I must say, cycling in the Netherlands is a joy, it's so easy and accesible which enables us to use it on a day to day basis. Going to friends, school, work or to go out on a friday and saturday. As Dutchies we are drunk cycling experts! Hahaha
@MB...But it's not joy with hot-headed people in the car or on their scooters. Dutch people can be very hot-headed, overemotional, and quick to anger in an irrational manner seen it many times in public when I was over there.
@@dylandylantoriyama5370 Just stay on the right side, stick your hand out when going into a different direction, that's basically it. But we grow up with it so for us it's really easy
I wish the UK had more of these. It makes me so paranoid when I'm on the same road as a car. Because I feel they're either going to knock me off my bike or I am holding up the traffic.
The Dutch houses are not smaller because of the cycling paths but because there's simply less space in general. The population density of the Netherlands is 3.4 times higher than that of Florida, in the US they could easily build Dutch-style infrastructure without having to reduce the size of their homes.
I really think many comparisons between the US and many European countries are doomed to fall flat, just because of the vast differences of problems and workable solutions that exist.
A crucial aspects (as a Dutchie) is what he said 'time-effieciency'. By also having a denser housing area, overall, commuting times will be reduced. I live in the outer edge of the city of Groningen, 200.000 inhabitans. But I can reach all major facilities in this city within 20 minutes on my bike. Because the neighbourhoods are dense and don't waste space (and thus create distance) on houses. Besides, a smaller house is cheaper, useless less energy and invites more a more cosy lifestyle with those you life with :)
yeah but if they kept building big detached homes then you’d have to bike much further to get anywhere cause everything is just further apart, even if the bike paths were all top tier dutch quality
@@CryMoarZ the us simply has the luxury of being inefficient. What makes america so powerful is the land its massive and resource rich its protected and in places drop dead gorgeous americans as a people are quite unremarkable but the piece of land history gave to this nation is anything but i am someone who immigrated to the usa from a small country and thats what i contribute largely to the power of this nation
As a foreign university student in Amsterdam all I can say is that it's a joy to live here. While there certainly are some painful downsides (especially related to finding affordable housing), the rest just works almost seamlessly in my experience. I live in the southern outskirts of Amsterdam, but have a direct metro line at my doorstep which takes me directly to uni in 15 minutes. Also, the way university itself is organized is completely on another planet considering the fees (as a EU citizen). After nightmarish experience in Italian universities Dutch university feels like I hit the jackpot.
@@Ammarx1 all universities I have checked out during my time here have a high number of bachelor degrees which are taught 100% in English. And most mainstream tracks (ie. Economics, Political Science, Law, Computer Science and so forth) have a fully English-taught bachelor available. Master degrees are usually only taught in English. Quality of education is superior compared to where I came from (Italy). Facilities are top-notch and the curriculum is designed so that you are not just attending lectures/reading books but are actually practicing your skills every single week in seminars, tutorials and with short assignments that reinforce what you have already learned. Excellence is generally well-rewarded, and studying in my experience really pays off. Student life is vibrant but it depends on your monetary resources as well. If (like me) you are not wealthy and live on a budget of well under 1k a month you need to kinda learn how to be smart about your expenses (which is actually possible), but at least here in Amsterdam there is something that can fit everyone's bill. Plus getting any form of side job as waiter/bartender etc. is ridiculously easy even if you don't speak Dutch. In short: totally recommended!
@@AryaPhoenix Thank you so much for the informative reply! I'm considering getting my masters after I finish my bachelor's degree, but still haven't decided where lol. Your response helped me a lot in eliminating some other choices though, as I was worried about the ability to work there.
@@AryaPhoenix i was thinking about doing my master's degree in Europe and Italy was one of the countries I was considering. It would really help if you could explain why you wouldn't recommend it?
Something to consider about Dutch bikes: They're for everyday use, not sports. That is to say, the seating arrangement is such that your power stroke is less than optimal, but your posture is more comfortable and allows you to keep your head more upright. Edit: They are also made out of steel, instead of metal alloys or carbon fibre, so they're relatively-speaking very affordable.
Wich also allows for more situational awarenes. You see more and thus can react better to a changing situation. Also cycling speed is lower than sportsbikes so you got more time to react, and accidents are on average less harmful.
And because the city is so plain its not a problem... I live in Barcelona, and even though the use of bikes is pretty widespread, in the place I live you can't possibly use a fully manual bike... Even less in the summer...
I remember being in a bus outside of Amsterdam where there was a screen that told you what time you will arrive at the following bus stops but also what trains were departing at the local station and how to link up with them. This wasn't some super tourist bus. Just a regular bus.
Also the maintenance of our Dutch roads is of crazy quality; a crack, bump or hole in the pavement is very rare to find. As a Dutchmen, we could always tell by looking at the quality of the roads to know if we crossed the border with Belgium or Germany, cause the change was almost instant.
You apparently haven't been to Zaandam. At least I can look at the streets of Zaandam when I miss hills and mountains. I agree about the Belgian roads, though :)
Yes, I live in Middelburg close to Belgium. Crossing the highway border into Belgium is like going off road ;). That's of course a joke but the difference is really kind of ridiculous.
Other cool well-designed things here in the Netherlands are traffic lights at intersections. Not only do they turn green based on proximity sensors, they also come with a smart feature: They program the lights to turn green when the time you take to get to the intersection is less than the time it takes for a car on the intersection to leave it. This means that even though the intersection might still be occupied by another car, you are already allowed to accelerate, because by the time you reach the intersection the other car will be gone. This means that, for example, a traffic light that would normally take 22 seconds to turn green, now turns green in about 17 seconds. As you can tell this saves a lot of time.
Meanwhile, you got americans being believing that "no one should drive quick or move for anyone, it's just one light!' without any knowledge that accumulates dramatically when you have so many the cars on a huge distance of road which leads to traffic meaning lost time, higher chance for accidents, and more emissions. Imagine if they could just think a little further than whatever is in front of them.... Then again, they were raised not to.
As e Belgian, I can tell you that waiting for some traffic lights to turn green as a pedestrian wanting to cross, made me go through an existential crisis.
@@dennisengelen2517 I will appreciate NL more for having such great roads and trafficlights. When it's green, you really have green, only to worry about service vehicles (police/ambulance) with blue lights/sirens on. Did your phone not ring? Then no such vehicle is nearby with lights/sirens on. (yep, we have an app that gives you warnings when service cars are coming close to you) police and ambulance and firetrucks all have a different sound playing on your phone
The amount of bike paths is insane. Me and a few friends decided to do a road trip and bike all the way from Leeuwarden to Eindhoven, that's literally across the country. And guess what? We barely had to rely on google maps, signs and the well organized roads were good enough. That says a lot about the bike infrastructure in the Netherlands.
Leeuwarden to Eindhoven is definitely not "across" the Netherlands. Eemshaven (Groningen) to Sint Anna Ter Muiden (Zeeland) would be. Still pretty impressive what you did.
A big part missing in this video is zoning. Because we do not have to build around zoning, we can make sure shops are always a bicycle trip away. If shops or cultural things were further away it would create a hassle with public transport or cars. I think that the great public transport, walkable/cyclable distances and people-focussed infrastructure is what creates this amazing cycle centered culture. Whenever I am abroad, I am actively triggered by the presence of so many cars near/in city centres. It's the one place where it is literally the most viable, cheapest, healthiest and easiest way to design such a centre EDIT: small correction, Netherlands does have zoning, but not zoning in the way of only 1 function per zone. More like we don't want massive distribution centres near a city centre kind of rules
We do have zoning in the Netherlands! But the zoning rules are different. Every square inch of the country is covered by a 'bestemmingsplan' which limits its use and strictly defines its purpose.
I recognize the experiences abroad. The smell, the sound, and the fact that you have to use a taxi or public transport for what would be a 15 minute bike ride
@@Saddutchman It's easy when you are used to it. Every city gas slightly different informal rules. I was at ease in Amsterdam, but felt really unsafe when I moved to Leiden.
I was born in the UK but my family lived in the The Netherlands for a few years and I remember making ample use of the bike paths. When we moved back to the UK I tried it again for a while but having to share roads with speeding cars and thundering trucks made me a nervous wreck.
@@fcturner When your pedaling along the road with the traffic speeding by on one side, you know that if you accidentally veer to the right you'll get splattered across someone's windshield. In recent years they've put bike rentals and new cycle paths in my city. But they're really short and don't cover the city at all.
@@miles5600 Well when I was there the bike paths had fences separating them from the road and even their own traffic lights. And this was in the middle of a big city.
A small correction: The purple lines on the map at the beginning of the video are not bike paths, but bike routes - that means any road or path that is marked with a corresponding sign. Many of the purple lines are not bike paths at all, but in the same vein there are many bike paths that are not part of a purple line. The bike paths are by and large much more irregularly placed than the bike routes.
Yeah comparing map's like that to other countries is also very misleading. The Netherlands is pretty much completely flat so they can build roads all over the country.
@@theblackswordsman9951 And swampy... so it isn't as easy as you think! And there are many rivers and canals, that need bridges or tunnels to get to the other side, so again not as easy. Besides that the highway network and rail network are dense as well, and cyclists are not permitted to use them, so again a lot of infra needed to over- or underpass those.
@@dutchman7623 I never said it was easy, but it is still a lot easier than building around mountains or large hills, and the Dutch are masters of water, so swamps aren't as much of a challenge to them.
I went to the Netherlands in 2018 and I must say it was one of the best moments in my life ever. Pretty much everything you want to do is doable and everywhere is reachable. After I got home I made plans to move there after getting my bachelor's degree and continue getting my master.
its the most expensive country in the world to live in that is not a microstate or the USA. wouldnt recommend moving here before you get your masters degree. universities here are also some of the most expensive in europe, most other countries will pay you to study there, here it costs a lot of money, if youre an eu resident the tuition is about 2000 a year, non eu resident, 20.000 a year. you will be paying 500 euro in rent for a one room apartment. youd be better off studying in literally any other country in europe.
@@learninggodot also depends on where in the netherlands. if you study of the east side you can get a 25m2 room for about 350/month. or if you do like me and abuse the public transport system and live outside of the city center, i live in a 70m2 appartement for 350/month
In Amsterdam you pay around 800 Euro for a small room (15-25 m2) in a shared house. If you live together with 1 other person it’s around 1400-1800 Euro combined for a 60 m2 apartment. If you want to buy such an apartment it’s around 400-500k on average.
As a Dutch person, it feels like such a logical thing to have our infrastructure the way it is (I walked into that large bike-garage by accident and would have forgotten about it if you hadn't mentioned it was the biggest in Europe) because I live here, but I really like your way of explaining it and that it could be implemented in other countries as well, which is great! Oh and the pronounciation of the big deltaworks were awful, but at least you tried and Oosterscheldekering is a word with like almost all the impossible to pronounce sounds in it, so you are forgiven ;)
The Dutch combined a few characteristics in ZOAB, the open structure asphalt that makes driving in the rain way easier. It was the blend of 'always complaining', 'the Dutch weather' and 'skills' that created this unique structure to make roads safer during rain.
As a Dutchman I am always amazed at how other people see our country, and I have to give you credits for this amazing video! Nicely edited and great storytelling!
Also roads in the Netherlands used to be the same as in the US, straight and without anything on the sides that gives you a perspective of how fast you are really going. But after many studies they came to the conclusion that by making these roads curved and next to trees or buildings it would also people down and therefor cause less accidents. That’s also the reason why when a deadly accident happens on the road or when a car crashes into a building it’s on the national news because it’s a pretty rare thing. In America this happens on a daily basis because everybody drives to fast and the funny thing is that these accidents mostly happen on clear days, without any substances involved…. It’s just the bad road designs that cause them… also america has more parking spots then cars….
@@Dudenier Netherlands, population density 508 km2. That isn't low population. They are small country with large number of people living in it. They just did take very different approach to travel and what it means to travel. Ultimately, US approach is really poor design, as you can't walk almost anywhere. All is car dependant. Even poor people have to have a car, or risk crossing the roads to get to a bus. That approach is really poor. Just a side note, their economy is really good. PS: Russia has issues invading Ukraine, reaching West in Europe would be beyond their skills. That being said, I'm not saying I don't appreciate US cooperation.
Sounds extremely unbalanced to me. No communism, fascism or absolutism to balance out economic prosperity and cultural prowess? The devs might nerf something like that pretty soon.
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
@@georgia2727 Ehm, wow. It was hard to follow but you're saying the Netherlands should spend their money on other countries school's? That's not how economics work. A country generates wealth. And in the case of a stable democracy, spends that wealth on its own education and infrastructure to generate MORE wealth. Building a good school doesn't stop schools from being build somewhere else. It's not selfish either, it's just common sence.
Amazing video, as someone from the Netherlands it is surprising to see how what is normal for us is so alien for others.
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@@chobai9996 I'm sorry you don't have the pleasure of enjoying the Dutch infrastructure and you feel the need to scrutinize us so you can feel better about your own country.
@@chobai9996 Most countries have issues with that, with the Dutch having far less of an issue than many other non-EU countries. Yes, they have some smoking issues, but they have less issues with that than Russia or China, and their Opioid issues are considerably lesser than that of the US or Russia. Be salty all you like but at least try to educate yourself before making baseless accusations.
I was over in Utrecht and Amsterdam 3 weeks ago and it really felt like cars had to live around bikes rather than the opposite like it is in most countries
As a rule, the quickest way to get around in a Dutch city is by bicycle. Cars are for when you're traveling out of the city or if you have to transport something you can't transport by bicycle (e.g. several days worth of groceries for a full family). I remember when I went to high school, I first traveled by bicycle to the train station (2 km; I lived inside the town where the train station was), then traveled by train for about 30 minutes, and then in the destination city I'd travel by my OTHER bicycle (hence why we have more than one bicycle per capita) for 3.6 km. That last route took some 15 minutes including traffic lights, if I wanted to go by bus instead it'd take some 20-25 minutes including walking from the bus station. According to google maps, the quickest route by car is already 9 minutes, and I doubt it counts delays from traffic lights which can easily add 2-3 more minutes. And this was almost to the edge of the city.
After watching this video i'm being reminded of how appreciative i feel living in the netherlands (with it's infrastructure). Brought up with bikeriding as main need of transportation i couldn't invision myself without a bike! Doing groceries, going into town, nothing without my bike.
Right?! Hard to believe, that we’re one of the few countries that use bicycles as a main form of transport! Couldn’t imagine living without one at this point
As an American, genuinely considering moving to the Netherlands, even with the housing crisis there, I’m still moving there. I’m just tired of the us’s chaos. I want stability and peace.
As a dutch person, watching this video actually made me look differently at my country a bit, and does give me a sense of pride! Though it also makes me chuckle, because most of my fellow dutchies LOVE to curse at the train network. I swear to god, a leaf falls on the tracks and trains will be delayed nationwide.
@@ashmaxwell665 After rearanging my wallet, cause of all the freed up space, I gotta say there is room for improvement along the northern east coast. Although the track is beautiful, better scenes than around dutch traintracks haha
I just came back from the Netherlands and Belgium and it seems like Belgium has that problem with the trains being delayed as people kept jumping in the tracks. The trains in the Netherlands were amaaaaaziiiiing!
