretty good at just not having sidewalks. I've been in several situations where I had to walk in the bicycle lane because there just wasn't a sidewalk or the sidewalk just ended.
@@JackFou, speaking as a Canadian, I wish we had such alternatives when the sidewalk ends or is non-existent on a stroad. I fear cyclists much less than cars. If the stroad has a raised curb and clipped grass margin, then I have an alternative to a sidewalk, but *only* during spring/summer/autumn. Winter is hair-raising for a pedestrian on a North American stroad.
In the small (but terribly crowded), southern California beach town where I used to live, there were some stretches of the highway that could've been made safer for pedestrians by simply creating a small, paved foot path. But they refused to do it because they have "rules" about how wide sidewalks have to be now. So instead of making an improvement, they made nothing, and left it as a 2 foot wide strip of dirt, where in some spots, it was blocked by a pole or something and you had to step out into the street. So dumb.
@@JackFou don't know where, I live in Amsterdam,, maybe if construction work has to be done
@@daniellepijpers8173 On my first day in Leiden I ended up getting off at the wrong bus stop near the edge of the city and I had to walk back on the bicycle lane.
Granted it wasn't exactly in the middle of the city but my hotel was right there.
Some thoughts no one will read:
I'm a motorcyclist myself and involve myself in online motorcyclist communities. There's a stark contrast between US dominated communities and Dutch communities. I think this is mostly a result of better road infrastructure and better driver etiquette. Riding a motorcycle is approached in a much more negative manner in the US than here in the Netherlands. It's considered too dangerous by many Americans. I think that riding a motorcycle in itself isn't (unacceptably) dangerous, but when you as a 20 year old ride your 1000cc supersport bike for the first time without proper training (and no, MSF is not a proper training) on a pothole stroad filled with angry, frustrated, impatient and poorly trained car drivers, then yeah, stuff tends to get a little hairy.
One thing I'd also like to remark is that whenever I see dashcam or GoPro footage of a road or traffic, 9 out of 10 times I immediately recognize it when it's recorded in The Netherlands. Not because I know the place, but there's something about Dutch roads that makes them very easily identifiable as Dutch. I think that's because of the way the road is designed and maintained but I can't exactly put my finger on it.
Oh yeah, one final thing about car enthusiasts The thing is, when people say they're car enthusiasts they don't mean being stuck in traffic in their middle class SUV's. They mean they like to oggle BMW M7-series and Porsche 911's and Lamborghini SomethingItalianSounding's. Saying you're a car enthusiast as an argument in favor of car centric design is just dumb.
Yes, riding a motorcycle is WAY less dangerous in the Netherlands for many reasons. I couldn't imagine riding a motorbike on a six lane stroad full of large SUVs and pickups. 😬
@@NotJustBikes I couldn't imgaine driving a car on a six lane SUV filled stroad. Well, actually I could, but I don't even want to imagine.
I know a former motorcyclist (in America) that tells a story about having to punch the side a van because it tried to mere into his lane without looking, and how it wasn't unusual.
Here in the UK our perception of motorcyclists is unfortunately pretty warped. We tend to see them as 'bad drivers', though the reality is that the minority sets our opinion for the majority. There's always going to be that one biker lane splitting at 100mph and scaring the hell out of you as you didn't even see them coming. There's always going to be that one biker doing 80mph in a 40 right on your bumper because you're simply too slow doing 10mph over the speed limit.
I'm all for motorbikes but it's not really my jam, I like more wheels personally! Though I still find myself thinking "Wow, a sensible motorcyclist?" when I see someone keeping a safe follow distance and not lane splitting in unsafe situations.
Of course it's the same for cars right? See a BMW doing 150mph on the motorway one time and now your perception of every BMW driver is that. :)
Being a car enthusiast usually means appreciating cars with character. Personally I couldn't care less about shiny new cars, but old and/or unique cars have so many aspects which can be enjoyed. Aside from comfort or speed, new cars have little going for them to be interesting. For example, driving a 30-year old Citroen with pneumatic suspension, that's an experience.
I don't even mind that cars need to take a longer route. Every minute you spend walking or cycling is a physical activity, and while it can be fun and healthy, for transportation it makes sense to give them the shortest route. Cars are climate controlled boxes with comfortable seats and stereos. As a driver, I don't really mind having a trip that's 5 minutes longer than the what direct route would be.
5 minutes longer if you`re not in traffic is already quite a distance. Like 4-5 blocks further.
For most good infrastructure choices the added time is more like 1-2 minutes.
(not even counting factors like easyer to find parkingspot because less people in a car.)
Cars also just straight up go faster. A car route being 20% longer than the equivalent bike route doesn't matter when it goes twice as fast.
I'm a person who actually enjoys driving my car. I'm much happier taking a longer route to my destination if it means a more enjoyable experience. My preferred route to work is longer but it has less traffic lights so that means less stopping and starting and more actual driving.
@@cebo494 To be fair induced demand will tend to always result in the equilibrium trip time for all available modes being around the same. At least in most realistic scenarios if one mode is faster people will tend to move to it which increases traffic for the faster mode and reduces it elsewhere. This even works for transit after all increased ridership leads to longer dwell times at stops and stations more people to get through a finite number of doors takes longer. Pretty much the only time this doesn't work is when some modes are intentionally made so crap that 90% of the population would never dare use them whether because they are unsafe or just horrendous for some other reason or that they simply don't exist at all.
@@cebo494 hmmm not so much with Ebikes in urban zones, in the UK most of our city speed limits are 20mph, my Ebike does 35mph and gets 30-80 miles depending how I ride, most of the time I go faster than the cars by about 30%....cya! Barely use my car now, good riddance I say
"People don't normally like to hit pedestrians unless you're a pick-up driver in Houston." Shots fired! Luckily he's facing felony charges after much public outrage.
Feels like I'm missing some story here... Care to enlighten me?
Super fair assessment. I hope that douche goes to jail for a while.
@@rjfaber1991 I didn't think it was something specific cause trucks kill by design of their height.
@Flame He hit them while trying to "roll coal" on them
There was alo this guy in Charlottesville...
... too soon ?
those people who designed netherland's infrastructure really deserve an applause from the world... we all come to know these stuff only because of youtube creators like you.. like seriously, this is real stuff and there is no way we can know these things from traditional media like tv.. i really appreciate your content thanks man!!!
Thanks for the shoutout! I totally agree that driving here in the Netherlands is much less stressful and enjoyable! I still love cycling to do my day to day stuff as well!
Nice channel too mate 😃👌
The point about Dutch drivers being better is very underrated IMO.
I live in the Netherlands, and I have several friends and family members who never drive, simply because they hate it and it stresses them out and because they recognize that they aren't very good at it.
So they don't even have a licence anymore.
They can afford to make that choice because there's plenty of alternatives, everyone is better off because you don't want to be driving on the road with other drivers who are super stressed out and not confident in their abilities while driving.
That. I have driver's license that I don't even use really. I am half decent driver when I get into it but honestly it is just a pain in the ass to drive. I avoid it whenever I can.
@@Turtle1631991 I can relate. I didn't drive a single time in my two years of living in the Netherlands. I am a decent driver, even after all this time. But I'd rather avoid driving if I have an alternative. And the Netherlands have so many safe and efficient ways to go about.
This. I too have always found driving stressful. But living in a car dependent country, you can't do anything about it. I'm glad people in the Netherlands have good alternatives.
That is what sucks about living in the UK. I don't feel confident about my driving skill, so never even took my test. I don't want to drive, but my life is fucking awful because of it. Want to go do something fun? either sit on 3 different pissmobiles for 2 hours, or take a 20 minute drive.
@@rjc0234 I really dislike driving but unfortunately in Poland the situation is similar unless you live in a center of a big city or in very close proximity to it. Wanna go to the gym or pool few kilometers away? Either time everything perfectly to get on a bus that goes every 30-40 minutes or drive for 7 minutes. It's still not even half as bad as the US though, I can't imagine having to drive even to buy myself some basic groceries.
10:00 Another aspect is that a lot of drivers in car centric countries get pissed off with pedestrians and cyclists because they never get to experience what it is like to walk or cycle in traffic. Nearly every driver in the NL is also a cyclist, which makes them much more understanding of other people in the public space such as roads or streets. Drivers in car centric societies such as the UK see cyclists as a nuisance because they see them as a group fundamentally different from them. It's almost akin to xenophobia, anger towards a group of outsiders because you never mix, you never experience the same things.
good point
Yes, every day when I'm cycling there will always be cars and trucks letting me cross the road in front of them, even when they have the right of way. I do it too when driving because I know it takes so much more time and energy to stop and get going again.
