[Ep. 1008] When the Utrecht Burgemeester Reigerstraat was redesigned as a cycle street in 1996, it was a complete disaster. Yet the Utrecht council decided to turn it into a cycle street again. It was opened in 2022. What is it like now? More information in the blog post: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/?p=24932
33 Comments
This story highlights a major problem I see, which I think will prevent cycle streets from becoming a thing here in North America. The popularity of cycling in the Netherlands and their cycling infrastructure is really a "chicken-and-egg" thing. Cycling in the Netherlands really took off in the 20s and 30s, just as the car was taking off in the United States. During WW2, hundreds of thousands of Dutch had their bicycles confiscated by the Nazis to support the war effort, which turned bicycles into an object of national pride. Cars were a rare sight until the Marshall Plan of the 50s, yet they never truly caught on BECAUSE of the real and perceived danger they posed to bicycles (the high cost of oil in Europe had an impact as well).
In North America, it's the other way around. Cars have been a common sight for nearly a century, and since the 1950s virtually every working household has been able to afford one, thanks to low fuel costs and the transfer of public subsidies from public transportation to roads and highways. When an American driver sees something like this cycle street, they feel threatened because it goes against the status quo. In NYC, the vast majority of business owners claimed bike lanes hurt their business, even when they were presented with evidence proving the opposite. When you've spent a large chunk of your life driving across town to work, cycling or taking transit feels weird and unsafe. There's also a lot of negativity bias at play here. Most Americans wouldn't notice how easy it was to walk or bike to a restaurant or boutique on this street – but they would throw a tantrum about how hard it was to find parking.
There's been a lot of good work being done (at least here in Canada) to provide protected spaces for cyclists, and I absolutely support these from a public safety and environmental standpoint. However, it is hard for me to justify the fiscal impact of these sort of roads when I know full well that the majority of North Americans will never even try to make them work.
This is amazing. Wow. Sometimes even pretty damn good is better than NYC. LOL!
What I strongly dislike about this street and the cycle tracks in my city is that the soft, less painful asphalt is for cyclists and/or vehicles only, and the pedestrians "enjoy" the excruciatingly painful tile. I can walk almost indefinitely (albeit slowly) on sand or grass, but on asphalt its' hundreds of meters, and on tile it's short streaks, lamppost to lamppost, followed by a long recovery. Which is why I always carefully plan the route to exclude the tile, but this isn't always possible.
They did something similar to the failed cycle street with the Emma laan in Den Burg, Texel. They removed the separate cycle paths, put a grass median in the middle of the road to create 2 lanes 1 vehicle wide and designated it a cycle street with 30 km/h speed limit. The street has no houses along it at that section, just trees.
It caused a lot of stress for cyclists because they felt “trapped” by the raised medians, with a growing column of awkward car traffic building up behind them.
In the end they had to demolish the newly built street after 2 years and reintroduced separate cycle paths and removed the median. This project was supposed to go together with the introduction of a roundabout to the dangerous Emma laan-Beatrix laan-Elemert curves junction where a lot of children used a crossing point from the poorly visible inside of the curve. The roundabout was a succes.
Google maps still shows the new build “bad” version of the Emma laan.
The 'worst' Dutch designs are still 100xs better than the best designs in North America.
One must keep in mind that this is possible only thanks to the climate change and cozy weather thoroughout the entire year! If there were still winters lasting for at least 6 to 7 months with lots of snow you can forget you "precious" bike. So, appreciate the climate change and if you believe in the CO2 religion keep the CO2 levels high so that we can enjoy such streets!
Thank for showing how some people face up to issues and provide solutions, even if it means admitting a previous attempt was a failure.
If you can include some statistics demonstrating the economic benefits of redesigning roads, it might convince business owner to accept change.
Thank you again.
How were motorist and shop owners persuaded to support the scheme?
das ist gud
I live in BsAs Argentine. The same problem.
Cars and bikes should not be sharing space. And how does someone carry groceries on a bike? Cars are superior.
The design around the parking spaces is really interesting and at first counter intuitive. Designing them as pedestrian space which can be "invaded" by cars that wish to park seems like madness but when I think about the alternative – a piece of ugly roadway which must be navigated by pedestrians – it makes a lot more sense. Great video, lovely street!
The first design is the rubbish we have in the UK. It's called a half heart attempt!
tom scott thumbnail
What is the ratio of bikes to cars when it's wet and windy?
So many people riding without helmets. Even kids without helmets.
The street is a disaster? Heck, the name itself is already a tragedy, with reading that name causing a mild stroke each and every time someone has to read it out loud.
A job of an engineer is not to find complicated solutions, it is to find simple solutions by using complicated methods.
So much ugly graffiti 😢
I don’t know of anything like this in USA.
It looks great.
I'll love more of these in London.
I'd like to better understand the essence of what changed. And sadly … I doubt the redesign, requiring cars to drive very slowly and patiently behind a flock of un-helmeted bicyclists, would work with American drivers.
A funny case of over-cycling is that a street near Scheveningen where the fietser is the guest
This looks so nice. Well done Utrecht, well done!
I see far too many cars
Are cars mostly banned? I.e., only allowed by permit? Or is it that there are so many bicycle riders that driving a car there is a pain in the ass and so avoided? And how long is this bicycle street? Are there car crossing streets?
Everywhere else is more like "welp we'll try again in X years so this is what you're getting until then", where X stands for years taken for the road to deteriorate sufficiently to warrant a reconstruction.
I like how many think that the Fietsstraat sign is actually a thing. In The Netherlands, the sign fietsstraat doesn’t have a legal status and normal traffic rules should be followed. Technically, most bikes are actually wrong since they are using the whole road, which is not allowed (Because normal traffic rules apply, which state you should be to the right side of the road, max 2 bikes near each other).
What happened to the buses?
Thanks for sharing! It was great to ride down this street to the Rietveld Schroederhuis earlier this year; and now to learn about its transformation and history of how the Dutch fiestraaten have evolved. I always learn something new watching your videos, thank you!
I lived in the first parallel street behind the supermarket in the 1980’s. Traffic was a lot messier back them.
I was thinking about this this morning walking my dog early. The trade off is that you either can have really nice street improvements for bicycling in large cities or at least cities in densely populated countries, or you can have smaller towns and cities with less traffic, less need for bike infrastructure, and have very little of it. But generally you can't have it both ways. I think we can use more of it where I live, but the city planners do not see the same need and don't give it to us. Of course it always helps if more people are on bikes.
To think this street that I cycle on from time to time has this much infrastructural history is pretty cool because you never really think about it during your commute.