Exploring the Best Cycling City in the World | Utrecht Bike Ride w/ Commentary
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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This is a great view of how cycling in Utrecht is :) You picked a really nice route. The city council of Utrecht gives cycling priority over everything else, more than any other city in NL.
Some remarkable things on the way:
At 0:59 you pass one of the underground bike parkings on the left, having space for 772 bikes. That's a tiny one.
At 2:08 you have the largest bike parking garage in the world: 12500 spaces. The bike lane goes right through.
At 3:23 you are turning right. If you turn left there, you get to the second largest bike parking garage in Utrecht for 4200 bikes.
At 4:18 you get to the largest mosque in Utrecht.
At 5:10, many light systems are set to green for through-traffic, and loops in the streets can detect crossing traffic. Also cyclists will be detected, see 6:30. Of course it is illegal to jay-bike (?) but many people do... This wide street is one of the main routes to get in and out of the center.
At 7:20, that moped should use the main road here. A rule only applicable on a number of roads (not all) in Utrecht and Amsterdam, outside of these cities they are allowed on bike paths.
At 8:18, these brick roads are chosen to encourage people to drive slower. It is less smooth than asphalt without being bumpy.
At 10:00, you mention zoning. That is an American concept that doesn't exist here. Of course things like industry, commercial and office zones do exist, but not like the US. Especially in streets to the side of this wide main street, there are many small shops under the residential buildings.
At 10:34, this road is indeed a shared local access road. Did you see that it is not possible to get on the main road, at 10:50 there is no way to get on the main road by car.
At 11:16, you mention gas prices. 74 cents is for LPG gas, petrol is 1,93 euros per liter. That's expensive.
At 12:28, a minimum age of 16 may be introduced soon for fatbikes. Depending on the amount of expected traffic, you get a wider bike lane at both sides.
At 13:17, the bike lockers are rental bikes. You can rent an ov-fiets for 5 euros a day. Almost every train station has those lockers.
At 13:40, this road used to be a 2x2 lane inner-city ring road. The city council has reduced the number of lanes (very controversial) to force car traffic to get around the outer ring road, taking more time on purpose. This makes cycling more feasible and sometimes faster than taking the car.
At 14:40: this is the longest straight road in town. It is always really crowded, and will be refurbished soon. It will be a 30 km/h zone. The bike lanes will get a lot wider, it is really not wide enough here.
At 16:34 you pass a bike shop. On this 2 km road, there are 5 bike shops, one at 17:34 too (on the left) and 18:38 on the right.
At 18:50, the rule of thumb for yielding is like this: traffic from the right has right of way, except on a road with right of way (with a yellow diamond sign), and if the road surface is on the same level as the sidewalk (higher than the main road) like it is at 18:50 here, and at 24:58.
At 21:55, there are plans to block off this area for cars. It will not be possible to get from north to south this way, so it is even more discouraged to get around by car.
At 23:05, I almost got run over by impatient car drivers here. It is not always safe to ask people to drive 30 km/h by only putting a speed limit sign there and no speed bumps.
At 26:40, the number is the bike detour number. There is a lot of construction in this area, so there is more than one detour for bikes. You have to take detour 5.
At 31:50, the national railway museum is in the street on your right.
At 33:18, Universiteitskwartier is a long word. On the turn to the left you pass the Stadsschouwburg, and 15 minutes ago you went over the Amsterdamsestraatweg. Are words long enough? ;)
At 33:40, the bus lights are odd compared to other traffic lights. White instead of green. If the white light is flashing, you can expect cross-traffic that you have to give way to.
At 35:33, the crossing is not very well laid out. You can get on the big red square and act like a car if you want to turn left here, and yield to oncoming traffic. Just like you would do in the US. Not my favourite way of turning left.
At 36:10, this is a "fietsstraat". Red pavement = bike lane. In this case, one where cars are allowed. Cyclists always have right of way, even when overtaken by a car.
At 38:10, this is the main bus lane out of the city. Many buses going to neigbouring towns will go here.
At 38:38, you pass another bicycle parking on the left.
At 39:00, you found a bike traffic jam :)
Loved the detail in this comment 😂 deserves a pin! Thanks for the information
About 13:40, why did they keep that fence? I think, it still keeps the road as a divider between both sides.
