The Dutch roots of Vancouver's urban cycling boom | With Chris Bruntlett
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ค. 2024
- Over the past decade, Vancouver has undergone a bike renaissance.
But these big changes didn't come from thin air. This kind of bike boom, which is happening in many North American cities, was inspired by the lessons learned in the Netherlands.
In their new book Building the Cycling City: the Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality, Vancouver residents Chris and Melissa Bruntlett of Modacity examine how Dutch design has made the country the world's best for everyday cycling, and how ideas honed there are inspiring cities all over the world.
In this video, Chris Bruntlett takes me around Vancouver for a look at how those Dutch ideas have been implemented, and how they are turning Vancouver into a bike haven.
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Tom Babin is the author of Frostbike: The Joy, Pain and Numbness of Winter Cycling: rmbooks.com/book/frostbike/
Civilisation is , the stronger have to take care of the weaker . The Dutch traffic structure does exactly that . As a car driver ( the strong ) in the Netherlands you will always look around you to see if there are cyclists (the weaker) and adjust your speed . This mentality will reflect in all of society . The things you gain by building in a cycle structure in traffic go way beyond to just having a safe cycly ride.
Good point. The problem in North America is how we view things. Riding a bike for some reason isn't seen as a person just using a different mode of transportation, but rather a group a person belongs to ( or identity). That's why there is constant friction between people using different modes of transportation. Jason ( Not Just Bikes) explains this perfectly as he lives in Amsterdam and how the Dutch approach is COMPLETELY different.
@@bmw803 I do think that there are differences between drivers in America regarding "the groups" and the friction. I mean that isn't a universal. Lots of drivers take extra special care regarding say passing or waiting. Some don't. Anyone who's refreshed their bike time since childhood, or who's on a motorcycle sometimes, is going to have that extra sense for people on bikes knowing what to look for and where.
Anyone despondent about our 50 year headstart should realize we've made a lot of mistakes during that time, which led to new insights, redesigns and new approaches. Implementing change needn't take that long at all.
It's like a company wanting to start aviation industry, do not study Leonardo da Vinci but Airbus...
So true. The best blue prints and knowledgeable engineers are readliy available to take advantage of. No need to make costly mistakes or embark on a trajectory with a long learning curve. Just send your city planners to the Netherlands for a couple of weeks so they can see with their own eyes and experience what it is all about and of you go.
Keep up the good work Vancouver from the Netherlands with love.
As a Dutch I can only say , cycle where ever you can , it is healthy and you don't have parking problems in the city .
As an American I echo your sentiment 🍻
I know it's quite off topic but does anyone know of a good site to watch new tv shows online?
@Asher Jose Thanks, I went there and it seems like they got a lot of movies there :) Appreciate it!
@Caspian Ayaan no problem :)
Vancouverite here. I am proud our city is making a serious effort into introducing more biking infrastructure. In fact, it is one of the core theme of the $21 billion Translink 2050 vision. That said, Vancouver is very hilly, and like many North American suburbs, it’s low densities make it hard attract new bikers. All the shots in this video was shot in downtown. Still, I just bought a new bike for the first time in decades, so I am certainly going to join the movement.
Wow! Vancouver is on the right track! Kudo's!
I’m in Vancouver and I want a Dutch bike
As a Dutchie, I should visit Vancouver once and try it out if it gets my seal of approval... it's good bicycle infrastructure
This is a great inspiration for anyone advocating for safe bike infrastructure in North America.
It's funny how business people always think beforehand shifting from car use to cycling would be bad for them. After the change it proofed the opposite, with booming small- and medium sized businesses. Exactly the same happened in The Netherlands decades ago.
Yeah but I do wonder about the places to park your bike. I've seen a lot about the infrastructure there, but hardly anything about parking it when you go to a store. And trust me, if a store in an industrial area in the Netherlands does not provide bike-racks, they become impopular. If the city itself does not provide bike-racks close to where you really need to be, it will become impopular as well.