@@unicornwitchprincess1004 haha wait until you have to go with it eveyday for school or work. And they not always say in english what is goingon if a train is canseled or something like that. Last week I only had problems with the train and it made me nuts. Came home later than pland. Even had a day I arrived over an hour later than my actual trip had to be and saw many tourist not knowing what was going on because everything was anounced in Dutch. Delays is something I don't enjoy after a long day of school and since my strip is already long without the delay (2,5 hours to get back home from school) 😅
Another fun fact about bikes in The Netherlands. We have to so called phenomanom called "OV-fiets" it's basically a bike which you can rent (first 24 hours free) at a transit station. So you can go by your own bike towards your transit station, go to your desired station by public transport and then rent a bike to go to your final destination. It's really clever.
It's actually not clever at all because there are usually no OV bikes available when you need them most. You can't count on them. It's a system that doesn't scale.
I live in the Netherlands and this video warms my heart. It really shows the creativity of our people, and the deep understanding we have with teamwork. I hope this will remain growing exactly like it has.
@@SMiki55I don't think that is necessary, we can try to build vertically instead of expanding horizontally, there are plenty of designs out there and examples including having gardens growing food etc, im not talking about boring-ass flats btw.
On the cycling: The netherlands are as flat as a pancake (as is Florida of course), which helps tremendously if you want to convince people to cycle. Just look at Belgium in the first map: lots of bike routes in (flat) Flanders but way fewer in the southern part (hilly Ardennes region): no coincidence!
I would say Florida is prob still harder to cycle cause of the humid hot weather than drenches you in sweat the moment you step outside while in the Netherlands they have a cool temperate climate
@@Godploitt you realize the Dutch don’t cycle from city to city. Cycling is 90% purely done to commute between places within a city. Or even within a neighborhood. This is something that can happen in most cities around the world. Expect for a few that are actually to hilly. The long distances are still done by trains n car. You just go to the train station by bike
@@linhabraken8699 that's true. I live on Brussels. And am an avid cyclist. I know both the Flanders fields and the hills to the south. Brussels itself is hilly. In just 5 years, the number of cycling commuters in the city (and arriving from around it) has increased by a lot. The ebikes were the key. I'm trained and would find it challenging to deliver my kid to school by bike. If it's rainy and windy, going up a few hills with 20-30kg extra weight is impossible for most people. Bike infrastructure has also been improving, almost at same pace.
For someone who doesn't seem to speak Dutch, you got a very good estimate on the proper pronounciations of Dutch words! I remember living in Holland for a couple years and biking was one of the essential skills heavily encouraged in primary school. I'm not a good biker, but the skills came in handy a decade later when I decided to visit the country again.
Visiting Amsterdam and Utrecht (coming from the UK), two things struck me about the cycle scene. Firstly, barely anyone wears lycra cycle wear - virtually everyone cycles in everyday clothes. In London it's the other way around. And secondly, among the thousands of bikes I saw in NL, the number of drop handlebar racing bikes was on the fingers of two hands. Overwhelmingly bikes were comfortable, practical "sit up and beg" style with big seats, chain guards and proper mudguards.
A bike is a practical thing here, not just for sports. We don't dress for the ride but for the destination. And because of these things we designed our bikes to be practical, low maintenance and comfortable transportation
@@willemthijssen1082 thats correct. Thats also why there are so many electric bikes now. Its insane how fast we could switch from normal to electric, because its about 40% electric bikes now
whenever you cross the border from belgium to the netherlands via small roads or highway . you can feel the difference . i've drove a semi truck years ago and in the netherlands it's very easy to get into the city with a big truck. the bike paths between cities are very safe .
The design of North American cities is not really design by aesthetics but rather by law. The people that already live in the area do not want more people coming in and so they pass laws that limit building such as height restrictions, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot sizes, restrictive zoning, etc. This forces cities to spread horizontally rather than vertically, necessitating private car travel, more infrastructure, and making public transport inefficient for most people. It's extremely inefficient, very expensive, much more detrimental to the environment. Not to mention it creates ugly places and its mentally depressing for the eyes.
Yeah, when I saw American suburbs I was very surprised. I know the US had issues with bureaucracy but it looked awful. No bike paths, all asphalt no paved roads. Also concrete sidewalks, not paved.
Saying that 82.5% of Netherlands’ GDP “comes from” exports is highly misleading. One has to also mention that the total imports of the Netherlands are equal to over 70% of GDP. All this means is that the Netherlands relies heavily on international trade - it does not mean that less than one fifth of the Dutch economy comes from domestic trade of goods and services, as the wording in the video would imply. (For comparison, in Luxembourg, exports are equal to 230% of GDP and imports 190%. In the US, the figures are 10% and 13%, respectively.)
Fully agree, but I want to make it even more clear that import and export do not "come from" or "are part of" the GDP. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in the country. How large part of those goods and services are exported for the Netherlands, I could not find figures for. Neither could I find figures for how large part of the GDP consist of trade (the value of services to facilitate and enable import and export). The percentages mentioned are not "part of" the GDP. They are the result of comparing the total value of exports/imports to the value of the GDP. Then the 82.5% could be correct, depending on what is exactly counted as "export". As Chris says, they are likely in large part goods that are imported and then immediately exported again. The total value of import, export, and direct trade is about 150% compared to the GDP.
Great video! I would like to point out the windmills shown at 6:25 (Zaanse Schans) had nothing to do with land reclamation. They are industrial mills, used to make a variety of products ranging from paints to mustard. The mills shown shown at 8:58 are real watermills (World Heritage Kinderdijk). Bit of a pet peeve, my husband's a miller.
How do you spot the difference in windmills? I can only see the industrial mills having a building directly against them? Isn't it also the case that most of those mills are heritage (as you said about the Kinderdijk mills), with most being replaced with pumps or other more modern machinery?
@@Dreamw4lk3r The industrial mills at Zaanse Schans are surrounded by storage facilities, which is one of the the things that gives away their purpose. Shape is another. Hexagonal mills are often sawing mills (the Young Sheep at Zaanse Schans) and the Crowned Poelenburg has a peculiar shape called 'paltrok' which is only found in sawing mills. Location is also important. A mill in the centre of a village was probably a corn mill, a mill out in the middle of nowhere in a polder was much more likely to be a watermill. Industrial mills needed supply lines and somewhere to sell their products, so they were often strategically placed along rivers (like the river Zaan). Watermills were often surrounded by a small scale farm run by the miller and his family who inhabited the mill. By now all watermills in the Netherlands have been replaced by some sort of pumping station. Many have been demolished and the surviving ones don't really serve a purpose in water management anymore. This goes for Kinderdijk as well. The mills still exist alongside the pumping stations and they are still in working condition, but they aren't needed anymore and they wouldn't be able to match the power of the pumping stations.
@@timdekleijn8910 Good point! By the time the Noordoostpolder was created, windmills were on the way out. Many had already been decommissioned or even demolished. The transition towards streampowered pumping stations started during the 1860s (later to be replaced by electricity or diesel)
As A flemish/dutch person, Cycling is really popular in the dutch parts of belgium and the netherlands itself. I must say tram's are also a really popular option of transportation.
i moved from the netherlands to Ireland and basically feel very unsafe when driving a bicycle. Not only do i have to drive left but almost all the time i have to drive on the same lane as cars, which either tailgate like crazy or when passing almost hit me. People in ireland dont seem to be used to bicycles at all, and there is no room for bicycles on their roads. This limits me alot to go places, driving a car is sadly no option for me.
The Irish terrain is not what I would class as ideal for bicycles, though. Public transportation really should get an overhaul their, however, you are absolutely right.
I could say the same to Germanys bicycle roads. But I am happy that my local city where I live is going to expand the access to cycling and building new roads for them.
really good video! something else to consider, the netherlands is super flat, and we are densely populated so things are usually pretty close by within a city or town. Most children cycle to school, so it’s also very much part of our upbringing, even our princesses cycle to their high school. and then people just keep doing it. i’ve seen people move big pieces of art or houseplants and even two children and two grocery bags on one bike. we’ve elevated the art form.
It should be noted though, children and teenagers in rural areas ALSO cycle to high school, many of them 10 or even 15 km, and that's talking one direction, so they cycle that distance twice a day. 150-200 km a week.
I was going to make the point about hills myself. I live half way up one of the largest hills in South London, and although I used to cycle a lot, it totally puts me off now. If I leave the house and turn left, I've got to start off going up a massive hill. If I leave and turn right, I've always got the return journey in the back of my mind, the fact I've got to get halfway up that same hill. To put this in to context so you know I'm not just lazy, I used to cycle 20 miles each day to work in London (10 miles each way) across relatively flat ground, and I never had a problem with it. A few years later I changed jobs to one just 3 miles away, but there was a sizeable hill right at the start of the journey. Bonkers as it sounds, I'd feel worse after that trip than I would going 10 miles to London, and hills like that are very very common around here.
As a man moving from the shiny Dubai to The Netherlands, I used to see cycling as an underminer of social status, and I was trying to avoid it. After a few years, cycling became a real joy on day-to-day basis. You never know what you're missing on until you experience it.
You remind me of a friends of mine who moved from the US to the Netherlands. His father moved to the Netherlands as well after his wife died, he was a grumpy man when he was riding his car but when he discovered cycling he started to smile. Now I always see him cycling and smiling and having a good day.
It IS an underminer of social status my friend, that is PRECISELY the point. We do not tolerate self-infatuation. Our motto is "doe normaal" which translates to "normalise your behaviour". Arrogance, social status, avarice, all of that instagram horseshit, has no place in this nation, least of all in the north. I live in Friesland and we regularly throw people in the canal to cool off when they get too impressed with themselves. :)
@@InservioLetum doe normaal dutchies are the most boring kinda of dutchies. Most fun Dutch people I've been around all hated that term and I can understand why. It's just absolutely mundane.
@@thefbat5847 normaal, normal, norm. Mundane, median. Of course people calling themselves average tend to be average ;) The attitude goes a long way to helping combat bullying or looking down on others, but it can also tear down those that are doing well or better than average. The knife cuts both ways unfortunately
As a person from the netherlands i gotta say that this is a very very good video, and everything is well explained. Keep up the good work!! U just got a new subscriber😁
I seriously love watching videos like this as a Dutch person. Things that are the norm here are so vastly different in other countries. If it wasn't for my travelling to Asia or watching these videos, I would've thought the entire world is like this.
Its grazy how we are here in the world as such a little country, we have everything a person needs, we did a good job hahaha! Groetjes uit Rotterdam! (Greetings from Rotterdam!)
The reason the Dutch tulip production is so successful isn't due to the soil but rather the precipitation pattern. Tulips and many other flower bulbs that undergo summer dormancy, thrive best with moderate to limited summer moisture, and cool to fairly cold wet winters. Bulbous plants such as Lilies, which remain in growth and flower during the summer and early autumn require summer moisture. Farmers have coped with less-than-ideal soil conditions for specific plants with soil amendments and or raised beds for centuries. Most flower bulbs are bulbous as an adaptation to dry, often rainless summers where they undergo summer dormancy with a supply of stored food (sugars and starches) in bulbs, or in corms, rhizomes, or tubers. Similar precipitation patterns occur in the Mediterranean, the West Coast of the US, South Africa, and western Asia. And Tulips, Hyacinths, and many other flowering bulbs are of western Asian origin. A key aspect of flower bulb cultivation is that nearly all do best with, or require, summer dryness.
although, the extensive irrigation and water control systems means the dutch are able to keep water level in the soil of their tullip fields to very precise levels needed for production.
the tuplips on show are dutch. the tulips for sale are chinese. welcome to the netherland where everything is fake as fuck and people are milked for money.
Also proud as I am to be dutch I have to add that, just because we do 80% of the worlds Tulip export, doesn't actually mean we GROW 80% of the tulips, we also import alot and export them again. Still pretty impressive though if you account for the fact how little land mass we have available for agriculture. Efficiency is the name of the game.
At the same time, polder lands DO tend to be some of the most fertile in the entire world due to the soil, which is mostly river clay if I'm not mistaken (don't take my word for it, I'm not an expert on this). And as Matthijs above pointed out already, we have expert water control, where every last ditch can be regulated with higher or lower water levels, which then regulates the ground water level so that it's perfect for whichever crop the farmers nearby want to grow. There's even a river, the Utrechtse Vecht (the Vecht in the province of Utrecht; we also have a Vecht in the province of Overijssel), that flows in the reverse direction from it's natural flow a few thousand years ago, because that's more convenient for the water distribution. Also, water management is amazing, but I'll stop myself from geeking out about it because this message would just get too long. As a rule of thumb, pretty much any Dutch person loves to talk about it though.
As a British guy who has lived in the Netherlands for the past 13 years, I can confirm that this country is VERY well run, it's clean, efficient and a much fairer society than the UK. The Dutch are also cool, friendly people with a dry sense of humour.
The British are overall the funniest people I’ve come across in the world. I think British and Dutch people tend to go along fine due to their humor. Even though you guys favor indirect communication compared to Dutch direct communication, in some way the self depreciating humor and dryness mingles really well and makes for great banter.
@@JustinRM20 i do agree! Sometimes it can get awkawrd when ot comes to their humour however that is just what males it more funnier for me, they really are the funniest people
As a dutchie I can confirm dry humor is a big thing. I once laughed for 39 minutes at a piece of bread falling down and when i showed it to my friends they did the same. As for the UK I have been there and like always when I’m in another country I’m amazed at the lack of bikes. I take my bike to school everyday and most of my teachers do the same. The concept of a schoolbus seems so weird to me.
its beautiful and satisfying seeing the suburbia layout being so uniform and designed on efficiency which overall all benefits everyone. I really hope more countries adapt to a model like this
Although i live in Germany and the infrastructure for bikes is decent and i can Not complain, i am so jealous of the netherlands. If we had a system like them, more people would know the joy that two wheels can bring
Do more ppl ride bikes or drive cars in Germany? I’m curious bc I’m fascinated how a lot of European countries rely so much on biking but I wonder if they still ride bikes during cold winters or hot summers
The majority is still using cars or public transportation, but the awareness for biking as a environmentally friendly alternative is growing, at least in my part (Hessen)
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
@@georgia2727 I totally get your point and I'm not nessecarily disagreeing with you. But because of their bigger budgets, those building projects in the Netherlands and other rich regions have the freedom to innovate and figure out optimal ways to do things. Under the premise that there is a transfer of knowledge between wealthier and developing parts of the world, one could argue that on a macro-level the Netherlands are doing research and development for other nations who can not finance these endeavors. On the other hand, if costs skyrocket due to mismanagement, pointless decadence or corruption, I'm totally with you.
@@georgia2727 When talking about car centric vs. bike and public transport focussed urban planning, I wouldn't say that the car centric approach is economically justifiable at all. The sheer amount of raw materials and space required for a car centric infrastructure is enormous. It becomes even clearer when you take into account long-term environmental and public health factors. Evironmental damage will disproportionately harm the poor and facilitate inequality.
@@dennis2003bengel Komt denk ik omdat Nederland nooit zijn best doet om een trotse bevolking te kweken, maar ja, ben toch wel blij met z'n speciaal land als dit. Vind je nergens anders ter wereld, mag van mij wel meer gewaardeerd worden.
Another caveat here, U.S. cities were not built to be car-centric, they were bulldozed to be that way. The difference between a city like Rotterdam and most U.S. cities is that Rotterdam *had* to rebuild after WWII at a time when cars were becoming en vogue, whereas the U.S. *chose* to demolish their own cities to make room for motor vehicles. If the U.S. is going to transition to sustainable cities, people need to stop pretending that places like Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Chicago suddenly came into existence after WWII. The U.S. is car-centric by choice, not some mysterious happenstance of history.
Here in Australia, our city centres were never bulldozed, at least to the extent the US was, but our suburbs are just as car centric as the American ones are, leading to a stark difference between the centre and the suburbs.
