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?
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.
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.
I’ll just drop this here
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
Not really, it wasn’t much different in the mid-80s than it is now. Most of the change was early in the process. Beyond that, it’s mainly been improving integration of transport modes and fine-tuning some aspects of the system such as how intersections are controlled.
Best thing I ever did in my life was to get out of the burbs.
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 prefer the kibbeling (little chunks of battered cod). The smoked-eel sandwiches (broodje paling) are also great.
I go to smaller Dutch cities when I want a break from the neglected and incompetently-managed infrastructure of England. There are too many Vice-reading Joe Rogan fans in Amsterdam.
As for bike rental, last I checked, locals could rent an OV-fiets using an OV chipkaart (and presumbably the OV-pas coming in this year), but visitors can’t do that. I’ve heard that there are workarounds, but I’m not convinced that they can be relied on to work.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Fair!
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.
As a visitor, you very quickly learn to look out for bikes. They’re nearly silent and they’re everywhere. Look before you step into a bike lane or it’s going to end in tears. The problem is that, later in the evening, the tourists have some weed and a few trippels, then they’re back out on the streets again, with no remaining situational awareness.
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.
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.
Sounds like poor planning and issues of a relatively old city. On the other hand, same is the issue with bicycles, so, yeah.
You’re never going to get public transport to every street corner. It can always be better, but honestly having big sections of green without streets running through them is a good idea, not something to plan away…
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.
Scandi cities are far lower-density than Dutch cities.
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.
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!
I know. It was a joke.
Ah. Something about the phrasing there sold it as something you actually believe. Maybe that you said you still believe it to be so. 😃
It’s not a rental, but a normal parking, albeit a temporary one.
There also a massive indoor bike parking structure by the central station in Utrecht.
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
I believe it has to do with the fact that it slows the thief down, so they consider it too risky
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 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.
And every other building would have been knocked down to make room for parking
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.
Haha, sounds like England.
Well, you might not be wrong about that in Amsterdam either :’)
In Amsterdam, drunk youths will kick in the wheels of bikes as they walk along. I’ve seen it, and even more, have seen the results. As to why, I’d guess that it’s because they’re arseholes.
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.
The traditional Dutch city bike typically has an internal lock that clamps the rear wheel, and they’re often made so that you can attach a long cable to the lock, to attach the bike to a fence or a tree.
yeah, but you can just roll it on its front wheel. That’s what the drunk students do, and also why it’s really handy to use a chain lock yeah
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.
…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.
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.
You see a fair number of vandalized bikes. And some absurd number end up in a canal every year.
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
Half the bikes are abandoned, and one fifth is stolen. If they have the same ratios as in Rotterdam.
And all those old buildings would be torn down and replaced with McMansions, strip malls and big-box retail outlets.
