"The black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa) is a large, long-legged, long-billed shorebird first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. It is a member of the godwit genus, Limosa. [...] The black-tailed godwit is the national bird of the Netherlands." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-tailed_godwit
The thing that messed me up with cross walks here in the Netherlands, as an American, is the readiness for cars to stop for you, because it's just easier for them to do so than to try to rush past you. I am standing there at an unsignalized cross walk, waiting for cars to pass, but instead of passing, the cars just.... stop.... And I'm free to cross the street. Waiting at unsignalized cross walks is so normal to me, I've had a couple Dutch drivers get angry that I didn't just cross and that I was waiting.
I find that the infrastructure forms driver behaviour, because there are some places in the Netherlands that aren't up to the latest standard, and drivers still drive like assholes. But it's not as bad as in the US. The way that the roads are designed in the US really does encourage driver entitlement and driver supremacy.
Most of the crossings in the Netherlands have some sort of traffic calming measures, if you drive 30 kmh you might as well stop, it is a very different situation if you are driving 80 kmh.
Jaywalking is a classic example of Americans' approach to problems: blame the victim and go about your day. The auto industry understood it and politicians today understand it.
I've heard numerous older people complain about how "kids these days" never walk anywhere, blaming it on everything from laziness, stuck on the computer, to overprotective parents afraid their kids are going to get kidnapped. I never had the ability to explain the reality beyond "I just don't want to die." This channel has given voice to all the dangers I implicitly felt.& experienced growing up in a stroad-heavy suburb relying on walking or biking (very long treks because of course points of interest are built in clusters very far from your house) without fully understanding WHY walking or cycling anywhere felt so flippin stressful! Thank you for illuminating the issues with North American car-dependent design and showing the possibilities for safer pedestrian infrastructure. It gives me hope that some day it could be better.
not to mention most “kids these days” don’t have anywhere to actually walk to considering how far away everything is from the average suburb that it would just take too long to walk anywhere
And it's not always that the parents are overprotective, parents have been arrested in some places for letting their kids walk short distances or take public transit unsupervised.
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An interesting addition to this is, that if the roads are much safer, then there's a good chance that drivers also walk a lot, and thus have a much easier time empathizing with pedestrians, being careful around them, and yielding to them.
he covers this many times in other videos, that the dutch car-drivers are also often cyclists or pedestrians. so they have more patience for cyclists or walkers. (when im walking in the rain almost all the drivers yield to me and wave and i know they are happy being warm inside the car knowing how it is to walk in the cold rain)
I am an 8th grader who takes his bike to school every day, the school is 4 miles away but here are some problems: -There is no bike path, I have to go on dirt -my neighborhood is just a random suburb in the middle of the desert, so it’s hot, and it’s far away. The cars go really fast despite the fact I’m sure that they can see me.
Wear a helmet and consider some type of high visibility vest like a construction worker. Don't let your classmates make fun of you for being safe either. Oh... and drink lots of fluids. Take care!
As an American that just moved to the Netherlands, let me share a quick intersection story. I was crossing a wide street and reached the first island. There was a tram (or metro, still figuring the difference) that had just finished picking up some passengers 10 feet to my left. My American instincts kicked in and I started to wait as I expected the tram to start moving. When the operator noticed I wasnt moving, they tooted the horn to signal for ME to start walking first. I was fairly shocked since that would never happen in the States. Also, you are famous at work. Whrn i mentioned i had been watching some YT videos to help prepare for the move, they all chimed in with "Not Just Bikes?!"
Tram is indeed the word you were looking for, they run on the street. Meanwhile metros are well, the same as subways or the underground. Only Rotterdam and Amsterdam have metros, whilst trams can only be found in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag (The Hague) and Utrecht, along with a few other select lines. And there's whatever RandstadRail classifies as.
If you could cross the tracks it was a tram. Metro is in their own lanes with no other traffic being able to enter. This is because they are typically powered by third rail which means there is a rail, often pained yellow, that has power running trough it. If you touch it you will electrocute. The closed of lanes also mean you can run trains more often and carry much more passagers.
@@sheeple04 Randstadrail is classified as 'lightrail'. Which is basically a confused tram, metro and train which can't decide what it wants to be. For example the RR tram runs on regular train tracks in Zoetermeer, but is a tram in The Hague. The RR metro runs as a metro in Rotterdam but more towards The Hague (from station Melanchtonweg onward) it runs on regular train tracks.
I doubt the operator was tooting to signal you to start walking. Usually Dutch tram operators toot the horn when they are standing still and intent to start moving again in order to alert pedestrians and other traffic. Or was he gesturing you to cross?
Watching this made me emotional. I was crossing the street on my light when a car made a left turn and hit me on my way to work and it changed my life. I had to get metal and screws through surgery and I haven't gotten over how unsafe I feel crossing the streets in NYC to the extent that I avoid going out unless necessary. I am considered one of the lucky ones since I survived and many have died in the same situation. I am looking to relocate to a place where I can feel safer. Thank you for advocating for the safety of pedestrians.
Oh wow that's scary. When I was hit, I couldn't get out of the way fast enough and the car hit me, but thankfully not so hard. I had very sore knees for a few weeks and had trouble walking for a few days. Immediate after the accident I didn't even know I was hurt though, so I walked away from it on adrenaline alone. Scary!
I attended a wedding in Normandie a few years back and spent a week in a village there. I rented a car because I enjoyed exploring the countryside but in town it was actively useless. The streets were narrow cobblestone, with a laundry 30m from the door and two markets within 100m. I had a similar experience in Graz, Austria but with the added joy of a tram into down town for the farmers market and all the best restaurants. We didn't bother with a car at all. The funny thing is trying to explain this to my fellow americans. They recoil in horror at being "deprived" of their three ton shopping cart and being "forced" to shop daily for fresh veg. I have come to the conclusion that this "freedom" they bang on about is really not having to talk to other people or even stand too closely. We're not brave and free, we're terrified and trapped.
Traffic engineers should really be required to walk, bike, and use transit on all roads they work on. How can you design a street that is usable to everyone if you only have the perspective of a car? Amazing video as always.
In Canadian cities (and probably American too), the number of politicians, civil engineers, and even transit agency employees who drive everywhere they go is insane. It's pretty clear that they suffer from extreme "windshield bias" if you try to talk to them about these issues.
If they designed roads in my area like they do with sidewalks and bicycle paths: - A two-way street would turn into a one way without warning - There'd regularly be debris from fallen tree branches and discarded car parts from previous accidents - There'd be cracks running parallel to the direction of travel that are the same width as tires, so you'd sink into them, but their placement would be inconsistent so you're constantly wrestling to stay in a straight line while going in and out of these cracks. - At least once between every intersection, there'd be a sudden drop about a quarter the depth of the wheel because of a water drainage feature. - The moment there's any construction, the road is completely closed, and you have to offroad. - People are allowed to park in the middle of the road if they want
I think it's very important to talk about how car infrastructure affects pedestrian mentality. I live just half a mile away from a grocery store + mall area, but to get there I have to go through the intersection of a 4 lane stroad and 6 lane stroad. This intersection is so scary that I just drive the half mile so that I don't have to worry about dying every time I need groceries.
Absolutely. This is why over 45% of car trips in America are 3 miles or less. People can't even fathom walking somewhere, even if it's close, because it so difficult and dangerous. The number of times I've seen people drive just to get to a place across the stroad is crazy, but who wants to risk their life to go to the shops?
I live less than 2 miles away. Walking 🚶 paths all the way until i have to cross a 4 lane road with 2 additional turn lanes on each side. Traffic coming from all directions. I just drive it. I walk to the street corner but it's to scary to actually cross.
Nope, that's juat because adding more lanes decreases traffic, and it's for the same reason they keep building more and more. Totally not the opposite ;-)
I volunteered as a crossing guard for a high school in TX for a year and even with a literal STOP-sign in my hand, standing in the middle of the street, there were people who - directly looking at me - simply drove past me; so it doesn't surprise me at all that people don't bother to really stop at normal STOP signs either.
Fun fact: I got arrested and went to court for Jaywalking. Had to pay a fine for it too. I lived in Utah, which is ironically one of the few places I praise for not needing a car. I was simply walking to the store but the only 2 crosswalks were about a quarter mile apart. One right at where I turned onto the road which is a tiresome wait and the other at the end of the road far beyond the store I wanted to go to. I had waited until there were less than a handful of cars between the lights and took off to the other side of the road. Unfortunately, one of the cars on the road was a cop who was apparently having a bad day. Wonderful to know where all the tax money is going. Could've been doing something about the guy in my apartment complex selling meth out of his house but instead saw it more appropriate to punish someone for crossing the street. So far I have more fines from walking than I do from driving. God Bless Murrica.
Im glad britain doesn't have that thing. As long as the other side isn't blocked by a fucking fence or is a motorway. You can cross wherever you like if enough people do it in such a spot council might eventually add a legit crossing.
I just moved to Salt Lake City (Utah) and my quality of life has improved so much by not needing a car, I just walk and probably will start biking around the most I drive is 5 minutes to work and 5 minutes back and it’s wonderful. That being said I’m really surprised you got stopped for that I see people jaywalking all the time, cops must have been bored and needed to meet their quota
@@jessicac8090 I lived in West Valley at the time. Idk how it is now but it was affectionately "Little Mexico" and not a very safe place. I remember cops stopping me late at night asking if I had info on stabbings/shootings. Fun stuff.
I find that the blame mindset also affects driver behaviour a lot. Had an American move to NZ , they got so annoyed at people just crossing the street and said they should be more careful or they’ll get hit. We were shocked and said you will go to jail if you hit them, Pedestrians in NZ have the right of way.
15 years ago, I nearly got run over on one of those yellow crossing in Toronto, when I walked to school. The driver opened the window and yelled at me "DO YOU WANT TO GET YOURSELF KILLED". At first I thought maybe I didn't press it firmly. However, as I walked away from the crossing, the light was still flashing, whereas the driver already took off. He never paid any attention to what is flashing at him and if flashing things are not enough to grab your attention, you deserve to have your license revoked, since a car is a weapon in your control.
@@NotJustBikes That crosswalk wasn't even that big. It was just a two lane normal road, so European scale. It was on prince edward street in Etobicoke, if you ever want to check it out or film it.
Remind me of rich folk degrading the homeless for their shitty choices. WHY DIDNT YOU INVEST IN A HOUSE?? RENTING ISNT FOREVER, Y'KNOW. MCDONALDS ISNT MEANT TO BE A CAREER!
@@thekingoffailure9967 Yeah, people who think the same choices in life lead to the same things for everone. As a 15 year old back then, I didn't even have a choice to drive as I couldn't have a license. But I was a Euro kid who was used to walking. I still do it with a passion.
My California suburban town has recently been adding a lot of 'traffic calming' measures. Bike lanes, rubberised speed bumps, 'safe streets ' with bollarded intersections marked for local traffic only and even a roundabout with yields in all 4 directions. The pushback from residents grumbling about how difficult it is to use their cars on their own streets has been incredible. As a frequent cyclist I'm welcoming each change though.
Most insane thing in American infra? The signs at signalized crosswalks with a list of instructions including such tips as "cross quickly" and "thank the driver" who didn't kill you.
I noticed how much text there is to read at crosswalks. For both pedestrians and cars. Seems very unsafe to me if drivers need to read all that while they're supposed to be driving. And why tf do you need instructions to push a button to cross a road as a pedestrian?
It's polite to thank drivers who stop, but not necessary. That also helps reinforcing them to do it again some other time. It's kind of like when driving and you wave or blink at drivers who make it easier for you to pass and things like that. But the weight is still on the one you're thanking; it's not on you to thank them (since that would just formalise it and make it an empty "polite" gesture).
I moved from Germany to the Netherlands about two weeks ago and even as an avid viewer of this channel and Germany not being so far removed traffic-wise from the Netherlands as North America, I am still astonished. Watching the masses of pedestrians and cyclists crossing streets on my way to work in the morning, is just incredible. It made me realize that planning for pedestrians and cyclists is a posirive feedback loop, since saver roads will attract more people walking/biking and more people walking/biking make it saver. It is just very hard to overlook 15 bikes and 30 pedestrians crossing the street than a single person.
i work as a crossing guard at my (american) high school. there's a minor crossing that always gets super busy during drop-off and pickup, and i hate it so much that the city's solution is to pay a couple of teenagers to stand around in high vis vests and hold up stop signs. i've done my best while having this job; i always let pedestrians pass before cars, and i make sure that people notice that there are pedestrians and they need to slow down. but it pisses me off that my job even needs to exist in the first place, since i am the lazy solution here. maybe someday american urban planners will come to their senses. i'm planning on going into civil engineering for the sole purpose of trying to clean some of this up. i'm glad there are people out there like you who are helping educate us in north america that this shouldn't be the norm. thank you.
I hate to burst your bubble, but we have those crossing guards near dutch elementary schools too (at least in the south). They are mostly there to make sure kids don't run into traffic, but sometimes big conflicts happen between crossing guards (50% of which are older elementary children) and cars that are in a hurry.
That is so tragic. "How can we protect the school children from all the cars?" "Let's gamble just a few of them and hope they stop." "Hmmm. Give them a fluorescent to avoid lawsuits and we're good!"
It’s a tragic irony that the intersection is busy with people who are there to pick up their children but can’t be trusted to not run over someone else’s children on the way there.
I live in a typical suburban area, right next to a 6-lane stroad. Recently a "jay-walker" (sigh) was killed trying to cross it. What the article failed to mention (which I think was pretty notable) was that the nearest "legal crosswalk" was almost a half mile down the road. Its crazy that the American car-centric takeaway from that was that the pedestrian was crazy/dangerous for trying to cross there, and not this pedestrian would have to add an additional mile to their walk just to go across the street.
Oh make no mistake, in America that's a deliberate mentality facilitated by car manufacturers since way, way back when pedestrians actually used to use streets to walk places. It became clear very early on that pedestrians and cars couldn't really use the same streets at the same time so a deliberate effort was made to introduce the idea of jaywalking and shaming people for doing it. _Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City_ by Peter Norton discusses this in some detail.
on my campus i have to cross 4 lanes of traffic twice a day. that's 8 lanes of opportunity to get hit by short attention span college student drivers. After having a close encounter I decided to bite the bullet and just take the public transit offered. It isn't great nor ideal, but at least Im not risking my life every day. Not only that, theres always the few drivers that get pissed off when someone tries to cross and either yell at you, cut in front of you as you are walking, or purposefully speed up when they are still halfway down the road as to not wait 10 seconds for me to cross. extremely infuriating
Jay walking is NOT a crime. Obstructing a roadway is. It's technically legal to cross anywhere at any road, as long as vehicles do not need to stop for you. The only alternative is crosswalks which are nowhere.
Driver compliance is so bad here that all of my city's school buses now have exterior cameras to catch the drivers who ignore the flashing lights and stop signs. I spent three years as a crossing guard at one of the schools and I can't count how many times I've narrowly avoided being hit by a car going at least 35mph in a 15mph school zone, all while I was wearing a high visibility jacket and carrying my own giant stop sign. Even the kids who only lived a block or two away were terrified to walk to school.
I am a high school student who lives in the USA. I have a part time job that is close enough to walk to from the school, so thats what i do if im working after school that day. The amount of times that i have almost been ran down/hit by a car is frankly insane considering the fact that they have plenty of time to just, stop when they see me in the road. sometimes theyre especially pissed or something and decide to gun it if they see me on the road is kind of disgusting!
Ughh I sympathize so hard. I walk to work every afternoon and I’ve had so many near hits it’s not even funny. Even had a guy purposely speed up while I was crossing the street once… 😬
Use a gun to defend yourself! Obviously I’m joking but when they accelerate toward you that is a sign that they are willing to kill you so just start blasting from the middle of the road!
This makes sense. I got hit by a lady turning right. I thought she’d seen me but I guess she wasn’t paying attention when she glanced in my direction as I crossed. I had to punch the hood of her car repeatedly because she wasn’t stopping and I was literally being carried away on top of it. As the car moved me further into traffic, I remember wondering if someone was going to have to call my mom and tell her that I died the same way her mother did. I guess in this case I’m not sure I can blame road infrastructure as much as I wish. She was on her phone. The other time I got hit by a car was a traffic light issue where it was briefly green in all directions. This one gave me trust issues.
People make mistakes, regardless of the country. One system doesn't deal much with the human nature of making mistakes. The other system just assumes mistakes will be made and is designed in a way to minimize mistake-opportunities. And, when inevitably people make mistakes anyway, it is designed to limit or completely negate consequences of those mistakes. The system isn't perfect, but there where a problem occurs, the design will be reviewed and changed. Yes, she was stupid enough to be on her phone, but bad road infrastructure set-up the situation where she is forced to properly check her left and ignored her right. Proper infrastructure could have negated her mistake.
Honestly, I hope that women got a prison sentence. There is a massive difference between hitting someone by accident and not stopping when you have someone on the hood of your car. After the first 2 or 3 seconds, it becomes outright attempted murder.
Let's use an analogy. Since cars are polluting and actually kill people, let's say they are smokers. Pedestrians are non-smokers. Imagine a world where smokers can do whatever they want. All restaurants are made to accommodate smokers. But there are non-smokers. For them, special places are created in the corner of the restaurants, so they don't bother the smokers. In the corners, the non-smokers don't have that much smoke to inhale, but there is still enough danger around. Non-smokers are referred to as being crazy, annoying, in the way, etc. If you don't smoke, your boss might tell you that you should pick up smoking, because smokers are more alert and healthy. When examining the issue, a UA-cam channel called Not Just Non-smokers finds out that the smoke-oriented environment was created by rules, implemented to protect the tobacco industry. BTW I drive myself every now and then, but I also walk and bike if possible.
Another thing the stats don’t tell you - how much drivers harass you as a pedestrian in car centric places. In Las Vegas, as a pedestrian, people would often scream and jeer at me when I was just on the sidewalk minding my business. Once, someone threw a drink at me from their window. And that’s as a man. It’s orders of magnitude worse for women who are often catcalled on top of that. These days, living in a more walkable community, I would never walk in a place like Las Vegas.
High speed and 4000lb of armor can embolden all kinds of cowards. There are only two ways I've been able to think of to make them regret it. One is to record your walks/rides, and in the cases of things being thrown, send the footage to the police. The second... well, the closest-to-legal version would probably be to take a paintball gun to the back of their vehicle as they flee, and then flee yourself. Tit-for-tat, really.
What do you think is the reason for such harassment ? I wonder if they see you walking alone and they are in some secure moving metal vehicle something predatory triggers in their head. Like a dog chasing a squirrel. Or maybe they’re just jerks.
It's a very common problem for joggers to deal with here, like yelling variations of "Run Forest Run" and revving their engines at top volume as they pass you
While riding a bike in Las Vegas in a bike lane I've had a woman driving a car slow down to throw 5 freshly lit cigarettes at me. Another driver intentionally tried to run me over on main st. Another teen driver threw a drink bottle at me.
Salt Lake City resident here: there is one particularly egregious hawk crossing that connects the VA hospital to the University of Utah campus. The wait time for the signal to change after pressing the button is so long that most pedestrians just cross when there’s a gap in traffic. Furthermore, there’s a median big enough to stand on, so pedestrians only need to wait for a gap in one direction at a time to make a safe crossing. This frequently results in pedestrians crossing all 6 lanes of traffic before the signal changes and stops all the cars in both directions for a pedestrian that no longer needs the signal. It’s a bad deal for everyone.
This is the real reason drivers don't pay attention to them. And its one of the reason why "compliance" approached are terrible, there will always be driver frustration when the application of the rules aren't clear.
