I have just come back to the UK from a holiday in Groningen. I chose this wonderful city because I am an advocate for cycling as the main urban transport solution. I was massively impressed and would one hundred percent recommend Groningen as place to visit. I will definitely return. It is a city all urban planning officers should visit and study.
Dutchie here. Biking as a status symbol to show how close you live to work is NOT the reason. Higher educated people feel maybe ashamed to use a car if they live a few km. It is also expensive (even for higher incomes, maybe your partner uses the car for work). Please note, usually the company doesn't even give you a parking place if you live in the city itself (due to limited places). Besides that, we are less status driven than average, but people that like status are using a car :-).
Lovely video. I also love cycling everyday and i see myself as a kind of small scale embassador to cycling in my town here in Portugal xD. Here the practice of cycling is still rare but i been seeing it slowly growing over the years and slowly more infrastructures are being built in response of that growth, which also encourages more people to start cycling aswell. Its a positive cycle
This is the first time I heard Groningen being referred to as the Siberia of the Netherlands… And I’ve lived here for over half a century! (side note: the province of Groningen used to have the highest concentration of communists in the Netherlands.)
An important note for around 3:10 If the car was allowed to take the cycle route the road would be so clogged up that your journey would ultimately take longer, think easily 16 to 20 minutes. Forcing the car to take a detour and allowing the bike to go directly incentivizes people who don't care about which method of transportation they use to walk, take the bike, or even take the bus instead. Which reduces the total number of cars; speeding up car travel times. This is rooted in the fact that, unfortunately, cars are extremely inefficient at moving lots of people. You can read this research in the Dutch SWOV but also in research done by the American DoT. Each car lane has a maximum throughput of about ~2000 cars per hour (no matter how fast you allow cars to go, how close you pack them together, this is basically a hard limit due to physics, read the research if you want to know why) but bikes between 10 000 and 16 000 per hour. This also explains why 'Induced Demand' is usually spoken of while talking about cars; you reach the limit of your available road space 5 to 8 times faster than by bike. Walking is even more efficient, then trams, and trains are the kings and queens of moving people. Make no mistake, induced demand happens for every form of transportation, but the car is just so inefficient that it usually only becomes a problem for cars. In the entire country there are only half a dozen streets where the street had to be changed to give the bike traffic the space it needed.
Another important result of the cycling infrastructure is that it's a safe way for kids to go to and from school/sports/friends/whatever else. A Dutch kid builds up the independance before their teenage years that american children only get when they get their driver's license.
Except for those American children who did grow up riding bikes all over the place. That was probably more of a thing in the 1970s and 1980s suburbia but I do know of some kids these days who ride their bikes in an urban area. It's rare but it happens.
I really admire the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. I hope that in the future, during better times, we will also learn to make cities more comfortable for cycling in Ukraine by adopting the experience of countries like the Netherlands)
My compliments to you. Not just for mentioning the things Groningen has to offer... I lived there fo about 7 years and than moved to Haren (neighbouring town) for 10 years). But my most compliments go to the sights of Groningen. Often I still don't know where the camera shots are taken in video's... but this was a great video of memory lane to me! Ofcourse not all camera shots... but at least a lange majority. Thank you Big Bike World for this video!
Even a city that was built for cars can put an end to large-scale car traffic. First, electric motorscooters and electric micro-cars are a viable alternative to stinky SUVs, especially if gas stations are turned into battery swapping stations, getting heavy objects from A to B is taken over by delivery services and there are frequent, punctual, comforting and low-cost high-speed trains for longer distances - for North Americans: obviously without luggage weighing, height differences at train doors and platform boarding. Second, decentralising commercial structures is possible everywhere within very short time - cars are pointless if you have it all right in front of your door. Third, frequent, punctual, comforting and low-cost metropolitan and provincial railway can be built in the most sparsely populated areas. In fact, there is not a single rational reason to allow for any personal-use cars that are not electric micro-cars.
As a working musician who has to drive long distances throughout the SF Bay Area with large and heavy equipment (amps etc), I wish it was the norm for venues to provide those heavy pieces of equipment such as amps, drum sets, piano, keyboards. I would love more than anything to take a tram or ride my bike with my instrument & pedal board from home to work. I did get to tour in Europe and found that a lot of the socialist democracy countries (Belgium & The Netherlands in particular) provided heavy Ampeg & Fender amps as well as a full functional drum set. And what they provided was no cheap broken shit. It was top of the line equipment. I also wish more cities in the US zoned for live music entertainment the way New Orleans and Austin seem to do. If all I had to do was walk a short distance or take a quick tram ride to the clubs to work, I'd be so happy. I'm sure there are a lot of other musicians who would love that too, especially those who perform 5+ gigs per week.
