Random street in Amsterdam. In North America, every bike shown would be a car...
Just to compare, this is the utopian dream for Toronto:
There are approx. 18 cars and trucks in that image.
They are taking up SIGNIFICANTLY more space, and are causing traffic.
Still, we keep saying, "give us more of this, please!".
Insanity or stupidity?
Canadian checking in. A bike will never be a replacement for a truck (the best kind of vehicle for city driving) until the front basket can be mounted high enough that the rider cannot see a child in front of them.
Pff, who needs a high basket to not see children, when you can just look down at your phone like everyone else? Rookie 😎
You can put a tall piece of furniture upright into a cargo bike, does that work for you? Should work even for blocking out adults.
Best I can do is cycling with no hands while looking at your phone (yes, they do it all the time, also carrying furniture, an umbrella, or a couple drunk friends).
This is A bicycle parking lot at the main station in Utrecht. Now imagine to replace this amount of bycyles with cars and how much space this would take up. However, I still believe, that this is just a bicycle exchange station. You just leave your bicycle there and just grab another one when you leave. You ain't gonna find your bicycle anyways in this huge pile of bicycle.
That's a temporal bike park. Yes we do find our bikes back, it's an innate skill.
Most modern bike parkings are two story:
IIRC it's no longer true, but there was a time when the largest bicycle parking in the world was at Utrecht Centraal (the central train station).
The second-largest bicycle parking was on the other side of that same station.
actually, we somehow do
You ain't gonna find your bicycle anyways in this huge pile of bicycle.
lol the amount of bikes has nothing to do with it. By that logic you wouldn't be able to find your car in a mega parking lot because there are so many cars. You just go to the place where you parked it? You don't start looking at the first car and then go to the second car and so on. You go directly to where you know it is. Granted you know where it is, of course...
As a matter of fact, it's probably more likely you would lose your car in a huge lot than likely you'd lose your bike here. This is a much smaller area to traverse and search, in case you forgot where you parked.
Also bikes have locks just like cars.
Ignore the FUD, folks, buy a bike today!
It's not a rental, but a normal parking, albeit a temporary one.
Ah, btw, this is Winterthur train station, backside.
And front side.
What a beautiful sight!
Unpopular opinion: getting rid of cars is good, but if you've ever been to the streets of Amsterdam, it's a bike nightmare.
Streets are generally narrow, so bikers form a neverending swarm and barely regard the pedestrians. From a bikers' perspective, you're constantly riding in a flow, so you can't really afford to stop or turn over for a break.
Amsterdam should either figure out how to manage that flow, or expand the public transportation like buses and trams - which are really the most compact ways to drive people around.
Having cyclists all around comes with all sorts of unwritten rules, people need to get used to it for it to function properly. Amsterdam has a lot of tourist that aren't used to the bicycle-culture, don't know the unwritten rules, and at the same time to local populace expects them to, so that causes problems. You'll notice that other dutch cities like Utrecht and Groningen have it figured out much better, have a far smoother experience, but perhaps have it easier because there are less tourists.
No matter how you cut it, I'd rather be hit or nearly hit by a cyclist than by a F150.
Driving comes with WRITTEN rules and drivers can't even seem to follow them like full stops at stop signs or pedestrians having the right of way at crossings. At least with a bicycle if some rules are ignored by either side the risks are far less deadly.
Fair!
The thing is that these rules are not “unwritten” at all. They are part of the (written down) traffic code. To give an example, you have pedestrian zones where you are not allowed to bike, and you have regular roads where pedestrians need to keep to the sidewalk. Also, you have bicycle paths meant for cyclists only, and sidewalks meant for pedestrians only. When you walk on the road or on a cycling path you are violating the traffic code, not some unwritten rule.
Amsterdammers hate public transport.
I had an English friend who learned to bicycle. It opens the city up in ways that are not possible with even great public transport.
For example, the Vondelpark goes roughly east/west for some distance. Crossing that north/south by bicycle takes a few minutes. Crossing by public transport means going around it, basically.
Some cyclists ignore lights and crosswalks, like some pedestrians. But overall it basically works. Just look left and right before stepping into a street and you'll probably be fine.
