Car-free Streets are Amazing (and we need more of them)
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- čas přidán 17. 11. 2019
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Autoluw is a Dutch urban planning concept meaning "nearly car-free". It's put into use all over the country, and has resulted in some of the greatest urban environments I've ever been to.
This video explores the concept of autoluw, and how it is applied to Dutch streets, along with some examples from some foreign cities as well, such as Toronto and Copenhagen. I also talk about what Amsterdam has done to move towards the autoluwe stad, and briefly mention Agenda Amsterdam Autoluw.
There is so much to talk about on this subject! I definitely plan a follow-up video on different aspects of where autoluw principles are applied. If you're interested in such things, make sure you subscribe!
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Credits:
A view from the cycle path:
www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/...
• Nearly Car Free in Ass...
Photo of Strøget, Amagertorv by Olga Itenberg
CC BY 2.0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C3%...
Groningen, Centrum, Vismarkt
Groninger Archieven
www.beeldbankgroningen.nl/bee...
Groningen, Centrum, Grote Markt (1965-1970)
Groninger Archieven
www.beeldbankgroningen.nl/bee...
Sky view of Fresno, CA
www.google.com/earth/studio/
Photo of Fulton Mall, Fresno, CA (2011)
David Prasad, Flickr
CC BY-SA 2.0
www.flickr.com/photos/3367100...
Agenda Amsterdam Autoluw graphic
www.amsterdam.nl/bestuur-orga...
assets.amsterdam.nl/publish/p...
Plus miscellaneous content licensed from Envato Elements
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There's so much I wanted to say on this subject, but the original >10-minute version covered too much, so I cut it down to be an introduction to the most important points. I will definitely follow-up this video with more on the subject. If there's anything in particular you would like to know about autoluw or Dutch street design in general, please let me know in the comments.
The Frans Halbuurt, the Ferdinand Bolstraat, and De Pijp in general, have a very interesting history that's worth exploring. There were a lot of people who did a lot of fighting to make it the way it is today. The Frans Halbuurt removing street parking is a recent development, and there's actually an underground parking garage in the adjacent canal to house all of the residents' and visitors' vehicles (so it's not very scalable). More on this later!
The term autoluw is devilishly difficult to define in English; harder than you think. I cut all of the translation talk out of this video because it was just too much of a rabbit hole. "luw" literally means "sheltered from the wind" but it generally means something that is technically allowed but that you want to minimize as much as possible. If you have heart problems your doctor might say you should start an "alcoholluw" diet. You could say a "low-alcohol diet" in English, but that doesn't really get to the core of the issue: that you really should not have any alcohol at all, but if you feel you HAVE to, make it very minimal. Once you understand that, you'll understand what it means to be "autoluw."
Anyway, a great subject, with lots of interesting facets. I hope you enjoyed it!
Luw mean lukewarm, when you say "luw water" that's lukewarm water. "luw" just means not all the way or "nearly" so the translation was quite accurate.
@@zephyrdrake_ No, that is incorrect. You are confusing it with "lauw". Luwe is a shelter from the wind. Autoluwe essentially means shelter from cars.
You forgot our 'fiets straat". i know there are more across the world. But we have variants in it.... like more widened bicycle paths with a small part of road in the middle, full bike paths with no visible road, etc all allow cars... but they are a guest in the street :) This is what is in the signs. " Biking street, cars are a guest" nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fietsstraat
I think the dictionary has a second meaning to 'luw' and the combination explains it better:
lu·wen (luwde, is geluwd)
1
(van de wind) minder worden ->(the wind) has become less (so basically sheltered from the wind, or the wind has settled down, i.e. most of it is gone)
2 afnemen: de strijd is geluwd ->
the battle has died down (it's not over completely, there may be a skirmish here or there, but most of it is gone)
So in my opinion autoluw would imply that by far most of the cars are gone. Sometimes you might see 1 car, but oftentimes you will not encounter any. If you do encounter a car it will probably travel at 'stapvoets' speed (historically walking speed of a horse, or max 15 km/h) so cars are way less dangerous and generally will follow behind bicycles. (though this is subject to road planning and speeds up to 30 km/h are sometimes also possible)
Do you, or anybody else, know if this is the same as the german Fußgängerzone (pedestrian zone)?
I think foot traffic encourages people to shop local because when you're walking, you look around you. If you see an interesting shop, chances are, you'll pop in and have a look, and maybe buy something. If you're in a car, you concentrate on driving and might not see all the interesting things around you. Even if you did, you'd need to find somewhere to park, which is also annoying in urban centres, and would probably decrease the likelihood of you going into a local shop.
I can't tell you how many times I've driven past an interesting shop, at 50km/hr, and thought, " Well, maybe next time". Why not stop? Because it is already in my rear view mirror. Do I go back. Maybe 10% of the time or less. If I was walking or biking, it would be 80%+
You also tend to have more market space. One thing I noted in this video interestingly were the stalls in the middle everything in one of the places. Just more economic opportunity overall.
You're absolutely correct!
That is so true!
I just realized, the more a city feels like a large university campus the better. Think about it. Universities have mix use areas, they have many pathways where you can bike or walk. They have barely any cars (only utility vehicles), interesting architecture.
Only thing usually missing is robust public transport, but that's because a campus is much smaller than a city.
Am I tripping or do other people agree?
i think you are absolutelly correct!
This is why North Americans remember their college days so fondly. They were living in a defacto mixed-use urban community.
@@mshara1 Me who started 2nd year in 2020: "What college days?"
Even a lot of bigger campuses will have dedicated public transport lol, even just golf carts.
@@someweeb3650 True. They'll have bike lanes too.
As a Dutch person I never really realized this, simply because I’m so used to it.
I don't know, I don't live in one of the major cities and I don't go there because I absolutely LOATHE having to navigate through them or finding a place to park. I still have several free movie tickets that I am not using simply because it would require me to drive through eindhoven, which simply isn't worth it to me.
