Dividing an urban area into two distinct zones—traffic and residential areas, as practised in the Netherlands—is arguably the most crucial step toward creating better cities.
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Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:36 Car-Centric Mindset
2:16 The Dutch Street Revolution
3:08 Modern Day Dutch Practice
5:39 How Cars Destroy Cities
7:14 How To Design Better Streets
9:53 Outro
20 Comments
Unfortunately, since pedestrian infrastructure is cheaper than that for cars, it's harder for construction contractors to steal money by redesigning streets like you showed at the end of the video. So, at least in my city, seas of asphalt are here to stay!🥲 But maybe one more lane will fix traffic🤷♂️
Great video 👍🏻🌆
Love the videos! Thank you!
Well done. I think this is the perfect video to introduce people to the issue at hand because you capture the problem in a concise way, but also offer solutions. – I used to live in the Netherlands for a few years, but now I'm back in my country of origin, and it kind of depresses me when I remember what I had in the Netherlands. But the upside is that in my new city we have a major who is willing to improve the design of the city. The progress they have made so far is slower than expected but at least we are moving towards a better future.
I think this is your best video yet!
The YouTube algorithm is broken, your channel is seriously underrated. Your videos are incredibly well done and fun to listen to. I really hope this channel grows a lot in the future. Thank you for making these videos!
It's also the people, in the Netherlands the cars really pay attention that the cyclist feel safe on shared roads. But we also saw people who weren't dutch that were driving with 80 kph on road where the speed limit is 30 and it's getting more common with the influx of immigrants.
oof redditors…
Paldies! Komentārs kanāla atbalstam! Tā turpināt 💪
It's sad that we know how to do things better but still repeat mistakes
How to overcome the inertia or fear from the car brains in our worlds? How can we help them see the light?
Hi how do you make the animations? I am in a local advocacy group, and we want to do something like this for our proposal
Something about your narration and video style is both calming and engaging at the same time. Glad to see more urbanist channels popping up!
I dream of cities with as few cars as reasonably possible.
08:30
"residents do need places to park their cars"
why onstreet, though?
let the developers that choose to pay for it themselves
build it offstreet instead, like in japan
Great video man! Was just wondering how you find the background footage of the streets and things you use?
I visited Riga during a road trip through the Baltics in May this year.
While I loved the city, I was both shocked and saddened by certain aspects. The cityscape, especially when entering from the south, is beautiful with its old facades and historic charm. However, the poorly designed roads, particularly the motorways and arterials running through the city center, were … appalling to say the least. Despite this, a few streets and squares near government buildings by the Dvina River were lovely, though there were surprisingly few pedestrians. As I headed north, the scenic forests and lakes were marred by people parking their cars and walking along what was essentially a motorway.
Despite these issues, the presence of many pedestrians in built-up areas shows that Riga still feels inviting. With a proper ring road, more bicycle lanes, trees, sidewalks, and perhaps a metro system to complement the tram network, Riga could easily become one of Europe’s nicer cities.
Great overview and redesign suggestions. There are two factors you left out of the premise of the video though: 1) When you create residential areas and traffic areas, you don't really reduce the traffic, you just move it. So the traffic areas have the potential to be overwhelmed, and any residents or businesses there may protest, and residents in the residential areas will complain that they have to go the long way round to get to their house (although you can always sell them on the fact that this is what's needed in order to live on a quieter and safer street). What is required in addition to this is investment in infrastructure and public transport to make more efficient use of the traffic corridors. Just moving the cars onto different roads is not enough of a solution. 2) Your claim that people don't want to live in a place because the streets aren't nice to live in completely ignores wider economic issues. Riga is a former part of the USSR and does not have the strong economy that the Dutch have, so it's no surprise to me to see abandoned shops and empty lots. Improving the city will attract new people, but it is not a magic wand that will turn it into Amsterdam. Anyway, the video is still good and I still think cities should do what you propose no matter what.
another fantastic video–loved the graphics!
One issue I have with dutch cities, at least the ones I’ve walked around, is that I often notice pretty big roads, with 2+ lanes per direction, which I rarely see in switzerland. To be fair, my perception could be skewed, but I feel like maybe swiss cities tend to opt for more even street utilization, making most streets either 1 lane each way or 1 shared lane.