Jason Slaughter: makes a channel about urban planning in the Netherlands Me: Nice Jason Slaughter: mentions he likes frikandel broodjes Me: Very Nice Jason Slaughter: mocks Belgium Me: Just give him a dutch passport allready
@@yagi3925: Jason Slaughter mocks Belgians You: let this racist guy go to hell Me: grow some sense of humor, Belgians and Dutch people mock each other when they can. It’s not a racist thing at all, just joking amongst the two.
Thanks for posting this, George! It's so funny to look back to December and see how much has changed since then. Not to mention going from 600 TH-cam subscribers to 16,000 in that time. Absolutely crazy. I realized I never properly answered your question: my favourite neighbourhood in Amsterdam is De Pijp! Also, to all those people who complain my videos don't have enough facts and data, subscribe to Urban Cycling Institute! He's got enough facts and data for the both of us, as well as interesting interviews with people who know what they're talking about (this interview excepted, of course).
I think this is the first time in all my years in the internet that I have ever seen an person from North America or from an English-speaking country call himself "immigrant" instead of "ex-pat", and I have to say it is a welcomed change.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 Ex-pat is largely a word that white people use to avoid calling themselves an immigrant. "Immigrant" is often used to describe brown people moving to a predominately white country and because of that has picked up some negative connotations.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 Ex-pat is a short form of a word that basically means "away from your fatherland", immigrant is a word that means you moved in. There is a difference in loyalties implied there. Expat really shows the American above everything else attitude that is also encoded in USA law as in America is the only country that double-taxes and keeps taxing anyone with a link to the US anywhere they are.
@@snailevangelist of course, it's not black and white at all! It's just something interesting to observe, and definitely a word that I mostly see with Americans. It's very similar to how a certain group of brits tend to see the world as "England" and "England's garden", going as far as complaining about the many Spanish speakers in Spain around them by their retirement homes there. Also I'm really curious to which part of my explanation the "feel free to tell yourself that" was aimed, as I tried to be factual. I'm sorry if you don't like the implications of that.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 An immigrant moves to another country with the intention to die in that country (to say it harshly), where an expat is someone who moves to another country in order to work, but with the intention to move back to the country you came from. When Jason was living in Belgium, UK, Asia and other countries he was an expat. When he got kids he moved back to Canada. Then he decided he wanted to live in a better place for both himself (and wife) and his kids. He moved to The Netherlands with the intention to make a good life here and settle. So now he is a immigrant.
As an American, it's amazing to see so few cars on the road driving by. On any American road, there are cars going by constantly, but this city is so quiet and peaceful. I love it. It's my dream to be able to bike to work.
That is our secret, because we have the best bike and public transport infrastructure, our car experience is ALSO better because we don;t totally give up or ban cars, we use them when they are a good option and have less traffic because the other options are good choices too, depending on the individual.
Been watching Jason’s videos for a while now. If anything I want to say we’re very lucky that he is promoting the way we do things (at least infrastructure-wise). Because it’s part of the Dutch culture to not advertise our achievements so much. But he’s seen and experienced both sides. So what we take for granted, he sees in a completely different way, which is why he can communicate it so much better to people abroad.
We don't advertise our achievements? Maybe the older generations didn't but I don't know any nation that likes to brag as much as the dutch (except americans) But hey, I am not saying we are wrong, to quote Tina Turner: Oh, you're the best Better than all the rest Better than anyone Anyone I ever met.
@@Blackadder75 Maybe, but we also still have the “maaiveldcultuur” where you risk being ridiculed if you stand out too much. We sometimes try to be alike more than we try to be ourselves. “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg” had to come from somewhere.
@@Blackadder75 You say the Dutch brag, but I just recently learned about the Nederlands. I heard much about and from English speaking countries and Japan tho. Just my experience. I wish the Dutch would spread about their bikeable culture more.
You triggered my memory, my teenage years going to school in Amsterdam. Haarlemmermeerstation (the roundabout at 24:30) used to be my transfer from regional bus to city bus when I was on my way to school a long long time (40yrs or so) ago. It was a mess then also. Tram line 16 (doesn’t exist anymore) went strait through the middle of the roundabout and another tram line nr. 6 (also out of service, a long time before tram 16) went along the roundabout, I found that odd. There were regional busses and city busses, cars and bicyclists and a lot of pedestrians walking or running, for their tram or bus connection. There was also a tramremise (tram depot) at the roundabout so trams went in and out of it all the time. The tram driver had to switch the tracks manually with a steel poke to get to the tram depot. So the tram driver stopped, exited with the steel spoke and forced the track in the right position, stepped on board the tram again, ringed the bell and drove into the depot. And there was a city jail at the roundabout, so when there was a jail transport everything stood still, I didn’t witness that often though. I mostly came there at rush hour and the jail transports were at different times. There was also a church at the roundabout, with an occasional funeral or a marriage that made the mess compleet. At the time I was sad the railway station (the beautiful building on the southwest side of the roundabout) wasn’t in use anymore. My town had a station on that railway line. It was the same railway line you biked along when you said it was a museum tram line now (it is a museum railway to Amsterdamse Bos and further to Amstelveen I believe). Long story short, there was never a dull moment when I had to wait for the regional bus on my way home.