DutchDread you could try going by train maybe?
@@mysticalcoyote Last time I took the train was for a Major meeting in Amsterdam, everything went so unreasonably poorly that I decided I had had enough, cancelled the meeting, and went home.
DutchDread give it another shot! sometimes you just get unlucky, but most of the time it goes well :) i checked (and if your movie tickets are for pathé) on google maps and the cinema is near Eindhoven Centraal !
@@mysticalcoyote It is, if you manage to get to eindhoven centraal, The Pathe is about a 1 minute run away from it.
However I don't live near a train station at all XD, and if there is one thing we in the Netherlands aren't proud off, it's our train network.
It's too expensive, never on time, and grinds to a halt the moment a single leaf or bit of snow hits the track.
I wish we had the same subway network they have in Seoul, that really impressed me when I went on a vacation there, I could just get on at nearly any place and go anywhere in the city quickly almost for free.
I actually went to see a movie in Breda a while back, which required me to drive almost an hour, and yet I kind of preferred it over going to Eindhoven simply because the cinema was at the outskirts of the city and didn't require me to actually go into it.
I've visited The Netherlands several times and have always admired the urban landscape. The concept of cities for people, rather than cities for vehicles is something to be employed everywhere.
Absolutely.
We need more of this 'evil leftist agenda' thing!
based
Based
based
@@unknownninja4430 sauce
I find having a _choice_ on what mode you take and not being forced into a two-ton steel box feels kinda libertarian
I'm from Montreal and ever since I've gone to Japan, I'm convinced that we North Americans don't make livable cities. Why are we building them for cars instead of humans? Now, I must go to the Netherlands to experience first hand how much better it can be!
Verdun, for example, has been pedestrianizing it's main street, Wellington, for the last 2 summer and it's been, in my opinion, a great success... Mont-Royal has started doing the same and I hope it continues, and/or becomes permanent. The new work on St-Catherine's street will remove car parking and more than double (I believe) the sidewalk width. We're going in the right direction, it seems! take care!
@obimk1 100 years back cars barely existed dumbass
Japan is..interesting. For the most part is's better than the US, and there are some streets that are closed off, often only on the weekends and holidays, to make it more friendly for shopping, etc. These include some streets in Ginza and Akihabara. There are also areas where the streets are mainly for walking, leading to more walkable towns, like Kichijyoji. On the other hand, there are sometimes very minor alleyways that have way more traffic than they should because people are trying to avoid the major roads, and in the country-side, you often have to deal with s single road in or out with no shoulder, and guard rails that trap you in should a wayward drunken driver come along at extreme speeds.
Car companies paid gov to built cities for cars, they also covered trolly tracks up and threw trollys away
The same thing happens in Belgium whenever a city announces autoluw or similar initiatives. Massive complaints from businesses and people about how they won't be able to get anywhere, followed by almost immediate retraction of said sentiments when it inevitably turns into a success. This happens every time. You'd think people would be more open to it by now.
Patat
Driving makes people lazy and as for a business it means those lazy people zip right past you. When you ride a bike or walk you tend to see more of your local shops that you didn't know was there.
Yup, reminded me when the Anspachlaan in Brussels became carfree. Used to be a traffic nightmare right through the city centre, now it's a delightful connection of the city centre to some of the best nightlife/food&drinks area / Dansaert and St. Catharinaplein.
@@Geronimoux Watching this transformation happen was such a lovely sight, hopefully, the area around St. Cathrine will be pedestrianized next, even if it is already pretty walkable. That and of course the Dansaertstraat needs to become way less busy.
There was a popular mayor in Bogata some years ago that spearheaded eliminating two auto lanes of a 4 lane highway and dedicating those 2 for pedestrian/bike traffic. I read about this in a Dutch magazine at the time (it was written in English).
Unfortunately he eventually went into retirement, from what I've heard, and although people loved what he had done, one of his successors transformed it back into an exclusive-for-auto 4 lane (or so I seem to recall).
Does anyone remember this? I'd love to find out if central & south America -- or anywhere in the world for that matter - are following this "less cars, more people" philosophy!
I’ve did my bachelors in the Netherlands and I just can say that I didn’t experienced such kind of air quality ever since in any other major European city. It’s something that one doesn’t appreciate until it’s gone.
Rome is extremely polluted, not only because of the cars you will find parked in nearly every street but also because of the garbage which is rotting away on warm days
Uhm, Amsterdam is one of the most polluted cities in Europe though
@@dutchdykefinger you do realize that Rotterdams air is practically Amsterdam's air right...
@@stephm0 Bruh that's all of italy really. It's socially acceptable to just litter everywhere there. The world is your trash can.
Alexander Rewijk bruh you actually think people are gonna read all that?
Here in Oslo we're in the early phases of this, where you guys were 30+ years ago. There are plans to make much of the city center car free, but really, it's more akin to Autoluw, and we're seeing the exact same reactions you've seen in the past in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Local green party politician Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, who is responsible for roads and transport in the city and a big proponent of making the city cycle friendly, has received a lot of opposition, hate and literal death threats.
I tend to liken these changes to the smoking laws they introduced here back in 2004, where they banned smoking in restaurants, clubs and bars. There was a lot of protest before it happened, but now nobody wants to go back to a time when you would go out to a bar, and your hair and clothes would stink like an ashtray once you got back home.
Yeah I really dislike it when people are opposed to something just because they are used to it. Here is Sweden we drove on the left side until we had a referendum to start driving on the right side. Nearly all voted to continue driving on the left, but the government ignored the results and changed it to the european standard. And no one supports switching it back.
Oslo is catching up.
To be fair most resistance comes from it being a one sided environmental change. People living there for decades, businesses just earning a living wage get screwed over heavily because the environment is all that counts. That does not only count for autoluw streets but also other measures, like environment taxes, etc.
@@hkr667 how do they get screwed heavely?