Groningen is an old city built for horse and carriage. And only partially adapted for cars like many cities in the Netherlands From 1980 > 2020, cars will be increasingly banned from cities Best regards Frits
Er gaat niets boven Groningen (There is nothing 'above' Groningen). double meaning. There is nothing better than Groningen and north of Groningen you just have empty land.
Indeed. Although saying that is a generalization and some people here do have status symbols, but I haven't come across someone who considered cycling to be a status symbol. It is just a functional thing what you can do, when commuting. By the way, the great thing about cycling for children is the freedom it gives them; they are quite independable from a certain age as they can go to school, sports, friends etc by bike
Walk a bit in Wassenaar and Bloemendaal. We do status symbols. See how many Audi's are sold instead of Volkswagens, same car, different logo, slightly different bling bling, much more expensive. We do status symbols.
We definitely do. While status symbols can differ quite a lot depending on which group you're talking to. An expensive car or a filled bookcase, a big house or a family portrait from 1850, a certain brand of shoes or a particular accent. All of those are status symbols to certain people.
I got one too recently, I love it! I can now commute to work in 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes or longer depending on the weather, and all that without being a sweaty mess on arrival, and now I make trips I wouldn't make on a normal bike, I now spend more time outside and enjoy exploring the surroundings and visiting places I wouldn't before. I honestly don't understand what's so unfortunate about people transferring to electric bikes, or the hate in general, they keep cars off the roads, meaning less traffic jams and parking spaces necessary to accommodate them, and more people on a bike whom refused to ride one before since the people that were on the fence between a bike and a car, weren't willing to put in the effort and time to ride a normal bike to work or other places 6km+ away from them, and choose the car instead, (or public transport if more convenient obviously) and now have made the more logical decision, an e-bike.
Last week I had a discussion with a German working for a contractor a my place of work. He found e-bikes were useless in the Netherlands. You can bike through the Netherlands and the north of Germany easy because it is so flat. And he would ban e-bikes if he could. When I cycled home I had for most of 14 km the strongest headwind in years. I love my e-bike.
Here in Denmark, an American Ambassador (Trump) found out, that the reason why so many Danes rides bicycles, is that we can't afford to buy a car!!! As the only one, at least for years, she wasn't given a "Danish Knights Cross", when she left her job😄!
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but the fog you see is actual fog. Not smog. Though seeing the thumbs up, you're probably not being sarcastic. 🙂
Riding a bicycle in San Francisco is nothing but a thrill and a joy. There is not a hill there that I won't ride. I used to love riding up those steep hills in North Beach, Noe Valley, Marina, etc. with those steps on the sidewalk. You know a street is steep when the sidewalk has steps! lol. The best views were to be had on many of those streets. When I lived there that was my main mode of transport. I also rode for a living. There are a lot of people there who take pride in riding their bicycles in that city. SF is a fun place to ride a bike. I still live in the area, across the bay. I live in a hilly city where I don't mind riding my bike.
Never heard of it in the Netherlands, that biking or a short distance to your work gives status. I really don t know what gives status here. It is not appreciated in general to show off.
I'm from the Netherlands and have heard it a lot,@@tuinbuddy3385 . The fact that they live within Cycling distance of work, a city center, or other useful places is often boasted. Not always as 'showing off' but often just as a statement of why they love living where they live, or are moving to where they are moving to. That said I have noticed that they are certain sectors where that isn't a thing at all. Worked at companies where being able to bike to work was a thing to be proud of, but also plenty where you were 'that employee that bikes to work' (much like I imagine it is in the USA, et al.). Though the former has been more common in my experience. Notably, this has been related to how bike friendly the location of the company is, and typically correlates with some other social factors of the bulk of the employees as well.
To all Americans, have you ever heard "Never Use The Middle One" of the urinal etiquette? Now try to apply similar set of values to road etiquette. :D So who should manage it? Social media?!! :D Why driving needs a license, but nothing for riding?!! That failed ideology of American management divides all legitimate road users(both motorists and cyclists)!! For any American motorist who never ever ride a bicycle in the streets, they'll never understand the psychological threat that they could cause for any cyclist. Same applies to the other side of the bike lane. A horde of distracted American children and Sunday cyclists create psychological stress to motorists too. If all American freeways are being patrolled constantly by police officers, then why can't the same rule applied to all bike lanes, right?!! Why American government grab hard-earned tax money from both sides of the bike lanes, but end ups having selective attention., terms after terms?!! As an average ordinary American taxpayer, are you satisfied?!!