I remember as a kid going to Amsterdam by train to see De Bijenkorf and all the shopping streets and have a bite in the center of Amsterdam with my parents and my brother, so we would always walk coming out of the central station, and that was great. Years later I cycled a lot with a group of friends and we would not even take the train, but go by bike all the way from Huizen to Amsterdam and I remember the first time and what a revelation it was! Here was this big city, or at least I thought, turned so small and was literally crossable from one end to the other in less than half an hour! And there was so much to do and see along the way. I agree that I would barely care where to live in the Netherlands as it is almost always giving you everything you could possibly need very close nearby. It also strikes me that even though it is one of the most inhabited places on earth, it doesn't really feel that overcrowded. You do still get this sensation of space around you, and I think that has a lot to do the the high level of mobility, the choices of all very feasible modes of transportation. That choice you have alone is already quite liberating.
I am that guy from London, Ontario that Jason mentions. To be more specific, from a farm to the north of London. And yes, it is a hellish car-infested traffic sewer where children are hostages of traffic violence. My teen-age daughter would have more freedom of movement in Tehran in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in London, Ontario. Because although she would have to be escorted by her younger brother since girls are not allowed out on their own, at least she and her brother COULD go to the Grand Bazaar on their own. Traffic violence in London, Ontario makes that impossible. I am also a Canadian Army veteran. And it is interesting to see places where we fought, such as Groningen. My regiment fought in the Battle of Groningen in April 1945. To create this freedom is exactly what we fought for.
Listening to your conversation Jason thinking "I've been reading about this stuff for ages, how come I didn't see it" speaking about the financial district and the rich suits walking to lunch and biking or training to work. Well yes that's the problem. There are way too many who come out of academia in the planning, banking, legal, administrative and all the other white collar so called professions who didn't "see it" because that's what academia does to people. Unless we experience something, for example nature, we don't appreciate it viscerally don't touch and taste it, don't feel it coursing through our veins. BTW I was one of those Rich Suits for decades and shamefully I saw it but because of the economic system of endless growth we operate, I didn't get out of it until my mid 50s. Anyway, this is a great video, and thanks to Urban Cycling Institute for putting it onto youtube
Hi Jason, love your channel as well. It's amazing to see how much you know about my city. According to my knowledge the information you give is very correct. Keep up the good work of promoting cycling.
The "Spokes-"concept is brilliant George. I wish you made more of them. I've seen the ones you've made several times already, their that good. I hope you find time to make more.
The one thing people seem to forget, change takes some time for people to get used to. If the rules are made clear AND people have the time to get used to it will work. People, at least in the Netherlands, know how to bike amongst traffic. To me, as long cars and bicycles give-and-take it will work. The moment 'doubt' enters the fray it might not be the best solution. All this is speed dependent. It seems to me, capacity needs to take a back seat to make speed the overriding factor. Ah well, again, just an opinion.
Thanks for this great tour around the city so close to me. Great to hear such amazement over stuff that i take for granted. I loved the conversation. Will there be annepisode 2?
Jason was a very knowledgeable tour guide indeed! Funny that takes two outsiders to really appreciate the attention and care of Dutch urban designers & planners. Beautiful ride even in chilly weather
Those buildings on the right at 31:20 are new because in world war 2 the Dutch resistance bombed the buildings. They contained names and addresses of Jewish people, if I remember correct.
It's better, but still under construction, and it's an absolute mess at rush hour. I usually go out of my way to avoid it. Also, what I said in the video is incorrect: it was most recently priority only for bicycles, not cars.
That roundabout at 26:00 used to be hell for cars before they changed it to cars getting priority on the main road. Sometimes cars had to wait 10/15 minutes for the bikes to pass.
It's hell for everybody! I usually avoid it. I was wrong in the video: it was most recently entirely priority for bicycles, and the impact to car traffic on Amstelveenseweg is why they changed it.
At 27:00 Jason says that some of the older streets in these neighbourhoods were build in the 1930s. The northern parts of Plan Berlage were actually build between 1917 and 1925. They typically have closed building blocks. The exact street and square at 27:00 were build between 1921-1923. An absolute mistake was the assumption that the streets were build for cars. Traffic at that time was much slower than we're used to. Take a look: th-cam.com/video/uLVpN5ibe_k/w-d-xo.html ANWB shows Amsterdam traffic in 1920. The streets started to clog up with cars around the 1950s-60s, when more people got rich enough to buy a car.
Thanks for the link. We were 10-20 years behind the USA in those years, if you watch the videos from the same time in LA, NYC or Chicago, you see a level of motorized traffic we wouldn;t reach until the late 30s
I lived in one of those athlete houses for a couple of months when I first moved to Amsterdam. It had the tiniest bathroom, because they assumed the athletes would use the facilities at the stadium. Just a closet with a toilet, shower and sink crammed in there really.
30:15 I think Jason saying he's "making silly TH-cam videos" instead of "fighting for that stuff" is really underselling himself, I'm sure his so-called "silly TH-cam videos" are having an impact on people's attitudes toward urban planning in his home town of "Fake London" and around the world.
