It's funny because as a Dutch person you don't really think about cycling and infrastructure at all, it's just there. Moving out of the country makes you realize that there's so much more to this than people realize. It really is something special and something that should be praised more. But at the same time, keeping the idea of having such infrastructure as normal as possible is probably the wisest thing to do...

@Arashmickey

2 жыл бұрын

I might have thought cycling paths had always been there since the days of horses and carts. Not so, apparently.

@uppakra

2 жыл бұрын

But first we will have to fight for this infrastructure, that´s what we learn from this video. There is so much heavily lobbying resistance to it, especially in Germany.

@Joe90V

2 жыл бұрын

When other countries realise that the last sentence is the crux of the matter, then they will move forward.

@gert-janvanderlee5307

2 жыл бұрын

@@Arashmickey In the times of horse and wagon there were no cars yet so the horses used the road as the cars did later.

@AtidAPT

2 жыл бұрын

@@uppakra What do you mean 'heavily lobbist against it'? Becuase the car industry?

Excellent video, as usual. I'm glad to see this video updated because it's so important. I would often send people your previous video; now I'll send them this one. 😉 I think what's lost on a lot of people is how all of this almost didn't happen. There's this assumption that the Netherlands has always been a cycling country, and when cars became a problem they all decided to promote cycling. But as you mentioned, many of these car-centric initiatives, like cancelling the destruction of Amsterdam by building an urban freeway, only passed by a few votes, and there were lots of people who didn't want to take away space from cars. The Dutch advocates at the time were really great, but there was an element of luck involved, too. Stop de Kindermoord happened around the same time as the oil crisis and there were _just_ enough of the right politicians in power at the time. Plus the Dutch were willing to literally riot to stop the destruction of their cities. I hope with these lessons learned, other cities and countries can do the same without so much pain and effort. Paris is doing well. But the most frustrating part is the people who willfully ignore what happened in the Netherlands and insist that they're different and have to do everything differently. Hopefully videos like this one can help to dispel those myths.

@dantesk1836

2 жыл бұрын

Apparently nobody has commented under this comment. And I'll just say that I love your videos.

@redmoon383

2 жыл бұрын

Seconding the previous reply. Thanks for sending me this way

@arv1ndgr

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for linking me here. It was insightful

@MirkZwart

2 жыл бұрын

Hindsight bias is a real thing, the past was not inevitable

@timmypunt3565

2 жыл бұрын

@@MirkZwart I remember visiting Amsterdam looong ago when I was still little. Dog shit all over the place. Where the person we were visiting was pushing her stroller straight through it. 'No point avoiding it, you'll never get anywhere' xD Now I live there and thank god ppl have to fetch after their dogs now. Hard to imagine that it was normal at one point. (though with so many ppl working at home, being bored and getting a dog, there seems to be a sudden increase in crap on the sidewalks again)

"Crafting cycle tracks is not a goal; crafting an attractive and safe living space is" I love this. I wish this were common.

@johnstewartBr3X1T

11 ай бұрын

💯 agree with your comment. The west doesn't seem to value attractive and safe living spaces.

I love the amount of old footage you included! It really shows that change doesn't happen overnight, but it is possible.

@autohmae

2 жыл бұрын

And because of this history we probably know better how to do it quicker now too.

Wow Mark, this isn't just a fabulous research dive into the history of Nederlandse fietsen but it also serves as a thesis for the entire channel. Bravo, anyone could watch this and understand what you're speaking about regularly.

I think this video nails it. An "outsider" might get the idea that it must be terrible for motorists to drive in the Netherlands and that we hate cars. The opposite is very much true. Furthermore, it is not a mutual exclusive to be a bicycle and a motor vehicle fanatic, we don't hate cars, just the sheer amount of them. Take for instance our F1 champion-in-the-making Max Verstappen, who happens to be like quite a few other F1 drivers (think Sebastian Vettel), a devoted cyclist. One of the biggest sports event in the Netherlands is the annual Tourist Trophy in Assen, which is the oldest MotoGP Grand Prix still on the calendar. Not to mention the craze during the first F1 Grand Prix in over 36 years this year in Zandvoort, where most spectators arrived by train and/or bicycle. The automobile is absolutely not a bad thing. In fact, I would argue it is one of mankind's best inventions. However, we really need to consider how and when we use motor vehicles because of the obvious spatial problems, traffic related incidents, emissions saturation and all its consequences, not to mention diminishing fossil fuel reserves. Bicycles are a wonderful way of preventing automobile overuse and is the logical link to make public transport "Just work"™.