As a Danish owner of a Brompton, folding bike, I look at films from the US with people riding Bromptons. And I must admit that the conditions for people riding bikes in major cities in the US, for a Dane seems utterly absurd!! We mostly have special bike lanes in both sides of the road and traffic lights for bikes + bridges and passes made for bikes only. We don't need to cross a street to reach a single bike lane to the one side (For both directions), ride on pedestrian passes or have to walk to change directions, because there isn't a ramp! And yes some Danish cyclists also behave in insane ways, but if accidents happens it is always the hard traffic getting the blame, by law! Finn. Denmark
The "worlds" cycling city must be Copenhagen. You can find pictures from Copenhagen over 100 years old and people bikes all over. They did not begin to cycle in the 1960´s but there it took of between 1890 and 1920. The more cycling cities the better, so congrats to Groeningen for being a sensible cycling city.
Groningen is not a very exceptional biking city in the Netherlands. It is the sixth largest city and cities like Amsterdam have more extensive bike lanes, bike parking garages and more kilometers being crossed by bike. I’d say its pretty standard Dutch. Ihave visited Kopenhagen once but did not notice the bike density i know from Amsterdam.
@@bjdamn Henry Ford began mass producing cars in 1903. I have seen "home movies" from the former Danish King entertaining joyful European royals with bike lessons while holidaying in Denmark around 1915 with Rolls Royce´s lined up in the background. I would assume that the majority at that time used horses and horsedriven carriages. Historically, not least in this century, I guess Denmark and The Netherlands often comes out as twins in their development since both countries are flat as pancakes, have produced more agricultural products than the nations could consume, both have gone from having largest income in the agricultural sector to the knowledge based sectors and both nations have had a long biking tradition exceeding other European nations. Historically I do not think there are basis for saying "back when everybody where biking". That time have not existed, unfortunately. But should any nations come close it would be Denmark and the Netherlands.on this continent otherwise only Japan, China and India have had bikes as such a vital part of their everyday transportation infrastructure.
@@jeanpierreviergever1417 I agree and that are a reason in itself to not call it the worlds cycling city. I live in Copenhagen and if you managed to avoid discovering Copenhagen as a biking city I have to ask if you where in Copenhagen airport for a connecting flight and did not leave the airport? It are a pretty absurd statement since tourists first impression when visiting Copenhagen, when asked, mentions the biking culture. I have been to Amsterdam several times and the generally more narrow streets of Amsterdam combined with the higher population density do make all transportation means having less space to roam perhaps making transportation visually more present but numbers of bike ownership and usage do not lie. One of the solutions Copenhagen used around the turn of the century 125 years ago, to better accommodate cars, new collective transportation and bikes, where to cover some of our canals with roads whereas you kept all yours in Amsterdam why you today have more canals and we have more bike lanes. Danes and Dutch should both be happy that it now finally seems that others have begun to see the light and understand we bike a lot because it makes so much sense and not because we cannot afford any other means of transportation. May our future contain more bikes and preferably the right ones, that do not destroy the concept of emission and thus battery free transportation.
I immediately notice the large amounts of parked bicycles and how much space that takes up. Although I love cycling that looks ugly. Not to mention trying to find your bicycle when you do find a place to park it. And the lack of people wearing helmets.
Same could be said for massive American parking lots and the large amounts of cars. You just remember where you leave your bike. But the city center also has underground parking now. I always put mine in there because there's always space there. :) Also studies show that low speed crashes with a bike are more dangerous with a helmet. Wearing a helmet can actually increase the chance of neck injuries. The benefits of a helmet don't outweigh the cons unless the speeds are higher. And if a helmet was mandatory, people would stop going by bike as much. It's not really needed because car speeds are slow and the infrastructure tries to prevent cars and bikes in the same places as much as possible.
Parked bicycles take up way LESS space than parked cars. And as @Murkelsable says, helmets have their cons. Besides that, we cycle so much we simply don't need helmets. Cycling is just as natural to us as walking. I can't even remember the last time I saw a cyclist fall from his/her bike.
This comment makes no sense. Cars take up way more space. Due to fantastic bicycle infrastructure and the way people cycle in the Netherlands helmets aren't really necessary.