For such a nice fellow who has such a fondness for good urban design and public transit, Mr. Slaughter sure has an oddly creepy surname. :-O Love NJB and this ridecast, though. :-) Thanks !
If you go straight ahead at 17:35, you end up at the location of the former Schinkelbad. It was a swimming pool in the river Schinkel, which was very popular in the 1920s. Nowadays there's a neighbourhood of houseboats: th-cam.com/video/evcp77xMfwo/w-d-xo.html Kirsten Dirksen: On building your dream (floating) home-studio, the Dutch way
7:20 Veenendaal is not a suburb. It's very much a 65k provincial town halfway Utrecht and Arnhem ! But I guess you have a Canadian perspective of distances and not adjusted to NL in that sense yet.
@@snailevangelist In Veenendaals case not suburb anyway. Not even Commuter town or dormitory town. the economic and governmental collaborations of the town is directed at bordering cities of Ede/Wageningen and together they reach beyond 200k population.. In planning reports they are considered a region on its own. (Did I mention that 'distance' in NL is different from Canada ..?😉 ). thus, Provincial towns ..
I wish Houston's weather is not so humid. A Norwegian friend only lasted 10 minutes on a bike and almost had a heart attack, he said it's impossible to bike in our weather. He's been riding for over 30 yrs and he thought he was fit. We went mall walking instead, lol.
I love visiting Amsterdam, it just isn’t wheelchair friendly. Trying roll on the red brick and having to get in the street a lot wasn’t very comfortable at all.
No, we also have to travel long distance or transport things. And trains are not always an option. We still like the flexibility of a car. Vut for most trips in the city it is indeed not really needed.
What rob elec told you is certainly true, but more and more younger people don't have a car anymore, for the reasons you mentioned you do not really need one and it is expensive to own one. I do not own a car and a few years back I had a lot of junk, cleaning house, so I rented a cargo van and realised: ok renting a car isn't cheap, but for the one time I need one it is great.
I think Jason may be wrong on the roundabout. I remember that roundabout used to be priority for bikes, not cars. It was horrible because there would be so many bikes, the cars would clog up the streets leading up to the roundabout. Taking a bus during rush hour that had to cross that roundabout was torture
I lived in Van Tuyll van Serooskerkenweg and my friend lived in the De Lairessestraat. Everyday, all I remember from that roundabout was chaos. We car drivers really do not like to kill people on bicycles. We are often bicyclists ourselves! That roundabout was horror. People complain about roundabouts in Limassol, Cyprus where I lived, or Place Charles de Gaulle (no-lane free-for-all Arc de Triomphe nightmare roundabout) but that's nothing compared to this Amstelveenseweg roundabout!!
Aaaaand before you notice, that that is a very cycleable distance... yes, and I frequently ended up driving to another city after the visit. Skipping biking back, getting the car, is EXACTLY what makes multiple-errands by car so efficiently. No mode-change necessary. You can drive 25km/hr and 225km/hr depending on where you are. No layovers or stopovers. Try getting groceries, fetching clothes from drycleaners, pickup a package from postoffice, getting a few office supplies and and picking up a friend, just before you go to a restaurant. With public transport. I looooove bicycling, but city life is not only for biking. Cars are part of real city life also. Otherwise you're envisioning a REALLY LARGE town, but not a city. In 1880 or 1920, Amsterdam was crazy busy, watch-out-for-your-life-jump, then also... Optimizing varies modes and affording bikes is a great development of course. But they have started to make visiting the center of Amsterdam by car pretty hard already. If that trend continues, the center should get a new zipcode and it's own City Hall. It will not be socially connected to real Amsterdammers/Dutch at all anymore. Most people I know have started to avoid it. Enjoy the high ride when there's a lot of foreigners. When they're gone, enjoy not getting our taxes... It's a setup for bankruptcy in the medium future. For now, there is mostly balance. But as an early Canary in the cole mine, I discern trends of anti-car. And watch out, the precursor of anti-human programmed "smart" cities is here. So, elected Mayors, elected Prime Ministers, elected provincial commissionaires are now neccessary or we are being ushered in something that will be less nice than it now feels... Don't forget, East Germany was the "show case" of communism. Quite nice for a while. Better than elsewhere. Likewise The Netherlands is the show case of "you will own nothing, but you will be happy" NWO types... Enjoy it while it lasts...
trying to feel better about having gotten a job offer in Belgium which I've taken over Amsterdam for a number of reasons only to have Jason hit me with those comments 😭😭😭 hope I made the right decision. Need to stop watching Netherlands videos.
I like the bike lanes, but that area you are biking through could seriously use an improvement in architecture, giant front lawns and concrete in front of low class modernist or brutalist architecture. That area could use a lot of improvement and seems hellish to me in a different way.
What you say about the roundabout, changing priorities from cars to mixed priority for both cars and cycles is not correct. Before the reconstruction, it was a normal roundabout, where the traffic ON the roundabout had priority, and thus the bicycles had priority over the cars. But since this roundabout was such a bottleneck for cars coming going out of the city in the morning and entering the city in the evening they changed that. You are right when yopu say it is a mess. It breaks with all the rules and the solution to make the crossing with the Amstelveenseweg a few meters further from the roundabout, so that the cars have priority, does not make it safer. Mainly because you have to stop, look over your shoulder and wait to see if a car is leaving the roundabout (without using their indicators) or continues its way on the roundabout. At the point where you don't turn left because it is under construction it ie even worse. If you cross there you have to stop 4 times for cars, buses, trams and cars again. Just plain ridiculous. Best way to cross there would be to get of the bike and walk on the zebracrossing.