Rotterdam is one of the most car-centric cities in the Netherlands (because of being rebuild after the war). Together with Groningen (which wanted to be modern) But just because it was build like that 50 years ago does not mean it needs to stay that way. Streets can be redesigned, shops can be moved to new locations, houses can be torn down and rebuild, etc etc. It always surprises me how resistant to change america is and how flexible europe is. Wealth in the USA seems to be build around descending from the first guy in your region who pushed out the indians.
The biggest problem in the US is not the bulldozing of land areas used before WWII, it's land use in areas built out after WWII. You can still get around pretty well by foot, transit or bike in most prewar areas--it's all the areas built since then, which is where most Americans live, that are car-bound.
I'm Dutch, and i know how hard it is to say the names of Dutch places (5:57) when you're not from here, but the fact that you tried warms my heart extually. Because, you TRIED. And it wasn't even that bad!
You mentioned the Delta Works, but earlier in the 13th century a system for the creation and maintenance was put to law. this created opportunities to mostly reclaim the land in the provinces of North and South Holland, Zeeland , Friesland and Utrecht. this is what led to the reclamation (last great one was the Flevopolder) and the Delta works only bolstered out defences against flooding in Zeeland. The measures taken in the 13th century didn't just create land and protect it from flooding, it also made the land dry and stable enough to build houses on and made it ready for agriculture.
I've just arrived to Netherlands from Singapure, where I've spent half a year, and I can say that Netherlands is definitely super modern in terms of human centered concepts or urban planning, while Singapore is lagging 20-30 years behind with their super car centric city, despite high density of the population.
@@Amir-jn5mo mostly people have high enough salaries to afford the car, and also taxi is really cheap, with normal trip around 10$ for 10-20 mins. Public transport is for students and workers mostly.
Singapore is very clean tho, and maintains its public structures quite wel. The most bizzaro thing I have heard of tho is the fact that they are very strict when it comes to hygene, ive read that they have undercover cops that watch if you go into a public bathroom and follow inside after you to check if you 'cleaned' everything. Else you can get fined, that is so weird to me
I was in Rotterdam recently and I absolutely fell in love with the country. I am now planning to move there, such a fascinating place, and surprisingly affordable.
@cobus B you are such a salty person. you keep on telling people to not move here but yet you are still living here? its a good country to live and grow up in.
I'm from The Netherlands and I find it fascinating that when I drive or cycle somewhere and I look around, everything is planned. For example almost all the trees are planned. Except for the small wild forests and parks but you cannot really call any nature in The Netherlands wild, even there is alot of planning.
That's how I felt when I moved to the NL. The whole country looked like one giant park! What a contrast to Norway which I had visited just a few months prior. I don't live in the NL anymore but I love cycling and miss the brilliant Dutch infrastructure
Dat is raak gezegd. That is a good point. Every little thing is planned. This doubtlessly has benefits, but for my taste it is too much. I'm from the NL, but I feel more at ease outside the NL where there is more room to breathe.
My area in upstate NY had a huge dutch influence. We still celebrate Tulip festivals. Guilderland, named for Gelderland. Watervilet, Slingerlands, many others all former Dutch settlements. Some large farms are still owned by the original dutch families who came in the 1600s! They talk about bringing back the Dutch spirit and putting bike lanes in.
I adore the Dutch way, after living there in the Netherlands as a teenager, I learned to commute to school on a bike after returning to Kraków, and not just use bike for recreation. I was quite a sensation back in 2005 lol. Now it's pretty normal for folks in Poland to commute on a bike in the cities and infrastructure is getting there, although the scale is different, of course. On the other hand, the Netherlands (and Flanders, to some extent) make me feel like there's no wild, quiet places around, that there's always a house with moving, living people in your view, which can be a bit tiring at times as your brain just needs to process this subconsciously.
Next time you visit us, try Texel. An island with fields and forests, and during winter it is nice and quiet, and not too expensive. In summer it is a chaos of German tourists trying to reach the beach
@@tomekdarda and I feel you with the wild fields. Last year I visited Poland (Energylandia, Auswizch and the big swiming park near Warsaw and I was impressed by the 'empty' parts of Poland. Trees just growing where they felt like it, forests full of them, too bad we had such a full program, would have loved to just walk through the foreats
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 I am sure you will, someday :) I have already checked Texel, looks fabulous with Den Burg in the centre :) If you feel like visiting something remotely, I can recommend to street view the Carpathian Mountains, like around the Krynica, Tylicz or Bardejov (that's across the border in Slovakia) towns or maybe moreso in "the end of the road" Wołosate. All those are effortlessly reachable from Krakow. It is only a bit sad that with the rapid development of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and so on it also gets almost too modernized, but still you can find those romantic, empty hills, forests and mountains. Cheers!
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
My wife lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years. She liked your video and added that the traffic lights are bike friendly. Bikers on big junctions have their own traffic lights that are green twice as often as cars. That way there is no traffic jam for bikes. Bikes are also always allowed to turn right. It is really impressive how these masses of people on bike wiggle through each other without crashing. It is absolutely impressive to see that in action. If you imagine for one second, that everyone of these people would sit in a car… transportation is just not imaginable!
Was it not too hard to come back to you country after experiencing the great quality of life of Netherlands? I have a grand uncle who lives in Canada since his 20s, and as they now (he’s retired as his wife) spend winter back with us in France, he’s always comparing and complaining when he sees something less efficient than Canada :)
At 2:50 you see a yellow blue bike. This is the OV-fiets. The Public transit bike. Meaning that with your train ticket, which is a universal pass for all forms of public transport is also used for a bike. So you can bike from the station to your final destination and back.
There are two main reasons in Dutch culture that really shape the infrastructure: 1) Continuous improvement. The next project should always improve over the last one. One of the main goals is to create designs that avoid (traffic) accidents. 2) Prevention. The Dutch culture is much more prevention focussed than others, because if we have a flood, the water doesn't leave by itself.
Back in 2013 I biked from mu home in Sweden down to Mont St Michel i France. While Belgium, Germany and France were good, the Netherlands were fantastic to ride through. Such a fantastic network of roads just for bikes.
It's not fair how the dutch ACTUALLY do something about something whenever they want to get it done.. America just says they wish they could do something but blame the money..
I cycled everyday with my cousins in North Brabant near Eindhoven. Everywhere you went: Sidewalk, bike lane, road. The flat land helped a lot too. It was so much fun!
Great video, high quality OBF... No doubt, the Netherlands is the best place for Biking. We should not forget Zurich as well, hopefully I'm gonna make a video about that as well.
@@Bananaman-hk6qw Zurich !!! While the whole Switzerland may not be good for biking which am sure it is, I mentioned Zurich, Switzerland as a well designed city. It's also bike friendly.
@@Bananaman-hk6qw Ofcos, you don't really cherish what you have like how outsiders do. Many cities lack what you think it's normal in your own place. 😊
@@lekan1 @Bananaman Like how a Dutchman like myself is actually pleasantly surprised how this video explains certain strengths in the Netherlands, while we don't stand still and think about such things because we're used to all that. 😁
Netherlands was, my home for most of my childhood and I look forward to going back there, I just can’t grasp why it is so exotic and different in other countries such as England, where I am now for children to independently and safely ride anywhere, especially to school on their bikes. I remember when I was 5/6 and riding to my school all by self, safely, on roads too, the training was amazing for children and it’s so useful and I will never forget my time there :)
The great thing about Schiphol Airport is that it's a single terminal with runways built around it, next to a highway, and with the "normal" train station underneath (it's not a specific train to the city center, like the Narita-Tokyo train for instance). It's really easy to get there by train to pick a friend visiting, and get home by train again. There are some problems with design, of course. One being the common sacrifice of pedestrian access for bikes, for instance (sometimes there is no sidewalk, but more commonly the sidewalk is receiving all the street furniture and can be difficult to navigate with strollers and other similar items). And with mopeds using bike lanes, they can be dangerous for any pedestrian wandering by. And those cameras for bike garages are needed. Bike theft is plaguing the Netherlands; the big garages are the safe places.
I bike everyday to and from work in The Netherlands. It is actually super easy and great. Although being someone who likes dressing nicely and have my makeup done, cycling gets super uncomfortable during rain, snow & wind😢
The planning is really good. I've often been in the Netherlands. For example I've never heared an airplane in Amsterdam or Utrecht or Rotterdam. I didn't realize that Shiphol airport is as big. 83% export. Almost half of european food is made by the Netherlands. They grow nearly all food in green houses. Its way more efficient. So its possible that a small country like the Netherlands can produce masses of food. This country is really advanced. Its a really good news that my city has invited Dutch planners to built cycling infrastructure.
We make alot of food, however we mostly export them and import food. That's a strange thing in the Netherlands. I really wondered why you didn't hear any Planes in Amsterdam, because i hear Them alle the time...
I think the amount of agriculture destined for export in the Netherlands is ridiculous. We export over 70% of our foods, yet we are left with 100% of its pollution (even though it is relatively efficiently produced, thankfully), hugely disproportionate to the country's landmass. Farmers do not get enough money for their produce or dairy and thus have to produce huge quantities to be economical, all to the detriment of our soil (acidification) and air. Not to mention the lack of space left to have any biodiversity. So while I do think the focus on efficiency is good, the scale of it is absolutely unnecessary.
As an Indonesian I sometimes wonder why are we so bad at infrastructure after the dutch ruled for so long. Surely we picked up a thing or two in 350 years
I heard that we picked up the corruption behavior and bureaucracy of the Dutch East India Company that led to its bankruptcy. Well, at least there is something to pick up after being colonized for 3.5 centuries
Unfortunately most of this great planning only really started in the latter half of the 20th century. People talk as if the netherlands were always like that, but they weren't.
The landmass of the Netherlands is not 41.543 km² as stated at 00:28. This is the total surface area of the Netherlands. However, 18,41% of this total surface area is water. The landmass of the Netherlands is aprox 33.893 km².
in the past when I grew up in a car city in Germany I hated cycling - but later when I moved to the Netherlands it became my favorite type of transportation for absolutely everything from study to work, groceries, meeting friends and going out.
While the biggest bicycle parking might me in Utrecht for now, it's successor is currently under construction in Ghent, Belgium, and will be able to house 17.000 bicycles.
I wonder why though. Hearing my Belgian coworkers complain about the quality of roads, the focus should be on fixing bike paths, rather than building a giant bicycle parking. ;) Anyway, looking forward to see the result in Ghent. I wonder which city (and country) will try to get the record next.
@@TimvanderWeyden well belgiums railway infrastructure is very dense and if worked on further and connected to nearby countries could serve most long-distance transport for cities. (That should honestly be one of the biggest goals for EU transport, connecting the EU with fluïd train infrastructure.) Combined with the fact that our cities are also converting more and more to a pedestrian focus (like Mechelen or Leuven) and we could very much become another example like the netherlands. Such centers to oark their bicycle could then be perfect for people commuting or travelling abroad.
Japan and Singapore actually come close to or even surpass Netherlands in some aspects. But they're not updating themselves as fast as the rest of the world is doing
Im from the UK but I've lived in the Netherlands almost my entire life. Everything you explained in this video is absolutely true, and it made me reappreciate the everyday things I took for granted. Thank you!
Rotterdam really did go through an amazing transformation, from dirty industrial harbour hellhole full of cars everywhere, to a pretty nice cultural city with nice parks and wide walkways. The center is still unpleasant to drive in, however. :) Which encourages alternative methods of transportation, I guess. (unfortunately it also has plenty of less than safe crossings, but that aside)
I had to work there for my studies about 15 years ago, it was an ugly city then. When I was done there they were just about to change the train station to something civil. Last week I was in Rotterdam and it had improved immensely; it could also have been that I was on the other side of town.
@@klaesregis7487 Do you remember the road straight out of the train station? It used to be a mess of streets for cars, now there's that broad lovely walkway, with bicycle paths and tram rails flanking it.
Rotterdam is the only place in The Netherlands I somewhat the feeling I am in a real city, with urban culture. Amsterdam and The Hague feel so provincial and "stiff".
I can't speak for other cities, but in London it's improved massively in the last few years. I know the cycling infrastructure in Cambridge is great too.
@@AlastairNowill I agree with you, London is much nicer for cycling now, I just mean as an overall average the infrastructure is sub par, cities like Southampton, bristol and cardiff have pretty poor standards for cyclists.
England has the same advantages like the netherlands, small desely populated etc so England has no excuse to not have a great cycling infrastructure network
Interestingly enough, because Schiphol airport is under sea level, it’s able to be more space efficient with runways since it’s lower altitude allows for shorter take-off rolls due to the denser air.
The thing is, AMS is only 20 or so feet below sea level, so effectively the airport's below-sea-level advantage is negligible at best. Build it 20ft above sea level and you'll probably get the same result.
@@nerd2814 I was mostly thinking of that altitude compared to Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, which is 2000ft above sea level; since he brings it up.
I live in the Netherlands and it is literally more efficient for me to go to school by bike than by car, because you have to drive around some farmland, but there are bike paths through it. It takes the same amount of time and I am not fast
This whole "that can never be done here" idea only demonstrates a lack of vision and/or commitment by the planners responsible. We Dutch changed our infrastructure gradually, fitting it into our regular maintenance schedule. Sewage & drainage systems need to be overhauled every 40 years, and road surfaces every 20-odd years, which make great opportunities to add bike lanes. This way, building this infrastructure is essentially for free: you were going to tear up the existing road surface and put in new anyway. So to get to the state where we are, the only thing you need is a long-term, decade-spanning vision of where you want to go, and make sure that every time a road is maintained, it is used as a step towards that vision. Except if you have built an unsustainable mess that is left to collapse due to neglect, as most US cities have done, using money that should have been spent on maintenance to finance cheap homes for the top 50% that do not generate enough taxes to maintain their infrastructure.... Greed is destroying the USA. Greed and shortsightedness.
you're spot on about the US. I spent most of my childhood summers in NL (staying at oma/opa as my dutch parents immigrated to the US in the 60s) but grew up in a suburb in the midwest of the US, and one could not get anywhere without a car. Granted the US is much bigger in landmass than NL but I'm super impressed with the bike centric transportation infrastructure in NL. No such commitment or betterment in the US, greed and shortsightedness, indeed.
America can build infrastructure that's true but it isn't feasible for most Americans to cycle to their work which is often 50 miles or 80 km away from their home. Different countries have different priorities out of necessity.
Many people in the Netherlands have their work 80 km from home. The difference between the Netherlands and the USA is as the video said: the Netherlands is good designed. People travel big distances by train. The train is mostly faster than cars so cars are just bad. The trains are electric. Small distances are travelled mostly by bicycle. That the USA is bigger isn’t an excuse. The infrastructure is just shit because the government invests in army instead of important stuff.
@iColantai Bridges have a life span of about 40 years, depending on e.g. traffic. As most of your infrastructure was built between the 50ies and 80ies, I can believe you have serious problems there.
yeah ? let's try that in non flat land like Southern Germany, Poland or any other country with lots and lots of hills. It's easy as hell to cycle when everything is flat, try going uphill 5 times on the way to the shop in one direction or to work and then we'll talk how convinient it is
I live in England. I’d never even consider buying a bike here. There isn’t really any bike paths, & it’s really dangerous. This has led to a culture of drivers hating cyclists, & quite frankly, the cyclists here act like complete selfish idiots.
Which seems to be mainly because most cyclists are teens, as they can't drive cars. And most teens behave like complete selfish idiots in any circumstance anyway.