This was actually before we got big underground parking spaces (underneath Grote Markt and the Forum) so most of the bikes parked here are gone now, since your not allowed to park your bike anywhere but in the designated parking spaces. Although it might look better it is a bit less convenient. And no nobody's gonna wear helmets, you'd have to carry your helmet everywhere all day. Plus because of the lack of cars, you really don't need a helmet, people generally don't fall on their head unless they get hit
I have been cycling for commuting on a daily basis for over 40 years. I've never worn a helmet and never had a serious injury where a helmet would have protected me. I also have never met anybody that has. That's the brilliancy of a separated bike network and a cycle-culture where car-drivers respect cyclist because they also cycle and know what it is like. It's just fundamentally different to where you are from, so don't judge it with only your local experience. And to be fair, if I'd live in your country I would be crazy not to wear a helmet...
200.000 inwoners is een dorp? En "barely" ook, het scheelt niet veel of het is een gehucht? Zijn er überhaupt steden in Nederland volgens jouw definitie?
Sorry to burst your bubble but cycling is not as environmentally friendly as you think. A cycling person produces a lot more CO2 when breathing. Yes, a car is heavier and will produce more CO2. But you can't say cycling saves a X amount of carbon because a car would produce that amount over a certain distance.
If you become fat by not doing any exercises you breath heavier too and that continues 24/7. That difference is much greater then the small increase you have while cycling. Ergo your argument is not very valid and looks more like an excuse. You burn away 8 kcal of body fat per kilogram of weight if you cycle 20km/hour per hour for an hour.
@@randar1969 To be clear, I am Dutch and own two bicycles. However, I'm not talking out of my arse here. There really has been some research done into this subject. Not doing any exercise does not automatically mean you will get fat. Secondly, when you're fat you don't automatically breath heavier. Yes, moving around will cost more energy and make you breath more heavily. But you will probably be more stationary as well. Meaning that you will not produce more CO2 than a not fat person. Secondly, cycling will raise your heart rate and your body will consume more energy. That energy will have to come from somewhere. The process of making your food will produce CO2. Now, you can debate about whether that is actually carbon neutral because your food will also absorb carbon during the proces of growing, whether it be plant or animal based (yes, animals are actually CO2 neutral). However, your journey on your bicycle will cost energy and that does mean extra CO2. Now, as I said, it won't be as much as a car but it is certainly not 0. The reason why Dutch people cycle has nothing to do with the environment, and every thing to do with practicality. Bicycles are cheap to buy and maintain. They offer door to door transport. You can park them almost everywhere (theft is the only thing you have to keep in mind). In crowded cities they are at least as fast as cars, and often faster than public transport. And Dutch children learn how to cycle early on, giving them some Independence early in life.
This is Propaganda. She never told the audience that the netherlands are oft the flatest country of the world. So of course the dutch cycle but if you country has hills or mountains then cyling will not be the preferred mobility option.
No, it is infrastructure. Most American cities are as flat as Dutch cities. But roads in the US are ill designed, walking and biking is very dangerous. And by the way, according to American expats driving in the Netherlands is way better. (RUclips channel Not just bikes. The episodes, The best country in the world for driving and Why I hate Houston)
"American" cities are built for cars, for 6-meter-long cars, in a huge territory. European cities were built when cars didn't exist, built for people to move from one place to another on foot.
@@paolopetrozzi2213 just look at the channel Active towns and you will see that a number of American cities are creating more walkable and bike-able streets f.i. Austin Texas, Lafayette etc.
I have just come back to the UK from a holiday in Groningen. I chose this wonderful city because I am an advocate for cycling as the main urban transport solution. I was massively impressed and would one hundred percent recommend Groningen as place to visit. I will definitely return. It is a city all urban planning officers should visit and study.
👍👍🚲🚴
Dutchie here. Biking as a status symbol to show how close you live to work is NOT the reason. Higher educated people feel maybe ashamed to use a car if they live a few km. It is also expensive (even for higher incomes, maybe your partner uses the car for work). Please note, usually the company doesn't even give you a parking place if you live in the city itself (due to limited places). Besides that, we are less status driven than average, but people that like status are using a car :-).
Lovely video. I also love cycling everyday and i see myself as a kind of small scale embassador to cycling in my town here in Portugal xD. Here the practice of cycling is still rare but i been seeing it slowly growing over the years and slowly more infrastructures are being built in response of that growth, which also encourages more people to start cycling aswell. Its a positive cycle
This is the first time I heard Groningen being referred to as the Siberia of the Netherlands… And I’ve lived here for over half a century! (side note: the province of Groningen used to have the highest concentration of communists in the Netherlands.)