'to live in a condo in the city then have kids, get a car and move to the suburbs' I don't believe are assumptions, I think that was very much planned.
@@UrbanCyclingInstitute I'd suggest a sunny Friday afternoon through Vondelpark, Weteringcircuit, Sarphatistraat, and Ceintuurbaan ;) Or try one of the few dangerous crossings at the Haarlemmerstraat/Korte Prinsengracht. Dreadful!
@@smeetsnoud1 Maybe we can go on a tour of the worst infrastructure in Amsterdam. Zeilstraat near Hoofdorpplein is always nerve-wracking at rush hour. However, it was hard enough to focus on the conversation on good infrastructure - I don't think we'd survive doing it on the bad streets! :)
@@NotJustBikes I agree with you about Zeilstraat going towards Hoofdorpplein. It is the only crossing of the canal for that area and it doesn't even feel okey outside of rush hour. Another place that is quite unnerving is Rozengracht/Marnixstraat and I always try to avoid the area around Westerkerk behind the palace because it really isn't clear who goes where. I'm also not fond of the Amstelveensweg/IJbaanpad crossing (15:29) and the Amsteveensweg station, but as you say it is a car priority area so it's going to be hard making better for cyclists and pedestrians though I think they should considering it as it is a secondary mode transfer point to Sation Zuid. I was disappointed when it wasn't really a part of the current renovation plan for Station Zuid. I guess the bad places stick out because the infrastructure aroud is generally so good :)
Helpful cyclists could capture street-level Mapillary or KartaView images, GPS tracks for OpenStreetMap editors to update OSM features (trails, signs, street furniture, etc.). (;-) (landscape-mode handlebar mount recommended)
ahhhh still that NA instinct of competition on channelsize and which social media channel has how many subcribers. like "we secured validity of our importance by throwing our big numbers, so now we can move on with the actual subject of todays video" 🤣🤣🤣🤣 keep the american inside alive!!! i notice that when you guys meet between yourselves (american/canadian) , you always have a genuine NA subconscious "pissing contest". guess it is a culture thing. not ment to stingy, just being very dutch now ;)
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Jason Slaughter: makes a channel about urban planning in the Netherlands
Me: Nice
Jason Slaughter: mentions he likes frikandel broodjes
Me: Very Nice
Jason Slaughter: mocks Belgium
Me: Just give him a dutch passport allready
pinned :D
Beautiful ride
Jason Slaughter mocks Belgium
Me: let this racist guy go to hell!
@@yagi3925:
Jason Slaughter mocks Belgians
You: let this racist guy go to hell
Me: grow some sense of humor, Belgians and Dutch people mock each other when they can. It’s not a racist thing at all, just joking amongst the two.
Thanks for posting this, George! It's so funny to look back to December and see how much has changed since then. Not to mention going from 600 TH-cam subscribers to 16,000 in that time. Absolutely crazy.
I realized I never properly answered your question: my favourite neighbourhood in Amsterdam is De Pijp!
Also, to all those people who complain my videos don't have enough facts and data, subscribe to Urban Cycling Institute! He's got enough facts and data for the both of us, as well as interesting interviews with people who know what they're talking about (this interview excepted, of course).
45.1 k subs now, and rising! Well deserved.
And now you’re at 75,5k! 🥳
485k now! Jeez!
Umm 826k?? Waiting for your million!
945k! Almost a million!
Respect for calling yourself an immigrant rather than expat
Nu de taal nog
@@petertraudes106 Hij spreekt ook Nederlands.
@@LaPingvino dan is het goed
He is a refugee, he fled Canada for the bad infrastructure.
@@buddy1155 maybe for some additional reasons as well
I think this is the first time in all my years in the internet that I have ever seen an person from North America or from an English-speaking country call himself "immigrant" instead of "ex-pat", and I have to say it is a welcomed change.
I am confused what’s the difference
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 Ex-pat is largely a word that white people use to avoid calling themselves an immigrant. "Immigrant" is often used to describe brown people moving to a predominately white country and because of that has picked up some negative connotations.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 Ex-pat is a short form of a word that basically means "away from your fatherland", immigrant is a word that means you moved in. There is a difference in loyalties implied there. Expat really shows the American above everything else attitude that is also encoded in USA law as in America is the only country that double-taxes and keeps taxing anyone with a link to the US anywhere they are.
@@snailevangelist of course, it's not black and white at all! It's just something interesting to observe, and definitely a word that I mostly see with Americans. It's very similar to how a certain group of brits tend to see the world as "England" and "England's garden", going as far as complaining about the many Spanish speakers in Spain around them by their retirement homes there. Also I'm really curious to which part of my explanation the "feel free to tell yourself that" was aimed, as I tried to be factual. I'm sorry if you don't like the implications of that.