@Moses_VII

2 жыл бұрын

In my opinion, there are only two good use cases for private use of automobile: Rural people away from the city, and city people practising car-sharing (not really private)

@Whistler4u

2 жыл бұрын

@@Moses_VII And what about vacation or visiting family or friends? Bike friendly doesn't equal Car unfriendly.

@ExitiumNL

2 жыл бұрын

And what about people traveling longer distances for work? My commute is about 36 km (will be 47 after moving next year) one way. By car it usually takes about 25 minutes, but using public transport it would be about 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's a difference of over 1,5 hours a day, so public transport isn't a viable solution for me. Right now I do live in a city by the way, just not the one where I work.

@nickb7381

2 жыл бұрын

​@@ExitiumNL I have a similar challenge because I live on one of the southernwestern islands. Our public transport service is notoriously bad, compared to mainland standards. We do not have a train network here. There is only a terminus of the RET metro (Rotterdam mass rapid transport system) in the north east. On the islands, we rely on a rather coarse bus network which has been downscaled to make things worse. The solution, for this particular island would be rather simple: Extend the RET metro westwards. However, this is not a popular opinion as the locals fear it would open the proverbial floodgates and unleash Rotterdam crime and culture upon the islanders. Unfortunately, that explains why the south tangent of the greater Rotterdam area is jam-packed with traffic.

@questioner1596

2 жыл бұрын

I'm a Canadian car enthusiast who also enjoys cycle commuting - but I don't bike much in winter because our town has no separate pathways and we have a high risk of being run over by a skidding Ford F150. I enjoy driving, not stop and go commuting

I live in a small town in the Netherlands, almost all journeys within my town I do on a bicycle. When I go to another, larger town I often put a folding bicycle in the back of my car and try to find a parking place just outside of that town with cheap parking or better for free, then I take my folding bike and ride into that town and back.

@frankhooper7871

2 жыл бұрын

LOL - typical of the "frugal" Dutch! Mind you, I do the same here in England. Five days out of seven, my car just sits in the street outside my house while I go about my business on foot or on two wheels.

"The Dutch do not own less cars on average than their neighbouring countries." If only the German carmakers would hear that and stop spewing anti-bicycle propaganda. I do not own a car precisely because the streets are always congested anyways.

@jceess

2 жыл бұрын

Yes from watching these videos it seems that in some ways, driving in the Netherlands is actually more pleasant as a result of the cycling infrastructure. It 'flows' much nicer because not everyone is forced into a car for everything, which leaves more space for the people who do drive.

@RiderOftheNorth1968

2 жыл бұрын

@@jceess As a swede that have visited Utrecht and just watched the two type of traffic i can say that i firmly believe it is more relaxing and stressfree to drive a car there in rush hour than in my hme town.

@steemlenn8797

2 жыл бұрын

That's the only disappointing thing lol. Why still so many cars?

@Erik-ou3tl

2 жыл бұрын

@@steemlenn8797 because for some journeys bicycles or trains or busses are just not suited enough. personal transport in a car-like form will most likely always be needed. best we can do there is make sure they're safe and as light on the environment as possible.

@steemlenn8797

2 жыл бұрын

@@Erik-ou3tl Just because you want a car for certain trips does not mean you have to own one in most cases. .

Cycling in Netherlands is like a story of great empire in some fantasy. "We were building a lot of bikes, in rural areas we build cycleways" "But then the cars came in the 60's" "Fortunately the bike prevailed and came out of hiding to retake it's position"

I'm so grateful that your channel existes! It made me realize that, even though the coastal city that I've lived all my life here in Brazil, which is considered one of the best in countr, when it comes to cycling infrastructure. We don't even get close to the Dutch. That's why, when the time to produce my fininal project in my Logistics course arrived; and talking about road conflict/traffic injures was a possibility. I started looking at ways that we could improve road safety using Dutch methods in here. The final presentation is in a week, and I'm happy to show everyone how traffic calming could shape a hole community/country for the best.

@idromano

2 жыл бұрын

Boa sorte! And where're you from? Floripa?