Sadly those kind of conflicts are to be expected when the infrastructure just isn't there. Cars will hate cyclists for using 'their' road, and cyclists will hate car drivers because they may not respect how fragile cyclists are. Besides that, every driver in NL is also a cyclist, so they tend to pay the kind of consideration and respect that they themselves would like to see when they're on the bike. It's really easy to spot the people who only drive their BMW, and never take the bike: They tend to be tremendous arses in traffic
I'm a Dutchman but lived in the UK for a few years, in Southampton, which prides itself for its great cycling infrastructure. I was shocked at how appallingly bad it was and in my first week there, decided that cycling was not an option. Yes, Southampton roads have cycle lanes, but wherever you need cycling infrastructure the most, near junctions, they simply stop. This means that, as a cyclist, you're fighting over the same bit of road with motorized traffic, so there is conflict almost immediately. This is something that Dutch cycling infrastructure tries to avoid as much as possible. What also makes cycling in the Netherlands much nicer is that most drivers also ride bicycles, so they are much more likely to be considerate to cyclists. I completely agree with Hendrikus. Everybody in the Netherlands rides bicycles, from small children to the elderly and everyone in between, whereas as a cyclist in the UK, you almost have to be a fanatical asshole, because that is the only way to survive.
As a person that lives/lived in "Doetinchem (a small city in the Achterhoek of Gelderland in the Netherlands) i can say our city has a popularity of a big variety wrongly build and placed traffic lights.
@@Brozius2512 jammer genoeg volgens mij niet echt, in doetinchem sta je soms nog steeds ongeveer 5 minuten stil voor een stoplicht, dat is al minstens 8 jaar (Ongeveer 3 stoplichten die ik ken). Ook zijn er sommigen lichtelijk verkeersonveilig, zoals het stoplicht naar de grote weg, in de buurt bij de binnenstad (weet niet precies uit te leggen welke weg en waar precies, maar vlakbij de Rabobank).
I own 5 bikes, but at the same time I couldn't imagine not owning a car. Driving at night while listening to music is quite simply one of the greatest pleasures.
Sure, I agree with you. I love cycling too (6 bikes I own), but for the long distance you need a car. Especially, when there is no train station in the vicinity of your final destination.
People in the netherlands own as many cars as any average European, they just need them a lot less. As you said owning a car can be a pleasure, but not when you have to go through 20mins of traffic jams everyday
This is very nice to hear, because living in the Netherlands I can easily takes the advantages for granted. I guess an explanation for the efficiency is that with less space you are forced to be creative 🙂So if you are lacking something, it could be a hidden advantage.
Looks like the content creator has never seen anything from the Netherlands outside the Randstad, because most of the things he said are very Randstad/city specific.
Hey, it might be interesting to dig deeper in the origin of the Noordoostpolder. Because we MADE that land. I have lived there for 18 years and although there is not much to do, the history of the different villages is very interesting. It's also the place where many of the Dutch tulips are grown.
I feel like an important thing to clarify is the US for the most part wasn’t BUILT for the car, cities even like Detroit were built for the streetcar, and then were BULLDOZED for the car
if you figure out exactly why this happened (it wasn't just because cars exist, cars also exist in the Netherlands) you will no longer be fit for polite society. It took me years to finally understand what happened to American cities, because I was unwilling to accept the truth.
Love the new insights into this wonderful country. Thank you! I daresay that the mentality of a population that is shaped by history, culture, resource availability and even the climate and topography decides it's planning of the environs and infrastructure. Having said that, it's inexcusable if other countries do not learn at least a few things and their governments educate the populace. Anyway, kudos to the people of The Netherlands.
Well, look at all the parts of Germany that now has somewhat decent bicycle infrastructure. And it keeps growing at an ever increasing pace too. Sure, it is where it should be, by Dutch standards, but it is getting there slowly.
I'm from Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies in the past time) and honestly, I love the indies empire style architecture. I don't like when they occupy/invade our country, but they design everything very well. For example bridges, dams, railroads. even now, we still use facilities that they made in the past and everything still work fine Sorry if this comment out of topic from video
@@denise9393 De Britten waren veel erger op veel grotere schaal, lees de geschiedenis maar eens na.... Wat dacht je van de indianen en de aboriginals. En de Anglo-Boerenoorlogen.
4:40 Dutch houses may be smaller in area per floor, they also have 2 to 3 stories, whereas American houses usually only have 1, especially in the suburbs. So even though Dutch houses take up less space, we probably have more livable area in our house compared to American suburbs
And the houses are way better, with barely any drywall or wood American houses often even have wooden ceilings/floors, something you'll almost never find in the Netherlands
@@einstijn138 There are wooden floors here, but those usually aren't part of the foundation. All houses are build on a stone foundation based on large stone pillars drilled into the ground, because of soft ground. All interior and exterior walls and floors/ceilings are all stone as well, whether it be hard (outside) or soft (inside) bricks or just large slabs of stone (usually the flooring, but sometimes walls as well)
In bigger cities you have these row villa's. They have sometimes 5 stories. First is like the car parking, second floor living space + kitchen, then third floor some rooms and 4th floor also rooms.
This happened because of the balance between regional and national government, representative democracy on all levels, export driven economics, a large civil service, an open society, geographical location and lots of luck. That first point though is very underrated. How well are different interests represented in the decision making process and how many interests can you be aware of? That's the most important question.
I would deeply love an outro for these type of video with soothing music while i scroll the comments after finishing the video. Anyways great video on Netherlands, love ❤️ and support 👍
The government HAD to listen else they won't be in the government next election. The advantage of having many smaller parties. And if there is no party that supports a certain goal, its a matter of time before someone creates one.
That's not what happened. During the 70s there was an energy crisis and the Dutch government became concerned: they were oil-reliant but didn't have any oil themselves. So for matters of national security and reducing foreign oil dependence, they chose to rebuild infrastructure to be more bike-centric. It's not the case that The Netherlands is some utopia where magically the politicians listen to the people. Nowadays we have a ton of parties, but all of them more or less have the same opinions about everything -- they're all broadly pro-EU, pro-immigration, pro-renewable energy, pro-mandates during 2021, pro-behaving like a US vassal state, pro-democratic socialism, pro-very light punishments for criminals, pro-screwing over students, anti-army, anti-Russia, anti-guns, anti-using our own natural gas reserves. The very few parties that go against this are heavily demonized by the mainstream media and unjustly called "racists" and "bribed by Putin" all the time, which makes most people not vote for them. If a prospective employer found out that I was voting for one of those non-political-cartel parties, I fully expect that I wouldn't be hired purely based on that (with some bullshit reason given). Because of this, studies have shown that the will of the average citizens has zero impact on what policy gets enacted.
@@lightworker2956 Since you wish to roll back civilizational gains and worsen the quality of life in the Netherlands, it is not surprising that most Dutch citizens frown upon your political views. 🤷🏽
Ideally 😅 however the dutch government have been defunding many sectors incl. medical, housing, military etc. and the people have been paying the price for more than 15 years now.
man i remember biking to school everyday, i even used my bike after school, i always went to my friends houses that way. i always felt so much freedom riding around my village and i still completely remeber the layout of the village i used to live in. my parents weren't that concerned either with me going outside regularly due to how bike friendly and overall safe it was
i had the opportunity to visit amsterdam right before christmas 2017; such a beautiful city, and honestly truly one of the best integrated public transit systems i've seen. the city is already very bikeable/walkable and then you add the tram/train/bus system...
As a Aussie I have been seeing a lot more people riding bikes these days because of infrastructure change more bike lanes are being made and E bikes are becoming massively popular
I like the idea of bike path in every country like the Netherlands, but the problem is: elevation changes. Netherlands is one of the flats country in Europe, so that works for their bicycle culture. On the other hand in my city I have and elevation change of 200 m so its almost impossible to get to much of the city on bicycle:(
The answer is e-bikes, which are becoming more populair in the Netherlands also because they make cycling a lot easier for elderly people and are the best solution for dealing with our weather.
In those kinds of situations it is indeed harder for average people to commute by bike just because of how demanding it is. Fortunately e-bikes are slowly becoming more accessible in those kinds of situations.
In some companies in the Netherlands including where I work as a Dutchie, traveling to work through cycling is highly encouraged where some go as far to make it mandatory if living close enough from your home. Watching this video actually fuels me to use my bike more, great video!
I must say, cycling in the Netherlands is a joy, it's so easy and accesible which enables us to use it on a day to day basis. Going to friends, school, work or to go out on a friday and saturday. As Dutchies we are drunk cycling experts! Hahaha
i can confirm
@MB...But it's not joy with hot-headed people in the car or on their scooters. Dutch people can be very hot-headed, overemotional, and quick to anger in an irrational manner seen it many times in public when I was over there.
@@dylandylantoriyama5370 Just stay on the right side, stick your hand out when going into a different direction, that's basically it. But we grow up with it so for us it's really easy
I wish the UK had more of these. It makes me so paranoid when I'm on the same road as a car. Because I feel they're either going to knock me off my bike or I am holding up the traffic.
@@benobistheatre6366especially with busses, scary stuff
The Dutch houses are not smaller because of the cycling paths but because there's simply less space in general. The population density of the Netherlands is 3.4 times higher than that of Florida, in the US they could easily build Dutch-style infrastructure without having to reduce the size of their homes.
I really think many comparisons between the US and many European countries are doomed to fall flat, just because of the vast differences of problems and workable solutions that exist.
A crucial aspects (as a Dutchie) is what he said 'time-effieciency'. By also having a denser housing area, overall, commuting times will be reduced. I live in the outer edge of the city of Groningen, 200.000 inhabitans. But I can reach all major facilities in this city within 20 minutes on my bike. Because the neighbourhoods are dense and don't waste space (and thus create distance) on houses. Besides, a smaller house is cheaper, useless less energy and invites more a more cosy lifestyle with those you life with :)
yeah but if they kept building big detached homes then you’d have to bike much further to get anywhere cause everything is just further apart, even if the bike paths were all top tier dutch quality
@@CryMoarZ the us simply has the luxury of being inefficient. What makes america so powerful is the land its massive and resource rich its protected and in places drop dead gorgeous americans as a people are quite unremarkable but the piece of land history gave to this nation is anything but i am someone who immigrated to the usa from a small country and thats what i contribute largely to the power of this nation
@@draggy6544
I would certainly not say that Americans are unremarkable, quite the opposite. Canadians on the other hand? now we're talking.
As a Dutchie I’m proud of you for trying to speak our language and not accidentally summoning a demon
HELP BAHSGAHAGAH ZO KAN JE NIET ZIJN
The way he said "utrecht" made me think he was dutch himself
@@Ikkie_ Yeah me too i thought he's from Limburg lol
@@Ikkie_ Oh my god it’s creepy how well he pronounced that-
As a Dutchie, I was impressed too, but couldn't help but chuckle at his attempts to pronounce the names of the dams.
As a foreign university student in Amsterdam all I can say is that it's a joy to live here. While there certainly are some painful downsides (especially related to finding affordable housing), the rest just works almost seamlessly in my experience. I live in the southern outskirts of Amsterdam, but have a direct metro line at my doorstep which takes me directly to uni in 15 minutes. Also, the way university itself is organized is completely on another planet considering the fees (as a EU citizen). After nightmarish experience in Italian universities Dutch university feels like I hit the jackpot.
How is it studying in the netherlands? Do they teach you in English?
@@Ammarx1 they do!
@@Ammarx1 all universities I have checked out during my time here have a high number of bachelor degrees which are taught 100% in English. And most mainstream tracks (ie. Economics, Political Science, Law, Computer Science and so forth) have a fully English-taught bachelor available. Master degrees are usually only taught in English. Quality of education is superior compared to where I came from (Italy). Facilities are top-notch and the curriculum is designed so that you are not just attending lectures/reading books but are actually practicing your skills every single week in seminars, tutorials and with short assignments that reinforce what you have already learned. Excellence is generally well-rewarded, and studying in my experience really pays off. Student life is vibrant but it depends on your monetary resources as well. If (like me) you are not wealthy and live on a budget of well under 1k a month you need to kinda learn how to be smart about your expenses (which is actually possible), but at least here in Amsterdam there is something that can fit everyone's bill. Plus getting any form of side job as waiter/bartender etc. is ridiculously easy even if you don't speak Dutch. In short: totally recommended!
@@AryaPhoenix Thank you so much for the informative reply!
I'm considering getting my masters after I finish my bachelor's degree, but still haven't decided where lol. Your response helped me a lot in eliminating some other choices though, as I was worried about the ability to work there.
@@AryaPhoenix i was thinking about doing my master's degree in Europe and Italy was one of the countries I was considering. It would really help if you could explain why you wouldn't recommend it?
Something to consider about Dutch bikes: They're for everyday use, not sports. That is to say, the seating arrangement is such that your power stroke is less than optimal, but your posture is more comfortable and allows you to keep your head more upright.
Edit: They are also made out of steel, instead of metal alloys or carbon fibre, so they're relatively-speaking very affordable.
Wich also allows for more situational awarenes. You see more and thus can react better to a changing situation. Also cycling speed is lower than sportsbikes so you got more time to react, and accidents are on average less harmful.
And because the city is so plain its not a problem... I live in Barcelona, and even though the use of bikes is pretty widespread, in the place I live you can't possibly use a fully manual bike... Even less in the summer...
You can get a lot of different seatings, handles etc also alot of people use mountainbikes for short travel distances
So you can't escape from the police on Dutch bikes?
@@magicmillz you still could, but you can't go off-road.
I remember being in a bus outside of Amsterdam where there was a screen that told you what time you will arrive at the following bus stops but also what trains were departing at the local station and how to link up with them. This wasn't some super tourist bus. Just a regular bus.
most of them have that nowadays
Ngl quite a lot of buses in UK feature the same thing
@@thwalesproductions I wish it was like that in Glasgow.
Really, i live in the netherlands and i thought that was just a standard in every country
@@TotalFreek Definitely not in most cities in Brazil.
Also the maintenance of our Dutch roads is of crazy quality; a crack, bump or hole in the pavement is very rare to find. As a Dutchmen, we could always tell by looking at the quality of the roads to know if we crossed the border with Belgium or Germany, cause the change was almost instant.
I always have that to lol 🤣
Yeah, but we're getting worse unfortunately. Still, this rang true for a long time, and mostly still does.
You apparently haven't been to Zaandam. At least I can look at the streets of Zaandam when I miss hills and mountains. I agree about the Belgian roads, though :)
Yes, I live in Middelburg close to Belgium. Crossing the highway border into Belgium is like going off road ;). That's of course a joke but the difference is really kind of ridiculous.
Haha so true!
Other cool well-designed things here in the Netherlands are traffic lights at intersections. Not only do they turn green based on proximity sensors, they also come with a smart feature: They program the lights to turn green when the time you take to get to the intersection is less than the time it takes for a car on the intersection to leave it. This means that even though the intersection might still be occupied by another car, you are already allowed to accelerate, because by the time you reach the intersection the other car will be gone. This means that, for example, a traffic light that would normally take 22 seconds to turn green, now turns green in about 17 seconds. As you can tell this saves a lot of time.
Meanwhile, you got americans being believing that "no one should drive quick or move for anyone, it's just one light!' without any knowledge that accumulates dramatically when you have so many the cars on a huge distance of road which leads to traffic meaning lost time, higher chance for accidents, and more emissions. Imagine if they could just think a little further than whatever is in front of them.... Then again, they were raised not to.