@@34cvc Imagine having a small business where ever you've lived your whole life and suddenly you are not allowed to have your van with window washing/carpentry/bakery/painting equipment anymore, or you're forced to buy a new van/car to meet new environment requirements. Many companies will simply go under.
it really is wild seeing how much the 1970s Netherlands looked like some US cities today (though even those cities are basically a best-case scenario in the US right now). gives me some hope that we can change...just 50-100 years later
I agree, with enough courage and effective planned measures, i believe just about every city can transform itself to be at least little more "dutch" - even if the initial conditions might not seem perfect or suitable. There's hope even for north americans :)
Agreed that the US is more money focussed than people focussed, but on the other hand you have to see it from another side too!
The Netherlands has the size of more or less the state of Maryland and it is very flat which makes it ideal for this type of transportation!
Yet the US could make a start with making city centers and areas around schools car free and build upon that to larger areas within cities!
Intercity or interstate travel by bicycle will never happen in the US because of the huge distances!
@@classesanytime ... Intercity bike travel??? You know people in the Netherlands take the train for that, right?
I went to Amsterdam once and it was amazing. One thing I didn't get used to though was that, to me, a person very used to car-centric neighbourhoods in Canada, it seemed like the bikes were coming from every direction as I was walking around and it felt kind of hard to navigate the traffic and figure out the "rules of the road" as a pedestrian. Maybe that's something you get used to as you live there though.
You're just not used to it. Just walk and people cycle around you. At low speeds, humans are very good at avoiding each other. Just look both ways before crossing a red bike path.
I get this and there's truth to it. For foreigners It would be safest to stick to pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. I still do that in unfamiliar areas that have heavy traffic. Amsterdam is an exception, though, as it has crazy bike and foot traffic. And there are some intersections that are particularly difficult to get bikes to yield, but those are being worked on from the last time I was there.
"Luw" is an adjective, the noun is "luwte". This translates into "shelter" or "lee", as in lee side i.e. the side that the wind doesn't hit. Suppose the wind is blowing from east to west, and you are standing on the west side of a barn. You are sheltered from the strongest winds, you are standing in the "luwte". So "autoluw" is indeed not car-free, it's just sheltered from the large traffic flows, so to say.
Good explanation
Another easier to understand way is to say that Cars are a Guest in those areas. These areas are for bikes and while cars can go there, they have to adjust to the bikes.
@@captnduck You are actually describing a "fietsstraat". A "fietsstraat" or bicycle street is a small local access road or a wide bike path that is open to motorised vehicles, but with a 30km/h speed limit, overtaking is not permitted, and through cycle traffic has right of way. There is literally a sign on every bicycle street which says "auto te gast", meaning cars are guests. If you image search "fietsstraat" you will see some examples.
@@Welgeldiguniekalias Yeah i know, there are some here in groningen. I thought they would explain the concept of autoluw much better though.
Fantastic explanation, although it doesn't lead to an apt translation. The best I could think of, which also sounds similar, is a low-car area, as in a low-calorie drink is not calorie-free drink.
My Grandpa was actually one of the main people responsible for the situation in Groningen. He got a lot of flak for it back in the day, but that has turned around quite a bit in more recent times.
Belated thanks to your grandpa, a visionary! 👍
The video footage of Groningen reminds me so much of my study abroad experience in Spatial Studies, Urban and Regional Planning. Whenever I explain just how out of the ordinary Dutch urban planning is to other Americans, they just have this look of confusion because they just assume that it just can't possibly be as efficient as it is always explained (when it really is). I remember when my friend from back in Oklahoma came to visit me in Groningen from Frankfurt am Main via automobile, and he literally said that driving and parking in Groningen was even harder somehow than driving in Amsterdam and Paris. If you want to go anywhere, you can't really ever go directly through the Binnenstad, only around it, parking garages exist but they close their entrances at specific times (so if you need to park your car after a certain hour, you are screwed), and the sheer volume of bikes and pedestrians and intentionally confusing street designs all make it just beyond frustrating. Meanwhile, biking is the easiest thing in the world (although I preferred the slow, leisurely pace of walking unlike most other people I knew). To be quite frank, due to Groningen's smaller size, lower population density, flat terrain even by Dutch standards, and small number of tourists, when compared with the Randstad cities, Brabantstad, and all the other smaller and medium-sized cities I visited (such as Maastricht, Arnhem, etc.), Groningen still seemed to be the most bike-friendly city in the Netherlands. I still miss living right near Vismarkt in between Noorderplantsoen. I miss the vibrant nightlife and contradictorily slow pace of daily life, the times just sitting alone by the canal with a fountain pen and a journal, times spent walking through the quaint side streets just admiring the adorable old homes. I have certain issues with the Netherlands to be sure, but the brilliant urban planning makes life far more enjoyable for the average working class person and allows everyone near-equal access to nature and community in a way that the US completely devalues and ignores.
I'm really starting to love this channel. Seeing this view on the Netherlands through the eyes of a foreigner really makes me realize what I take for granted.
If you like this then you surely gonna like the BicycleDutch channel: czcams.com/users/markenlei
Brozius thank you for this.
Keep seeing my comments for #borderlife and #polderlife. That's also the Netherlands. Don't ever take it for granted, in fact there's still LOADS of work still to be done.
It’s fascinating, I’d like to have grown up in this way, and be living it in the U.K. today 👍
I would love to see this thinking applied to cities in Africa. Plenty of places there would have an even easier time making this sort of transition, than the Netherlands did.
Wow, seeing Groningen and the "Grote Markt" and "Vismarkt" is insane. I can't imagine there being parking spaces and cars in our city centre today.
moet je ff fotos van vroeger zoeken van groningen, you will be amazed. er is ook een video op youtube, een rondleiding door de stad CA 80 jaar geleden
@@FlexitCam Heb wel een dashcam video gezien van Groningen circa jaren 70/80 (uit m'n hoofd)
Echt een bijzonder beeld
@@Partyaap050 haha, een dashcam nog wel!!