Are these “hawk crossings” unique to Salt Lake City? I haven’t seen any outside of Utah. I remember seeing most people cross before the walk signal turned white. On the plus side most drivers seem to obey them, until they stop at empty crosswalks all the time bc the pedestrian already ran across on yellow, and get frustrated / start disobeying the crossings…Yeah they didn’t really think this one through, did they…
@@TimurTripp2 There's at least two in Riverside, California, with one being on a narrow two lane road. We also have at least two Tokyo style pedestrian scrambles, each by a college.
I still remember my first experience with culture shock. I'm Hungarian and learned English as a second language, and terminology related to traffic was often confusing. I had no idea why jaywalking was an issue. Or why right-on-red wasn't a gross disregard for traffic laws. Or why schools in the west had teachers with flags controlling the students at nearby crosswalks. I was literally too European to understand.
When I was in grade school in the US, the older children manned the crosswalks with flags. Only the students who were not trouble-makers with good grades were selected. I believe it was a way to teach responsibility. Now the teachers do it. We are teaching our kids to be helpless and building inferior infrastructure at the same time. Sigh.
Here in Canada they pay people to be crossing guards, and only when kids are going to / coming from school. Zero infrastructure to slow down cars except for maybe those signs that clock your speed.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o I was on a trip with my class in Edinburgh, we are student teachers from Denmark, and it took quite some convincing the others to just cross at a zebra crossing without waiting for the cars to stop. Drivers in the UK are a lot nicer than in Denmark. I think it is because of the narrow streets and parked cars everywhere, which necessitates this friendliness and consern for other people in traffic.
I’m in the US at the moment - and so many roads and stroads are so unpleasant to cross. Spot on about the difference feeling of safety. This new era of NJB deep dives is going to be great.
How does it compare to aus? I've never left and I can see similarities to North America, but I also am comfortable walking to the shops/ half way across town. I have to be cautious, no doubt, but only at particular points.
I'm in the UK and couldn't agree more. You have areas in the centre of the city that are designed pretty, then as soon as you get to the outer circle, it's like drawing a card from a deck. Never know what you'll get when you turn around the corner! I've become obsessed with NJB
It makes our Melbourne feel like it's spoiling you. Walking to the Walmart 1mi from my hotel in Houston was practically impossible without breaking laws. Hell, I couldn't even visit the consulate without a taxi for all the cops ready to give me a ticket for jaywalking due to the closed footpaths. Mr. Heck Me; yes. Flinders/Elizabeth.
I had to walk to work through Austin, TX yesterday because my bike chain broke. It was a stark reminder of how dangerous it is for pedestrians and I encountered nearly every pitfall you mentioned here. Something that also stuck out not mentioned in your video is how priority is given to construction sites over pedestrian needs.
the construction sites over pedestrian needs is sometimes the case in the netherlands aswell, not always but it can happen here depending on the construction site
European here. I had never heard of such a thing as cars being allowed to turn right on a red light. Some places allow it for bikes, but never cars. It's crazy how ridiculously car-centred North American infrastructure is, probably at the expense of many traffic incidents and deaths per year.
I'm from Slovakia. At some intersections, the cars waiting to make a right turn get a green arrow light at the same time as the pedestrians on their right. The cars turn, then yield to the pedestrians at the crossing. It can lead to incidents if a pedestrian enters the crossing unexpectedly. E.g. someone is seemingly walking past a pedestrian crossing, then decides in that second to cross at the green light and doesn't check for incoming cars, assuming that the cars must have a red light.
I am a die-hard car enthusiast, and your channel is literally the most logical and refreshing education channel I've seen. Everything you cover has made me HATE driving in built-up American areas, and rightfully so.
@@mohandasjung exactly I agree with that as much as Not Just Bikes' opinions. For certain situations cars are great, but not great for every location. Unfortunately the U.S. has a history of forcing everyone to use cars, and taking away walking and transit.
I'm a car enthusiast too brother but as an enthusiast I can admit to being car dependent because i'm lazy. It definitely can be done in a cleaner way while you save the car for the occasional long trips.
Removing bad drivers that are forced to drive by providing them with viable alternatives makes roads better for drivers that actually enjoy driving so it's really not that surprising to me that car enthusiasts are actually pretty onboard with promoting other forms of transportation instead of 'just adding one more lane' lol.
Which really is the funny thing. As soon as anyone in North America even mentions bike or pedestrian safety, there's this implicit assumption that it means a "war on cars". It's utterly absurd. Having good cycling and pedestrian infrastructure does not meaning banning all cars in the country.
It is so annoying when you’re a blind person living in America and everyone prioritizes metal death machines that you can’t use over your safety. The amount of times I have been told to watch where I was going and/or been blamed for almost getting hit is astounding!
As proud as I am to be an American, I have to say that I am appalled for our car-infested/dependent infrastructure. You sir, since I started watching you one year ago, have completely re-aligned my views on American public infrastructure and how sub-par it is to the rest of the world. Thanks to you, you gave me inspiration to switch my major from Meteorology to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help make my communities safer in Oklahoma. I'm tired of our car-dependent society. It breaks my heart when I see people on disability scooters driving on narrow and dangerous sidewalks just to run a quick errand. It's injustice for many!! I pray that I can land a job that can help improve the quality of lives for my communities after I graduate. Keep up the great work!
@@ComradeKoopa Why not? While some may say it's nonsensical to be proud of something you can't control I'd say that being proud of where you're from is probably healthier for your mental health than being ashamed of it. As long as it doesn't cross over into arrogance.
It was like this right in front of my own kid's schools in the midwest, from elementary to high school. Kids even got struck, regularly... it of course wasn't isolated to our local schools either. Regardless, it never mattered much to the local community and likely still doesn't to this day.
NA is the only place that actively teaches kids to walk out in front of buses - something that will get them killed if it was just a regular bus. The reason for this is often that there are no crossing nearby the kid's drop-off and just crossing the road is illegal by default. Then when they grow up and try "real" buses they are like 'fuck this shit' and get a car.
@@fluuufffffy1514 I just want to know why anyone would make either a highspeed road or a school adjacent to each other and think the school zone lights are fine. It's simple math... There's some schools along a 55mph road and I just kinda scratch my head.
A friend of my family I've known my whole life just lost his daughter this week, to complications after both he and she were in a hit-and-run collision while crossing the street earlier this summer, and I can't stop thinking about this now.
I've lost track of how many - shall I say - _negative interactions_ I have had with cars while I was crossing and had the right of way. (I know, I know, a pedestrian thinking they have any rights in Edmonton, Alberta? How silly of me!) Five stand out in memory though, for various reasons. 1. The oldest one I remember. I was crossing from the right and got hit by a pickup truck making a right turn on red. I was young and naive and decided that from then on I would not step in front of a car without making eye contact with the driver. 2. Crossing, from right to left, a strip mall exit along a busy stroad. An SUV wants to make a right turn to join the stroad. The driver has their head turned to the left looking for a hole in traffic. Hmm, can't make eye contact, I will cautiously cross, putting myself as close to the stroad traffic as possible to make myself more visibile over the giant hood of the SUV. The driver will see me when they do a quick check before moving. Ha ha no. They started rolling with their head still cranked to the left. The only reason I didn't get hit was because of the extra space I had given them to see me. 3. Crossing in front of a car at a quiet four way stop (two lanes wide, no other traffic at the time, broad daylight). I arrived at corner and stopped, car arrived at stop line and stopped. I, having made eye contact with the driver, step out and start to cross, regularly glancing at the driver (this happened only two blocks from #1). When I was at about the centre of the car, and making eye contact with the driver, they decided to go. **bonk** Just a light tap before they hit the brakes, but the look on their face was complete surprise, like I had just popped up out of the ground. Faith in my "make eye contact" rule begins to erode. 4. Intersection with limited left turn windows for traffic on the westbound axis. The streets are very quiet, almost no cards. I'm crossing eastward on the south side of the intersection so my walk signal is delayed until the west to south left turn lane goes red. Driver in the west to south turn lane decides to make a turn against the red. **screech** Thankfully they had a lot of distance to stop. I give them the universal "WTH?" shrug and the driver shouts "I didn't see you!" before speeding off. 5. Same intersection, crossing in the same way, but during rush hour. There is a large delivery truck in the left northbound lane, but I can see over the hood that the right turn lane is empty. As I am in front of the big truck, over all the other traffic noise I hear to my right an engine roaring and then lifting. There is just enough time for me to process that and check my step when a pickup blasts past me. They were turning right (east) but carrying so much speed they wound up in the westbound left turn lane. If there had been a car there waiting to turn left it would have been a huge head-on collision. If I had been listening to music or something while walking I would not have heard the pickup and would have been absolutely smashed. I walk with a new rule now: assume every car, seen or unseen, is trying to kill me. There are no good drivers, just some drivers that aren't as dedicated to killing me on that particular day.
I never really payed attention to how US is so car-centric. I was a victim of believing that it means I'm free, so called "American freedom". After I found your channel I started to realize more and more on how limited I am when it comes to going anywhere. Car is the only option! At least I started walking to my local gym until I was almost ran over on zebra crossing because driver didn't bother to slow down even a bit. Long story short, your videos made me realize that I don't want to spend my life living in a car and next year I'm moving back to Europe, maybe even Netherlands as I already have friends there! All I can say is thank you :)
@@rangersmith4652 those with a car are still not free, they are prisoners of their 4 wheeled cell.. At least they have AC to make it a bit less uncomfortable.
Yeah, I'm afraid that this and other channels are promoting the New so much that soon everyone will migrate here. We do need lots of health care professionals and lots of technicians though, so if you're one of those: please come!
@@rangersmith4652 Safety relative to US pedestrians and bicyclists. Probably in less safety than Dutch drivers. And you have to pay for the car. And spend your time driving your kids (if any) around. And you're fucked if disabled in a way that you can't drive. Have a bad night's sleep, so that you're not as safe a driver? Too bad, you're not free to take some other means to work, you have to drive despite sleep deprivation (in most of the US.)
A good friend of mine was killed in Houston after being struck by a drunk driver. He was jay walking because the closest pedestrian bridge would've added a mile to his trip. A year before that my uncle's childhood best friend was killed on her bicycle after being struck by a truck speeding through a slip lane. Crossing the street shouldn't be deadly, but it is.
My grandfather was hit by a speeding car last October while he was crossing the road on foot. This was in Mississauga, Canada. He’s been in hospital ever since (yes, for nearly a year) and still can’t walk. He has barely any memory of who we are. I live in the U.K. and it’s been so hard as we can’t even see him regularly. I was a long time follower of NJB well before that, but it was horrible to have the whole thing brought home so suddenly. These deaths and accidents are so preventable.
@@DK-tv6rk Yeah, happens so often it's not news worthy. And if it does make it to the news, the pedestrian will always be the one who is said to be the reckless one in the report.
Had someone actually step on the accelerator as I was crossing in my pedestrian little crosswalk. They saw me, no traffic to speak of. It's not only about how the streets are designed but about the nasty people who drive cars.
Driving has a weird effect on people. We become aggressive. I once was blcked by a bicyclist - briefly - and actually thought about hitting him! Fortunately, sanity returned, leaving me wondering, "WTF was I thinking?!"
Here in the US the drivers are distracted, entitled and poorly educated. There's a whole raft of problems that need to be solved before even considering this infrastructure (in my opinion).
@@garryferrington811 I'm from the US and I definitely get that kind of aggressive with other drivers sometimes, which is otherwise very out of character for me. After decades of conditioning to believe that cars are the holy grail of transportation, it takes me a lot of effort to keep my head clear and remember that we're all in this car-infested hellhole together, even the many other drivers who still believe in the American Way. I don't think I've ever gotten that way with pedestrians, at least not those complying with the crosswalk system that, thanks to NJB, I now understand is absolutely ridiculous, but I do see how easy it can be to forget about others when there's so much to think about and be aware of just to keep yourself safe while driving.
I live in Atlanta, GA. I was hit by a car a little over a year ago because the driver was making a right turn and had been looking left to watch for oncoming traffic. And yet here I am, still recovering from injuries from that crash. Not to mention I could have died! It made me hate American road design so much more. So when he mentioned right turns and slip lanes, it really struck a chord.
I'm a driver and I absolutely welcome the dutch model. I always find it hard to remember every yield point and sometimes I blow through them despite efforts. Only after I've passed a crossing without slowing down I suddenly realize what I've done and break a cold sweat imagining what could have happened. If the roads are designed like the dutch example, things would be much easier for me too.
Two "funny" stories on this topic. In my old neighborhood in the southeast U.S., residents were complaining about cars racing through the streets. The city put up more stop signs, and predictably that didn't slow the speed racer down. Then the city installed speed humps similar to the raise crossings in the video, and it was a mixture of bricks and asphalt. That worked great. The neighborhood was safe again.....for a while. After a while, the residents started complaining that the beautiful speed humps were a little too rough to drive over, and they were too bumpy. The city removed the raised speed humps when they repaved and installed rubber speed cushions. They still slowed down the cars, but didn't slow down the wider wheel base vehicles like truck and jeeps, so speeding started to increase again. They were trying to be stingy and not put too many speed cushions in one area because of cost, but because the streets were really wide to allow street parking, they tried to cover too much area with too few speed cushions. The other "funny" story is this. I work at a college on the outskirts of the nearby town. When it was built, it was surrounded by farmland and a drive-in movie theater. Over time, businesses sprang up across the highway. There are restaurants over there that you could walk to....if you value their delicious food more than your life. The stores and restaurants sprang up in response to the college's expansion and increase in student population here, but there are no crosswalks of any kind to get you there. You have to drive your car literally across the street for lunch, or run across 7 lanes of highway traffic traveling at 50+ mph.
I do find that tragicomic. We bang on about road design and speed control gadgetry with relatively few words about the factory design of the power train, meticulously perfected to slaughter 100 Americans every day, countless other living things, environmental obliteration and millions in property damage. "Here's another portable speed bump!"
There was an article I read years ago by an American traffic engineer who said that often they have to make roads worse for people due to Federal design mandates. He gave the example of a tree lined street. As it needs to be rebuilt and they use Federal Funds they have to make the road "safe". That means all the trees have to come out, lest some racer ties his car around one of the trees. The consequence is that now the road appears wider / safer and so cars speed up. People complain and they come back and put in speed limits, that nobody adheres to. Then, maybe later, like in your case, put in some speebumps. Another kicker: He mentioned the software engineers were using to analyze the design treated pedestrians and cyclists until a few years ago as "traffic obstacles", not as actual traffic. Which then fully explains why so much of the design is human hostile, including half an hour detoures if you want to cross "legally".
Holy cow! That'd make me so, so very angry I'd just refuse and I think I'd dare the traffic anyway. I'm the kind of person who's too lazy to start up the car and drive to the nearest larger town so I rather pick up my bicycle if I need some groceries currently sold out in the small local shop in my village and put my legs to use on the less than 3 mile journey there and less than 3 miles back again. What with otherwise needing to open the larger car gate in my fence and pull out of the front yard, then parking in front of the supermarket, it takes about the same time to drive as it takes to cycle there, so... Also, my car battery is not in good shape right now, so I just don't drive unless I know the motor will be running for a while so that the car battery could recharge the energy it lost starting the motor. Helps my fitness quite nicely though, heh. This is in Europe, obviously.
In my hometown in Germany there was a very large school (we call it "gymnasium" for whatever reason, it's the highest form of school we have. I think it's called secondary school in the US?). Then speed bumps got installed to slow car traffic down. But there was a parking lane right next to the street. So of course drivers just drove over the parking lane to avoid the speed bumps. Then the city installed huge metal bumps on the parking lane to force drivers over the speed bumps. It's really sad how so many drivers think they are treated unfairly just because they are forced to slow down in front of a school. Nowadays the situation is even worse. Parents drive their kids to school even over short distances, because it's too dangerous for them to walk because of all the other parents that drive their kids to school. "Back in my days" (oh gosh, I sound like an old fart now, don't I?) kids that got dropped off by their parents were the minority and sometimes even got ridiculed for that. Because how much cooler is it to just take the bus or cycle to school, together with your friends? Nowadays it seems to be the other way round. Kids that don't get dropped off by their parents are the weirdos now.
One slightly positive thing I always think in these videos.. is that compared to the cramped streets of london, how EASY it would all be to fix. A few bus lanes, some planters, kerbs, bollards and paint could basically turn most stroads into super functional streets overnight. Might not be as pretty on first pass but a bit like Paris it could be done FAST if there was the willpower.
I mean, it's a bit surprising to me just how fast it was all seemingly implemented in a place like the Netherlands. If they can do it there, we _should_ be able to do it here. It's just a question of political willpower, really.
There are community groups that have performed these changes to roads in their communities, illegally and usually temporarily, just to show how much better it makes things. I can't remember the names of any of the groups, but I think I learned about them through Strong Towns.
I moved from the US to Czechia about a week and a half ago. I've nearly started crying multiple times at how easy it is to cross the street, even on the busiest streets. And this isn't even the best infrastructure around!
On one of my first visits to the United States, I was staying at a hotel by a busy road junction. On the other side of the road was a restaurant and I asked the guy at the hotel desk if he would recommend it. To my amazement he proceeded to give me driving directions as to how to get there. Says it all really.
Recently, I read a study that showed that criminalising "jaywalking", actually has had no effects in reducing deaths on the roads. Rather, it increases them. As a European, even though my part of Europe is actually car infested...I had NEVER heard of those crossings, especially those with a flag. This is beyond ridiculous. You could give the exercice to children at school and tell them to find the problems, 100% that they would. It's beyond me how they don't realise that they're basically showing just how stupid and stubborn they can be. But well, I don't think it's going to change anytime soon...
At the elementary school I attended, I was taught to cross the street with my hand in front of me in a "stop" symbol and politely wait to be allowed to cross. This was in a town of less than 6000.
well, if your wage depends on you not understanding something, the capacity of human brain to not understand even the most elemental things is simply staggering
There are these big lolly pop signs in New Zealand that children use for schools to let them cross the road. The reason for this is because every parent in the last 15 years decided that walking to school was too difficult for a 5 year old and so has been driving them instead. Making the "school run" the worst time to either walk or drive because of the ridiculous congestion. If I ever have children i will be making them walk or cycle to school because driving a child to school is just ridiculous.
Another thing I'm noticing in these videos is how empty the shown North American roads are. Six lanes of traffic with just two cars on them. Could become just two lanes.
It's funny how you highlight how different countries view different priorities as normal, and then your sponsor segment at the end starts with: "You work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year". To a Dutch person, that is equally as insane as those little $$#% flags.
And believe me, that's a _conservative_ estimate of the average American's work hours. For many, it's far more time. They may also not get the option of retiring anymore, so that count just keeps rising until they die.
@@Bluecho4 It's not a conservative estimate, is what should mean full time, with all those hours paid and the benefits. Sometimes I wonder if the US really have almost no labor laws or if they're just ignored.
At lot of this problem is informed by, and in turn reinforces the car-centric model os US cities. We desire our cars to go fast because we have to physically move so much further for our work, shopping, entertainment, etc. In turn, our work, shopping, and entertainment feel perfectly fine building in the cheaper exterior of our cities because "People can just drive, it's only 20 minutes away". This creates an over-reliance on cars, and at the same time creates a unique vulnerability for us residents to affectively become "stranded" in a city because they don't own a car or know someone that can drive them to where they need to be. Theorhetically, public transit could alleviate that issue somewhat, but we all know how miserable US Public Transit systems are (some city subway systems excluded)
@@steemlenn8797 tapfethen simpley arguments like a car centric person. Not just bikes had a video on cylicing to far away places and how good it is or how to get rid of cars and implement a good public traffic system.
