Our new comedy urbanism channel, I Love the City is now live! www.youtube.com/@ilovethecity I Love the City is a ridiculous (and often silly) take on urbanist topics, and unlike Not Just Bikes, it's actually funny because other people write the jokes! The ILTC writers are standup comedians, and they've worked on several other comedy projects that you've likely heard of, including The Daily Show, Robot Chicken and more. Check out our first episode, about how cars killed the hat! th-cam.com/video/z4D0VMKeHjk/w-d-xo.html More info is available in the post on my community tab: th-cam.com/users/postUgkxYJldd_OT0U6aB4QnMo4Tw-GXl-fAdjjl
@@jerredhamann5646 Utrecht has the largest train staton in the country, as it's the largest train- connections node in the center of the whole country. With that many train connections to everywhere it's used quite intensively; as it's such a nice city lots of people like to live there even if they work elsewhere (e.g.Amsterdam), as long as they can commute by train; and businesses like to locate there and attract train-using commuters.
Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island
Thanks for the shoutouts! The comparison between London, ON, and Utrecht is fascinating, and it really shows that it’s not impossible to undo bad designs and make places for people again. Going from a canal, to a highway, and BACK to a canal is wild! And we really feel your points about wanting the places we live now to be the places we WANT to stay in, but that sometimes the necessary changes to make that happen won’t be seen in our lifetimes. Still, many changes can happen immediately, and can happen quickly. As you said, local advocacy is crucial, and our Local Conversations are doing incredible work in their communities across North America - and beyond, too!
Clearly just talking about urbanism isn't going to work. We specific training on what to do. I'm actually surprised that none of you seem to talk much about it. I spoke to a Strong Towns official, and he explained to me what does, but he never talked much about it in any presentations. You guys haven't mentioned it in any of your videos. If you're such advocates of advocacy, then why do you not train, test, and oversee, this kind of stuff? It seems that it is easier to talk about urbanist features, rather than actually train.
@@eugenetswong >It seems that it is easier to talk about urbanist features, rather than actually train. I mean, yeah. Actually acting is always harder than learning. But learning is also critical for acting. It really is a hard thing to put plans into action, but folks in the Strong Towns movement are doing just that now. Running local groups, advocating at Councils, and even running for office! But it's also a messy process, too, which can dissuade a lot of folks. Think about looking into it! And from the sounds of your passion on the subject, I bet you could do a lot!
@@Descriptor413 I attended a Strong Towns meeting, and checked a few local videos. It was mostly features, and small activities. We didn't get any training. I'd love to run for office, but I hate competing for a job. I'll keep trying, though. 🙂 The worst option is surrender. Thank you for your positivity!
I've been walking in my neighborhood (Dallas, TX) and dodging traffic for over 25 years now, it was just nice to see what a safe, walkable neighborhood is supposed to look like. Thanks for that.
It starts with that and the next thing you know you're getting mad that there isn't a bike lane where you think they should be or that the curbs are too wide and open
I know Dallas, I was also there personally, and sorry, if I compare it with European cities like Amsterdam, Brügge, Dresden, Krakau, Oxford, Bourdeaux, Barcelona, Munich, Verona, Salzburg, etc. it is simply "faceless", with no real city center and no real identity. It looks like many other large cities in USA. And Dallas is even one of the "better" cities in the USA. There are worse examples, for sure. It looks as if American architects are not really good.
I went there (Fort Worth) last year for the holidays and I was surprised by the absence of sidewalksin the neighborhood. Judging by the place we stayed it seemed to be a village at best due to large gardens and single family homes and not a metropolis inhabited by millions. Getting on or near the highway (which I found to be quite scary) to just get the most basic goods was so strange. I was kind of amazed when I spotted the one van we saw during our 2 1/2 weeks there. Pickups, on the other hand made up like 50% of all the vehicles. The cattle drive with those texan longhorns was the only time I saw a living thing safely walking on its street 🐄
Thanks for the mention Jason! What you didn't mention though is that I grew up in Utrecht. So you compared your hometown to my hometown and that made this video very close to err home. I use those pictures of the 1940 protests in the US in my presentations to US summer school students. The Stop the Kindermoord protests here in the 1970s look like a carbon copy of those protests. People involved in those protests here told me they did not have the feeling they accomplished anything at the time. But aparently a seed of change was planted after all. I can only hope something will turn out to have sparked a change in North America when we look back at the car era 50 years from now...
this is true of almost every protest, ever. It is exceedingly rare for the people or institution you are protesting against to say "yeah fair point there mate, let's change that around." Instead, both sides lock horns, at great cost to everyone, with no actual outcome. But a year later, when the next project gets planned in some backroom, the planners will try to avoid having a similar mess on their hands. That's why real effective advocacy needs about a decade of pressure to get some tangible results.
Thanks for this Mark. As someone who frequently feels like we’re not accomplishing anything in my corner of North America, I hope you’re right and that 50 years from now, things will be vastly different. But I have to give credit where credit is due. It will be thanks in no small part to people like you and Jason and so many other online educators (I hate the word influencer) that a difference was made. By the way, I’ve followed you ever since TH-cam’s algorithm steered me to your “Cycling in North America, a Dutch Perspective” video. Been a subscriber since!
I was born in the Netherlands and my family moved to Canada when i was very young. I moved to fake London for college and every complaint or grievance you have with London is spot on. being without a car in fake London makes life so much harder. Can't wait to move back to the Netherlands when I can
I live in fake London and my job is 15 minutes away by car but 1 hour by bus! That's nuts! I wish I had a reliable bus transportation so I wouldn't need a car
Another fake londoner here. Takes me 20 minutes to get to Western by car. 2 HOURS by bus, and I can't even get all the way back if I start the return trip by bus after 6pm. Wasn't able to drive for a year and a half until just last week, and not having a car here requires you to plan your entire life around it.
@Darkclowd it's terrible, I'm from Mexico and even though Mexico doesn't have a great public transit system I never felt that I needed a car to get around (I'm from a smaller city than London) but here you need a car to do groceries
I live in the Netherlands, my job is 20 minutes away by car, 1 hour by public transport. I usually ride a bicycle, takes 1.5 hours, but I like it more.
My (dutch) partner made a great observation: the mentality of drivers here is also really different now than it was in the 70s. And as an american with a dutch driver’s license, I can 10000% confirm I had to do mental backflips when I started driving here. The “I’m bigger I win” mentality of americans is such a problem! Here, I don’t let any relatives drive until they’ve ridden a bike across the city because 1) they need to learn to look for bikes and 2) they need to learn who has right of way. If there’s a bike, a pedestrian, and a car in america, no one cares what the law says - the car wins. I wonder if flipping that mentality had also helped dutchies create such beautiful infrastructure? 🤔
The “might makes right” arguments from motorists here is really fucked up. I’m literally told “It doesn’t matter who had the right of way if you’re dead.” Gee, thanks. No wonder people are motivated to armour themselves as much as is financially/legally possible, just to get around the city. (Where I live, I can walk many places but it’s loud and scary)
It definitely helps. I sort of remember some uproar when a new traffic law in 1994 contained an article (185) which puts the liability for damages to non-drivers on the driver of any vehicle involved in an accident. This way drivers also have a personal stake in being careful with the 'weaker traffic participants'.
Cyclists and pedestrians becoming "protected road users" by law, putting the liability automatically on the driver is what really flipped that switch here. And honestly it should be like that everywhere in my opinion
i think it's more that the infrastructure has to change first and then the mentality can change. if every single thing about the infrastructure around you is saying that cars are the priority and every other mode of transport is for expendable people, you'll drive like that too. when the infrastructure is catering to everyone and not just the drivers, the drivers are literally forced to check their ego
“Cities aren’t loud. Cars are loud.” As someone who lives in a dense Canadian city, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve lived in a low traffic neighbourhood and loved it so much more than the high traffic one I live in now.
My room is facing the road. All I hear everyday, and night, is VROOOM VROOM VROOM VROOM. I'm hearing it rn as a sports car with a v8 parks. It's driving me NUTS.
Electric cars help a fair bit, especially in small roads where people drive slowly. You can't stop them entirely in residential areas, but they make a big difference. Also making roads small on purpose means nobody wants to use them to avoid the bigger and more busy road since they can't get ahead. The real blight are bikes, it seems only asshats ride them and they get so loud. We also hear planes that come pretty low since there's an airbase close by but nowhere as bad.
I live in NYC and the Netherlands was the very first European country that I visited. I immediately had a great first impression because I could take a single train straight out of Schiphol to where my friend lives near the German border in just a few hours for about 25€. And it kept getting better as I experienced the cycling infrastructure, pedestrian-oriented streets, and frequent and reliable busses and trains that could take me even to small towns. I often complain about how bad the transit is in NYC but praise it whenever I visit literally anywhere else in North America, but the transit in the Netherlands and even Germany's notoriously delayed DeutscheBahn proved to be the first ones that didnt make me miss NYC. I discovered your channel after I returned home and wanted to learn more about it, and a few weeks later when my catalytic converter was stolen off my car the same week I got a flat tire, I took it as a sign that it was time to buy an e-bike to commute to work instead whereas most other people would probably just complain that they're stranded without a car. So thank you for your effort in showing people that cars shouldn't be the only viable way to get around.
I visited NYC and Brooklyn this year and felt right at home walking everywhere and taking the subway. Did see a dead guy on the subway platform though, so yeah, NY subway stories...
@jasmineriley538 I am 77, born in kings x, London, busy part, used to bike to school from 11-15. No big deal. Now live in Miami, been hit seven times, only broken leg, broken ribs, smashed calf muscle and general cuts and bruises. I still work, bike 7 miles each way, but lucky again, I go opposite way to rush hour traffic and only about 3 miles is harem scarem. Was thinking about an e bike but my lease won’t allow it. My apartment is rent controlled and is awesome, so hopefully my knees hold out till I croak. I love work, love my apartment and would love biking, if we had bike paths. Two out of three ain’t bad..keep on enjoying nyc, it’s an awesome city .
I was one of the people that was inspired to pursue a masters in urban planning after watching your videos (and doing my own research and personal learning on the side) and I must say that it has been one of the best decisions of my life! I’ve been able to move to a new city that’s walkable and has good public transit, meet so many new people who are just as passionate about urban planning as me, and I am energized to make the change that all US cities need to make. If it wasn’t for your videos I would not have found that fire to make a change in my life for the better and I cannot thank you enough! Hope to make it out to the Nederlands one day (but for now I’ll just learn Dutch 😂)
I would go even further and say the worst place to learn Dutch is in the Netherlands. As soon as someone hears you mispronounce a Dutch word, they quickly switch to English. Especially anyone under 40 years old. Makes it very hard to actually experience dutch language and learn it.
It seems to me you might have a more rewarding career and a greater, transformative effect if you lived in and worked to improve a pedestrian/cyclist/ public-transport, unfriendly city.
NJB will remain one of favorite video essayists, simply because of his approach to research. "Would this guy be better off in a car? I don't know, I didn't ask him"
To be fair, that guy is far more valuable as a symbol than as a data point, because one-person anecdotal evidence is almost completely useless in this context.
A big thank you from São Paulo, Brazil. You really helped me go after my dream of working in city planning. i tought i couldn't do it, because i have a major in design, but slowly but surely i am discovering ways to make a name in urban planning. Keep the good work!
I spent my Erasmus semester in Utrecht in 2011, and I have been back a few times since, but haven't seen the completed renovation of the Hoog Katharijne area and the station yet. It looks gorgeous! I remember riding a white oma fiets, no need for a helmet. Oh, the stuff, and people I carried on that single speed bike! I felt great, even when it rained. It changed my life forever. Now I live in Toronto where, despite it being still car infested, there's a great energy and push for change. I finally feel that I can make a difference and now I am involved in advocacy too. Thank you for creating quality videos that inspire us!
Utrecht,my city ,... Did you got your "broodje Mario"? Or the flower/ plants market on Saturday? Kafe België, Springhaver?... If you did, you would have lost a lot! Come back soon!
@@roelkomduur8073 yes, I have tried Broodje Mario, and Kafe België was one of my usual spots. But my absolutely favourite was Cafe' Olivier! And I remember the Saturday market of course! Utrecht (and the Netherlands in general) is definitely on my list for a future holiday. I want to ride the whole Afsluitdijk one day :) Tot ziens!
I am Ukrainian and I currently live in Canada, when I first came here I was literally culture-shocked about the irreplaceable car dependency of North America. My inner European was shouting with protest. This is a horrible way to live, it limits your ability to reach places if you don't have a car (I don't want to buy one), it even makes people less social because of lack of accessible public recreational areas and walkable streets. This is so depressing. And municipal and provincial governments do very little about the issue because it's just "fine" the way it is with cars. I've been to Utrecht, it is a beautiful accessible city. As well as many other European cities, especially those in Benelux area and Northern Europe countries. One day I will definitely move there as this lifestyle here doesn't fit me. Unless I find a really good alternative here (which I probably won't).
The "this is the way it's been, so it should stay this way" mentality when you talk to other residents about it is brutal too. It's been proven in study after study, but that's wrong because it's not what I'm used to.
I know exactly what you are talking about. People basically spend their lives in a car or a building. Very little public areas overall, and at least in the US the few public parks that exist close and locks up no later than 8 p.m. lol. I was literally depressed for a whole year. Sprinkle the experience with learning firsthand about the corrupt health care and insurance system and suffice it to say I went straight back to Europe.
As an American living in Amsterdam, I think the hardest thing about implementing these types of changes in America is peoples' lack of a general understanding of (and experiencing) walkable cities and a daily life (work, school, groceries) without using a car. The concept is completely foreign to Americans, especially those who never leave America and never travel internationally and don't know what car dependency is. I think if more Americans experienced, or lived in walkable cities like Amsterdam, or even just experiencing any European city and comparing it to car-centric American cities, it would be easier to influence this type of change. The other factor is the fact that the American Dream (and Canadian Dream?) is sold on the basis of a big house in the suburbs. Many Americans just want bigger houses and plenty of space - this is deep into the culture (for better or worse). This is a cultural change that will take a long time to change. I do think more housing options and mixed use areas would be a good starting point, but it will take a couple generations. I try to explain this every time I go back home, but it can only go so far...experiencing the lifestyle is the biggest difference.
Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island . Note
@@MichiganUSASingaporeSEAsiaSorry but except S. Burdick St. in downtown Kalamazoo & a few areas here & there, it's not walkable or at least not as per European standards. The other 2 cities I'm not aware of.
Since people in america haven’t experienced what it’s like to live in a walkable city, a good comparison I like to tell people is if they like Disneyland, then they most likely like the concept of a walkable city and don’t even realize it. People literally spend hundreds of dollars to go to Disneyland, and it’s really just a glorified small walkable city with shops and restaurants that happens to have rollercoasters, the entrance to the park reminds me of old downtown America and what it could have looked like before suburban sprawl.
I ditched the car in 2020 I live in Alabama and I bicycle commute everyday and people who know me still don't get it or see how I do it I tell them it's only 1.9 miles to work that's not very far
As you allude to there are pros and cons. It`s not just about experiencing it. A ton of Europeans absolutely love getting to have their own yard, extra bedrooms and peace and quiet that suburban life enables and is almost impossible without road infrastructure. The Dutch do tax enough and are rich enough to get trains even to townhouse suburbs but there is no way to do it in places like suburban Texas.
I live in boston but am from southwestern pa and my mood noticeably worsens when I'm home and cant go anywhere or do anything without a 20 minute car ride
Boston is one of the only cities in the US that tried to do something about highways tearing through the city Yes, big dig isn’t the perfect solution but it was definitely a huge step in the right direction
@@anatolyprekrasnyy2059 don't discount other cities that have also done big work. Rochester NY recently ripped out a segment of their highway that loops around the downtown and are working to get rid of the rest. They replaced the segment they did remove with a new neighborhood and separated bike lanes.
I live outside Boston, in a town serviced by commuter rail. It’s an older town, so lots of things nearby are walkable. I can walk to the train when I go to work. But it’s limited. Today I got stuck in horrific pre-holiday traffic getting home from a doctor’s appointment literally one town over. There is no way to get there other than by car.
I lived in Somerville for ~10 years. It taught me what a walkable neighborhood was. Now I’m in a walkable part of Seattle. Still needs work to back away from the car-dependent nightmare but it’s not too late and people are generally thinking that way.
I view NJB as the wakeup call of "you really live like this?!?!". Our infrastructure sucks and we need to acknowledge that, and some people need a more forceful message to get the message. But once you are "orange pilled" the other calmer and more optimistic channels like City Beautiful and Strong Towns show how to realistically work towards change. We need both.
I am a 21 year old living in a fairly rural town in New Mexico, along the border of Arizona, I have lived here for quite a while, but I have lived in Virginia before, in an area where I could easily (relative to previous situations and surroundings) get to work by bike or by walking. It was so incredibly freeing. Even back when I was in highschool or middle school in my small rural town, I was one of the only kids who ever walked to school, and I did it routinely with a travel time of 30 to 40 minutes. Even worse is that there was and is still no sidewalk for more than 2/3's of that distance. One of my dreams is quite literally to move out of America and into the Netherlands or some similarly pedestrian centric area. I love the idea of America, but hate what it is. I dont really know why I am commenting, I usually never comment anywhere. I guess I just felt like sharing even just a little bit of my story, even if it gets lost in the sea of comments.
That’s crazy impressive that you would walk to school even when it was that inconvenient! I hope you get to travel and try living in some other places outside of the us!
Boomer here. You might find me at a community engagement meeting, but I'll be on the side calling for better bike infrastructure, not complaining about parking. Yes I have a car, but my primary transportation method in the spring, summer and fall, is my bike(s). When I renewed my car insurance last week I was saw what the starting mileage of my car when I bought it used. I did the math and over the past ten years I only averaged 3600 km per year on the car.
I'm also a boomer and a car owner and retired. I also work for a bicycle advocacy group (even in the Netherlands they are still needed). And I would vote for the removal of car parking spaces every time.
10 years ago, I rediscovered my bicycle at age 45. It's taken me further and to more places than I ever could have imagined. I'm not quite a boomer, but close, genX. And like you, I keep a vehicle for winter. My annual km's is a little more than you....but at this rate the vehicle should be around longer than I. lol
I did the math, too, for my small car, that I use infrequently. In 2023 I used my car for about 15 days per year, the rest was cycling. But due to wear and tear and vehicle inspection I had to spend about 1500 €. Nothing was broken, no accident, nothing special, just wear and tear and the bi-annual inspection. 1500 € for driving 15 days per year. So when I use my car on a certain day, it's like spending 100€ for ONE ride. Crazy. And it won't become any cheaper.
It’s just too bad that boomers like you are a very small minority. I’d go to more community meetings if I a) had the time (I don’t) and b) the pols at the dais gave effs (they don’t, but they pretend to), and c) the advocacy weren’t so concerned with facts and “tone” all the time (see NJB’s frequent “tone police” rant). I’ve not seen political change come from “please sir, may I have some more?”
Yeah because you got in the housing market early enough to be fairly central. If we don`t build road infrastructure we have to live in tiny boxes like the Dutch.
This channel was what introduced me to urbanism TH-cam, then I discovered the other channels mentioned here and found the passion I was looking for. I was already studying Sociology but had no idea what I wanted to specialize on, now I just signed up for the urban movility optative course my school offers to begin my journey!
Unless you've lived in a walkable city somewhere (Orebro, Sweden for me), you really don't realize just how bad we have it here in North America when it comes to city design.
I live in a city an hour outside Toronto and most people here are acutely aware how horrible it is in terms of urban planning and design. It sucks and it's getting worse all the time!!
I grew up in a tiny rural NY town and its amazing how that is somehow leagues ahead of many larger cities in terms of quality urbanism. Basically every street in town has a sidewalk, to me an area isn't in town if it doesn't have a sidewalk. And while most of the residential areas are R1, the lot sizes are pretty small. Plus we have our historic medium density mainstreet, although i think most of the upper floors are just storage now. And the best part is the park, on mainstreet next to the library and ice cream shop. Its a nice pleasant place to be for only being 1 block of about 200x400ft. I spent 2 years in Middletown CT and my god was it so much worse. Highway cuts the downtown off from the river, the park sandwiched between them stunk of rotting fish or highway exhaust. And non of the outer suburbs had sidewalks despite having similar housing spacing to my hometown. Plus it was so much more car dependent despite having the population to support actual transit.
I got lucky in that while I used to live in a cul-de-sac, there was a street close by with shops, and north of both was a decent strip mall and near the strip mall was a trail. It still sucked in other ways, but it was at least close to places people would want to go to.
Theres nothing 'true' about de gorgelende harde 'g'. I'd rather call it a deviation or a permissable defect. Please do not encourage Jason to use bad practices
@@yellfire I guess you learn something new every day. But I honestly like the deviation to the "harde g" It sounds better to me as I'm way more used to it than the alternative. Plus a larger part of the population uses it
I wish my town could change course. It's merely a few thousand people but it would be so nice. My subdivision doesn't even have sidewalks and the line of cars down that stretches down two roads for school pickup is right when the people who walk, accidents are common. Me and my girlfriend plan to leave for Europe after we finish uni because we both have found aerospace jobs in the Netherlands, sweden, and denmark.
One of the next people vs machines challenges in the Netherlands is getting rid of all the unnecessary air traffic (like hundreds of transit vacation flights per day). Schiphol airport is literally making people sick. Do you think that you - with your profession - would help to improve our environment or do you just want to take advantage of the improvements that local people have fought for?
This was a very insightful video not only on the comparison between London and Utrecht, but also to get a better understanding of activism in the Netherlands vs North America. I am also one of those people that was orange-pilled and got into urbanism from this channel, so I am thankful for that! The Houston video on this channel basically explained to me why I’ve always loved well-designed cities and hated living in car-dependent suburbia as a child.
I'm a local from the Detroit area and in the past 10 years the downtown area in Detroit has gotten significantly better. New tram line was installed and we managed to save our people mover from being torn down.
I agree with you about Detroit. Also Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island
I live in Eugene, Oregon. No, it's not Amsterdam or Utrecht. But for an American city, it does pretty well. I can walk pretty much wherever I want to. My residential neighborhood has multiple convenience marts, several schools, city parks, bike paths, alleyways, restaurants and music venues all within a mile (1.6 km). My son walks to school every day by himself. If I wanted to, I could walk to the Amtrak station and catch a train to Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, the Bay area or Los Angeles. The downtown area is filled with clubs and eateries with sidewalk seating and live music. There are two small theatres (for live plays) in the downtown area, plus the historic MacDonald theatre and the WOW concert hall, where bands from all over the world perform. The city recently eliminated Euclidean "single family housing only" zoning. If I wanted to, I could live entirely without a car here.
Thank you for your informative videos @notjustbikes As a former resident of fake London now living outside of Rotterdam NL, I appreciate this perspective. Keep up the good work!
I think this is the first time I have seen the face of the presenter of this channel and I have watched a good bit. And people in America, change is possible. Bit by bit. My country Finland has a lot of car dependency due to a lot of Finns living in areas where distances are greater between locations. However in urban areas mindset is "don't build another lane, improve public transport since more people are moving around". My father made his career in municipality that managed traffic design or similar and he said that engineers always said that since no simulation supported the idea of bigger roads. Public transit is the way when a lot of people need to move around. Businesses here build around the infrastructure. Infra does not follow businesses. Maintaining roads takes a lot of our GDP.
@mushroomsteve we respect our nature and see it as our most valuable asset. There is a massive swamp under which is found a lot valuable metals. But because we would need to harm that proteced habitat we do not want to unless there is no choice.
@@laurihakala8600 And here's me, another Finn, looking at austerity gutting public transport everywhere but the biggest cities. Multiple add-another-lane projects. Constant whining about lack of parking around city centers, even though it's in significant excess (when this is pointed out, then it's about price, should be free.) Mall construction/expansion is rampant. And when the city center starts dying, suddenly the malls causing it are forgotten, no it must be the poor parking. And I live in a city, and talk with people who also live in the same city, and aren't car dependant. They actively want to make their cities worse and are the ones doing it by not walking 5 minutes to the city center, but drive 5-15 minutes (the traffic is horrendous) to the mall instead.
Thanks to you I learned about Plain Bicycle in my hometown of Winnipeg, MB.. fast forward a couple of years and now I use a bike as my main method of transportation and am a part of local bike and urbanism advocacy groups. From talking with others in these groups, it’s apparent that a lot of people found and joined the urbanism movement because of you. So for that I wanted to say thank you.
It’s crazy. I used to be a critic of NotJustBikes , being car brained and all. Now I’m a supporter of mixed infrastructure and want to become an active advocate in my city for it
The thing is, he's not anti cars. Cars are very much needed for 95% of the American territory, because it's mostly countryside. However, these last 5% comprise most of the population, since they are the cities, in which cars other than utility vehicles don't belong.
@@sashaboydcom honestly I don’t remember. It was slow boiling pot that converted me. Just reasonable points were made. Cars are expensive and people deserve to travel without huge overheard for years. I’ve noticed that you practically can’t get a job in the states unless you have a car to get there. I grew up in a good city where I was able to travel as a kid but he also showcased how there’s so many places in the states where kids legit just can’t do anything unless they’re driven places. The experience of traffic daily too contributed to this. Like I know for sure that if there was another way to commute/travel around, I would not be in my car. Thus decreasing car traffic in the city. If I were to drive, I’d be driving in a city that had less traffic
@@mrkat8137It’s truly wonderful to witness someone’s ability to change their opinion. It’s commendable that you persisted in watching his videos and acknowledged his good arguments. This shows a great critical thinking I think. While it can be challenging to break free from the carbrain philosophy, the world presents so many opportunities to improve your city and contribute to its improvement after all.
I watch your videos during my school lunch break. I don’t think my city will ever improve but I hope to leave when I’m older. Keep making great videos!
in 2019 i spent almost a month in the netherlands visiting a friend and for part of it we stayed in de pijp. super quiet, we walked to stores almost every day, and despite spending most of my time there in a smaller town in south holland, i only got in a car TWICE. it absolutely blew my mind that we were able to quickly and easily use the tram, subway, train, and bus with ONE transit card. comparing it to my handful of amtrak trips after years of living on the east coast is night and day.
Thanks for all your videos, Jason. They have not only been informative but they've started a bit of a career for me. I've never been this early to a public video release before. Thank you for inspiring so many of us!
Im Dutch, and I'd like to stress one point that seems to be overlooked by almost everyone in these discussions: THIS IS CAR-FRIENDLY DESIGN. I'm not from Utrecht, but when I visit there by car, I can drive straight into the center of the city, park in a garage, and walk or bus to all the places I want to visit. Zero friction. People will argue that parking is expensive, but they don't realize that you are paying for short-term rental storage at an A+ location. Is 20 euros really that much, considering the money I'm going to spend on a day in town anyway?
This is such a good point, because driving into Utrecht used to (use Not Just Bikes-like emphasis her) SUCK. I haven't used a car to go into Utrecht in a while, and I'm sure it still isn't fun during rush hour (but rush hour isn't fun anywhere), but I can imagine it's a lot better these days
@@LordCapsis Indeed - I see so many people assuming that there will be the same amount of traffic, but that's not true - traffic will lessen and driving a car will be easier.
Very much agreed. Canada (and probably most of America as well) has such a huge expanse that you can't just ditch cars without having a good solution for them. Easy-to-get-to central garage plus convenient public transit from/to that place is critical.