@@FlexitCam Ja, gwn oude camera. Best grappig gedaan.
czcams.com/video/C5qjxM_JizU/video.html
@@Partyaap050 haha ja was een grapje, ken m wel goeie. sublime ook trouwens, goeie band
I live in Regensburg, a German city at the danube, and one of the largest european cities in the middle ages. And the old town is nearly car free. There are places where you can still drive, but it's so difficult to drive there, that you're better off just walking everywhere. There's a parking garage in the center and that's all of the cars in the old town.
It feels so refreshing to walk there. There are no cars and no sidewalks. There also aren't any cars, because medieval streets. I wish the rest of the city was this car free, because the transit here is hot garbage, and there isn't much bicycle infrastructure, so if you don't live in the city centre, you absolutely have to own a car.
Yeah a lot of German cities seem to have this "weird" split between pedestrian friendly center and meh (still not as bad as US suburbs though) rest. I live in Würzburg and it's basically the same. Guess it has to do with how these cities grew historically.
I also live in a town that was big in the Middle Ages. We don't have a cyclepath through, no autoluw streets, no cyclepath around it. Sure, it was also burned down a couple of times and the old fortress is gone, but for a town that's more than a century old things should be better here. In the Netherlands.
Regensburg is quite okay actually. I wouldn't say good (in terms of cycling infrastructure), but certainly not that bad. Greetings vom Adlersberg.
Knowing the city like the back of my pocket I have to say that it's okay and car ownership is not a must. Heck you're faster at MUC-Airport than from many areas in Munich. It is the north-south axis where it falls apart. This is where it would profit from some narrow gauge light rail all the way from Regenstauf to Bad Abbach. It is incredible how quick you can access the city center when you are living west near the railway.
I still remember a few years ago when there were protests against road working plans near me, not because people were angry that the road was getting smaller, but because it was getting wider. Just shows how much the dutch value all the surrounding nature/extra non car roads around the normal car roads.
I live in the US and our most popular street is the one where cars are banned, it's just so much nicer to walk down.
This is such an excellent video, so well explained and utterly frustrating because it's so obvious that the concept could be imported to any other European city so easily. 'We're not the Netherlands,' they say. Yes, and neither were the Netherlands before they decided to implement concepts like this.
It could even be exported to some tiny American towns. Particularly in my area along the St Lawrence River there are some "tourist areas" along the river that would probably benefit alot by just moving all the parking out to gravel lots on the edge if town and making the street against the river car free. (Except for deliveries and service vehicles) its already a nice area but confining people to a 3ft wide sidewalk on each side of the road while the road is clogged is just maxing out the capacity of the area. (Also a hospital is in the area with slow traffic due to the congestion, that just seems like such an unnecessary hazard)
Edit: part of moving the parking is adding a frequent bus service between the lots and shopping areas. Probably electric mini busses would be the most reasonable.
Very well said sir
I really appreciate the intelligent approach of the Dutch. They are really smart people with a very good view of things. Everything they do is well thought out. Every place in the world where they came improved. Respect for the Dutch.
Don't worry, we make plenty of screwups, this is just one of those things we've got mostly right or at the very least more right than most other places
“Every place in the world where they came improved”
Ehhh... That may not be entirely right.
when you´re dutch and you don´t know the word autoluw but do completely get the concept
As a Danish person (not from Copenhagen) I can say that these streets that are "Car-Free" are great in Denmark they are normal called "gå gader" translated that is "walking streets". It's so nice to just walk trough from shop to shop with people sitting outside having coffee or a meal. These are in every "major" Danish city I have ever been, in even in the medium siced city of Randers where I am from we have a big section in the middle of the city that are gå-gader where cars travel at lower speeds or not at all.
How about "Car Free Highways" where you can waste your entire lives walking to a far off village on your endless holidays.
The most amazing thing in this video is to realize these urban planning concepts are quite new even for Demark and the Netherlands, and that the people who pushed for these changes were actually threatened.
That should be a lesson to all countries turning to less car oriented urban planning today : if you look 20-30 years from now, will anyone really want to go back to how it was before? Despite the threats, what you are doing is important, and makes such a difference for the quality of life of a city!
I got to say, watching this channel has made me aware of something. As a dutchy traveling to other countries I've felt 'out of place' in trafic before as a pedestrian. I couldn't really think of why and just dismissed it. Looking at this, the continuous sidewalks and more made me realize I felt out of place because city design tells me I am. The only cool thing I've seen in Canada was the bicycle racks on busses, I'd like those.
Isn't it absolutely insane that Het Binnenhof used to be a car park?!
Maybe that's a better use for it...
I showed my dad the video about continous sidewalks now and he said it's similar to what we call "Dutch streets" here in Israel, which is pretty much what an autoluw is
I love your country❤️ isreal is realy advanced from the netherlands
Stop killing children please...
@@thetrollslayer3716 I'm doing what I can to make the situation better (less death)
Making something carfree is concentranting all the different businesses and activities and quality of life places in a much smaller area which makes this area an absolutly amazing and vibrant place!
Oh how I wish there were places like this in California. I hate how sometimes we’re (bikers/skaters) forced to share a road with cars going >50 mph when there is no sidewalk. And those stupid large empty lots that are made just in case for Black Friday. Now we have to travel much more to compensate for our cars.
this channel made me start cycling again, in the town I live we have one decent cycle route the rest is all bike gutters etc. It helps that I was a fearless skateboarding kid back in my day, makes the terrifying experience of being overtaken closely by angry french people slightly more bearable.
However I have saved so much money from doing it, it is unbelievable. In this day and age where petrol is so expensive, you can completely forget about saving the planet and still find it hard to justify using a car instead of a bicycle.
I like to compare driving to fast food, it looks cheap and practical, but when you really dig in and go buy it you realise not only is it not as good as you remember, but it'll eat your wallet, make you fat and likely make you die sooner.