As a Dutchman, whenever the topic at work or at home is about traffic accidents and safety, people seem completely unaware of how streets here are designed to be safe. Instead they wonder if people involved in crashes maybe weren't careful enough. With some recent construction projects being pretty terrible for sight-lines and cyclist-safety near where I live, I fear that the people designing these might be forgetting the goals of their predecessors 30 years ago. Cycling accidents and deaths have been going up. People seem to blame the e-bikes. There's talk about making laws to force people to wear helmets! Yeah, the helmet saved my life, but who knows if I'd ever be able to walk again after an accident that would have otherwise killed me! If car traffic had been forced to slow down, or if the sight lines were better, the accident wouldn't have happened in the first place. So, I wonder if we might not be regressing back to a more American streetview, where the safety is the responsibility of YOU as the participant, instead of baked into the design
You do mix a few things up. E-bikes are not blamed, but statistically e-bikes have been involved in most bike related (fatal) accidents. Also, most of the people involved were of a higher age. I can't remember the exact age groups the research was talking about, but it was an over representation of people 55+ (?) on e-bikes involved in these accidents. Those are just statistics and not victim blaming. They are now looking if perhaps riders on e-bikes should wear helmets for their own safety.
I moved to Toronto from the UK just over 7 years ago, and this video perfectly encapsulates my frustrations with being a pedestrian here. Barely a day goes by where I don't encounter a driver going through a pedestrian crossing when it's my right of way. I swear some drivers wait for the pedestrian light to come on and start turning right at the moment. I cannot understand why they don't at least ban right turns on red in busy cities, like they have in Montreal. It won't solve the stupid road design but it will at least help.
Banning it only locally would still be unsafe I think, for lack of consistency. A pedestrian could be crossing counting on being safe while a non-local driver wouldn’t realize the local ban and 💥. Just have a blanket ban so everyone knows the rules.
@@AndreSomers There's some progress being made. There's some intersections at the busiest streets (I wanna say somewhere along Yonge at least?) where 'right on red' is no longer allowed. Change is happening, it just seems to be glacially slow.
One of the issues in Toronto (and probably other places) is that neither the cars nor the pedestrians cooperate by following the rules that are meant to get everyone where they're going. There are numerous intersections in Toronto where turning right would be nearly impossible if drivers weren't allowed to turn on reds, because streams of pedestrians insist on crossing the street even while the traffic light is yellow. Meanwhile, if they aren't just carelessly careening through the crowds of pedestrians who need to dive out of the way or get hit, the cars are dick-moving across the zebra stripes so that they're ready to make their turn as soon as there's an opening, and it blocks pedestrians from crossing the other way. Outside of "everybody just get along" though, I don't know what a realistic solution is without completely revamping the infrastructure, which could take a century in a city like Toronto.
I'm surprised that NJB barely mentions Montreal given the fact that it's considered one of North America's leading cities for public transit and walkable infrastructure. It definitely outclasses all other Canadian cities in that department so I'm confused as to why it's rarely mentioned.
Something that wasn't mentioned about slowing cars down, it also REQUIRES people to follow the speed limit. Since cops don't really enforce it too much, it's more of a suggestion than a requirement. So even if the speed limit was lowered in respect to pedestrian safety, without enforcement, it probably wouldn't have as much of an effect as it should.
The perverse disincentive is that then localities can’t make money through tickets/fine revenue. Which, I guess is a byproduct of living in such a tax-allergic country.
Cops stopped chasing speeders in my city decades ago, and on the rare occasion they do, it usually ends with the perp or a cop in somebody's living room.
Rozzers here in the UK don't even get around to it. Them having few numbers and budget cuts doesn't help and here in county durham they spend most of their time busting druggies.
In Europe (at least in my country) traffic speed and laws are enforced using speed cameras and red light cameras, a lot of speed bumps and roundabouts also do the trick. Police is used for more important matters.
I remember your recent post about more sponsorships for the channel. I think it was worth it. This video is impressive, and the footage is beautiful. Unlike any other channel of this type
Spot on as usual. Part of the problem with North America is at the next scale up. And I don’t know how we solve that problem. I love living in a neighborhood (in Paris) where I can pop out and in 5-10 minutes have my hands on nearly anything. I also like to imagine that if people knew such lifestyles exist, they would choose it in a heartbeat. But… propaganda? Fear? Laziness?
Car go vroom, I hate my neighbors. I like when my car go vroom, but hate other cars go vroom, so must live far from city where cars make it noisy. Why would anyone live down town??? TOO LOUD. TOO STINKY. SUBURB QUIET SANITIZED GHOST TOWN. WALLS KEEP IMMIGRANTS OUT.
It's so hard when you've only known one thing your entire life. When Walt Disney first designed Epcot, he wanted it to be a driverless city like in his youth because he was old enough to remember the benefits of not having death machines everywhere. Whereas today, the only people in North America who know what a livable city looks like, need to have experienced it abroad, and the older people in power have only ever really known one thing. All of the old grumpy mayoral candidates in my area just want to put signs with lower speed limits. It's so lazy, and it just annoys drivers without making anything safer.
Most Americans cannot understand that style of living because it simply involves too many changes. How will I ever wipe my ass if I can't get the cheapest deal on toilet paper with a 10,000 pack from Costco that I haul home in my SUV and store in my mega-pantry? Over-consumption of one type breeds over-consumption of every type.
I am LIVID to see that not crossing after the flashing timer has started is actually being ENFORCED in some cities!??? As if it wasn't hard enough to just exist and walk around in the city already! Humans are only allowed if they're in a car, some places, I swear.
@@MrBirdnose no they still do. They just have to wait longer. If that upsets you, consider all the pedestrians that wait for your turns because you didn’t want to wait.
Hell, want to be more livid? Look up the salary for law enforcement officers (which would presumably be the individuals enforcing it). That isn't just screwing over pedestrians--it's also a profound waste of money.
I just got ran over by a car a couple days ago while crossing the street on my bike. It was an intersection with no traffic lights, I was on the bike lane and the driver didn't look both ways before crossing. In my 6 years cycling I never had such a serious incident. Fortunately I had only minor injuries and my bike could be repaired, but I understood that day how fragile the human body is. We definitely need more protection against cars.
On my first bike tour of the Netherlands, I didn’t understand the priority of bikes and pedestrians so I stopped in a roundabout to wait for cars to go, and was so stunned that everyone waited for me that I forgot to unclip my foot and fell over on my loaded bike, much to the amusement of all the drivers!
Whenever id visit my friend in Den Haag, she would never understand why I am so terrified at how she crossed roads effortlessly and carefree. She laughs when I question whether or not we are Jaywalking. It’s like a completely different world over there compared to Florida #1 pedestrian death meat grinder
This totally explains why I developed a situational depression when I lived in Kingston Canada for a couple of months. I hated walking (or biking) anywhere there. I felt so unsafe going to university or the store, so I rather stayed at home and quickly became so inactive that my mental health collapsed, unfortunate.
I was walking across the 7 lane stroad near my apartment in Dallas yesterday and was just thinking that it might be interesting to film me walking across it to show non-Americans what living in a car-dependent city is like. Thanks for making this video because now I don't have to do it! 😊 Very good analysis!
24:52 I had a lot of "You've gotta be kidding me" moments in this video, but this legit had me thinking "this has to be satire/fake, right?". Imagine living in a country that can't design infrastructure for anything other than 4+ wheel vehicles, so you have to tell people to hold orange flags to be safe in your city.
I don't see anything wrong with that. There is a similar system in Japan that is designed to give schoolchildren greater visibility when they cross certain streets.
As a small child cycling in the Netherlands a while ago, I had to have a small flag pole on the back of my bike that was maybe 1.5m high with a little orange flag on it. This was to make sure that when crossing the road, that drivers would be able to see. They used to be a lot more common place but I don't see them anymore really. So yeah, the flags for visibility do work, just not how the US does it for grown adults
@@mikenekosama4426 No, sorry, but no. When you have to implement something like that then you know your engineering is wrong beyond imagination. If zebra crossings are not 'pedestrian safe zones' by law and engraved as such in drivers brain from first driving lesson, why paint those damn things on the road in the first place? If a traffic light telling you to stop, or at least to pay attention to crossing pedestrians isn't enough, do you truly believe that holding a flag or wearing high visibility jackets will change anything? Why not make them blow in horns or clang cymbals while you are at stupid ideas? This is a sign of miserable failure in design, education, and art of living together in a civilized way. Now don't get me wrong. Maybe it is a good idea to have kids wear high visibility clothing, but it shouldn't be mandatory. It should be something that increases an already high standard of security, not a minimum to have a chance to celebrate your 16th birthday.
19:17 wtf. I've never seen a signal-less crossing on a road like that before. That is so f-ing dangerous. You can even see the confusion permeate among the cars "This was a crossing?!" If planners needed even clearer evidence of poor design, a car turned on its hazard lights at the sight of a pedestrian.
In my country, Ireland, Motodrom still rules, though we’re not quite at the same levels of batshit-craziness as seems common in North America. Those responsible for road safety, however, the RSA(Road Safety Authority), would have a similar approach to their North American cousins, in that responsibility is largely placed on pedestrians and cyclists to make themselves visible. The answer to everything is to wear hi-vis clothing, day or night, everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Another brilliant video, by the way. Maith thú, Justin.
Yeah, Ireland is still remarkably car-centric, especially by European standards, which is a shame. Some of the city centres can be very nice, but there really needs to be an increase focus on alternatives to driving.
I'm from Germany and remember being so amused to see groups of little children out on a day trip all wearing tiny little high vis jackets. I thought it must have been out of an abundance of caution but sadly quickly realized it's because there is very little safe infrastructure for them. Cars going 50km through city center with teeny tiny sidewalks? It's a deathtrap! Germany is not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot safer and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone wearing high-vis clothing for a regular stroll or a leisurely cycle around the neighborhood!
@@NotJustBikes A video on Ireland could be great! Such a small country with so much potential! Similar weather to the Netherlands, but sadly an example of what happens when you've been brainwashed by north American car centric thinking. Train networks eroded and removed. Very little pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, especially outside of cities... But some wonderful activists and cycling groups that are trying to change things! I'm sure they'd be the most wonderful hosts if you asked them! I know of some people even arranging for local councilors to go on a trip to the Netherlands in order to get them more passionate about changing the car centric nature of many irish cities!
I just went to Dublin. The streets were filled with cars, fences and double-decker-buses. There were a lot of delivery-cyclists, it looked very dangerous for them and also for all the cyclist overall. I think there is indeed a lot of potential; because a lot of people walk in and around the city center.
I used to be a crossing guard way back when I was in elementary school. Looking back, it's kind of ridiculous that even with narrow lanes, 30km/h speed limit, and raised crosswalks, we still needed to wave big red stop signs in front of drivers to prevent them from killing children. And my school was on a quiet residential street, not a wide stroad.
5:27 HOLY SHIT YES. I was in New Jersey the other day and wanted to walk to a nearby strip mall to get food. The direct path to get to the mall should have taken 5 minutes walking, but there was a 6 lane stroad in the way with no crosswalks for half a mile in each direction. So a 5 minute walk became a 45 minute walk when taking the "fastest" path, and that route didn't even have sidewalks for long stretches meanining I was vulnerable to cars driving 45+ mph. I used to live in Cape Cod, and even though the whole peninsula is a tourist destination, there are still tons of areas that are simply unwalkable. To get to the closest grocery store, I had to sprint across a busy 4 lane stroad since there were no crosswalks in any direction. Sometimes I had to wait over 10 minutes just to find a large enough break in traffic that I could get across safely.
Not sure if this is what you're referring to, but MA Route 6 is crazy bananas. They throw some painted bike gutters and a HAWK somewhere along the line to try and make it the peaceful region it should be, and I suppose they somewhat succeed, but they need to make more leads from Provincetown. Now there's a traffic calmed, wonderful place to frolic and be gay, if I may be a bit cheeky and still respectful. Love that place.
It's amazing how New Jersey has some of the best places to walk in the US and also some of the absolute worst, like worse than Phoenix or Las Vegas. I walked from my hotel in Mount Laurel, NJ to the nearest Wawa and the roads near the hotels had no sidewalks at all, there were missing crosswalks all along the way, and I just basically had the feeling that I could be run over at any moment.
I live on US-19 which is aka one of the most dangerous highways in the USA, and crossing it is terrifying. The worst part is how a lot of the crosswalks don't have lights or buttons. So you have to just wait and run across 6 lanes of traffic. If you have to just wait and run then that means the crosswalk is pointless!
When I first heard about jaywalking I assumed it must be walking under the influence of something, which already didn't make much sense to me. Imagine my surprise when I found out what it actually was
Excellent video as always. In the UK we have a tonne of two-stage crossings where you have to cross one stream, go round some fences (which don't protect you in a crash, they're just there to control where you go) and push the button again and wait. It's really frustrating that they deliberately don't have the two crossings at the same place, they make you move at 90 degrees to minimise the "risk" you'll just keep going straight through. A big problem here is that the wait times are sometimes so long that no one waits, becuase no one has an extra 5 mins to waist trying to get 6 meters further ahead. This means people end up judging for themselves when to cross which increases conflict points and crash risk. Its so bizarre to think that if they sped up the timings people would be far more willing to wait; they've engineered impatience where people would otherwise be happy to wait. Lastly I get the need for a wait time between pedestrian walk lights, but the fact they make you wait a set time after the button push just seems like a delibarete disincentive to walk. Like, the signal hasn't been on for 20 mins, what does that extra 2 mins give you? Why is a hypothetical driver 1 mile down the road more important than my imediate desire to cross?
Yeah I lived in the UK for six years and I would get stuck on those little crossing islands between the fences pretty often. It was miserable, especially along busy roads in London like Euston Road. As for the beg button timings, North American traffic engineering is obsessed with Level of Service, and long light times works against keeping the flow of traffic up. So they love it when there are no pedestrians present, because the light timing needs to be longer for the slowest possible pedestrian to cross the intersection. If there are no pedestrians "detected" then they can get away with shorter light timings. The whole this is asinine though, as it's only this bad because their traffic control systems are so dumb. But also their hyper fixation on moving as many cars as possible actually makes it worse for everyone; even drivers.
To the point where you press the button. Cross. Get half way down the road then the light goes green. And the cars are stopped with no one crossing. Just make every possible beg button an instant one. Or instant unless it was hit in the last minute or something. No wait. Just get some flags .....
Huh, so that's why the weird little kink in the middle of the path? I've been wondering for years about that. Makes sense. Used to make me think of Half Life. The first game in the series had a subtle signal for a level transition: The path would take a right turn, then a left turn. Ideally the player doesn't consciously notice it, but after a few levels picks up on the pattern so they are not surprised by the level loading pause.
@@NotJustBikes I live in Phoenix, AZ, USA; recently sold my car (although my wife still has one, because it is required in this type of town) and take public transportation (tiny circuit one line lightrail that still has to wait at many traffic signals) because... I'm trying to be better..? I feel like driving here brings out the worst in people. I was finding I was mad all the time, and drivers are so rude, and terrifying now that they are all on their stupid phones! Please put down your phone when driving! It is scary to drive and utterly terrifying to walk. BTW you got laughs with: "physics works better than signals", and "freedom", and "Canadians are so friendly". :^)
As an Californian, I remember being in Amsterdam back in July and having a hard time trusting the cross signals because I’m so used to people running lights and driving in the wrong direction where I’m from…
Light signals are accidentally designed to cause accidents. They often stay green until they see oncoming traffic, which turns yellow right as they approach the light. If they run a red, guaranteed accident, if they try to run the yellow, it's encouraging unsafe speeds.
@@dibbadyda1728 I am guessing he is referring to people actually driving in the wrong direction. I believe the only place where they still drive on the left side of the road in Europe is the UK. The rest of us drives on the right side like most of the world. :)
re: pedestrian bridges I found that in Japan, while there are also bridges with giant ramps that are a huge pain, there are also some raised pedestrian areas that are fantastic. I've been to several shopping districts in Tokyo and Sendai that have all of the buildings in the area connected at the second or third floor level by extensive elevated pedestrian walkways and bridges. They are super nice! They allow complete separation of pedestrian and car traffic without inconveniencing either one thanks to lots of escalators and elevators and direct access to all of the places pedestrians want to go without sending them back down to ground level. I'd even say I prefer these raised areas, since they are often brighter (built with brighter colored materials than asphalt and closer to the tops of the buildings) and cleaner (there were actual cleaning services for them, and the elevation means water runoff can be easily used to help clean as well) than street level, and partially shielded from vehicle noise by the structures themselves and the greenery that is usually also planted on them. One of these areas even had food carts operating in the middle, right over the center of the street below. Each of these (that I've found at least) is also connected directly to a train station, so you exit the station directly onto the raised pedestrian area, and can walk directly to any of the nearby buildings while all the bus, taxi, and car traffic for the station moves along below you.
24:00 In my life, I've only seen one pedestrian overpass that was actually good. It connected my university to the university dorms which were across a 6 lane stroad. The dorms were at a higher elevation than the stroad, and a hill on the other side had been made so that there was no need to build stairs or a ramp on either side of the overpass. It connected students with where they lived with a way to safely walk or bike to their classes. Unsurprisingly, it got A LOT of use.
Going up and down for a pedestrian overpass may not be ideal, but it still beats waiting 3 minutes for a walk signal to cross a giant stroad, filled with turning cars.
My university has a pedestrian bridge connecting buildings on the east side of the busy highway with the rest of the campus to the west. It’s used constantly, and is reasonably well designed, even though it’s not perfect. It connects a large dorm and educational building to the rest of the campus. It’s built with the option to use either stairs or a ramp to get to the bridge. It’s actually the safest and most convenient way to cross the street in that area.
I know it is not the "Stroad Overpass" but i really enjoy the overpasses they built for the road they built to circumnavigate the next village over. One is a little raised. But it is just 1m more than the original ground and it doesn't add any length to the path. And overpasses over the highway are great as well. But that is a different topic.
We have grade-separated pedestrian crossings here in the Netherlands as well (though usually they have both bike lanes and a sidewalk on them), but very few are overpasses, because overpasses are much more inconvenient for those using them than underpasses, primarily due to the required height difference. An overpass needs to allow for full clearance for the tallest vehicles allowed on the road (which would be 4m here in NL), plus a fairly significant margin, plus the thickness of the overpass structure, which means it's likely to be at least 5m above the height of the road. Underpasses meanwhile only need to allow for the height of pedestrians and cyclists plus the road deck, so they can be as shallow as 3m to 3.5m. That's without even mentioning that underpasses also blend seamlessly into the terrain, while overpasses inevitably become a visual feature in the road that either becomes an eyesore, or requires a more expensive custom design to make it visually appealing.
as an american, watching this channel honestly makes me feel like i was born in the wrong country. no wonder i never wanna go outside! it's a fucking wasteland out there! incredible video as always! - june
Same, I used to think it was because of my allergies, the hot and humid weather, and the fact that was barely any other kids in my neighborhood growing up was the reason why I never really liked going outside and I was more of an indoors person; but thanks to this channel I can now see the real reason, car dependent infrastructure.
@@kittykittybangbang9367 exactly! i think i definitely would've gone outside a lot more as a kid, if the outside were actually hospitable to anyone outside of a car. cute nepeta profile pic, by the way!