Whilst far from the whole story, this is definitely a primary motivating factor in driver/cyclist confrontations.
I lived in England for 2 years and it was common to have bicycle traffic on the side inches from cars. In the US this would get you killed. No one is used to any of this because it isn't normal. It's easy to criticize the US when you don't have the issues we have here to deal with. Put mass transit everywhere, make bicycles a norm and over time people would adapt. But it's not possible with a country so large.
@@mikeyoung9810 my Ebike does 35-40mph and even gets 30 miles at that speed! Technology is always improving.
We have 4 cars in my household, literally one for each person, not because we are “car enthusiasts” (although I do enjoy cars to an extent), but because it is the only way we can go to work/school in my asphalt garden of a city. I thought that was completely normal until your videos, suffice it to say I will be looking into learning some dutch lol
4 cars must cost a fortune. Just think about how much more buying power people have in NL probably
@@tieman3790 Well the average American household makes $20,000 more than the Dutch household and the cost of living is also less in America.
@@robinlindberg1231 That means we just need to take bicycle riding lessons from Lucas Brunelle and move to North America. :D
@@robinlindberg1231 blindly comparing income numbers without factoring in taxes and what you get from them is such a bad take
@@Millen91 I didn't just compare income numbers dumbass, I also compared cost of living. Dutch would tax 28% income on $50k while America would tax 16%. So you make less, spend more, and pay more in taxes. Tell me exactly what a low income person gets in the Netherlands from their taxes that they wouldn't get in America?
As a starting civil engineer in The Netherlands it is nice to see/hear that the systems we use to make streets safer and more pleasant to ride on are working! Love the vids keep it up!
Ok hope youre not the one ruining Leidens roads then. Its like theyre trying to create confusion to slow everyone down at the same time and make people very aware by not putting any indicators down of how to drive. Its just 6-7 different roads, bike and car coming together and turning into a mess with people looking at eachother trying to find their way. Also removing clear seperations between bike lanes and sidewalks is another genious way to make things less Dutch with unknown purpose.
Lol the pothole you recorded at 12:02 has recently been fixed! I really hated that pothole when on the motorcycle, especially as it was in the left lane
Holy crap I only filmed it about 2 weeks ago. Nice!
@@NotJustBikes If you want to film some more we've got some over here in the UK we can ship to you. ;-)
@@GreenJimll but the taxes and fees due to Brexit make that prohibitive.
Do you know how long it stayed like this before it got repaired?
@@NotJustBikes lol, I live in Montreal, supposedly the best city to cycle in North America, and there’s potholes bigger and deeper than this everywhere. Plus the bike lanes, even the one or two protected ones are filled with large cracks and potholes, that make it really uncomfortable to ride unless you’re on a mountain bike. Oh and some are there since 2019. Not to mention the gutters placed so you can trap your wheel into it.
DUI (Driving Under Influence) drivers are a huge problem in the USA too, just for those exact same reasons. We've got a lot of bars and restaurants in The Netherlands too, but because they are within walkable or bicycle reach from urban area's it's less of a problem. And for further distances there's viable alternatives like public transport. But in the USA, due to zoning, the distances are too far apart and you HAVE to use a car because that's mostly the only available infrastructure. Even if you're impaired and really shoudn't be on the road at all.
True, only in old neighborhoods you can find a local bar or restaurant. So weird..
I'm always under the influence if I'm drunk, but I never driving under influence (DUI)...
@@helvettefaensatan thanks for spotting, fixed now to the correct wording
We have an anecdote in Germany, that one criteria by which one chooses their favourite bar/pub has to be that it's in crawling-distance from your home.
@@stiggel H- how much do you all drink...
What I also appreciate on Dutch highroads is the ZOAB asphalt. The incredible visual effect and safety of driving on ZOAB vs standard closed asphalt makes driving in the rain almost the same as driving on dry roads. Perhaps also something to show in your great series!
but is that asphalt good for northern climates? I mean, people complain about Canadian asphalt, but go to countries with no heavy winters, and they have much better asphalt too.
I don't even need to look at the signs to know I'm driving across the Dutch-Belgian border, haha. Even when it's not raining anymore, but just wet, you instantly get hit with a cloud of water, when crossing border. Don't know if dutch asphalt is the best, I do know that belgian asphalt sucks. ;)
@@Imfil I would say yes, because the open structure of the asphalt drains the water quickly to the gutters on the side and from there to the storm drains, so it has no chance to build up and freeze and this way destroy the asphalt. With closed Asphalt there are cracks in the asphalt, that is just inevitable, but water cant go anywhere so when it freezes the asphalt gets damaged.
But ZOAB is more susceptible to wear and tear, it needs to be replaced about every 10 years of so... In which the Netherlands road construction workers have become extremely good btw... Most of the time it just takes ONE weekend to remove the top layer and replace it with a new layer and on Monday Morning you be surprized with a prestine new black ZOAB highway, with all new white lines and markings as well... Most road construction takes place during the night and In The Netherlands we are not shy to close off a complete highway for a couple hours and get on with it immediately.. The A9 Highway I use to commute to my work at Schiphol, about 40Km, has seen its ZOAB top layer replaced in just one or 2 weeks... so every night another portion is closed off and new pavement is applied... And this way the construction workers work their way through the whole of the Netherlands. Highway closures during the day are seldomly used, so hardly any traffic delays because of construction sites, I think this is awesome, and you immediately notice when crossing the border, like in Germany there are so many construction sites where traffic has to slow down, very annoying.
@@Imfil No zoab isn't suitable for Northern climates when the water in the asphalt freezes before it drains out of the zoab, it will crack up the asphalt and serious potholes are the result. Every year after winter or sometimes even during winter many repairs are to be made.
But when the roads are intact zoab is a dream to ride on in the rain.
@@Imfil ZOAB-(very open asphalt concrete) requires more maintainance than regular asphalt DAP(solid asphalt concrete), but the process of replacing a damaged part is way more easy than regular asphalt, repaired patches are so neat that you cannot see it's a repaired patch compairing it with the surrounding road.
This repairing goes on all year round, even after an accident the repair crews repair the road before putting it open for traffic.
During winter we pre-salt the roads so the ice cannot form within the ZOAB, otherwise it would freeze up the road and destroy it easly.
The Netherlands is a small country and has one of the highest infrastucture taxations globaly, So we can easly pay for the maintainance.
If we would be a poor country this ZOAB concept would not work.
I’m surprised NJB hasn’t been sponsored by the Dutch tourism board yet
Plot twist maybe he is! 🤣
But I don’t care, the points are still valid and great.
He's the official cheerleader.
Yeah his videos have basically convinced me to move to the Netherlands when I’m old enough. I always knew I wanted to live in Europe for a while, but now I know specifically that the Netherlands is king
@Stijn well compared to the usa the tax isn't even that high. While we pay healthinsurance and a higher incometax we still recieve more for out value. For example health care and welfare.
@@TimPennings Yeah. Did you know that in US schools are actually funded from local property taxes? The poor neighborhoods end up with very little money while those that could afford private school get very good public schools and people will near bankrupt themselves getting overpriced houses so they can send their kid there.
I would honestly struggle to come up with more idiotic scheme.
As a Dutch person who's never lived anywhere else, watching these vids is a good gratitude exercise
I hope I get born in the Netherlands in my next life.
It's not all great here.
Yeah but I've been to the US and they have amazing things that aren't present in the Netherlands like good weather and mountains
@@MartianInDisguise We will try and preserve it for you.
@@OnlyInhuman90 mountains lmaoo
So this is making me wonder, what is the difference in our political systems that enables the Netherlands to plan with reason and logic but not North America? Today I had to drive from Exhibition Go to Yonge and Bloor and I need answers.
There's a lot of evidence that it just came down to luck plus some well-timed activism. Stop de Kindermoord + the oil crisis at just the "right" time, plus a few good politicians in power. A lot of the political changes, like cancelling urban highway plans, passed by only 1 or 2 votes. There are plenty of morons here too.
@@NotJustBikes put more stress on this pls. Just the fact (or opinion) that some things are better in the NL currently, doesn’t mean the people are visionaries or carry the wisdom of the gods. As much as people tend to say cars or cycling is ‘our culture’ or ‘in our DNA’, that can change over a (few) generation(s).
@@NotJustBikes so given enough of an increase in both oil prices and child murder the us might just be able to fix things
Money.