Bangalore, one of world's traffic hells, started doing this too. They made a trendy place called Church Street fully vehicle-free, though only on weekends. This, along with new metro lines, new bus lanes and bicycle lanes makes me hopeful for the future. It's baby steps for sure, but Bangalore is one city that needs such infrastructure the most. Also shows that developing countries like India can take steps too.
In the UK we have alot of these too
They are extremely safe as drivers have to slow down and be cautious, and people are aware of their surroundings and move out the way when a car comes along
love seeing an outside perspective as a dutch person! you should do one on public transport! trains trams metros ovfiets etc
Even here in the Auto Nation of Germany any city center I have ever been to has been pedestrianized.
Florence/Firenze is a great example of this, and it is so good. In Italy the areas are called ZTL. Zone of traffic light? It makes getting around super easy, and you don't have to wait for crossing signals, or worry about getting ran over.
I dream of moving to the Netherlands.....I've been 3 times and fall more in love with it every visit. Cities and towns truly built for human movement.
it sounds great, and it is for most parts, but it aint free. Up to 70% of your dollar can go to the state because of taxation.
@@Rem_NL Jesus, that's actually quite insane. Well, long term vacations it is, then
@@thinkinternational that's actually not how it is though. Most people don't pay anywhere near 70% in taxes. If that were the case, no-one could afford anything. You'd have to be extremely rich, and even then it wouldn't be 70%. Don't just believe what anyone on the internet says. You should do research using credible sources. Its definitely totally affordable here tax-wise.
@@Rem_NL that's just bogus. Tax brackets are scaled way differently. I'm Dutch, I know
@@wp12mv I posted a link here before on how 70% of your euro can go up in taxes, but youtube keeps removing it. You guys all are thinking about income tax.. Shocker income tax isn't the only taxation out there.. If you inherit money, and then go to spend it in a way you see fit, you CAN end up with 70% of it going to the State..
Man, If we did this in the states, we’d be much lighter and most likely have a better outlook. Everything here keeps you in the car. Even if you want to cycle, use public transit, it’s almost impossible if you do not work 9-5 Mon-Fri.
yeah but FREEDHUM
I feel this, it’s even in places you din’t expect! I live in the Bronx, and even though NYC is put up as a walkable city, that’s really only Manhattan they’re talking about. There may be a lot of stars in the night like Pelham, small residential roads, and big sidewalks at a lot of places that swerve on the scale but otherwise it’s like an intersection near me where 5 roads meet making an asphaltolis
@@peskypigeonx Yeah you see it a lot in Queens too. I am in Astoria so while it is not Manhattan it is still nice. I just wish they could make intersections safer here rather than just plopping stop signs everywhere and saying they fixed the problem. But even places that are still considered "NYC" area like Northern Blvd are literal stroads it's disgusting.
@@peskypigeonx I feel the reason there is a lack of public transport and non-car infrastcure is at least partially because of racism.Bronx is famously black-majority and Queens is famously diverse. The same shit happens in Ann Arbor and Detroit. For years there wasn't any transport between the cities and only opened up recently.
Compare this to the streets of Prague, there are cars everywhere and it is just terrible. I'm sad, because the city hall in Prague isn't brave enough to implement this type of pedestrian zone.
Njn, když jakýkoliv pokus o omezení IAD hned naráží na odpor napříč politickým spektrem.
Prague would be absolutely amazing with more of these Dutch systems implemented.
This will come as no surprise but:
I visited the Netherlands, mainly Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht (but also Leerdam) this month. One thought that always came to mind is, why, if we can see it here in the Netherlands, isn’t every city like this? I mean if a major has doubts if it works or is unsure how to do it, the Dutch have already made it. I have never and I do mean never felt more pleasant in an urban environment, even in Rotterdam. It’s just perfection.
And I’m not from North America or anything, I’m from the south of Germany. The concept in this video is spread here and it’s good but it’s not nearly as amazing as it is in the Netherlands. Just brilliant. Btw a main reason I visited the Netherlands is because of you(r videos) and I didn’t regret it at all, I’ll most likely visit again in the next 2 years
I'm from Germany. I suppose things could be worse here but they certainly could be A LOT better and this clip is showing the way to go. Thank you for putting this together - it is a quick reply to many a social media comment about how the city will wither and die without cars. Bravo to the Dutch!
Cycled from Bad Nieuweschans to Cloppenburg a few weeks ago, outside the city I was actually happily surprised how good the cycle paths were. As I can see from a map of cycle paths that seems to be restricted to the Northwest of Germany however. Within the city of Cloppenburg it was pretty horrible though and besides the pedestrianized city centre seems to be built only for cars.
And the traffic lights are much more annoying than in the Netherlands because they aren't smart and seem to just go in cycles. Multiple times I decided to run a red light because there wasn't a car anywhere to be seen and I got impatient.
Still remember a crossing on the ring road of Papenburg, 4 traffic lights, one for every car lane all going red and green independently of each other and going in the same cycle whether or not there are cars. Like you've got to be kidding, ain't no one got time for this, that one was the worst designed crossing.
@@frisianmouve i live in Papenburg and the traffic Lights and the cycling infractructure is sometimes horrible. But if i see videos from the us or canada the infractructure in germany is alot better.
@@BlueSkyEntertaiment Well, the one area I didn't feel safe was around Bunde as I had to mix with 80km/h cars, still 9/10 for that trip for me feeling safe. Right next to the whole road from Surwold to Frysoythe there was a nice cycle path so that was nice. And yeah, even Germany is miles ahead in cycling infrastructure compared to the US or Canada
@@BlueSkyEntertaiment Oh, and Meyer Werft is fucking huge! I cycled around it with astonishment
@@frisianmouveOutside the towns there are mosten small roads for the tractors and nice to cycle on. but only if you are local, then you know them.