@eduardowunderlich5953

2 жыл бұрын

@@idromano hey bro! I'm from Praia Grande-SP

@annekekramer3835

2 жыл бұрын

Let us know how it wend and if the suggestions will be implemented.

@ifer1280

2 жыл бұрын

Cool!

@mariadebake5483

2 жыл бұрын

Good luck!

How the Netherlands went the whole way from a car-dependent hole to a bike-friendly country in just 30 years is amazing

It is more than a decade and you're still running this show, thnk you so much for keep doing it

I live three years in Netherlands and with help of this video I understood how country became bicycle country. Greeting from Gelderland regio. And I also have a bike.

@hds66nl29

2 жыл бұрын

Just one bike? Not fully integrated yet than 😉

@aleksander1982

2 жыл бұрын

@@hds66nl29 I have no family and I’ve alone

@hds66nl29

2 жыл бұрын

@@aleksander1982 Well, there are more bikes than people in the Netherlands, 22.8mln bikes vs 17.5 inhabitants.

@rusticcloud3325

9 ай бұрын

​@@hds66nl29 Some of them are bicycles for rent

I once travelled through a small part of the Netherlands on my bike, and it was so pleasant. The most dangerous thing on my journey was me, not knowing how to behave properly. And even I was saved by the fantastic Dutch cycling infrastructure.

It is not a lack of data or funding that prevents other places from copying the Dutch. What I see are large cultural differences. The Dutch should be very proud not only for what’s been built, but the process and people that allowed these planning decisions to be made.

@mourlyvold64

2 жыл бұрын

What a thoughtfull and pleasant comment! You must know that we, the Dutch, have been conquering great parts of our country from the sea and worked to prevent it from flooding for 700 years by now. Come to think of it, I actually can't even fathom what could have triggered such crazy endeavors to begin with. There is a word in our language, 'maakbaar' that roughly translates to 'makeable'. Apparently that's how our forefathers viewed their surrounding swamps and deltas, as 'maakbaar land' or 'makeable land'. They wouldn't have stood a chance but for a deep commitment to cooperation. And endless (endless, endless) deliberation, a phenomenon that eventually even resulted in it's own word: 'polderen'. A verb that has it's root in the word 'polder' which describes 'a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes' (from wikipedia, couldn't have put it better myself). The end goal of 'polderen' is consensus, which by and large proofed to be pretty achievable. Fastforward a few centuries and this deliberation and cooperation that got engrained in our DNA (with a hint of inventiveness) resulted in a wide spread believe in what we call 'de maakbare samenleving' or 'makeable society'. Ergo Dutch culture (at least my attempt at a sociological theory as to how we could build what we have built). Excuses for my ramblings, your post triggered a train of thought I just had to share (as you must have noticed). You may understand that if all this resulted in the present state of our infrastructure, I consider it not so much as something to be proud of (as you stated) but more so as something to be very grateful for. Thank you for your post, gonna hop on my bike now for an evening ride 😊 Greetings, M.

@mourlyvold64

10 ай бұрын

@@dimrrider9133 Thank you, it's appreciated. (overigens blijf ik van mening dat Tilburg stiekem toch nét een gezelligere stad is dan Breda 😎)

@mourlyvold64

10 ай бұрын

👍@@dimrrider9133

In Moscow we have plenty of space for cycle infrastructure, as the city built around cars having 4-8 car lanes on an ordinary street. We even have so-called "garden ring", which used to be a street with lots of trees. They've replaced the trees with more car lanes, ending up in 10 lanes. I wish someday some of these are turned into bike lanes and trees.

Mark, This is fabulous. So beautifully done. Thanks so much for putting together this marvelous and ultimately quite helpful video.

New subscriber here. What a great, inspiring video! We need this in Canada. Thanks to Not Just Bikes for sending me here.

The Ostadelaan crossing you show before and after of was part of my daily school commute in the 90s. It was truly *terrible*. I remember one time I was at the red light coming from the Ostadelaan to go left, and the sensor was miscalibrated so it didn’t pick me up, and no cars were coming in that direction. I waited two whole cycles of the light, but still no car in my direction, but plenty of cars in the other that I’d have to cross. What I should have done was dismount and walk, of course, but I didn’t think of that.

Wie immer sehr unterhaltsam und schön zu sehen, dass wir Deutsche noch ein paar Jahrzehnte brauchen werden bis wir so weit sind...