The problem with American politicians is they never admit when another country has a better idea. The US only implements their own ideas. That’s why we’re the only Western country that doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t have national healthcare, and doesn’t have this nice city planning, among other things. We get jealous of other places and plug our ears instead of embracing better things.
I must say this makes me way more appreciative of our Dutch roads.
Europeans are always ungrateful to what they have, they always complain about their countries. They don't know how bad life can be outside europe
Does that imply that you don't like your roads/infrastructure? If so, what don't you like about it? (I'm American and interested in other ways of fixing transportation because obviously it's flawed)
This video is a fantastic demonstration that all these ideas aren't anti-car, they're _anti-traffic._
I've yet to meet a person who, however much they loved their car and hated the very idea of other modes of transportation 'taking away the road' from their precious vehicle, liked the traffic that prevented them from enjoying their car to the fullest.
[edit]: I love the idea of variable speed limits on major highways depending on traffic volume. You can totally calm down or eliminate the 'ripple' caused by someone slowing down that starts spreading back down the road and slows traffic to a crawl for no discernable reason by just slowing people down that fraction preemptively.
Graham these people I know they want nothing more than a carwash, no transport
I'm Dutch and I quite like driving. Imagine my disappointment when I rented a nice car in Florida for my holidays. Driving is terrible there. The traffic lights take massive amounts of time to turn. It's no wonder people are busy on their phones while waiting. And the road design is so unintuitive and it makes driving stressful. I did make me think. Dutch people are probably horrible drivers in places like America because they are used to road design telling them what to do instead of looking out for themselves. As a side note. I think it's funny you highlight Amsterdam as a great city to drive. I personally really dislike driving in Amsterdam due to it being too crowded. Plus the parking costs really discourage going there by car anyway. But for outsiders like me they have a really cheap park and ride offer at the rai. You get a massive discount on parking if you take the metro. Which is now my default way of travelling to Amsterdam.
I did a holiday in the SW of the US and actually did quite enjoy driving there. All I ever seemed to do is drive a dead straight road for about three hours, take one right turn and then arrived at my hotel. That was pretty convenient.
@@swekflikkr just a troll. So childish.
@@night6724 hahaha, the first point you made about the school system is easily defiable by just one simple google search. the dutch school system ranks way higher compared to the US,. Furthermore, Amsterdam, boring? maybe now in this time, but normaly there is always someting going on, for everyone! all ages, interests or religious believes. I'm glad your day was good, just dont ruin other people's day. lots of love to everyone.
@@night6724 Are you sure about that, sweetheart? Most atheists in the US are atheists BECAUSE they read the ** bible cover to cover.
Even the ** church of Satan quotes the bible all the time.
@@night6724 why are you tagging me? I actually wrote that I enjoy driving in the US and I said nothing at all about the Netherlands
As an architect/urban planner in the US Great Lakes region... it is overwhelmingly frustrating trying to push against the dominance of the personal car. I do what I can through my own work and local council/planning department. How did you get out? What was the route you took to move to the Nederlands?
He took a cab to the airport.
Keep up the good work
As a Michigander, I thank you.
Check the first vids on the channel :)
You are needed there.
I'm dutch and i must say i was surprised how i never looked at our train system as a giant national metro system. It is true, you can go almost everywhere by train and the occasional bus or metro. Only places where the train isn't your best bet are Friesland, Drenthe and Zeeland
As a huge "car guy" myself, I'm getting all giddy over this Dutch street engineering. I wish the roads here in the US were like that. Imagine being able to just enjoy your car 99% of the time without having to deal with long excessive stop lights and traffic.
Unfortunately cars are wildly expensive to buy/own here. Nonetheless I'm still gonna buy my first car in a few months even though I really don't need one with how good public transport is lol.
You cant really enjoy them on most of the roads because they are designed so you lose speed. (Speedbumps etc)
Absolutely no speedbumps on highways in The Netherlands .
@@jsb7975 only smooooth asphalt
@@jsb7975 Zijn er in andere landen dan wel drempels op snelwegen?
This might be one of your best videos because its target audience is DRIVERS. I think everyone who "gets it", gets it. But we need more content like this, where drivers (the ones who we need to convince because those are the politicians and voters) are gently prodded in the right direction.
I've been to the Netherlands and I gotta say the driving was really nice there, when I was actually behind the wheel. This video gives me a really good explanation for why.
-A pickup driver from Houston that doesn't want to run over cyclists
@@TheViolatorinator As a regular cyclist (95% of the time) living here in Fake London who also drives (5% of the time) a li'l Hyundai Elantra GT, I appreciate you not wanting to kill cyclists and/or tiny cars! 😅
What Ben said! I have never seen this channel before but this video is extremely well done!!! Yes more videos like this!
We're not sheep to be herded, Ben. Such patronising attitudes like yours do more to put people off the Urban design crowd than anything.
Totally agree. I’m a major petrolhead and I absolutely want to have a car in my garage. This doesn’t imply I always want to use it. I now live in the Netherlands and even if I could afford a car I don’t really need it. I if I buy one, that would be just to use it in the weekends or enjoy it in my free time. I still have my own vehicle, the bicycle, which still gives the sense of freedom I need, and also gets me anywhere instantly.
The only con, if I lived in a city with hills and valleys, would be the need of an e-bike.
Here’s a common Dutch jab at Belgium that is actually true: you can feel where the border with Belgium is because of the sudden and dramatic decrease in road quality.
I've been excommunicated from Belgium (my home country) for praising Dutch infrastructure :')
@@JoshYxVdM better not praise their drivers. when driving to belgium i always take full insurance on my rental, antwerp was pure horror to drive, so many maniacs. Its really different. But belgium has other qualities
@Thierry Parte but a nice car that gets destroyed by road is as bad as a nice house thats unreachable without destroying your car
@@grumbazor hahaha, true
Tbf, Antwerp is by far the worst city in Belgium to drive in/through. And because it's the most widely used route to cross between BE and NL, I'm convinced it's single handedly responsible for our bad road quality cliché (though the averge quality isn't helping either). Going to Grevelingen for a day or weekend of sailing, crossing the border is a genuine culture shock every time
People are always confused when they find out that I am both a car enthusiast and a part of the #fuckcars movement. I like driving and other cars get in the way of my driving experience.
😂😂😂
How did you get into the #fuckcars movement? 🤔
@@grahamturner2640 I fuck cars.
Your channel completely changed my mind on car ownership. I used to think I could never live in a place like the Netherlands and now I wish that we optimize just like they did. I showed my sister this channel on and after that she was much more inclined for us to move to the Netherlands if we can as the United States becomes more and more unliveable. Like many people, we'll just make our money off of America and live somewhere else.
"There's no solution to traffic congestion except viable alternatives to driving" - how I wish more people understood this when they protest about cycling and walking infrastructure investment!
@Will Swift look up "induced demand".
For something like a train you want induced demand. But personal cars are so inefficient that you will never build your way out of congestion.
I don’t understand people that protest Walking of all things. Get your fat butt outside people.
@Will Swift furthermore, in most cases, the cost is _zero,_ since the marginal cost of adding one additional driver to a highway that already exists is... well... nothing. Charging money per car is unsustainable, fails to resolve other externalities of cars like urban sprawl, endless asphalt, and the terrible air quality, and still results in traffic.
@Will Swift that isn't an economic solution, roads will fill regardless.
@Will Swift we live in a real world. however cool these things might be, its better if it stays a fantasy for the most part. but i guess youre just trolling a bit right?
9:30 I feel like this aspect deserves its own video. Getting your license in the Netherlands is supposedly the hardest in the world, and many people I know fail on their first try. This way, you have a very solid gatekeeping for making sure everyone really knows traffic and is aware of their surroundings when driving a car. In the Netherlands, learning to drive is not about the physical skills of driving, it is much more about becoming aware of other traffic and people in the public space.
Problem is Americans needs to drive so it can't be too difficult to get a license here
@@traviousandrews1015 The general attitude to education in the US; too many people are failing so let's lower the standards.
It's even harder in Germany. When I still lived in the Netherlands, we always had respect for German drivers, unlike the Belgian, and French drivers, who are some of the worst.
@@hymeringfamily9711 no. French and Belgian roads are designed by the equivalent of a 4 year old brain, thats true. But they drive normally on normal roads. I can attest to that, as a Luxembourger who sees hundreds of French cars every day. 0 difference. Well designed roads → good driving. If you drive in the middle of nowhere in France on a road with disappeared lines, stupid corners, zero warnings, then eveyone will drive more dangerously. But if you drive on a decent quality road with clear signage, even an Indian can drive correctly.