@@raaaaaaaaaam496 An immigrant moves to another country with the intention to die in that country (to say it harshly), where an expat is someone who moves to another country in order to work, but with the intention to move back to the country you came from.
When Jason was living in Belgium, UK, Asia and other countries he was an expat. When he got kids he moved back to Canada. Then he decided he wanted to live in a better place for both himself (and wife) and his kids. He moved to The Netherlands with the intention to make a good life here and settle. So now he is a immigrant.
As an American, it's amazing to see so few cars on the road driving by. On any American road, there are cars going by constantly, but this city is so quiet and peaceful. I love it. It's my dream to be able to bike to work.
That is our secret, because we have the best bike and public transport infrastructure, our car experience is ALSO better because we don;t totally give up or ban cars, we use them when they are a good option and have less traffic because the other options are good choices too, depending on the individual.
I love that you can bike through the city so safely and comfortably you can hold a deep conversation while doing it
15 mins in and no car intersections or painted bicycle gutters! Absolutely beautiful!
A cycling interview being done while on bicycles while riding, this is the first time for me seeing this type of interview/show and tell.
Been watching Jason’s videos for a while now. If anything I want to say we’re very lucky that he is promoting the way we do things (at least infrastructure-wise). Because it’s part of the Dutch culture to not advertise our achievements so much. But he’s seen and experienced both sides. So what we take for granted, he sees in a completely different way, which is why he can communicate it so much better to people abroad.
We don't advertise our achievements? Maybe the older generations didn't but I don't know any nation that likes to brag as much as the dutch (except americans) But hey, I am not saying we are wrong, to quote Tina Turner: Oh, you're the best Better than all the rest Better than anyone Anyone I ever met.
@@Blackadder75 Maybe, but we also still have the “maaiveldcultuur” where you risk being ridiculed if you stand out too much. We sometimes try to be alike more than we try to be ourselves. “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg” had to come from somewhere.
@@Blackadder75 You say the Dutch brag, but I just recently learned about the Nederlands. I heard much about and from English speaking countries and Japan tho. Just my experience. I wish the Dutch would spread about their bikeable culture more.
@@starbase218 De maaiveldcultuur is just for among us, for foreigners we have: "it ain't much if it ain't Dutch "
You triggered my memory, my teenage years going to school in Amsterdam. Haarlemmermeerstation (the roundabout at 24:30) used to be my transfer from regional bus to city bus when I was on my way to school a long long time (40yrs or so) ago. It was a mess then also. Tram line 16 (doesn’t exist anymore) went strait through the middle of the roundabout and another tram line nr. 6 (also out of service, a long time before tram 16) went along the roundabout, I found that odd. There were regional busses and city busses, cars and bicyclists and a lot of pedestrians walking or running, for their tram or bus connection. There was also a tramremise (tram depot) at the roundabout so trams went in and out of it all the time. The tram driver had to switch the tracks manually with a steel poke to get to the tram depot. So the tram driver stopped, exited with the steel spoke and forced the track in the right position, stepped on board the tram again, ringed the bell and drove into the depot. And there was a city jail at the roundabout, so when there was a jail transport everything stood still, I didn’t witness that often though. I mostly came there at rush hour and the jail transports were at different times. There was also a church at the roundabout, with an occasional funeral or a marriage that made the mess compleet. At the time I was sad the railway station (the beautiful building on the southwest side of the roundabout) wasn’t in use anymore. My town had a station on that railway line. It was the same railway line you biked along when you said it was a museum tram line now (it is a museum railway to Amsterdamse Bos and further to Amstelveen I believe). Long story short, there was never a dull moment when I had to wait for the regional bus on my way home.
"neck-and-neck when it comes to subscribers"... well, looks like Not Just Bikes won that race :P
It's not over yet, still to close to call on the subscriber count.
NJB is now at 282k...
@@meh23p 425k
@@weggespamt7816 426 now
I remember as a kid going to Amsterdam by train to see De Bijenkorf and all the shopping streets and have a bite in the center of Amsterdam with my parents and my brother, so we would always walk coming out of the central station, and that was great. Years later I cycled a lot with a group of friends and we would not even take the train, but go by bike all the way from Huizen to Amsterdam and I remember the first time and what a revelation it was! Here was this big city, or at least I thought, turned so small and was literally crossable from one end to the other in less than half an hour! And there was so much to do and see along the way. I agree that I would barely care where to live in the Netherlands as it is almost always giving you everything you could possibly need very close nearby. It also strikes me that even though it is one of the most inhabited places on earth, it doesn't really feel that overcrowded. You do still get this sensation of space around you, and I think that has a lot to do the the high level of mobility, the choices of all very feasible modes of transportation. That choice you have alone is already quite liberating.
I am that guy from London, Ontario that Jason mentions. To be more specific, from a farm to the north of London. And yes, it is a hellish car-infested traffic sewer where children are hostages of traffic violence.
My teen-age daughter would have more freedom of movement in Tehran in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in London, Ontario. Because although she would have to be escorted by her younger brother since girls are not allowed out on their own, at least she and her brother COULD go to the Grand Bazaar on their own. Traffic violence in London, Ontario makes that impossible.