@danielheckel2755

2 жыл бұрын

If the Germans need twenty years to transition to bikes my native Mexico will take eighty-five!

@stevejones2310

2 жыл бұрын

Deutschland ist auch relativ Fahrrad-freundlich, finde ich. Sie sollen die UK ehrfahren - Sie würden nicht so einfach wegen der Lage in D schimpfen.

@SomePotato

2 жыл бұрын

@@stevejones2310 Kommt extrem drauf an, wo man in D mit dem Rad unterwegs ist. Wir haben immer noch Städte, in denen es Selbstmord ist, mit dem Rad zu fahren, und Landstraßen ohne Fahrradweg sind auch noch überall.

@stevejones2310

2 жыл бұрын

@@SomePotato ich stimme zu, aber trotzdem, viel blesser als in England, entweder in der Stadt oder auf dem Land.

@theowink

11 ай бұрын

Bosch e-bikes are good but 30 km should be standard not 25

This is one of the best yet. It just summarizes everything perfectly, so that I feel perfectly fine with sharing this even with people who seem to be against cycling infra.

I'm a car guy but I deeply respect and admire the Dutch for their bike infrastructure and culture. I would love it if the states was more like that.

@hds66nl29

2 жыл бұрын

Being a car guy is more fun in the Netherlands, no rush hour that last, well 24 hours. To be fair, it isn't a battle between cars and bikes. It is creating a pleasant and safe place for everyone. A city centre without car traffic is just a more fun place to be. It improves quality of life for everyone, car guy, bike guy, pedestrian and something that isn't often mentioned people with disabilities. (kzread.info/dash/bejne/qod72pWBg82xdNI.html)

Love the road workers at 3:09 who look soooo 70's

Very inspiring. Greetings from a jealous German.

It’s so sad living in an American city primed for bicycle infrastructure and yet you know it will never be adopted

@lucasrem1870

2 жыл бұрын

more superblocks will come, that is the only solution for urban management

@raaaaaaaaaam496

2 жыл бұрын

@@lucasrem1870 nah super locks aren’t good for most places

@raaaaaaaaaam496

2 жыл бұрын

@@lucasrem1870 we need a lessening of zoning and building restrictions first among everything else

@hamster4618

2 жыл бұрын

Especially if they ever learn it were particularly "left" groups that demonstrated for better cycle infrastructure. Anything that might be considered "Marxist!!", even though very useful, will indeed probably never make it in the USA.

@NickDelDuca

2 жыл бұрын

My city has a recreational multi use path that loops the outside edge of the city so they don't think they need cycling infrastructure anywhere else 😞 City of 100k people and not one separated bike lane.

Thank you for this enlightening piece. I've just written to our MP, Helen Whately about the new local building plan asking for only sustainable building models to be used and also to follow the Dutch model of cycle paths. If I knew how to send this piece to her it would be an ideal example to explain the evolution of your infrastructure. There was one experiment in Ashford I believe, of one of those especially coloured "all comers" areas in which bicycles, vehicles and pedestrians are supposed to blend fairly and kindly with one another. Clearly we were not kind to each other and I believe the experiment was deemed a failure. However I now see that the problem was that it was not frequented by enough cyclists to crowd out the selfish car drivers! Pedestrians could not compete with people in cars trying to get somewhere quickly. There had been no thought of the surrounding infrastructure to enable cars to travel around not through the shopping district. It would be so easy to learn from the early mistakes made in the Netherlands but, no, we have to ignore any handy help and waste taxpayers money by making our own ridiculous mistakes. It really is deeply upsetting... and so obvious that the will is not there to just do the right thing. 😡

@Moses_VII

2 жыл бұрын

Why do we English-speaking countries hate foreign expertise? Another British example is HS2. If the Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Koreans, or Germans did it, it would be cheaper, more effective with stations at the correct places, even faster, and less controversial. Or they may actually not make it so high-speed, because we need more capacity, not higher speed. They may skip straight to HS3, or Northern Powerhouse Rail, a much more useful project.

@judebrown4103

2 жыл бұрын

@@Moses_VII yes that *is* the question...