Actually, the attitude is the same in parts of north america. Most people I know (I'm Canadian) do not pass their road test on the first try.
A highlight point: Providing alternative transport options for people unwilling to drive is a great approach. Because not everyone has the talent to drive.
When you talked about people, even those who have cars, getting their groceries by foot or bike or bus etc. I realised that I have never had to take out the car to get to a doctors appointment. (I live in Germany. Used to live in a small town and now in Hamburg, a big city. But it still applies). All my grocery shopping can be done by foot or with a 5 to 10 minute bus ride. It's great.
I'd hate having to drive through busy streets just to get something to eat. Or even just a coffee. When I lived in Utah for a few months we'd always have to hop in the car if we'd want a cup of coffee. Here, I legit walk a few minutes and usually have the choice between multiple cafes and there's no cement desert in front of them.
Anyway, hopefully North American cities can learn a thing or two from Netherlands and other European cities.
Great Video!
We wont... we never learn... because we think our way is the best way... because majority of people never traveled outside of US, and believe that the best way to do something is the way we do it in US... that's why we don't have metric system, don't have universal healthcare or have mixed use zoning laws.
Sort of hilariously during the pandemic restaurants were “celebrating” having invented street patio seating as some “new innovation”
And I was like “congratulations you invented Europe you idiots”
@@satorudo at least they got there eventually 😅
we can only hope... but having lived in washington state my whole life, im not holding by breath waiting for change....
meanwhile I'm out here driving to restaurants .8 miles (1.28 km) away 🥲
Your channel is therapy for me that I am not alone in thinking this way. I've lived in both the Benelux and in the U.S. and am currently in a Strodian Nightmare City. There are "streets" here, in residential areas, that resemble airplane runways more than a street. If you count every lane, from the right turn lane, driving lanes, left turn lanes, on both sides, there is a NINE LANE road next to house where kids are supposed to use a crosswalk to reach a park. Posted limit is 35mph; well with wide lanes, great visibility, and straight-as-an-arrow construction for miles, the average speed is probably more around 55mph (I'm not exaggerating). Every day I scream to myself how it could be improved but I suspect it is just too difficult; the math too hard, because every street is drawn out in a perfect North/South-East/West grid with stoplights every 15 feet. Driving is an absolute nightmare when you then incorporate the separation of housing and commercial areas. If I need milk, the map says its only 3km and 10 minutes to the nearest store, but that is by car on a four lane street that connects to a six lane road and with EIGHT stoplights along the way. Sorry kids, we are out of milk again.
“Strodian Nightmare City” needs to enter the lexicon, exactly for situations like this.
The fact that you live in a city and have the closest supermarket 3km away is far worse. I live in a town of 20,000 and I have 2 supermarkets on a 10 minute walk (about 900m) and 4 other supermarkets in a 8 minute bike ride or a 30 minute walk (about 2.5km). I never ever go by car to the supermarket, the grocery, the bakery or any other shop in town, because I hate the search for a parking spot. Everything is in walkable or bikeable distance. I recently moved and for the first time of my life, I’m 59, I live in a neighborhood without shops. I now have to go to the town center (the 30 min walk) or to an adjacent neighborhood (the 10min walk) for shops. It keeps me in shape.
Man, that's sucks when the nearest store is 3km. My town has small stores that have milk on sale within 500 meters from my house.
No milk today, my love has gone away
The bottle stands for lorn, a symbol of the dawn
No milk today, it seems a common sight
But people passing by, don't know the reason why
A low speed yet fluent traffic is also better for the environment and your purse since all that energy for quick acceleration and repetitive breaking is a constant loss... Those strodes really encourage inefficient energy usage. It's mind boggling how designing an infrastructure will always have such grant influence on the life's of basically everyone. It's a huge responsibility...
Oh trust me the Dutch love burning their fuel at red lights. Every time I drive there I understand why theres speed cameras everywhere. If they weren't, the Dutch would destroy everything on and around every road.
As an Italian living for 4 years in the Netherlands, I always start to get angry/stressed when have I go back and visit my family for a vacation because... driving in Italy is an absolute nightmare!!! Dutch roads are so smooth, speed limits are respected, and my bycicle-loving husband can get anywhere with his bike while I take the longer, but always blissfully-empty-of-traffic route. And don't make me get started on the traffic lights with detection system! Dutch roads are simply amazing :D
I don't find driving in Italy that horrible, even though I was born in the Netherlands and have been living here all my life.
I dare your husband to go to work to 30km away of your house. The reality is netherlands is a village compared with the rest of the world. Not even 17 million habitants lol. Is like some cities in the world. Amsterdam is smaller than my hood.
"they sell a lot of audis too"
You captured perfectly what I always observed about Audi drivers since I have my learner's permit.
I drive a black Volkswagen Golf and I'm offended that I'm not included.
I've got my friends black Seat Ibiza, Tesla Model S and BMW driver with sunglasses to back me up.
This is hilarious
@@paulelderson934 I have to admit, I went through my footage of driving, and the worst drivers were Seat and VW drivers. I mean, don't get me wrong, Audi drivers deserve it, but the joke just didn't work with "Seat" or "Volkswagen."
What counts for driving Audis, also counts for parking Mercedes and BMWs. Their drivers have the antisocial habit of not being able to park their car between the lines. Leaving other car drivers searching longer for an empty parking spot, while they occupy two parking spots.
Audi it's not a car, but mental health diagnosis.
This channel has almost single handedly convinced me to move the the Netherlands. Part of me feels guilty for wanting to leave the asphalt blighted landscape that is my home. Seeing this has me wanting to change my major to Urban Planning, so I can eventually come home to fix it.
Yez,
Thanks but we have no more houses left. Not for less than half a million anyway :)
@@dojadog4223 haha, true
@@dojadog4223 checking out apartments rental costs in The Hague are 87% higher where I live. Literally everything is more expensive except for gasoline. Oh and jeans. A studio apartment that is 88 sq meters costs $2100 a month where I live. In a city of 102,000 people.
Most of Europe is pretty similar to this, you don't have to move to the Netherlands to experience something like what you see in these videos.
I have lived in car centric cities my whole life and I always thought that the solution to traffic was to add more lanes. I then read something about New Zealand in beginning of the pandemic prioritizing their pedestrian / bike users to lessen car traffic and public transport congestion. It's heartbreaking to realize that the solution was so simple and mundane. Walking must be the primary mode of transporting ones self, all other devices come next.
yea, adding lanes is like trying to widen a funnel by only widening the top part with the bowl, because sooner or later all the cars will still have to deal with the same bottlenecks like freeway exits and traffic lights. traffic engineers in the US are too dumb to realize this, and we end up with car-dependent hellholes like los angeles and houston
Perhaps the best example of how the "Just Add More Lanes" school of thought just doesn't work is the Katy Freeway in Houston. That monstrosity is, no joke, 26 lanes wide... And it never reduced traffic congestion at all after it was expanded in the mid-2000's. It only made it worse.
For reference, Houston is only the fourth most populous city in the US, behind Chicago, though not by too much. Chicago doesn't have anything like the Katy, but instead has a fairly robust (by North American standards) public transit system... Seems to work a lot better.
@@andrewlucia865 Yep, the problem with a massive freeway is that the freeway isn't the destination or the origin. Lots of traffic that comes on and off from other highways and surface streets, and all 26 lanes gets you then is more complicated entrances and exits. Freeways don't scale very well past about ~5 lanes each way, it just becomes too complicated.
also much more healthy
I live in nz andhas caused more congestion despite the diminished economic activity. So don't fret.
I just rewatched this video again after driving around Limburg for two weeks. The first day was disorienting, because without all the stop signs I was thinking people would crash into me. But I quickly learned how exceptional the drivers were in my 700 km of driving.
You are spot on with your assessment of how things are there.
Love the turbo round abouts 👍👍
Its crazy how America is considered a "First World Country" or the "Greatest country in the world" (to Americans) but you can make a 15 minute video literally comparing asphalt and it completely shatters the ideas and years of brainwash going on in my head about the country I was raised in, the broken infrastructure, our obsession with cars and the western way of living. And that's not even your intention! but I guess its a case of "if the shoe fits". NJB braking social and psychological barriers and not even realizing it LOL Or does he? ahaha City Planner/Activist lol I kid. Great video!
Americans do have this weird idea about being number 1 at everything even though they are not n1 in anything except obesity. I don't understand what the west has to do with what is said in this video because at this point every country in western Europe is still part of the western world. It's just Americans that believe anything different is socialist.