Greater Montréal has areas that look like Fake London and others that are very walkable, as you know. The good news is things are changing for the better. For example, there are plans to reburbish boulevard Taschereau, a stroad on the south shore, into something less car centric. Of course, it'll take time. The mayor of Laval, a suburb of Montréal, is working hard to make his city greener and less car dependant. Finally, there's an objective that around 30% of metropolitan Montréal will be green spaces! Merci pour vos vidéos et Joyeux Noël !
My father lived next door to fake London in fake Strathroy. At 86 he was run down when walking on a sidewalk. He survived but never walked anywhere again other than up and down his driveway. He was no longer fast enough to get across the street in front of his house to the sidewalk. By the way, the woman who hit him, a town counselor got an $80 fine for her efforts.
I live in Calgary and we have been making strides in improving our transit, however both nimbys and the provincial government have been pushing back hard since our outer suburbs are extremely carbrained and seem to see transit as a existential threat
I live in Ottawa. It's the least densely packed city with over 1,000,000 residents of any in the world, because we have such a large municipality (by area). As a result, we have large pockets of population and attractions that are divided by vast areas of low density, green spaces especially. But the lack of available public transport between these pockets and the poor bus and rail system (I see an O-train video in your future), it makes our one freeway (2 or 3 lanes wide in most places) very busy and thus very slow. It's one of my least favourite parts about living here. There was a nominee for city council who came by my door saying how their plan was to fix the transit system, and I asked how they wanted to do that. Their response was - I kid you not - adding more lanes. "More lanes means less dense traffic, which means faster buses". It wasn't "alleviate vehicle traffic by increasing the amount of buses", or "build more bus lanes to help speed them along", or even "I think a subway or tram system would help", it was literally "more room for cars means more room for buses", and I was so shocked by their answer I laughed so hard, said goodbye and then closed the door on them. At some point that same council nominee had called the system "a broken chair", and I had floated the idea to them about making public transport free. Free bus access means more riders and less cars on the road, which leads to higher investment into the system which makes it even better which, in turn, attracts more users and thus gets even more cars off the road. And I kid you not, this guy said "trying to sell a broken chair isn't going to get any easier by offering a free broken chair", and I was just sitting here thinking about how some people are just so tired of standing, but he wouldn't understand because he's been sitting on chairs his whole life.
Instead they announced increase bus fairs. That's how these old systems operate. When they introduce it, it's new and novel and plenty of people enjoy and use it. As time goes on the system stagnated and those in charge try to increase profitability by triming it down. This makes the system less advantageous, harder to use, more frustrating to use and not as easy as other newer options, thus some patrons jump ship. That makes for less customers, thus less income, and to try and salvage that loss of income they try and charge more from what customer base is left. That makes even more people jump ship, leaving only those who truly enjoy or depend on the system to be the ones left holding the ever-increasing price tag. These few are often referred to as the "whales". So because the bus system in Ottawa isn't great, they want to increase the price while triming features/routes and then blame "lack of interest" for the failings, and then want to change that by adding more incentives for the car users. It just doesn't make sense...
It's so refreshing to hear someone admit the crucial role violence played in past "protest" movements All too often nowadays, the "bullet" part of the "ballot and bullet" strategy gets attacked as counterproductive
I was waiting at a stop light on one of those horrible 'stroads' and I saw a blind man trying to cross the street, and it was a really clear reminder of how horrible the car centric infrastructure. In a walkable city he would have much easier freedom of movement, but here it is nearly impossible
Sincerely, you're the most important video creator on TH-cam. It's a fact that you are saving lives if someone who was inspired by your videos makes any headway in their city in installing a bike lane Take care m8
Your best yet Jason. I remember when you contacted me at the beginning as an early patreon asking why. Your channel has changed my outlook and behaviour. I used to be a petrol head, pick-up truck and huge motorbike. Now, I have an e-bike. I have discovered a joy I never had when I was stuck in traffic. I live between real London and this island and love cycling both. Thanks for videos that engage me despite it being Christmas Day with family beckoning!
I'm also from London, and am one of the people who decided to pursue urban planning after being introduced to it through your videos. I'm hopeful that overtime, as more young professionals with a passion for sustainable infrastructure make a difference in our community, the future of London will be very bright!
Even though I've been an urbanist for as long as I can remember, your channel was a major inspiration for me to make my own videos highlighting the problems I see in my city of Denver. I strongly believe that this place can be as great as the Netherlands within the next 50-60 years, but then again Denver has a much more intact urban fabric than many other North American cities and a strong transit advocacy group.
I lived in Utrecht my whole life and can tell you that everyone was so happy with the canal being refilled! I'm very lucky we learned from our mistakes and are fixing it.
I travelled from a major city where I live in the centre of the entral business district, and am I able to walk in any direction without coming into contact with cars. So imagine my shock when I arrive in to downtown Denver on Amtrak back in July for a conference and I noticed that most of the city is the devoid of people and that almost every block we travelled past was a surface parking lot (which we do not have in my city at all). I pointed this out to a local who was sitting next to me on the train, and asked why so much valuable space is taken up with parked cars, and not even a multistorey parking garages, which would make more sense. She looked at me, puzzled, and asked “Where else are cars supposed to park?” I told her in my city, there would be Housing built where those cars are parked and that the residents wouldn’t need a car and because within 200 m of where I live, I have 3 train stations, 5 Light rail stations, and 2 Metro stations, along with access to more than 40 bus routes, that will take me anywhere much faster than any car could., (oh, and within 100 m, I have 2 supermarkets, post office, bank, bakery, pharmacy, medical Centre, Dentist, dollar store, gym, library, theatre, cinema, multiple banks 5 pubs, and more than 100 restaurants. I’ve had my drivers license for decades, but never found the need to ever own a car, because getting around on foot or by public transit, is a much quicker & cheaper way… and way way, cheaper than owning a car. My fellow train passenger said that she could not go without a car, because to catch public transit for a 25 minute journey by car from the city centre to her home, would take her over an hour. This is laughable, America.
You might want to check the distance with Google map. Because unless you have a mall with most of those establishments, or most of them are not on the ground floor at all, then 100m seems too small. 300-500 m possible... and walkable!
The saddest part is that Denver (my home city) used to be a beautiful walkable city but was absolutely destroyed by cars and urban renewal projects. It is incredibly depressing to look up "Downtown Denver before and after" and see the destruction of a vibrant, liveable city. I now study in Amsterdam and am much happier than when I lived in exurban Denver.
Most people outside the Netherlands don't realise that Amsterdam is a part of a large urban conglomerate called the "Randstad " witch includes 8,10 million people ...All connected with trains , bike lanes, etc...All in 11.372 square km.. Mostly under sea level...BTW we like to give refuge to "Canucks" . Canadians payed dearly to liberate our country, in mine neck of the woods, (Deventer, Apeldoorn Zutphen and Voorst) more than 500 young Canadian soldiers lost their lives, ( visit the Canadian Commonwealth cemetery on the "Holterberg" s.v.p)..
I live in the suburbs in Delaware currently, and I've never been a "city guy". I've always hated cities and my dream is to live in the countryside. But after watching your videos, I've realized that cities don't have to suck
@@TheKeksadlerexactly. Rural zones are dead. There's nothing there but the beauty of nature. This is good for a couple days, but when you live in an actually good city...?
And even rural areas can be much better then in most of the US. I’m currently in a decently rural area of Austria. Middle of a valley, a single road in and out, 40mins by car to the next decently sized town, about 1,5h to the next small city (in Germany). The closest shop is in the next town over, around 5mins by car, but also 10mins by bike and around 40mins on foot. All of the roads and streets except the main road are single lane with passing segments, because traffic volumes are low, there aren’t many people here after all. Exceeding 50kmh (~30mph) isn’t really possible so walking or biking on these roads is totally fine and the main highway has a mixed used path next to it. Even though there is an ok bus connection most people here will have cars and we came here by car ourselves, but it’s absolutely possible to get around safely and comfortably without one, so we don’t really use our cars much while here.
The rental bicycles at Dutch train stations are awesome. A few months ago I went to a friend who lives in a village, but the bus was out of service. So I took a bike and traveled there through the countryside.
Cars are the scourge of modern day life. I live in Montreal where the downtown is being turned into pedestrian friendly space, at least some parts. But the problem is you can't turn a city more pedestrian friendly if it isn't also public transportation friendly, which Montreal is not. I don't go to downtown because I have to take my car and parking is very expensive and many places I can't drive at all. Montreal has its heart in the right place but it is also totally misplaced. Where I live, Pointe-Claire, west of Montreal, I can't go to the washroom without needing my car, which is a symbol of poverty.
Last time I was in Montreal (2008 or so) I thought the public transportation was pretty darn good. Then again, I was comparing it to Winnipeg and Waterloo.
@@mikekeenan8450 The central third of Montreal has great public transportation service and bike paths, but move to West Island, where I live, that service deteriorates quickly. There are no metro stations here and while the busses work well around here, if you wanted to get to downtown, it would take you hours. We are often even lacking sidewalks and wherever you do find them, they are so narrow that traffic that passes you buy is only a meter away. Then there are bike paths... oh sorry, there aren't any. So yeah.
Eyy I just very recently watched that video because TH-cam recommended it. It was great especially since it heavily featured my home town of Oulu, Finland
I just studied in an exchange program at University College Utrecht this past spring and I miss living there so much. I live in New Jersey and the difference in quality of life is night and day. I can’t wait to make it back there one day!
Hello! American teenager here, admittedly very obsessed with public infrastructure. Would you recommend Utrecht to me? I fear I will not be able to afford college in the states. Your answer obviously won't decide whether or not I do, but it would be nice to hear from somebody who lived in the area.
@ZachREGame As a Dutch person studying in Utrecht. I can really recommend Utrecht. It is a great livable city. Really everything you want to reach is possible in 15-20 minutes on a bike. Just make sure that you start looking in time housing as that is really that most difficult thing in Utrecht.
@Tiliad Yeah, I have heard a lot of bad about Netherlands housing recently. Pretty much everwhere I look has a housing crisis or something of a similar nature. A few months ago I found a relatively good apartment building in Amsterdam which I'll look into but am weary of. I will put more thought into it. Thank you for your input!
Go and study anywhere in the Netherlands where you can get a place and more importantly a student room/house. Finding a place to live is perhaps the hardest part. Google it (student accomotion problems Netherlands). So don't tie yourself down to only considering Utrecht (although it is a great place), lots of other great uni's, towns and cities all over the Netherlands. It's an amazing country. I'm British though I visit often, have cycled in all provinces, and am learning Dutch, though you can generally get by pretty well just with English. The Dutch are pretty cool, too. Laid back yet brutally honest, good sense of humour. If I could do uni again, I'd go there.
@ZachREGame yeah I only lived there for about 6 months but UCU is a really cool institution that I would recommend looking into if you are looking to go abroad for college. Housing is guaranteed for students there btw since they make everyone live on campus.
The new Besançon Tram in France is a public transit service for a population of 120,000 inhabitants. I always keep that in mind when people say my town, small city with a population of more than 120,000 is too small for a tram.
I seriously think you should do a video on Warsaw. This is my place. Is it perfect? No. But I would argue few places are improving as much as quickly. We're building metro, we're building trams, pedestrianising places. I've had a park turn up right outside my window on a disused piece of land, thanks to tireless local advocates. It's a city that tries.
@Tianke About a year and a half ago, I spent a week in Warsaw, drove there (and back, 1200 km * 2), parked my car under the hotel and didn't need it for the whole week. Looking forward to your video.
@@nfboogaard AI voices are awful. Much better to narrate it in Polish and use subtitles. Or get an English-speaking friend to narrate it and use Polish subtitles for all the Poles that I'm sure would be interested in seeing it.
I moved here from America and, in my small town in Gelderland there are so many disabled people: blind, wheelchair bound, etc; being fully independent. Going to the store themselves, doctors appointments, going to fun things like zoos, museums, amusement parks. In car centric environments even those that COULD be more independent have to rely on someone else for SO much because they either can't drive, or can't afford an adapted vehicle. Here in the Netherlands I find people with disabilities are a part -of- the community and society instead of apart -from- it. It's wonderful to see.
Sounds amazing! My sister needs to get her sons to school because there's a rule that kids under 9 can't cross unsupervised :( Even though they live 200 meters from it.
I grew up in Utrecht (born in ‘95) and have lived here most of my life. I’ve always felt very independent. Walking or cycling to school on my own at about age 8, going downtown on my own to buy a cheap video game, crossing a busy street to visit my mum at work for lunch. I’m always happy to see children still out and about on their own, playing in the neighbourhood, going to buy candy at the store, or cycle to sports practice with some friends. And as a teenager I was in a very safe online community and visited people all over the country by train, again travelling on my own. Had a girlfriend 100 miles away, who I could visit without a car because a train and bus would get me to her village. It’s depressing when I hear how kids in some other places always need their parents to drive. It also makes me understand why getting your driver’s license at 16 in the US provides such a feeling of freedom.
In parts of Canada, and even more so in the US, letting an 8 year old bike to school would probably get your local Child and Family Services agency on your ass.
If only the US, or Canada for that matter, understood that highways aren't supposed to go right through a town or city. That'd be a big improvement. You can't expect any body to turn it all around in one big move. But just this. Highways connect cities, they don't go right through them. That's just offensive. You gotta start somewhere and take it slow. This is my two bits.
Going right through them was intentional and intentionally offensive, it was often done to replace redlining, the practice of banning specific races of people from owning or renting property in specific areas. A lot of American highways were installed shortly after redlining was outlawed, so they were installed in a way to serve the same function as redlining had.
Two years ago I moved with my family from a very car centric South American city to a much walkable / cycleable city in Italy. For me, it was as if there was always something wrong with where I lived but I never understood what it really was and discovering your channel made me open my eyes and managed to demonstrate me many things was off in my old life and ways to change my lifestyle. Today, I often use my bike to get around the city and I travel much more by train than by car, largely influenced by the arguments seen in your videos. Congratulations on your work. You are chenging lives.