As a person who regularly cycles through Amsterdam (even the centre), the issus is tourist pedestrians. The city does a bare minimum to cater for these travellers, because most of the visits are temporal.
As a cyclist and/or pedestrian, I am never frustrated by locals cycling or walking.
The rule is "its harder for a cyclist to stop than a pedestrian, so be predictable with where you are going and we'll all avoid an accident".
The flow people you walk about is a problem for travellers, not for locals.
Might be true - I haven't been there for long enough to adapt. But in the hindsight it often felt like this rule was taken into an absolute where you might have to wait a solid minute to then swiftly run through the crossing, hoping you won't be run over. And it's way worse in the city center, yeah.
And how would that nightmare be if everyone was in a car?
Amsterdam doesn't have much of a bicycle issue, really.
No better, indeed. Just pointing out that there are current issues with the way it's organized, so there is a lot of room for improvement and it shouldn't be seen as a perfect bike utopia it's often posed as.
If you ask me, Scandinavian countries often have a better thought out bike infrastructure, with plenty of separate bike lanes that are planned in a way as to allow bikers and pedestrians to easily coexist and have plenty of space.
Speaking as someone who was thrown into being a pedestrian in this city with no training:
Just go slow and steady (don't dash forwards) and the cyclists will go around you. Telegraph what you're up to if you're worried.
The only reason cars would be safer if because of how ineffective they'd be (i.e. average speed of 2km/h).
Stuff like knowing that standing on red means you're in the bike lane makes it a lot less scary.
And yeah the worst spots are directly outside the central station, and probably on the bridges in the Jordaan. Apart from that you can pick up the rhythm in under an hour.
Thanks for your notes :)
I saw a YouTube comment on a cyclists video claiming Toronto to be "the anti-car capital of the world". If toronto is an anti-car city, i would hate to see how a "pro-car" city looks to them....
LOL. Putting in a bike lane makes any city "anti-car", if your only perspective is seeing the city through your metal cage 😂
But really, a pro car city is probably 20 lanes for every road with no sidewalks at all. Everyone is miserable, and traffic doesn't move. 🤭
I saw a video on YouTube calling road diets "The latest socialist assault on our freedoms!" It was from a semi-major news outlet too.
Would love to own a moped, but it stands out too much in a sea of cars to not get stolen
Apparently, using a cover while it's locked up can significantly reduce theft.
This is the strategy that "Cargo bike momma" uses with her cargo bike, in New York City... and she's a professor of criminology, so I trust her judgment when it comes to these things! LOL
Now I want to eat Falafel. These Maoz guys made awesome falafel back in the ‘90s when I lived there.
These big American trucks are infesting our roads now too. They are technally not street legal because they are not measured to the same enviromental and safety standards compared to a European car for some reason beyond me.
The EU has not done anything yet, but there are many enviromental groups pressing the EU on getting these trucks banned.
Importing these trucks (and any truck) without paying any vehicle tax registration is getting cancelled in 2025 here in the Netherlands so let’s hope these trucks will get the fuck off our roads. This law was kind of a loop hole to import these trucks for cheap.
Quite a few of those ghastly RAM trucks where I am up in the mountains
If they find out it's me that's sticking the "Fuck your environment, I'm compensating for my micropenis" stickers on them, I'm fucking dead
Cheap as fuck on AliExpress
Maoz falafel is still awesome!
The other thing we do here is have many more cars than people. I live in a neighborhood where basically everyone has two spots per unit in their attached garage...many, many people spend a lot of their time trying to avoid parking tickets because they have to park their 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th cars somewhere else.
So, so, sooo much wasted money. I've got neighbours like that... one car for each family member. And none are driving outside the city on a regular basis.
the Netherlands is so great! the train station near me has a giant bike parking garage, and only like 10 car spots, which are made just for bringing and picking up people. And from then its less than an hour to get from anywhere in the 'randstad', the part of the Netherlands with most cities, to another.
also, most Dutch neighbourhoods (/suburbs) have a single lane road which is also used by the bikers, meaning the cars are forced to go only as fast as the bikers.