Years ago I was shocked to learn that only one third of US senators had a passport. If you haven't seen the world then you can believe statements that back up your belief that your country is the greatest, the most free, the best standard of living etc, despite so much of the world having left you behind years ago.
if you trick people into believing they have the best possible way of life they won't bother you about making their lives better
It took u this long lol well buddy i got more news for u
America is literally bankrupt. And just economical....
If you take All the assets minus all of the debt, they are 60.000 dollar per citizen (all 331.000.000) short. And this increases every minute.
We were camping in Zeeberg, short walk to the tram then straight into Amsterdam Centraal. An American lady was repeatedly asking about parking etc. The lovely girl on the desk just kept saying - do not take your car into the city. But I've driven for years all over the states - please, do not take your car into the city. This lady from the US couldn't cope with the idea of not having her car within walking distance of a particular store or museum that she wanted to visit
When I drive from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam my car never leaves the campsite. It is the most pleasant driving experience ever. Most Dutch drivers are cyclists themselves. They have exceptional awareness of other people on the road with them and the roads are immaculate. As NJB says at the end you need to know when to ditch the car and get a tram and whenever possible just get on your bike or walk. The biggest problem I see in North America is that there is no other choice. It's the car or nothing - not even walking.
Sometimes I wonder if Americans actually have a somewhat correct sense of scale for Amsterdam. The city centre is about 5 kilometers in diameter. Something that takes around an hour to walk if you are atleast somewhat healthy. In other words; You don't even need a bike when visiting these cities and to be honest biking on busy bike paths isn't the most pleasant experience either.
@@martijn9568 well you cant blame americans, its ingrained in their minds that cars is the only way of moving, and if they can fit their cars in their houses then they will use it to get from the living room to the kitchen,
@@charlestonianbuilder344 It sort-of happened once: ruclips.net/video/OL2jBPycsVE/видео.html
@@martijn9568 then again, a bicycle traffic jam slows you down less than a car traffic jam. bicycles simply use road space way more effectively and have a smaller following distance. so in my opinion a busy cycling path is better than a busy road
@@charlestonianbuilder344 was raised in the usa, and can tell you I was pressured to drive. Always preferred walking, biking, and consistently disappointed about public transportation. Caught a lot of guff for that, from peers and even close family members.
The other aspect that I'm surprised you didn't get into more is the safety factor: Every morning commute through heavy traffic, those traffic jams were frequently caused by people who got into an accident and didn't make it. Even if the Dutch approach was slower, it beats having a significant chance of lifelong disability or even death every work day.
"They sell a lot of Audis here too" is such a fucking devastating call out because it's 100% true.
I mean even in Germany, the cities are less care centric in comparison to the US. Not as good as the Netherlands but still less. And Germany is literally THE car nation with one of the biggest producer and the invention of it.
BMW drivers are worse in the netherlands, my theory is that the dealers disable the indicators.
But my Audi has fancy blinkers so I have to use them (is that why Audi's now have these fancy blinkers?)
I literally spat out my dinner when that line was said :D
@ we say the same thing, but about BMW.
As a Japanese living in Canada, I truly understand your feeling. Driving in Ottawa is very difficult, most drivers are extremely aggressive, the asphalt quality is awful and the public transport is inexistent. The sad thing is that here you MUST own vehicle because the public transport is extremely inefficient. Here we have "LRT" where the government spent millions to built but it interconnects from nowhere to nowhere.... it's completely useless
Welcome to the National Capital Region.
thankfully Ottawa's finally taking transit a little more seriously with the (horrendously deployed) Confederation LRT and soon the upgraded Trillium line - it's a start
Oh please. Way to be overdramatic. I have travelled to Ottawa multiple times and well as multiple cities in Europe and Ottawa is probably one of the easiest cities to drive in.
I also regularly travel in Montreal which is arguably much worse than Ottawa and it's not ''very difficult''. Just pay attention to the road and you will be fine. I'm much rather take my comfortable car than be stuck in an overcrowded metro/bus during rush hour.
Come to Texas or Florida, you will be thankful to Canadian drivers at once.
Yeah lol the whole idea behind the LRT was that EVENTUALLY there would be city centers around its stops. Like wtf? Eventually? What's it gonna do in the meantime?
I just wish we could get (good) small cars here in the U.S.... I don't want to drive a 2 ton, 4 meter long SUV just for a single person... But everyone here keeps buying them due to lax laws and corresponding market demand.
Money that makes money
Who cares about the future when you can squeeze every lil' drop of money now?
SUVs and personal pickup trucks should be taxed way more for the damage they cause.
@@burgeryoufoundbehindthegrill You do know that there are small and light offroad vehicles. No not talking about atvs but proper offroad capable cars that aren't the size of a barn.
@@burgeryoufoundbehindthegrill So how many US Americans are stuck with such developing world grade infrastructure? I dare to claim not more than a tiny fraction of the number of SUV and proper off-road vehicles drivers in the country.
The demand has largely been created by car manufacturers who were desperate to find a way to continue to profit from selling cars when fuel efficiency and safety standards got stricter on smaller vehicles. Since light trucks (SUVs and pickups) were exempt from these new rules it made sense for car manufacturers to start pushing them, especially since it was easier to turn them into a luxurious "living room on wheels" without having to design around things like not killing pedestrians or not killing the planet.
Damn you completely covered a topic that I've had in my head for awhile. Eventually I'd love to interview abunch of "car channels" and see what their take is on modern traffic and urbanism solutions.
Edit: Savage line about cyclists in Houston oof
As a Armchair urbanist, would you consider moving into somewhere in European union where there's excellent infrastructure, if you work situation etc. would allow it?
@@WheeeBz Don't worry I live in the Glorious republic of New Jersey. But maybe I'd consider living in Germany
I'm a huge car guy and I'm all over this content. I want cars to be something people want to buy and enjoy like a motorcycle, not something feel like they HAVE to buy to get around.
If there are more cyclists around that means less people out on my country roads to thoroughly enjoy!
@@alanthefisher Have you been to Germany before? It's quite good transit and biking wise compared to North America, but it's certainly not as good as the Netherlands unfortunately.
do it
I wanna hear the Delaware Valley take
Another benefit of having speed limits that make sense together with the design of the road is that cars that turn onto a road have an easier job of determining the speed of approaching cars, leading to less accidents at junctions and less time required to judge the situation before making a turn.
Yup. When I turn onto a stroad, I regularly wait 3x longer than many people, because my depth perception isn't great, and there's no way I'm going to dart out into traffic and get hit just because I got the timing wrong (or misjudged my car's performance).
As a Dutch person who is currently living abroad for a year, it's incredible that one of the things you make me miss most is good infrastructure! I can tell from first hand experience just how essential it is to quality of life, and I will most certainly be moving back to the Netherlands after my year abroad is done!
You briefly mentioned the stricter driver's license requirements, and I think they deserve more than one sentence. When I started doing my license here in Germany, knowing all the things I would have to do, I checked what the requirements in the US were and I was shocked. You just pay a fee, do a theoretical test and a practical test and you're fully "qualified" do drive in the US. That's a bit oversimplified, but it's basically that. I had to take 14 mandatory theory lessons before attempting the theoretical test. I then spent a year (which is a time greatly inflated by covid, normally it takes a few months) with a driving teacher doing everything from driving in my hometown of 9k people to driving on the Autobahn network. I finally have my license now, and I can confidently say that I know how to properly drive a car and how to follow the rules, which by the way includes paying attention and giving way to pedestrians and cyclists, even in a very car-friendly/focused country like Germany. I know how to safely and efficiently get to where I need to go and I can be sure that everyone else has learned these things as well, which is comforting (even if there are still assholes on the road). I also know, having visited them several times, that the drivers of my neighboring countries, such as the Netherlands, have gone through very similar training.
Sehr gut 😃👌yeah I had like 40 1,5h lessons before my practical exam
Don't forget that they can get a license at 16 already, and the (extremely) dumb rule of turning right at a red traffic light, that rule scares the shit out of me as a cyclist
@@jbird4478 that was so fucking terrifying. We have "BF17" in Germany, which basically means you can start your driver's license at 16 1/2 years, so that you get it done by the time you're 17. At that point, after you've fully qualified and spent half a year with an instructor in a car with two sets of pedals, you're allowed to drive with your parents, and only with your parents (or any select person) if they have a license with no significant offenses in the last year. Once you're 18, you're allowed to drive on your own. My teacher told me that people who do BF17 turn out to be safer drivers later.