@@kailahmann1823 I have no idea. I don't like it either. This street always has been more car-centric than most other streets, and it hasn't changed much.
nice comments you clearly also ride a lot in the city.
i agree that the amsterdamse straatweg is the longest but in my view the nicest (just a line) bicycle path is Rijnkennemerlaan. The reason that its 4km length is so unified is because its next to the 2 water tubes going from the lek to the dunes to supply amsterdam its drinking water. i got i think 2 videos on it.
You managed to ride a rental bike in a busy unfamiliar city AND talk for 40 mins non-stop. Respect, Dutchman approved ! 👌
I'm very surprised at the lack of cars! Well done, Netherlands !!!
I might be visiting new york this summer! :P I wonder how many cars will be in that video.
You really don't want to drive a car in the inner city of Utrecht. Too many small streets, lots of bicycles and forever working on the roads 😂
Well, Utrecht has been busy removing cars from the city centre for a few decades.
Ten years ago there still were plenty of cars where he rides his bike.
There's still a lot of cars, just not in Utrecht. Besides, he's rising a very biker friendly route...(Which were multiple lane car routes just a few years ago).
That’s why it’s so quiet given the number of people. The noise level spikes every time a car or moped passes by.
As NJB says, cities aren’t loud, cars (and trucks) are loud.
Speaking of the mopeds, I know they’re allowed to use the cycle paths, but I’m surprised how fast some of them passed people. I thought there is a speed limit for them when they use the cycle routes.
The Netherlands has the highest car density of all European countries, however we made most cities (or the centers of the cities) not or very hard accessible for cars and offer great pedestrian options, bike friendliness and great public transport instead.
12:40 There is a lot of discussion going on about fatbikes. A age limit (16?) is to be put on use, because a lot of younger children can't handle the speed safely.
Also in NL there are 3 categories of mopeds/ebikes/motorbikes. cat I , speed
are you mr perfect ? 99.9% of the people run red lights on there bike ! and 80% dont even have a helmet for a E bike ...
only people that are complaining living on facebook or instagram, and all old tea ladys or old men.
11:16 It says “autogas”, that’s liquid propane (compressed gas), so not gasoline / petrol. What we put in regular cars is called “euro 95” and that costs close to 2 euro per liter (8 dollars per gallon)
Wrt fatbikes: it’s just a matter of time before these bikes will be regulated more strictly. Currently, they are seen as regular electric bikes, but the younger kids (8-15 yrs) cause so many accidents and are riding so wrecklessly, that we’re basically waiting for the first fatalities. I think fatbikes will be seen as a “blue-plate” scooter, requiring a helmet, a driver’s license and a minimum age of 16 pretty soon.
That makes a LOT more sense from what I understood about EU gas prices. Thanks for the clarification! :)
You (almost) cycled on the oldest cycling path in the Netherlands: the Maliebaan (visible at 32:10). It opened in 1885!
Re pedestrian crossing across a normal road: Unless otherwise signalized or signed, pedestrians get right of way only if there's a zebra crossing. The one you remarked just had outlines suggesting where to cross, with the island helping split up the crossing. A bit earlier on that road you could see a zebra crossing.
At 14:30 you can see a big sign informing that the street ahead (Amsterdamsestraatweg) will be reconstructed from 24 June 2024. That is why all the trees have been cut. Until 19:10, you can see many stumps to the left of the cycleway. The cycleways in this street will be widened and that requires a complete makeover of the street, from façade to façade.
This was a strange route. You definitely did not see the best of Utrecht this way. As other commenters wrote: there are routes that keep you away from motor traffic much more. But I am glad that you liked it anyway.
Thanks for the information! Haha yes I'll probably need your advice next time I'm back in the Netherlands. I did like the variety of the types of roads I saw and compared to what I'm used to...this did feel genuinely great to ride :) always good to leave more for next time!
The reason the Amsterdamsestraatweg will be completely reconstructed is not because the bike paths are too narrow. It is a combination of factors, but by far the most important one is pressure from residents to make the street safer, by limiting the speed to 30 km/h. However, the local police publicly stated they would refuse to enforce a lower speed limit unless the street was redesigned. Consultations with residents resulted in the final design, which entailed felling all trees (they were dying), removing clutter from sidewalks, removing parking space for cars and cyclists near intersections to increase visibility, putting in speed bumps, and a very limited widening of the bike path of maybe 10 cm (and I even doubt that they will widen it that much, in the first drafts there was no room for widening the bike paths at all).