Nothing makes me angrier than seeing common-sense shit that doesn't get implemented for irrational political reasons. I live in the UK and our cities are dense and mixed-use enough to get the cars out and learn from Dutch urban planning, but we don't. The data is in that harsh drug policy leads to worse outcomes for society, but our drug laws are still draconian even though the UK remains the biggest supplier of medical weed in the world. It makes you want to weep. I can't even easily live in the Netherlands since we left the EU for, again, irrational reasons. It's genuinely infuriating.
Hey, all this greatness actually came from a spectular failure in city design and infrastructure.
Following World War 2, Nederland wanted to have highways like in the US of A, running all the way from one city center to the next city center.
Imagine: highways throughout the entire city!
All that needed to be done in the older cities: fill in a few of those useless old canals, demolish those old buildings near the city center and next thing, every major city would be a futuristic heaven with loads and loads of cars so nobody needed to walk anymore.
However, the Dutch came to the conclusion that Nederland was rather smaller than America. There just wasn't enough space.
In Utrecht, they managed to fill in most of the Catharijnesingel and had already built a small section of four-lane inner city highway heaven…
About 400 yards, I think.
By the time they wanted to continue filling in the Catharijnesingel, a majority of Utrechters had come to their senses and because of all the protests, the construction of the 400 yards four lane highway, was discontinued. For decades this tiny section of highway reminded the people of the follies of their predecessors.
Recently, I mean, in the last 10 or so years, they demolished the shortest highway in the world. The old Catharijnesingel has been restored to (some) of its former glory. And cars are becoming an endangered species in the city center. Who needs cars anyway in the Utrecht city center? It's all walkways, bikeways and one or two roads for the many buses that pass through.
Oeps, forgot: and of course the canals!
Thats such a fun little factoid.
It's kind of sad that Oslo mirrors a lot of this, with big highway plans straight through the city center from the late 60s, that were fortunately stopped, and plans for good cycling infrastructure put in place in the 70s...but unlike the Netherlands, Oslo didn't actually build any of it's cycling infrastructure, but consistently prioritized cars. It took them 40 years to get started on that, which means we're way behind, even though a lot of positive changes have been happening in the last few years.
Vanaf september dit jaar is de Singel weer rond!
I'd like a coffee book containing side by side before and after pictures of the Netherlands. Car centric one the left side, and people centric on the other.
You should be able to make one yourself with the photos/material from BicycleDutch.
czcams.com/channels/67YlPrRvsO117gFDM7UePg.html You also find the link to his blog there for the photos. Maybe you can tempt him into making such a book. :)
It boggles my mind how businesses would be against such a thing, as if they are unaware that people will be filling the streets instead of cars. As if they think nobody would be in those streets if there weren't cars...
Why do people react so violently to things they haven't considered before
You answered your own question. People fear change and the unknown.
Yeah. I wish I was immune to it, but I’ve done it as well.
I think drivers suffer a kind of vertigo at the thought of walking, or cycling. It’s what the car does to the brain. I think big supermarkets are designed poorly. Everyone wants to park near the front entrance, even though there are plenty of spaces further back, so they don’t have to walk too far…yet they can happily walk around shops for hours. I think they hate pushing the full trolley across a car park, so supermarket layouts, car parks and trollies could be designed better too!
@Quantum Passport Business owners often have to negotiate economic ups and downs outside their control, and many businesses aren't the money printing machines some seem to think they are. Naturally when something comes along that could dramatically affect their livelyhood, they panic. Losing your business and your home is a frightening prospect, whereas the ramifications of street changes for the average person could just be mild inconvenience. Most of these drastic changes don't come with any guarantees of financial assistance from the cities carrying out the work either, so businesses know if it fails it'll be their arses that burn, while the civil engineers get payed regardless.
Selling the concept while reassuring and supporting the stakeholders can remove some of the anxiety, but too often cities are clumsy in this regard.
I'm on a binge!!
In Delft, where I use to live, they started 25 years ago to make the city centre “autoluw”. There were protests, because nobody believed it would be a succes. Today the whole centre is “autoluw” and it is great. You go by bike or public transport or park you car in the new parkings.
I absolutely LOVE your videos. I love cycling and walking but either back home in Romania or Lisbon, where I live now, cycling is a very new trend. I have been cycling to work for 10 years and complaining that there is no infrastructure. Your videos prove that it's possible and not only that but it makes the city more beautiful and ecological.
You basically made me want to move to Amsterdam. :)
These streets seem to have somewhat the same idea as Finnish "kävelykatu", which directly translates to "walking street" (not referring to the red-light district in Thailand). You can drive a motor vehicle on a walking street, but only if that's the only route to the property you're going. All vehicles, including bikes, need to yield to pedestrians on walking streets, and the speed limit is 20 km/h. Parking is only allowed on separate marked parking spots (which are technically not part of the walking street), or if there's a sign allowing service vehicles, they can be parked for the time it takes to complete the job.
Concise, easy to understand, and awesome subject -- thank you so much for making this video! Keep it up. There is so much we can learn from the Netherlands and it's super helpful to have videos to drive the point home that we don't have to live the way we do.
Bullshit. The Netherlands is the most industrial and nature destroying country in the world. They favor traffic everytime. Do not fall for these clever presentations and check out the research.
EU report 2017;
43% of all terrestrial habitat lost in Europe is in the Netherlands.
That is a proportion hard to fathom for the ignorants while we study the cadavers and evaluate the areas.
It is huge.
Our research concurrs with that or even worse.
The only thing you can learn from the Dutch policies is how to destroy nature faster than anyone else.
It is a total wrecking machine and nothing more.
Forest Dweller Oh god. That is impossible seen the size of the Netherlands. Second, try measuring per capita.
@@forestdweller5581 I doubt your understanding of nature destruction, btw fun fact almost all the forests are not the original forests but are just replanted after we realized that we made a mistake
@@rimmertf Oh really? I pick up the bodies of the animal victims, do you?
I document the dead forest on my channel, do you?
