Amsterdam turned a street into a park

Disappointing that cars wont be totally banned

Wonderful! I will evaluate to propose that to my city, Rome, Italy.

also the blue handicap passes for car spaces is one of the most fraudulent documents of the city

Here in Florida the long-term planning to deal with traffic is just keep adding more lanes

Would this type of road layout cause longer response times for emergency services as they would have to drive slower?

Het is natuurlijk schandalig dat je dit soort centrum aanpassingen doet voor de superrijken die daar alleen maar een tweede of derde huis hebben om de belasting te ontduiken of de investeerder wiens voormalig huis nu een Airbnb ers en dus voor een gewone bewoner van een gemeente het centrumgebied iedere keer een manicure en pedicure krijgt in de buitengebieden hooguit af en toe de staalborstel over het trottoir zien maar voor de rest mag je met wortel op druk onkruid het allemaal maar zelf uitzoeken

So the traffic is just somewhere else now….

I have surveyed this street well before the reconstruction. A big part of why this street was perfect for experimentation is because there actually is not much activity there. Despite being in the heart of the city it was and likely still is a street full of low profile money laundering businesses, and roaming junkies from the nearby shelter. There are hardly trucks that have to make stops there. Servicing on this moldy and crumbling street is done by the occasional tradesman, rather than construction teams in other parts of the city. Nothing big ever takes up this wide reaching area for more than a few minutes.

The main traffic participants have always been cyclists heading to Central Station. The flow out of the station actually heads via side streets. As going into Nieuwezijds means you are besides taxi's, and trams further down. The street is a stretch with very little pull. Your car GPS takes you there, and again if you take a wrong turn. By why else would you be there? On you go, skip the underground parking, good visibility of street crossers. Get down far enough and you see the back of a major landmark. So you know not to try and park or stop around there. It was never the toughest street by car or any means. It was even a bit misleading because you expect chaos as soon as you break from from the major attractions at both ends.

And the amount of actual residents seems skewed to the low end, like in many area's that had an AirBnB boom. But the AirBnB culture here is dwindled. Only a few were allowed to continue. Old and crumbling houses with awkward subdivisions are often vacant. And unlike commercial real estate, there are no lights on or window dressing to mask around that. During rush hour in the morning, hardly anyone appears from these buildings. They try some tricks to make it seem desirable by planning the rental viewings at once so there is a queue outside. But the amount of cancelations on signing leases was staggering. The more serious landlords have resorted to preferring expats whom they can charge extra, and can be expected never to know or act on their legal rights. It is a tough neighborhood to fill long term. Livability is lessened by the disturbances on the street at night. A lot of dealing and arguments happen. Especially within range of the police station. This is aided by how desolate the street can be, despite the rent prices being like that of more livable areas.

Many remaining locals just don't invite people from outside of Amsterdam. The majority of Dutch just don't want to take the train more than once a year. And neither want to pay for parking. So the connection to Amsterdam is lost for anyone outside of the metropolitan area. This street will never be proper for a lively school, church, or other public amenity. Theft of bikes and property is so high that is is an absolute. You will see someone steal something if you stand and watch for fifteen minutes.

A few unlawful hotels got shut down which really took out quite a big part of the groups who would be lingering on sidewalks. The coffeeshops further up to Central Station remain hot spots. And then the main destination was the pricey AH grocery store. There's a department store called Magna Plaza. But unlike the money launderers, the stores there kept going out of business. As there are a few customers, but with the high rent there is no surviving it. A few gems remain, like tattoo parlors, and flagship stores. But they could have turned this entire street into a canal and nothing much would've changed. Traffic has always been minimal, flowing from North, down to turn in to the West rather than South across this renovated area.

There is so much more to a city needs than just traffic flow. This renovation was a nice bandaid and a refreshing move. And policing has gone well since Corona. But the heart of it Nieuwezijds is just the neglected real estate portfolio of a few retired criminals and investors. Ownership has not done this area well.

I was here last year, even walking through the construction zone was nicer than any stroad in america

It's completely possible if you can rely upon your public transport. In my city (Kyiv, Ukraine) public transport has been being gradually deteriorated for the last 30 years. But the worst thing is that the transport service stopped for several months at the eve of corona lockdown 3 years ago and at the first months of the war a year ago. Hence, by any means we simply can't trust public transport, we are heavily depended on cars here. Even if the public transport becomes impeccable in the distant future (which is highly unlikely), how can we expect that it wouldn't be shut down at some critical point?

Now, the Dutch are just flexing.

Nice Bicycle Ducht..

After this we can not reach amsterdam anymore. All the roads are closing down all for the 15 min cities

I’m from the Netherlands
It’s sucks it’s crap
It’s about controle….
People,want their freedom and their cars back….

This is crap….

But today is memoriam dag 1940 1945 on Amsterdam De Dam and tomorrow we celebrate.
Tomorrow is a holiday we celebrate all years our liberation day yesterday to commemorate the victims and all soldiers who liberated the Netherlands

I love little spaces like these. I wish my city had more

Amsterdam is not the way it use to be. Back in the day growing up, Amsterdam was AMAZING! The people, the city, downtown, everything about Amsterdam was just perfect. But now, its crowded with tourists, and so many foreigners that work and live here, that when you walk into a store you have to speak English cause their staff dont speak Dutch! More people who are born and raised in Amsterdam are leaving Amsterdam, cause outsiders messed everything up.

It reminds me of Las Ramblas.

Das Video ist alt!!!

Fun fact :
"De straat was lang de belangrijkste krantenstraat van Nederland. Vanaf 1828 werd het Algemeen Handelsblad hier gemaakt. Later volgden Het Parool, Het Vrije Volk, de Volkskrant, De Tijd, De Telegraaf en Trouw. Alle 7 kranten verlieten uiteindelijk de Nieuwezijds, maar vele tientallen jaren was het dé journalistenstraat van Nederland, met Scheltema als hun belangrijkste en legendarische café"
They should have payed tribute to that period with the design imo

Looks quite good, but could have been better. The video is awesome!

I ❤ Amsterdam!

We have something similar to this in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We have a very important lack of green spaces, so a couple of these “linear parks” as they are calling them here, have started construction. Our streets aren’t as curvy and natural looking as this one, they are straight lines. So it doesn’t look as good. They basically took one or two lanes from the street and made a green walkway with trees, benches and grass.