As an european from a country where jaywalking is normal, the term "jaywalking" always sounded strange to me? Who is Jay, and why would he be the only one walking. Thank you for clearing that up! It certainly make a lot of sense that such a strange term would have it's origin in propaganda. If I'm ever in the USA and a cop is accusing me of jaywalking I will make sure to enlighten him about the fact that he has in deed been fooled by the automobile industry and needs to rid his way of thinking of the concept of JAYWALKING! I am sure, that doing so, will be met with the utmost appreciation from those, that protect and serve the people of this wonderous nation that is the United States of America. 👮🇺🇸
I work for a multidiscipline engineering firm in Ontario. I am involved in transportation and signalization projects. I am not a transportation engineer and am often ignored because if this. I am a European immigrant. Everything in this video is 100% true, and i have such a hard time getting some of these ideas into the heads of my superiors and transportation engineer colleagues to consider ANY of this! There is some progress at a higher level. The Ontario Traffic Council is about to be addressed by Charles Mahron from Strongtowns for example. The City of Barrie is doing better than most, but even they are undertaking expensive projects to widen collector stroads. The City of Ottawa has a great dutch influenced cycling design standard. However, my own town (a hub for outdoor enthusiasts and cycling in particular), is frustratingly backwards. A recent "complete street' proposal was rejected because of negative feedback from drivers. The project is going ahead...as a simple road repaving and PAINTING SHARROWS!!! 🤦🏼♂️
Sadly Ottawa's cycle design standard isn't really Dutch at all; it just sort of superficially looks Dutch. Ottawa's cycle tracks are elevated to sidewalk level, unlike Dutch cycle tracks, and since Canadian sidewalks are higher than Dutch ones anyway, this puts you 6" (1½ dm) above the road. It's actually kind of unsettling as there is this edge you (or your kid) could drop off into the street. And why might you be worried about this possibility? Well because it's at sidewalk level right next to the sidewalk, pedestrians treat it as - shocker - part of the sidewalk. So you can end up having to dodge around pedestrians walking 3 or 4 abreast while passing them inches from the curb top. That's bad enough, but of course to get you up to sidewalk level Ottawa has got ramps at cross streets. And for reasons known only unto themselves, rather than have a smooth paved ramp come up from the street, Ottawa instead forces you to cross a dropped curb before getting to the ramp. Since Ottawa has a climate with a severe freeze-thaw cycle, the upshot is that even if the installed dropped curb was completely flush to the asphalt either side of it when built, after a single winter it won't be - it'll be a bump. And few of them are flush as installed anyway. As there is a ramp on the upside, there is also a ramp down on the downside, which means if you need to stop you'll be doing so on a downslope. And you'll have to stay stopped on the downslope... without the benefit of a curb to rest either of your feet on. On top of all this, these ramps also tend to have a cross slope as well, which is not too bad if you're going straight ahead but if you are turning onto or off of the cycle track at a cross street you have to be aware to take care, especially in slick conditions, lest your bike slip out from under you. So the experience of cycling along Ottawa's cycle tracks is to be mildly anxious about not riding off the edge while repeating a down-bump-bump-up pattern at every cross street the entire time. And they've bodged the roundabouts, too. In addition to all the above, at roundabouts Ottawa's cycle tracks don't follow a circular path around the roundabout. It's hard to describe exactly but in Dutch roundabouts you're diverted off to the side at a gentle angle to join the circular track around the roundabout and so when you come to cross a traffic lane you're naturally doing so at a roughly perpendicular angle. But in Ottawa the path more closely hugs the road, so you first make a moderately sharp right hand turn before you hit the roundabout, then sort of follow the roundabout around but on a straight path. This is so-so and if you're turning right at the first crossing it's not too too bad but where it's especially bad is if you're going straight/left as when you get to the crossing point of a traffic lane you have to make a sharp, last minute, near right angle turn to the left into traffic that hitherto you haven't seen because it's behind you out of sight rather than beside you. Oh, and of course it's a downslope too, because the path is at curb top height, not road level height. So no, don't copy Ottawa. Don't. We don't know what we're doing and we're going to have bad, superficially Dutch-looking cycling infrastructure littering the landscape for decades now before it gets fixed.
@@rsj2877 they're too professional to laugh, but they always have an excuse as to why my suggestions are not implementable. The "complete street" project, for example. My company produced the report and the lead designer thought it was silly before the pilot project even happened. Then the pilot project was so bad it felt like it was designed to fail.
@@davidjames4915 this is interesting to me. I have been in conferences with some of those involved in writing the standard (along with book 18). I am familiar with book 18 - which has all the concessions you would expect of a north american cycle standard- but only know the Ottawa standard through positive coverage on channels similar to this one. It sounds like the planners and engineers involved talk a good talk but don't fully understand the concepts (maybe myself included) and/or the municipalities still don't really appreciate it
Video topic idea: I live on the street with the highest number of accidents of any street in the Netherlands: de Amsterdamsestraatweg. It's awefully designed and literally has "stroad" (straatweg) in its name. They're gonna redo it soon and are asking the public for ideas and feedback. They already have a first draft but I'm not convinced this will solve the many problems it has. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I'm confident your video would actually influence the results. How cool would that be!
What also helps to make traffic saver in the Netherlands is that in case of an accident with a pedestrian or cyclist involved, the driver of a car is pretty much always the one considered at fault for insurance purposes. Only on roads and highways where pedestrians and cyclists aren't allowed, so a driver wouldn't expect them to be there, would the driver win the insurance claim. So since the driver is pretty much always the one that'll need to pay up, it's a good added incentive to make sure drivers are careful of non-car traffic.
My only concern there is that, although potentially an urban legend, there's already a concern that people will deliberately try to jump out into traffic and get hit so they can sue. No amount of safe driving is gauranteed to stop you from hitting someone who wants to get hit although you can greatly reduce the risk.
@@jazzfan1994 the driver being at fault is not a hard rule, it's just the starting position. So, if a person jumps out in front of a car, it doesn't actually apply.
@@jazzfan1994 Suing culture isn't really a thing here. Even if the driver was mistakingly found guilty, the 'victim' would at most receive a few thousand euros compensation. So there's no real incentive to do such thing.
I think it's very important to have this type of discussion and criticism when it comes to pedestrian infrastructure. I've noticed now that a lot of people my age are starting to wake up and protest for better infrastructure. The Bike Protest at High Park was gigantic. As much as I love The Netherlands, I want to stay in Toronto and fight for safe and complete streets. Thanks again for the video, Jason. People are finally waking up.
I lived in the US for several years before moving back to the UK. And the difference in road crossing was like night and day. In the UK, things are by no means perfect. But even on busy roads I don't feel like I'm about to get hit. In the US I had multiple occasions where I nearly got hit trying to cross a road. Typically (but not always) by a vehicle turning right on red (including nearly once by a police vehicle). But people stopping in the middle of the crossing was a constant, occasionally forcing you into traffic to get around them. Before moving there, I used to walked almost everywhere. By the time I left, I barely walked anywhere as it was simply too dangerous. And my health notably suffered as a result.
"... so they have to scurry across the street like animals" Can we just take a moment to appreciate what our infrastructure actually does to (non-human) animals and think about whether that's okay? I imagine a video comparing different approaches on this topic might be worthwile, too.
From someone who's helping with a study on roadkill numbers in the Netherlands, I doubt that it's much better here than it is stateside. We just have so few wild mammals in most areas that it's 99% birds getting hit. Looking at videos of stroads and streets in the USA I also don't see nearly as much wildlife habitat as there is on the side of roads here. And our highways are littered with pancaked birds. Those are a lot harder to see than a deer or a raccoon.
Since green areas are small and scattered across the Netherlands, one way of connecting them is by building "green crossings". We build bridges for wild life, with fences on roads to either side to herd crossing animals across the bridge, rather than crossing the road.
One of the arguments in the UK against going fully metric and sticking to miles in lieu of kilometres is the cost of changing all the speed limit signs. I suggested that the signs really didn't need to be changed... they could just make the city streets with a 30mph limit into safer streets with a 30kph limit. We are now starting to see more streets with a 20mph limit which is an improvement, but unfortunately nothing is being done to the infrastructure to "force" a slow down.
Don't forget the cost of getting cars converted to kmh. I know having to read that tiny inner circle on the Speedo will cause a few accidents if it ever happens
Here in East London the 20mph thing is in full swing, our whole Borough is now 20mph, it's taken a while but cars are generally starting to get used to it, and because the roads are all single lanes it doesn't take many people obeying to get everyone down to that speed. But I think they were right that they had to do the whole place, just doing a street would be ignored.
Then again, I’ve been seeing more and more raised crossings, road narrowing, cycle lanes and so on, so I don’t think it’s that there’s nothing happening, it’s just all a bit haphazard and ad hoc.
I live in the US southwest and notice that when two major stroads intersect, the chaotic turning movements make it feel so unsafe to cross that people prefer to cross mid-block. It feels safer and more predictable to face a threat only coming from one direction. Unfortunately, drivers speed like maniacs mid-block and if someone is killed, the police will call it "pedestrian error" if they get hit outside of a crosswalk.
On my walk home from work one day I saw a woman in the distance trying to cross Notre-Dame in Montreal. She was at a theoretical pedestrian crossing but not one driver stopped. I walked about 200 metres as she waited, arrived at the crossing on my side of the road, walked to the middle, and told her to cross. While I stood in the middle of the road all cars stopped. When she had safely crossed I went back and continued my walk home. The difference between us is she was about 5'2" with a small body size. I'm 6'2", 245lbs with a shaved head. Drivers, whether I'm walking or cycling, give me the right of way and never beep their horns at me. Physical size is yet another way women get less respect while out and about in society. This is why we need to follow Netherlands' lead rather than the US.
Thank you both for recognising this and doing what you did. You’re so right. Part of the problem is that for so long, urban planning has been centred around the mythical ‘average’ person, a 30-something able-bodied commuting male, with everyone else left underserved.
One thing you missed, in Utrecht and some other cities you can install an app on your phone that detects whether you are cycling, and than uses your GPS location to automatically set traffic lights to green. This way you don't even need to press the beg button, the timer just automatically starts and often you can pass straight through. I absolutely love it. But brilliant video nonetheless mate
@@brammm2983 of course you can move around easily without that app, the are positive things that NJB said in the video are applied here too. And the app is not compulsory, so if you don't want to use them you just don't use it. Simple as that.
As someone who's lived in the USA, and now lives in Germany, i had a greater culture Schock going from Germany to Netherlands then the USA to Germany, its insane how much more advanced the Netherlands is then the rest of the western world. Can't wait to move there
It does have to be said that Germany has arguably the most car-centric infrastructure in Western Europe. It's better than the US, for sure, and their public transport is orders of magnitude better, but they still heavily prioritise cars, with cycling lanes (where they even exist) and sidewalks going out of their way not to inconvenience cars almost to the same extent as in the US.
@@Fragenzeichenplatte from Baveria, I've traveled and noticed more northern Germany is somewhat similar, but even then the people are so much different
@@MinehowTech Bavaria, I see. They do have a conservative leadership. People are really not that different. People from Germany and Korea are different.
I don't think I've ever been this excited for an urban planning video. It's awesome that you put so much effort into these kinds of videos instead of making them as fast as you can
Okay, the flags did it for me (and judging from your swearing for you as well). Who thought that that was the solution to traffic safety for pedestrians? That feels like you are downgraded to a toddler and is super demeaning, not even talking about how you are supposed to hold a flag visibly with your hands in use (e.g. pushing a stroller or carrying groceries). Thanks to your channel I've started to comprehend how sad the US and Canada are for kids growing up in suburbs. I think that miserable time of not being able to go anywhere without a car short of your immediate neighbors for the first 18 years of your life has deep psychological and behavioral impacts as well. I wonder if that could be a topic for a future video.
My neighborhood has tons of crosswalks with flags. During the daytime, they feel ridiculous, and I generally don't use them. But, when crossing after dark, I'll take all the visibility I can get.
The crosswalk with flags has a potential, but it should be drivers who stop, take a flag and walk through pulling their car, then leave the flag on the other side.
The right turn on red rule seems like it would make walking quite scary! Thankfully we don't have that where I live in Australia. We are also building lots of new raised crossings, refuge islands and pedestrian lights on busy roads. There is a rule in my state similar to what the Netherlands had where you have to be 20 metres away from a crossing to cross mid-block on a road.
To me, it's utter madness, drivers like it of course and they are in the majority. Make walking a difficult and miserable experience and then there are not large numbers of pedestrians to worry about.
Your videos have made me plan a trip to the Netherlands in October mostly JUST to see what all the hype is about with the infrastructure. Obviously, there's more to it, but everything I more or less planned around checking out the infrastructure and urbanism. Love your videos; Thank you for the insight!
Hell yeah! It's awesome here! If you want a tour of Delft I'd love to give you one 💪 Just make sure you know how to bike, and you know where to rent one, because otherwise you won't get the True Dutch Experience™
I found the part about raising the cross section to be leveled with the sidewalk really interesting. It's such a little investment for so many benefits! Very good video. Was nice to see many examples.
My friend from Victoria, BC once complained about a crossroad being dangerous since every time he tried to cross a street, he almost got hit my a car. He filed a complaint addressing the issue and suggested adding speed bumps to ensure the safety of pedestrians in the residential area; in response, he was told that no speed bumps could be installed since they are going to slow down the emergency vehicles. In the video you showed that danish people have speed bumps at almost every crosswalk. How does it affect the emergency vehicles? Or does it at all? If it does, what solution could be implemented to improve the safety of both pedestrians and people in need?
Emergency vehicles use the dedicated bus or tram lane. But also, the majority of emergency vehicle call-outs in North America are for traffic crashes, which are caused by the wide roads and lack of traffic calming. So it's a self-propetuating problem. Besides, people are literally dying in traffic: are their lives worth less than people who need emergency services? But all of this is bullshit excuses anyway. Watch my Stroads video to understand how a roads+streets network is fundamentally more efficient than the stroads of North America for all vehicles; emergency vehicles included. Look for archives of the (now removed) Dutch channel "ambuchannel" to see footage of ambulances in the Netherlands.
I like how all the cars in the video run the stop signs, or drive through the cross walk with people in them, illustrating your point without even having to point it out.
(24:45) I've live in the US my entire life and it's still difficult to believe "give them a big brightly colored flag" is a legitimate "solution" to pedestrian fatalities here.
I don't know if you're aware, but in Wales there was a recent move to change 30mph limits to 20mph to make roads safer for mixed usage. The backlash has been insane, with a level of histrionics I really had not expected. Apparently the main argument is that cyclists will be overtaking cars, which is (apparently) the most disgusting thing that can happen to anyone. The attempted change to the laws was not great, especially because it was just blanket instead of targeting places where it's really helpful to reduce vehicular speed, but given your comments about North American engineers being resistant to slowing traffic, it seems relevant.
But that's teh secret in the Netherlands: you first get all political parties to sign off so you don't worry about the election cycle. Backlash is a thing but especially on municipal levels generally ignored. The traffic circulation plan in Groningen introduced in the 1970s is a great example of that.
![Would You Fall for It? [ST08]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n94-_yE4IeU/mqdefault.jpg)
"The black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa) is a large, long-legged, long-billed shorebird first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. It is a member of the godwit genus, Limosa. [...] The black-tailed godwit is the national bird of the Netherlands."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-tailed_godwit
I much prefer its Dutch name ;)
"Grutto"
@@NotJustBikesSo called because of the sound it makes. I don't hear it.
The Grutto says: the f*ck? The Netherlands the land of the free, no thank you, we don't want that American bull.
FREEDOM GRUTTO!
The thing that messed me up with cross walks here in the Netherlands, as an American, is the readiness for cars to stop for you, because it's just easier for them to do so than to try to rush past you. I am standing there at an unsignalized cross walk, waiting for cars to pass, but instead of passing, the cars just.... stop.... And I'm free to cross the street. Waiting at unsignalized cross walks is so normal to me, I've had a couple Dutch drivers get angry that I didn't just cross and that I was waiting.
I find that the infrastructure forms driver behaviour, because there are some places in the Netherlands that aren't up to the latest standard, and drivers still drive like assholes. But it's not as bad as in the US.
The way that the roads are designed in the US really does encourage driver entitlement and driver supremacy.
@@NotJustBikes completely agreed. It's amazing how if the right infrastructure is in place, it encourages drivers to just be kinder.
Most of the crossings in the Netherlands have some sort of traffic calming measures, if you drive 30 kmh you might as well stop, it is a very different situation if you are driving 80 kmh.
The same thing happened to me in Germany once. I crossed because I felt bad to stay there. I was visiting the country.
@@MarisaClardy if you ever go back to 'murrica, buy a sumo suit in case you forget in what country you are ;)
Jaywalking is a classic example of Americans' approach to problems: blame the victim and go about your day. The auto industry understood it and politicians today understand it.
I've never heard of the flag thing before, and if that isn't the most deranged and condescending way to "help" pedestrians I don't know what is.
I've heard numerous older people complain about how "kids these days" never walk anywhere, blaming it on everything from laziness, stuck on the computer, to overprotective parents afraid their kids are going to get kidnapped. I never had the ability to explain the reality beyond "I just don't want to die." This channel has given voice to all the dangers I implicitly felt.& experienced growing up in a stroad-heavy suburb relying on walking or biking (very long treks because of course points of interest are built in clusters very far from your house) without fully understanding WHY walking or cycling anywhere felt so flippin stressful! Thank you for illuminating the issues with North American car-dependent design and showing the possibilities for safer pedestrian infrastructure. It gives me hope that some day it could be better.
not to mention most “kids these days” don’t have anywhere to actually walk to considering how far away everything is from the average suburb that it would just take too long to walk anywhere
As the only kid in my ENTIRE high school who bikes, I definitely agree with you
No. They are lazy.
Classic boomers: create major societal issues then complain about and blame others for the expected results.
And it's not always that the parents are overprotective, parents have been arrested in some places for letting their kids walk short distances or take public transit unsupervised.
An interesting addition to this is, that if the roads are much safer, then there's a good chance that drivers also walk a lot, and thus have a much easier time empathizing with pedestrians, being careful around them, and yielding to them.
And if drivers are walking, there are consequently less cars on the roads, making it even safer. A wonderful positive feedback loop.
he covers this many times in other videos, that the dutch car-drivers are also often cyclists or pedestrians. so they have more patience for cyclists or walkers. (when im walking in the rain almost all the drivers yield to me and wave and i know they are happy being warm inside the car knowing how it is to walk in the cold rain)
Around half of the US (Republicans and evangelical "Christians"-same thing in most cases, really) have absolutely zero empathy.
I am an 8th grader who takes his bike to school every day, the school is 4 miles away but here are some problems:
-There is no bike path, I have to go on dirt
-my neighborhood is just a random suburb in the middle of the desert, so it’s hot, and it’s far away.
The cars go really fast despite the fact I’m sure that they can see me.
That sounds really scary. I hope you can stay safe and I also hope your local government isn’t completely hopeless.
Objective: survive
Challenge: cycling to school in the US
Go make an appearance at your city council! You can make a difference if you make your voice heard.
Wear a helmet and consider some type of high visibility vest like a construction worker. Don't let your classmates make fun of you for being safe either.
Oh... and drink lots of fluids. Take care!
Stay safe out there, kid.
As an American that just moved to the Netherlands, let me share a quick intersection story. I was crossing a wide street and reached the first island. There was a tram (or metro, still figuring the difference) that had just finished picking up some passengers 10 feet to my left. My American instincts kicked in and I started to wait as I expected the tram to start moving. When the operator noticed I wasnt moving, they tooted the horn to signal for ME to start walking first. I was fairly shocked since that would never happen in the States.
Also, you are famous at work. Whrn i mentioned i had been watching some YT videos to help prepare for the move, they all chimed in with "Not Just Bikes?!"
Tram is indeed the word you were looking for, they run on the street. Meanwhile metros are well, the same as subways or the underground. Only Rotterdam and Amsterdam have metros, whilst trams can only be found in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag (The Hague) and Utrecht, along with a few other select lines. And there's whatever RandstadRail classifies as.
If you could cross the tracks it was a tram. Metro is in their own lanes with no other traffic being able to enter. This is because they are typically powered by third rail which means there is a rail, often pained yellow, that has power running trough it. If you touch it you will electrocute. The closed of lanes also mean you can run trains more often and carry much more passagers.