I have heard the province of Groningen be called that, not so much the city.
An important note for around 3:10
If the car was allowed to take the cycle route the road would be so clogged up that your journey would ultimately take longer, think easily 16 to 20 minutes.
Forcing the car to take a detour and allowing the bike to go directly incentivizes people who don't care about which method of transportation they use to walk, take the bike, or even take the bus instead. Which reduces the total number of cars; speeding up car travel times.
This is rooted in the fact that, unfortunately, cars are extremely inefficient at moving lots of people. You can read this research in the Dutch SWOV but also in research done by the American DoT. Each car lane has a maximum throughput of about ~2000 cars per hour (no matter how fast you allow cars to go, how close you pack them together, this is basically a hard limit due to physics, read the research if you want to know why) but bikes between 10 000 and 16 000 per hour. This also explains why 'Induced Demand' is usually spoken of while talking about cars; you reach the limit of your available road space 5 to 8 times faster than by bike. Walking is even more efficient, then trams, and trains are the kings and queens of moving people.
Make no mistake, induced demand happens for every form of transportation, but the car is just so inefficient that it usually only becomes a problem for cars. In the entire country there are only half a dozen streets where the street had to be changed to give the bike traffic the space it needed.
Another important result of the cycling infrastructure is that it's a safe way for kids to go to and from school/sports/friends/whatever else. A Dutch kid builds up the independance before their teenage years that american children only get when they get their driver's license.
Except for those American children who did grow up riding bikes all over the place. That was probably more of a thing in the 1970s and 1980s suburbia but I do know of some kids these days who ride their bikes in an urban area. It's rare but it happens.
The radical traffic-circulation plan made Groningen an international first in the 70s.
I really admire the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. I hope that in the future, during better times, we will also learn to make cities more comfortable for cycling in Ukraine by adopting the experience of countries like the Netherlands)
After the victory, of course! 🇺🇦
Groningen is even more beautiful when the sun shines!
Great video! You have a very pleasant voice and the end quote, sums it all up! Thank you!
And thank you too))
My compliments to you. Not just for mentioning the things Groningen has to offer... I lived there fo about 7 years and than moved to Haren (neighbouring town) for 10 years). But my most compliments go to the sights of Groningen. Often I still don't know where the camera shots are taken in video's... but this was a great video of memory lane to me! Ofcourse not all camera shots... but at least a lange majority. Thank you Big Bike World for this video!
Really love not just the content but the presentation of the video with nice cinematic Kodak style colouring 👌
I like how you pronounce it as Harninken. I think I'll copy that in future. Nice video, too bad about the dreary winter weather though.
In cloudy weather, the best picture in the video is obtained.
Even a city that was built for cars can put an end to large-scale car traffic. First, electric motorscooters and electric micro-cars are a viable alternative to stinky SUVs, especially if gas stations are turned into battery swapping stations, getting heavy objects from A to B is taken over by delivery services and there are frequent, punctual, comforting and low-cost high-speed trains for longer distances - for North Americans: obviously without luggage weighing, height differences at train doors and platform boarding. Second, decentralising commercial structures is possible everywhere within very short time - cars are pointless if you have it all right in front of your door. Third, frequent, punctual, comforting and low-cost metropolitan and provincial railway can be built in the most sparsely populated areas. In fact, there is not a single rational reason to allow for any personal-use cars that are not electric micro-cars.
As a working musician who has to drive long distances throughout the SF Bay Area with large and heavy equipment (amps etc), I wish it was the norm for venues to provide those heavy pieces of equipment such as amps, drum sets, piano, keyboards. I would love more than anything to take a tram or ride my bike with my instrument & pedal board from home to work. I did get to tour in Europe and found that a lot of the socialist democracy countries (Belgium & The Netherlands in particular) provided heavy Ampeg & Fender amps as well as a full functional drum set. And what they provided was no cheap broken shit. It was top of the line equipment. I also wish more cities in the US zoned for live music entertainment the way New Orleans and Austin seem to do. If all I had to do was walk a short distance or take a quick tram ride to the clubs to work, I'd be so happy. I'm sure there are a lot of other musicians who would love that too, especially those who perform 5+ gigs per week.
@@jodi183 The fact you call our countries socialist just shows how fucked up the US is. Sorry man😅
Nice!
Nice video, and Groningen Looks like a great place
Groningen is an old city built for horse and carriage.