I am also a Canadian Army veteran. And it is interesting to see places where we fought, such as Groningen. My regiment fought in the Battle of Groningen in April 1945. To create this freedom is exactly what we fought for.
Thank you for fighting for the freedom of Europe 💝
Thank you for having fought for our freedom
Very interesting discussion! Thanks, Jason and George - keep uploading content like this :D
For some reason I'm guessing this was at exactly 12 o clock at the first Monday of the month :p
I didn't hear it.
I moved out of Amsterdam about 10 years ago and it's so interesting to see the new bike lanes.
Listening to your conversation Jason thinking "I've been reading about this stuff for ages, how come I didn't see it" speaking about the financial district and the rich suits walking to lunch and biking or training to work. Well yes that's the problem. There are way too many who come out of academia in the planning, banking, legal, administrative and all the other white collar so called professions who didn't "see it" because that's what academia does to people. Unless we experience something, for example nature, we don't appreciate it viscerally don't touch and taste it, don't feel it coursing through our veins. BTW I was one of those Rich Suits for decades and shamefully I saw it but because of the economic system of endless growth we operate, I didn't get out of it until my mid 50s. Anyway, this is a great video, and thanks to Urban Cycling Institute for putting it onto youtube
Great talk!
Thanks for this video! I really enjoyed the conversation
You should make a part 2!
Crazy to watch this now he has over a Million subscribers
"Red Asphalt" was the name of a movie they showed during my high school drivers' education class.
Makes me want to go back . Jason, you are making me homesick.
Hi Jason, love your channel as well. It's amazing to see how much you know about my city. According to my knowledge the information you give is very correct. Keep up the good work of promoting cycling.
The "Spokes-"concept is brilliant George. I wish you made more of them. I've seen the ones you've made several times already, their that good. I hope you find time to make more.
The one thing people seem to forget, change takes some time for people to get used to. If the rules are made clear AND people have the time to get used to it will work. People, at least in the Netherlands, know how to bike amongst traffic. To me, as long cars and bicycles give-and-take it will work. The moment 'doubt' enters the fray it might not be the best solution. All this is speed dependent.
It seems to me, capacity needs to take a back seat to make speed the overriding factor. Ah well, again, just an opinion.
Thanks for this great tour around the city so close to me. Great to hear such amazement over stuff that i take for granted. I loved the conversation. Will there be annepisode 2?
Jason was a very knowledgeable tour guide indeed! Funny that takes two outsiders to really appreciate the attention and care of Dutch urban designers & planners. Beautiful ride even in chilly weather
Hi Jason, the Olympic Games were in Amsterdam in 1928. (You can still buy a nice poster of it nowadays.)
Loving these ridecasts so much 😄😄😄 much love from sunny Singapore !
Those buildings on the right at 31:20 are new because in world war 2 the Dutch resistance bombed the buildings. They contained names and addresses of Jewish people, if I remember correct.
Nice route!
A couple of months after the roundabout has been finished, what are your thoughts on it?
It's better, but still under construction, and it's an absolute mess at rush hour. I usually go out of my way to avoid it.
Also, what I said in the video is incorrect: it was most recently priority only for bicycles, not cars.
That roundabout at 26:00 used to be hell for cars before they changed it to cars getting priority on the main road. Sometimes cars had to wait 10/15 minutes for the bikes to pass.
It's hell for everybody! I usually avoid it.
I was wrong in the video: it was most recently entirely priority for bicycles, and the impact to car traffic on Amstelveenseweg is why they changed it.
Not every tourist is the same. When I visit Amsterdam I love to explore beyond the center of the city.
At 27:00 Jason says that some of the older streets in these neighbourhoods were build in the 1930s. The northern parts of Plan Berlage were actually build between 1917 and 1925. They typically have closed building blocks. The exact street and square at 27:00 were build between 1921-1923. An absolute mistake was the assumption that the streets were build for cars. Traffic at that time was much slower than we're used to. Take a look: th-cam.com/video/uLVpN5ibe_k/w-d-xo.html ANWB shows Amsterdam traffic in 1920. The streets started to clog up with cars around the 1950s-60s, when more people got rich enough to buy a car.
Yes, he got a lot of the details wrong, but I don't think that's the intent of the video.
Thanks for the link. We were 10-20 years behind the USA in those years, if you watch the videos from the same time in LA, NYC or Chicago, you see a level of motorized traffic we wouldn;t reach until the late 30s
Nice view on the new building designed by Rem Koolhaas.
Interresting concept
Interestingly now Jason's YT channel has almost 1.8 M subscribers
Really interesting, congrats! What's again the app for the bicycle routes that should be used, instead of google maps? thanks
Fietsersbond fietsplanner
I lived in one of those athlete houses for a couple of months when I first moved to Amsterdam. It had the tiniest bathroom, because they assumed the athletes would use the facilities at the stadium. Just a closet with a toilet, shower and sink crammed in there really.
where outside of the Netherlands can you have this discussion on a bike?
In lots of countries. The Netherlands is by no means unique. In Denmark, for example.
That was great!
Hey, great vid. Could you link your camera bag strap mount and the other camera mount? Thank you.
