How Utrecht Became a Paradise for Cyclists

[l4u532]

Having lived in Copenhagen I can only attest the surge in living quality when a city adopts a no-compromise bicycle strategy. Back in car-loving Munich I feel set back a century. With city council members putting forward arguments like that bike lanes will “destroy retail businesses”. It’s frustrating.

Ps: here’s the short film the article talks about. Shows the fantastic transformation of Utrecht. https://youtu.be/Boi0XEm9-4E

[IshKebab]

Yeah the business destruction argument is the most perplexing. It's like shop owners thing that people prefer shopping on noisy dirty streets to quiet pedestrian areas. I don't know how you can come to that conclusion.

[ranko]

There's a lot of wrong-headed antipathy towards improving cycling infrastructure, which is really frustrating, given that it's a low-cost way of making a big difference to quality of life.

I recently read a nice article laying out some of the misconceptions: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2019/jul/0...

[klaaz0r]

Living in Utrecht I can say: it's amazing, going to work? 10 minutes, going to the station? 10 minutes. Basically anything is within maximum 20 minutes cycling distance. In the rare occasion I do take the car, the city is still surprisingly accessible.

The only thing I hope they will change in the future is removing motorised vehicles from the bicycle lanes, scooters/e-bikes are just too fast and break the whole flow of traffic. Seeing that scooters are already banned from the cycling lanes in Amsterdam I think it will happen soon in Utrecht.

[joostdevries]

As another Utrechter I'm really impressed with the large bicycle garages on either side of the new railway station. It really makes cycling from and to the station a great experience. There are quite a few grand new railway stations that have been built in the NL: Rotterdam central station, Utrecht central station, Arnhem station. Recently I was moved when I realised that they're the cathedrals of our time. Shared architectural spaces that are big communal efforts and will be of great value for all for decades to come.

[closeparen]

I ride my e-bike at 15-20mph. The assist stops at 20 and I only ever exceed it downhill. Are there really not a ton of athletic cyclists going faster than this under their own power? Around here, serious riders would find that laughably slow.

I find the electric assist is not so much about going faster as making transportation into a non-event and avoiding exertion.

[avar]

The Netherlands is free to set any laws it wants about where scooters are allowed, but if you're talking about the 25 km/h limited pedelec E-Bikes they're allowed on the bicycle lanes by an EU-wide legislation that The Netherlands is subject to.

[fasicle]

I felt the same way living in Amsterdam for a few months - 10 minute cycle to almost everywhere I wanted to go.

Compared to my commute in London now, 45 minutes on a cramped, hot, loud tube.

[philmander]

This has been such a positive change in Amsterdam

[A_No_Name_Mouse]

I live in Utrecht. During peak hours there are so many bikes on the street that small traffic jams form near traffic lights. I cannot imagine the disaster if all these people would have taken their car instead. It simply wouldn't fit.

I also love the fact that in most parts you could still take your car. But most people don't, as taking the bike is the faster and more convenient option.

[llamathrowaway]

> that small traffic jams form near traffic lights

The fact that a traffic jam of bicycles is perceived as exceptional really tells how we have moved past the acceptance phase of the cancer that is automobile congestion.

> I also love the fact that in most parts you could still take your car.

This is an excellent rebuttal to the opinion 'but what happens when I need to move furnitures/go camping/<do some other activities that really requires a car>': these activities are not a part of people’s daily routine. If people stop unnecessary driving such as sending their children to schools ten minutes of walk away in an SUV, then it actually makes it easier for everyone else who does need to drive.

[KeAShizuku]

Dutch cities were not made for cars. Cars are the guests. Thats the difference between the US and the Netherlands: by the time Dutch people started to buy cars in the 1960s cycling had been a popular means of transportation for half a century.

[kbouck]

I've commuted by bike in both San Francisco and Amsterdam. In Amsterdam it's a lovely (and safe) experience, whereas in San Fransisco it was positively hazardous. The key difference being the thoughtful lane designs in The Netherlands where you have dedicated bike lanes physically separated from the car traffic. In San Francisco you are often mixed with or adjacent to car traffic or parked cars - leaving you susceptible to parked car doors suddenly opening, or being caught in a moving car's blind spot.

[thanatos519]

Cycling is safe in The Netherlands because practically everyone is a cyclist so it isn't a stretch of anyone's empathy to look out for them. Also ... cyclists are everywhere so you had better be watching for them.

There is also a behavioural solution which should be exported everywhere: https://www.dutchreach.org/

[mmcnl]

I would say Amsterdam is one the least bike-friendly cities of The Netherlands. The streets are small, bike lanes are narrow and bike lanes are very crowded. That's not to say your opinion isn't valid, it's just that your experience would very likely be even better in any other city than Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

[pul]

> leaving you susceptible to parked car doors suddenly opening

Dutch driving instructors teach 'the Dutch reach'. You get into the habit of opening the car door with your left hand, so you'll automatically look for cyclists that may be passing by.

[dreamcompiler]

I love Utrecht. It's a college town with the cultural and intellectual vibe that always engenders. It's a very modern town but you can turn a corner and walk half a block and suddenly it feels as though you just took a time machine to the 16th century. Best of all worlds.

[lifeisstillgood]

I cycle commuted in London in the late 90s and 2000's and we pushed then for two items - to be seen by other road users as real road users (ie not something just to be brushed aside) and for dedicated cycle lanes that would improve safety.

I started cycle commuting again about a year ago (Boris Bikes) and guess what we have dedicated "cycle superhighways"

And the problem it turns out is us cyclists

There is always a traffic jam on the dedicated pathway - the blue cycle lane. And so some (usually but not always male) cyclists jump on and off the lane and engage in dangerous overtaking manoeuvres.