As e Belgian, I can tell you that waiting for some traffic lights to turn green as a pedestrian wanting to cross, made me go through an existential crisis.
@@hiyoppivonchino5962 The problem in the USA isn't this. The problem is morons somehow being allowed to even have a car in the 1st place.
@@dennisengelen2517 I will appreciate NL more for having such great roads and trafficlights. When it's green, you really have green, only to worry about service vehicles (police/ambulance) with blue lights/sirens on. Did your phone not ring? Then no such vehicle is nearby with lights/sirens on. (yep, we have an app that gives you warnings when service cars are coming close to you) police and ambulance and firetrucks all have a different sound playing on your phone
The amount of bike paths is insane. Me and a few friends decided to do a road trip and bike all the way from Leeuwarden to Eindhoven, that's literally across the country. And guess what? We barely had to rely on google maps, signs and the well organized roads were good enough. That says a lot about the bike infrastructure in the Netherlands.
you biked from leeuwarden to eindhoven?? thats insane
Leeuwarden to Eindhoven is definitely not "across" the Netherlands. Eemshaven (Groningen) to Sint Anna Ter Muiden (Zeeland) would be. Still pretty impressive what you did.
@@ramona6672 Jesus haha, don't take it so literally. It is from top to bottom almost.
Eindhoven is the best city in the Netherlands!! Eindhoven de gekste
@@dbs5212 exactly what I was thinking lmao
A big part missing in this video is zoning. Because we do not have to build around zoning, we can make sure shops are always a bicycle trip away. If shops or cultural things were further away it would create a hassle with public transport or cars. I think that the great public transport, walkable/cyclable distances and people-focussed infrastructure is what creates this amazing cycle centered culture.
Whenever I am abroad, I am actively triggered by the presence of so many cars near/in city centres. It's the one place where it is literally the most viable, cheapest, healthiest and easiest way to design such a centre
EDIT: small correction, Netherlands does have zoning, but not zoning in the way of only 1 function per zone. More like we don't want massive distribution centres near a city centre kind of rules
We do have zoning in the Netherlands! But the zoning rules are different. Every square inch of the country is covered by a 'bestemmingsplan' which limits its use and strictly defines its purpose.
I recognize the experiences abroad. The smell, the sound, and the fact that you have to use a taxi or public transport for what would be a 15 minute bike ride
I'm Dutch and biking in Amsterdam scares the crap out of me.
@@Saddutchman It's easy when you are used to it. Every city gas slightly different informal rules. I was at ease in Amsterdam, but felt really unsafe when I moved to Leiden.
American zoning is the worst 😮💨
I was born in the UK but my family lived in the The Netherlands for a few years and I remember making ample use of the bike paths.
When we moved back to the UK I tried it again for a while but having to share roads with speeding cars and thundering trucks made me a nervous wreck.
Can totally relate to that! It’s just unbearable when cars keep roaring by, they actually leave us no option but to go by car!
@@fcturner When your pedaling along the road with the traffic speeding by on one side, you know that if you accidentally veer to the right you'll get splattered across someone's windshield. In recent years they've put bike rentals and new cycle paths in my city. But they're really short and don't cover the city at all.
@Hendo that's true, not sure about the Midlands but roads in the South West are an absolute nightmare to walk/cycle on!
Most of the roads in the netherlands share the road with bike and car. Just as dangerous.
@@miles5600 Well when I was there the bike paths had fences separating them from the road and even their own traffic lights. And this was in the middle of a big city.
The Netherlands is living proof of how necessity breeds innovation.
Israel even more
@@Bolognabeef Yep, but in transportation we don't do a such a good job, I guess the necessity didn't exist (it starts to tho)
@@Bolognabeef
One thing Netherlands can learn from Israel is keeping foreigners out. To be specific int. students
@@mcj2219💀💀
@@mcj2219 what's the problem with international students?
A small correction: The purple lines on the map at the beginning of the video are not bike paths, but bike routes - that means any road or path that is marked with a corresponding sign. Many of the purple lines are not bike paths at all, but in the same vein there are many bike paths that are not part of a purple line. The bike paths are by and large much more irregularly placed than the bike routes.
Yeah comparing map's like that to other countries is also very misleading. The Netherlands is pretty much completely flat so they can build roads all over the country.
Exactly, it's the 'numbered-node cycle network', there are many more bike paths (that aren't just a small strip along a heavily traffic road).
@@theblackswordsman9951 And swampy... so it isn't as easy as you think! And there are many rivers and canals, that need bridges or tunnels to get to the other side, so again not as easy. Besides that the highway network and rail network are dense as well, and cyclists are not permitted to use them, so again a lot of infra needed to over- or underpass those.
@@dutchman7623 I never said it was easy, but it is still a lot easier than building around mountains or large hills, and the Dutch are masters of water, so swamps aren't as much of a challenge to them.
@@theblackswordsman9951 The Netherlands being flat and therefore Its so easy for them is So misleading. You know nothing buddy.
I went to the Netherlands in 2018 and I must say it was one of the best moments in my life ever. Pretty much everything you want to do is doable and everywhere is reachable. After I got home I made plans to move there after getting my bachelor's degree and continue getting my master.
its the most expensive country in the world to live in that is not a microstate or the USA. wouldnt recommend moving here before you get your masters degree. universities here are also some of the most expensive in europe, most other countries will pay you to study there, here it costs a lot of money, if youre an eu resident the tuition is about 2000 a year, non eu resident, 20.000 a year. you will be paying 500 euro in rent for a one room apartment. youd be better off studying in literally any other country in europe.
@@TheSuperappelflap 500 euros, that'd prob give you about 15 square meters to live in xD
@@learninggodot also depends on where in the netherlands. if you study of the east side you can get a 25m2 room for about 350/month. or if you do like me and abuse the public transport system and live outside of the city center, i live in a 70m2 appartement for 350/month
@@Glyn-Leine it was a joking exaggeration. I wasn't serious
In Amsterdam you pay around 800 Euro for a small room (15-25 m2) in a shared house. If you live together with 1 other person it’s around 1400-1800 Euro combined for a 60 m2 apartment. If you want to buy such an apartment it’s around 400-500k on average.
As a Dutch person, it feels like such a logical thing to have our infrastructure the way it is (I walked into that large bike-garage by accident and would have forgotten about it if you hadn't mentioned it was the biggest in Europe) because I live here, but I really like your way of explaining it and that it could be implemented in other countries as well, which is great! Oh and the pronounciation of the big deltaworks were awful, but at least you tried and Oosterscheldekering is a word with like almost all the impossible to pronounce sounds in it, so you are forgiven ;)
Based
Klopt als een bus
@@OrangeStaringCat Het sluit als een bus. Het klopt als een zwerende vinger. :-)
A fair attempt for a foreigner, I'd say.
@@Thitadhammo de uitspraak is ‘het klopt als een bus’ ;) van die tweede uitspraak heb ik nog nooit gehoord!
The Dutch combined a few characteristics in ZOAB, the open structure asphalt that makes driving in the rain way easier. It was the blend of 'always complaining', 'the Dutch weather' and 'skills' that created this unique structure to make roads safer during rain.
As a Dutchman I am always amazed at how other people see our country, and I have to give you credits for this amazing video! Nicely edited and great storytelling!
Your country is awesome
Please appreciate your country id die to be born in the NL
@@Woef718 best thing to do here is leave
The Flying Dutchman
@@Woef718 come and live in England for a year. You will go back with a newfound appreciation of the Netherlands.
Also roads in the Netherlands used to be the same as in the US, straight and without anything on the sides that gives you a perspective of how fast you are really going. But after many studies they came to the conclusion that by making these roads curved and next to trees or buildings it would also people down and therefor cause less accidents. That’s also the reason why when a deadly accident happens on the road or when a car crashes into a building it’s on the national news because it’s a pretty rare thing. In America this happens on a daily basis because everybody drives to fast and the funny thing is that these accidents mostly happen on clear days, without any substances involved…. It’s just the bad road designs that cause them… also america has more parking spots then cars….
@@Dudenier Bad day?
@@Dudenier 🤡🤡🤡
@@Dudenier The Netherlands has anything but a low economy
@@Dudenier Netherlands, population density 508 km2. That isn't low population. They are small country with large number of people living in it. They just did take very different approach to travel and what it means to travel. Ultimately, US approach is really poor design, as you can't walk almost anywhere. All is car dependant. Even poor people have to have a car, or risk crossing the roads to get to a bus. That approach is really poor.
Just a side note, their economy is really good.
PS: Russia has issues invading Ukraine, reaching West in Europe would be beyond their skills. That being said, I'm not saying I don't appreciate US cooperation.
@@Dudenier Hurt american lmao 🤡
Congrats to the Devs for making the netherlands extremely balanced, gameplay wise
Love the world generation
Dunno tho, The "OmaFiets" is pretty OP!
Sounds extremely unbalanced to me. No communism, fascism or absolutism to balance out economic prosperity and cultural prowess? The devs might nerf something like that pretty soon.
We've patched those flooding bugs with some delta works, and bought the windmill reclamation DLC
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
@@georgia2727 Ehm, wow. It was hard to follow but you're saying the Netherlands should spend their money on other countries school's? That's not how economics work. A country generates wealth. And in the case of a stable democracy, spends that wealth on its own education and infrastructure to generate MORE wealth. Building a good school doesn't stop schools from being build somewhere else. It's not selfish either, it's just common sence.
Amazing video, as someone from the Netherlands it is surprising to see how what is normal for us is so alien for others.
@@chobai9996 I'm sorry you don't have the pleasure of enjoying the Dutch infrastructure and you feel the need to scrutinize us so you can feel better about your own country.
@@chobai9996 Most countries have issues with that, with the Dutch having far less of an issue than many other non-EU countries. Yes, they have some smoking issues, but they have less issues with that than Russia or China, and their Opioid issues are considerably lesser than that of the US or Russia. Be salty all you like but at least try to educate yourself before making baseless accusations.
@ looks like he deleted it, was he sad that his probably mediocre country has preobably mediocre infestructure?
Klopt
I was over in Utrecht and Amsterdam 3 weeks ago and it really felt like cars had to live around bikes rather than the opposite like it is in most countries
As a rule, the quickest way to get around in a Dutch city is by bicycle. Cars are for when you're traveling out of the city or if you have to transport something you can't transport by bicycle (e.g. several days worth of groceries for a full family).
I remember when I went to high school, I first traveled by bicycle to the train station (2 km; I lived inside the town where the train station was), then traveled by train for about 30 minutes, and then in the destination city I'd travel by my OTHER bicycle (hence why we have more than one bicycle per capita) for 3.6 km. That last route took some 15 minutes including traffic lights, if I wanted to go by bus instead it'd take some 20-25 minutes including walking from the bus station. According to google maps, the quickest route by car is already 9 minutes, and I doubt it counts delays from traffic lights which can easily add 2-3 more minutes. And this was almost to the edge of the city.
You have just summoned every dutch person on this platform.
GEKOLONISEERD
@@maurice5402 je kan niet koloniseren wat al deel van de kolonie is mien jong.
@@TippedCoyote757 Laat mij :(
Waiting for the day the english to acknowledge they are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
dat klopt, je krijgt 3 wensen.
After watching this video i'm being reminded of how appreciative i feel living in the netherlands (with it's infrastructure). Brought up with bikeriding as main need of transportation i couldn't invision myself without a bike! Doing groceries, going into town, nothing without my bike.
Right?! Hard to believe, that we’re one of the few countries that use bicycles as a main form of transport! Couldn’t imagine living without one at this point
As an American, genuinely considering moving to the Netherlands, even with the housing crisis there, I’m still moving there. I’m just tired of the us’s chaos. I want stability and peace.
As a dutch person, watching this video actually made me look differently at my country a bit, and does give me a sense of pride! Though it also makes me chuckle, because most of my fellow dutchies LOVE to curse at the train network. I swear to god, a leaf falls on the tracks and trains will be delayed nationwide.
Lol I feel like that sentiment is passed down from generation to generation
You should try northern rail in the UK lol, absolutely terrible.
@@ashmaxwell665 After rearanging my wallet, cause of all the freed up space, I gotta say there is room for improvement along the northern east coast. Although the track is beautiful, better scenes than around dutch traintracks haha
I just came back from the Netherlands and Belgium and it seems like Belgium has that problem with the trains being delayed as people kept jumping in the tracks. The trains in the Netherlands were amaaaaaziiiiing!
@@unicornwitchprincess1004 haha wait until you have to go with it eveyday for school or work. And they not always say in english what is goingon if a train is canseled or something like that. Last week I only had problems with the train and it made me nuts. Came home later than pland. Even had a day I arrived over an hour later than my actual trip had to be and saw many tourist not knowing what was going on because everything was anounced in Dutch. Delays is something I don't enjoy after a long day of school and since my strip is already long without the delay (2,5 hours to get back home from school) 😅
Another fun fact about bikes in The Netherlands. We have to so called phenomanom called "OV-fiets" it's basically a bike which you can rent (first 24 hours free) at a transit station. So you can go by your own bike towards your transit station, go to your desired station by public transport and then rent a bike to go to your final destination. It's really clever.
the downside being that biking from one station and wanting to leave it at a different station is charged extra (a lot).....
Hoe krijg ik die eerste 24 uur gratis tho want ik lever altijd binnen 24u in en moet toch betalen
@@drydroplets462 ik denk het is alleen voor nieuwe OV klanten.
@@drydroplets462 Fiets stallen is 24 uur gratis. OV Fiets is denk ik 4.50 per dag
It's actually not clever at all because there are usually no OV bikes available when you need them most. You can't count on them. It's a system that doesn't scale.
I live in the Netherlands and this video warms my heart. It really shows the creativity of our people, and the deep understanding we have with teamwork. I hope this will remain growing exactly like it has.
If it grows like it does the whole fucking country will be 1 big city i say NO TY!
@@nzeusman8215 so should it stop growing at all?
@@SMiki55 Yes it should not get bigger, megacities are unhealthy as ****
@@nzeusman8215 in theory I agree, but in practice you'd have to enforce birth restrictions and severe immigration control in order to stop the growth.
@@SMiki55I don't think that is necessary, we can try to build vertically instead of expanding horizontally, there are plenty of designs out there and examples including having gardens growing food etc, im not talking about boring-ass flats btw.
I've been to the Netherlands a couple of times. It is truly one of the most amazing infrastructures and cultures in the world.
Time to enrich it with africans
Not for long. Islamic ideas are already taking over the Netherlands.
@@YOUR140RAVEScope
@@YOUR140RAVES?
On the cycling: The netherlands are as flat as a pancake (as is Florida of course), which helps tremendously if you want to convince people to cycle. Just look at Belgium in the first map: lots of bike routes in (flat) Flanders but way fewer in the southern part (hilly Ardennes region): no coincidence!
Exactly, it's easy to bike in this flatland, let them try that in Poland, Southern or Middle Germany or country with similar geography
The solution is the e bike.
I would say Florida is prob still harder to cycle cause of the humid hot weather than drenches you in sweat the moment you step outside while in the Netherlands they have a cool temperate climate
@@Godploitt you realize the Dutch don’t cycle from city to city. Cycling is 90% purely done to commute between places within a city. Or even within a neighborhood. This is something that can happen in most cities around the world. Expect for a few that are actually to hilly. The long distances are still done by trains n car. You just go to the train station by bike
@@linhabraken8699 that's true. I live on Brussels. And am an avid cyclist. I know both the Flanders fields and the hills to the south. Brussels itself is hilly. In just 5 years, the number of cycling commuters in the city (and arriving from around it) has increased by a lot. The ebikes were the key. I'm trained and would find it challenging to deliver my kid to school by bike. If it's rainy and windy, going up a few hills with 20-30kg extra weight is impossible for most people. Bike infrastructure has also been improving, almost at same pace.