@hendrikdependrik1891

2 жыл бұрын

As Dutchman, HS2 is reminding me very much of HSL-Zuid. The construction of the high-speed connection between Amsterdam and Rotterdam also was a financial and engineering disaster. It's a nice prestige project that was put there as alternative to the very unpopular idea of motorway A3. However, IMO it should better have been designed with conventional 200km/h design speed instead of 300. The travel time wouldn't increase that much and the ferry between the connection with the UK was already good with the ferry to Harwich. You get aboard in the evening, take a sleep and you're ashore the next morning.

@transient_

2 жыл бұрын

Can't you send emails to your MP? You could send her a link to the video.

@judebrown4103

2 жыл бұрын

@@transient_ I know I can email her but I don't know how to send a link. I have a condition which badly affects my memory and cognitive function and I've never been able to do things like copy and paste, no idea if that's involved but I've been shown this and it involves the item you click on *vanishing* from the page! 😂 Well that's me utterly baffled without help 🤔🤯🙄

"The minister of transport lost his child in a car crash" Ah. That explains it. Politicians won't do anything to solve a problem until it affects them personally.

@babbes4210

2 жыл бұрын

That's true for most people to be fair.

@JJVernig

2 жыл бұрын

TBH he wasn’t completely anti car and did push some road building and widening through in a very austere timeframe. He also went through the courts against a HOV-lane (min 3 people) on de the A1 motorway, and got it thrown out. And if mine memory serves me right het was caught drink and driving in later years..

Fuck yeah. Exceptional video and explanations, and the archived material helps to really prove the point that change is possible if enough people want it. This very afternoon i will drive for 2 hours straight on a duofiets over those same cycling lanes with 2 people, age 92 and 97 who feel perfectly safe amidst the densest of traffic, thanks to safe cycling lanes, save infrastructure and properly taught car owners. Well, and a skilled co-driver of course... ;)

Really admire the Netherlands for taking such an approach to their cities very early. Australia has a similar setup as the U.S. and Canada: stroads, unsafe cycling segments, dangerous streets that lend themselves to unsafe practices, such as being hit by a car or car crashes. When they build infrastructure projects to alleviate one critical safety issue, it subsequently seems to create several other safety or other issues. For instance, where I'm located, they removed several road level crossings near a train station due to safety concerns: there were many traffic accidents on these road level crossings. Subsequently, the replacement or supposed upgrade has a train station mounted on unattractive concrete slab pillars and a convoluted looking intersection through an underpass. I personally think it is equally if not more unsafe. The train station, while attempting to look modern, in fact, looks bland - as opposed to beautifying the station to invigorate and entice the commuters. The bike lanes are intertwined with the relevant footpaths, roadways and bus lanes, more than likely increasing the risk of additional safety concerns. There are now several bus stops that do not provide adequate shade or rain protection during peak hours of the day. Admittedly, I'm not a civil engineer but I've never seen such practises so close to a supposedly international city (a little over an hour), and, I don't know what kind of engineering principles these design solutions are based on.

I remember your older video on the same topic. As you learn more, I learn more. Many people die on American streets every day but our dependence on the car makes change very difficult. Only in larger cities do we have any significant change and even then the change is very slow.

@XEinstein

2 жыл бұрын

Well, in the US buildings were bulldozed to make space for roads, so the US could for sure bulldoze roads to make space for buildings again.

@Zraknul

2 жыл бұрын

The Us and Canada both have a similar problem of very restrictive low density zoning in most places, with heavily segregated residential and commercial. That also creates the problem of everything being far apart so transit is inefficient and there isn't much in a reasonable bike range.

@adamlea6339

11 ай бұрын

Same in the UK where the population chooses to live like Americans, so we end up with similar problems.

Wonderful video, thank you. I've often found it hard to explain to people why the Netherlands has been so successful with their bike Infrastructure. The culture and use of bicycles was prominent before cars, so building car based infrastructure was displacing a well established group.

@hanneken4026

2 жыл бұрын

Even in a relatively young country like the USA most cities were established before 1910-1930, when cars started being mass-produced and spreading everywhere. Even relatively young cities had cores that were built for use by pedestrians, people on bikes, streetcars or buses, horse-drawn vehicles and riders on horseback, long before cars took over the public space and banished everyone else from it. Even though the Netherlands had lots of people on bikes before cars were introduced, so did London, Paris, New York, and lots of other places and countries. Why those established masses of bike-riders didn't manage to rein in car-dominance in other countries can't just be considered a result of less people riding bikes elsewhere, I think.