30:15 I think Jason saying he's "making silly TH-cam videos" instead of "fighting for that stuff" is really underselling himself, I'm sure his so-called "silly TH-cam videos" are having an impact on people's attitudes toward urban planning in his home town of "Fake London" and around the world.
For such a nice fellow who has such a fondness for good urban design and public transit, Mr. Slaughter sure has an oddly creepy surname. :-O Love NJB and this ridecast, though. :-) Thanks !
IKR!? 😅
I’m guessing that when there is a bike crash during rush hour that the bikes don’t burst into flames or flip over.
I'm new to this channel, but does George lives in The Netherlands too?
Yes, commuting between Canada and Amsterdam would not be a viable option I feel. 😁
@@hendman4083 There's an Amsterdam in Saskatchewan, but yeah ;)
What a cool last name, Slaughter. Wait, he's giving us ideas on how to reduce urban slaughter of pedestrians and cyclist by motorists.
If you go straight ahead at 17:35, you end up at the location of the former Schinkelbad. It was a swimming pool in the river Schinkel, which was very popular in the 1920s. Nowadays there's a neighbourhood of houseboats: th-cam.com/video/evcp77xMfwo/w-d-xo.html Kirsten Dirksen: On building your dream (floating) home-studio, the Dutch way
I'm obsessed with these ideas and I live in car hell 😭
7:20 Veenendaal is not a suburb. It's very much a 65k provincial town halfway Utrecht and Arnhem ! But I guess you have a Canadian perspective of distances and not adjusted to NL in that sense yet.
@@snailevangelist In Veenendaals case not suburb anyway. Not even Commuter town or dormitory town. the economic and governmental collaborations of the town is directed at bordering cities of Ede/Wageningen and together they reach beyond 200k population.. In planning reports they are considered a region on its own. (Did I mention that 'distance' in NL is different from Canada ..?😉 ). thus, Provincial towns ..
We need some bike checks on these ridecasts!
It's funny te hear you say jason's channel "really took off" at a mere 16k subs
interesting stuff
I wish Houston's weather is not so humid. A Norwegian friend only lasted 10 minutes on a bike and almost had a heart attack, he said it's impossible to bike in our weather. He's been riding for over 30 yrs and he thought he was fit. We went mall walking instead, lol.
Dutch weather is very humid too
this is so fun to see as a dutch person!, did you know in in this area (28:00) you can buy the best marihuana in the world! just a fun fact.
Love the flat topography. Must be a joy to cycle compared to Calgary.
I love visiting Amsterdam, it just isn’t wheelchair friendly. Trying roll on the red brick and having to get in the street a lot wasn’t very comfortable at all.
Were you only in the old city centre? Because outside of the canal ring it's usually very wheelchair friendly.
This is brilliant. However, I’m still confused as to why so many Dutch people own cars. Surely it’s an unnecessary expense?
No, we also have to travel long distance or transport things. And trains are not always an option. We still like the flexibility of a car. Vut for most trips in the city it is indeed not really needed.
What rob elec told you is certainly true, but more and more younger people don't have a car anymore, for the reasons you mentioned you do not really need one and it is expensive to own one. I do not own a car and a few years back I had a lot of junk, cleaning house, so I rented a cargo van and realised: ok renting a car isn't cheap, but for the one time I need one it is great.
@@hds66nl29 Jason's just put a video on that topic recently
I think Jason may be wrong on the roundabout. I remember that roundabout used to be priority for bikes, not cars. It was horrible because there would be so many bikes, the cars would clog up the streets leading up to the roundabout. Taking a bus during rush hour that had to cross that roundabout was torture
I lived in Van Tuyll van Serooskerkenweg and my friend lived in the De Lairessestraat. Everyday, all I remember from that roundabout was chaos. We car drivers really do not like to kill people on bicycles. We are often bicyclists ourselves! That roundabout was horror. People complain about roundabouts in Limassol, Cyprus where I lived, or Place Charles de Gaulle (no-lane free-for-all Arc de Triomphe nightmare roundabout) but that's nothing compared to this Amstelveenseweg roundabout!!
Aaaaand before you notice, that that is a very cycleable distance... yes, and I frequently ended up driving to another city after the visit. Skipping biking back, getting the car, is EXACTLY what makes multiple-errands by car so efficiently. No mode-change necessary. You can drive 25km/hr and 225km/hr depending on where you are. No layovers or stopovers. Try getting groceries, fetching clothes from drycleaners, pickup a package from postoffice, getting a few office supplies and and picking up a friend, just before you go to a restaurant. With public transport. I looooove bicycling, but city life is not only for biking. Cars are part of real city life also. Otherwise you're envisioning a REALLY LARGE town, but not a city. In 1880 or 1920, Amsterdam was crazy busy, watch-out-for-your-life-jump, then also... Optimizing varies modes and affording bikes is a great development of course. But they have started to make visiting the center of Amsterdam by car pretty hard already. If that trend continues, the center should get a new zipcode and it's own City Hall. It will not be socially connected to real Amsterdammers/Dutch at all anymore. Most people I know have started to avoid it. Enjoy the high ride when there's a lot of foreigners. When they're gone, enjoy not getting our taxes... It's a setup for bankruptcy in the medium future.