This channel, along with several others (e.g. CityNerd, Strong Towns, etc) is part of why I have a goal of advocating for better urban planning in where I will be living soon (Minneapolis, MN) and why I have the dream of being an urban planner/engineer. I wanted to be an architect for most of my life, but my health declined pretty sharply in my late teens/early 20s, and it seems to be more physically demanding than it looks like on paper. But architecture doesn't exist in a vacuum, and there's little point in designing a great place to be if it's plopped in the middle of car-centric, pedestrian-hostile hell. I may not get there, but health (and finances) permitting, I want to study urban planning and make the cities we live in better places to live, and I wanted to thank you for that.
Man it is not going to be very good when the city gets too popular and the prices go up. Utrecht became a meme among those urban planning/ traffic channels a little too much for my taste
@@cmfrtblynmb02 I get concerned too over the people flocking over desirable places and raising the value and prices of said places but this just shows how urban spaces with good alternatives to cars are unquestionably far superior than car centric/dependent spaces ever was, is, and ever will be. If most cities in this world is as close to accommodating as Utrecht, then we wouldn't be having these complaints voiced through urban designed channels like this in the first place. This comment is certainly NOT brought to you by your friendly neighborhood oil/motor lobbyists😉😉
These videos are so accurate in every aspect. Just contemplating the part you mentioned about attending community meetings because if we don’t, only baby boomers will show up to complain about freaking parking, and it’s SO true. I witness this daily in my city and even in Montréal! We must bring a positive energy to these meetings. I'm at a loss as to how our elected officials can manage to deal with such unpleasant people. There are so many carbrain people in our cities that are just so... braindead, best definition I can find. For the part where you mention that you inspired many people to advocate for improved cities or pursue studies in urban planning, I can relate so much to both. Your channel is an incredible source of inspiration. It motivated me to advocate more for my city, Quebec City, and also inspired me to pursue a degree in urban planning. I’m going to move to Montreal to study urban planning next year, I'm so excited about it. Thank you for your inspiring channel and videos about urbanism that have motivated me to improve our cities.
Love Utrecht. I studied there for a year! I remember going to the second hand dealer to pick out my bike. None of the gears worked after about 7 or 8 months, I suffered numerous crashes into the ditch after a night out drinking, complained incessantly about riding to class in the frigid cold, risked it all hauling a chair that found on the street - I miss my bike!
Of course, in (most of?) the Netherlands, the fact that the gears no longer work isn't fatal, or even very significant. Similarly Manitoba, where I live. In BC, California, or Switzerland, that would be a lot more problematic.
"Your local advocacy group knows more about walkable cities than you do pal, because they invented it, and perfected it so no man could best them in the ring of honour" - Soldier TF2
This has made me realise I have just applied for Urban Planning/Transport degrees and apprenticeships, and I suppose a big reason for that was Not Just Bikes (I even wrote about your channel in my personal statement for university). So, thank you 😭 (though also my parents are both urban planners, so it was kind of in the blood)
I live in Toronto, it’s a nightmare. There is cars everywhere every second, the trams are slow and stuck in traffic and overall not worth it. Not just bikes has made me think about joining strong towns to help out the city’s.
Toronto is completely unbearable to drive in, and the fact that we haven't outright protested in order to move away from a car-centric city, tells me that we've become way too passive and indifferent as a society.
@normang3668 exactly. We should protest for this bs of traffic. Even in the suburbs or the "new parts of Toronto" or GTA has some increasingly high traffic
One thing Not Just Bikes guy failed to mention in his video -- the weather. Amsterdam has mild weather, great for riding bikes, and public transport. Canada is blistering cold. Few days ago it was -11 degrees. In Amsterdam? I think 8 or 10 degrees (C).
@@paper_gem The cold isn't the biggest deal in the world, you can just bundle up and get some winter gear. Or just drive during the winter and bike in the other seasons. After all, these cities aren't totally car free - nobody is asking for a complete ban on cars. Just more reasonable city design so people are free to use whatever form of transportation they like and can use.
Honestly I'm shocked: The images of Utrecht remind me of San Antonio, Téxas. The river channel in Utrecht and it's people friendly streets show me a glimpse of what San Antonio's could do, if we weren't car centric!
Watching this channel helped show me that there are solutions to the car dependent city epidemic but we got to swallow a hard pill and actually be considerate of others, especially when it comes to safety. The city would be much more appealing to me and watching this makes me want to visit the Netherlands and see the infrastructure for myself.
You should do a video on Milton Keynes in England, it was designed in the 1960s to be as efficient as possible and the highways, cycle paths and walkways are completely separate.
Or do one about Stevenage ! The New Town ' slum' where Lewis Hamilton grew up ( 😅😂) . The town has a lot of bicycle paths and underpasses to circular roads of a quality, that was better than the Netherlands in the time ! Unfortunately they built the inner city facilities (shipping, city hall, cinema etc) on the edge of town in a completely american strip mall setting. So few people use the bike , because the destination feels dangerous on bike , and it is too easy for cars, with free parking etc ... ( What a pretentious ass Lewis Hamilton to claim that he grew up in a ' slum ' to end up as a F1 champion and sports personality of the year. His dad was a middle class IT manager, who had enough dough to let him do karting. He got a golden handshake from his company... And Lewis was a McLaren youth programm protege from age 12 ...)
All of the car-centric post-war "New Towns" in the UK are pretty soulless. Places like Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Cumbernauld and Livingston are the butt of many jokes. I think this is largely because they are built around shopping centres rather than village cores. Sometimes not as much surface parking as American equivalents, but the multi-storey car parks are falling down and there is no money to replace them.
@@kjh23gk MK is pretty soulless, but the infrastructure is very good, you can drive from one side to the other in 15 min or so without getting stuck in traffic, the under and overpasses mean it's very quick to walk places as well as you don't have to wait at traffic lights. But what the planners of the time didn't forsee is that they can provide mugging spots at night time. MK is quite interesting from an urban planning perspective.
@@lws7394 I think when the likes of Stevenage and Harlow new towns were first built they were seen as very futuristic and desirable places to live but now they're pretty run down and the futuristic looking brutalist architecture and highways haven't exactly aged like fine wine.
@@lewis6565 it is hard to 'create' soul in Newtowns . In Neyherlands with the new town in sea reclaimed polders, like Almere and Lelystad is the same. And several new town on the old lsnd have social problwms as well... Nevertheless the bike infrastructure in Stevenage is still in tact. It will be the best walking/cycling experience of l UK cities .. if only for the carcenrric stripmall
I moved from another city in the Netherlands to Utrecht for this exact reason. Very human-friendly, walkable, beautiful, and everything is easy to travel to.
Your channel has been a great inspiration. I've checked and we do have a nearby Strong Town group. I've read the book, your channel is awesome. I'm working towards making where I live great. Not easy, but definitely worth it. Here's to a better life. Thanks so much.
When I was on holiday in the USA, about 25 years ago, I walked from my hotel to an ATM in Pensecola. Really one time a car stopped and asked if I needed a ride because walking was dangerous in that neighborhood. I declined because the ATM was about 800m away from the hotel, I didn’t feel threatened and I didn’t see any other people walk, so how could it be dangerous. The ATM was funny though, it was a drive through ATM with three lanes. People didn’t even need to get out of their cars to get money. And I was walking in one lane, the car behind me honked, but I was waiting in line for the ATM in a car lane. I was so amazed by this that I forgot to make a picture of it. Never seen it before, a drive through ATM. Didn’t get robbed on the way back to the hotel. Are Americans maybe scaring each other that it is dangerous on the streets? When everyone says it is dangerous, everyone starts believing it. While in reality the chance something bad happens is very very small. We have the same in The Netherlands with bike theft. Everyone is scaring each other to use at least two extra chain locks for parking your bicycle. But I think it is limited to bigger cities and I live in a small town. I am 62 years old and my bike has never been stolen and I don’t use an extra chain lock.
I am a dutchman living in New Zealand. It's all urban sprawl down here, and housing and businesses are highly separated so only choice is to drive as distances are not walkable or within cycling distance. European style or Asian style cities with everything mixed makes things easier for walking and cycling.
11:20 It's also a never ending struggle. The picture here is a protest about the widening of a highway through a forest near Utrecht. The widening not only went through despite these protest but the current government wants to widen it even further (despite no one asking for that). Local advocates are once again protesting the change but I fear it will once again not be enough. Tho I'm certain it's not a lost battle.
Fascinating seeing more about Utrecht’s history! I really miss living in Utrecht having studied abroad on my Erasmus there last year. I didn’t even have a bike but the trams and buses were fantastic, I’d spend many an evening just wandering the pedestrianised streets and alongside the Oudegracht, enjoying the sights and taking it all in. Over a year after moving back home to Cork in Ireland, I despise our disaster of a bus system more than ever. We can all learn so much from Utrecht!
I have been a middle school science teacher for 25 years. I am retiring this year and am seriously concidering going back to school to study urban planning. I have been working with my local politicians and with policemen to improve my community. I can thank you Jason and Ray Delahanty for this new found interest in transportation. By the way, I think the tone of your videos is just fine.
They had to redevelop the entire shopping mall and train station to make it what it is today. The old one felt a lot like Birmingham's old Bull Ring, urban hell. I remember walking through Utrecht's old station getting horribly lost in endless, dark desolate corridors. Much better now, lots of light and easy to navigate.
What your videos do quite brilliantly is make me aware of what makes places nice or suck. Looking for the urbanism in any city immediately uncoveres a truth that subconsciously most people realize, but do not know. This very crucial first step is a giant leap toward making things better. Mostly through your work, I and probably many others can now see the complete absurdity, for instance, in the planned widening the A5 around Frankfurt to 10 lanes for over a billion euros. Not all is lost (yet) here in Germany although the automobile industry tends to make things harder. As an added bonus this makes travelling to other cities quite fascinating. Looking for the urbanism in a city is an interesting perspective from which many things about a city can be uncovered.
Our new comedy urbanism channel, I Love the City is now live!
www.youtube.com/@ilovethecity
I Love the City is a ridiculous (and often silly) take on urbanist topics, and unlike Not Just Bikes, it's actually funny because other people write the jokes! The ILTC writers are standup comedians, and they've worked on several other comedy projects that you've likely heard of, including The Daily Show, Robot Chicken and more.
Check out our first episode, about how cars killed the hat!
th-cam.com/video/z4D0VMKeHjk/w-d-xo.html
More info is available in the post on my community tab:
th-cam.com/users/postUgkxYJldd_OT0U6aB4QnMo4Tw-GXl-fAdjjl
I wanna hear your thoughts on this Aptera vehicle that they're trying to make a reality
Worlds largest bike storage in a mid sized city. U would think that the biggest would be in the biggest city.
@@jerredhamann5646 Utrecht has the largest train staton in the country, as it's the largest train- connections node in the center of the whole country. With that many train connections to everywhere it's used quite intensively; as it's such a nice city lots of people like to live there even if they work elsewhere (e.g.Amsterdam), as long as they can commute by train; and businesses like to locate there and attract train-using commuters.
Thanks! I will check it out!
Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island
As a resident of fake london i'm so glad my city's trauma could spawn this channel
Trauma and extremely poor urban design are not something to be proud of
@@TehPwnerer pretty sure they were just being tongue in cheek there
@@TehPwnerer Wooosh
@@TehPwnerer do you have media literacy?
What's in a name ? Perhaps start to call yourself Other London .
Thanks for the shoutouts! The comparison between London, ON, and Utrecht is fascinating, and it really shows that it’s not impossible to undo bad designs and make places for people again. Going from a canal, to a highway, and BACK to a canal is wild!
And we really feel your points about wanting the places we live now to be the places we WANT to stay in, but that sometimes the necessary changes to make that happen won’t be seen in our lifetimes. Still, many changes can happen immediately, and can happen quickly. As you said, local advocacy is crucial, and our Local Conversations are doing incredible work in their communities across North America - and beyond, too!
Keep up the good work!
Thank you all for ur hard work, infrastructure is the root to a lot of issues here.
Clearly just talking about urbanism isn't going to work. We specific training on what to do.
I'm actually surprised that none of you seem to talk much about it. I spoke to a Strong Towns official, and he explained to me what does, but he never talked much about it in any presentations. You guys haven't mentioned it in any of your videos.
If you're such advocates of advocacy, then why do you not train, test, and oversee, this kind of stuff? It seems that it is easier to talk about urbanist features, rather than actually train.
@@eugenetswong >It seems that it is easier to talk about urbanist features, rather than actually train.
I mean, yeah. Actually acting is always harder than learning. But learning is also critical for acting. It really is a hard thing to put plans into action, but folks in the Strong Towns movement are doing just that now. Running local groups, advocating at Councils, and even running for office! But it's also a messy process, too, which can dissuade a lot of folks. Think about looking into it! And from the sounds of your passion on the subject, I bet you could do a lot!
@@Descriptor413 I attended a Strong Towns meeting, and checked a few local videos. It was mostly features, and small activities. We didn't get any training.
I'd love to run for office, but I hate competing for a job.
I'll keep trying, though. 🙂 The worst option is surrender.
Thank you for your positivity!
I've been walking in my neighborhood (Dallas, TX) and dodging traffic for over 25 years now, it was just nice to see what a safe, walkable neighborhood is supposed to look like. Thanks for that.
You might strat feeling depressed knowing there's better place you can't go to. I know I felt like that when I came back from Germany.
It starts with that and the next thing you know you're getting mad that there isn't a bike lane where you think they should be or that the curbs are too wide and open
I know Dallas, I was also there personally, and sorry, if I compare it with European cities like Amsterdam, Brügge, Dresden, Krakau, Oxford, Bourdeaux, Barcelona, Munich, Verona, Salzburg, etc. it is simply "faceless", with no real city center and no real identity.
It looks like many other large cities in USA.
And Dallas is even one of the "better" cities in the USA. There are worse examples, for sure.
It looks as if American architects are not really good.
I'm from the Netherlands, been in the USA (and other countries), and yes it's very nice here.