@@jetseverschuren When the location makes sense, I actually like the right turn on red light idea. You still have to stop, look and then go (if you can obviously) also you are only aloud to go to the right most lane, so no cutting of other traffic. It just helps with a bit of extra traffic flow.
Edit; typo
While i agree with the stringent practical tests, the theoretical ones sound like a slap in the face of anyone intelligent enough to learn it all in one sitting.
I would much prefer it if anyone with a license would have to do a repeating test every year to keep their license valid.
Of course it would be inexpensive to do that re-test, sort of subsidized by the government. But it would assure that whomever is out there on the road is actually still capable of operating a vehicle safely and correctly.
Because i see it all too often... Someone takes their license, then they play nice between 3 and 6 months and then they start making idiot decisions and drive without due care. Especially playing with their phone and even leaning down to grab something they dropped at their damn feet... WHILE GOING 90 km/h (55 mph) !
As a Dutch person this video is painful to watch, I want to complain about our infrastructure but apparently this doesn't suck... DAMN IT!
My first reaction too!
@@kakadorez11 Dutch weather is still great compared to eg Singapore. Or perhaps Florida.
As someone who lives close to the German border I dare not to complain about it lol
The fact that we don't know any worse is likely helping us maintain this standard, as every minor flaw will be noticed by the "spoiled" citizens and there will be some pressure to fix it. I must say just traveling to any other European place for vacation even will make me appreciate our infrastructure for a good while before it becomes the norm again (as well as nice tasting drinkeable tap water etc)
@ florida gets hit by a hurricane once a month
An interesting addition to the subject of traffic lights in The Netherlands; the smart traffic lights report their status to a central system, that data can be used in apps like Flitzmeister to display the light color in the app; but also quickly determine a better route based on traffic light behavior.
I drive roughly 2000km a week in The Netherlands. And never have i seen a pothole, had a conflict because of bad infrastructure or hit someone walking/cycling. Yea traffic is bad, but easily avoidable. There are many roads which lead to my destination and even if you end up in traffic, the view outside is still nice to look at.
Colin Vos
Is it possible that you could have fallen down a pothole and not known it?
That's the feeling of having the choice that make a huge difference! In France, especially in Paris, many people have not yet understood that cycling can be a choice and think that the only possible choice is the car!
In 10 years someone will be making a video about this for Paris. :)
@@NotJustBikes I hope. I know Paris is investing a lot into making their city greener, with more public space and parks and trees, so hopefully they’ll also try to work towards bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure as well. I mean they’ve already got one of the world’s best metros, so now all they need are bikelands and superblocks
I’ve only been to Paris a few times as a tourist but it felt really walkable (especially with the metro). It felt less congested than real London where I currently live. I grew up in Canada with stroads aplenty so maybe I’m biased though.
What kind of psychopath CHOOSES to drive in Paris??
@@blanco7726 Maybe a french taxidriver that also grew up in that metropole?
I was born and live in the Netherlands. I’m so used to these things that I never thought it was anything special. I like your videos because they show an outside perspective and help me appreciate the little things. Thank you for your videos!
Im Dutch and when I crossed over to Belgium I had alot of anxiety as I found the roads and othwr drivers very frustrating and unsafe.
It is as if its a free-for-all.
In NL we seem to drive on easy mode.
That's true i'm not dutch or belgian but drive with my car from albania to northern eu countries i can say dutch roads are the best in the world only swizerland have infrastucure same as in netherlands
Yes but i have found out that a lot of traffic jams is due to people not using the passing lane properly. They will pass someone who is doing a 100 by doing a 102 and there by creating a long column behind them that makes it almost impossible for exits and entrances to the highway. Its why at most traffic jams here its not related to a accident. Its just people being scared. Even driving instructors here say there is nothing wrong with going a little faster to pass someone.
A lot of Belgians drive without having taken a test.
A lot of Dutchies think they need to be on the left side of the road when they’re not passing anything.
You guys on the west side had it really easy. Try going to the 3rd world eastern side of the world for once, it's literally world war on the streets.
This touches on a point that occurred to me recently, when you mention the better drivers in the Netherlands. There are so many bad drivers here in Canada, and in the US too. I expect the fact, which everyone is at least unconsciously aware of, that you need a car to even participate in society here, has pressured us into issuing licenses to people who really aren't good enough drivers to deserve them. Whereas in properly-built, functional countries they can afford to have appropriately rigorous standards.
Driving is like singing.
But you only sing in your bathroom if you’re a bad one, when you can get a licence and drive everywhere if you are a bad driver.
And no matter the number of lessons, you’ll still remain a bad singer/driver.
@Lex Bright Raven And if that driver that didn't actually deserve their license goes on to cause an accident that injures/kills somebody, or themselves?
I do see what you're saying. I wouldn't exactly want to tell somebody they'd just failed either. That shouldn't be an excuse though and it certainly doesn't make them a shitty person, because it's 300 dollars against a danger to life on the road.
@@pierat3338 I mean it's not really up to any specific person anyway, there are standards.
Everytime I watch one of your videos I have serious reactions: frustration, anger, envy, and a longing to live in a place that recognizes the needs of it's citizens. Thank you for shining a light on these issues!!!!!
I'll bet we aren't the only ones who do that. Thanks
I've lived in a small city of about ~50k people, just below the Randstad area, close to Rotterdam.
In the past 2 decades, all but one traffic lights for cars have been replaced by roundabouts, and the bicycle and footpaths have gotten a major overhaul with bridges and tunnels to cross roads. It looks a lot better and feels even safer than before.
Just remembered an intersection from my town onto the main road into Luxembourg city, was planned for years to be converted into a roundabout. Instead they replaced the priotity signage with a red light.😂 fucking pricks man. Improved through traffic as well, we're the only ones who got fucked.
In the past two decades my city added a 30 cm painted bicycle gutter onto a 75 kph stroad.
That's about it
@@blanco7726 Luxembourg is a mess mobility-wise, despite the government claiming otherwise
@@edipires15 it's not a mess, it's pretty good. Only problem is peak hours but there's nothing you can do. Luxembourg is a 120k pop. city, but like 300k people work in and around it.
@@blanco7726 it is a mess, if your destination isn’t in Luxembourg or Esch region you’re pretty much spending 2 hours or more in public transport, and that’s outside rush hour. (I know that because I live there as well and use public transport on a daily basis)
As A Dutch company we needed and have an agent in Texas where everything is bigger, better an more expensive until he had to come over for a quite sophisticated project. For three days on end I had to listen to his ‘BIG’ stories until we reached FloraHolland the biggest flower auction in the world and showed him the ‘refrigerator’ of this auction which is supposed also the biggest in the world 51.800m2 (to comparison, all the refrigerators and freezers in the city of Amsterdam do have a total of 40.000 m2! His voice finally came down a bit until we drove trough the city of Rotterdam were the Euromast is situated with it’s 185 meters of height. He asked me watch it was and I said to him that I didn’t had a clue coz it wasn’t there yesterday. He became more silent until we drove trough the city of Eindhoven (hometown of Philips) were the traffic is controlled by traffic lights and what they call ‘the green wave’, between the distance of the traffic lights are signs who tells the motorist to drive a specific speed to the next traffic light to go on green. The rest of his stay he remains in deep thoughts! That’s Holland 🇳🇱 or the Netherlands or the Dutch whatever you want to call us 👍😂🤷🏻
Just how UGLY America looks next to the Netherlands makes me want to cry. Not just the roads but the buildings and the homes as well.
We're fat too (in both people and homes), don't forget about that lol. Wasteful consumption does a number on you
Its sad
Yeah, those stroads tunneling you through the seas of parking with a dead looking reef of shopping here and there - just one look and I get depressed. No wonder road rage is such a thing there. I would want to rage too!
@@steemlenn8797 nothing more ugly than a strip mall.
Yet americans are still richer on average, but they only want to be rich to be able to buy their own small kingdoms of luxury and comfort, in gated communities, the rest of the country can rot away for all they care. I never understood that mindset, those rich folks also have to get out in 'the wild' I would be ashamed if I saw how sloppy my country is
3:05
"There is no solution to traffic congestion, except viable alternatives to driving."
Seriously, this sums up your channel in one sentence. You should plaster it across several long frames in each video you produce.
This is one of the biggest things that people that are against bike and public transport fail to realize. They think that if you give space to bikes and public transport, all of a sudden there is going to be all these people on bikes and all these buses taking up space, yet the car traffic will remain the same, which in most NA just does not make sense. It's not like those people that will be riding bikes and taking public transport didn't exist before, they did they were all in a car before. So if you get those people out of their cars and on to bikes and into public transport vehicles, that means they will no longer be in cars, which means you wouldn't need as much space to hold all those cars.