For someone who doesn't seem to speak Dutch, you got a very good estimate on the proper pronounciations of Dutch words! I remember living in Holland for a couple years and biking was one of the essential skills heavily encouraged in primary school. I'm not a good biker, but the skills came in handy a decade later when I decided to visit the country again.
Pronouncing was quiet nice indeed... but I also laughed a bit..
Pronunciation*
??? He is Dutch. He got a dutch accent...
sorry he is probably a dane
Holland is a great peninsula. Did you live in North or South Holland?
Visiting Amsterdam and Utrecht (coming from the UK), two things struck me about the cycle scene. Firstly, barely anyone wears lycra cycle wear - virtually everyone cycles in everyday clothes. In London it's the other way around. And secondly, among the thousands of bikes I saw in NL, the number of drop handlebar racing bikes was on the fingers of two hands. Overwhelmingly bikes were comfortable, practical "sit up and beg" style with big seats, chain guards and proper mudguards.
Lovely observations. I guess if you don’t wear lycra you will notice that cycling is not a sweaty job at all. 😉
A bike is a practical thing here, not just for sports. We don't dress for the ride but for the destination. And because of these things we designed our bikes to be practical, low maintenance and comfortable transportation
@@marjetdejong6219 It's said as FIETS, just exactly the way its written
There is indeed no "bike culture" since everyone uses bikes. You do not belong a "liberal snob elite" when you ride a bike
@@willemthijssen1082 thats correct. Thats also why there are so many electric bikes now. Its insane how fast we could switch from normal to electric, because its about 40% electric bikes now
whenever you cross the border from belgium to the netherlands via small roads or highway . you can feel the difference . i've drove a semi truck years ago and in the netherlands it's very easy to get into the city with a big truck. the bike paths between cities are very safe .
The design of North American cities is not really design by aesthetics but rather by law. The people that already live in the area do not want more people coming in and so they pass laws that limit building such as height restrictions, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot sizes, restrictive zoning, etc. This forces cities to spread horizontally rather than vertically, necessitating private car travel, more infrastructure, and making public transport inefficient for most people.
It's extremely inefficient, very expensive, much more detrimental to the environment. Not to mention it creates ugly places and its mentally depressing for the eyes.
Thank you Kim Jong-un, very cool
Yeah, when I saw American suburbs I was very surprised. I know the US had issues with bureaucracy but it looked awful. No bike paths, all asphalt no paved roads. Also concrete sidewalks, not paved.
Supreme leader
Thank you great leader for designing North Korea as the best place in the world
The Netherlands is also very much designed by regulations. But good ones
Saying that 82.5% of Netherlands’ GDP “comes from” exports is highly misleading. One has to also mention that the total imports of the Netherlands are equal to over 70% of GDP. All this means is that the Netherlands relies heavily on international trade - it does not mean that less than one fifth of the Dutch economy comes from domestic trade of goods and services, as the wording in the video would imply. (For comparison, in Luxembourg, exports are equal to 230% of GDP and imports 190%. In the US, the figures are 10% and 13%, respectively.)
Its good that you mention that because that is indeed true
Fully agree, but I want to make it even more clear that import and export do not "come from" or "are part of" the GDP. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in the country. How large part of those goods and services are exported for the Netherlands, I could not find figures for. Neither could I find figures for how large part of the GDP consist of trade (the value of services to facilitate and enable import and export).
The percentages mentioned are not "part of" the GDP. They are the result of comparing the total value of exports/imports to the value of the GDP. Then the 82.5% could be correct, depending on what is exactly counted as "export". As Chris says, they are likely in large part goods that are imported and then immediately exported again. The total value of import, export, and direct trade is about 150% compared to the GDP.
This video contains so many mistakes, most are because it simplfies much and thats understandeble but its annoying still.
Imported to be re-exported!
This guy seems to have done zero research, just read some things from some articles.. quite a few mistakes have been pointed out by the commentators
Great video! I would like to point out the windmills shown at 6:25 (Zaanse Schans) had nothing to do with land reclamation. They are industrial mills, used to make a variety of products ranging from paints to mustard. The mills shown shown at 8:58 are real watermills (World Heritage Kinderdijk). Bit of a pet peeve, my husband's a miller.
How do you spot the difference in windmills? I can only see the industrial mills having a building directly against them?
Isn't it also the case that most of those mills are heritage (as you said about the Kinderdijk mills), with most being replaced with pumps or other more modern machinery?
@@Dreamw4lk3r The industrial mills at Zaanse Schans are surrounded by storage facilities, which is one of the the things that gives away their purpose. Shape is another. Hexagonal mills are often sawing mills (the Young Sheep at Zaanse Schans) and the Crowned Poelenburg has a peculiar shape called 'paltrok' which is only found in sawing mills. Location is also important. A mill in the centre of a village was probably a corn mill, a mill out in the middle of nowhere in a polder was much more likely to be a watermill. Industrial mills needed supply lines and somewhere to sell their products, so they were often strategically placed along rivers (like the river Zaan). Watermills were often surrounded by a small scale farm run by the miller and his family who inhabited the mill. By now all watermills in the Netherlands have been replaced by some sort of pumping station. Many have been demolished and the surviving ones don't really serve a purpose in water management anymore. This goes for Kinderdijk as well. The mills still exist alongside the pumping stations and they are still in working condition, but they aren't needed anymore and they wouldn't be able to match the power of the pumping stations.
Thanks for saying this, so I don’t have to!
Also should add that the Noord-oost (6:14) polder was not drained with the use of the ol' windmill, but 'modern' (ca. 1940's) pumpinghouses.
@@timdekleijn8910 Good point! By the time the Noordoostpolder was created, windmills were on the way out. Many had already been decommissioned or even demolished. The transition towards streampowered pumping stations started during the 1860s (later to be replaced by electricity or diesel)
As A flemish/dutch person, Cycling is really popular in the dutch parts of belgium and the netherlands itself. I must say tram's are also a really popular option of transportation.
Hallo, Medemaat
Wout van Aert ftw
Amai!
i moved from the netherlands to Ireland and basically feel very unsafe when driving a bicycle. Not only do i have to drive left but almost all the time i have to drive on the same lane as cars, which either tailgate like crazy or when passing almost hit me. People in ireland dont seem to be used to bicycles at all, and there is no room for bicycles on their roads. This limits me alot to go places, driving a car is sadly no option for me.
The Irish terrain is not what I would class as ideal for bicycles, though. Public transportation really should get an overhaul their, however, you are absolutely right.
I could say the same to Germanys bicycle roads. But I am happy that my local city where I live is going to expand the access to cycling and building new roads for them.
Yeah I'm Irish and I don't bike specifically for this reason
Same happened to me :( moved from my home country the Netherlands to France and biking here is just difficult.
It’s annoying for drives to deal with too
really good video! something else to consider, the netherlands is super flat, and we are densely populated so things are usually pretty close by within a city or town. Most children cycle to school, so it’s also very much part of our upbringing, even our princesses cycle to their high school. and then people just keep doing it. i’ve seen people move big pieces of art or houseplants and even two children and two grocery bags on one bike. we’ve elevated the art form.
It should be noted though, children and teenagers in rural areas ALSO cycle to high school, many of them 10 or even 15 km, and that's talking one direction, so they cycle that distance twice a day. 150-200 km a week.
I was going to make the point about hills myself. I live half way up one of the largest hills in South London, and although I used to cycle a lot, it totally puts me off now. If I leave the house and turn left, I've got to start off going up a massive hill. If I leave and turn right, I've always got the return journey in the back of my mind, the fact I've got to get halfway up that same hill.
To put this in to context so you know I'm not just lazy, I used to cycle 20 miles each day to work in London (10 miles each way) across relatively flat ground, and I never had a problem with it. A few years later I changed jobs to one just 3 miles away, but there was a sizeable hill right at the start of the journey. Bonkers as it sounds, I'd feel worse after that trip than I would going 10 miles to London, and hills like that are very very common around here.
our president too lol
"princesses"
Wait what?
@@flamekaiser28 yep they do, just like our president. bikes are for EVERYONE
As a man moving from the shiny Dubai to The Netherlands, I used to see cycling as an underminer of social status, and I was trying to avoid it. After a few years, cycling became a real joy on day-to-day basis. You never know what you're missing on until you experience it.
You remind me of a friends of mine who moved from the US to the Netherlands. His father moved to the Netherlands as well after his wife died, he was a grumpy man when he was riding his car but when he discovered cycling he started to smile. Now I always see him cycling and smiling and having a good day.
Even our Prime Minister goes to work on his bike :D
It IS an underminer of social status my friend, that is PRECISELY the point. We do not tolerate self-infatuation. Our motto is "doe normaal" which translates to "normalise your behaviour". Arrogance, social status, avarice, all of that instagram horseshit, has no place in this nation, least of all in the north. I live in Friesland and we regularly throw people in the canal to cool off when they get too impressed with themselves. :)
@@InservioLetum doe normaal dutchies are the most boring kinda of dutchies. Most fun Dutch people I've been around all hated that term and I can understand why. It's just absolutely mundane.
@@thefbat5847 normaal, normal, norm. Mundane, median. Of course people calling themselves average tend to be average ;)
The attitude goes a long way to helping combat bullying or looking down on others, but it can also tear down those that are doing well or better than average. The knife cuts both ways unfortunately
As a person from the netherlands i gotta say that this is a very very good video, and everything is well explained. Keep up the good work!! U just got a new subscriber😁
I seriously love watching videos like this as a Dutch person. Things that are the norm here are so vastly different in other countries. If it wasn't for my travelling to Asia or watching these videos, I would've thought the entire world is like this.
As a dutch person same. Im so used to everything here and up until like a few years ago i thought everywhere was designed like here
Its grazy how we are here in the world as such a little country, we have everything a person needs, we did a good job hahaha! Groetjes uit Rotterdam! (Greetings from Rotterdam!)
I feel the same, everything feels so normal here and it's fun to see video's like this,
Groetjes uit de bommelewaard!
When i think about it its normal but when i hear this it makes me feel special to be dutch en nou godferdomme die fiets op met jonko in de hand :)
@@wowthebiggestnut6495 lekker jonko klappen!!! nah ik doe die shit niet, kben niet zo dom
As a moroccan dutch citiezen i am proud of my country and its achievements
Proud rioting when you won
@@nebhalabir1201 yeah thank you💪🏽
@@TheHolym4n internet praatjes op z’n best
@@nebhalabir1201 they didn't riot when they lost l, did they?
Hey makker, het is je boy JeGemiddeldeNederlander
The reason the Dutch tulip production is so successful isn't due to the soil but rather the precipitation pattern. Tulips and many other flower bulbs that undergo summer dormancy, thrive best with moderate to limited summer moisture, and cool to fairly cold wet winters. Bulbous plants such as Lilies, which remain in growth and flower during the summer and early autumn require summer moisture.
Farmers have coped with less-than-ideal soil conditions for specific plants with soil amendments and or raised beds for centuries. Most flower bulbs are bulbous as an adaptation to dry, often rainless summers where they undergo summer dormancy with a supply of stored food (sugars and starches) in bulbs, or in corms, rhizomes, or tubers. Similar precipitation patterns occur in the Mediterranean, the West Coast of the US, South Africa, and western Asia. And Tulips, Hyacinths, and many other flowering bulbs are of western Asian origin. A key aspect of flower bulb cultivation is that nearly all do best with, or require, summer dryness.
although, the extensive irrigation and water control systems means the dutch are able to keep water level in the soil of their tullip fields to very precise levels needed for production.
the tuplips on show are dutch. the tulips for sale are chinese. welcome to the netherland where everything is fake as fuck and people are milked for money.
Mf really wrote an essay about tulips 💀
Also proud as I am to be dutch I have to add that, just because we do 80% of the worlds Tulip export, doesn't actually mean we GROW 80% of the tulips, we also import alot and export them again. Still pretty impressive though if you account for the fact how little land mass we have available for agriculture. Efficiency is the name of the game.
At the same time, polder lands DO tend to be some of the most fertile in the entire world due to the soil, which is mostly river clay if I'm not mistaken (don't take my word for it, I'm not an expert on this).
And as Matthijs above pointed out already, we have expert water control, where every last ditch can be regulated with higher or lower water levels, which then regulates the ground water level so that it's perfect for whichever crop the farmers nearby want to grow.
There's even a river, the Utrechtse Vecht (the Vecht in the province of Utrecht; we also have a Vecht in the province of Overijssel), that flows in the reverse direction from it's natural flow a few thousand years ago, because that's more convenient for the water distribution.
Also, water management is amazing, but I'll stop myself from geeking out about it because this message would just get too long. As a rule of thumb, pretty much any Dutch person loves to talk about it though.
As a British guy who has lived in the Netherlands for the past 13 years, I can confirm that this country is VERY well run, it's clean, efficient and a much fairer society than the UK. The Dutch are also cool, friendly people with a dry sense of humour.
The British are overall the funniest people I’ve come across in the world. I think British and Dutch people tend to go along fine due to their humor. Even though you guys favor indirect communication compared to Dutch direct communication, in some way the self depreciating humor and dryness mingles really well and makes for great banter.
@@JustinRM20 Yes! I agree with every word, a very accurate description indeed. 😊
@@JustinRM20 i do agree! Sometimes it can get awkawrd when ot comes to their humour however that is just what males it more funnier for me, they really are the funniest people
As a dutchie I can confirm dry humor is a big thing. I once laughed for 39 minutes at a piece of bread falling down and when i showed it to my friends they did the same. As for the UK I have been there and like always when I’m in another country I’m amazed at the lack of bikes. I take my bike to school everyday and most of my teachers do the same. The concept of a schoolbus seems so weird to me.
@@dedaisys736 Visit Cambridge: we are very bike-friendly!
its beautiful and satisfying seeing the suburbia layout being so uniform and designed on efficiency which overall all benefits everyone. I really hope more countries adapt to a model like this
Although i live in Germany and the infrastructure for bikes is decent and i can Not complain, i am so jealous of the netherlands. If we had a system like them, more people would know the joy that two wheels can bring
Do more ppl ride bikes or drive cars in Germany? I’m curious bc I’m fascinated how a lot of European countries rely so much on biking but I wonder if they still ride bikes during cold winters or hot summers
The majority is still using cars or public transportation, but the awareness for biking as a environmentally friendly alternative is growing, at least in my part (Hessen)
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
@@georgia2727 I totally get your point and I'm not nessecarily disagreeing with you. But because of their bigger budgets, those building projects in the Netherlands and other rich regions have the freedom to innovate and figure out optimal ways to do things. Under the premise that there is a transfer of knowledge between wealthier and developing parts of the world, one could argue that on a macro-level the Netherlands are doing research and development for other nations who can not finance these endeavors.
On the other hand, if costs skyrocket due to mismanagement, pointless decadence or corruption, I'm totally with you.
@@georgia2727 When talking about car centric vs. bike and public transport focussed urban planning, I wouldn't say that the car centric approach is economically justifiable at all. The sheer amount of raw materials and space required for a car centric infrastructure is enormous. It becomes even clearer when you take into account long-term environmental and public health factors. Evironmental damage will disproportionately harm the poor and facilitate inequality.
I always find it fascinating how it's videos from foreigners that makes me appreciate my nation the most?! Dankuwel beste kerel!