@@sheeple04 tldr: tram go brrr on road more like bus; metro go brrr below road more like train
@@sheeple04 Randstadrail is classified as 'lightrail'. Which is basically a confused tram, metro and train which can't decide what it wants to be.
For example the RR tram runs on regular train tracks in Zoetermeer, but is a tram in The Hague. The RR metro runs as a metro in Rotterdam but more towards The Hague (from station Melanchtonweg onward) it runs on regular train tracks.
I doubt the operator was tooting to signal you to start walking. Usually Dutch tram operators toot the horn when they are standing still and intent to start moving again in order to alert pedestrians and other traffic. Or was he gesturing you to cross?
Watching this made me emotional. I was crossing the street on my light when a car made a left turn and hit me on my way to work and it changed my life. I had to get metal and screws through surgery and I haven't gotten over how unsafe I feel crossing the streets in NYC to the extent that I avoid going out unless necessary. I am considered one of the lucky ones since I survived and many have died in the same situation. I am looking to relocate to a place where I can feel safer. Thank you for advocating for the safety of pedestrians.
Oh wow that's scary. When I was hit, I couldn't get out of the way fast enough and the car hit me, but thankfully not so hard. I had very sore knees for a few weeks and had trouble walking for a few days. Immediate after the accident I didn't even know I was hurt though, so I walked away from it on adrenaline alone. Scary!
I attended a wedding in Normandie a few years back and spent a week in a village there. I rented a car because I enjoyed exploring the countryside but in town it was actively useless. The streets were narrow cobblestone, with a laundry 30m from the door and two markets within 100m. I had a similar experience in Graz, Austria but with the added joy of a tram into down town for the farmers market and all the best restaurants. We didn't bother with a car at all.
The funny thing is trying to explain this to my fellow americans. They recoil in horror at being "deprived" of their three ton shopping cart and being "forced" to shop daily for fresh veg. I have come to the conclusion that this "freedom" they bang on about is really not having to talk to other people or even stand too closely. We're not brave and free, we're terrified and trapped.
I don't need to shop daily to buy fresh veg. I get frozen. :P I live in Stockholm, so it's entirely walkable.
There does seem to be a very strange idea of what freedom means in the USA.
Traffic engineers should really be required to walk, bike, and use transit on all roads they work on. How can you design a street that is usable to everyone if you only have the perspective of a car? Amazing video as always.
In Canadian cities (and probably American too), the number of politicians, civil engineers, and even transit agency employees who drive everywhere they go is insane.
It's pretty clear that they suffer from extreme "windshield bias" if you try to talk to them about these issues.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 👀
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Egypt is metal as fuck
If they designed roads in my area like they do with sidewalks and bicycle paths:
- A two-way street would turn into a one way without warning
- There'd regularly be debris from fallen tree branches and discarded car parts from previous accidents
- There'd be cracks running parallel to the direction of travel that are the same width as tires, so you'd sink into them, but their placement would be inconsistent so you're constantly wrestling to stay in a straight line while going in and out of these cracks.
- At least once between every intersection, there'd be a sudden drop about a quarter the depth of the wheel because of a water drainage feature.
- The moment there's any construction, the road is completely closed, and you have to offroad.
- People are allowed to park in the middle of the road if they want
Any traffic engineers in the comments? Looking at you.
I think it's very important to talk about how car infrastructure affects pedestrian mentality. I live just half a mile away from a grocery store + mall area, but to get there I have to go through the intersection of a 4 lane stroad and 6 lane stroad. This intersection is so scary that I just drive the half mile so that I don't have to worry about dying every time I need groceries.
Absolutely. This is why over 45% of car trips in America are 3 miles or less. People can't even fathom walking somewhere, even if it's close, because it so difficult and dangerous. The number of times I've seen people drive just to get to a place across the stroad is crazy, but who wants to risk their life to go to the shops?
This exactly. Then we wonder why there's congestion everywhere and we keep spending billions on more lanes.
I live less than 2 miles away. Walking 🚶 paths all the way until i have to cross a 4 lane road with 2 additional turn lanes on each side. Traffic coming from all directions. I just drive it. I walk to the street corner but it's to scary to actually cross.
Nope, that's juat because adding more lanes decreases traffic, and it's for the same reason they keep building more and more.
Totally not the opposite ;-)
… and in the process you added one more car to the problem. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you for wanting to die for a bag of milk, but still.
I volunteered as a crossing guard for a high school in TX for a year and even with a literal STOP-sign in my hand, standing in the middle of the street, there were people who - directly looking at me - simply drove past me; so it doesn't surprise me at all that people don't bother to really stop at normal STOP signs either.
"Physics works better than signs". A good quote.
The laws of physics are harder to break than the laws of man. Trust me, I've tried both.
Ooooh, I misheard it as "science" a few times!
@@martijnvds Nah, I think he said science.
@@31redorange08 it's just his accent in which the two sound very similar...
@@31redorange08 lol, it really sounds like he says that, but that doesn't make any sense at all. It's just his accent. He said 'signs' for sure
Fun fact: I got arrested and went to court for Jaywalking. Had to pay a fine for it too.
I lived in Utah, which is ironically one of the few places I praise for not needing a car. I was simply walking to the store but the only 2 crosswalks were about a quarter mile apart. One right at where I turned onto the road which is a tiresome wait and the other at the end of the road far beyond the store I wanted to go to. I had waited until there were less than a handful of cars between the lights and took off to the other side of the road. Unfortunately, one of the cars on the road was a cop who was apparently having a bad day.
Wonderful to know where all the tax money is going. Could've been doing something about the guy in my apartment complex selling meth out of his house but instead saw it more appropriate to punish someone for crossing the street. So far I have more fines from walking than I do from driving. God Bless Murrica.
Im glad britain doesn't have that thing.
As long as the other side isn't blocked by a fucking fence or is a motorway.
You can cross wherever you like if enough people do it in such a spot council might eventually add a legit crossing.
I just moved to Salt Lake City (Utah) and my quality of life has improved so much by not needing a car, I just walk and probably will start biking around the most I drive is 5 minutes to work and 5 minutes back and it’s wonderful. That being said I’m really surprised you got stopped for that I see people jaywalking all the time, cops must have been bored and needed to meet their quota
jaywalking shouldnt be illegal at all
@@jessicac8090 I lived in West Valley at the time. Idk how it is now but it was affectionately "Little Mexico" and not a very safe place. I remember cops stopping me late at night asking if I had info on stabbings/shootings. Fun stuff.
where i live you won't get arrested, however the cop will take your personal info and send you 50$ fine at home
I find that the blame mindset also affects driver behaviour a lot. Had an American move to NZ , they got so annoyed at people just crossing the street and said they should be more careful or they’ll get hit. We were shocked and said you will go to jail if you hit them, Pedestrians in NZ have the right of way.
15 years ago, I nearly got run over on one of those yellow crossing in Toronto, when I walked to school. The driver opened the window and yelled at me "DO YOU WANT TO GET YOURSELF KILLED". At first I thought maybe I didn't press it firmly. However, as I walked away from the crossing, the light was still flashing, whereas the driver already took off. He never paid any attention to what is flashing at him and if flashing things are not enough to grab your attention, you deserve to have your license revoked, since a car is a weapon in your control.
Yup, that sounds about right. Those crosswalks only provide the illusion of safety.
@@NotJustBikes That crosswalk wasn't even that big. It was just a two lane normal road, so European scale. It was on prince edward street in Etobicoke, if you ever want to check it out or film it.
Remind me of rich folk degrading the homeless for their shitty choices. WHY DIDNT YOU INVEST IN A HOUSE?? RENTING ISNT FOREVER, Y'KNOW. MCDONALDS ISNT MEANT TO BE A CAREER!
@@thekingoffailure9967 Yeah, people who think the same choices in life lead to the same things for everone. As a 15 year old back then, I didn't even have a choice to drive as I couldn't have a license. But I was a Euro kid who was used to walking. I still do it with a passion.
@Han Boetes That's because many drivers think they are perfect drivers. Usually, they are the worst ones.
My California suburban town has recently been adding a lot of 'traffic calming' measures. Bike lanes, rubberised speed bumps, 'safe streets ' with bollarded intersections marked for local traffic only and even a roundabout with yields in all 4 directions. The pushback from residents grumbling about how difficult it is to use their cars on their own streets has been incredible. As a frequent cyclist I'm welcoming each change though.
I am from the Netherlands, and that is a hugh change for cyclist, pedestrians. People and kids have to be free and save on the roads.
People are always resisting change, it doesnt matter if its a good or bad change.
Hopefully people will notice the benefits relatively soon.
Most insane thing in American infra? The signs at signalized crosswalks with a list of instructions including such tips as "cross quickly" and "thank the driver" who didn't kill you.
I noticed how much text there is to read at crosswalks. For both pedestrians and cars. Seems very unsafe to me if drivers need to read all that while they're supposed to be driving. And why tf do you need instructions to push a button to cross a road as a pedestrian?
It's polite to thank drivers who stop, but not necessary. That also helps reinforcing them to do it again some other time. It's kind of like when driving and you wave or blink at drivers who make it easier for you to pass and things like that. But the weight is still on the one you're thanking; it's not on you to thank them (since that would just formalise it and make it an empty "polite" gesture).
I moved from Germany to the Netherlands about two weeks ago and even as an avid viewer of this channel and Germany not being so far removed traffic-wise from the Netherlands as North America, I am still astonished. Watching the masses of pedestrians and cyclists crossing streets on my way to work in the morning, is just incredible.
It made me realize that planning for pedestrians and cyclists is a posirive feedback loop, since saver roads will attract more people walking/biking and more people walking/biking make it saver. It is just very hard to overlook 15 bikes and 30 pedestrians crossing the street than a single person.
Thanks for sharing.
BTW, is "Sa" a German name?
Crossing stroad while visiting US made me anti-car activist in less than 2 minutes, despite being pro-cars before. Thanks a lot US traffic engineers!
"Pedestrian fatalities" sound like an euphemism for "killed by car".
i work as a crossing guard at my (american) high school. there's a minor crossing that always gets super busy during drop-off and pickup, and i hate it so much that the city's solution is to pay a couple of teenagers to stand around in high vis vests and hold up stop signs. i've done my best while having this job; i always let pedestrians pass before cars, and i make sure that people notice that there are pedestrians and they need to slow down. but it pisses me off that my job even needs to exist in the first place, since i am the lazy solution here.
maybe someday american urban planners will come to their senses. i'm planning on going into civil engineering for the sole purpose of trying to clean some of this up. i'm glad there are people out there like you who are helping educate us in north america that this shouldn't be the norm. thank you.
I hate to burst your bubble, but we have those crossing guards near dutch elementary schools too (at least in the south). They are mostly there to make sure kids don't run into traffic, but sometimes big conflicts happen between crossing guards (50% of which are older elementary children) and cars that are in a hurry.
That is so tragic. "How can we protect the school children from all the cars?" "Let's gamble just a few of them and hope they stop." "Hmmm. Give them a fluorescent to avoid lawsuits and we're good!"
Too make it more fun they should provide crossing guards with bricks to throw through car windows
It’s a tragic irony that the intersection is busy with people who are there to pick up their children but can’t be trusted to not run over someone else’s children on the way there.
@@obansrinathan i wish i had those
I live in a typical suburban area, right next to a 6-lane stroad. Recently a "jay-walker" (sigh) was killed trying to cross it. What the article failed to mention (which I think was pretty notable) was that the nearest "legal crosswalk" was almost a half mile down the road. Its crazy that the American car-centric takeaway from that was that the pedestrian was crazy/dangerous for trying to cross there, and not this pedestrian would have to add an additional mile to their walk just to go across the street.
Oh make no mistake, in America that's a deliberate mentality facilitated by car manufacturers since way, way back when pedestrians actually used to use streets to walk places. It became clear very early on that pedestrians and cars couldn't really use the same streets at the same time so a deliberate effort was made to introduce the idea of jaywalking and shaming people for doing it.
_Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City_ by Peter Norton discusses this in some detail.
on my campus i have to cross 4 lanes of traffic twice a day. that's 8 lanes of opportunity to get hit by short attention span college student drivers. After having a close encounter I decided to bite the bullet and just take the public transit offered. It isn't great nor ideal, but at least Im not risking my life every day. Not only that, theres always the few drivers that get pissed off when someone tries to cross and either yell at you, cut in front of you as you are walking, or purposefully speed up when they are still halfway down the road as to not wait 10 seconds for me to cross. extremely infuriating
Jay walking is NOT a crime. Obstructing a roadway is. It's technically legal to cross anywhere at any road, as long as vehicles do not need to stop for you. The only alternative is crosswalks which are nowhere.
Half a mile?
Bruh my town has them mear meters away normally around 100 and thats with the ability of using the median half way.
Driver compliance is so bad here that all of my city's school buses now have exterior cameras to catch the drivers who ignore the flashing lights and stop signs. I spent three years as a crossing guard at one of the schools and I can't count how many times I've narrowly avoided being hit by a car going at least 35mph in a 15mph school zone, all while I was wearing a high visibility jacket and carrying my own giant stop sign. Even the kids who only lived a block or two away were terrified to walk to school.
I am a high school student who lives in the USA. I have a part time job that is close enough to walk to from the school, so thats what i do if im working after school that day. The amount of times that i have almost been ran down/hit by a car is frankly insane considering the fact that they have plenty of time to just, stop when they see me in the road. sometimes theyre especially pissed or something and decide to gun it if they see me on the road is kind of disgusting!
How dare you make their car trips 10 seconds slower!
Ughh I sympathize so hard. I walk to work every afternoon and I’ve had so many near hits it’s not even funny. Even had a guy purposely speed up while I was crossing the street once… 😬
very very relatable. i suffer the same thing when walking between classes on my campus here in tx
Use a gun to defend yourself! Obviously I’m joking but when they accelerate toward you that is a sign that they are willing to kill you so just start blasting from the middle of the road!
driver want go vwoom vwoom
This makes sense. I got hit by a lady turning right. I thought she’d seen me but I guess she wasn’t paying attention when she glanced in my direction as I crossed. I had to punch the hood of her car repeatedly because she wasn’t stopping and I was literally being carried away on top of it. As the car moved me further into traffic, I remember wondering if someone was going to have to call my mom and tell her that I died the same way her mother did. I guess in this case I’m not sure I can blame road infrastructure as much as I wish. She was on her phone.
The other time I got hit by a car was a traffic light issue where it was briefly green in all directions. This one gave me trust issues.
That’s absolutely terrifying.
People make mistakes, regardless of the country. One system doesn't deal much with the human nature of making mistakes. The other system just assumes mistakes will be made and is designed in a way to minimize mistake-opportunities. And, when inevitably people make mistakes anyway, it is designed to limit or completely negate consequences of those mistakes. The system isn't perfect, but there where a problem occurs, the design will be reviewed and changed.
Yes, she was stupid enough to be on her phone, but bad road infrastructure set-up the situation where she is forced to properly check her left and ignored her right. Proper infrastructure could have negated her mistake.
Honestly, I hope that women got a prison sentence. There is a massive difference between hitting someone by accident and not stopping when you have someone on the hood of your car. After the first 2 or 3 seconds, it becomes outright attempted murder.
Sorry to hear that. And if you don’t mind me asking, How exactly did your Moms Mother die?
Damn this story has plenty levels of horror
Let's use an analogy. Since cars are polluting and actually kill people, let's say they are smokers. Pedestrians are non-smokers. Imagine a world where smokers can do whatever they want. All restaurants are made to accommodate smokers. But there are non-smokers. For them, special places are created in the corner of the restaurants, so they don't bother the smokers. In the corners, the non-smokers don't have that much smoke to inhale, but there is still enough danger around. Non-smokers are referred to as being crazy, annoying, in the way, etc. If you don't smoke, your boss might tell you that you should pick up smoking, because smokers are more alert and healthy. When examining the issue, a UA-cam channel called Not Just Non-smokers finds out that the smoke-oriented environment was created by rules, implemented to protect the tobacco industry.
BTW I drive myself every now and then, but I also walk and bike if possible.
Another thing the stats don’t tell you - how much drivers harass you as a pedestrian in car centric places. In Las Vegas, as a pedestrian, people would often scream and jeer at me when I was just on the sidewalk minding my business. Once, someone threw a drink at me from their window.
And that’s as a man. It’s orders of magnitude worse for women who are often catcalled on top of that.
These days, living in a more walkable community, I would never walk in a place like Las Vegas.
High speed and 4000lb of armor can embolden all kinds of cowards.
There are only two ways I've been able to think of to make them regret it. One is to record your walks/rides, and in the cases of things being thrown, send the footage to the police. The second... well, the closest-to-legal version would probably be to take a paintball gun to the back of their vehicle as they flee, and then flee yourself. Tit-for-tat, really.
What do you think is the reason for such harassment ? I wonder if they see you walking alone and they are in some secure moving metal vehicle something predatory triggers in their head. Like a dog chasing a squirrel. Or maybe they’re just jerks.
It's a very common problem for joggers to deal with here, like yelling variations of "Run Forest Run" and revving their engines at top volume as they pass you
While riding a bike in Las Vegas in a bike lane I've had a woman driving a car slow down to throw 5 freshly lit cigarettes at me.
Another driver intentionally tried to run me over on main st.
Another teen driver threw a drink bottle at me.
What the fvck? I’ve heard that public transport is looked down upon, but walking?
Wow….
Salt Lake City resident here: there is one particularly egregious hawk crossing that connects the VA hospital to the University of Utah campus. The wait time for the signal to change after pressing the button is so long that most pedestrians just cross when there’s a gap in traffic. Furthermore, there’s a median big enough to stand on, so pedestrians only need to wait for a gap in one direction at a time to make a safe crossing. This frequently results in pedestrians crossing all 6 lanes of traffic before the signal changes and stops all the cars in both directions for a pedestrian that no longer needs the signal. It’s a bad deal for everyone.
This is the real reason drivers don't pay attention to them. And its one of the reason why "compliance" approached are terrible, there will always be driver frustration when the application of the rules aren't clear.
I think at least one person was killed every year crossing one particular road near UNC Charlotte while I attended
Are these “hawk crossings” unique to Salt Lake City? I haven’t seen any outside of Utah. I remember seeing most people cross before the walk signal turned white. On the plus side most drivers seem to obey them, until they stop at empty crosswalks all the time bc the pedestrian already ran across on yellow, and get frustrated / start disobeying the crossings…Yeah they didn’t really think this one through, did they…
@@TimurTripp2 There's at least two in Riverside, California, with one being on a narrow two lane road. We also have at least two Tokyo style pedestrian scrambles, each by a college.
I work at the VA and I have timed it, 5 and half minutes is the longest I've waited. While in 100+ degree weather.
I still remember my first experience with culture shock. I'm Hungarian and learned English as a second language, and terminology related to traffic was often confusing. I had no idea why jaywalking was an issue. Or why right-on-red wasn't a gross disregard for traffic laws. Or why schools in the west had teachers with flags controlling the students at nearby crosswalks. I was literally too European to understand.
In England we don’t have any of these terms either! It’s just North America.
When I was in grade school in the US, the older children manned the crosswalks with flags. Only the students who were not trouble-makers with good grades were selected. I believe it was a way to teach responsibility. Now the teachers do it. We are teaching our kids to be helpless and building inferior infrastructure at the same time. Sigh.
Here in Canada they pay people to be crossing guards, and only when kids are going to / coming from school. Zero infrastructure to slow down cars except for maybe those signs that clock your speed.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o I was on a trip with my class in Edinburgh, we are student teachers from Denmark, and it took quite some convincing the others to just cross at a zebra crossing without waiting for the cars to stop.
Drivers in the UK are a lot nicer than in Denmark.