If you are someone who HAS TO drive a car because you have no other choice, then you should want to get those other transport options to be better, because that means there will be less people in cars for you to compete for road space over.
If a bus system takes up one lane in a 3 lane road, but reduces cars by 40% isn't that better? You get rid of 33% of the road while getting rid of 40% of the cars, it's really simple. and these numbers totally ignore the fact that a bus is usually the size of 3-4 cars while at the same time having about 3 times the seating capacity .
I think your math underestimates the effectiveness of buses.
You compared seating capacity on bus vs car, but the average bus is usually more filled than the average car. I've not often seen buses at less than 50%, but I rarely see cars with more than 1-2 people in them.
A bus at half-capacity would have 50-100% more seating than 3-4 cars at max capacity.
More realistically, at three-quarters capacity, a bus would be 4-5x the capacity of 3-4 cars with 2 people in them, which I don't even think is that much for commutes.
@@Robert-hb8fo I did underestimate the capacity of a bus, but that was only to give the car somewhat of a chance.
Cars absolutely only have 1 or 2 people in them at most and any decent bus route will typically have more people on them that it's seating capacity because people get on and off.
The fact that a bus only needs to have say 6 people on it for any duration of it's trip to be better than a typical car (which I'm giving a generous 1 1/2 people in each car), which any bus line should easily be able to achieve just makes things worse for cars.
So, yes I totally gave the car the best case scenario, but even in that scenario the bus "wins" easily.
Look at "The High cost of Free Parking" by Shoup. Cars are not very cost effective.
Every single video of yours i watch makes me want to move to Netherlands more and more
Dude. With this one video you have just utterly slayed the entire reason for your channel.
This is the one video that I will share with every meathead who opposes bike infrastructure from now until forever.
The left turns in this video on those Canadian roads gave me so much anxiety, how do people do that everyday? I can't even remember being in such an awful traffic situation in the Netherlands ever, or even in Western Europe.
You won't find yourself in a situation like this even in Eastern Europe where road infrastructure is generally worse than Western Europe.
Even on wide multiple lane boulevards without central guardrail (which are not many), this type of left turn is mostly prohibited.
Yup, and this is totally normal with stroads. There are many videos and articles about the dangers of left-turns like this, but the "solutions" proposed by the traffic engineers he interviews are insane. They just don't get it.
One way to handle it is by planning an awkward route that only involves right turns or intersections known to have dedicated left turn signals.
If there is too much traffic, I always turn right and go from there. But I don't drive often, most people get used to it I guess.
As a Dutch driver I already feel anxious taking left turns in Belgium. I can not imagine how bad it must be in North America.
I drove in Switzerland on my vacation there. It was a night and day difference compared to the US. It was such a pleasant experience that I looked forward to driving during my stay. The road design and driver etiquette is immaculate. I came back to the US and realized just how bad it is here. It was actually because of that that I found your channel. I wanted to look into it more so I searched up some stuff on youtube and came across your channel.
edit: the video is on my channel if anyone is interested
Sometimes I think we're literally becoming like Russia over time, with bad roads and overall infrastructure, a tired power grid, and ogliarchs literally looting the country and making profits overseas. America is a pale shadow of what it was even 35 years ago.
I needed a video like this. As someone from car-centric America I've loved learning about the walkability of the Netherlands, but again, being from car-centrica, I've got a slight obsession with cars, and especially motorcycles. It's good to hear that if I decide to escape this place that even driving is better in one of my top 3 places to live.
Here’s another classic bonus of driving in a non-car-dependent country: the selection of cars doesn’t suck.
In the US, nearly every car on the road is a “crossover”, a marketing term for mediocre cars marketed as SUVs that are really just hatchbacks that pointlessly weigh hundreds of pounds more than they need to and have a high CG. In countries with less car dependency, hardcore car enthusiasts make up a much larger chunk of the market for new cars (since the people who don’t like driving aren’t buying cars) so the genres of cars available are usually things like hatchbacks, wagons, and sedans which enthusiasts usually find a lot more palatable. Additionally, manual transmission take rates are generally much higher in non-car-dependent countries.
Thanks for bringing this up. As someone who is both a car enthusiast and an urbanist/NIMBY-hater, I really appreciate this perspective and will probably send this video to people who say that driving is terrible outside America in the future.
Don't worry, the crossover has taken over the Netherlands (and Europe) too. The best selling cars here is the Kia Nir, with Volvo XC40 not far behind. Western Europe has an aging population, which leads to two things: governments that enact policies that are financially favourable to older people (especially home owners), so expensive new cars are mainly sold to older people, and a high demand for cars with a higher seating position, which are easy to get into with an aging body.
Manual transmission cars are more fun to drive than automatic ones if you are not stuck in traffic, so I am not surprised that manual cars are the preferred option in non car dependent cities.
My parents (both Dutch) spent a long holiday in the US once. They got a huge discount from the car renting service because they rented the tiny stick shift Fiat panda. Which was a little horrifying experience when they were on a highway, and from both sides they were overtaken by ginourmous trucs.
Just because the crossover has become the vehicle of choice for most, it doesn't mean the other types aren't available.
SUVs are very popular here in Czechia, despite the country being flat as a pancake and the public transport system being great too. And there's nothing wrong with automatic transmissions; in fact, the average driver here over-revs so badly that an automatic almost certainly would improve their mileage and emissions (both noise and fumes).
10:02 “..or take public transportation to a football game.”
Hearing this, I remembered how awful most of the spaces around stadia in the US and Canada are but how wonderful (mostly) it’s in Europe. Particularly when I visited Amsterdam, the public space around the Johan Cruyff Arena and Bijlmer station is extraordinarily good. No need to use a car to get there, just take a bike, walk or public transport on the metro, sprinter or whatever
"Why Netherlands is the best country to cycle"
"Why Netherlands is the best country to drive"
Next video: "Why Netherlands is the best country"
It's "The" Netherlands. And no, it's not the best, there are so many smart asses here...
@@ewoutbuhler5217To add: Make sure the "T" in "The Netherlands" is a capital "T" a lowercase "t" in "The" is a no no unless "the" is not in front of Netherlands which sounds weird without "The" Infront of it. Living in The Netherlands is great.
Covid response was pretty bad and we are dealing with a huge housing crisis. We do quite well on infrastructure though!
@@gstar1084 to be fair, that was basically every country on the planet, and I can guarantee it still wasn't nearly as bad as the US would had both of those problems turned up a notch
I think he's also made a video of why the Netherlands is the best country to raise kids.
I was in Brazil recently again (Minas Gerais) and traffic there is just completely the opposite. There is no direction whatsoever and everybody just does as they please. Every time you get into a car is like saying a prayer: I hope no one crashes into me. There are potholes everywhere, no traffic lines, dangerous crossings and perhaps worse: a great many people who get behind the wheel while drunk. It's even worse in the city, and state of Rio de Janeiro. I used to go for a drive every night just to relax. You can practically drive with your eyes closed in comparison to Brazil and it would still be safer. Thanks for making this!
Car enthusiasts are simple people, there are three things we primarily enjoy about cars:
1) Freedom to go wherever there is a road, particularly routes that would be arduous on foot/bicycle because of distance and/or elevation and, usually, offer spectacular views.
2) Driving fast. There's a strong mental component to it, concentration, knowing what to do, doing it right etc. There's the adrenaline rush too, if you get it wrong you could get badly hurt etc.
3) Nerding out on the technology that goes into a car and, possibly, customising the car to your preference.
All of those things benefit from less traffic, less interruption and more beautiful surroundings. No car nut wants to sit in rush hour traffic, or even drive in a city for that matter. As a car nut myself I'd much rather have the walking/cycling/public transport options that allow me to keep a car that is less practical but more fun to drive and only drive when I want to go out driving for fun. As it stands I sometimes have to drive through London inner city traffic which sucks bollocks. I just don't feel safe enough among that traffic on a bike. London needs a lot more cycling infrastructure.
That's why I don't understand those Ferrari etc rentals in the middle of Paris. You can finally drive a fast car - at 40 km/h if you're lucky. Not to mention the risk of damaging the car...
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Well said!
It's really weird that some drivers want more drivers on the road, especially worse drivers who don't have a passion for it or give it less thought.