@peterslegers6121

2 жыл бұрын

Bicycles were used prominently on all continents. The Netherlands is nothing special here. In fact, all over the world, bicycle lobbies pleaded for an upgrade of often poorly surfaced roads, so they could cycle more comfortably. When cars became affordable, they could enjoy the smooth roads that the cyclists asked for.

@mariadebake5483

2 жыл бұрын

In the beginning of the 20th century bikes were popular everywhere, not only in the Netherlands. But strangely enough bike use decreased soon after, already from the years 1910 onward, in almost every country - except in the Netherlands where it remained. So yes your comment is true, it was already an established thing here before the coming of the cars. Contrary to elsewhere, in other countries. I think this is a big reason for the fact Dutch people began to protest so loudly against all those cars and car-related accidents etc. Biking was already in their system. Unlike other countries where people didn't have that connection anymore and therefore didn't protest at all.

You could almost set this as your channel's trailer. This pretty much sums up everything you've covered so far. Very well made video! A++, or 10+ in Dutch!

As an Italian living in NL, this is extremely interesting. I look at the disastrous attempts of provinces and municipalities at home to make bike routes, and only wish they would just take inspiration from dutch infrastructure. But I also see how slowly the infrastructure gets built and renewed in my country, not only for what concerns bike lanes but everything, and it seems impossibly to achieve something even close to what you guys have here in NL. It needs a lot of destroying and rebuilding and everything proceeds extremely slowly in Italy. Additionally, people there were never used to biking as much, or got used to not biking in the meanwhile, and as a results, there is lower demand for infrastructure. Combining the two, drivers would need to stand many years of a city (e.g., Milan) that is not yet suitable for cycling but less and less car-friendly (e.g., when parking areas are removed to make room for bike lanes), and they would just hate it and not support it. But maybe if a smaller city set the example, the others would follow. We need to have a local example because the Dutch one is beyond our possibilities 😁

Your most important video yet! Thank you!

Thank you,this video is from my childhood till now. And im so glad to evolve with the infrastructure

Schitterend werk Mark. Mooi blogartikel ook. Dankjewel!

Excellent video! Hope this one gets a million views also!

Amazing Mark, such a good video again! You've surpassed yourself and that's saying something! Compliments

Excellent video! Really good summary.

This is a great idea, you should definetively remake old videos! This one is amazing!

Fantastic footage! And what a nice way to show other countries, cities and people who may contemplate to create more human oriented streets how worth wile it can be to just get on with it :-)

Thank you! You and Not Just Bikes are my go to for Dutch infrastructure!

Great video Mark! So much of what you describe about the criticisms of cycle infrastructure as too elaborate, expensive and disruptive rings very familiar with the critical voices we are hearing right now in Ireland. After 60 years of the car being King many Irish drivers are not yet ready to give up their privileges, just like the Dutch drivers decades ago.

@mariadebake5483

2 жыл бұрын

Strange though, you'll never hear people complain about car infrastructure as too elaborate, expensive and disruptive in those countries.....

@maria56k22

2 жыл бұрын

Maybe because Dutch drivers are exactly the same people as Dutch cyclists. They are not two different groups. So drivers know what it is to be a cyclist, because they are cyclists themselves.

@mvdp3784

2 жыл бұрын

As a cardriver, getting other ppl out of their cars and onto bicycles on seperate, smaller infrastructure is a good thing. Problem is: it will take a while for cycling to be seen as a reasonable alternative and for a culture to establish itself

@mourlyvold64

2 жыл бұрын

@@mvdp3784 Sevilla, Spain sort of did it overnight. They almost 'slammed in' an extensive cycling network over the town and created nothing short of a revolution. If I remember correctly a more than twentyfold increase in cycling in a few monts time. And that's one of the hottest towns in Europe...

thanks for creating and sharing such interesting video. I travel on these roads daily. Interesting to see how it came to be. Also interesting for visitors to the Netherlands.

Great summary of the history of Dutch cycling!

We love cycling, and one of our bicycles is a Gazelle e-bike from the Netherlands. Happy trails :)

Absolutely fascinating 👏

The 'outsider' perspective you provide here on this channel is really useful :D I'm learning a lot about my own country's infrastructure. I have travelled a lot and I always figured our traffic feels safer to me because it's the system have always been used to. After watching a lot of videos on here I understand a lot more about why, for instance, I had such a hard time getting used to traffic in Texas. For instance when I couldn't find a way to cross the road safely outside the train station. That's just crazy to me lol I came here by train now how do I walk to the other side of the street!?