And just telling me a very well known and ancient fact about changing forests does not help your point at all. Your mama is changing too, so is everything. Your own body is changing adapting to it's increasinly toxic environment...so what? Of coure forests are not the same as they used to be.
Which ancient forests would you like to compare to? 200 years ago or 2 million years ago?
I doubt your understanding of nature destruction now. Most life is dead already and as a researcher i am in that frontline.
Are you?
43% of all terrestrial habitat lost in Europe happens in my country. I study it every day.
So what do i know about it?
Probably a Hell of a lot more than you do....
This video is excellent! You have combined thousands of hours of reading into this and it will help make cities all around the world better. I'm making my mayor watch this!
I like how the Dutch language sounds like English from an alternate reality
If you would study old english you would see that at least 30% of words sound almost exactly like today's dutch
@@zaparzeseherbateniekurwaza7881 don't even have to go back that far, middle English still soujds quite similar to dutch amd also some accents/dialects in the Midlands now sound very much like "broken Dutch".
The best explanation of 'autoluw' is like limited access for cars. So you have residents with an own garage who still need to reach their garage or stores which still needs trucks for the supplies. Great video by the way!
I have never had a "need to travel list" but this channel has made me really want to visit Amsterdam.
The dutch word "luw" is related to the english word "lee" as in "the lee side of the wind".
Exactly in this phase in Berlin. They are protesting against car free areas. But Berlin did it on the famous Friedrichstraße. One year later its fine and they think to make a 2nd street.
In western Germany cities (Dortmund, Köln/Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, München) these areas are common like in the Netherlands. But in German Cities are bicycles also forbidden. Its very nice. You can park your bike next to the area. This is much more near than car could do.
I think a tour of autoluw places in the Netherlands would be a great vacation!
The Fremont Street experience in Las Vegas is now the best part of the city, after they took a famous road and pedestrianized it. The French Quarter of New Orleans is famous for its walkability.
Your vids kinda make me proud to live in the Netherlands. It makes me proud of my country
And that's it! I have now watched every single video on your channel, haha. Such a gem here on CZcams.
One video every two weeks! Very nice, keep it up!
I'm really glad to have found Eco Gecko and you too. I recently started teaching a friend the stuff I've learned and a few days ago they told me they've gone a year carless and that it's been a bit tough to go to shops and go back home. I seem to have come at the right time which explains why they've been so receptive to the stuff I've been teaching them. They're also too short to drive. Either they can't see above the steering wheel because their feet are on the pedals or they can't reach the pedals while looking over the steering wheel. We're at the age where our bodies stop growing. So thank you, NJB. And the others.
These videos are fantastic. Great humor, great info, great images.
There's a car free street in the town center where I live and it's great!
If you assume that people will drive to your pedestrian street, you already failed.
Thank you for making these video's about The Netherlands (and not only Amsterdam). It is an eyeopener - even for me as a Dutch person
just came across your channel - as a fellow canadian living abroad (from calgary, in paris) i went through a similar journey (moved to toronto because i thought it was cities i liked, but realised that i just wanted to live car-free) and i am loving it!
keep up the good work
You have really interesting videos! It made me appreciate our country more, especially the things I've always taken for granted.
I liked this video best, because it acutally shows different parts of the Netherlands, instead of only Amsterdam Zuid. Maybe you could incorporate other areas more often.
Clips from Amsterdam looks to me like a conceptual design/architecture walkthrough video- almost unreal with how beautiful the streets are and even the lighting, the colors, the people!
“If you expect people to drive to your pedestrian friendly street, you’ve already failed”
Me: flys across the ocean to visit pedestrian friendly streets...
Autoluw is great. Town centres are slowly becomming big parks.
But don't forget the Netherlands are flat and small.
(Public transport should be cheaper though.)
Im a car enthusiast but I agree it is great to have car-free city centres.
I hear that argument all the time, and it doesn t make sense. The size of the country doesnt matter, 5km in amsterdam is the same as 5km in new york. its not like people cycle from one part of the country to the other.
Roku while you’re right on the part about 5km being the same, you should take into consideration that in the US people rely very heavily on cars for commuting from one spot to another, meaning they are already taking their car as a means of transportation and it would make more sense for them most of the time to continue driving. When driving through a big city like NYC or LA, there is very little the government could do to make it more pedestrian friendly than it already is, because of the layout of the city, and the added traffic congestion that would come from guiding all the traffic through different points.
Rafael Rubingh i get your point. But not everybody who needs to go to the city can go by bike. We have p&r, park & ride. So you would park your car at the p&r and make the last part to the city by bus/metro/tram/train.
@@Rafa-mv4nn Half of what you're saying is just not true. People drive so much in the US because of its zoning policy, which is relatively low density. Which brings a number of issues along with it. Los Angeles and New York are NOT pedestrian friendly. It's not like the movies, lol. New York's sidewalks are crowded (while the majority of those street is given to a few people in cars) while there are barely any 'autoluw' areas (in a city of millions!) and traffic light waiting times are long. Cars often stop or crawl into the crosswalk. Cars speed. Cars don't give way ar pedestrian crossings. There's no continuous sidewalks. Both cities are VERY loud because of all the cars. LA has a lot of terrible sidewalks with terrible street environments (ugly fences, blank walls, large parking lots).
As someone living in germany for me its weird not having car free areas in your city, here its the norm in nearly every bigger city
A street next to the street I live in changed to a predestinarian street only some years ago, and it feels amazing just walking down the street and shopping. The town I live in also changed how many cars can enter in the centre of town, by using a system that only allows cars of people who live there. (The system uses detectors that detect your car's licence plate and lets you in. Pretty cool stuff). The street next to mine also looks waaaaayyy better now too
Your videos remind me how behind in almost every aspect my country is
In my town most of the city centre is not only car-free but bicycle-free too. Its a very old town so the streets are narrow and because of that they made a rule that you cant bike there during opening hours.
You can bike across the main square though so you never have to walk super far if you need to be at a specific shop but most people will park their bike at a guarded bike-parking at the edge of the city centre if they need to go to multiple shops and then just walk from there.