The price you called out for 'gas' was autogas, a different name for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). For a liter of standard benzine 'gas' the price there was €1.939 per liter, translates to almost 8 usd / gal (which would currently be cheap, but that makes sense seen this is a gas station not on the highway).
The trafficlight system is quite easy: Green means GO and mind crossing cyclists who ran the red light, Red means GO and mind crossing cars and cyclists who have the green light.
As a dutch person I enjoyed your video and you've got a new sub! Keep it up ! 🙂
Thanks for watching and welcome to the channel :)
This is amazing. I hope they adopt this type of infrastructure in the US
Sadly they won’t. Even surrendering countries are barely doing anything remotely close to this. Germany is celebrating opening like 5 new cycling paths in rural areas. That’s all.
The US can only adopt this type of infrastructure, when they adopt the Dutch mindset about traffic.
Bike lanes are socialist, so not acceptable for the USA.
@@omervandenbelt which they won’t. Same goes for other countries.
There is no money in the USA to fix the infrastructure.
34:40 The busslights are pretty simple.
The 2 lights on top of each other is the stoplight for going straight for the bus.
The 2 lights slanted are for bus trafic going to the left, so instead of using arrows they use dots.
It is done this way so regular trafic does not get confused which lights are for the busses or regular trafic.
The Number on the detour is for different directions, as a cyclist you can pretty much ignore it.
For cars there could be multiple detours depending on the final destination.
Detours can also cross each other so it also helps to prevent you from ending up on another detour.
Wow... what a beautiful view and a well-organized cycling spot... it's likely that the government there encourages cycling and provides good infrastructure for it.
😊
It is not a "spot" the entire country has similar cycling infrastructure.
like buddy said, it's like this throughout the entire country (or course there are some places that are still sub-par).
and yes, the government and cities do encourage cycling, especially for the little things like: going to the hairdresser, doing (daily) shopping or bringing your child to school.
those small trips under 5km (3'ish miles) are just better to do by bike, and often it's quicker to do them by bike. (no need to search for a parking spot)
it's partly because people want(ed) it, 50 years ago there were demonstrations and a lot of citizens movements for more and better cycling infrastructure.
but with time cities and the people in power found out that by making a city more pleasant to be in, (less noisy cars and more space for people) people would be happier and the city would be nicer. they also found out that it's cheaper to build cycle lanes than car lanes (less material needed, less maintenance needed, loner lifespan) and cycle lanes are able to move a lot more people/hour than car lanes.
so it's partly because people demanded it and partly because (local) government(s) found out it's better for everyone.
Dont think that our goverment really love us because they dont haha our old PM mark R is become ceo of th NATO warmachine just watch pics of the headquathers of the nato and you will see the SS logo ;p
The people protested and demanded moving away from car-centric infrastructure because they were cared that people (especially their kids) getting hit and killed by cars.
It helped they didn’t have as powerful a combined automobile manufacturer and petroleum lobby, like the one that crushed similar efforts in the US during the early 20th century.
Little known fact: cyclists were the ones who first lobbied hard for networks of paved roads in the US. Then automobiles became affordable and popular, and here we are.
9:23 Not just bikes told in a video that the kind of pavement indicates the speed limit. And that you can hear on what kind of road you are, and automatically adjust your speed. That he hardly has to look how fast he’s driving. This is a neighborhood, with low speed. If you drive to fast it makes a lot of noise. (If I remembered correctly)
This is a rule of thumb. Not more. Always look for speed signs.
Some things to note about the infrastructure design:
- The closer cars and bikes intermingle, the lower the speed is for the cars. Where there is only a line separating them, especially when the car space is not wide enough for two cars, the speed is 30 km/h. Where the bikes have a separate protected road section, cars can go 50 km/h.
- The priority of roads is indicated by the layout as well as signs. If one road clearly goes over the other, and cars on the other road visually have to cross over the cycle and/or pedestrian path, the through road has priority over the crossed road.
- Things like red asphalt, brick roads, car-space that's only wide enough for one car, and the bike-in-front-of-car "fietsstraat" sign, have no legal meaning. But they are still powerful hints towards the expected behaviour of car drivers. The narrowing of the roadway using bike lanes, with no center line, also works to psychologically make the driver feel more confined and therefore drive slower than if it were a standard road with two lanes.