You should also talk about how cycling became a point of pride for the Dutch. Today cycling is considered a core part of Dutch identity. Quite similar to how the Shinkansen is thought about in Japan.

Such a great explanation

Great video, thanks.

Interessante weetjes, bedankt voor deze video

Imagine lock cities like Denver, Houston, Albuquerque, and San Antonio having this type of bike network in the near future

Great images of the good old 70's

0:09 😭 that's so heartwarming

Really missed not cycling from Sluis (Zeeland) to Nieuweschans (Groningen) on a 10 day camping cycling tour hoilday this year! Covid stopped that. Love Touring by cycle, love the Netherlands. I will be back in the summer hopefully :-)

Thanks for the video. It might be more effective if you pinned this video the the comments of the previous video. Not just in the description or info link tab. Allot more people look at the comments. Great history lesson didn't know half of this.

Just found 10 yr old vid on this same topic. Nice update.

I would love for Canada to start thinking towards the future and adopting these kinds of bike lanes. The traffic in places like the Greater Toronto Area is totally unacceptable and needs to be mitigated.

@OntarioTrafficMan

2 жыл бұрын

We're working on it!

Genuinely thought this was a 'Not Just Bikes' video since he's always in my feed lol, you just got a new sub!

Wederom een geweldig verteld verhaal dit keer over de politieke beweging die onontbeerlijk was om te komen waar we nu zijn.

thanks for this reminder, and funny my neighboring street included at 3:55 :)

I would love to see a video about what a dutchman thinks of the bicycle infrastructure in my hometown of Bruges, Belgium! 😁

Long time ago my dad told me that Holland is a super...tight place. No space is wasted. Buisness everywhere. That was my first idea why people choose bicycle.

Thanks, it remined me of the A.I.D.s trouble we had when the government didn't respond until a wealthy or government person died

Very nice video :P

history, people, politics, cars and cyclist -development in short; an impressive vid and well done !

I love the goal of creating safe living space.

2:20 Yes, in the 70's and 80's Dutch highway patrol drove around in Porsches. Too bad they stopped doing that, as I believe people would behave better if they saw the highway patrol drive around regularly.

@Zraknul

2 жыл бұрын

From my experience people behave around highway patrol and then go back to normal when they aren't around. Some need to "make up for lost time". You would need near continuous monitoring.

@williamgeardener2509

2 жыл бұрын

Undercover cars are more effective. People used to look for police cars and drive carefully when they were in sight. As soon as the marked police car wasn't around anymore they reverted to being their own selfish dickheads, without any regards for the safety of other traffic. It's just sad that there aren't enough unmarked cars to spot the idiots, morons and dickheads and fine them. Perhaps introducing a CCTV network like in the UK would make driving in the Netherlands a lot more pleasant and safer without all the aggressive idiots.

@gert-janvanderlee5307

2 жыл бұрын

@@williamgeardener2509 If there were lots of them this could be true. A combination of both would be best.

Lovely.

Now in Flandria, cars are vannishing from city centers !

Thank you :)

A great update to a video you made 10 years ago, in UK the car is king and that makes me mad if I could I move to the Netherlands

@TronMcr

2 жыл бұрын

Next year I'm planning on doing a charity bike ride on a brompton bike from Hook of Holland to Amsterdam via The Hague, keukenhof and Schiphol airport spring/summer 22

@leoja4578

2 жыл бұрын

@@TronMcr As someone who cycled from the Hook of Holland up to Flevoland and back in 2018, you’re absolutely going to love it! :) Thankfully here in the UK it is starting to change. I’m from Exeter in the south west and separated cycle routes are starting to appear all over the city. Hopefully it’s happening elsewhere too!

An important part of Dutch cycling is the Dutch bike configuration that enables an upright, relaxed posture in placed of the hunched over tensioned road race bike set up. Setting up a bike to the Dutch figuration in Canada is challenging to say the least. But it can be done with a significant effort.

@mariadebake5483

2 жыл бұрын

And don't forget we Dutch are not wearing helmets and special gear.

Really thanks for sharing your thoughts 💭, I wish it would be normal for everyone in this world 🌎. Salud 🥂!

