What happens when a blizzard comes to Amsterdam? We found this February, when storm Darcy hit the Netherlands.
In geneal, cycling infrastructure was prioritized, but there were several problems with the train system. And in the end, maybe this storm wasn’t quite as bad as people thought it would be, and the Netherlands should probably be prepared for such storms in the future.
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NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9v57F4xz46KaDsvWfCv8yw
More Snow in Amsterdam ❄️ – Bicycle Live Stream
NJB Live
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Sources:
NS beloofde na sneeuwchaos in 2012 ‘Zwitserse wissels’, maar het bleef bij woorden
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/ns-beloofde-na-sneeuwchaos-in-2012-zwitserse-wissels-maar-het-bleef-bij-woorden~a2f95c48/
KNMI – Hoeveelheid sneeuw van Darcy zelfs in huidig klimaat niet erg zeldzaam
https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/nieuws/hoeveelheid-sneeuw-van-darcy-zelfs-in-huidig-klimaat-niet-erg-zeldzaam
(het KNMI niet betrokken is bij het afgeleide werk en de strekking daarvan niet noodzakelijkerwijs onderschrijft)
Scenes from Oulu, Finland, care of Pekka Tahkola:
Tweets by pekkatahkola
Pekka Tahkola bicycle live streams from Finland:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClW8fnS0yeCMGEjCKd7OlHg
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:05 It Snowed in Amsterdam
0:35 Train Problems
1:22 Bicycle Infrastructure
2:11 Painted Bicycle Gutters Suck Never Build Them
2:53 Sidewalks Full of Snow
3:44 NJB Live Bicycle Livestreams
3:55 Skating on Natural Ice
4:39 How Bad was this Storm?
5:14 What Happens Next?
5:55 Conclusion
6:24 Patreon Shout-out
6:35 Outro
43 Comments
Bicycle Dutch also made a video about the storm … and the city even cleared some of the sidewalks in ʼs-Hertogenbosch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViaDwkkXzC8
I live in Amsterdam and I can't even remember this snow "storm" so i guess it wasn't that long lasting
they could add the heat pipe under the bicycle path like in Korea
im from duluth minnesota and im like blizzard worst in 10 year how many feet are we talking. they got like 3
-4 in the sidewalks are bad they must be iced over skating rinks no snowcovered. wait this is bad? thats good for us i wish i had their winter
In the more rural places community effort. People just get out and clear the part on the sidewalk in front of their door and also take on the job for the elderly and disabled or when for what ever reason they can't. I don't know if it is still the case but back in the day you were held responsible if someone injured himself in front of your house because of slippery sidewalks.
first, sidewalks are the responsibility of the building that links to it. I have to clear the sidewalk in front of my house when it snows, because if someone injures himself while on my sidewalk. They can sew me for damages.
Even though, the sidewalk is owned by the government
2nd, trains in the netherlands, always fail when the first snow falls, and will always be like that.
3rd, prio for clearing snow = bicycle paths and highways.
i remember that storm!
over here in the north it was amazing, everyone went skating on the ice and the winds were not terrible
Most roads dont just get plowed – they also get salted to prevent ice forming on the road. The salt of course being bad for the environment.
Sidewalks are also not designed for small karts to clear off the snow.
Decades ago snow was more common in winter, and it was considered a public duty to clear the sidewalk for your fellow people. That has become significantly less common, and mostly boomers and older people still do so.
But how bad is it for some things in our country to grind to a halt a few days a year?
Snow usually doesnt stay on the ground for more than a few hours – the mid day sun clears most of it.
If it does stay – it doesnt snow often or continuously, so usually it falls for a few days. Compacts into snowy ice – after which most traffic issues get solved and the situation improves.
Some 10 years ago we would get snow/ice 2 weeks a year. That was the most you could expect from winter. Last years not even 2 weeks…
So its really only disruptive maybe 3 days a year.
And you can walk on the side walk without falling most of the time. If you have a higher fall risk, then having some extra groceries to tough out the first few days is a simple way of preventing to need to go outside. Most people who fall are cyclist on poorly cleared roads/paths.
In Poland it snows every year for 1-2 months, we've got equipment for plowing but everyone cares only about cars (unfortunately not only during the winter)
I live in Münster, Germany which is near Enschede and there was hardly any snow lol
I have seen worse in my live in Holland. In the higft of 31 decembre 1979 on 1980 it rained and the rain got frozen on the streets and sidewalks so everything was just one big ice skating arena. In 2004 or 5 there was a meter of snow that is more than the half of the everage height of Netherlandish people but this was only the case in some parts. The problem is that we have a gouvernement of the right wing now for about 20 years now and they are only interested in cars so money for problems like this hardly is spend. My experience with cleaning sidewalks is that if you remove the snow the stoep as we call it were you walk remains wet and when the night comes the water gets frozen and the stoep will get really dangerous because there now is ice on it.
It takes a lot of salt just cleanig the roads and lanes. Salt is not a product in Holland so we have to import that. I remember winter were there was so much snow we rub out of the salt to clean the roads.
It's not just that the equipment is limited: salting the grounds is pretty terrible for the environment. I can really see why they limit it to the main roads.
As for me I simply didn't go out at all that week, worked from home, went grocery shopping once or twice which took super long but seeing as this only happens every few years I don't mind so much.
I absolutely love it when there is snow in the Netherlands, since it's rare.. so when they don't clean the sidewalks we just go and make a snowman from that snow..? And it crunches under my shoes! But I can see why you wouldn't want wet shoes.
just a thought. could the city keep a register of trained freelancers for infrequent situations like that?
once that rare snowstorm comes just call up a group of truck drivers, farmers etc who also have snowplowing licenses.