And only partially adapted for cars
like many cities in the Netherlands
From 1980 > 2020, cars will be increasingly banned from cities
Best regards
Frits
will be? have been... 1980-2020 is in the past
Er gaat niets boven Groningen (There is nothing 'above' Groningen). double meaning. There is nothing better than Groningen and north of Groningen you just have empty land.
We don't do status symbols🙂
Indeed. Although saying that is a generalization and some people here do have status symbols, but I haven't come across someone who considered cycling to be a status symbol. It is just a functional thing what you can do, when commuting. By the way, the great thing about cycling for children is the freedom it gives them; they are quite independable from a certain age as they can go to school, sports, friends etc by bike
Walk a bit in Wassenaar and Bloemendaal. We do status symbols. See how many Audi's are sold instead of Volkswagens, same car, different logo, slightly different bling bling, much more expensive. We do status symbols.
We definitely do. While status symbols can differ quite a lot depending on which group you're talking to. An expensive car or a filled bookcase, a big house or a family portrait from 1850, a certain brand of shoes or a particular accent. All of those are status symbols to certain people.
Low class people still need status symbols, they are often very car minded
Yes we do: VAN MOOF
Unfortunately many Dutch are transferring to electric bikes.... not only the elderly ...
If they change cars - that's good))
I got one too recently, I love it!
I can now commute to work in 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes or longer depending on the weather, and all that without being a sweaty mess on arrival, and now I make trips I wouldn't make on a normal bike, I now spend more time outside and enjoy exploring the surroundings and visiting places I wouldn't before.
I honestly don't understand what's so unfortunate about people transferring to electric bikes, or the hate in general, they keep cars off the roads, meaning less traffic jams and parking spaces necessary to accommodate them, and more people on a bike whom refused to ride one before since the people that were on the fence between a bike and a car, weren't willing to put in the effort and time to ride a normal bike to work or other places 6km+ away from them, and choose the car instead, (or public transport if more convenient obviously) and now have made the more logical decision, an e-bike.
Last week I had a discussion with a German working for a contractor a my place of work. He found e-bikes were useless in the Netherlands. You can bike through the Netherlands and the north of Germany easy because it is so flat. And he would ban e-bikes if he could.
When I cycled home I had for most of 14 km the strongest headwind in years.
I love my e-bike.
Very social very sapient.
Nice content.. Short and crisp.. Thank you..
Here in Denmark, an American Ambassador (Trump) found out, that the reason why so many Danes rides bicycles, is that we can't afford to buy a car!!! As the only one, at least for years, she wasn't given a "Danish Knights Cross", when she left her job😄!
What air quality!! 👍
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but the fog you see is actual fog. Not smog. Though seeing the thumbs up, you're probably not being sarcastic. 🙂
Great topography for biking, not every city is so lucky.
Riding a bicycle in San Francisco is nothing but a thrill and a joy. There is not a hill there that I won't ride. I used to love riding up those steep hills in North Beach, Noe Valley, Marina, etc. with those steps on the sidewalk. You know a street is steep when the sidewalk has steps! lol. The best views were to be had on many of those streets. When I lived there that was my main mode of transport. I also rode for a living. There are a lot of people there who take pride in riding their bicycles in that city. SF is a fun place to ride a bike. I still live in the area, across the bay. I live in a hilly city where I don't mind riding my bike.
Grevenbicht, Netherlands. South Holland. Bikes & motorcycles rule.
Would love to know if living close to your work is a high status symbol in other countries.
Never heard of it in the Netherlands, that biking or a short distance to your work gives status. I really don t know what gives status here. It is not appreciated in general to show off.
I'm from the Netherlands and have heard it a lot,@@tuinbuddy3385 . The fact that they live within Cycling distance of work, a city center, or other useful places is often boasted. Not always as 'showing off' but often just as a statement of why they love living where they live, or are moving to where they are moving to.
That said I have noticed that they are certain sectors where that isn't a thing at all. Worked at companies where being able to bike to work was a thing to be proud of, but also plenty where you were 'that employee that bikes to work' (much like I imagine it is in the USA, et al.). Though the former has been more common in my experience. Notably, this has been related to how bike friendly the location of the company is, and typically correlates with some other social factors of the bulk of the employees as well.