In a random US city a lot of these bikes would probably be abandoned / with parts missing. Does Amsterdam have that problem? I've heard a lot of bikes go into the canal but I can't imagine this is a big problem. How does Amsterdam deal with theft / vandalism / bike abandonment?
Theft happens, for the cheap ones it’s considered part of the natural lifecycle (no pun intended) of the bikes. They’re usually stolen by the local junks and sold for €10 in the next square over. But nicer bikes are usually locked to something fixed like a pole and insured. Still they’re stolen because people will cut the lock at night, yeet them in the back of a van and drive back to Eastern Europe.
Vandalism rarely happens afaik, why would someone go around and destroy random bikes? Not really a reason unless they’re like really drunk and an asshole I guess. Some indeed end up in the canal this way.
Bike abandonment is handled by the municipality. They’ll label bikes that look abandoned with a sticker that says “please remove this sticker or we’ll remove your bike in a week”. Works well.
why would someone go around and destroy random bikes? Not really a reason unless they’re like really drunk and an asshole I guess
Haha, sounds like England.
I always try to avoid leaving my bike anywhere too central for too long in my shithole town on Thursday, Friday , Saturday nights. The roaming gangs of twats love pringling wheels just for fun - I guess.
We used to have a decent bike place in the train station, but that's now ran by car park wardens who think a pair of painnears are a major terrorist threat.
the stations usually have underground guarded bike parking lots, but if you put a nice looking bike in a bad part of a city and dont put a chain on it, it'll probably get stolen. And, of course, the drunk students throwing them in the canals.
This might sound bad, but its not actually that bad. if you just put a chain around it, nothing happens.
I live in another very bike centric city, Copenhagen, and bike theft is ~0.5% of bikes every year. Many people lock the bike wheels here, some lock them to a rack/something else as well. It's a lot less locky than the US (where I used to live), but theft still exists.
Since everyone has more support and means here, there is a lot less incentive to steal a bike. It's of course punished harshly but rarely caught.
No clue how Amsterdam handles it or how prevalent it is
Way more prevalent but it's also kind of accepted as a part of life. People will have multiple bikes, the race one, the fancy one and a cheap one they bought 20€ from a local junkie and will get stolen again and resold the same way at some point. If you go somewhere with a safe spot for the bike you take the fancy one, if you're going out drinking you take the rust bucket.
That sounds like a non-issue.
Where I live, in Canada, I basically have to use two locks and an alarm on my bike.
Hell, thieves around here will break into garages or backyard sheds to steal a bike. Or right out of your apartment's bike storage.
I guess the point is, more bikes won't equal more problems 😂
There's plenty of theft, most people have a city/shitty bike with decent locks (chained to a solid object). Vandalism does occur, like bikes thrown in the canal, but theft is more of a problem.
When i was there, a lot of them weren't fancy bikes, just get around bikes. Even if there was theft they weren't much to lose.
...in my north american experience, those bikes would either be stolen or stripped within a day...
No it would take a while, more like a week.
But on day 1 there would already be at least one stripped bike already there.
And every other building would have been knocked down to make room for parking
After a quick Google search, snowfall average per year in Amsterdam is 6.1cm
Toronto is apparently 121.5cm
Biking in the snow is significantly harder, and the accumulation of snow in the road in winter makes it even worse.
I don't thin that's the best comparison to make
Just to counter that:
Snow in Toronto would rarely cause someone to not be able to bike. In fact, the only time it might be too risky to bike, is when it's also too risky to drive.
That said, Montreal gets more than twice the snow and colder winters compared to Toronto.
Yet they have been making an effort to encourage active transportation, and cycling over the winter has been increasing.
Even their ride share runs in the winter (it doesn't in Toronto).
If Montreal has a few bad snow days out of a few months in the year, and is still very bikable, then we should stop making excuses that people in Amsterdam can do it only because the weather is nice and the land is flat.
Also, the least bike friendly places in North America have great weather most of the year, and snow is never a concern (Dallas, Miami, Raleigh, etc.).
I think we're too used to making excuses to drive everywhere. It doesn't have to be this one-sided, favouring only cars.
Edit: I posted this in another reply, but I was biking in this the other day, and I live close to Toronto (close enough to bike):
I work in Montreal.