I went there (Fort Worth) last year for the holidays and I was surprised by the absence of sidewalksin the neighborhood. Judging by the place we stayed it seemed to be a village at best due to large gardens and single family homes and not a metropolis inhabited by millions.
Getting on or near the highway (which I found to be quite scary) to just get the most basic goods was so strange.
I was kind of amazed when I spotted the one van we saw during our 2 1/2 weeks there. Pickups, on the other hand made up like 50% of all the vehicles.
The cattle drive with those texan longhorns was the only time I saw a living thing safely walking on its street 🐄
Thanks for the mention Jason! What you didn't mention though is that I grew up in Utrecht. So you compared your hometown to my hometown and that made this video very close to err home.
I use those pictures of the 1940 protests in the US in my presentations to US summer school students. The Stop the Kindermoord protests here in the 1970s look like a carbon copy of those protests. People involved in those protests here told me they did not have the feeling they accomplished anything at the time. But aparently a seed of change was planted after all. I can only hope something will turn out to have sparked a change in North America when we look back at the car era 50 years from now...
Can you now make a video about London, Ontario, Mark?
@@amcaesar haha let's leave that to the expert! I've never been to Canada!
Lol
this is true of almost every protest, ever. It is exceedingly rare for the people or institution you are protesting against to say "yeah fair point there mate, let's change that around."
Instead, both sides lock horns, at great cost to everyone, with no actual outcome. But a year later, when the next project gets planned in some backroom, the planners will try to avoid having a similar mess on their hands. That's why real effective advocacy needs about a decade of pressure to get some tangible results.
Thanks for this Mark. As someone who frequently feels like we’re not accomplishing anything in my corner of North America, I hope you’re right and that 50 years from now, things will be vastly different. But I have to give credit where credit is due. It will be thanks in no small part to people like you and Jason and so many other online educators (I hate the word influencer) that a difference was made.
By the way, I’ve followed you ever since TH-cam’s algorithm steered me to your “Cycling in North America, a Dutch Perspective” video. Been a subscriber since!
I was born in the Netherlands and my family moved to Canada when i was very young. I moved to fake London for college and every complaint or grievance you have with London is spot on. being without a car in fake London makes life so much harder. Can't wait to move back to the Netherlands when I can
I live in fake London and my job is 15 minutes away by car but 1 hour by bus! That's nuts! I wish I had a reliable bus transportation so I wouldn't need a car
Another fake londoner here. Takes me 20 minutes to get to Western by car. 2 HOURS by bus, and I can't even get all the way back if I start the return trip by bus after 6pm.
Wasn't able to drive for a year and a half until just last week, and not having a car here requires you to plan your entire life around it.
@Darkclowd it's terrible, I'm from Mexico and even though Mexico doesn't have a great public transit system I never felt that I needed a car to get around (I'm from a smaller city than London) but here you need a car to do groceries
I live in the Netherlands, my job is 20 minutes away by car, 1 hour by public transport. I usually ride a bicycle, takes 1.5 hours, but I like it more.
I'm from fake London too...small world
My (dutch) partner made a great observation: the mentality of drivers here is also really different now than it was in the 70s. And as an american with a dutch driver’s license, I can 10000% confirm I had to do mental backflips when I started driving here. The “I’m bigger I win” mentality of americans is such a problem! Here, I don’t let any relatives drive until they’ve ridden a bike across the city because 1) they need to learn to look for bikes and 2) they need to learn who has right of way. If there’s a bike, a pedestrian, and a car in america, no one cares what the law says - the car wins. I wonder if flipping that mentality had also helped dutchies create such beautiful infrastructure? 🤔
The “might makes right” arguments from motorists here is really fucked up. I’m literally told “It doesn’t matter who had the right of way if you’re dead.” Gee, thanks. No wonder people are motivated to armour themselves as much as is financially/legally possible, just to get around the city. (Where I live, I can walk many places but it’s loud and scary)
It frustrating too, that many Americans talk about "entitled cyclists." The hypocrisy is legendary.
It definitely helps. I sort of remember some uproar when a new traffic law in 1994 contained an article (185) which puts the liability for damages to non-drivers on the driver of any vehicle involved in an accident. This way drivers also have a personal stake in being careful with the 'weaker traffic participants'.
Cyclists and pedestrians becoming "protected road users" by law, putting the liability automatically on the driver is what really flipped that switch here.
And honestly it should be like that everywhere in my opinion
i think it's more that the infrastructure has to change first and then the mentality can change. if every single thing about the infrastructure around you is saying that cars are the priority and every other mode of transport is for expendable people, you'll drive like that too. when the infrastructure is catering to everyone and not just the drivers, the drivers are literally forced to check their ego
“Cities aren’t loud. Cars are loud.”
As someone who lives in a dense Canadian city, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve lived in a low traffic neighbourhood and loved it so much more than the high traffic one I live in now.
I love on a small island without too many people here in BC and yeah despite it all the loudest thing around here is STILL the traffic
My room is facing the road. All I hear everyday, and night, is VROOOM VROOM VROOM VROOM. I'm hearing it rn as a sports car with a v8 parks. It's driving me NUTS.
Electric cars help a fair bit, especially in small roads where people drive slowly. You can't stop them entirely in residential areas, but they make a big difference. Also making roads small on purpose means nobody wants to use them to avoid the bigger and more busy road since they can't get ahead.
The real blight are bikes, it seems only asshats ride them and they get so loud.
We also hear planes that come pretty low since there's an airbase close by but nowhere as bad.
I live in NYC and the Netherlands was the very first European country that I visited. I immediately had a great first impression because I could take a single train straight out of Schiphol to where my friend lives near the German border in just a few hours for about 25€. And it kept getting better as I experienced the cycling infrastructure, pedestrian-oriented streets, and frequent and reliable busses and trains that could take me even to small towns. I often complain about how bad the transit is in NYC but praise it whenever I visit literally anywhere else in North America, but the transit in the Netherlands and even Germany's notoriously delayed DeutscheBahn proved to be the first ones that didnt make me miss NYC. I discovered your channel after I returned home and wanted to learn more about it, and a few weeks later when my catalytic converter was stolen off my car the same week I got a flat tire, I took it as a sign that it was time to buy an e-bike to commute to work instead whereas most other people would probably just complain that they're stranded without a car. So thank you for your effort in showing people that cars shouldn't be the only viable way to get around.
I’m from Utrecht and rented a bike in NY last year. I think NY could easily be an (even more) amazing city to cycle in.
I visited NYC and Brooklyn this year and felt right at home walking everywhere and taking the subway.
Did see a dead guy on the subway platform though, so yeah, NY subway stories...
NYC is still heaven by North American standards
25€? Pro tip: Check in with your banking card and don't check out, they only charge 20€.
@jasmineriley538 I am 77, born in kings x, London, busy part, used to bike to school from 11-15. No big deal. Now live in Miami, been hit seven times, only broken leg, broken ribs, smashed calf muscle and general cuts and bruises. I still work, bike 7 miles each way, but lucky again, I go opposite way to rush hour traffic and only about 3 miles is harem scarem. Was thinking about an e bike but my lease won’t allow it. My apartment is rent controlled and is awesome, so hopefully my knees hold out till I croak. I love work, love my apartment and would love biking, if we had bike paths. Two out of three ain’t bad..keep on enjoying nyc, it’s an awesome city
.
I was one of the people that was inspired to pursue a masters in urban planning after watching your videos (and doing my own research and personal learning on the side) and I must say that it has been one of the best decisions of my life! I’ve been able to move to a new city that’s walkable and has good public transit, meet so many new people who are just as passionate about urban planning as me, and I am energized to make the change that all US cities need to make. If it wasn’t for your videos I would not have found that fire to make a change in my life for the better and I cannot thank you enough! Hope to make it out to the Nederlands one day (but for now I’ll just learn Dutch 😂)
For just a visit to the Netherlands, you don't to learn Dutch (though it is appreciated).
I am so pleased to read your comment because we need a new generation of urban planners outside of the Netherlands and Europe to help effect change.
I would go even further and say the worst place to learn Dutch is in the Netherlands.
As soon as someone hears you mispronounce a Dutch word, they quickly switch to English. Especially anyone under 40 years old. Makes it very hard to actually experience dutch language and learn it.
It seems to me you might have a more rewarding career and a greater, transformative effect if you lived in and worked to improve a pedestrian/cyclist/ public-transport, unfriendly city.
@@paulelderson934 Basically true, though Dutch with a foreign partner usually manage to stick to Dutch.
NJB will remain one of favorite video essayists, simply because of his approach to research.
"Would this guy be better off in a car? I don't know, I didn't ask him"
To be fair, that guy is far more valuable as a symbol than as a data point, because one-person anecdotal evidence is almost completely useless in this context.
A big thank you from São Paulo, Brazil. You really helped me go after my dream of working in city planning. i tought i couldn't do it, because i have a major in design, but slowly but surely i am discovering ways to make a name in urban planning.
Keep the good work!
I spent my Erasmus semester in Utrecht in 2011, and I have been back a few times since, but haven't seen the completed renovation of the Hoog Katharijne area and the station yet. It looks gorgeous! I remember riding a white oma fiets, no need for a helmet. Oh, the stuff, and people I carried on that single speed bike! I felt great, even when it rained. It changed my life forever.
Now I live in Toronto where, despite it being still car infested, there's a great energy and push for change. I finally feel that I can make a difference and now I am involved in advocacy too. Thank you for creating quality videos that inspire us!
Utrecht,my city ,... Did you got your "broodje Mario"? Or the flower/ plants market on Saturday? Kafe België, Springhaver?... If you did, you would have lost a lot! Come back soon!
@@roelkomduur8073 yes, I have tried Broodje Mario, and Kafe België was one of my usual spots. But my absolutely favourite was Cafe' Olivier! And I remember the Saturday market of course! Utrecht (and the Netherlands in general) is definitely on my list for a future holiday. I want to ride the whole Afsluitdijk one day :) Tot ziens!
I am Ukrainian and I currently live in Canada, when I first came here I was literally culture-shocked about the irreplaceable car dependency of North America. My inner European was shouting with protest. This is a horrible way to live, it limits your ability to reach places if you don't have a car (I don't want to buy one), it even makes people less social because of lack of accessible public recreational areas and walkable streets. This is so depressing. And municipal and provincial governments do very little about the issue because it's just "fine" the way it is with cars. I've been to Utrecht, it is a beautiful accessible city. As well as many other European cities, especially those in Benelux area and Northern Europe countries. One day I will definitely move there as this lifestyle here doesn't fit me. Unless I find a really good alternative here (which I probably won't).
ти не українець, а русак.
The "this is the way it's been, so it should stay this way" mentality when you talk to other residents about it is brutal too. It's been proven in study after study, but that's wrong because it's not what I'm used to.
@@ДенисИванов-р1ъ4э how are you going to tell a man where he is from
hey you should watch his video on Montreal. It was very interesting and he provided a crazy amount of detail. It was over an hour I think.
I know exactly what you are talking about. People basically spend their lives in a car or a building. Very little public areas overall, and at least in the US the few public parks that exist close and locks up no later than 8 p.m. lol. I was literally depressed for a whole year. Sprinkle the experience with learning firsthand about the corrupt health care and insurance system and suffice it to say I went straight back to Europe.
As an American living in Amsterdam, I think the hardest thing about implementing these types of changes in America is peoples' lack of a general understanding of (and experiencing) walkable cities and a daily life (work, school, groceries) without using a car. The concept is completely foreign to Americans, especially those who never leave America and never travel internationally and don't know what car dependency is. I think if more Americans experienced, or lived in walkable cities like Amsterdam, or even just experiencing any European city and comparing it to car-centric American cities, it would be easier to influence this type of change. The other factor is the fact that the American Dream (and Canadian Dream?) is sold on the basis of a big house in the suburbs. Many Americans just want bigger houses and plenty of space - this is deep into the culture (for better or worse). This is a cultural change that will take a long time to change. I do think more housing options and mixed use areas would be a good starting point, but it will take a couple generations.
I try to explain this every time I go back home, but it can only go so far...experiencing the lifestyle is the biggest difference.
Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island . Note
@@MichiganUSASingaporeSEAsiaSorry but except S. Burdick St. in downtown Kalamazoo & a few areas here & there, it's not walkable or at least not as per European standards. The other 2 cities I'm not aware of.
Since people in america haven’t experienced what it’s like to live in a walkable city, a good comparison I like to tell people is if they like Disneyland, then they most likely like the concept of a walkable city and don’t even realize it. People literally spend hundreds of dollars to go to Disneyland, and it’s really just a glorified small walkable city with shops and restaurants that happens to have rollercoasters, the entrance to the park reminds me of old downtown America and what it could have looked like before suburban sprawl.
I ditched the car in 2020 I live in Alabama and I bicycle commute everyday and people who know me still don't get it or see how I do it I tell them it's only 1.9 miles to work that's not very far
As you allude to there are pros and cons. It`s not just about experiencing it. A ton of Europeans absolutely love getting to have their own yard, extra bedrooms and peace and quiet that suburban life enables and is almost impossible without road infrastructure. The Dutch do tax enough and are rich enough to get trains even to townhouse suburbs but there is no way to do it in places like suburban Texas.
As i see the highway converted back to a canal, i got tears in my eyes. This is so beautiful.
It’s horrible, bordering on dystopian, that the canal was ever covered up in the first place.
@@happycommuter3523 Are you stupid on purpose or are you born that way?
@@happycommuter3523 Motor lobbyists can't seem to fathom their long term consequences.
I live in boston but am from southwestern pa and my mood noticeably worsens when I'm home and cant go anywhere or do anything without a 20 minute car ride
Also live in Boston, originally from Alabama. I can’t overstate how much better my life is now, in every way.