@@PVDH_magic ive lived here my whole life and literally NO ONE brags about how close they live to work or school 😂
I liked the video although the low framerate was unpleasant.
never heard of this city
To all Americans, have you ever heard "Never Use The Middle One" of the urinal etiquette? Now try to apply similar set of values to road etiquette. :D So who should manage it? Social media?!! :D Why driving needs a license, but nothing for riding?!! That failed ideology of American management divides all legitimate road users(both motorists and cyclists)!! For any American motorist who never ever ride a bicycle in the streets, they'll never understand the psychological threat that they could cause for any cyclist. Same applies to the other side of the bike lane. A horde of distracted American children and Sunday cyclists create psychological stress to motorists too. If all American freeways are being patrolled constantly by police officers, then why can't the same rule applied to all bike lanes, right?!! Why American government grab hard-earned tax money from both sides of the bike lanes, but end ups having selective attention., terms after terms?!! As an average ordinary American taxpayer, are you satisfied?!!
As a Danish owner of a Brompton, folding bike, I look at films from the US with people riding Bromptons. And I must admit that the conditions for people riding bikes in major cities in the US, for a Dane seems utterly absurd!! We mostly have special bike lanes in both sides of the road and traffic lights for bikes + bridges and passes made for bikes only. We don't need to cross a street to reach a single bike lane to the one side (For both directions), ride on pedestrian passes or have to walk to change directions, because there isn't a ramp! And yes some Danish cyclists also behave in insane ways, but if accidents happens it is always the hard traffic getting the blame, by law! Finn. Denmark
The "worlds" cycling city must be Copenhagen. You can find pictures from Copenhagen over 100 years old and people bikes all over. They did not begin to cycle in the 1960´s but there it took of between 1890 and 1920. The more cycling cities the better, so congrats to Groeningen for being a sensible cycling city.
Back then everybody was biking, not just the Danes. No cars you know..
Groningen is not a very exceptional biking city in the Netherlands. It is the sixth largest city and cities like Amsterdam have more extensive bike lanes, bike parking garages and more kilometers being crossed by bike. I’d say its pretty standard Dutch. Ihave visited Kopenhagen once but did not notice the bike density i know from Amsterdam.
@@bjdamn Henry Ford began mass producing cars in 1903. I have seen "home movies" from the former Danish King entertaining joyful European royals with bike lessons while holidaying in Denmark around 1915 with Rolls Royce´s lined up in the background. I would assume that the majority at that time used horses and horsedriven carriages. Historically, not least in this century, I guess Denmark and The Netherlands often comes out as twins in their development since both countries are flat as pancakes, have produced more agricultural products than the nations could consume, both have gone from having largest income in the agricultural sector to the knowledge based sectors and both nations have had a long biking tradition exceeding other European nations. Historically I do not think there are basis for saying "back when everybody where biking". That time have not existed, unfortunately. But should any nations come close it would be Denmark and the Netherlands.on this continent otherwise only Japan, China and India have had bikes as such a vital part of their everyday transportation infrastructure.
@@jeanpierreviergever1417 I agree and that are a reason in itself to not call it the worlds cycling city. I live in Copenhagen and if you managed to avoid discovering Copenhagen as a biking city I have to ask if you where in Copenhagen airport for a connecting flight and did not leave the airport? It are a pretty absurd statement since tourists first impression when visiting Copenhagen, when asked, mentions the biking culture. I have been to Amsterdam several times and the generally more narrow streets of Amsterdam combined with the higher population density do make all transportation means having less space to roam perhaps making transportation visually more present but numbers of bike ownership and usage do not lie. One of the solutions Copenhagen used around the turn of the century 125 years ago, to better accommodate cars, new collective transportation and bikes, where to cover some of our canals with roads whereas you kept all yours in Amsterdam why you today have more canals and we have more bike lanes. Danes and Dutch should both be happy that it now finally seems that others have begun to see the light and understand we bike a lot because it makes so much sense and not because we cannot afford any other means of transportation. May our future contain more bikes and preferably the right ones, that do not destroy the concept of emission and thus battery free transportation.
They where the first city but are now outnumbert by the Dutch city's.
Utrecht is beter.
Utrecht is better.
😄😄
I immediately notice the large amounts of parked bicycles and how much space that takes up. Although I love cycling that looks ugly. Not to mention trying to find your bicycle when you do find a place to park it. And the lack of people wearing helmets.
Same could be said for massive American parking lots and the large amounts of cars. You just remember where you leave your bike. But the city center also has underground parking now. I always put mine in there because there's always space there. :)
Also studies show that low speed crashes with a bike are more dangerous with a helmet. Wearing a helmet can actually increase the chance of neck injuries. The benefits of a helmet don't outweigh the cons unless the speeds are higher.