Of course by law you have to wait for a red light. But people do not when there is no traffic coming anyway. Which makes sense.
Agreed. I definitely have been signalling at the intersections. It's not always obvious from the chest cam since I have been doing the lowered version I see the dutch do in terms of pointing.
On the roads with no separation between the bike lanes and the car lanes, that is actually red asphalt and not painted.
However you can observe that all cars still respect the bike lane. It helps keep the road visually narrower for the car drivers. This is so they are more inclined to keep their speed within the limits.
However cars are allowed to infringe on the lanes if they need to make a bit of room for oncoming traffic.
It requires everybody to be flexible, while still keeping everybody safe.
And yes, rule of thumb is that all bike lanes are red. Exceptions to the rule do exist ofcourse but are becoming less common.
Fun fact about that red asphalt! Definitely makes the riding experience better versus coat of paint that can get slippery.
Makes sense, the key to make it all work is compliance and lower speeds. I know there are similar roads in US trying this concept but not always to great effect.
Mostly if its red the cars are guest
@@dimrrider9133
I would say: When the surface is red(ish) the bikes ( + wheelchairs + mobility scooters ) have priority.
@@xFD2x duhhh
Nice video. There's a misunderstanding however around 30.35 : you say something about parking on the sidewalk beiing quite common in Europe. In this situation along this street in Utrecht this is not the case. On the right side of the parked cars you can see a dotted white line. This means cars are allowed to park here on what looks like a sidewalk. Why? It's a matter of esthetics, there is more unity in the design of the street. Also: sometimes not all of those parkingplaces are used, and then the sidewalk looks much wider, which is nice to see.
In a more traditional way of parking on the real street, this effect of unused parkingspots would not exist. Apart from that : the street would look wider in the case of unused parkingspots. This would stimulate cardrivers to drive with higher speed. The streetdesign we see at 30.35 is an exemple of new streetdesign used in many places in the Netherlands since several years.
Thank you for the clarification! These are the comments I'm looking for. I did notice very explicit signs in Germany with a car over a curb so I misunderstood here. Thanks
@@BestSideCycling We do have them in NL too. See this spot in Utrecht:
maps.app.goo.gl/Tv6RULKaWv1WVc7X6?g_st=ac
@@BestSideCycling that's a similar idea ("take a bit of space of each side"), but quite problematic in reality - as drivers tend to leave to little space on the sidewalk.
Our citys are made for people not for cars 😎
Right on red is one of the worst things the US has done in terms of street safety, for everyone, including drivers.
A few places never implemented it, and driving feels safer there due to not having this source of conflict, despite the high density. Walking feels much safer.
Fortunately, other places are considering returning to normal right on red unless explicitly allowed and communicated by a sign or signal.
Haven't commented on your videos in a while. We were there last summer and my wife was terrified. She hated every moment and we actually rode out to Castle De Haar, which is out in the country. In fact, in combination with multiple crashes she had while riding along the Mosel and Rhine Rivers, she no longer rides. Such a bummer.
Good to see you again! That's super unfortunate. I know also my spouse would be super uncomfortable on these roads. I was trying to see if I could find something that would make me feel uneasy with the hecticness but alas it was a lot calmer than I expected from all my time riding in the Netherlands. Definitely a matter of perspective
18:16 Even the dog knows where to look
Animals are incredibly smart. You should check out the deer at Nara: they know how to bow, cross roads and more 😆
dogs and there lines are something to watch out for really. but you see the weirdest things i run into one person who takes 13 !! dogs with him on rides. I asked if i could take a picture and raced about 5min ahead and waited for him to pass. only in the picture i was able to spot all 13 dogs. and none where on the bike all on leaches next/after it.
Thanks for the ride!
14:42 There are actually three types of scooters in the Netherlands. ‘Snorscooters’ have a blue plate and a maximum speed of 25 kph; ‘bromscooters’ have a yellow plate and a maximum speed of 45 kph; and ‘motorscooters’ have no physical speed limitation, are essentially motorbikes and hence can be found on motorways as well. They have a markedly larger yellow plate and a blue NL-badge.
Great tour around Utrecht!
Thanks for the info!
12:05 there are different kind of roads. Roads that connect neighborhoods, roads that go into the neighborhood (in my neighborhood 2, plus one that goes to the next neighborhood) and streets to go around in the neighborhood itself. And eventually woonerfs.