I fly quite a lot for work (pre pandemic mainly), it's as if I told everyone to fly more for vacation even though they're usually the most annoying to fly with. I'd much rather have less people standing in the check-in queue for 30 mins to realize at the counter that they need to get their batteries out of the suitcase.
Finnaly someone who understands bikers arent some low life losers , and car guys arent some evil people who want the world to burn from global warmimg. As a walking, bycicle, motorcycle,car guy I appreciate your opinion greatly !
2:30 "changing speed limits based on congestion because drivers travelling slower have less space between cars and make better use of the road". MIND. BLOWN. I have NEVER understood why there's temporary lowered speed limits in rush hour, I just thought "Why would I drive slower, I'll just drive as fast as I can to get where I'm going, and out of the way of every body else".
Another reason why slower speeds reduce congestion is because the speed differences get smaller, for instance between cars and trucks. Many tail-backs (and accidents) are caused by slow traffic mixing in with high-speed traffic.
Also I would like to add that because we most cycled and walked to our destinations when we were younger, we are more experienced with bike and walking behaviour when we do get our driver lincense when we become 18. At least I noticed that when I started driving I would be more careful when getting into a corner because I knew how it would be for the biker around the corner etc.
I'm not even Dutch, nor do I drive or currently plan on ever getting a license, and yet this was incredibly pleasant to watch
Ah yes, it has been a while since I got super jealous of the Netherlands...and on the same day where where Climate Town took a hot dump on my gas range dreams.
@@chrisdejonge611 Oh man, 100% jealous. I've wanted an induction cooktop for a while. Admittedly, I also want a gas wok range, but hopefully they'll have some nice commercial grade ones that use induction that I can buy whenever I finally get a house.
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Watching cooking shows I was brainwashed into thinking gas ranges were the best. If I ever remodel the kitchen, I'm going for induction.
@@kenbob1071 But those cooking shows are right, gas is often better for cooking. (From a culinary point of view, I don;t know about energy conservation and economics)
As a car guy I agree with all of this, the roads in my country are relatively similar to those in the Netherlands (although we still have a long way to go) and I wouldn't have it any other way. Cities should always be built primarily for people instead of cars, as you mentioned this actually results in cities being better for cars. I drive to school and I sometimes get frustrated when I have to stop for 1 minute at a traffic light, then I think about what others have to go through and suddenly it doesn't feel so bad anymore
One more note on the speed limit topic that I know you've mentioned in another video: roads in NL automatically slow drivers down, and because we only have 15 (very rare) , 30, 50, 80, 100 and 130 kph, most of the time we can eyeball how fast we can drive or we're slowed down in some natural way.
Another thing that you've mentioned in other videos. Drivers Are cyclists, so they're naturally gonna be more careful because they know what a cyclist might do in a certain situation.
There are also 60, 70, 90 km/h roads.
@@DarkDutch007 120
Well i see 60, 70, 90, 110 and 120 a lot too. But youre right, the uniform street design tells us what kinda street it is, and if youre in doubt a sign will tell you. Long live our drivers theory manual
We actually have more different speed limits in The Netherlands. You’ve missed 60, 70 and 120.
In the city you basically have 4 different speeds. 50km/h is normal. 15km/h is used for “woonerven” where there are often children playing on the streets and as far as I know these streets are always paved with bricks and never asphalt. Then there is 30km/h which is becoming more and more common. It’s designed with zones, so the speed doesn’t change back to 50 as soon as you turn onto another street. And last there is 70km/h for some longer distance high traffic volume roads. But it’s not very common.
Outside the cities and with the exception of highways 80km/h is the norm. And at places where a lower speed limit is applied its 60km/h. Or with higher limits it’s 100km/h. The difference is most often visible from road markings beside the signs.
On the highways 100km/h is the standard during the day. Only on few places 80km/h is used for very specific safety or environmental reasons. In the night there is less standardization. 130km/h should be the norm, but around many cities speeds are still limited to 100km/h as during the day due to safety concerns and often noise levels. Around some nature areas speeds are limited to 120km/h due to pollution. And the 80km/h parts during the day keep that limit during the night.
For me as a frequent driver, all this is very logical and I rarely mistake the speed limits. But I do know several people, native Dutch even, that don’t drive as often and do sometimes find it confusing. Especially on highways at night.
@@pawernielsbroek3971 have not seen any 120 road since they changed it to 130 many moons ago, but you are probably right that there might still be some 120 roads.
"Imperial Units are stupid"
..... Inner peace! Subscribed!
As a person who loves cars, loves driving, and makes his living from writing about cars, amen to all of this. I live in an American city where you can feasibly live without a car, and it's wonderful when I can go eat, shop and do every day things without having to drive.
I was not surprised at all to see my small city of Baton Rouge make a cameo in your video. It's the epitome of every issue you bring up. Everything is a stroad with 15 streetlights, complete lack of viable alternatives to driving, and every commute is a Hobbesian struggle for mere survival.
Ranked the third-worst traffic for mid-size cities, and yet when the city tries to place a roundabout people lose their damn minds.
As an American I really hate stroads. Perfect example, at 6:24 you can see the white car of the left trying to enter the stroad, but barely misses the on coming traffic of the other car. Idc if you're the world best driver, we are humans we make mistakes. It scares me every time cause if either driver makes a mistake at that moment nobody can stop and you have an accident. That moment is just begging to be an accident.
There's two lanes mate. The car in the left lane was closer to the black pick up truck than to the white car merging lmao.
Totally agree, imperial units are stupid. I can tell, I use both.
Ever since moving out of my parents house at 19-ish I've been living in Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Breda, Rotterdam and back to Amsterdam) and I have never, ever felt the need to get a drivers license. I am one of many Dutch natives in their 40's who just couldn't be arsed getting a license and a car and pay taxes and insurance and stupendous prices for fuel when there are bikes and public transport. And living in Zuid-Oost riding a bike means I can safely bike from my house to Arena and Bijlmerplein without ever having to cross a busy road and a commute to the top of Spaarndammerstraat takes me about 50 minutes. I wouldn't want anything else. I'm thoroughly enjoying your videos and love the new perspective they give me on things I've been taking for granted.
In most of London (UK) one dosent need a car... Can be a little awkward for moving bulky items as taxis don't like taking bulky items..
@@pyellard3013 but how many time do you need to move really bulky items. And at that time you can either have it delivered or rent a van for 1 day. Still cheaper than having a car.
@@koenven7012 Highing is a bit of a hassle and add it such factors as picking up famaily and friends (especially elderly), late night travel and some places being difficult to reach by public transport.. Then there are advantages.. I guess it depends on one's lifestyle.. I like to leave the City regularly to reach the countryside.. It is more difficult and travel time restrictive by public transport...But, yes, one dosent need a car in a city that provides good public transport and bicycle support.
@@pyellard3013 That I can understand. My father is in a wheelchair so I know all about needing a car even though my commute is possible by bike (not public transport the way I have to go). Especially since public transport here in Belgium sucks big time for people in wheelchairs. That was actually a lot better in London: all busses adapted, no need to reserve in advance and as we were on holiday, it didn't really matter that it took a bit longer by bus then it would have taken by subway.
I accidentally designed my life in US to be able to bike/walk everywhere and noticed that with better path options of walking/biking I would choose slightly longer or slower routes that were prettier. Did it without realizing and it made me so much happier that I thought I realized I hated driving. Recently got a car again and the rare times I drive have some good scenery. I learned I hated driving down poorly maintained, ugly paths.
5:36 this is actually a distinction by design. If you have a green *arrow* , you are guaranteed to have a clear path through the intersection, without having to give way. If you have a green *light/circle* , you may need to give way to other traffic.
Green arrow, I don't need to worry. Green circle, check to see if it's clear. And there are sometimes a combination. It's a green circle and then there's a couple seconds during rush hour when before it goes red, you get a green arrow. This way it helps clear cars on that lane.
Someone could jump a red light though so it's still important to keep paying attention. But yeah, it's definitely much much safer.
@@ItsATrap614 keep attention yes, but it's the fault of the one who jumped if that happens.
I don't know how it's in Netherlands, but in Poland we have:
- green circle: you can go, just watch out for people turning and for everyone else if you are turning yourself.
- "full" green arrow (that replace green circle): you are only one on this path try to keep traffic flowing as there should not have conflict with anyone.
- "side" green arrow (used only with circle light config): if you are turning right, treat red light as a stop sign, give way to pedestrians and other drivers. (there is no "turning right on red" without that light here)
@@cola98765 It's different here, but that's a matter of law: the driver should've paid attention so they get the blame, unless intent can be proven. Right turn on red doesn't exist here at all.