For now, there is mostly balance. But as an early Canary in the cole mine, I discern trends of anti-car. And watch out, the precursor of anti-human programmed "smart" cities is here. So, elected Mayors, elected Prime Ministers, elected provincial commissionaires are now neccessary or we are being ushered in something that will be less nice than it now feels... Don't forget, East Germany was the "show case" of communism. Quite nice for a while. Better than elsewhere. Likewise The Netherlands is the show case of "you will own nothing, but you will be happy" NWO types... Enjoy it while it lasts...
Veenendaal, biking city of2018 or 20something or other!
The Netherlands is better rest assured my family will be there soon😊
trying to feel better about having gotten a job offer in Belgium which I've taken over Amsterdam for a number of reasons only to have Jason hit me with those comments 😭😭😭 hope I made the right decision. Need to stop watching Netherlands videos.
Not Just Bikes sub count now:
sheesh
Lots of "tags" on the walls. Are there gangs there?
No, not really any gangs in the Netlerlands, some organized crime groups exists. Many of those are actually international.
To us it's just street art.
I like the bike lanes, but that area you are biking through could seriously use an improvement in architecture, giant front lawns and concrete in front of low class modernist or brutalist architecture. That area could use a lot of improvement and seems hellish to me in a different way.
Americans "you only live 10 kilometers from the center"
Europeans "that sounds rural…"
What you say about the roundabout, changing priorities from cars to mixed priority for both cars and cycles is not correct. Before the reconstruction, it was a normal roundabout, where the traffic ON the roundabout had priority, and thus the bicycles had priority over the cars.
But since this roundabout was such a bottleneck for cars coming going out of the city in the morning and entering the city in the evening they changed that. You are right when yopu say it is a mess. It breaks with all the rules and the solution to make the crossing with the Amstelveenseweg a few meters further from the roundabout, so that the cars have priority, does not make it safer. Mainly because you have to stop, look over your shoulder and wait to see if a car is leaving the roundabout (without using their indicators) or continues its way on the roundabout. At the point where you don't turn left because it is under construction it ie even worse. If you cross there you have to stop 4 times for cars, buses, trams and cars again. Just plain ridiculous. Best way to cross there would be to get of the bike and walk on the zebracrossing.
'to live in a condo in the city then have kids, get a car and move to the suburbs' I don't believe are assumptions, I think that was very much planned.
epik format
Surprisingly few other cyclist around. Seems a nice day to cycle, so where were they all?
Well, it was a freezing cold day in December and in the middle of the day, so I assume most of them were probably at work, or staying warm inside.
Next one definitely in warmer weather :)
@@UrbanCyclingInstitute I'd suggest a sunny Friday afternoon through Vondelpark, Weteringcircuit, Sarphatistraat, and Ceintuurbaan ;)
Or try one of the few dangerous crossings at the Haarlemmerstraat/Korte Prinsengracht. Dreadful!
@@smeetsnoud1 Maybe we can go on a tour of the worst infrastructure in Amsterdam. Zeilstraat near Hoofdorpplein is always nerve-wracking at rush hour. However, it was hard enough to focus on the conversation on good infrastructure - I don't think we'd survive doing it on the bad streets! :)
@@NotJustBikes I agree with you about Zeilstraat going towards Hoofdorpplein. It is the only crossing of the canal for that area and it doesn't even feel okey outside of rush hour. Another place that is quite unnerving is Rozengracht/Marnixstraat and I always try to avoid the area around Westerkerk behind the palace because it really isn't clear who goes where. I'm also not fond of the Amstelveensweg/IJbaanpad crossing (15:29) and the Amsteveensweg station, but as you say it is a car priority area so it's going to be hard making better for cyclists and pedestrians though I think they should considering it as it is a secondary mode transfer point to Sation Zuid. I was disappointed when it wasn't really a part of the current renovation plan for Station Zuid. I guess the bad places stick out because the infrastructure aroud is generally so good :)
Helpful cyclists could capture street-level Mapillary or KartaView images, GPS tracks for OpenStreetMap editors to update OSM features (trails, signs, street furniture, etc.). (;-) (landscape-mode handlebar mount recommended)
CNN report: Taiwan is a pedestrian hell.😢
"Jason" and "Slaughter", Hmmm...
ahhhh still that NA instinct of competition on channelsize and which social media channel has how many subcribers.
like "we secured validity of our importance by throwing our big numbers, so now we can move on with the actual subject of todays video" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
keep the american inside alive!!!
i notice that when you guys meet between yourselves (american/canadian) , you always have a genuine NA subconscious "pissing contest".
guess it is a culture thing.
not ment to stingy, just being very dutch now ;)
Unfortunately bike success in Amsterdam is reaching it's limits...
Can’t handle “Talking Heads”.
So much you can show.
Heads are uninformative. Unpleasant really.
Funny ride ugly city
Uit rotjeknor zeker ?!
He must vote for Biden
You know he's Canadian, right?
@@Brozius2512 not very brightest is he?
@@ANTSEMUT1 I guess not!
He's a Canadian living in the Netherlands... I really doubt he is casting any ballots for Joseph R Biden.
Inshallah, let's forge some ballots today