Interesting, I definitely can notice the difference on my small foldable bike. Some of the cobbles in Amsterdam were pretty rough. :P
The 5 is just to indicate which detour you're on, in case multiple detours intersect
Thanks for the comment!
11:13 yes that *WOULD* be ridiculous. It's 74.9 cents per litre for LPG. Euro95 is Premium gas for €1.94 per litre which works out to $7.85/gal (23 June 2024)
35:34 dude what are you doing, just turn left!
🤣🤣🤣 yea I realized my mistake. I live in Washington with almost the highest for the country and we're at about $4.5/gal for regular gas
In addition to what others said: the yellow plated scooters (bromfiets, max. 45 kmph) can go on the 'bromfietspad' (shared scooter and bike path, see the sign at 2:40 ). If they are not allowed on the car part of the road and have to go on the bromfietspad there will be a red on white sign like the one at 9:50. I don't think the signage at the 9:50 location is correct however because there is only a bicycle on the blue sign, there should be a scooter icon on the blue sign as well. Normally the blue plated scooters are allowed on the bicycle path but at Amsterdamsestraatweg you can see the white sign underneath the bicycle path signs stating that they are not allowed there (probably because of all the pedestrians, shops and cars parking next to the bicycle path).
35:32 you can make the left turn with traffic, just signal clearly (left arm), merge in early (in this case in front of the van) and make the turn, while ofc yielding to oncoming.
This is what I'm used to :) LOL It's the only way to turn in US cities. Just surprised to see that pattern here after all this time.
Love this video and your channel in general! Some people might be interested in a tour through the bicycle super store.
What did you think of my ride? How about the infrastructure? What did i miss? EDIT: I have been corrected about the gas price as well as what I thought was car parking on the sidewalk.
Loved to see you cycling through my city. Of course there's always more to see, but the loop you rode did make sense to me.
One of my favorite rides here: leave the city, and cycle from Utrecht to Den Haag, following LF4. You'll ride along the river Oude Rijn, and cross through the Green Heart of the Randstad. (You can catch a train back to Utrecht.)
Those cars are not parked on the sidewalk, those are legal parking spots, you can see lines.
These parking spots are raised to sidewalk level to visually make the street smaller and decrease car speeds.
@@qazatqazah I did a couple rides out to the country side and between the cities! 100% agree those rides were beautiful.
I saw a few of them towards the end. Another great feature of the bikeway networks is people who rely on mobility solutions like wheelchairs are permitted to use them, even those little low-speed cars you wheel a wheelchair or mobility scooter into. So disabled people are able to participate meaningfully in society, unlike in places with car-centric infrastructure that isolate them.
Also those bike rules that are legislating ebikes in USA. Type 3 ebikes are registered and licensed. In my 1/2 dozen trips to NL. I've seen motorbikes in the bike lanes, maybe upto 125cc. Last year in Amsterdam I saw motorcycle cop pull over a big Motorbike in bike lane. I think it was a 650cc size bike. So the lanes do have limits. BTW which bike are you using?
Yes Utrecht is a great cycling. But there are plenty Dutch cities which are super close, or even better. Basically any city, town, village, rural area in the Netherlands is probably better then in any other country, I challenge all the viewers to find a place in the (European) Netherlands to find something unsafe from a non-Dutch perspective. You can ride your bike just about anywhere, although never drive on highways or motorways. People don't expect you there (of course), because the difference in speed is immense. Its also against the law, and there are good alternatives guaranteed
The infastructure helps, but also the insurance because the cardriver is by accident always wrong.
No, not wrong. They are hold accountable..
When you can really prove the cyclist was careless or acting dangerous, your insurance will definitely be in It's right.
BUT! this is rarely the case.hopefully this changes if more people use a dash camera.
Theres an app to allways get a green light
🟢💚!
The whole country is made for biking, from small villages to the big cities. Bikers are also protected by law, if hit by car the car is always at fault
That's very interesting. What would they be typically be liable too? Bike? Loss of Use? Hospital Bills? I'm curious how far it goes to.
It's like this almost everywhere in the Netherlands.
Awesome 👏
Singapore sometime I promise xD I must make it there.
@@BestSideCycling haha relax mate no pressure 😊
One of the traffic rules is that you indicate in advance where you are going by extending your hand in which direction you are going
at an intersection or roundabout, and if everyone does this, everything will go much faster and smoother.