Great video. Good to see Vancouver's progress on bike infrastructure. When I was there 2 years ago I found some of the transitions from bike lane to road (where say a lane ended or didn't go where you needed to go) a bit disjointed/awkward (particularly around the Sky Train station near main street where you come off the water front). So I think in order to step up it's cycling infrastructure game poor infrastructure should be pointed out. There is a risk of too much hoopla around substandard infrastructure leading to more of the same and then cyclists don't use it.
Yes, I agree. Vancouver is far from perfect, and not even in the same conversation as the great bike cities of the world (I dealt a bit with the perception of the city in another video: th-cam.com/video/-_926CpsdG0/w-d-xo.html&t), but it's come a long way in the last decade. The point here was to point out the Dutch influence in the city. Love your channel too, keep up the great work.
I understand that its going to take a while to further built and design a descent bike-infrastructure in Canada. Considering that a lot of Canadians are very much carminded. Seeing clips like these make me realize how fortunate we are in The Netherlands. Big difference offcourse is also the size of the cities which are quit a lot bigger then here and the distances between them. All I can say is, keep up the good work and get on your bikes!
Fancy saddle on your bike! 👍Indestructible dutch quality.
Cool project
You missed out on another reason its easy to be a cyclist/car-free in Vancouver, the multiple Carshare programs! I've been a car share member for 3 years now and I love it!
In the Netherlands there are companies that buy ropey and ababonded bikes in large quantities, throw them in shipping containers and send them to Canada .
There they are getting fixed and sold for a nice price . Win win situation! .
One of the companies is called The Plain Bicycle Project.
a colleague of my grandfather said that he opine that cyclists had to pay road tax for the bike path. so my grandfather reply that car traffic had more benefit if the cyclists have their own road so car's retained its speed and a cyclist can keep his safety
20kilovolt says:
"a colleague of my grandfather said that he opine that cyclists had to pay road tax for the bike path. so my grandfather reply that car traffic had more benefit if the cyclists have their own road so car's retained its speed and a cyclist can keep his safety"
==
First of all, the card drivers are not nearly paying what it takes to keep driving without subsidies from the government. Gas tax, road tax, not even a small part of it.
"The Social Costs of Driving in Vancouver, in 1 Chart"
www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/04/the-social-costs-of-driving-in-vancouver-in-1-chart/389805/
"Every dollar a driver pays, the society(meaning tax payers whether drives a car or not) pays $9.2."
Second, get rid of the cars. Make all future roads for bicycle riders and walkers. It's such a big waste to build road for cars and maintain it and expect others to pay for it.
Honestly, you should _almost_ be glad that we have a 50 year head start. Now you can avoid the bad ideas that we've implemented, tested, and discarded over the decades.
From the two pilot cities in the early 1970s of which most of that infrastructure is now gone, to the decentralized approach done till the 1992 Sustainable Safety publication, and finally the (relatively) recently released 2018 - 2030 part 3 of sustainable safety.
3:14 im really curious about that architecture as well 🤔
lets have the convo at half volume.. that will wake em up when the music hits
What sort of bike do you have Chris?
Great message. Upsize those clothes for camera, Chris!
3:14 what is that with those stairs?
Haha, they ran out of money.
Ralph Wijkens says:
"3:14 what is that with those stairs?"
==
I guess they were made for the people in a hurry.
lol
Pi ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.
Ha its defenitly not a circle hahahahahaha
dat noemden ze toen ik bouwkunde studeerde in Delft 'vormwil' ..... stijlelementen zonder duidelijke functie, en je kon maar beter met een heel goed verhaal op de proppen komen als je je ontwerp moest verdedigen
Tom, I replayed the video several times trying to read the brand of Chris Bruntlett's bike. Do you happen to know the bike brand?
Theres a video about Tokio bike culture as well... Or was it a part of some other video, not sure
Ha, found it
th-cam.com/video/TheOkz8oF_I/w-d-xo.html
Car culture should never been started to begin with.
It was started for and by the people(auto makers, energy industry etc.) who make profit out of it.