I think it is really nice and I really enjoy walking around these little streets. Outside of this area bikes rule most of the city though, at most intersections the cars need to stop for the cyclers. Which I find to be no problem since I am underage to drive anyway.
Which city 😍
@@heyjessie008 Deventer in the east of the Netherlands. It is much smaller and less crowded than Amsterdam and it is 1250 years old.
Amersfoort has that too.
@@boilingfire as does Zwolle... all of the cities in the Netherlands have the same basic structure, and most Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, and on, and on, and on. As long as the basic structure is medieval. It is when the grid-structure for travelling from a to b is introduced things go haywire.
Your channel has reinspired me to leave the US asap. Even my friends that travel regularly say there's nowhere better than the states, but I cannot believe this is the best there is.
Do it! There are many places better than the states.
I LOVE your videos!!
Dankjewel voor de video, ik ga hem gebruiken in mijn volgende video. Thanks!
to be fair, the main reason NA autoluw or "pedestrian malls" failed is in the name. they were built at a time when main street was already failing, in an attempt for local businesses to compete directly with malls, on the mall's terms: designed for people to commute in from the suburbs and park, then walk around. the obvious problem is that malls are literally optimized for that, whereas pedestrian malls were an awkward conversion.
and actually, it's estimated about half of all pedestrian malls are thriving autoluw-like areas today, mostly those which had exactly the factors you'd expect: nearby sources of pedestrians, like a dense prewar residential neighborhood, or a college campus.
I live in a street like this and it's the nicest place I've ever lived in. Sadly the rest of the city centre is still open to cars, which is sad, as its such a nice historical centre.
Zoals gewoon, goed gedaan! Heel blij ben ik dat we makkelijk in de Nederlandse steden kunnen lopen. Er is altijd veel te zien en te beleven. Ik vind echter dat er toch te veel auto's in ons klein land zijn. Kijk naar al de akelige, lelijke snelwegen en files--vooral in de Randstad. Hopelijk zijn de Nederlanders er een beetje terug van gekomen want de nieuwe "Los Angeles" is zeker niet mooi.
I love these videos. When we visited Amsterdam we stayed at the crowne plaza zuid and since I love bikes i had to check out that underground parking. We walked past the train and took the metro line instead. I think it was 10
Yer, those were the arguments for pedestrianising one street in Aberystwyth, the driver yelled that disabled people wouldn't be able to access anywhere in the town because of it. They wouldn't listen to actual disabled people saying it was helping us.
The street was already no parking, even with blue badges as it was unsafe. But they got the pedestrianised area removed, by saying disabled people wouldn't be able park their (illegally). :(
You should do a video on the P&R (Park & Ride ) system. People from outside the city can drive to large, cheap parking areas just outside the cities that are well connected by public transit to the city centres. It’s also a big aid to nearly car free citycentres.
I know a lot of urbanists despise park and rides but they seem like they are mandatory to bridge the gap between a car free city and rural areas that actually need a car equivalent of transportation.
Eventually the ideal would be every town has a train station and you could easily bike into town and get on the train to visit the main city. (Or atleast drive into town to reach the train) But the first step is definitely to extend transit to the edges of suburbs and make the outermost stations P&R.
I'm Dutch, I live in Amsterdam, actually quite close to where you live, NJB. It makes me so happy to see the Netherlands as such a liveable place. The outsiders view -even though you are of course very much inside- is a nice contrast to daily inconveniences. Thanks for the viewing pleasure.
Rarely have I ever subscribed to a channel after just one video, but here we are
Leuke video, groeten van het fietseiland Texel
"Luw" or "Luwte" translates to Lee, which is a term i recognize from the sailing community: windward vs leeward. Windward being where the wind is Leeward being the oposite side, 'sheltered' from wind. When using the dutch word Luwte on its own we generally also mean 'sheltered from the wind'.. So when using the 'auto' prefix this just changes wind to auto....
In my best stonecoal english i would translate it to car-lee :)
This immediately reminded me of the hate in Vancouver over bike lanes and streets being converted to walkable areas. I think they could learn a little more from the Netherlands, because most of the areas are completely car free, not car light, which could cause some of the issues people complain about.
The best "car-lite" area I can think of in Vancouver is Gastown, where the streets are almost all one - way only, and people drive very slow. It would be safe the cross anywhere in the street, but people are so conditioned to cross at crosswalks it never happens.
Great video, new subscriber here😎
Luw is actually a word relating to wind: wind still, or an area behind an obstruction with low or no wind.
I hope, that one day we will have such concept here in Tartu, Estonia too. I like it very much.
Papers, please
Great video
Hotel Street in Honolulu is a good American application of this idea. Basically, Hotel Street is a bus transit mall, but licensed taxis can use it too. However, because Hotel Street is just two bi-directional lanes, people congregate on the sidewalks and cross the street constantly. A quick look to make sure a bus isn't coming, and then you cross. The sidewalks hold people outside bars and nightclubs on some blocks, and on other blocks, they support a major produce market during the day. Of course, trucks have to get access to deliver the produce and other food and drink, but they usually use the streets that cross Hotel Street to do it. So this concept does work in the USA.
That sounds great!
This is brilliant!!! I hadn't connected the dots about why I don't like the area I live in. I knew I didn't like the stroads and having to drive to get anywhere but your videos helped connect the dots and so I find that my tastes are almost identical to yours and this is why I like walkable towns and cities.
The modern American suburbian model that Australia seem to use these days is basically utter shite. It's cheap for property developers but that the one and only plus point of these car-centric developments. Really makes me miss living in the UK as it was so much easier to get around the towns I lived in by foot or bike compared to where I've lived in Australia.
I like the before- and after- shots. It's amazing how banning cars makes the rain go away.
We also have car-free and low-car parts of towns and cities in the UK and France - they’re always my favourite areas.
Love to see Haarlem, my city :)