It's generally more subtle than extending a hand. It's more a matter of letting a hand dangle..
The parking on the sidewalk actually has a hidden benefit that might not be immediately noticeable and that is that when the cars are NOT parked there (like when people take their cars to work during the day), the sidewalk is "magically" wider. So there is relatively decent amount of space when the cars are parked but a lot more space when they are not.and given that during the day most of the cars are not parked at the homes and that's the time that people would be out and walking around on the sidewalk it actually works quite well.
Did you realize that there were no helicopter parents together with those two young girls?
While this ride wasn't done during the regular rush hour, it was still done during smaller "rush hour" and that is the time that the schools let out. While there aren't too many younger children spotted on this ride (because their schools tend to be around their neighborhoods and not down town.), a lot of these people might still be maybe teachers or other school staff heading home or people going to downtown after school.
About blue plate motorcycles: See the additional sign at 15:08. There they are explicitly banned from the bike lane.
…which is an interesting difference to Germany: Here they are banned by default and need an extra sign "Mofa frei") within town. Which in combination with a helmet requirement (which the Dutch also do now) has mostly removed these annoying vehicles from German roads - e-bikes are just so much less loud.
22:00. The bike side is asphalt and the car side is cobblestone because cobblestones make cars drive more slowly
That moped was probably breaking the speed limit set for them in bike lanes.
There is no separate speed limit for cycle lanes, but yellow plate mopeds (bromfiets) are required to use a driving lane. Only blue plate mopeds (snorfiets) are permitted on cycle lanes in built up areas (except Amsterdam where blue plates also use a driving lane). Outside of built up areas, where speed limits are over 50km/h yellow plates are allowed on cycle lanes.
The pace your are riding the bicycle is like you are in a race. You don't have to ride your bicycle in a high pace to enjoy your ride and your surroundings.
All prices at the gasstations are given in Euro cents and it was for Diesel, Euro95 and LPG. LPG is the cheapest fuel in The Netherlands.
When we learn to cycle we are taught to slow down when approaching a crossing look over the left shoulder and yield with your left hand when you want to turn left and the same for the right turn.
At around 31 minutes when you mention parking on the sidewalks, these here are legit parking spaces and are also marked with white stripes on the pavement.
nice to visit utrecht, still watching but the route you are taking is a busy one next to many roads could have been picked better/more relaxing you are taking some of the roads with most cars in utrecht. When you talk about trafficlights its kind of funny since that traffic light there is kind of broken and many people know it and just do what makes sense i was born about 100 meters from there. The long street (amsterdamse straatweg) is about to updated and 100% redone i can send you the before and after if you want.
you are lucky with the weather but unlucky with the detours there are some massive updates going on and you seem to be hitting most of them.
maliebaan was the first official bicycle path in the netherlands in 1885. Its a nice ride but i would say really mostly innercity and next to more than a few car roads. In some of the other areas you see better examples of what can be done because unlike in the inner part(s) it was more designed in and/or already redone. i would carefully claim the path you took is about 10 years behind what is now considered normal. But i guess people can watch some of my videos around utrecht to see both older and newer bicycle infrastructure in the city. its nice to see you are already trusting cars more they look closer on the wide camera. one of the last roads you are on was changed and bicycle paths removed since it simply had too many bicycles so the whole road is now red and bicycle first cars are guests. when in was a kin in the 1970's it was all cars and dangerous. the amount of bicycle became so big they just gave up and assigned it for bicycles (voorstraat).
Only you forget to reach out your hand if you're going to the right or left...
6:24 - Yes, you had the right of way here, because you came from the right and there are no sharkteeth indicating a different priority on this cycle-intersection.
But because the people from the left are crossing a street with cars, I give them priority when possible. If they have to stop or slow down for me, they risk being in the way of the cars when those lights turns green.
But you were doing nothing wrong, and it all went smoothly anyways. I just wanted to mention this particular situation.
I'm only six minutes into the video, and already enjoying your video and style of commenting a lot.
Haha I was pretty confident but I like to comment to be on the safe side of things.