Then you only need to keep the material in stock.
There was a bad snowstorm? Musta missed it!
The sidewalk is the responsibility of the owner of the lot next to the sidewalks.
A few months ago, i traveled to Andorra and when it started to snow, they had some snowplow quads to clear the sidewalks.
Hi NJB, I wonder what you would make of the new Arnhem Centraal train station, which I think is pretty spectacular as a space that is made for humans, beautiful and welcoming. Maybe it's not your thing to make a video about only one train station, but I think you could easily fill an episode with it. Keep up the good work, and thanks for entertaining and educational content.
2:59 In Warsaw it's the other way around. Hopefully it will change next winter because bicycle infrastructure is getting really decent here and it would be nice to have it off-season too.
Clearing sidewalks that are at least reasonably level seems like a strange waste of resources. Better for people to just use their strap-on spikes for their boots, if it's an issue, especially since even a plowed sidewalk is just going to be icy and slippery anyway.
RIP that kid at 0:29
If a sidewalk is in front of your house, you are responsible for keeping it clean.
It is normal to keep the sidewalks clean if people life there.
But if nobody starts, people are like sheep.
I was living on one of the main roads in Rotterdam when that hit and it didn't get ploughed until about 3 days later while the bike path was cleared the same day.
Here in Newfoundland it’s another Monday
In Germany sidewalks have to be cleared by those who live there (or tend to the shop), I wonder if it#s the same n the Netherlands
Around here, businesses and homeowners are responsible for cleaning the sidewalks adjacent to their property. Doesn't seem to happen all that much though. And when you get a real blockbuster storm, the plows push the snow off the roads and onto the sidewalks, so what was a foot of snow is now three feet of ice.
I'd love to see more videos on walk/bikeable cities in snowy climates. Living in ND, USA the main argument against public transit and walkable/bikable areas is they are seen as summer/fair weather options at best. I'd love to hear your take on colder climate cities who do public transit better.
My secondary school was 8 km from my home, so I cycled there myself for most of the year. Only in wintertime, I got 4 months of bus expenses covered. However, I was allowed to keep it myself, if I went cycling. So I cycled, like most of my classmates decided. I remember us meeting up together with -11 celcius and a snow storm. I lowered my saddle, so that I could tocuch the floor with my feet and I made my tires half empty to improve grip. Some parts we cycled, most parts we had to walk, especially on none-flat terrain. We left earlier, because the fresh snow gave us friction to cycle, while on the way back it had turned into a ice floor. The same ride took us twice the travel time, but also gave us twice the fun. And I saved a couple of euros to buy some hot choclade in the school canteen 🙂
Roast Canada! Our home and native land. 🤣
in Finland we don't have painted bike lanes on the car road almost anywhere other than central Helsinki, the standard is having a separate bike and walk path next to the road (can be either mixed or split in 2)
Honestly it just doesn't seem like it's bad enough for long enough to justify spending any more than is currently spent on snow proofing.
Maybe if people helped out clearing the sidewalk Infront of their building, and if you typically walk maybe a cheap set of clip on snow shoes.
WelI guess I'm going to be kicked out of Canada 🙁 lol
Last winter in the lower Midwestern part of the US, I had to take my car to my mechanic barely 2 miles from my house. No big deal; I just walk forth/back within a few hours. So I thought.
That particular week, I learned exactly how NONEXISTENT winter treatment of sidewalks was… and these weren’t the worse off pre-1990s era sidewalks; these are ADA compliant, relatively smooth, preferable to ride a bike on (if you live in typical suburban America with very minimal pedestrian usage on said sidewalks of even the more major arterials) under ideal weather. And this was just because I needed something fixed/looked over on my car. At least I used my work boots both times in the snow; kept all the slush out of my socks…
Dramatic reenactment ROFL 😀 Well played there.
As for the railroad switches, isn't there a simple solution, which is to build a shed over them? That way they wouldn't get any snow.
It hardly ever snows here.. I think when it happens we manage just fine. It wouldnt make sense to purchase a huge amount of machinery etc just because once every few years there's some minor inconvenience because of some now.
Did you not get the beast from the east of 2018?
Did you not get the beast from the east of 2018?
I'm from the UK with the same sporadicness to snow and I've struggled home by car in one snow storm, there's a wonderfull sense of everyone helping everyone, e.g. two strangers towed my friends stuck car, I drove her to another friend who gave us supper and then we drove, slowly! back into town. I think the answer is just to declare a sort of bank holiday on snow day. And have some sort of insurance so truck drivers get paid to park, and not struggle through, fall over and then block the road for all the cars that could have coped fine with the snowy incline. Plus if everyone is home they can clean their own sidewalks. In Berlin in Feb 2009, the sidewalks that were cleared would dry during the day, and stay dry, but the ones that were not cleared would stay icy.
That’s not close to a blizzard
I wouldn't be using that painted bicycle path at 2:11 anyway. It’s way too close to parked cars.
no ice?
Late reaction but I live in a neighborhood in rural Netherlands (southwest of Eindhoven) and I grew up in a dead end street in an average sizes Dutch town in Limburg. I think you are touching the main reason for the disruptiveness of snow here: it just doesn't happen that frequently. I remember slipping and sliding down my street coming back from school on my bike. Because we lived in a dead end street, our road was not a priority for clearing. When this most recent snowstorm happened where I live now, the road was never salted or plowed at all. It was a incredibly dangerous as by the end of the week the snow had turned into tightly packed ice. I think the solution lies in more localised clearing. Volunteers who get access to snowshovels and salt to clear their own streets. People are more than willing to pick up the slack, if only given the tools.