It's very wasteful to the tax payers(private sector makes profit based on public expence, typical capitalist logic called "externality")
Then they are now talking about how expensive to operate the railroads is and that it makes no profit. Nobody talks about how expensive to keep up the car culture.
It has the highest fatality of any form of transportation.
All for the profit for a few individuals.
The music in between the items was a bit loud and the camerawork was very shaky from time to time, but to mention the bike Chris Bruntlett is using: he needs a bigger one. The bike is clearly far too small for him with his legs interfering with the handlebar in turns and his knees so close to it when driving straight. I get the feeling the saddle should be a bit higher up, but in general, he should be more backwards, something that usually only be achieved by using a bigger bicycle.
2:00 You don't need to cross a bridge to get from the West End to Downtown. They're on the same peninsula.
6:00 "We have a great public transit system here." What? In Vancouver? Compared to Iqaluit, maybe.
A little late here. What is the brand of his bike?
I also want to know the brand.
He’s riding a Batavus bike
Thank you for naming the brand.
Funny, 1,000,000 crossings per year. Compare that with Vredenburg in Utrecht with 33,000 per day, that makes 12,000,000. But yeah, at least it is a start.
👍🏻🍀
He even dresses like a Dutch guy. Does he have brown shoes in addition to his light blue buttoned shirt?
🤙🚲☕
The Dutch dress for the destination, not the journey.
The Dutch don't have hot weather either.
@@shannontrainer5857 We don't?
@@Whistler4u Unless you can consider 65-71°F hot. Where I live, it can get 85-95°F with 80-100% humidity.
@@shannontrainer5857 Hot weather cycling tips; hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, cover your body with long sleeves made out of natural breathable material (with the exception of synthetics designed to keep you cool, you can wear those). Don't go out in the hottest part of the day if you can avoid it. Assuming you're on your bike to get from A to B and not for sport, take care not to overexert yourself. Bring a water bottle and something salty.
What the dutch consider summery weather is 77F (25C) and we don't consider that hot, that's just "warm", with some days around 82 (28C) and even going up to 86(30C). There's always some debate whether we consider that warm or hot.
There's nearly always a few days in summer where it is between 88 (31C) and 95f (35), sometimes weeks of that spaced apart, which most of us consider hot. Last year was unusual because we had a heat wave with a record breaking temperature of 105f (40.7C).
Our country is not built for that. Homes usually don't have AC, the buildings are built with keeping warm in winter in mind.
Multiple hot days after each other means the nights get warmer and warmer which makes it hard to sleep. The humidity is a common complaint during hot weather.
@@shannontrainer5857 In the summer it can easily get to 95F or above. Average daytime temp in summer is between 70-90, humidity is between 60 and 80%. btw 100% humidity just means it's raining.
Obnoxious gratuitous music way too loud! (:-(
Drop the helmet habbit
th-cam.com/video/6KibqBTLaNE/w-d-xo.html
@@shannontrainer5857 Haha..Good point ! Now i could give a Dutch-snobbish type comment like ' Well he should have learned to ride a bike first' or' Using just your front brake only happens once.. But i won't ..ahummm. 😉
It's a little bit about the bike? Dude, it's ALL about the bike. A bike meant for sporty or recreational use is not really going to be a good bike to commute with or do your shopping. In a pinch you can do some small things on the wrong bike, but if you really want to use your bike as the dutch do, you have to have the right bike.
Yep, I agree. The type of bike you ride has a huge impact on how you ride
I'm commuting on a fairly sportive bike (but with a rack, so I can transport some luggage and quite a lot of groceries in panniers when needed. It amazes me, how people feel comfortable on those dutch bikes. They are super heavy, the bent handle bar limits your possibility to make sharp turns and usually the brakes are crap too.
I used to commute more than 20km one way and would most certainly not have done that on a 25kg bike. Now my commute is shorter but still I very much prefer a 13kg trekking bike with proper brakes. Especially on rainy days I simply want to have to possibility to go faster than a dutch bike usually allows.
harshbarj says:
"A bike meant for sporty or recreational use is not really going to be a good bike.."