People biking year round are very rare, and dping so require significant effort compared to using public transit.
I'm all for reducing car usage, but what I am saying is that solutions should be tailored to location.
Bike work for Amsterdam, great!
But I think cities where snowstorm are somewhat frequent should probably focus on public transit instead.
( I'll admit tough that I assumed Toronto weather was similar to here and didn't expect that much less snow! )
Even if biking is safe when driving is safe in snowy conditions, it's still much more annoying to be a cyclist on a snowy winter day. You either have to sweat in a ton of layers or wear flimsy ones and be chilly every time you aren't in motion; having some environment to insulate you would be a huge advantage. I say this as someone who is not a driver but as an amateur cyclist (though not in the winter... yet).
I'm still figuring out how to make winter cycling feasible for me, and I think for most people it's a lot of dedication and commitment that the average commuter will not want to put in. Also, icy road conditions are the worst for pedestrians and cyclists; they can be bad for cars too, of course, but obviously car tires are much bigger and can withstand much more.
Half the bikes are abandoned, and one fifth is stolen. If they have the same ratios as in Rotterdam.
Not true in plenty of cities like the one I live in (PNW) but go off I guess
Sure, if you're talking about Seattle then you've got a rarity. Even then, Seattle isn't even in the top 100, according to People for Bikes.
Visit a place like Huston, and you'd might as well stay home unless you've got a car.
Amsterdam is 59,324 times smaller than the US and it's average temperature is always above freezing. Someone there will never need to drive 100 miles in a snow storm.
Amsterdam is 59,324 times smaller than the US
I would hope so. It's a city, after all! It's nearly twice the size of Miami, and Miami is desperately car dependant.
and it’s average temperature is always above freezing.
Miami's is, too. Much warmer. Almost like you can comfortably walk or bike everywhere if cars didn't dominate the landscape.
Someone there will never need to drive 100 miles in a snow storm.
Out of curiosity, is it normal for 300 million people to be driving 100 miles in a snow storm all the time? If not, what's the point of bringing that up? The most populated states have beautiful weather nearly all year, so why choose to be stuck in a metal box?
Most Canadian and US cities who refuse to let go of car dependency look like the photo of Toronto, or worse. Those drivers aren't driving 100 miles in snow, they are statistically driving < 5 miles at a time.
FWIW, I was able to run errands by bike in this kind of weather just the other day:
The only true counter to all of that is Amsterdam was basically go-engineered to be pretty much flat. Most cities in the US have a lot more elevation change than that, making bikes a bit less practical.
FWIW, I was able to run errands by bike in this kind of weather just the other day:
Congrats on not being disabled. Not everyone is.
Someone in florida will never need to drive in a snowstorm either, so all their cities are walkable right???
Driving 100 miles for most is not a daily occurance, most people stay within their city or metro area for the vast majority of their daily life. The size of a country is largely irrelevant when we are talking about getting around local city streets.
All the cities I've seen in Florida are walkable, yeah. Assuming you want to bike/walk when it is 100 degrees with 90% humidity. I'm sure the average octogenarian will have no problem with that.
That's because this way of city planning is normal there. You wouldn't think that making streets and sidewalks safe for human beings would be such a big deal, but to us it's unheard of!
When we put a pedestrian crossing with gasp, a signal, motorists around here lose their minds! Not really, they just ignore them. /s
It’s normal because people in the 70s put in a lot of effort and protesting to make it normal. I thank them every day for that.
If we're allowed to factor in "normality" here, it's a good idea to add some context to what's got you so ornery..
It sucks that America's urban development came alongside the commercialization of cars, but here we are.
Yes Amsterdam is great, it's a beautiful city with great public transportation. It tracks that a city founded in the 13th century would be designed for a population that walks everywhere.
It's a strange comparison to make.
Perhaps in 500 years Americas infrastructure will suit whatever social transportation trend people will be arguing about online. Until then I'll just do my best to minimize my impact and try not to be a cock.
I’ll just drop this here
This is why you vote/advocate for bike friendly infrastructure to exist where you currently live.
I visited there once and dear god having public transportation was awesome.