Boston is one of the only cities in the US that tried to do something about highways tearing through the city
Yes, big dig isn’t the perfect solution but it was definitely a huge step in the right direction
@@anatolyprekrasnyy2059 don't discount other cities that have also done big work. Rochester NY recently ripped out a segment of their highway that loops around the downtown and are working to get rid of the rest. They replaced the segment they did remove with a new neighborhood and separated bike lanes.
I live outside Boston, in a town serviced by commuter rail. It’s an older town, so lots of things nearby are walkable. I can walk to the train when I go to work. But it’s limited. Today I got stuck in horrific pre-holiday traffic getting home from a doctor’s appointment literally one town over. There is no way to get there other than by car.
I lived in Somerville for ~10 years. It taught me what a walkable neighborhood was. Now I’m in a walkable part of Seattle. Still needs work to back away from the car-dependent nightmare but it’s not too late and people are generally thinking that way.
The "tone" of NJB is the main reason I prefer this urbanist channel over any other.
Oh! The pronunciation! He is ssoooooo spot on with his pronunciation of Dutch cities. Applause 👏
I view NJB as the wakeup call of "you really live like this?!?!". Our infrastructure sucks and we need to acknowledge that, and some people need a more forceful message to get the message.
But once you are "orange pilled" the other calmer and more optimistic channels like City Beautiful and Strong Towns show how to realistically work towards change.
We need both.
@@jasonreed7522 The truth is BOTH bitter and sweet.
I am a 21 year old living in a fairly rural town in New Mexico, along the border of Arizona, I have lived here for quite a while, but I have lived in Virginia before, in an area where I could easily (relative to previous situations and surroundings) get to work by bike or by walking. It was so incredibly freeing. Even back when I was in highschool or middle school in my small rural town, I was one of the only kids who ever walked to school, and I did it routinely with a travel time of 30 to 40 minutes. Even worse is that there was and is still no sidewalk for more than 2/3's of that distance. One of my dreams is quite literally to move out of America and into the Netherlands or some similarly pedestrian centric area. I love the idea of America, but hate what it is.
I dont really know why I am commenting, I usually never comment anywhere. I guess I just felt like sharing even just a little bit of my story, even if it gets lost in the sea of comments.
That’s crazy impressive that you would walk to school even when it was that inconvenient! I hope you get to travel and try living in some other places outside of the us!
@@phoenixgaming4185 you are a brave person, and I hope your dreams come true!
Thanks for sharing!
Nice one! Now go and travel the world, It will make you a different person. Greets from Europe.
Don't come brother, the houses are unaffordable
Boomer here. You might find me at a community engagement meeting, but I'll be on the side calling for better bike infrastructure, not complaining about parking. Yes I have a car, but my primary transportation method in the spring, summer and fall, is my bike(s). When I renewed my car insurance last week I was saw what the starting mileage of my car when I bought it used. I did the math and over the past ten years I only averaged 3600 km per year on the car.
I'm also a boomer and a car owner and retired. I also work for a bicycle advocacy group (even in the Netherlands they are still needed). And I would vote for the removal of car parking spaces every time.
10 years ago, I rediscovered my bicycle at age 45. It's taken me further and to more places than I ever could have imagined. I'm not quite a boomer, but close, genX. And like you, I keep a vehicle for winter. My annual km's is a little more than you....but at this rate the vehicle should be around longer than I. lol
I did the math, too, for my small car, that I use infrequently.
In 2023 I used my car for about 15 days per year, the rest was cycling. But due to wear and tear and vehicle inspection I had to spend about 1500 €. Nothing was broken, no accident, nothing special, just wear and tear and the bi-annual inspection. 1500 € for driving 15 days per year.
So when I use my car on a certain day, it's like spending 100€ for ONE ride.
Crazy. And it won't become any cheaper.
It’s just too bad that boomers like you are a very small minority. I’d go to more community meetings if I a) had the time (I don’t) and b) the pols at the dais gave effs (they don’t, but they pretend to), and c) the advocacy weren’t so concerned with facts and “tone” all the time (see NJB’s frequent “tone police” rant). I’ve not seen political change come from “please sir, may I have some more?”
Yeah because you got in the housing market early enough to be fairly central. If we don`t build road infrastructure we have to live in tiny boxes like the Dutch.
This channel was what introduced me to urbanism TH-cam, then I discovered the other channels mentioned here and found the passion I was looking for. I was already studying Sociology but had no idea what I wanted to specialize on, now I just signed up for the urban movility optative course my school offers to begin my journey!
It was City Beautiful for me
@ecurewitz great videos too
Unless you've lived in a walkable city somewhere (Orebro, Sweden for me), you really don't realize just how bad we have it here in North America when it comes to city design.
I live in a city an hour outside Toronto and most people here are acutely aware how horrible it is in terms of urban planning and design. It sucks and it's getting worse all the time!!
@@FOJO27do you mean an hour outside Toronto by car 😅?
@@repelsteeltje90 Of course.
I grew up in a tiny rural NY town and its amazing how that is somehow leagues ahead of many larger cities in terms of quality urbanism.
Basically every street in town has a sidewalk, to me an area isn't in town if it doesn't have a sidewalk.
And while most of the residential areas are R1, the lot sizes are pretty small. Plus we have our historic medium density mainstreet, although i think most of the upper floors are just storage now.
And the best part is the park, on mainstreet next to the library and ice cream shop. Its a nice pleasant place to be for only being 1 block of about 200x400ft.
I spent 2 years in Middletown CT and my god was it so much worse. Highway cuts the downtown off from the river, the park sandwiched between them stunk of rotting fish or highway exhaust. And non of the outer suburbs had sidewalks despite having similar housing spacing to my hometown. Plus it was so much more car dependent despite having the population to support actual transit.
I got lucky in that while I used to live in a cul-de-sac, there was a street close by with shops, and north of both was a decent strip mall and near the strip mall was a trail. It still sucked in other ways, but it was at least close to places people would want to go to.
I love the evolution of your pronunciation of dutch city names🤣 Love to hear the true dutch g coming through
Theres nothing 'true' about de gorgelende harde 'g'.
I'd rather call it a deviation or a permissable defect.
Please do not encourage Jason to use bad practices
@@yellfire I guess you learn something new every day. But I honestly like the deviation to the "harde g" It sounds better to me as I'm way more used to it than the alternative. Plus a larger part of the population uses it
I wish my town could change course. It's merely a few thousand people but it would be so nice. My subdivision doesn't even have sidewalks and the line of cars down that stretches down two roads for school pickup is right when the people who walk, accidents are common.
Me and my girlfriend plan to leave for Europe after we finish uni because we both have found aerospace jobs in the Netherlands, sweden, and denmark.
Then you better move here if you have work in Europe.....and your life will change drastically, wise choice
Alway's be welcome in the Netherlands.
One of the next people vs machines challenges in the Netherlands is getting rid of all the unnecessary air traffic (like hundreds of transit vacation flights per day). Schiphol airport is literally making people sick. Do you think that you - with your profession - would help to improve our environment or do you just want to take advantage of the improvements that local people have fought for?
@@repelsteeltje90 dan beginnen we eerst bij de regering, die kunnen ook anders reizen.
@@thedutchhuman Dit.
This was a very insightful video not only on the comparison between London and Utrecht, but also to get a better understanding of activism in the Netherlands vs North America. I am also one of those people that was orange-pilled and got into urbanism from this channel, so I am thankful for that! The Houston video on this channel basically explained to me why I’ve always loved well-designed cities and hated living in car-dependent suburbia as a child.
Your videos have had a great impact on me. After watching several, I am considering returning to school to study urban planning and urban design.
I'm a local from the Detroit area and in the past 10 years the downtown area in Detroit has gotten significantly better. New tram line was installed and we managed to save our people mover from being torn down.
So you’re saying… you *can* have shit in Detroit?!
As an old (ancient) Detroiter, that's great news. Keep it up! Add some trees and public parks.
I agree with you about Detroit. Also Mackinac Island Michigan as well as Kalamazoo Michigan and Holland city Michigan are all walkable. In fact, cars are not allowed on the streets on Mackinac Island
I live in Eugene, Oregon. No, it's not Amsterdam or Utrecht. But for an American city, it does pretty well. I can walk pretty much wherever I want to. My residential neighborhood has multiple convenience marts, several schools, city parks, bike paths, alleyways, restaurants and music venues all within a mile (1.6 km). My son walks to school every day by himself. If I wanted to, I could walk to the Amtrak station and catch a train to Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, the Bay area or Los Angeles. The downtown area is filled with clubs and eateries with sidewalk seating and live music. There are two small theatres (for live plays) in the downtown area, plus the historic MacDonald theatre and the WOW concert hall, where bands from all over the world perform. The city recently eliminated Euclidean "single family housing only" zoning. If I wanted to, I could live entirely without a car here.
College town!
You would save a hell of a lot of money.
That sounds amazing! I’m jealous!
Thank you for your informative videos @notjustbikes As a former resident of fake London now living outside of Rotterdam NL, I appreciate this perspective. Keep up the good work!
I think this is the first time I have seen the face of the presenter of this channel and I have watched a good bit. And people in America, change is possible. Bit by bit. My country Finland has a lot of car dependency due to a lot of Finns living in areas where distances are greater between locations. However in urban areas mindset is "don't build another lane, improve public transport since more people are moving around". My father made his career in municipality that managed traffic design or similar and he said that engineers always said that since no simulation supported the idea of bigger roads. Public transit is the way when a lot of people need to move around. Businesses here build around the infrastructure. Infra does not follow businesses. Maintaining roads takes a lot of our GDP.
I have watched some beautiful nighttime walking videos in Finland. It is so beautiful at night, especially in the winter!
@mushroomsteve we respect our nature and see it as our most valuable asset. There is a massive swamp under which is found a lot valuable metals. But because we would need to harm that proteced habitat we do not want to unless there is no choice.
@@laurihakala8600
And here's me, another Finn, looking at austerity gutting public transport everywhere but the biggest cities. Multiple add-another-lane projects. Constant whining about lack of parking around city centers, even though it's in significant excess (when this is pointed out, then it's about price, should be free.) Mall construction/expansion is rampant. And when the city center starts dying, suddenly the malls causing it are forgotten, no it must be the poor parking.
And I live in a city, and talk with people who also live in the same city, and aren't car dependant. They actively want to make their cities worse and are the ones doing it by not walking 5 minutes to the city center, but drive 5-15 minutes (the traffic is horrendous) to the mall instead.
Thanks to you I learned about Plain Bicycle in my hometown of Winnipeg, MB.. fast forward a couple of years and now I use a bike as my main method of transportation and am a part of local bike and urbanism advocacy groups.
From talking with others in these groups, it’s apparent that a lot of people found and joined the urbanism movement because of you.
So for that I wanted to say thank you.
It’s crazy. I used to be a critic of NotJustBikes , being car brained and all.
Now I’m a supporter of mixed infrastructure and want to become an active advocate in my city for it
The thing is, he's not anti cars. Cars are very much needed for 95% of the American territory, because it's mostly countryside. However, these last 5% comprise most of the population, since they are the cities, in which cars other than utility vehicles don't belong.
What changed your mind?
@@sashaboydcom honestly I don’t remember. It was slow boiling pot that converted me.
Just reasonable points were made. Cars are expensive and people deserve to travel without huge overheard for years.
I’ve noticed that you practically can’t get a job in the states unless you have a car to get there.
I grew up in a good city where I was able to travel as a kid but he also showcased how there’s so many places in the states where kids legit just can’t do anything unless they’re driven places.
The experience of traffic daily too contributed to this. Like I know for sure that if there was another way to commute/travel around, I would not be in my car. Thus decreasing car traffic in the city. If I were to drive, I’d be driving in a city that had less traffic
@@mrkat8137It’s truly wonderful to witness someone’s ability to change their opinion. It’s commendable that you persisted in watching his videos and acknowledged his good arguments. This shows a great critical thinking I think. While it can be challenging to break free from the carbrain philosophy, the world presents so many opportunities to improve your city and contribute to its improvement after all.
@@Urban_LP "It’s truly wonderful to witness someone’s ability to change their opinion."
I agree. Also, it is very encouraging.
I watch your videos during my school lunch break. I don’t think my city will ever improve but I hope to leave when I’m older. Keep making great videos!
in 2019 i spent almost a month in the netherlands visiting a friend and for part of it we stayed in de pijp. super quiet, we walked to stores almost every day, and despite spending most of my time there in a smaller town in south holland, i only got in a car TWICE. it absolutely blew my mind that we were able to quickly and easily use the tram, subway, train, and bus with ONE transit card. comparing it to my handful of amtrak trips after years of living on the east coast is night and day.
Thanks for all your videos, Jason. They have not only been informative but they've started a bit of a career for me. I've never been this early to a public video release before. Thank you for inspiring so many of us!
Im Dutch, and I'd like to stress one point that seems to be overlooked by almost everyone in these discussions: THIS IS CAR-FRIENDLY DESIGN.
I'm not from Utrecht, but when I visit there by car, I can drive straight into the center of the city, park in a garage, and walk or bus to all the places I want to visit. Zero friction. People will argue that parking is expensive, but they don't realize that you are paying for short-term rental storage at an A+ location. Is 20 euros really that much, considering the money I'm going to spend on a day in town anyway?
Or park at the edge of the City and take public transport to the city center (10min) for the whole family for 7 euros.
This is such a good point, because driving into Utrecht used to (use Not Just Bikes-like emphasis her) SUCK. I haven't used a car to go into Utrecht in a while, and I'm sure it still isn't fun during rush hour (but rush hour isn't fun anywhere), but I can imagine it's a lot better these days
Less people in cars, means that the people in cars can navigate far more easily
@@LordCapsis Indeed - I see so many people assuming that there will be the same amount of traffic, but that's not true - traffic will lessen and driving a car will be easier.
Very much agreed. Canada (and probably most of America as well) has such a huge expanse that you can't just ditch cars without having a good solution for them. Easy-to-get-to central garage plus convenient public transit from/to that place is critical.