==
Totally agree.
It's meaningless unless the people start using the bicycles for utility purpose such as commuting and shopping, which replace the use of cars.
Having said that, I use drop handle bar bicycle for getting around.
@@loonatic1011 you might be suprised, the hand brake bikes, if maintained well, break VERY well. I got shot of my saddle last time I had to really break hard because it stood still in 1sec. also, there are a plethora of different bike designs here since they are very populair so there are also ofc different bike handle designs. the bent ''opu/opoe'' design is a well known one but you can put a different bike handle on your bike too very easily, all you need is a 6 sided wrench and unscrew your handle, put a new one / in the place and you got the one you desire.
A person riding a Dutch bike in Vancouver!? But it's not an entirely flat terrain for a bike designed to only travel no more tham 4km at a time... or so people claim. If more people rode a proper commuter bike such as this one than maybe our country's governments would take bicycle infrastructure more seriously.
If I am well informed it is mandatory for cyclists in Vancouver to wear a helmet. This is a good way to discourage people to start cycling.
th-cam.com/video/6KibqBTLaNE/w-d-xo.html
@@shannontrainer5857 anekdote is not evidence.
If you're a normal commuting cyclist in an environment with proper cycling infrastructure, there is no need for a helmet. When you're a sport cyclist or a cop chasing whoever, then a helmet is a very good idea.
You got a thumbs down - not due to content - that was superb, but the voices are low but the music is way too loud! Try watching back on ear buds or trying to get kids asleep. All else was good.
Please there is NO bike boom in Vancouver. After the pandemic it deceased by 70%. Most people just do Stanley Park or Seawall.
No need for helmets!
Lady Blabla says:
"No need for helmets!"
==
I agree.
Anything to make it easier for the people to get on the bicycles.
th-cam.com/video/6KibqBTLaNE/w-d-xo.html
@@shannontrainer5857 The helmet debate is less about science and more about culture. People live in societies, not in laboratories or on test benches and hospital wards. Science has say to society, just not say over it or authority over it.
Stolen milk crate....
Jeeeez..
He says in the vid that he bought it at Home Depot.
@@deuteriummeridian8998 says;
"He says in the vid that he bought it at Home Depot."
==
Yes,
That's what they all say.
@Roosje Keizer says :
"Maybe if fell off a truck?"
==
I have a couple of them in my garage seemingly fell off the truck.
I have no idea how they ended up in my garage.
Maybe I was thinking of helping the society because they are so eyesore laying on the street.
It's clear that they didn't learn a lot from the Dutch or didn't understand why surten things are done!
Every cycle land had 1 or more mistakes in them and not only the cycle lanes.
Did they not understand that it isn't only the cycle lanes and that it is the complete road?
People from all over the world come to the Netherlands and try to do the same and all fail time after time. Especially in North America. They all think that they can do it, but don't use the concept and try to implement it in their already failed system!
And still they don't understand why they have so many deaths and injuries each year in traffic!
O bike Helmets are a joke! The risk to get a head injury is in a car way bigger but I see nobody wearing a helmet in their car!
Everything is based on knowledge and it's clear they haven't any of that!
I think you are completely correct that this is something they don't understand! I've yet to see a well-built complete street in a North American city. I hope somebody can prove me wrong, but I've not yet seen one.
@@Shifter_Cycling I think that it also comes because the community doesn't want it to change. There is a lot of resistance to it also, so they come with crapy solutions.
But from all people that have seen it work out here, want it out there.
The other problem is, is that it isn't coördinated on a national level. That makes that every city has its own ways of doing what also doesn't make it consistent and not clear for everyone.
Also education. It is very important to teach children ad a young age the basic road rules. So what their place is on the road and how to follow the rules. It brings down a lot of accidents by just doing that.
I am giving this video a thumbs down for the single reason that the sound was ridiculous!
Yeah, and the chain of aeehh-nimal-sounds.
Too NDP. Now will holiday in USA more.