I think it is because of the narrow streets and parked cars everywhere, which necessitates this friendliness and consern for other people in traffic.
I’m in the US at the moment - and so many roads and stroads are so unpleasant to cross. Spot on about the difference feeling of safety. This new era of NJB deep dives is going to be great.
How does it compare to aus? I've never left and I can see similarities to North America, but I also am comfortable walking to the shops/ half way across town. I have to be cautious, no doubt, but only at particular points.
I'm in the UK and couldn't agree more. You have areas in the centre of the city that are designed pretty, then as soon as you get to the outer circle, it's like drawing a card from a deck. Never know what you'll get when you turn around the corner! I've become obsessed with NJB
So how do you think Australia compares? and we do have one of those 'scramble intersections' in Melbourne right?
It makes our Melbourne feel like it's spoiling you. Walking to the Walmart 1mi from my hotel in Houston was practically impossible without breaking laws.
Hell, I couldn't even visit the consulate without a taxi for all the cops ready to give me a ticket for jaywalking due to the closed footpaths.
Mr. Heck Me; yes. Flinders/Elizabeth.
agree so much
I had to walk to work through Austin, TX yesterday because my bike chain broke. It was a stark reminder of how dangerous it is for pedestrians and I encountered nearly every pitfall you mentioned here. Something that also stuck out not mentioned in your video is how priority is given to construction sites over pedestrian needs.
the construction sites over pedestrian needs is sometimes the case in the netherlands aswell, not always but it can happen here depending on the construction site
I won't go back to Austin lol
European here. I had never heard of such a thing as cars being allowed to turn right on a red light. Some places allow it for bikes, but never cars. It's crazy how ridiculously car-centred North American infrastructure is, probably at the expense of many traffic incidents and deaths per year.
yeah my first time in the usa when i saw it i was like where the cops? then the driver told me they were allowed and i was dumbfound flabbergasted
I'm from Germany and there was a sign that allowed cars to go right on a red light on my Way to school, but it was removed a few years ago
I'm from Slovakia. At some intersections, the cars waiting to make a right turn get a green arrow light at the same time as the pedestrians on their right. The cars turn, then yield to the pedestrians at the crossing. It can lead to incidents if a pedestrian enters the crossing unexpectedly. E.g. someone is seemingly walking past a pedestrian crossing, then decides in that second to cross at the green light and doesn't check for incoming cars, assuming that the cars must have a red light.
I am a die-hard car enthusiast, and your channel is literally the most logical and refreshing education channel I've seen. Everything you cover has made me HATE driving in built-up American areas, and rightfully so.
Cars are great to travel and to people that live in rural/remote areas.
@@mohandasjung exactly I agree with that as much as Not Just Bikes' opinions. For certain situations cars are great, but not great for every location. Unfortunately the U.S. has a history of forcing everyone to use cars, and taking away walking and transit.
I'm a car enthusiast too brother but as an enthusiast I can admit to being car dependent because i'm lazy. It definitely can be done in a cleaner way while you save the car for the occasional long trips.
Removing bad drivers that are forced to drive by providing them with viable alternatives makes roads better for drivers that actually enjoy driving so it's really not that surprising to me that car enthusiasts are actually pretty onboard with promoting other forms of transportation instead of 'just adding one more lane' lol.
Which really is the funny thing. As soon as anyone in North America even mentions bike or pedestrian safety, there's this implicit assumption that it means a "war on cars". It's utterly absurd. Having good cycling and pedestrian infrastructure does not meaning banning all cars in the country.
It is so annoying when you’re a blind person living in America and everyone prioritizes metal death machines that you can’t use over your safety. The amount of times I have been told to watch where I was going and/or been blamed for almost getting hit is astounding!
As proud as I am to be an American, I have to say that I am appalled for our car-infested/dependent infrastructure. You sir, since I started watching you one year ago, have completely re-aligned my views on American public infrastructure and how sub-par it is to the rest of the world. Thanks to you, you gave me inspiration to switch my major from Meteorology to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help make my communities safer in Oklahoma. I'm tired of our car-dependent society. It breaks my heart when I see people on disability scooters driving on narrow and dangerous sidewalks just to run a quick errand. It's injustice for many!! I pray that I can land a job that can help improve the quality of lives for my communities after I graduate. Keep up the great work!
Why are you proud to be an American?
@@ComradeKoopa
Many good reasons to be and many bad reasons to be but that’s not the subject
@@ComradeKoopa Why not? While some may say it's nonsensical to be proud of something you can't control I'd say that being proud of where you're from is probably healthier for your mental health than being ashamed of it. As long as it doesn't cross over into arrogance.
@@ComradeKoopa He grew up in America and loves most of it except for it's car infrastructure?
@@ComradeKoopa who wouldn't be proud of a country with such a rich history of racism and colonialism?
It was like this right in front of my own kid's schools in the midwest, from elementary to high school. Kids even got struck, regularly... it of course wasn't isolated to our local schools either. Regardless, it never mattered much to the local community and likely still doesn't to this day.
It's amazing how many pedestrian deaths that Americans are willing to tolerate. 😥
Those kids should have carried a gun. It’s not safe without.
Hello Immortar
NA is the only place that actively teaches kids to walk out in front of buses - something that will get them killed if it was just a regular bus.
The reason for this is often that there are no crossing nearby the kid's drop-off and just crossing the road is illegal by default.
Then when they grow up and try "real" buses they are like 'fuck this shit' and get a car.
@@fluuufffffy1514 I just want to know why anyone would make either a highspeed road or a school adjacent to each other and think the school zone lights are fine. It's simple math... There's some schools along a 55mph road and I just kinda scratch my head.
A friend of my family I've known my whole life just lost his daughter this week, to complications after both he and she were in a hit-and-run collision while crossing the street earlier this summer, and I can't stop thinking about this now.
I've lost track of how many - shall I say - _negative interactions_ I have had with cars while I was crossing and had the right of way.
(I know, I know, a pedestrian thinking they have any rights in Edmonton, Alberta? How silly of me!)
Five stand out in memory though, for various reasons.
1. The oldest one I remember. I was crossing from the right and got hit by a pickup truck making a right turn on red. I was young and naive and decided that from then on I would not step in front of a car without making eye contact with the driver.
2. Crossing, from right to left, a strip mall exit along a busy stroad. An SUV wants to make a right turn to join the stroad. The driver has their head turned to the left looking for a hole in traffic. Hmm, can't make eye contact, I will cautiously cross, putting myself as close to the stroad traffic as possible to make myself more visibile over the giant hood of the SUV. The driver will see me when they do a quick check before moving. Ha ha no. They started rolling with their head still cranked to the left. The only reason I didn't get hit was because of the extra space I had given them to see me.
3. Crossing in front of a car at a quiet four way stop (two lanes wide, no other traffic at the time, broad daylight). I arrived at corner and stopped, car arrived at stop line and stopped. I, having made eye contact with the driver, step out and start to cross, regularly glancing at the driver (this happened only two blocks from #1). When I was at about the centre of the car, and making eye contact with the driver, they decided to go. **bonk** Just a light tap before they hit the brakes, but the look on their face was complete surprise, like I had just popped up out of the ground. Faith in my "make eye contact" rule begins to erode.
4. Intersection with limited left turn windows for traffic on the westbound axis. The streets are very quiet, almost no cards. I'm crossing eastward on the south side of the intersection so my walk signal is delayed until the west to south left turn lane goes red. Driver in the west to south turn lane decides to make a turn against the red. **screech** Thankfully they had a lot of distance to stop. I give them the universal "WTH?" shrug and the driver shouts "I didn't see you!" before speeding off.
5. Same intersection, crossing in the same way, but during rush hour. There is a large delivery truck in the left northbound lane, but I can see over the hood that the right turn lane is empty. As I am in front of the big truck, over all the other traffic noise I hear to my right an engine roaring and then lifting. There is just enough time for me to process that and check my step when a pickup blasts past me. They were turning right (east) but carrying so much speed they wound up in the westbound left turn lane. If there had been a car there waiting to turn left it would have been a huge head-on collision. If I had been listening to music or something while walking I would not have heard the pickup and would have been absolutely smashed.
I walk with a new rule now: assume every car, seen or unseen, is trying to kill me. There are no good drivers, just some drivers that aren't as dedicated to killing me on that particular day.
Good infrastructure makes good drivers, bad infrastructure makes bad drivers and that's why drivers suck in north America
I never really payed attention to how US is so car-centric. I was a victim of believing that it means I'm free, so called "American freedom". After I found your channel I started to realize more and more on how limited I am when it comes to going anywhere. Car is the only option! At least I started walking to my local gym until I was almost ran over on zebra crossing because driver didn't bother to slow down even a bit. Long story short, your videos made me realize that I don't want to spend my life living in a car and next year I'm moving back to Europe, maybe even Netherlands as I already have friends there! All I can say is thank you :)
@@rangersmith4652 Nah ... it exists for those who can AFFORD IT.
@@rangersmith4652 those with a car are still not free, they are prisoners of their 4 wheeled cell.. At least they have AC to make it a bit less uncomfortable.
Yeah, I'm afraid that this and other channels are promoting the New so much that soon everyone will migrate here.
We do need lots of health care professionals and lots of technicians though, so if you're one of those: please come!
@@rangersmith4652 Safety relative to US pedestrians and bicyclists. Probably in less safety than Dutch drivers.
And you have to pay for the car. And spend your time driving your kids (if any) around. And you're fucked if disabled in a way that you can't drive.
Have a bad night's sleep, so that you're not as safe a driver? Too bad, you're not free to take some other means to work, you have to drive despite sleep deprivation (in most of the US.)
A good friend of mine was killed in Houston after being struck by a drunk driver. He was jay walking because the closest pedestrian bridge would've added a mile to his trip. A year before that my uncle's childhood best friend was killed on her bicycle after being struck by a truck speeding through a slip lane. Crossing the street shouldn't be deadly, but it is.
A better title for this video would be "Why American streets want to kill you".
Oh .my.... Shit. I'm so sorry.
Is death by crossing really that common in the US?
My grandfather was hit by a speeding car last October while he was crossing the road on foot. This was in Mississauga, Canada. He’s been in hospital ever since (yes, for nearly a year) and still can’t walk. He has barely any memory of who we are. I live in the U.K. and it’s been so hard as we can’t even see him regularly. I was a long time follower of NJB well before that, but it was horrible to have the whole thing brought home so suddenly. These deaths and accidents are so preventable.
@@DK-tv6rk Yeah, happens so often it's not news worthy. And if it does make it to the news, the pedestrian will always be the one who is said to be the reckless one in the report.
Had someone actually step on the accelerator as I was crossing in my pedestrian little crosswalk. They saw me, no traffic to speak of. It's not only about how the streets are designed but about the nasty people who drive cars.
Driving has a weird effect on people. We become aggressive. I once was blcked by a bicyclist - briefly - and actually thought about hitting him! Fortunately, sanity returned, leaving me wondering, "WTF was I thinking?!"
Here in the US the drivers are distracted, entitled and poorly educated. There's a whole raft of problems that need to be solved before even considering this infrastructure (in my opinion).
@@garryferrington811 When I drove a car I never wanted to hit anyone. I am not that way. That AH genuinely tried to run me over at the crosswalk.
@@garryferrington811 I'm from the US and I definitely get that kind of aggressive with other drivers sometimes, which is otherwise very out of character for me. After decades of conditioning to believe that cars are the holy grail of transportation, it takes me a lot of effort to keep my head clear and remember that we're all in this car-infested hellhole together, even the many other drivers who still believe in the American Way. I don't think I've ever gotten that way with pedestrians, at least not those complying with the crosswalk system that, thanks to NJB, I now understand is absolutely ridiculous, but I do see how easy it can be to forget about others when there's so much to think about and be aware of just to keep yourself safe while driving.
17:38 is the best moment in any Not Just Bikes video. FREEDOM 🤠
Grutto!
The Party for Freedom has an other bird in their logo though: a seagul.
Good logo. The bird makes a lot of noise and shits on your head.
@@erik5374 The contrast with the Eagle makes the Grutto wonderful though. It gave me a real good laugh. (Also national bird ofcourse)
Seriously. I'm convinced to move to the Netherlands, now: THE TRUE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY!
Fuck yeah!!!
@@erik5374 and steals your street food if you’re not careful. The Grutto on the other hand is “sfeerverhogend”.
I live in Atlanta, GA. I was hit by a car a little over a year ago because the driver was making a right turn and had been looking left to watch for oncoming traffic. And yet here I am, still recovering from injuries from that crash. Not to mention I could have died! It made me hate American road design so much more. So when he mentioned right turns and slip lanes, it really struck a chord.
I'm a driver and I absolutely welcome the dutch model. I always find it hard to remember every yield point and sometimes I blow through them despite efforts. Only after I've passed a crossing without slowing down I suddenly realize what I've done and break a cold sweat imagining what could have happened. If the roads are designed like the dutch example, things would be much easier for me too.
Two "funny" stories on this topic. In my old neighborhood in the southeast U.S., residents were complaining about cars racing through the streets. The city put up more stop signs, and predictably that didn't slow the speed racer down. Then the city installed speed humps similar to the raise crossings in the video, and it was a mixture of bricks and asphalt. That worked great. The neighborhood was safe again.....for a while. After a while, the residents started complaining that the beautiful speed humps were a little too rough to drive over, and they were too bumpy. The city removed the raised speed humps when they repaved and installed rubber speed cushions. They still slowed down the cars, but didn't slow down the wider wheel base vehicles like truck and jeeps, so speeding started to increase again. They were trying to be stingy and not put too many speed cushions in one area because of cost, but because the streets were really wide to allow street parking, they tried to cover too much area with too few speed cushions.
The other "funny" story is this. I work at a college on the outskirts of the nearby town. When it was built, it was surrounded by farmland and a drive-in movie theater. Over time, businesses sprang up across the highway. There are restaurants over there that you could walk to....if you value their delicious food more than your life. The stores and restaurants sprang up in response to the college's expansion and increase in student population here, but there are no crosswalks of any kind to get you there. You have to drive your car literally across the street for lunch, or run across 7 lanes of highway traffic traveling at 50+ mph.
I do find that tragicomic.
We bang on about road design and speed control gadgetry with relatively few words about the factory design of the power train, meticulously perfected to slaughter 100 Americans every day, countless other living things, environmental obliteration and millions in property damage.
"Here's another portable speed bump!"
There was an article I read years ago by an American traffic engineer who said that often they have to make roads worse for people due to Federal design mandates. He gave the example of a tree lined street. As it needs to be rebuilt and they use Federal Funds they have to make the road "safe". That means all the trees have to come out, lest some racer ties his car around one of the trees. The consequence is that now the road appears wider / safer and so cars speed up. People complain and they come back and put in speed limits, that nobody adheres to. Then, maybe later, like in your case, put in some speebumps.
Another kicker: He mentioned the software engineers were using to analyze the design treated pedestrians and cyclists until a few years ago as "traffic obstacles", not as actual traffic. Which then fully explains why so much of the design is human hostile, including half an hour detoures if you want to cross "legally".
@@michaelkalus7802 "traffice obstacles", blimey that says it all doesn't it. Scary.
Holy cow! That'd make me so, so very angry I'd just refuse and I think I'd dare the traffic anyway. I'm the kind of person who's too lazy to start up the car and drive to the nearest larger town so I rather pick up my bicycle if I need some groceries currently sold out in the small local shop in my village and put my legs to use on the less than 3 mile journey there and less than 3 miles back again. What with otherwise needing to open the larger car gate in my fence and pull out of the front yard, then parking in front of the supermarket, it takes about the same time to drive as it takes to cycle there, so... Also, my car battery is not in good shape right now, so I just don't drive unless I know the motor will be running for a while so that the car battery could recharge the energy it lost starting the motor. Helps my fitness quite nicely though, heh.
This is in Europe, obviously.
In my hometown in Germany there was a very large school (we call it "gymnasium" for whatever reason, it's the highest form of school we have. I think it's called secondary school in the US?). Then speed bumps got installed to slow car traffic down. But there was a parking lane right next to the street. So of course drivers just drove over the parking lane to avoid the speed bumps. Then the city installed huge metal bumps on the parking lane to force drivers over the speed bumps.
It's really sad how so many drivers think they are treated unfairly just because they are forced to slow down in front of a school.
Nowadays the situation is even worse. Parents drive their kids to school even over short distances, because it's too dangerous for them to walk because of all the other parents that drive their kids to school.
"Back in my days" (oh gosh, I sound like an old fart now, don't I?) kids that got dropped off by their parents were the minority and sometimes even got ridiculed for that. Because how much cooler is it to just take the bus or cycle to school, together with your friends?
Nowadays it seems to be the other way round. Kids that don't get dropped off by their parents are the weirdos now.
One slightly positive thing I always think in these videos.. is that compared to the cramped streets of london, how EASY it would all be to fix. A few bus lanes, some planters, kerbs, bollards and paint could basically turn most stroads into super functional streets overnight. Might not be as pretty on first pass but a bit like Paris it could be done FAST if there was the willpower.
I mean, it's a bit surprising to me just how fast it was all seemingly implemented in a place like the Netherlands. If they can do it there, we _should_ be able to do it here. It's just a question of political willpower, really.
There are community groups that have performed these changes to roads in their communities, illegally and usually temporarily, just to show how much better it makes things. I can't remember the names of any of the groups, but I think I learned about them through Strong Towns.
I moved from the US to Czechia about a week and a half ago. I've nearly started crying multiple times at how easy it is to cross the street, even on the busiest streets. And this isn't even the best infrastructure around!
On one of my first visits to the United States, I was staying at a hotel by a busy road junction. On the other side of the road was a restaurant and I asked the guy at the hotel desk if he would recommend it. To my amazement he proceeded to give me driving directions as to how to get there. Says it all really.
Recently, I read a study that showed that criminalising "jaywalking", actually has had no effects in reducing deaths on the roads. Rather, it increases them.
As a European, even though my part of Europe is actually car infested...I had NEVER heard of those crossings, especially those with a flag. This is beyond ridiculous. You could give the exercice to children at school and tell them to find the problems, 100% that they would. It's beyond me how they don't realise that they're basically showing just how stupid and stubborn they can be. But well, I don't think it's going to change anytime soon...
It's pretty obvious that the number of deaths increased. When you tell the perpetrators that it isn't their fault, they won't hold back anymore.
At the elementary school I attended, I was taught to cross the street with my hand in front of me in a "stop" symbol and politely wait to be allowed to cross. This was in a town of less than 6000.
well, if your wage depends on you not understanding something, the capacity of human brain to not understand even the most elemental things is simply staggering
Well yeah i pick spots where i can see everyone coming and can time it so i dont die.
There are these big lolly pop signs in New Zealand that children use for schools to let them cross the road. The reason for this is because every parent in the last 15 years decided that walking to school was too difficult for a 5 year old and so has been driving them instead. Making the "school run" the worst time to either walk or drive because of the ridiculous congestion. If I ever have children i will be making them walk or cycle to school because driving a child to school is just ridiculous.
Another thing I'm noticing in these videos is how empty the shown North American roads are. Six lanes of traffic with just two cars on them. Could become just two lanes.
It's funny how you highlight how different countries view different priorities as normal, and then your sponsor segment at the end starts with: "You work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year". To a Dutch person, that is equally as insane as those little $$#% flags.
And believe me, that's a _conservative_ estimate of the average American's work hours. For many, it's far more time. They may also not get the option of retiring anymore, so that count just keeps rising until they die.
I cannot wait to get out of the US, and move to a normal sane country.
@@Bluecho4 It's not a conservative estimate, is what should mean full time, with all those hours paid and the benefits. Sometimes I wonder if the US really have almost no labor laws or if they're just ignored.
