Bicycle Scenes from Amstelveen and Amsterdam
Part 2 of the trip finds us back near Amsterdam, staying on the south side, discovering new bridges for active modes, ticking off the bike parkade, discovering a diverging diamond interchange, and… not kidding… a machine for cleaning flex posts…
This is the old part of Amstelveen, It’s a small historic little neighbourhood centre in what I thought was mostly a newer suburb of Amsterdam. We just happened to ride in this direction one day. Like many centres, access by car is controlled while people walking and rolling are of course free to pass through.
We’re here for a few days before meeting up with my parents for a week, and as it’s close to the airport, it’s handy for a low stress ride there to meet them. To get here, we took the train To Amsterdam Bijlemer ArenA station from Den Bosch, leaving us a short ~7 km bike ride to Amstelveen, a simple task you would think, but it would be our first true taste of Dutch hills (the wind) that meant it took much more effort than we anticipated. This seemingly idyllic scene doesn’t tell the full story…
We followed that pathway above, ignoring construction detour signs that we didn’t bother to translate, before getting turned around and backtracking. Still I love these scenes with homes by the canal and people riding by that we wouldn’t otherwise have seen…
I didn’t take many photos of Amstelveen, as the newer centre, a mix of buildings built probably since the 80’s with a newer mall didn’t inspire me to get the camera out, but with hindsight, I wish I had… It’s good to show all sides of the Netherlands, that it isn’t all little cobbled streets, even those that may be less photogenic. There’s was even a building with an old Hudson Bay sign on top (Streetview of it). If you don’t know, The Bay as it’s known today, is a long standing Canadian department store, and apparently the oldest North American company that goes back to the fur trading days, still much younger than most of Europe mind! Anyway, that’s closed down just like a few here have done recently. I wished I’d taken a few more photos… I took one of where we stayed in the recently built Cityden apartment hotel with bike lanes outside. Interestingly, i’m sure that low bike lane with barrier curb on each side is a joy for anyone using the loading bay…
When I looked at the location for this hotel, one of the things that attracted me to this location was the massive highway and interchange project nearby, with seemingly a diverging diamond interchange under construction. I figured it would be a good chance to check out what their highway interchanges look like for people on bikes, and maybe remind people that while the Dutch are still making it more difficult to use a car in their centres, they continue to build highways.
I’m not sure if the project is stalled, or the air photo was super up to date, but it didn’t look that different on the ground when I got there. Approaching the construction activity below… Note the vehicle direction in the back of the photo, with drivers on the wrong side of the road, and about to switch back, the hallmark of the diverging diamond configuration and the efficiencies it provides by reducing the number of signalized conflicts... This is the location if you’re interested.
For people on bikes, there is the simple at grade crossing above controlled by lights. But it gets interesting on the other side of the highway. A question for you… Would you rather take a circuitous detour up and down a ramp without the need to stop, or wait at a light and avoid the climb? I’m honestly not sure what’s preferable, maybe it changes with the weather, on a cold day, maybe it’s nice to keep moving, on a warm day, maybe you’d want to avoid the extra little bit of exertion required…
This single shot doesn’t do a great job of conveying what’s going on, so below are a few photos stitched together… again if you zoom in to the back right, you can see the cars switching sides.
I feel like I’ve taken photos of a million protected bike lanes and intersections in the past, so it’s mostly new things or interesting scenes I was trying to capture as we biked around. On one day we headed north east with a huge active modes bridge being the target destination, and then a loop back through North Amsterdam and the centre, ticking off a few sights I hadn’t previously captured. We never actually spend that much time in Amsterdam on any of these trips.
Leaving the immediate area, we pass through this roundabout, that presumably used to be bi-directional, but I think has been converted to uni-directional given the eradicated pavement markings. There’s a road and LRT running under the roundabout, and there’s this thoughtfully located real time information for the stop that’s presumably below.
Then a little further along we pass through a school zone. Where in Canada, we might reduce to 30 km/h, they of course go to 15 km/h… Enforced with traffic islands, bollards, curbs, and speed cushions… No giant pencils this time though… Interestingly, even their speed cushions are pre-cast. They look to bolted down with some kind of crack sealer around the edges.
The intersections and bike lanes are not the impressive thing. It’s the number of people they enable to ride a bike. This is the goal… I never get tired of seeing so many people lined up at a traffic light on bicycles… Note the two stage pedestrian crossing that can provide signal timing efficiencies depending on the phasing and demands…
We turned right here, over a bridge then left onto a bicycle street. Interestingly in this case, it has a lot of speed humps, something I’m trying to get away from in favour of speed cushions in Canada. Speed cushions if placed well allow people on bicycles to pass through without the uncomfortable hump, especially important with people traveling faster on ebikes these days… my RAD ebike is much more uncomfortable on speed humps than my regular bike because I’m going faster.