Greater Montréal has areas that look like Fake London and others that are very walkable, as you know. The good news is things are changing for the better. For example, there are plans to reburbish boulevard Taschereau, a stroad on the south shore, into something less car centric. Of course, it'll take time.
The mayor of Laval, a suburb of Montréal, is working hard to make his city greener and less car dependant.
Finally, there's an objective that around 30% of metropolitan Montréal will be green spaces!
Merci pour vos vidéos et Joyeux Noël !
My father lived next door to fake London in fake Strathroy. At 86 he was run down when walking on a sidewalk. He survived but never walked anywhere again other than up and down his driveway. He was no longer fast enough to get across the street in front of his house to the sidewalk. By the way, the woman who hit him, a town counselor got an $80 fine for her efforts.
Your story sounds very like new zealand. Thanks for telling it.
I live in Calgary and we have been making strides in improving our transit, however both nimbys and the provincial government have been pushing back hard since our outer suburbs are extremely carbrained and seem to see transit as a existential threat
I live in Ottawa. It's the least densely packed city with over 1,000,000 residents of any in the world, because we have such a large municipality (by area). As a result, we have large pockets of population and attractions that are divided by vast areas of low density, green spaces especially. But the lack of available public transport between these pockets and the poor bus and rail system (I see an O-train video in your future), it makes our one freeway (2 or 3 lanes wide in most places) very busy and thus very slow. It's one of my least favourite parts about living here.
There was a nominee for city council who came by my door saying how their plan was to fix the transit system, and I asked how they wanted to do that. Their response was - I kid you not - adding more lanes. "More lanes means less dense traffic, which means faster buses". It wasn't "alleviate vehicle traffic by increasing the amount of buses", or "build more bus lanes to help speed them along", or even "I think a subway or tram system would help", it was literally "more room for cars means more room for buses", and I was so shocked by their answer I laughed so hard, said goodbye and then closed the door on them.
At some point that same council nominee had called the system "a broken chair", and I had floated the idea to them about making public transport free. Free bus access means more riders and less cars on the road, which leads to higher investment into the system which makes it even better which, in turn, attracts more users and thus gets even more cars off the road. And I kid you not, this guy said "trying to sell a broken chair isn't going to get any easier by offering a free broken chair", and I was just sitting here thinking about how some people are just so tired of standing, but he wouldn't understand because he's been sitting on chairs his whole life.
Instead they announced increase bus fairs.
That's how these old systems operate. When they introduce it, it's new and novel and plenty of people enjoy and use it. As time goes on the system stagnated and those in charge try to increase profitability by triming it down. This makes the system less advantageous, harder to use, more frustrating to use and not as easy as other newer options, thus some patrons jump ship. That makes for less customers, thus less income, and to try and salvage that loss of income they try and charge more from what customer base is left. That makes even more people jump ship, leaving only those who truly enjoy or depend on the system to be the ones left holding the ever-increasing price tag. These few are often referred to as the "whales".
So because the bus system in Ottawa isn't great, they want to increase the price while triming features/routes and then blame "lack of interest" for the failings, and then want to change that by adding more incentives for the car users.
It just doesn't make sense...
It's so refreshing to hear someone admit the crucial role violence played in past "protest" movements
All too often nowadays, the "bullet" part of the "ballot and bullet" strategy gets attacked as counterproductive
Shh, don't show Doug Ford Utrecht, he'll run for mayor and rip up the bike lanes/tram lines in favour of car lanes.
PS: I love being this early
Thank god mayors aren't elected in the Netherlands, they're selected.
Sadly, he'd never voluntarily leave Ontario. Oh, to dream...
He truly is hell-bent on destroying this province in so many ways.
This should be international news.. it's so stupid. Province overriding city for the personal driving route of the Premier.
I was waiting at a stop light on one of those horrible 'stroads' and I saw a blind man trying to cross the street, and it was a really clear reminder of how horrible the car centric infrastructure. In a walkable city he would have much easier freedom of movement, but here it is nearly impossible
Try a crosswalk over a "straiway". Yes, we have those in my city.
Sincerely, you're the most important video creator on TH-cam.
It's a fact that you are saving lives if someone who was inspired by your videos makes any headway in their city in installing a bike lane Take care m8
Your best yet Jason. I remember when you contacted me at the beginning as an early patreon asking why. Your channel has changed my outlook and behaviour. I used to be a petrol head, pick-up truck and huge motorbike. Now, I have an e-bike. I have discovered a joy I never had when I was stuck in traffic. I live between real London and this island and love cycling both. Thanks for videos that engage me despite it being Christmas Day with family beckoning!
I'm also from London, and am one of the people who decided to pursue urban planning after being introduced to it through your videos. I'm hopeful that overtime, as more young professionals with a passion for sustainable infrastructure make a difference in our community, the future of London will be very bright!
I live in Toronto and am always so impressed to see your videos break down what high standard for a walkable city looks like
Even though I've been an urbanist for as long as I can remember, your channel was a major inspiration for me to make my own videos highlighting the problems I see in my city of Denver. I strongly believe that this place can be as great as the Netherlands within the next 50-60 years, but then again Denver has a much more intact urban fabric than many other North American cities and a strong transit advocacy group.
I lived in Utrecht my whole life and can tell you that everyone was so happy with the canal being refilled! I'm very lucky we learned from our mistakes and are fixing it.
I travelled from a major city where I live in the centre of the entral business district, and am I able to walk in any direction without coming into contact with cars. So imagine my shock when I arrive in to downtown Denver on Amtrak back in July for a conference and I noticed that most of the city is the devoid of people and that almost every block we travelled past was a surface parking lot (which we do not have in my city at all). I pointed this out to a local who was sitting next to me on the train, and asked why so much valuable space is taken up with parked cars, and not even a multistorey parking garages, which would make more sense. She looked at me, puzzled, and asked “Where else are cars supposed to park?” I told her in my city, there would be Housing built where those cars are parked and that the residents wouldn’t need a car and because within 200 m of where I live, I have 3 train stations, 5 Light rail stations, and 2 Metro stations, along with access to more than 40 bus routes, that will take me anywhere much faster than any car could., (oh, and within 100 m, I have 2 supermarkets, post office, bank, bakery, pharmacy, medical Centre, Dentist, dollar store, gym, library, theatre, cinema, multiple banks 5 pubs, and more than 100 restaurants.
I’ve had my drivers license for decades, but never found the need to ever own a car, because getting around on foot or by public transit, is a much quicker & cheaper way… and way way, cheaper than owning a car.
My fellow train passenger said that she could not go without a car, because to catch public transit for a 25 minute journey by car from the city centre to her home, would take her over an hour. This is laughable, America.
You might want to check the distance with Google map. Because unless you have a mall with most of those establishments, or most of them are not on the ground floor at all, then 100m seems too small. 300-500 m possible... and walkable!
The saddest part is that Denver (my home city) used to be a beautiful walkable city but was absolutely destroyed by cars and urban renewal projects. It is incredibly depressing to look up "Downtown Denver before and after" and see the destruction of a vibrant, liveable city. I now study in Amsterdam and am much happier than when I lived in exurban Denver.
Most people outside the Netherlands don't realise that Amsterdam is a part of a large urban conglomerate called the "Randstad " witch includes 8,10 million people ...All connected with trains , bike lanes, etc...All in 11.372 square km.. Mostly under sea level...BTW we like to give refuge to "Canucks" . Canadians payed dearly to liberate our country, in mine neck of the woods, (Deventer, Apeldoorn Zutphen and Voorst) more than 500 young Canadian soldiers lost their lives, ( visit the Canadian Commonwealth cemetery on the "Holterberg" s.v.p)..
I live in the suburbs in Delaware currently, and I've never been a "city guy". I've always hated cities and my dream is to live in the countryside. But after watching your videos, I've realized that cities don't have to suck
I live in the countryside. But I would be happy with cycle lanes though.
Interacting with a lot of "country guys", generally speaking most people aren't "city people" until they've seen a good city.
@@TheKeksadlerexactly. Rural zones are dead. There's nothing there but the beauty of nature. This is good for a couple days, but when you live in an actually good city...?
And even rural areas can be much better then in most of the US. I’m currently in a decently rural area of Austria. Middle of a valley, a single road in and out, 40mins by car to the next decently sized town, about 1,5h to the next small city (in Germany).
The closest shop is in the next town over, around 5mins by car, but also 10mins by bike and around 40mins on foot. All of the roads and streets except the main road are single lane with passing segments, because traffic volumes are low, there aren’t many people here after all. Exceeding 50kmh (~30mph) isn’t really possible so walking or biking on these roads is totally fine and the main highway has a mixed used path next to it. Even though there is an ok bus connection most people here will have cars and we came here by car ourselves, but it’s absolutely possible to get around safely and comfortably without one, so we don’t really use our cars much while here.
Not Just Bikes is the best youtube channel. Nothing needs to be changed. It is nearly perfect! Thank you
Yooooo, you nailed the pronunciation of "Utrecht"!!!
You are integrated very well
The key to Dutch is a level of phlegm inherent to people living in damp and drafty countries.
He even said a couple of times ' Utreg ' ! !
The rental bicycles at Dutch train stations are awesome. A few months ago I went to a friend who lives in a village, but the bus was out of service. So I took a bike and traveled there through the countryside.
11:02 mostly because there aren’t enough people in most cities to flip an F150 on its side, it’s just too heavy
Lots of US "cars" (or suburbia suvs) are top heavy so surprisingly easy to flip.
Hahahaha
Cars are the scourge of modern day life. I live in Montreal where the downtown is being turned into pedestrian friendly space, at least some parts. But the problem is you can't turn a city more pedestrian friendly if it isn't also public transportation friendly, which Montreal is not. I don't go to downtown because I have to take my car and parking is very expensive and many places I can't drive at all. Montreal has its heart in the right place but it is also totally misplaced. Where I live, Pointe-Claire, west of Montreal, I can't go to the washroom without needing my car, which is a symbol of poverty.
Last time I was in Montreal (2008 or so) I thought the public transportation was pretty darn good. Then again, I was comparing it to Winnipeg and Waterloo.
@@mikekeenan8450 The central third of Montreal has great public transportation service and bike paths, but move to West Island, where I live, that service deteriorates quickly. There are no metro stations here and while the busses work well around here, if you wanted to get to downtown, it would take you hours. We are often even lacking sidewalks and wherever you do find them, they are so narrow that traffic that passes you buy is only a meter away. Then there are bike paths... oh sorry, there aren't any. So yeah.
@@Anarcath Dang. Suburbanites gonna suburban, I guess.
I can’t wait to move out of Canada 🥰
Excuses about Winter incoming ... th-cam.com/video/Uhx-26GfCBU/w-d-xo.html
Eyy I just very recently watched that video because TH-cam recommended it. It was great especially since it heavily featured my home town of Oulu, Finland
iT'S ToO BiG
iT'S ToO SmAlL
iT'S ToO CoLd
iT'S ToO WaRm
@@rhubarbjin It's too windy. It rains all the time. Oh wait, that's the Netherlands, and we just cycle through that.
As a fake Londoner, I approve this message.
I was about to comment: “But you only filmed in the summer!!!!!11111elf” 🤪🤣
I just studied in an exchange program at University College Utrecht this past spring and I miss living there so much. I live in New Jersey and the difference in quality of life is night and day. I can’t wait to make it back there one day!
Hello! American teenager here, admittedly very obsessed with public infrastructure. Would you recommend Utrecht to me? I fear I will not be able to afford college in the states. Your answer obviously won't decide whether or not I do, but it would be nice to hear from somebody who lived in the area.
@ZachREGame As a Dutch person studying in Utrecht. I can really recommend Utrecht. It is a great livable city. Really everything you want to reach is possible in 15-20 minutes on a bike. Just make sure that you start looking in time housing as that is really that most difficult thing in Utrecht.
@Tiliad Yeah, I have heard a lot of bad about Netherlands housing recently. Pretty much everwhere I look has a housing crisis or something of a similar nature. A few months ago I found a relatively good apartment building in Amsterdam which I'll look into but am weary of. I will put more thought into it. Thank you for your input!
Go and study anywhere in the Netherlands where you can get a place and more importantly a student room/house. Finding a place to live is perhaps the hardest part. Google it (student accomotion problems Netherlands). So don't tie yourself down to only considering Utrecht (although it is a great place), lots of other great uni's, towns and cities all over the Netherlands. It's an amazing country. I'm British though I visit often, have cycled in all provinces, and am learning Dutch, though you can generally get by pretty well just with English. The Dutch are pretty cool, too. Laid back yet brutally honest, good sense of humour. If I could do uni again, I'd go there.
@ZachREGame yeah I only lived there for about 6 months but UCU is a really cool institution that I would recommend looking into if you are looking to go abroad for college. Housing is guaranteed for students there btw since they make everyone live on campus.
4:06 lmao that bird just walking along minding his own business
The new Besançon Tram in France is a public transit service for a population of 120,000 inhabitants.
I always keep that in mind when people say my town, small city with a population of more than 120,000 is too small for a tram.
I seriously think you should do a video on Warsaw. This is my place. Is it perfect? No. But I would argue few places are improving as much as quickly. We're building metro, we're building trams, pedestrianising places. I've had a park turn up right outside my window on a disused piece of land, thanks to tireless local advocates. It's a city that tries.
Why don't YOU do a video on Warsaw?
@Tianke About a year and a half ago, I spent a week in Warsaw, drove there (and back, 1200 km * 2), parked my car under the hotel and didn't need it for the whole week. Looking forward to your video.
Yeah make a cool video report, maybe use an AI voice if you have to. Link it here and we'll find it 😊
rmtransit did a video about warsaw
@@nfboogaard AI voices are awful. Much better to narrate it in Polish and use subtitles. Or get an English-speaking friend to narrate it and use Polish subtitles for all the Poles that I'm sure would be interested in seeing it.