At lot of this problem is informed by, and in turn reinforces the car-centric model os US cities. We desire our cars to go fast because we have to physically move so much further for our work, shopping, entertainment, etc. In turn, our work, shopping, and entertainment feel perfectly fine building in the cheaper exterior of our cities because "People can just drive, it's only 20 minutes away". This creates an over-reliance on cars, and at the same time creates a unique vulnerability for us residents to affectively become "stranded" in a city because they don't own a car or know someone that can drive them to where they need to be. Theorhetically, public transit could alleviate that issue somewhat, but we all know how miserable US Public Transit systems are (some city subway systems excluded)
You got cause and effect wrong in your second sentence.
@@steemlenn8797 tapfethen simpley arguments like a car centric person. Not just bikes had a video on cylicing to far away places and how good it is or how to get rid of cars and implement a good public traffic system.
@@steemlenn8797 I handled both directions of the reinforcing cycle. The direction you were expecting is covered in the third sentence.
As a Dutchman, whenever the topic at work or at home is about traffic accidents and safety, people seem completely unaware of how streets here are designed to be safe. Instead they wonder if people involved in crashes maybe weren't careful enough.
With some recent construction projects being pretty terrible for sight-lines and cyclist-safety near where I live, I fear that the people designing these might be forgetting the goals of their predecessors 30 years ago.
Cycling accidents and deaths have been going up. People seem to blame the e-bikes. There's talk about making laws to force people to wear helmets! Yeah, the helmet saved my life, but who knows if I'd ever be able to walk again after an accident that would have otherwise killed me! If car traffic had been forced to slow down, or if the sight lines were better, the accident wouldn't have happened in the first place.
So, I wonder if we might not be regressing back to a more American streetview, where the safety is the responsibility of YOU as the participant, instead of baked into the design
You do mix a few things up.
E-bikes are not blamed, but statistically e-bikes have been involved in most bike related (fatal) accidents. Also, most of the people involved were of a higher age. I can't remember the exact age groups the research was talking about, but it was an over representation of people 55+ (?) on e-bikes involved in these accidents. Those are just statistics and not victim blaming.
They are now looking if perhaps riders on e-bikes should wear helmets for their own safety.
I moved to Toronto from the UK just over 7 years ago, and this video perfectly encapsulates my frustrations with being a pedestrian here. Barely a day goes by where I don't encounter a driver going through a pedestrian crossing when it's my right of way. I swear some drivers wait for the pedestrian light to come on and start turning right at the moment. I cannot understand why they don't at least ban right turns on red in busy cities, like they have in Montreal. It won't solve the stupid road design but it will at least help.
Banning it only locally would still be unsafe I think, for lack of consistency. A pedestrian could be crossing counting on being safe while a non-local driver wouldn’t realize the local ban and 💥. Just have a blanket ban so everyone knows the rules.
@@AndreSomers There's some progress being made. There's some intersections at the busiest streets (I wanna say somewhere along Yonge at least?) where 'right on red' is no longer allowed. Change is happening, it just seems to be glacially slow.
We should do both - ban right on red and have continuous sidewalks through intersections so that drivers really think before cutting us off.
One of the issues in Toronto (and probably other places) is that neither the cars nor the pedestrians cooperate by following the rules that are meant to get everyone where they're going. There are numerous intersections in Toronto where turning right would be nearly impossible if drivers weren't allowed to turn on reds, because streams of pedestrians insist on crossing the street even while the traffic light is yellow. Meanwhile, if they aren't just carelessly careening through the crowds of pedestrians who need to dive out of the way or get hit, the cars are dick-moving across the zebra stripes so that they're ready to make their turn as soon as there's an opening, and it blocks pedestrians from crossing the other way.
Outside of "everybody just get along" though, I don't know what a realistic solution is without completely revamping the infrastructure, which could take a century in a city like Toronto.
I'm surprised that NJB barely mentions Montreal given the fact that it's considered one of North America's leading cities for public transit and walkable infrastructure. It definitely outclasses all other Canadian cities in that department so I'm confused as to why it's rarely mentioned.
Something that wasn't mentioned about slowing cars down, it also REQUIRES people to follow the speed limit. Since cops don't really enforce it too much, it's more of a suggestion than a requirement. So even if the speed limit was lowered in respect to pedestrian safety, without enforcement, it probably wouldn't have as much of an effect as it should.
The perverse disincentive is that then localities can’t make money through tickets/fine revenue. Which, I guess is a
byproduct of living in such a tax-allergic country.
They are too busy trying to bust non criminals
Cops stopped chasing speeders in my city decades ago, and on the rare occasion they do, it usually ends with the perp or a cop in somebody's living room.
Rozzers here in the UK don't even get around to it.
Them having few numbers and budget cuts doesn't help and here in county durham they spend most of their time busting druggies.
In Europe (at least in my country) traffic speed and laws are enforced using speed cameras and red light cameras, a lot of speed bumps and roundabouts also do the trick. Police is used for more important matters.
I remember your recent post about more sponsorships for the channel. I think it was worth it. This video is impressive, and the footage is beautiful. Unlike any other channel of this type
Thanks!
Spot on as usual. Part of the problem with North America is at the next scale up. And I don’t know how we solve that problem. I love living in a neighborhood (in Paris) where I can pop out and in 5-10 minutes have my hands on nearly anything. I also like to imagine that if people knew such lifestyles exist, they would choose it in a heartbeat. But… propaganda? Fear? Laziness?
@@100c0c he means that some people never experienced density, ao they wouldn't know if they like it.
Car go vroom, I hate my neighbors. I like when my car go vroom, but hate other cars go vroom, so must live far from city where cars make it noisy. Why would anyone live down town??? TOO LOUD. TOO STINKY. SUBURB QUIET SANITIZED GHOST TOWN. WALLS KEEP IMMIGRANTS OUT.
It's so hard when you've only known one thing your entire life. When Walt Disney first designed Epcot, he wanted it to be a driverless city like in his youth because he was old enough to remember the benefits of not having death machines everywhere. Whereas today, the only people in North America who know what a livable city looks like, need to have experienced it abroad, and the older people in power have only ever really known one thing. All of the old grumpy mayoral candidates in my area just want to put signs with lower speed limits. It's so lazy, and it just annoys drivers without making anything safer.
@@100c0c some people don't like being isolated in the suburbs. Stop trying to otherize legitimate preferences
Most Americans cannot understand that style of living because it simply involves too many changes. How will I ever wipe my ass if I can't get the cheapest deal on toilet paper with a 10,000 pack from Costco that I haul home in my SUV and store in my mega-pantry? Over-consumption of one type breeds over-consumption of every type.
I am LIVID to see that not crossing after the flashing timer has started is actually being ENFORCED in some cities!??? As if it wasn't hard enough to just exist and walk around in the city already! Humans are only allowed if they're in a car, some places, I swear.
@@MrBirdnose no they still do. They just have to wait longer. If that upsets you, consider all the pedestrians that wait for your turns because you didn’t want to wait.
Hell, want to be more livid? Look up the salary for law enforcement officers (which would presumably be the individuals enforcing it). That isn't just screwing over pedestrians--it's also a profound waste of money.
@@MrBirdnose I incorrectly assumed your first comment was sarcastic. I apologize for thinking the best of you.
@@MrBirdnose then there’s a problem with the overall system, not with the pedestrians.
@@MrBirdnose the solution shouldn’t be pedestrians have a 3 second window to start crossing otherwise they’re waiting for another 3 minutes.
I just got ran over by a car a couple days ago while crossing the street on my bike. It was an intersection with no traffic lights, I was on the bike lane and the driver didn't look both ways before crossing. In my 6 years cycling I never had such a serious incident. Fortunately I had only minor injuries and my bike could be repaired, but I understood that day how fragile the human body is. We definitely need more protection against cars.
On my first bike tour of the Netherlands, I didn’t understand the priority of bikes and pedestrians so I stopped in a roundabout to wait for cars to go, and was so stunned that everyone waited for me that I forgot to unclip my foot and fell over on my loaded bike, much to the amusement of all the drivers!
And it is still better to be safe then sorry, even when you make a fool of yourself. 😉
It beats getting hit by a car I suppose
Whenever id visit my friend in Den Haag, she would never understand why I am so terrified at how she crossed roads effortlessly and carefree. She laughs when I question whether or not we are Jaywalking. It’s like a completely different world over there compared to Florida #1 pedestrian death meat grinder
This totally explains why I developed a situational depression when I lived in Kingston Canada for a couple of months. I hated walking (or biking) anywhere there. I felt so unsafe going to university or the store, so I rather stayed at home and quickly became so inactive that my mental health collapsed, unfortunate.
I was walking across the 7 lane stroad near my apartment in Dallas yesterday and was just thinking that it might be interesting to film me walking across it to show non-Americans what living in a car-dependent city is like. Thanks for making this video because now I don't have to do it! 😊 Very good analysis!
24:52 I had a lot of "You've gotta be kidding me" moments in this video, but this legit had me thinking "this has to be satire/fake, right?".
Imagine living in a country that can't design infrastructure for anything other than 4+ wheel vehicles, so you have to tell people to hold orange flags to be safe in your city.
I don't see anything wrong with that. There is a similar system in Japan that is designed to give schoolchildren greater visibility when they cross certain streets.
I say that phrase in spirit every time I cross an intersection here that I need to cross ~4 times a day.
@@mikenekosama4426 Doesn't Japan do it out of safety, rather than necessity?
As a small child cycling in the Netherlands a while ago, I had to have a small flag pole on the back of my bike that was maybe 1.5m high with a little orange flag on it. This was to make sure that when crossing the road, that drivers would be able to see. They used to be a lot more common place but I don't see them anymore really.
So yeah, the flags for visibility do work, just not how the US does it for grown adults
@@mikenekosama4426 No, sorry, but no. When you have to implement something like that then you know your engineering is wrong beyond imagination. If zebra crossings are not 'pedestrian safe zones' by law and engraved as such in drivers brain from first driving lesson, why paint those damn things on the road in the first place? If a traffic light telling you to stop, or at least to pay attention to crossing pedestrians isn't enough, do you truly believe that holding a flag or wearing high visibility jackets will change anything? Why not make them blow in horns or clang cymbals while you are at stupid ideas? This is a sign of miserable failure in design, education, and art of living together in a civilized way.
Now don't get me wrong. Maybe it is a good idea to have kids wear high visibility clothing, but it shouldn't be mandatory. It should be something that increases an already high standard of security, not a minimum to have a chance to celebrate your 16th birthday.
19:17 wtf. I've never seen a signal-less crossing on a road like that before. That is so f-ing dangerous. You can even see the confusion permeate among the cars "This was a crossing?!" If planners needed even clearer evidence of poor design, a car turned on its hazard lights at the sight of a pedestrian.
In my country, Ireland, Motodrom still rules, though we’re not quite at the same levels of batshit-craziness as seems common in North America. Those responsible for road safety, however, the RSA(Road Safety Authority), would have a similar approach to their North American cousins, in that responsibility is largely placed on pedestrians and cyclists to make themselves visible. The answer to everything is to wear hi-vis clothing, day or night, everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Another brilliant video, by the way. Maith thú, Justin.
Yeah, Ireland is still remarkably car-centric, especially by European standards, which is a shame. Some of the city centres can be very nice, but there really needs to be an increase focus on alternatives to driving.
I'm from Germany and remember being so amused to see groups of little children out on a day trip all wearing tiny little high vis jackets. I thought it must have been out of an abundance of caution but sadly quickly realized it's because there is very little safe infrastructure for them. Cars going 50km through city center with teeny tiny sidewalks? It's a deathtrap! Germany is not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot safer and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone wearing high-vis clothing for a regular stroll or a leisurely cycle around the neighborhood!
@@NotJustBikes A video on Ireland could be great! Such a small country with so much potential! Similar weather to the Netherlands, but sadly an example of what happens when you've been brainwashed by north American car centric thinking.
Train networks eroded and removed. Very little pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, especially outside of cities... But some wonderful activists and cycling groups that are trying to change things! I'm sure they'd be the most wonderful hosts if you asked them! I know of some people even arranging for local councilors to go on a trip to the Netherlands in order to get them more passionate about changing the car centric nature of many irish cities!
I just went to Dublin. The streets were filled with cars, fences and double-decker-buses. There were a lot of delivery-cyclists, it looked very dangerous for them and also for all the cyclist overall. I think there is indeed a lot of potential; because a lot of people walk in and around the city center.
You should propose the orange flag thing ;)
American traffic engineers _literally_ do be like
"Am I so out of touch?"
"...No, it's the pedestrians who are wrong."
How likely are people who can afford that kind of education to regularly participate in traffic as a pedestrian?
"Are we the baddies?"
A remarkably dank description of the situation
No, I'M OUT OF TIME
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd It's not Thursday.
I used to be a crossing guard way back when I was in elementary school. Looking back, it's kind of ridiculous that even with narrow lanes, 30km/h speed limit, and raised crosswalks, we still needed to wave big red stop signs in front of drivers to prevent them from killing children. And my school was on a quiet residential street, not a wide stroad.
5:27 HOLY SHIT YES. I was in New Jersey the other day and wanted to walk to a nearby strip mall to get food. The direct path to get to the mall should have taken 5 minutes walking, but there was a 6 lane stroad in the way with no crosswalks for half a mile in each direction. So a 5 minute walk became a 45 minute walk when taking the "fastest" path, and that route didn't even have sidewalks for long stretches meanining I was vulnerable to cars driving 45+ mph.
I used to live in Cape Cod, and even though the whole peninsula is a tourist destination, there are still tons of areas that are simply unwalkable. To get to the closest grocery store, I had to sprint across a busy 4 lane stroad since there were no crosswalks in any direction. Sometimes I had to wait over 10 minutes just to find a large enough break in traffic that I could get across safely.
Not sure if this is what you're referring to, but MA Route 6 is crazy bananas. They throw some painted bike gutters and a HAWK somewhere along the line to try and make it the peaceful region it should be, and I suppose they somewhat succeed, but they need to make more leads from Provincetown. Now there's a traffic calmed, wonderful place to frolic and be gay, if I may be a bit cheeky and still respectful. Love that place.
It's amazing how New Jersey has some of the best places to walk in the US and also some of the absolute worst, like worse than Phoenix or Las Vegas. I walked from my hotel in Mount Laurel, NJ to the nearest Wawa and the roads near the hotels had no sidewalks at all, there were missing crosswalks all along the way, and I just basically had the feeling that I could be run over at any moment.
In Serbia, if there is no crosswalk in 50m, you are allowed to cross the street anywhere.
That's a day to day thing for me. It's scary out there!
I live on US-19 which is aka one of the most dangerous highways in the USA, and crossing it is terrifying. The worst part is how a lot of the crosswalks don't have lights or buttons. So you have to just wait and run across 6 lanes of traffic. If you have to just wait and run then that means the crosswalk is pointless!
When I first heard about jaywalking I assumed it must be walking under the influence of something, which already didn't make much sense to me. Imagine my surprise when I found out what it actually was
I died when I saw these flags. That's hilarious! They should've added mandatory scream while crossing "PLEASE don't kill me!"
Excellent video as always. In the UK we have a tonne of two-stage crossings where you have to cross one stream, go round some fences (which don't protect you in a crash, they're just there to control where you go) and push the button again and wait. It's really frustrating that they deliberately don't have the two crossings at the same place, they make you move at 90 degrees to minimise the "risk" you'll just keep going straight through.
A big problem here is that the wait times are sometimes so long that no one waits, becuase no one has an extra 5 mins to waist trying to get 6 meters further ahead. This means people end up judging for themselves when to cross which increases conflict points and crash risk. Its so bizarre to think that if they sped up the timings people would be far more willing to wait; they've engineered impatience where people would otherwise be happy to wait.
Lastly I get the need for a wait time between pedestrian walk lights, but the fact they make you wait a set time after the button push just seems like a delibarete disincentive to walk. Like, the signal hasn't been on for 20 mins, what does that extra 2 mins give you? Why is a hypothetical driver 1 mile down the road more important than my imediate desire to cross?
I mean atleast those fences are metal instead of plastic.
So they atleast damage the car to the point it's a write off when it kills ya.
Yeah I lived in the UK for six years and I would get stuck on those little crossing islands between the fences pretty often. It was miserable, especially along busy roads in London like Euston Road.
As for the beg button timings, North American traffic engineering is obsessed with Level of Service, and long light times works against keeping the flow of traffic up. So they love it when there are no pedestrians present, because the light timing needs to be longer for the slowest possible pedestrian to cross the intersection. If there are no pedestrians "detected" then they can get away with shorter light timings.
The whole this is asinine though, as it's only this bad because their traffic control systems are so dumb. But also their hyper fixation on moving as many cars as possible actually makes it worse for everyone; even drivers.
To the point where you press the button. Cross. Get half way down the road then the light goes green. And the cars are stopped with no one crossing.
Just make every possible beg button an instant one. Or instant unless it was hit in the last minute or something.
No wait. Just get some flags .....
Huh, so that's why the weird little kink in the middle of the path? I've been wondering for years about that. Makes sense.
Used to make me think of Half Life. The first game in the series had a subtle signal for a level transition: The path would take a right turn, then a left turn. Ideally the player doesn't consciously notice it, but after a few levels picks up on the pattern so they are not surprised by the level loading pause.
@@NotJustBikes I live in Phoenix, AZ, USA; recently sold my car (although my wife still has one, because it is required in this type of town) and take public transportation (tiny circuit one line lightrail that still has to wait at many traffic signals) because... I'm trying to be better..? I feel like driving here brings out the worst in people. I was finding I was mad all the time, and drivers are so rude, and terrifying now that they are all on their stupid phones! Please put down your phone when driving! It is scary to drive and utterly terrifying to walk. BTW you got laughs with: "physics works better than signals", and "freedom", and "Canadians are so friendly". :^)
As an Californian, I remember being in Amsterdam back in July and having a hard time trusting the cross signals because I’m so used to people running lights and driving in the wrong direction where I’m from…
Light signals are accidentally designed to cause accidents. They often stay green until they see oncoming traffic, which turns yellow right as they approach the light. If they run a red, guaranteed accident, if they try to run the yellow, it's encouraging unsafe speeds.
If you think that's bad then try Texas
@@kittykittybangbang9367 literally nothing is worse than texas drivers
By wrong directions, Do you mean driving illegaly on the wrong lane or the shift from right lane drive to left lane drive from US to Europe
@@dibbadyda1728 I am guessing he is referring to people actually driving in the wrong direction. I believe the only place where they still drive on the left side of the road in Europe is the UK. The rest of us drives on the right side like most of the world. :)
re: pedestrian bridges
I found that in Japan, while there are also bridges with giant ramps that are a huge pain, there are also some raised pedestrian areas that are fantastic.
I've been to several shopping districts in Tokyo and Sendai that have all of the buildings in the area connected at the second or third floor level by extensive elevated pedestrian walkways and bridges. They are super nice! They allow complete separation of pedestrian and car traffic without inconveniencing either one thanks to lots of escalators and elevators and direct access to all of the places pedestrians want to go without sending them back down to ground level.
I'd even say I prefer these raised areas, since they are often brighter (built with brighter colored materials than asphalt and closer to the tops of the buildings) and cleaner (there were actual cleaning services for them, and the elevation means water runoff can be easily used to help clean as well) than street level, and partially shielded from vehicle noise by the structures themselves and the greenery that is usually also planted on them. One of these areas even had food carts operating in the middle, right over the center of the street below.
Each of these (that I've found at least) is also connected directly to a train station, so you exit the station directly onto the raised pedestrian area, and can walk directly to any of the nearby buildings while all the bus, taxi, and car traffic for the station moves along below you.
