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?
Ah, btw, this is Winterthur train station, backside.
And front side.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Not true in plenty of cities like the one I live in (PNW) but go off I guess
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.
Maoz falafel is still awesome!
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
Look we all want to be a pothead cyclist sex worker in the paradise of Amsterdam, but they can’t fit us all.
They have entire fried fish fillets being sold on the street for like 2€ it’s stupid bro it’s fucking stupid how good they got it.
I blame the civil engineers.
Edit: I visited Amsterdam during a work trip. They have a tram system that stops at every other street and goes up every other spoke of their bike wheel city. It’s cheap and it runs almost all night. I was sharing a jazz cigarette (Marijuana joint) with a local after drinking many fine Belgian beers and remarking about this in a broken German the local was ever so polite to entertain and they laughed at me, telling me the tram was slow, hardly stopped anywhere and cost too much, next time I should just rent a bike.
They don’t even know how good they fucking got it.
I’ll just drop this here
They don’t even know how good they fucking got it.
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.
It has nothing to do with protected historic buildings and a sweeping canal system squeezing the roads making them much too narrow for modern cars…
Thank the architects that made such a beautiful city.
You’re right, it has nothing to do with both of those things. Almost all canals are accessible by (modern) car.
Maybe do some reading before trying to be a know-it-all without knowing anything about the subject:
https://onsamsterdam.nl/artikelen/4-juni-1977-fietsdemonstratie-op-het-museumplein
https://www.amsterdam.nl/nieuws/achtergrond/strijd-tussen-auto-fiets/
Edit: just checked this guy’s post history and already regret biting
Other dutch cities, like Groningen, without so many canals, went through the same process, cars everywhere in the 70s, but a return to cyclable/walkable cities ever since. It’s a matter of voting for the right municipal politicians.
That’s because this way of city planning is normal there.
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.
So what is stopping america from building its new neighbourhoods in denser and more compact design like new neighbourhoods in the netherlands? Its not 1350 anymore yet they still seem to be able to build density and walkability.
Many American cities were founded before the car existed, why aren’t those neighbourhoods walkable and cycleable?
This is why you vote/advocate for bike friendly infrastructure to exist where you currently live.
Buddy this is suburbia that shit ain’t even on the ticket in the primary
Hence why I also said advocate.
If there are no relevant ballot issues, you will need to find like minded people to create petitions. Start small: Painted bike lanes, reduce speeds in neighborhoods, signage, etc
The other option is be angry and bitter on the Internet. 🤷♀️
I ain’t bitter or angry, like I said, this is suburbia, we just talk like that.
Things can change it just gonna take a generation or two. It took NL 40-50 years of development to achieve these efficiencies
I visited there once and dear god having public transportation was awesome.
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.
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.
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
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. 🤭
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
You realize, that you are comparing a city with a whole country, right?
The post itself compared one city to an entire continent
Maybe I am interpreting too much here, but I read the sentence’s original meaning more like “in a comparable street scenery in North America” not like “in North America as a whole”. One more hint to this interpretation is the comparison with a photo from Toronto and not some rural area.
Even here in Europe everyone would acknowledge that there are a lot of situations where a car makes living at least a lot easier if you are not in a city.
Ugh both of you are right. Words are soo ambiguous. Discussions are meaningless. What if we show a picture of parked bikes in US and a busy traffic in Amsterdam? I am very confused.
What if we show a picture of parked bikes in US and a busy traffic in Amsterdam?
That wouldn’t just be a random street in the US. I’ve almost never left North America, and I’ve never seen that many bikes parked on a random street on a random day. The only time I’ve seen that many bikes in one place is at an event’s bike valet, or at a school in a super bikeable area.