Thank you so much for watching and stay tuned for more :)
6:18 Drivers do not always yield. And this street is considered dangerous because it is hard to cross for cyclists and pedestrians. Especially bus and taxi drivers speed on this street, with deadly consequences. It will be redesigned. Also the Amsterdamsestraatweg (16:25) will completely be reconstructed in the next 12 months to increase safety. Just two weeks ago someone was caught going 152km/h (95 mph)... It is not an exception. I've lived on the Amsterdamsestraatweg for 16 years now and I have even seen semi's doing 90km/h! It is not safe at all here for cyclists or pedestrians, especially children and elderly. You won't see them on this bike path. Parents won't let their children play outside in this neighborhood, because they are afraid they might cross the Amsterdamsestraatweg. For a few years in the past decade it was the most dangerous street in the Netherlands (traffic wise). It is also the most air-polluted urban street in the country. The street on 23:13 was recently redesigned, and it is terrible for cyclists. Cars enter the bike lane all the time, creating dangerous situations with cyclists who are only overtaking other cyclists within the cycle lane and who thus think they don't have to look over their left shoulder to spot any potential cars using the bike lane. It is only a matter of time before a cyclist with ear buds in will overtake someone within the bike lane without looking back, and gets run over. Wide cycle lanes are very dangerous if you ask me. The older southern part of this street, which you enter at 24:26, is much safer and more comfortable, with separated bike paths. I really have no idea what they were thinking when they redesigned the northern part. Oh yes, I remember. In a few years time, that street will be blocked off right under Hoog Catherijne (the shopping mall you passed underneath). I guess until then we will have to endure all those speeding cars on the bike paths :(
I see that there are cars parked right next to a building that is also next to the cycle way…how are they going to get out to the road? Do they also drive on to the cycle way ?
Especially when the cyclist get the whole street, some cars may need to reach the houses via the cycle route. In a "fietsstraat" (cycle streets), cars are allowed to drive. But with this amount of bike traffic, you can guess they drive very carefully.
The parking spots on the sodewalks are actual parkingspots, they are raised to make it even more clear what is the road.
The sidewalk is on the right of the spaces where you where driving.
So they do not park on the sidewalk.
Hows the prices of bikes in that city affordable or expensive?
A new high end electric city bike is about €6000, a stolen bike from a junk is €10
New non-electric bikes range approx from 300 to 1000 euro (of course you can get more expensive ones if you want). Electric bikes typically range from 1500 to 3000 euro.
depends on the bike you want/need.
- do you want a old, simple (beaten up) bike, the type of bike lots of Dutch people use to go to the public transport hub to start their commute. around € 100
- do you want a normal everyday (Dutch) bike. €300 > €700
- do you want a normal electric bike, or a normal bakfiets. €1500 > €2500
- or do you want a top of the line road bike, electric bike or electric bakfiets. those mostly start at €2500 and depending on your wishes they can go as expensive as you're able to pay.
The gas scooters and mopeds riding in the bikeways is crazy 😮 Hard to believe that’s legal given the speed differential. Otherwise this is obviously cycling paradise for folks that use a bike as their primary vehicle.
Within city boundaries, scooters and mopeds must drive on car lanes.... however, not all bike infrastructure is exclusive for bikes: sometimes it looks like it, but isn't.
7:40 moped was definitely illegally on bike path, fine:€ 110,- (plus € 9,- administratiekosten).
It is really a grandfathered in problem, it is hard to formulate an enforceable regulation.
It would probably be something like a 20kmh speed limit on cycle lanes and a ban on fossil fuel vehicles and perhaps a age limit on e-bikes.
those scooters ont he bike lane should only be allowed to go 25 kph (16mph), quicker mopeds require you to move onto the car road.
the speed difference isn't (really) a problem.
the mopeds that are allowed on the cycle lanes are ones that can only go 25kph, so they are as quick as a above average cyclist.
the bigger problem is the difference in weight/
if another cyclist hits you, you might tip over (but most of the times you don't even fall)
when a moped hits you, you will get knocked over. (and if that moped land on top of you it's even worse)
Driving through a red light is illegal, and could get you a nasty fine. I don't recommend doing that...
Why do you NOT indicate when you turn right or left?😡
Best regards
Frits
Is there a particular moment you're speaking to? I signaled at every intersection with multiple directions with other riders.
you can't see him giving signals most of the time because of the camera angle.
For biking there is no country like the Netherlands.
I'm sorry, the best cycling city in the Netherlands is Groningen. But it's to far north for everyone
Need to check it out next time!
I found Utrecht to be disappointing and would not return there. Not impressed at all.