That's always the irony man. While us Indonesian always shit on ourselves, Americans and Europeans be like: "YOOOO INDONESIA IS LIT BRO"
ik zie dat ik niet de enige nederlander ben met die mening :)
@@dennis2003bengel Ik sluit me hier zeker bij aan
You deserve to pat yourself on the back guys, you’re country has been well administered.
@@dennis2003bengel Komt denk ik omdat Nederland nooit zijn best doet om een trotse bevolking te kweken, maar ja, ben toch wel blij met z'n speciaal land als dit. Vind je nergens anders ter wereld, mag van mij wel meer gewaardeerd worden.
Another caveat here, U.S. cities were not built to be car-centric, they were bulldozed to be that way. The difference between a city like Rotterdam and most U.S. cities is that Rotterdam *had* to rebuild after WWII at a time when cars were becoming en vogue, whereas the U.S. *chose* to demolish their own cities to make room for motor vehicles.
If the U.S. is going to transition to sustainable cities, people need to stop pretending that places like Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Chicago suddenly came into existence after WWII. The U.S. is car-centric by choice, not some mysterious happenstance of history.
Here in Australia, our city centres were never bulldozed, at least to the extent the US was, but our suburbs are just as car centric as the American ones are, leading to a stark difference between the centre and the suburbs.
also japan, so traincentric because they need to rebuild cities.
Rotterdam is one of the most car-centric cities in the Netherlands (because of being rebuild after the war). Together with Groningen (which wanted to be modern)
But just because it was build like that 50 years ago does not mean it needs to stay that way. Streets can be redesigned, shops can be moved to new locations, houses can be torn down and rebuild, etc etc.
It always surprises me how resistant to change america is and how flexible europe is. Wealth in the USA seems to be build around descending from the first guy in your region who pushed out the indians.
Also the U.S is massive so we were less resourceful of land
The biggest problem in the US is not the bulldozing of land areas used before WWII, it's land use in areas built out after WWII. You can still get around pretty well by foot, transit or bike in most prewar areas--it's all the areas built since then, which is where most Americans live, that are car-bound.
I'm Dutch, and i know how hard it is to say the names of Dutch places (5:57) when you're not from here, but the fact that you tried warms my heart extually. Because, you TRIED. And it wasn't even that bad!
I bet if he wasn't white it wouldn't warm your heart as much
You mentioned the Delta Works, but earlier in the 13th century a system for the creation and maintenance was put to law. this created opportunities to mostly reclaim the land in the provinces of North and South Holland, Zeeland , Friesland and Utrecht. this is what led to the reclamation (last great one was the Flevopolder) and the Delta works only bolstered out defences against flooding in Zeeland. The measures taken in the 13th century didn't just create land and protect it from flooding, it also made the land dry and stable enough to build houses on and made it ready for agriculture.
I've just arrived to Netherlands from Singapure, where I've spent half a year, and I can say that Netherlands is definitely super modern in terms of human centered concepts or urban planning, while Singapore is lagging 20-30 years behind with their super car centric city, despite high density of the population.
wait i thought in Singapore cars are extremely expensive and taxed and everyone uses public transit instead?
@@Amir-jn5mo mostly people have high enough salaries to afford the car, and also taxi is really cheap, with normal trip around 10$ for 10-20 mins.
Public transport is for students and workers mostly.
@@drone_lady Lol I need to tell you if think Singapore is lagging behind, you would have a heart attack in America. It is car hell.
@@laurasisson1611 totally agree! That's why I'm scared even to go to the US 😨
Singapore is very clean tho, and maintains its public structures quite wel. The most bizzaro thing I have heard of tho is the fact that they are very strict when it comes to hygene, ive read that they have undercover cops that watch if you go into a public bathroom and follow inside after you to check if you 'cleaned' everything. Else you can get fined, that is so weird to me
I would recommend the channel NotJustBikes to people that want to learn more about Dutch infrastructure and bikes!
But NotJustBikes
I was in Rotterdam recently and I absolutely fell in love with the country. I am now planning to move there, such a fascinating place, and surprisingly affordable.
@cobus B you are such a salty person. you keep on telling people to not move here but yet you are still living here? its a good country to live and grow up in.
@@BjornLlaneza but he's still right
It’s freezing! Don’t come 😂
Please do come and feel welcome! The Netherlands has and always will be welcoming to all people who want to make it happen here.
Affordable? Really?
I'm from The Netherlands and I find it fascinating that when I drive or cycle somewhere and I look around, everything is planned. For example almost all the trees are planned. Except for the small wild forests and parks but you cannot really call any nature in The Netherlands wild, even there is alot of planning.
That's how I felt when I moved to the NL. The whole country looked like one giant park! What a contrast to Norway which I had visited just a few months prior. I don't live in the NL anymore but I love cycling and miss the brilliant Dutch infrastructure
Dat is raak gezegd. That is a good point. Every little thing is planned. This doubtlessly has benefits, but for my taste it is too much. I'm from the NL, but I feel more at ease outside the NL where there is more room to breathe.
Except y’all don’t have any POC so it’s not very welcoming for anyone not white. When I visit Europe I stay away from those country’s.
My area in upstate NY had a huge dutch influence. We still celebrate Tulip festivals. Guilderland, named for Gelderland. Watervilet, Slingerlands, many others all former Dutch settlements. Some large farms are still owned by the original dutch families who came in the 1600s! They talk about bringing back the Dutch spirit and putting bike lanes in.
We have some forests but not alot
I adore the Dutch way, after living there in the Netherlands as a teenager, I learned to commute to school on a bike after returning to Kraków, and not just use bike for recreation. I was quite a sensation back in 2005 lol. Now it's pretty normal for folks in Poland to commute on a bike in the cities and infrastructure is getting there, although the scale is different, of course. On the other hand, the Netherlands (and Flanders, to some extent) make me feel like there's no wild, quiet places around, that there's always a house with moving, living people in your view, which can be a bit tiring at times as your brain just needs to process this subconsciously.
Next time you visit us, try Texel. An island with fields and forests, and during winter it is nice and quiet, and not too expensive. In summer it is a chaos of German tourists trying to reach the beach
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 thank you! Noted, good hint :)
@@tomekdarda and I feel you with the wild fields. Last year I visited Poland (Energylandia, Auswizch and the big swiming park near Warsaw and I was impressed by the 'empty' parts of Poland. Trees just growing where they felt like it, forests full of them, too bad we had such a full program, would have loved to just walk through the foreats
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 I am sure you will, someday :) I have already checked Texel, looks fabulous with Den Burg in the centre :) If you feel like visiting something remotely, I can recommend to street view the Carpathian Mountains, like around the Krynica, Tylicz or Bardejov (that's across the border in Slovakia) towns or maybe moreso in "the end of the road" Wołosate. All those are effortlessly reachable from Krakow. It is only a bit sad that with the rapid development of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and so on it also gets almost too modernized, but still you can find those romantic, empty hills, forests and mountains. Cheers!
I call it concentration of wealth. There is so much money in the Netherlands that we can spend ten times more for the same road as any other country. You might think it is well designed but actually it is very bad economics and very selfish. One school in the Netherlands builds four schools somewhere else. Do you compliment the Netherlands for having better design or do you blame for being four times as expensive? Culturally the former. Economics wise the latter. Economics > Culture. Because people are still starving and suffering around the world it seems immoral to prioritize culture over economics. I rather have four schools in the world than one well-designed school in the Netherlands.
My wife lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years. She liked your video and added that the traffic lights are bike friendly. Bikers on big junctions have their own traffic lights that are green twice as often as cars. That way there is no traffic jam for bikes. Bikes are also always allowed to turn right. It is really impressive how these masses of people on bike wiggle through each other without crashing. It is absolutely impressive to see that in action. If you imagine for one second, that everyone of these people would sit in a car… transportation is just not imaginable!
Was it not too hard to come back to you country after experiencing the great quality of life of Netherlands? I have a grand uncle who lives in Canada since his 20s, and as they now (he’s retired as his wife) spend winter back with us in France, he’s always comparing and complaining when he sees something less efficient than Canada :)
At 2:50 you see a yellow blue bike. This is the OV-fiets. The Public transit bike. Meaning that with your train ticket, which is a universal pass for all forms of public transport is also used for a bike. So you can bike from the station to your final destination and back.
There are two main reasons in Dutch culture that really shape the infrastructure:
1) Continuous improvement. The next project should always improve over the last one. One of the main goals is to create designs that avoid (traffic) accidents.
2) Prevention. The Dutch culture is much more prevention focussed than others, because if we have a flood, the water doesn't leave by itself.
2) If only it thought the same way about covid lmao
Back in 2013 I biked from mu home in Sweden down to Mont St Michel i France. While Belgium, Germany and France were good, the Netherlands were fantastic to ride through.
Such a fantastic network of roads just for bikes.
It's not fair how the dutch ACTUALLY do something about something whenever they want to get it done.. America just says they wish they could do something but blame the money..
Eh politically the netherlands is not so great atm
@@anonman9237 well that can be said to most of the world tbh
@@anonman9237 yeah this guy obviously never heard of the polder model....
@@anonman9237 i mean, have you seen the US politics over the last 10 years? Sheeesh
@@anonman9237 the political situation is never great. Er is altijd iets te zeiken
I cycled everyday with my cousins in North Brabant near Eindhoven. Everywhere you went: Sidewalk, bike lane, road.
The flat land helped a lot too. It was so much fun!
Great video, high quality OBF... No doubt, the Netherlands is the best place for Biking. We should not forget Zurich as well, hopefully I'm gonna make a video about that as well.
Switzerland good for biking??? 🤣🤣
@@Bananaman-hk6qw Zurich !!! While the whole Switzerland may not be good for biking which am sure it is, I mentioned Zurich, Switzerland as a well designed city. It's also bike friendly.
@@lekan1 Meh. Its alright. But nothing really extraordinary imo
@@Bananaman-hk6qw Ofcos, you don't really cherish what you have like how outsiders do. Many cities lack what you think it's normal in your own place. 😊
@@lekan1 @Bananaman Like how a Dutchman like myself is actually pleasantly surprised how this video explains certain strengths in the Netherlands, while we don't stand still and think about such things because we're used to all that. 😁
Netherlands was, my home for most of my childhood and I look forward to going back there, I just can’t grasp why it is so exotic and different in other countries such as England, where I am now for children to independently and safely ride anywhere, especially to school on their bikes. I remember when I was 5/6 and riding to my school all by self, safely, on roads too, the training was amazing for children and it’s so useful and I will never forget my time there :)
Exotic, you have got to be fucking kidding me
@@nzeusman8215 why u mad for
@@Con_Verse1 Sorry m8 was boozing last night apologies.
@@nzeusman8215 nah bro nothing to apologise for it's all good
It does have a bit of an exotic vibe in the summer
The great thing about Schiphol Airport is that it's a single terminal with runways built around it, next to a highway, and with the "normal" train station underneath (it's not a specific train to the city center, like the Narita-Tokyo train for instance). It's really easy to get there by train to pick a friend visiting, and get home by train again.
There are some problems with design, of course. One being the common sacrifice of pedestrian access for bikes, for instance (sometimes there is no sidewalk, but more commonly the sidewalk is receiving all the street furniture and can be difficult to navigate with strollers and other similar items). And with mopeds using bike lanes, they can be dangerous for any pedestrian wandering by.
And those cameras for bike garages are needed. Bike theft is plaguing the Netherlands; the big garages are the safe places.
I bike everyday to and from work in The Netherlands. It is actually super easy and great. Although being someone who likes dressing nicely and have my makeup done, cycling gets super uncomfortable during rain, snow & wind😢
The planning is really good. I've often been in the Netherlands. For example I've never heared an airplane in Amsterdam or Utrecht or Rotterdam. I didn't realize that Shiphol airport is as big. 83% export. Almost half of european food is made by the Netherlands. They grow nearly all food in green houses. Its way more efficient. So its possible that a small country like the Netherlands can produce masses of food. This country is really advanced. Its a really good news that my city has invited Dutch planners to built cycling infrastructure.
Then Rob you must be deaf. I've lived in and around Amsterdam for 42 years and you hear planes all the time.
How to invite them? Can we get them for United States of North America please 😂
We make alot of food, however we mostly export them and import food. That's a strange thing in the Netherlands. I really wondered why you didn't hear any Planes in Amsterdam, because i hear Them alle the time...
@@Bruce-1956 Yes indeed! VERY noisy
I think the amount of agriculture destined for export in the Netherlands is ridiculous. We export over 70% of our foods, yet we are left with 100% of its pollution (even though it is relatively efficiently produced, thankfully), hugely disproportionate to the country's landmass. Farmers do not get enough money for their produce or dairy and thus have to produce huge quantities to be economical, all to the detriment of our soil (acidification) and air. Not to mention the lack of space left to have any biodiversity.
So while I do think the focus on efficiency is good, the scale of it is absolutely unnecessary.
"theres a greater chance of an american being obese than owning a bike... mad anyway"
perhaps there is a link between the two... who knows
Didnt expect that line coming from 0.3 bike per capita data lol
@@gijsboukes9487 there's no perhaps about it, the correlation is very clear
Correlation =\= causation. You can't bike your way out of a bad diet!
Yes, the truth hurts....Hee hee.
As an Indonesian I sometimes wonder why are we so bad at infrastructure after the dutch ruled for so long. Surely we picked up a thing or two in 350 years
I heard that we picked up the corruption behavior and bureaucracy of the Dutch East India Company that led to its bankruptcy. Well, at least there is something to pick up after being colonized for 3.5 centuries
@@011azr yep, we take the bad parts and implement it, not much the pros
Also a lot of the great infrastructure design in the netherlands started after it.
Unfortunately most of this great planning only really started in the latter half of the 20th century. People talk as if the netherlands were always like that, but they weren't.
@@011azr to be fair corruption is in human nature. in some societies more then others.
The landmass of the Netherlands is not 41.543 km² as stated at 00:28. This is the total surface area of the Netherlands. However, 18,41% of this total surface area is water. The landmass of the Netherlands is aprox 33.893 km².
even worse, the video states its only 41,5 km2
in the past when I grew up in a car city in Germany I hated cycling - but later when I moved to the Netherlands it became my favorite type of transportation for absolutely everything from study to work, groceries, meeting friends and going out.
While the biggest bicycle parking might me in Utrecht for now, it's successor is currently under construction in Ghent, Belgium, and will be able to house 17.000 bicycles.
I wonder why though. Hearing my Belgian coworkers complain about the quality of roads, the focus should be on fixing bike paths, rather than building a giant bicycle parking. ;) Anyway, looking forward to see the result in Ghent. I wonder which city (and country) will try to get the record next.
Time to expand in Utrecht then. Can't have the southerners win an unofficial contest!
@@leahyt wanted to write the same lol :D
@@TimvanderWeyden well belgiums railway infrastructure is very dense and if worked on further and connected to nearby countries could serve most long-distance transport for cities. (That should honestly be one of the biggest goals for EU transport, connecting the EU with fluïd train infrastructure.) Combined with the fact that our cities are also converting more and more to a pedestrian focus (like Mechelen or Leuven) and we could very much become another example like the netherlands. Such centers to oark their bicycle could then be perfect for people commuting or travelling abroad.
Nice, enjoy it!
I have lived in Canada, Japan, Korea, USA, and other countries. Hands down the Netherlands is the BEST, very well designed. Very well organized 🙏
Nice to know, what are the pros & cons of the Netherlands
Japan and Singapore actually come close to or even surpass Netherlands in some aspects. But they're not updating themselves as fast as the rest of the world is doing
When are you going to live in the Netherlands :)
Im from the UK but I've lived in the Netherlands almost my entire life. Everything you explained in this video is absolutely true, and it made me reappreciate the everyday things I took for granted. Thank you!