24:00 In my life, I've only seen one pedestrian overpass that was actually good. It connected my university to the university dorms which were across a 6 lane stroad. The dorms were at a higher elevation than the stroad, and a hill on the other side had been made so that there was no need to build stairs or a ramp on either side of the overpass. It connected students with where they lived with a way to safely walk or bike to their classes. Unsurprisingly, it got A LOT of use.
The fact that there was a six-lane stroad right next to a dorm though is so dangerous. I'm glad you had the overpass!
Going up and down for a pedestrian overpass may not be ideal, but it still beats waiting 3 minutes for a walk signal to cross a giant stroad, filled with turning cars.
My university has a pedestrian bridge connecting buildings on the east side of the busy highway with the rest of the campus to the west. It’s used constantly, and is reasonably well designed, even though it’s not perfect. It connects a large dorm and educational building to the rest of the campus. It’s built with the option to use either stairs or a ramp to get to the bridge. It’s actually the safest and most convenient way to cross the street in that area.
I know it is not the "Stroad Overpass" but i really enjoy the overpasses they built for the road they built to circumnavigate the next village over. One is a little raised. But it is just 1m more than the original ground and it doesn't add any length to the path.
And overpasses over the highway are great as well. But that is a different topic.
We have grade-separated pedestrian crossings here in the Netherlands as well (though usually they have both bike lanes and a sidewalk on them), but very few are overpasses, because overpasses are much more inconvenient for those using them than underpasses, primarily due to the required height difference.
An overpass needs to allow for full clearance for the tallest vehicles allowed on the road (which would be 4m here in NL), plus a fairly significant margin, plus the thickness of the overpass structure, which means it's likely to be at least 5m above the height of the road. Underpasses meanwhile only need to allow for the height of pedestrians and cyclists plus the road deck, so they can be as shallow as 3m to 3.5m. That's without even mentioning that underpasses also blend seamlessly into the terrain, while overpasses inevitably become a visual feature in the road that either becomes an eyesore, or requires a more expensive custom design to make it visually appealing.
as an american, watching this channel honestly makes me feel like i was born in the wrong country. no wonder i never wanna go outside! it's a fucking wasteland out there!
incredible video as always!
- june
Same, I used to think it was because of my allergies, the hot and humid weather, and the fact that was barely any other kids in my neighborhood growing up was the reason why I never really liked going outside and I was more of an indoors person; but thanks to this channel I can now see the real reason, car dependent infrastructure.
As an American too and a New Yorker, there is crazy variance in ped safety across this country.
@@kittykittybangbang9367 exactly! i think i definitely would've gone outside a lot more as a kid, if the outside were actually hospitable to anyone outside of a car.
cute nepeta profile pic, by the way!
if america's a wasteland to you then just wait till you see where i'm living in (north africa)
You have a Dutch surname, so.. you're always welcome to come back! 😄
As an european from a country where jaywalking is normal, the term "jaywalking" always sounded strange to me? Who is Jay, and why would he be the only one walking.
Thank you for clearing that up!
It certainly make a lot of sense that such a strange term would have it's origin in propaganda.
If I'm ever in the USA and a cop is accusing me of jaywalking I will make sure to enlighten him about the fact that he has in deed been fooled by the automobile industry and needs to rid his way of thinking of the concept of JAYWALKING!
I am sure, that doing so, will be met with the utmost appreciation from those, that protect and serve the people of this wonderous nation that is the United States of America. 👮🇺🇸
I work for a multidiscipline engineering firm in Ontario. I am involved in transportation and signalization projects. I am not a transportation engineer and am often ignored because if this. I am a European immigrant.
Everything in this video is 100% true, and i have such a hard time getting some of these ideas into the heads of my superiors and transportation engineer colleagues to consider ANY of this!
There is some progress at a higher level. The Ontario Traffic Council is about to be addressed by Charles Mahron from Strongtowns for example.
The City of Barrie is doing better than most, but even they are undertaking expensive projects to widen collector stroads. The City of Ottawa has a great dutch influenced cycling design standard.
However, my own town (a hub for outdoor enthusiasts and cycling in particular), is frustratingly backwards. A recent "complete street' proposal was rejected because of negative feedback from drivers. The project is going ahead...as a simple road repaving and PAINTING SHARROWS!!! 🤦🏼♂️
Sadly Ottawa's cycle design standard isn't really Dutch at all; it just sort of superficially looks Dutch.
Ottawa's cycle tracks are elevated to sidewalk level, unlike Dutch cycle tracks, and since Canadian sidewalks are higher than Dutch ones anyway, this puts you 6" (1½ dm) above the road. It's actually kind of unsettling as there is this edge you (or your kid) could drop off into the street. And why might you be worried about this possibility? Well because it's at sidewalk level right next to the sidewalk, pedestrians treat it as - shocker - part of the sidewalk. So you can end up having to dodge around pedestrians walking 3 or 4 abreast while passing them inches from the curb top.
That's bad enough, but of course to get you up to sidewalk level Ottawa has got ramps at cross streets. And for reasons known only unto themselves, rather than have a smooth paved ramp come up from the street, Ottawa instead forces you to cross a dropped curb before getting to the ramp. Since Ottawa has a climate with a severe freeze-thaw cycle, the upshot is that even if the installed dropped curb was completely flush to the asphalt either side of it when built, after a single winter it won't be - it'll be a bump. And few of them are flush as installed anyway. As there is a ramp on the upside, there is also a ramp down on the downside, which means if you need to stop you'll be doing so on a downslope. And you'll have to stay stopped on the downslope... without the benefit of a curb to rest either of your feet on.
On top of all this, these ramps also tend to have a cross slope as well, which is not too bad if you're going straight ahead but if you are turning onto or off of the cycle track at a cross street you have to be aware to take care, especially in slick conditions, lest your bike slip out from under you. So the experience of cycling along Ottawa's cycle tracks is to be mildly anxious about not riding off the edge while repeating a down-bump-bump-up pattern at every cross street the entire time.
And they've bodged the roundabouts, too. In addition to all the above, at roundabouts Ottawa's cycle tracks don't follow a circular path around the roundabout. It's hard to describe exactly but in Dutch roundabouts you're diverted off to the side at a gentle angle to join the circular track around the roundabout and so when you come to cross a traffic lane you're naturally doing so at a roughly perpendicular angle. But in Ottawa the path more closely hugs the road, so you first make a moderately sharp right hand turn before you hit the roundabout, then sort of follow the roundabout around but on a straight path. This is so-so and if you're turning right at the first crossing it's not too too bad but where it's especially bad is if you're going straight/left as when you get to the crossing point of a traffic lane you have to make a sharp, last minute, near right angle turn to the left into traffic that hitherto you haven't seen because it's behind you out of sight rather than beside you. Oh, and of course it's a downslope too, because the path is at curb top height, not road level height.
So no, don't copy Ottawa. Don't. We don't know what we're doing and we're going to have bad, superficially Dutch-looking cycling infrastructure littering the landscape for decades now before it gets fixed.
How bad it is, is it like they laugh you out of the table for bringing up making the cities more pedestrian friendly?
Here in the Netherlands the road is designed and that is how it is going to be build. Point. And it is better for everybody.
@@rsj2877 they're too professional to laugh, but they always have an excuse as to why my suggestions are not implementable. The "complete street" project, for example. My company produced the report and the lead designer thought it was silly before the pilot project even happened. Then the pilot project was so bad it felt like it was designed to fail.
@@davidjames4915 this is interesting to me. I have been in conferences with some of those involved in writing the standard (along with book 18). I am familiar with book 18 - which has all the concessions you would expect of a north american cycle standard- but only know the Ottawa standard through positive coverage on channels similar to this one.
It sounds like the planners and engineers involved talk a good talk but don't fully understand the concepts (maybe myself included) and/or the municipalities still don't really appreciate it
This was an awesome video as always - truly magnificent!!
Thanks, Reece! 👍
This 30 minute video was only 10 minutes old when you posted so either you're a patron or you watch it at 2.5x speed 😜
Reece is on Nebula (and also has a viewing account there):
nebula.tv/rmtransit
This video was released to Nebula on Friday.
Video topic idea: I live on the street with the highest number of accidents of any street in the Netherlands: de Amsterdamsestraatweg. It's awefully designed and literally has "stroad" (straatweg) in its name. They're gonna redo it soon and are asking the public for ideas and feedback. They already have a first draft but I'm not convinced this will solve the many problems it has. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I'm confident your video would actually influence the results. How cool would that be!
What also helps to make traffic saver in the Netherlands is that in case of an accident with a pedestrian or cyclist involved, the driver of a car is pretty much always the one considered at fault for insurance purposes. Only on roads and highways where pedestrians and cyclists aren't allowed, so a driver wouldn't expect them to be there, would the driver win the insurance claim.
So since the driver is pretty much always the one that'll need to pay up, it's a good added incentive to make sure drivers are careful of non-car traffic.
Yeah that really follows his, don't blame the pedestrian for not being visible, blame the cars for driving too fast or not paying enough attention
My only concern there is that, although potentially an urban legend, there's already a concern that people will deliberately try to jump out into traffic and get hit so they can sue. No amount of safe driving is gauranteed to stop you from hitting someone who wants to get hit although you can greatly reduce the risk.
@@jazzfan1994 the driver being at fault is not a hard rule, it's just the starting position. So, if a person jumps out in front of a car, it doesn't actually apply.
@@jasper265 That makes sense
@@jazzfan1994 Suing culture isn't really a thing here. Even if the driver was mistakingly found guilty, the 'victim' would at most receive a few thousand euros compensation. So there's no real incentive to do such thing.
I think it's very important to have this type of discussion and criticism when it comes to pedestrian infrastructure. I've noticed now that a lot of people my age are starting to wake up and protest for better infrastructure. The Bike Protest at High Park was gigantic. As much as I love The Netherlands, I want to stay in Toronto and fight for safe and complete streets.
Thanks again for the video, Jason. People are finally waking up.
I lived in the US for several years before moving back to the UK. And the difference in road crossing was like night and day.
In the UK, things are by no means perfect. But even on busy roads I don't feel like I'm about to get hit.
In the US I had multiple occasions where I nearly got hit trying to cross a road. Typically (but not always) by a vehicle turning right on red (including nearly once by a police vehicle). But people stopping in the middle of the crossing was a constant, occasionally forcing you into traffic to get around them. Before moving there, I used to walked almost everywhere. By the time I left, I barely walked anywhere as it was simply too dangerous. And my health notably suffered as a result.
"... so they have to scurry across the street like animals"
Can we just take a moment to appreciate what our infrastructure actually does to (non-human) animals and think about whether that's okay?
I imagine a video comparing different approaches on this topic might be worthwile, too.
Just look at how happy the dog is to cross the street at 19:25, and you have your answer
From someone who's helping with a study on roadkill numbers in the Netherlands, I doubt that it's much better here than it is stateside. We just have so few wild mammals in most areas that it's 99% birds getting hit. Looking at videos of stroads and streets in the USA I also don't see nearly as much wildlife habitat as there is on the side of roads here. And our highways are littered with pancaked birds. Those are a lot harder to see than a deer or a raccoon.
Since green areas are small and scattered across the Netherlands, one way of connecting them is by building "green crossings".
We build bridges for wild life, with fences on roads to either side to herd crossing animals across the bridge, rather than crossing the road.
One of the arguments in the UK against going fully metric and sticking to miles in lieu of kilometres is the cost of changing all the speed limit signs. I suggested that the signs really didn't need to be changed... they could just make the city streets with a 30mph limit into safer streets with a 30kph limit. We are now starting to see more streets with a 20mph limit which is an improvement, but unfortunately nothing is being done to the infrastructure to "force" a slow down.
Don't forget the cost of getting cars converted to kmh. I know having to read that tiny inner circle on the Speedo will cause a few accidents if it ever happens
@@josephpbrown stickers do exist for things like that. My car also has the option to show the speed digitally and the units can of course be changed.
@@AndreSomers Fair enough.
Here in East London the 20mph thing is in full swing, our whole Borough is now 20mph, it's taken a while but cars are generally starting to get used to it, and because the roads are all single lanes it doesn't take many people obeying to get everyone down to that speed. But I think they were right that they had to do the whole place, just doing a street would be ignored.
Then again, I’ve been seeing more and more raised crossings, road narrowing, cycle lanes and so on, so I don’t think it’s that there’s nothing happening, it’s just all a bit haphazard and ad hoc.
I live in the US southwest and notice that when two major stroads intersect, the chaotic turning movements make it feel so unsafe to cross that people prefer to cross mid-block. It feels safer and more predictable to face a threat only coming from one direction. Unfortunately, drivers speed like maniacs mid-block and if someone is killed, the police will call it "pedestrian error" if they get hit outside of a crosswalk.
On my walk home from work one day I saw a woman in the distance trying to cross Notre-Dame in Montreal. She was at a theoretical pedestrian crossing but not one driver stopped. I walked about 200 metres as she waited, arrived at the crossing on my side of the road, walked to the middle, and told her to cross. While I stood in the middle of the road all cars stopped. When she had safely crossed I went back and continued my walk home. The difference between us is she was about 5'2" with a small body size. I'm 6'2", 245lbs with a shaved head. Drivers, whether I'm walking or cycling, give me the right of way and never beep their horns at me. Physical size is yet another way women get less respect while out and about in society. This is why we need to follow Netherlands' lead rather than the US.
Thank you both for recognising this and doing what you did. You’re so right. Part of the problem is that for so long, urban planning has been centred around the mythical ‘average’ person, a 30-something able-bodied commuting male, with everyone else left underserved.
One thing you missed, in Utrecht and some other cities you can install an app on your phone that detects whether you are cycling, and than uses your GPS location to automatically set traffic lights to green. This way you don't even need to press the beg button, the timer just automatically starts and often you can pass straight through. I absolutely love it. But brilliant video nonetheless mate
thats absolutely fantastic!
Mwa, I prefer solutions without apps and tephones. Utrecht really knows enough about you already.
@@brammm2983 of course you can move around easily without that app, the are positive things that NJB said in the video are applied here too. And the app is not compulsory, so if you don't want to use them you just don't use it. Simple as that.
As someone who's lived in the USA, and now lives in Germany, i had a greater culture Schock going from Germany to Netherlands then the USA to Germany, its insane how much more advanced the Netherlands is then the rest of the western world. Can't wait to move there
It does have to be said that Germany has arguably the most car-centric infrastructure in Western Europe. It's better than the US, for sure, and their public transport is orders of magnitude better, but they still heavily prioritise cars, with cycling lanes (where they even exist) and sidewalks going out of their way not to inconvenience cars almost to the same extent as in the US.
Where in Germany? Some places are similar to the Netherlands.
Do you have a job that allows you work from just anywhere?
@@Fragenzeichenplatte he probably got lucky with his career path
@@Fragenzeichenplatte from Baveria, I've traveled and noticed more northern Germany is somewhat similar, but even then the people are so much different
@@MinehowTech Bavaria, I see. They do have a conservative leadership.
People are really not that different. People from Germany and Korea are different.
I don't think I've ever been this excited for an urban planning video. It's awesome that you put so much effort into these kinds of videos instead of making them as fast as you can
Okay, the flags did it for me (and judging from your swearing for you as well). Who thought that that was the solution to traffic safety for pedestrians? That feels like you are downgraded to a toddler and is super demeaning, not even talking about how you are supposed to hold a flag visibly with your hands in use (e.g. pushing a stroller or carrying groceries).
Thanks to your channel I've started to comprehend how sad the US and Canada are for kids growing up in suburbs. I think that miserable time of not being able to go anywhere without a car short of your immediate neighbors for the first 18 years of your life has deep psychological and behavioral impacts as well. I wonder if that could be a topic for a future video.
My neighborhood has tons of crosswalks with flags. During the daytime, they feel ridiculous, and I generally don't use them. But, when crossing after dark, I'll take all the visibility I can get.
pretty sure he already did that video, and there's another youtuber who's done a solid deep dive on it who's name I don't remember.
The crosswalk with flags has a potential, but it should be drivers who stop, take a flag and walk through pulling their car, then leave the flag on the other side.
@@autumnramble 🤣
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws. Lol bring back the Red Flag laws ... for automobiles :}
The right turn on red rule seems like it would make walking quite scary! Thankfully we don't have that where I live in Australia. We are also building lots of new raised crossings, refuge islands and pedestrian lights on busy roads. There is a rule in my state similar to what the Netherlands had where you have to be 20 metres away from a crossing to cross mid-block on a road.
To me, it's utter madness, drivers like it of course and they are in the majority. Make walking a difficult and miserable experience and then there are not large numbers of pedestrians to worry about.
We actually do have some left turn on red in some places in Sydney, though I've never seen anyone manage to run a red light doing it.
Ofc cuz drivers don't obey pedestrian lights and keep on going if they plan on turning right
I didn't realize this rule was this exclusive. I assumed all other countries had right on reds
Your videos have made me plan a trip to the Netherlands in October mostly JUST to see what all the hype is about with the infrastructure. Obviously, there's more to it, but everything I more or less planned around checking out the infrastructure and urbanism. Love your videos; Thank you for the insight!
Hell yeah! It's awesome here! If you want a tour of Delft I'd love to give you one 💪
Just make sure you know how to bike, and you know where to rent one, because otherwise you won't get the True Dutch Experience™
Also dont wear a helmet on the bike, or you cant get the authentic Dutch experience!
I once checked it out on google maps by pointing it anywhere in the map to see if they had bike lanes. Checked it like 20 times. They do.
@@batfurs3001 thank you! I'll be in Amsterdam and Utrecht for the most part. And yes, the idea is to rent some fiets :)
Infrastructure tourism! 😭 😭
I found the part about raising the cross section to be leveled with the sidewalk really interesting. It's such a little investment for so many benefits! Very good video. Was nice to see many examples.
My friend from Victoria, BC once complained about a crossroad being dangerous since every time he tried to cross a street, he almost got hit my a car. He filed a complaint addressing the issue and suggested adding speed bumps to ensure the safety of pedestrians in the residential area; in response, he was told that no speed bumps could be installed since they are going to slow down the emergency vehicles.
In the video you showed that danish people have speed bumps at almost every crosswalk. How does it affect the emergency vehicles? Or does it at all? If it does, what solution could be implemented to improve the safety of both pedestrians and people in need?
Emergency vehicles use the dedicated bus or tram lane.
But also, the majority of emergency vehicle call-outs in North America are for traffic crashes, which are caused by the wide roads and lack of traffic calming. So it's a self-propetuating problem.
Besides, people are literally dying in traffic: are their lives worth less than people who need emergency services?
But all of this is bullshit excuses anyway. Watch my Stroads video to understand how a roads+streets network is fundamentally more efficient than the stroads of North America for all vehicles; emergency vehicles included.
Look for archives of the (now removed) Dutch channel "ambuchannel" to see footage of ambulances in the Netherlands.
I like how all the cars in the video run the stop signs, or drive through the cross walk with people in them, illustrating your point without even having to point it out.
(24:45) I've live in the US my entire life and it's still difficult to believe "give them a big brightly colored flag" is a legitimate "solution" to pedestrian fatalities here.
I don't know if you're aware, but in Wales there was a recent move to change 30mph limits to 20mph to make roads safer for mixed usage. The backlash has been insane, with a level of histrionics I really had not expected. Apparently the main argument is that cyclists will be overtaking cars, which is (apparently) the most disgusting thing that can happen to anyone.
The attempted change to the laws was not great, especially because it was just blanket instead of targeting places where it's really helpful to reduce vehicular speed, but given your comments about North American engineers being resistant to slowing traffic, it seems relevant.
But that's teh secret in the Netherlands: you first get all political parties to sign off so you don't worry about the election cycle. Backlash is a thing but especially on municipal levels generally ignored. The traffic circulation plan in Groningen introduced in the 1970s is a great example of that.