Worst, is that the blue lane runs along normal roads and so has traffic lights at the same positions - and that I guess 25% of cyclists ignore completely a red light and plough through - and twice I have seen these idiots hit pedestrians and two weeks ago came across the fire brigade washing the blood away

We campaigned and rode to be taken as real roads users - and when we got real roads with real traffic light we ignore the real rules of the road

Cyclists need to have number plates and fines for breaching traffic laws.

sorry.

[estsauver]

I wonder why that is, I see very, very little of that mentality in the Netherlands.

There's also a very interesting phenomena where right now in London the people who bike are "Cyclists" where they're much more likely to be enthusiasts, people who want to really go fast, people who have Bicycling as part of their identity. In the Netherlands, it's just a way of getting around and not an ideology.

The other contributing factor could be size. London is so much bigger than most Dutch cities. If you're commuting across London, speed probably matters much more to you.

[_Wintermute]

Requiring cyclists to have number plates is just going to discourage cycling.

It will cost millions to organise, will the DVLA take on this new responsibility? Do scooters count? Roller blades? A 5 year old rolling around their neighbourhood?

It will push more people back into their cars resulting in a more unhealthy population running over more pedestrians, and to top it off, motorists have to be registered and that doesn't seem to discourage breaking traffic rules en masse.

So basically, costs a lot of money and result in more deaths - for what benefit?

[jacquesm]

Ridiculous. Cycling is a means to get around. That a bunch of hipsters now see it as an identity thing is no reason to punish everybody from age 6 up that participates in traffic.

And cyclists already get fined for breaching traffic laws (and for endangering themselves or others).

What you are describing is a result of a mix of 'militant cyclists' and others that see cycling as a way to set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd as well as an incomplete separation of traffic flows. It has nothing to do with regular cyclists, and chances are that if cycling becomes normalized that the hipsters will move on to skateboards or some other way in which they can differentiate themselves enough to be noticed.

[alkonaut]

If people have a 10-20 minute bike commute as most seem to me have in Utrecht, they probably accept a slower pace. In London I’m guessing a lot larger fraction have a 45 or 60 minute bike commute which is a) more of an exercise hour so m and b) is more sensitive to delays because of the long times involved. A city planned for cyclists is not only about good biking infra, but also about density and planning to make a large enough fraction of the people live within 20 minutes by bike from work so they can have an enjoyable short commute.

[benj111]

I think part of the problem at the moment is that cyclists have been marginalised so much that the law hasn't really applied to them (example, most traffic lights in the UK don't detect cyclists, there was at one little used junction on a prior commute that I had to jump the lights on, because the lights never changed in my favour).

I would hope that as the infrastructure improves, so too would the outlook of cyclists regarding the rules.

[dr_dshiv]

Dutch cyclists break the laws all the time. Neither are they are particularly polite on the bike lanes (I have had a cyclist wish cancer upon me), but slight mishaps are usually met with a smile and a "sorry!" No one goes too fast, because no one wears helmets. It's cultural, I suppose -- but a culture that grows in conjunction with the infrastructure.

[mmcnl]

Though this article is true, there's nothing exceptional about the Utrecht bicycle infrastructure. The great thing is that the bicycle infrastructure throughout the entirety of The Netherlands is of extremely high quality. In the suburbs the bicycle experience is actually much more pleasant than in cities: the lanes are wide, there hardly is any congestion and you can really go anywhere on bicycle lanes without being forced to do some weird manouvering (which is very common outside of The Netherlands). Utrecht is just a good example of the incredible bicycle infrastructure in The Netherlands as a whole.

[dep_b]

It can be a bit overwhelming during rush hour though, two way bicycle traffic of multiple cycles next to each other going at different speeds. Makes crossing Vredenburg almost like a real life game of Frogger on foot.

[estsauver]

I think the other thing that's not mentioned much is that most Dutch cities are commuting at quite low speeds. I'm lucky to average 10mi/hr.

There's a huge change in the energy of a crash as you start going faster. A 15 mi/hr biker has 2.25x the energy of a 10mi/hr biker and so if you crash it's so much worse.

At 9mi/hr, you're pretty much always walking away from the crash.

[thomasfl]

This documentary about Utrecth is p0rn for bike lovers https://vimeo.com/344373585

[ralfd]

This is literally the video the article is about.

[shusson]

> have brought on much-larger windfall of social benefit

One of the things I love about Amsterdam is how the city changes in the evening. It gets quieter because there are less cars. People can go to pubs without driving (cycling under the influence is illegal but tolerated). And almost the entire city is accessible within 20 minutes.

[stunt]

Designing cities for car is a huge mistake!

[LeonM]

Utrecht officially became a city in the year 1122, the oldest known records about Utrecht is that it was a roman outpost since 50ad. So I don't think it was designed for cars ;-)

[chrisseaton]

Almost no cities are designed for cars, as almost all cities are far older than cars.

[eMSF]

But why would you design cities for bicycles either? They're not people, right?

[fuball63]

I love cycling, but I live in a very hilly environment, which is why I don't think it will really take off here, unfortunately.

I always try and think about designs for a "ski lift" for bikes, just as a thought exercise. Is anything like that being actually made?

[monort]

It exists - https://youtu.be/zipZ5kwhFfs?t=37

Nowadays it's easier to just mount an electric motor on your bike.

[pinkfoot]

I wonder what the carbon footprint of all the concrete they put down to achive this is?

[speleding]

Dutch bike roads are made of asphalt or bricks, I've seen very few made of concrete

[shusson]

compared to what?

[ncmncm]

At first I thought this was about the much-admired discount art supply store chain.

But there is a city with that name, that clearly must court cyclists more ardently than the most devoted retailer of paints and brushes.