Rotterdam really did go through an amazing transformation, from dirty industrial harbour hellhole full of cars everywhere, to a pretty nice cultural city with nice parks and wide walkways.
The center is still unpleasant to drive in, however. :)
Which encourages alternative methods of transportation, I guess. (unfortunately it also has plenty of less than safe crossings, but that aside)
I had to work there for my studies about 15 years ago, it was an ugly city then. When I was done there they were just about to change the train station to something civil. Last week I was in Rotterdam and it had improved immensely; it could also have been that I was on the other side of town.
@@klaesregis7487 Do you remember the road straight out of the train station? It used to be a mess of streets for cars, now there's that broad lovely walkway, with bicycle paths and tram rails flanking it.
Rotterdam is the only place in The Netherlands I somewhat the feeling I am in a real city, with urban culture. Amsterdam and The Hague feel so provincial and "stiff".
@@paulbeaucuse2092 Mind telling me where you are from so I can get a better feel for the larger context of your experiences?
@@ScapestoatHe is from Rotterdam and like every second city they always must bash the big brother… 😂
It's such a shame the UK has extremely poor cycling infrastructure. The Netherlands do it so well!
I can't speak for other cities, but in London it's improved massively in the last few years. I know the cycling infrastructure in Cambridge is great too.
@@AlastairNowill I agree with you, London is much nicer for cycling now, I just mean as an overall average the infrastructure is sub par, cities like Southampton, bristol and cardiff have pretty poor standards for cyclists.
@@AlastairNowill Great? Yeah no
England has the same advantages like the netherlands, small desely populated etc so England has no excuse to not have a great cycling infrastructure network
@@mr.metallic5310 Any infrastructure is. So is police. Fire protection is no different. Or even garbage collection.
Interestingly enough, because Schiphol airport is under sea level, it’s able to be more space efficient with runways since it’s lower altitude allows for shorter take-off rolls due to the denser air.
The thing is, AMS is only 20 or so feet below sea level, so effectively the airport's below-sea-level advantage is negligible at best. Build it 20ft above sea level and you'll probably get the same result.
@@nerd2814 I was mostly thinking of that altitude compared to Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, which is 2000ft above sea level; since he brings it up.
Yeaaa 15 meters makes air soo much denser
@@wnaderhuffstadt8201 It's always scary going to the fifth floor of an apartment building. Always almost suffocate.
@@maarten699 Basements in tower blocks are air density hazard zones!
I live in the Netherlands and it is literally more efficient for me to go to school by bike than by car, because you have to drive around some farmland, but there are bike paths through it. It takes the same amount of time and I am not fast
This whole "that can never be done here" idea only demonstrates a lack of vision and/or commitment by the planners responsible.
We Dutch changed our infrastructure gradually, fitting it into our regular maintenance schedule. Sewage & drainage systems need to be overhauled every 40 years, and road surfaces every 20-odd years, which make great opportunities to add bike lanes. This way, building this infrastructure is essentially for free: you were going to tear up the existing road surface and put in new anyway.
So to get to the state where we are, the only thing you need is a long-term, decade-spanning vision of where you want to go, and make sure that every time a road is maintained, it is used as a step towards that vision.
Except if you have built an unsustainable mess that is left to collapse due to neglect, as most US cities have done, using money that should have been spent on maintenance to finance cheap homes for the top 50% that do not generate enough taxes to maintain their infrastructure....
Greed is destroying the USA. Greed and shortsightedness.
you're spot on about the US. I spent most of my childhood summers in NL (staying at oma/opa as my dutch parents immigrated to the US in the 60s) but grew up in a suburb in the midwest of the US, and one could not get anywhere without a car. Granted the US is much bigger in landmass than NL but I'm super impressed with the bike centric transportation infrastructure in NL. No such commitment or betterment in the US, greed and shortsightedness, indeed.
America can build infrastructure that's true but it isn't feasible for most Americans to cycle to their work which is often 50 miles or 80 km away from their home. Different countries have different priorities out of necessity.
Many people in the Netherlands have their work 80 km from home. The difference between the Netherlands and the USA is as the video said: the Netherlands is good designed. People travel big distances by train. The train is mostly faster than cars so cars are just bad. The trains are electric. Small distances are travelled mostly by bicycle. That the USA is bigger isn’t an excuse. The infrastructure is just shit because the government invests in army instead of important stuff.
@iColantai Bridges have a life span of about 40 years, depending on e.g. traffic. As most of your infrastructure was built between the 50ies and 80ies, I can believe you have serious problems there.
yeah ? let's try that in non flat land like Southern Germany, Poland or any other country with lots and lots of hills. It's easy as hell to cycle when everything is flat, try going uphill 5 times on the way to the shop in one direction or to work and then we'll talk how convinient it is
I live in England. I’d never even consider buying a bike here. There isn’t really any bike paths, & it’s really dangerous.
This has led to a culture of drivers hating cyclists, & quite frankly, the cyclists here act like complete selfish idiots.
Which seems to be mainly because most cyclists are teens, as they can't drive cars. And most teens behave like complete selfish idiots in any circumstance anyway.
I stopped cycling after I moved to UK tbh, not a pleasure anymore
Sadly those kind of conflicts are to be expected when the infrastructure just isn't there. Cars will hate cyclists for using 'their' road, and cyclists will hate car drivers because they may not respect how fragile cyclists are. Besides that, every driver in NL is also a cyclist, so they tend to pay the kind of consideration and respect that they themselves would like to see when they're on the bike. It's really easy to spot the people who only drive their BMW, and never take the bike: They tend to be tremendous arses in traffic
Here the cyclists hate cars :D
I'm a Dutchman but lived in the UK for a few years, in Southampton, which prides itself for its great cycling infrastructure. I was shocked at how appallingly bad it was and in my first week there, decided that cycling was not an option. Yes, Southampton roads have cycle lanes, but wherever you need cycling infrastructure the most, near junctions, they simply stop. This means that, as a cyclist, you're fighting over the same bit of road with motorized traffic, so there is conflict almost immediately. This is something that Dutch cycling infrastructure tries to avoid as much as possible. What also makes cycling in the Netherlands much nicer is that most drivers also ride bicycles, so they are much more likely to be considerate to cyclists. I completely agree with Hendrikus. Everybody in the Netherlands rides bicycles, from small children to the elderly and everyone in between, whereas as a cyclist in the UK, you almost have to be a fanatical asshole, because that is the only way to survive.
You pronounced Utrecht very well for a foreigner!!
These Delta Work names pronunciations are cute no problem haha!
As a person that lives/lived in "Doetinchem (a small city in the Achterhoek of Gelderland in the Netherlands) i can say our city has a popularity of a big variety wrongly build and placed traffic lights.
Ik neem aan dat ze er wat aan doen om het beter te maken. Ik woon in Hengelo Overijssel en ze zijn constant bezig om het beter te maken.
@@Brozius2512 jammer genoeg volgens mij niet echt, in doetinchem sta je soms nog steeds ongeveer 5 minuten stil voor een stoplicht, dat is al minstens 8 jaar (Ongeveer 3 stoplichten die ik ken). Ook zijn er sommigen lichtelijk verkeersonveilig, zoals het stoplicht naar de grote weg, in de buurt bij de binnenstad (weet niet precies uit te leggen welke weg en waar precies, maar vlakbij de Rabobank).
Just watch your Swiss video and this one was on deck. I want to go to both places now. Thank You! Great info and content.
I own 5 bikes, but at the same time I couldn't imagine not owning a car. Driving at night while listening to music is quite simply one of the greatest pleasures.
Sure, I agree with you. I love cycling too (6 bikes I own), but for the long distance you need a car. Especially, when there is no train station in the vicinity of your final destination.
People in the netherlands own as many cars as any average European, they just need them a lot less. As you said owning a car can be a pleasure, but not when you have to go through 20mins of traffic jams everyday
@@asddd. Well said, 100 % the truth.
@@asddd. Also, how great is it to not be required to take the car, given the gas prices are as they are :)
@@williamvanderscheer4327 even before, driving a car was always expensive, i can do with an alternative
This is very nice to hear, because living in the Netherlands I can easily takes the advantages for granted. I guess an explanation for the efficiency is that with less space you are forced to be creative 🙂So if you are lacking something, it could be a hidden advantage.
Looks like the content creator has never seen anything from the Netherlands outside the Randstad, because most of the things he said are very Randstad/city specific.
@@QoraxAudio well about half of the population lives in the randstad area, so that makes sense
Hey, it might be interesting to dig deeper in the origin of the Noordoostpolder. Because we MADE that land. I have lived there for 18 years and although there is not much to do, the history of the different villages is very interesting. It's also the place where many of the Dutch tulips are grown.
He kind explained this, without going in detail
@@michaelkwarts only if he was muslim
I feel like an important thing to clarify is the US for the most part wasn’t BUILT for the car, cities even like Detroit were built for the streetcar, and then were BULLDOZED for the car
if you figure out exactly why this happened (it wasn't just because cars exist, cars also exist in the Netherlands) you will no longer be fit for polite society. It took me years to finally understand what happened to American cities, because I was unwilling to accept the truth.
Originally in the urban centers, yes. But it is a straight up lie to say everything post 60s hasn't been built for the car
The U.S. kept electing officials who were bought out by the rich automobile CEOs to put forth laws that favored cars, like building more highways.
Love the new insights into this wonderful country. Thank you! I daresay that the mentality of a population that is shaped by history, culture, resource availability and even the climate and topography decides it's planning of the environs and infrastructure. Having said that, it's inexcusable if other countries do not learn at least a few things and their governments educate the populace.
Anyway, kudos to the people of The Netherlands.
Well, look at all the parts of Germany that now has somewhat decent bicycle infrastructure. And it keeps growing at an ever increasing pace too. Sure, it is where it should be, by Dutch standards, but it is getting there slowly.
I'm from Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies in the past time) and honestly, I love the indies empire style architecture. I don't like when they occupy/invade our country, but they design everything very well. For example bridges, dams, railroads. even now, we still use facilities that they made in the past and everything still work fine
Sorry if this comment out of topic from video
But still very sorry for the shit we pulled…
@@denise9393 I pulled no shit whatsoever
@@denise9393 you people are 100x better than pompous brits who say they brought civilization to india
@@ashketchum5466 history wise I still think we were just as horrible as the British. But thank you 😊
@@denise9393 De Britten waren veel erger op veel grotere schaal, lees de geschiedenis maar eens na.... Wat dacht je van de indianen en de aboriginals. En de Anglo-Boerenoorlogen.
Very interesting! Thank you so much for this work. I am a visual learner and you catered perfectly to me with your editing :)
4:40 Dutch houses may be smaller in area per floor, they also have 2 to 3 stories, whereas American houses usually only have 1, especially in the suburbs. So even though Dutch houses take up less space, we probably have more livable area in our house compared to American suburbs
And the houses are way better, with barely any drywall or wood
American houses often even have wooden ceilings/floors, something you'll almost never find in the Netherlands
@@einstijn138 There are wooden floors here, but those usually aren't part of the foundation. All houses are build on a stone foundation based on large stone pillars drilled into the ground, because of soft ground. All interior and exterior walls and floors/ceilings are all stone as well, whether it be hard (outside) or soft (inside) bricks or just large slabs of stone (usually the flooring, but sometimes walls as well)
@@joeboogert7055 Yeah that is exactly what I meant
In bigger cities you have these row villa's. They have sometimes 5 stories. First is like the car parking, second floor living space + kitchen, then third floor some rooms and 4th floor also rooms.
This happened because of the balance between regional and national government, representative democracy on all levels, export driven economics, a large civil service, an open society, geographical location and lots of luck. That first point though is very underrated. How well are different interests represented in the decision making process and how many interests can you be aware of? That's the most important question.
I would deeply love an outro for these type of video with soothing music while i scroll the comments after finishing the video.
Anyways great video on Netherlands, love ❤️ and support 👍
What a brilliant informative video we need more educational videos like these I learned a lot from this short video. Thanks you very much 👍
"The citizens demanded change and the government listened"
ahh yes, that's where the problem lies
The government HAD to listen else they won't be in the government next election. The advantage of having many smaller parties. And if there is no party that supports a certain goal, its a matter of time before someone creates one.
The converse in the UK is that (a} the citizens aren't demanding change and (b) the government isn't listening!
That's not what happened. During the 70s there was an energy crisis and the Dutch government became concerned: they were oil-reliant but didn't have any oil themselves. So for matters of national security and reducing foreign oil dependence, they chose to rebuild infrastructure to be more bike-centric.
It's not the case that The Netherlands is some utopia where magically the politicians listen to the people. Nowadays we have a ton of parties, but all of them more or less have the same opinions about everything -- they're all broadly pro-EU, pro-immigration, pro-renewable energy, pro-mandates during 2021, pro-behaving like a US vassal state, pro-democratic socialism, pro-very light punishments for criminals, pro-screwing over students, anti-army, anti-Russia, anti-guns, anti-using our own natural gas reserves. The very few parties that go against this are heavily demonized by the mainstream media and unjustly called "racists" and "bribed by Putin" all the time, which makes most people not vote for them. If a prospective employer found out that I was voting for one of those non-political-cartel parties, I fully expect that I wouldn't be hired purely based on that (with some bullshit reason given).
Because of this, studies have shown that the will of the average citizens has zero impact on what policy gets enacted.
@@lightworker2956 Since you wish to roll back civilizational gains and worsen the quality of life in the Netherlands, it is not surprising that most Dutch citizens frown upon your political views. 🤷🏽
Ideally 😅 however the dutch government have been defunding many sectors incl. medical, housing, military etc. and the people have been paying the price for more than 15 years now.
4:30 trust me, as a dutchie we hate the small sized houses which are ridiculously expensive for their tiny size.
bUt TiMe iS tHe mOsT vALuAbLe tHiNg We HaVe aMiRiTe
@@ronloc3309 Totally depends on what your goals are in life. For me it's tranquility.
man i remember biking to school everyday, i even used my bike after school, i always went to my friends houses that way. i always felt so much freedom riding around my village and i still completely remeber the layout of the village i used to live in. my parents weren't that concerned either with me going outside regularly due to how bike friendly and overall safe it was
the graphic is so good. keep up the good work 👍
i had the opportunity to visit amsterdam right before christmas 2017; such a beautiful city, and honestly truly one of the best integrated public transit systems i've seen. the city is already very bikeable/walkable and then you add the tram/train/bus system...
As a Aussie I have been seeing a lot more people riding bikes these days because of infrastructure change more bike lanes are being made and E bikes are becoming massively popular
I like the idea of bike path in every country like the Netherlands, but the problem is: elevation changes.
Netherlands is one of the flats country in Europe, so that works for their bicycle culture. On the other hand in my city I have and elevation change of 200 m so its almost impossible to get to much of the city on bicycle:(
The answer is e-bikes, which are becoming more populair in the Netherlands also because they make cycling a lot easier for elderly people and are the best solution for dealing with our weather.
In those kinds of situations it is indeed harder for average people to commute by bike just because of how demanding it is. Fortunately e-bikes are slowly becoming more accessible in those kinds of situations.
In some companies in the Netherlands including where I work as a Dutchie, traveling to work through cycling is highly encouraged where some go as far to make it mandatory if living close enough from your home. Watching this video actually fuels me to use my bike more, great video!