Should be mandatory viewing for city planners...

That level of cycling infrastructure is beautiful.

I grew up in Tilburg in the 1980s. Never known it was one of the first cities in the Netherlands to experiment with bicycle infrastructure, interesting!

@mariadebake5483

2 жыл бұрын

Yes me too, 1980 was the year I finished my studies there!

Where do you look for your stock footage?

I didn't know hou much I need this in my life

I couldn't help it, are those rattan shields at 2:05 😮

@Erik-ou3tl

2 жыл бұрын

heh, no, but they are wickerwork shields that are often still in use by the modern riot police.

The gentleman at 0:53 - I've never seen a hand-powered tricycle before!

@09conrado

2 жыл бұрын

They're quite common here, and still in use. Though most people seem to prefer a mobility scooter and thus end end up looking like scoot puddings. Not everyone has the choice to go for manual power but it could be encouraged more

@steemlenn8797

2 жыл бұрын

That was a nice thing to see! But since it's harder to power with your arms than your legs, I guess it mostly appeals to people with leg injuries (or in the case of the old footage the man might have been a WW1 amputee, there were a lot after all)

@AnD-1999

2 жыл бұрын

In many of Mark's films you will encounter them. at. 4.3m in to this one as well. They are convenient for many wheelchair users with normal/ good strength. And there are many types. that's the nice thing about Dutch infrastructure... it enables more people then non-Dutch think. kzread.info/dash/bejne/k62Eps59mZy7l5c.html

@Eis_Bear

2 жыл бұрын

@@steemlenn8797 The Netherlands didn't take part in WW1, so it's unlikely.

Also for long distances there are separated bicycle paths !

I hope to visit the Netherlands one day.

Where do fast electric bicycles, and scooters go, on the cycleway or road?

Is this a reupload?

In a few years we Dutch be cycling into space we will. ISS lock-on procedure "fiets 'm erin"' started.

It feels like other EU countries are now where Ductch were in 70s. We have a long way to go..

Thankfully they didn’t end up like a Dubai.

do they also change the building zone or something.. i think ppl in my country dont want to easily moved to other place

@markovermeer1394

2 жыл бұрын

No: the street-space is reclaimed from cars only. The centres get much quieter, which make more people want to live there.

Great informative video - are there any examples of US cities where there has been a shift away from cars to bicycles ? Or cities in other parts of the world?

My recollection of Dutch road infrastructure is very narrow streets and the 30km speed limits within residential areas along with speed inhibitors. There are plusses and minuses to what the Dutch have created, but there is more of a need for planning for cyclists in Holland compared to other countries because of the large number of bikes that have always been on the roads there. Being a very flat country makes it easy to cycle there.

@Erik-ou3tl

2 жыл бұрын

you did watch the vid, right? in the 60's and 70's there were fewer and fewer cyclists on the roads due to car-centric designs. that did not change until after the protests about child deaths in traffic. sure, the Netherlands in a 'flat' country, but we did not 'always' have the number of cyclcists we do today.

@gustaaf1892

10 ай бұрын

@@Erik-ou3tl I lived as a kid in Holland for 10 years in the 60s and 70s. All the kids, virtually bar none, rode bikes in those days. Many progressed to brommers around the ages of 16-18, but those more or less had the same status as bikes, albeit low powered motorised ones. The population has increased from about 12 to 17 million since then, so of course there will be more bikes on the roads now.

if you make safe bikelanes, the bikers will follow. Don t wait on the bikers, they will never comes without safe bikelanes.

The first bicycle path at the Maliebaan was not meant for racing, but for touring. Just as footpaths were meant for walking, not running.

4:23 Zeedijk, Utrecht

I'm curious about the statement" a single route is not enough , you need a cycling network" - does this mean that one route was so successful (frequently used, moved traffic, etc.) that more were needed OR that just 1 did not effect the intended change?

@BicycleDutch

11 ай бұрын

People need to go to different places and they start from different places. One route can never meet that demand. A network can.

How amazing is it the search for quality life in a comprehensive way. I am sad as Italian are so far from this sophisticated way of thinking .

It certainly has changed

Where did the Dutch cyclepaths come from?? My Native Limburgish answer is magic.

The willingness to tryout something different and/or change back into the previous setting improves life with time. AMERICANS ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION !!!