And if a helmet was mandatory, people would stop going by bike as much. It's not really needed because car speeds are slow and the infrastructure tries to prevent cars and bikes in the same places as much as possible.
Parked bicycles take up way LESS space than parked cars. And as @Murkelsable says, helmets have their cons. Besides that, we cycle so much we simply don't need helmets. Cycling is just as natural to us as walking. I can't even remember the last time I saw a cyclist fall from his/her bike.
This comment makes no sense. Cars take up way more space. Due to fantastic bicycle infrastructure and the way people cycle in the Netherlands helmets aren't really necessary.
This was actually before we got big underground parking spaces (underneath Grote Markt and the Forum) so most of the bikes parked here are gone now, since your not allowed to park your bike anywhere but in the designated parking spaces. Although it might look better it is a bit less convenient. And no nobody's gonna wear helmets, you'd have to carry your helmet everywhere all day. Plus because of the lack of cars, you really don't need a helmet, people generally don't fall on their head unless they get hit
I have been cycling for commuting on a daily basis for over 40 years. I've never worn a helmet and never had a serious injury where a helmet would have protected me. I also have never met anybody that has.
That's the brilliancy of a separated bike network and a cycle-culture where car-drivers respect cyclist because they also cycle and know what it is like. It's just fundamentally different to where you are from, so don't judge it with only your local experience. And to be fair, if I'd live in your country I would be crazy not to wear a helmet...
Groningen isn't a city. It's barely a village
Doe niet zo stoer... Groningen is gewoon een stad.
@@vsmolders85 nee tuurlijk niet
Goed onderbouwd argument ook. Echt slim ben jij.
200.000 inwoners is een dorp? En "barely" ook, het scheelt niet veel of het is een gehucht? Zijn er überhaupt steden in Nederland volgens jouw definitie?
@@B0K1T0 Amsterdam is de enige stad in Nederland
Sorry to burst your bubble but cycling is not as environmentally friendly as you think. A cycling person produces a lot more CO2 when breathing. Yes, a car is heavier and will produce more CO2. But you can't say cycling saves a X amount of carbon because a car would produce that amount over a certain distance.
If you become fat by not doing any exercises you breath heavier too and that continues 24/7. That difference is much greater then the small increase you have while cycling. Ergo your argument is not very valid and looks more like an excuse. You burn away 8 kcal of body fat per kilogram of weight if you cycle 20km/hour per hour for an hour.
@@randar1969 To be clear, I am Dutch and own two bicycles. However, I'm not talking out of my arse here. There really has been some research done into this subject. Not doing any exercise does not automatically mean you will get fat. Secondly, when you're fat you don't automatically breath heavier. Yes, moving around will cost more energy and make you breath more heavily. But you will probably be more stationary as well. Meaning that you will not produce more CO2 than a not fat person.
Secondly, cycling will raise your heart rate and your body will consume more energy. That energy will have to come from somewhere. The process of making your food will produce CO2. Now, you can debate about whether that is actually carbon neutral because your food will also absorb carbon during the proces of growing, whether it be plant or animal based (yes, animals are actually CO2 neutral). However, your journey on your bicycle will cost energy and that does mean extra CO2. Now, as I said, it won't be as much as a car but it is certainly not 0.
The reason why Dutch people cycle has nothing to do with the environment, and every thing to do with practicality. Bicycles are cheap to buy and maintain. They offer door to door transport. You can park them almost everywhere (theft is the only thing you have to keep in mind). In crowded cities they are at least as fast as cars, and often faster than public transport. And Dutch children learn how to cycle early on, giving them some Independence early in life.
We should be grateful for all those obese people storing carbon...
I agree: stop breathing is the most environmental friendly thing you can do 🤣🤣
You made us laugh)))))
This is Propaganda. She never told the audience that the netherlands are oft the flatest country of the world. So of course the dutch cycle but if you country has hills or mountains then cyling will not be the preferred mobility option.
E-bikes tho
No, it is infrastructure. Most American cities are as flat as Dutch cities. But roads in the US are ill designed, walking and biking is very dangerous. And by the way, according to American expats driving in the Netherlands is way better. (RUclips channel Not just bikes. The episodes, The best country in the world for driving and Why I hate Houston)
😂
"American" cities are built for cars, for 6-meter-long cars, in a huge territory. European cities were built when cars didn't exist, built for people to move from one place to another on foot.
@@paolopetrozzi2213 just look at the channel Active towns and you will see that a number of American cities are creating more walkable and bike-able streets f.i. Austin Texas, Lafayette etc.