As long as the speed cushions are placed well to keep people on bicycles out of door zones, while still requiring car drivers to negotiate them, they bring everyone’s speed to around the same and reduce the need for passing. I see stencils of varying size all over the Netherlands, but this one seems smaller almost like it would lie between car wheels and reduce wear and tear. Something to think about…
The wait for green can be frustrating… The Dutch often use disappearing dots, either in a linear or circular configuration to let you know the signal is counting down to green. This is the first time I’ve seen an actual timer used, and is more similar to our pedestrian countdown timers. Maybe we could even adapt those timers for this purpose, as long as the wait is double digits, which would hopefully always be the case… Anyone interested in a trial project?
One of the main destinations on this day, the Nesciobrug built in 2013, just for active modes… Impressive…
Well… active modes… and very small cars…
Entering the neighbourhood under the bridge, the sign says “Think of our Children”…
The bridge splits at either end, with one split taking you to a set of steps to get down to ground level more quickly on foot, while the other branch provides a gradual ramp up to the bridge.
Half way around the loop up to the bridge…
And fully on the bridge now…
Below, this kid was doing amazingly well! The wind was so strong at this point it was almost blowing us over… Between the two sets of steps is the black surface intended for pedestrians, while the red surface connects the more gradual ramps at either end…
Just another bridge on the way to North Amsterdam. I was trying to capture people struggling in the wind, but it doesn’t really come across… But he is on an ebike… They’re not just for hills…
This little street through North Amsterdam is almost like going back in time… Getting to sports by bike like it’s normal…
Cool cargo bike, almost like the airstream of the cargo bike world…
Such narrow streets… How do they service them or put out fires…
Arriving at the ferry dock on the north side. Not quite peak hour as this is often a lot busier… But it’ll have to do…
And back across to Amsterdam proper on the free ferry…
Busier on this side with people going to ferries and the train station…
The bike path at Amsterdam Central…
But what I was really back in the centre to check out was the new bike parkade. We just missed the opening on the trip last year… But in the image below, you take the escalator down and turn to the left under the water…
Lot’s of capacity to get in and out… Again, not here at peak time, I’m sure this escalator is jammed at times…
And the security people were kind enough to let us in to have a look around… We weren’t the only ones asking to have a look around either… Crazy that a bike parkade is a tourist attraction…
Heading south back to Amstelveen… typical Amsterdam bicycle scenes…
I’ve been close to the Rijks museum before but never actually been to it. Still didn’t have time to go in, but I was for sure going to ride through it… Nice turn lane for bicycles…
Light wasn’t great on this side, as it was coming over the top of the museum from the other side and hitting the street in the distance… A street that’s no entry except for bicycles…
Finally riding through the museum…
Missed the good light on this side of the Rijks Museum… Anyway… What old buildings in Canada can we route a bike path through?
There are many ways to ride through Vondelpark… Never get’s old watching more than one person on a regular bike… I do often wonder how many racks or bicycle top tubes have broken doing this…
This path below goes to and from the a large park where a lot of families were enjoying bikes rides, even with it being very windy…
Careful on the tram tracks…
The continuous sidewalk and bike path doing it’s thing… Even with an imperfect offset from the edge of road…
When it gets busy, I guess we need left turn lanes and median refuges for people on bicycles…
Dog park…
I’ve seen a few buildings with roads through them on this trip. I guess a more effective use of space, generates more tax dollars compared with a road with no homes above, or simply provides space for more affordable homes…
Neat little bike ramp on this bridge over a canal…
I guess kids falling asleep while you’re driving happens in the Netherlands too…
A little helping hand across the slight bridge incline…
Another standard Amsterdam scene…
I liked the silhouette of the bikes on the railing here… Average pic…
Conflicts everywhere… all at slow speed though…
Almost back at the hotel, interesting fietsstraat frontage road configuration with centre driving lanes…
Almost at the end of this leg of the trip. This is the bike tunnel under the runway at the airport…
There’s a tunnel for cars too just behind me in the photo below… They even have a machine to keep the flex posts clean… I assume to maintain the reflectivity in the tunnel…
What will they think of next… From here, we have a week in and around Alkmaar. If you’d like email updates when I post new blogs, sign up for the newsletter…