I moved here from America and, in my small town in Gelderland there are so many disabled people: blind, wheelchair bound, etc; being fully independent. Going to the store themselves, doctors appointments, going to fun things like zoos, museums, amusement parks. In car centric environments even those that COULD be more independent have to rely on someone else for SO much because they either can't drive, or can't afford an adapted vehicle. Here in the Netherlands I find people with disabilities are a part -of- the community and society instead of apart -from- it. It's wonderful to see.
Terrific video. Good comparison in many ways and the idea Utrecht hid, and then exposed, such a big canal is mind boggling.
I truly love living in Utrecht. My kid can cycle by herself to school. And she's 8!
Sounds amazing!
My sister needs to get her sons to school because there's a rule that kids under 9 can't cross unsupervised :(
Even though they live 200 meters from it.
I grew up in Utrecht (born in ‘95) and have lived here most of my life. I’ve always felt very independent. Walking or cycling to school on my own at about age 8, going downtown on my own to buy a cheap video game, crossing a busy street to visit my mum at work for lunch. I’m always happy to see children still out and about on their own, playing in the neighbourhood, going to buy candy at the store, or cycle to sports practice with some friends. And as a teenager I was in a very safe online community and visited people all over the country by train, again travelling on my own. Had a girlfriend 100 miles away, who I could visit without a car because a train and bus would get me to her village. It’s depressing when I hear how kids in some other places always need their parents to drive. It also makes me understand why getting your driver’s license at 16 in the US provides such a feeling of freedom.
In parts of Canada, and even more so in the US, letting an 8 year old bike to school would probably get your local Child and Family Services agency on your ass.
0:49 HE SAID THE THING
If only the US, or Canada for that matter, understood that highways aren't supposed to go right through a town or city. That'd be a big improvement. You can't expect any body to turn it all around in one big move. But just this. Highways connect cities, they don't go right through them. That's just offensive. You gotta start somewhere and take it slow. This is my two bits.
One of the reasons freeways were driven through cities was to smash black people's settled urban areas.
Going right through them was intentional and intentionally offensive, it was often done to replace redlining, the practice of banning specific races of people from owning or renting property in specific areas. A lot of American highways were installed shortly after redlining was outlawed, so they were installed in a way to serve the same function as redlining had.
@@captainroberts6318 Racists should take a whole bunch of L's and it still wouldn't be enough.
Two years ago I moved with my family from a very car centric South American city to a much walkable / cycleable city in Italy. For me, it was as if there was always something wrong with where I lived but I never understood what it really was and discovering your channel made me open my eyes and managed to demonstrate me many things was off in my old life and ways to change my lifestyle. Today, I often use my bike to get around the city and I travel much more by train than by car, largely influenced by the arguments seen in your videos. Congratulations on your work. You are chenging lives.
This channel, along with several others (e.g. CityNerd, Strong Towns, etc) is part of why I have a goal of advocating for better urban planning in where I will be living soon (Minneapolis, MN) and why I have the dream of being an urban planner/engineer. I wanted to be an architect for most of my life, but my health declined pretty sharply in my late teens/early 20s, and it seems to be more physically demanding than it looks like on paper. But architecture doesn't exist in a vacuum, and there's little point in designing a great place to be if it's plopped in the middle of car-centric, pedestrian-hostile hell.
I may not get there, but health (and finances) permitting, I want to study urban planning and make the cities we live in better places to live, and I wanted to thank you for that.
I live in Utrecht and I am so hyped to see my beautiful city be featured here!!! It deserves all the praise it gets, the city is absolutely AMAZING
Man it is not going to be very good when the city gets too popular and the prices go up. Utrecht became a meme among those urban planning/ traffic channels a little too much for my taste
@@cmfrtblynmb02 I get concerned too over the people flocking over desirable places and raising the value and prices of said places but this just shows how urban spaces with good alternatives to cars are unquestionably far superior than car centric/dependent spaces ever was, is, and ever will be. If most cities in this world is as close to accommodating as Utrecht, then we wouldn't be having these complaints voiced through urban designed channels like this in the first place.
This comment is certainly NOT brought to you by your friendly neighborhood oil/motor lobbyists😉😉
These videos are so accurate in every aspect. Just contemplating the part you mentioned about attending community meetings because if we don’t, only baby boomers will show up to complain about freaking parking, and it’s SO true. I witness this daily in my city and even in Montréal! We must bring a positive energy to these meetings. I'm at a loss as to how our elected officials can manage to deal with such unpleasant people. There are so many carbrain people in our cities that are just so... braindead, best definition I can find.
For the part where you mention that you inspired many people to advocate for improved cities or pursue studies in urban planning, I can relate so much to both. Your channel is an incredible source of inspiration. It motivated me to advocate more for my city, Quebec City, and also inspired me to pursue a degree in urban planning. I’m going to move to Montreal to study urban planning next year, I'm so excited about it. Thank you for your inspiring channel and videos about urbanism that have motivated me to improve our cities.
Love Utrecht. I studied there for a year! I remember going to the second hand dealer to pick out my bike. None of the gears worked after about 7 or 8 months, I suffered numerous crashes into the ditch after a night out drinking, complained incessantly about riding to class in the frigid cold, risked it all hauling a chair that found on the street - I miss my bike!
Of course, in (most of?) the Netherlands, the fact that the gears no longer work isn't fatal, or even very significant. Similarly Manitoba, where I live. In BC, California, or Switzerland, that would be a lot more problematic.
@@moon-moth1that's not true in the slightest. Most Dutch bikes have either three or eight gears
My wife and I visited Amsterdam this past summer and enjoyed it immensely. This is how everyone should be able to live!
"Your local advocacy group knows more about walkable cities than you do pal, because they invented it, and perfected it so no man could best them in the ring of honour" - Soldier TF2
This has made me realise I have just applied for Urban Planning/Transport degrees and apprenticeships, and I suppose a big reason for that was Not Just Bikes (I even wrote about your channel in my personal statement for university). So, thank you 😭 (though also my parents are both urban planners, so it was kind of in the blood)
Wish you lot of succes.
I switched majors because your videos and so many other city planners showed me where my passion lays and what I want to do!
The best Christmas gift of them all: A new NJB video
I live in Toronto, it’s a nightmare. There is cars everywhere every second, the trams are slow and stuck in traffic and overall not worth it. Not just bikes has made me think about joining strong towns to help out the city’s.
Toronto is completely unbearable to drive in, and the fact that we haven't outright protested in order to move away from a car-centric city, tells me that we've become way too passive and indifferent as a society.
@normang3668 exactly. We should protest for this bs of traffic. Even in the suburbs or the "new parts of Toronto" or GTA has some increasingly high traffic
@@Euphoricatrue, but at least we are better than the USA
One thing Not Just Bikes guy failed to mention in his video -- the weather. Amsterdam has mild weather, great for riding bikes, and public transport. Canada is blistering cold. Few days ago it was -11 degrees. In Amsterdam? I think 8 or 10 degrees (C).
@@paper_gem The cold isn't the biggest deal in the world, you can just bundle up and get some winter gear. Or just drive during the winter and bike in the other seasons. After all, these cities aren't totally car free - nobody is asking for a complete ban on cars. Just more reasonable city design so people are free to use whatever form of transportation they like and can use.
Can confirm, you are one of the (main) reasons we are moving to Europe, from the USA next month. Thanks for helping enlighten us! :)
Honestly I'm shocked:
The images of Utrecht remind me of San Antonio, Téxas. The river channel in Utrecht and it's people friendly streets show me a glimpse of what San Antonio's could do, if we weren't car centric!
Watching this channel helped show me that there are solutions to the car dependent city epidemic but we got to swallow a hard pill and actually be considerate of others, especially when it comes to safety. The city would be much more appealing to me and watching this makes me want to visit the Netherlands and see the infrastructure for myself.
I love where this channel is going. Just nice, that so many people like and watch these videos. Hopefully it grows even more!
You should do a video on Milton Keynes in England, it was designed in the 1960s to be as efficient as possible and the highways, cycle paths and walkways are completely separate.
Or do one about Stevenage ! The New Town ' slum' where Lewis Hamilton grew up ( 😅😂) . The town has a lot of bicycle paths and underpasses to circular roads of a quality, that was better than the Netherlands in the time ! Unfortunately they built the inner city facilities (shipping, city hall, cinema etc) on the edge of town in a completely american strip mall setting. So few people use the bike , because the destination feels dangerous on bike , and it is too easy for cars, with free parking etc ...
( What a pretentious ass Lewis Hamilton to claim that he grew up in a ' slum ' to end up as a F1 champion and sports personality of the year. His dad was a middle class IT manager, who had enough dough to let him do karting. He got a golden handshake from his company... And Lewis was a McLaren youth programm protege from age 12 ...)
All of the car-centric post-war "New Towns" in the UK are pretty soulless. Places like Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Cumbernauld and Livingston are the butt of many jokes. I think this is largely because they are built around shopping centres rather than village cores. Sometimes not as much surface parking as American equivalents, but the multi-storey car parks are falling down and there is no money to replace them.
@@kjh23gk MK is pretty soulless, but the infrastructure is very good, you can drive from one side to the other in 15 min or so without getting stuck in traffic, the under and overpasses mean it's very quick to walk places as well as you don't have to wait at traffic lights. But what the planners of the time didn't forsee is that they can provide mugging spots at night time. MK is quite interesting from an urban planning perspective.
@@lws7394 I think when the likes of Stevenage and Harlow new towns were first built they were seen as very futuristic and desirable places to live but now they're pretty run down and the futuristic looking brutalist architecture and highways haven't exactly aged like fine wine.
@@lewis6565 it is hard to 'create' soul in Newtowns . In Neyherlands with the new town in sea reclaimed polders, like Almere and Lelystad is the same. And several new town on the old lsnd have social problwms as well...
Nevertheless the bike infrastructure in Stevenage is still in tact. It will be the best walking/cycling experience of l UK cities .. if only for the carcenrric stripmall
"Growing concerns about the impact of car-centric development." I wish my neighbors had those concerns.
Cities are never "too small" for trams. They're always too small for cars.
What a nice christmas present! A new NJB video!
10 departures per day would be extremely embarrassing for a tiny village in the mountains where I live
I moved from another city in the Netherlands to Utrecht for this exact reason.
Very human-friendly, walkable, beautiful, and everything is easy to travel to.
Sounds like paradise, I want to move there too now :)
I love your videos and i agree with you 100%! You are an inspiration and I plan to live in a transit and pedestrian-centered community!!
Your channel has been a great inspiration. I've checked and we do have a nearby Strong Town group. I've read the book, your channel is awesome. I'm working towards making where I live great. Not easy, but definitely worth it. Here's to a better life. Thanks so much.
When I was on holiday in the USA, about 25 years ago, I walked from my hotel to an ATM in Pensecola. Really one time a car stopped and asked if I needed a ride because walking was dangerous in that neighborhood. I declined because the ATM was about 800m away from the hotel, I didn’t feel threatened and I didn’t see any other people walk, so how could it be dangerous. The ATM was funny though, it was a drive through ATM with three lanes. People didn’t even need to get out of their cars to get money. And I was walking in one lane, the car behind me honked, but I was waiting in line for the ATM in a car lane. I was so amazed by this that I forgot to make a picture of it. Never seen it before, a drive through ATM. Didn’t get robbed on the way back to the hotel. Are Americans maybe scaring each other that it is dangerous on the streets? When everyone says it is dangerous, everyone starts believing it. While in reality the chance something bad happens is very very small. We have the same in The Netherlands with bike theft. Everyone is scaring each other to use at least two extra chain locks for parking your bicycle. But I think it is limited to bigger cities and I live in a small town. I am 62 years old and my bike has never been stolen and I don’t use an extra chain lock.
I am a dutchman living in New Zealand. It's all urban sprawl down here, and housing and businesses are highly separated so only choice is to drive as distances are not walkable or within cycling distance. European style or Asian style cities with everything mixed makes things easier for walking and cycling.
11:20 It's also a never ending struggle. The picture here is a protest about the widening of a highway through a forest near Utrecht. The widening not only went through despite these protest but the current government wants to widen it even further (despite no one asking for that). Local advocates are once again protesting the change but I fear it will once again not be enough. Tho I'm certain it's not a lost battle.
Advocacy is local... unless your Premier is Doug Ford
Fascinating seeing more about Utrecht’s history! I really miss living in Utrecht having studied abroad on my Erasmus there last year. I didn’t even have a bike but the trams and buses were fantastic, I’d spend many an evening just wandering the pedestrianised streets and alongside the Oudegracht, enjoying the sights and taking it all in. Over a year after moving back home to Cork in Ireland, I despise our disaster of a bus system more than ever. We can all learn so much from Utrecht!
I have been a middle school science teacher for 25 years. I am retiring this year and am seriously concidering going back to school to study urban planning. I have been working with my local politicians and with policemen to improve my community. I can thank you Jason and Ray Delahanty for this new found interest in transportation. By the way, I think the tone of your videos is just fine.
They had to redevelop the entire shopping mall and train station to make it what it is today. The old one felt a lot like Birmingham's old Bull Ring, urban hell. I remember walking through Utrecht's old station getting horribly lost in endless, dark desolate corridors. Much better now, lots of light and easy to navigate.
What your videos do quite brilliantly is make me aware of what makes places nice or suck. Looking for the urbanism in any city immediately uncoveres a truth that subconsciously most people realize, but do not know. This very crucial first step is a giant leap toward making things better. Mostly through your work, I and probably many others can now see the complete absurdity, for instance, in the planned widening the A5 around Frankfurt to 10 lanes for over a billion euros. Not all is lost (yet) here in Germany although the automobile industry tends to make things harder.
As an added bonus this makes travelling to other cities quite fascinating. Looking for the urbanism in a city is an interesting perspective from which many things about a city can be uncovered.
Fun fact about Utrecht.
We are getting less delivery cars and replacing them with boats (just like it was before there were cars).
Your tone is one of the many engaging aspects of your videos, in my opinion.