Dutch Bicycle Photography Left Overs
Featuring the things that didn’t fit in a nice neat place of their own, from infrastructure to lifestyle, to simply nice or interesting photos I took along the way. There’s still a few stories to tell… It’s a long one…
This is the final post from my 2023 Netherlands trip, the random things that didn’t fit in a blog post of their own… If you didn’t see the previous posts, take a look through the main blog page and if you’re interested in more dutch bicycle infrastructure, you can check out my book fietspad.
Let’s start with our arrival in Amsterdam, there’s a blog post about travelling with the Brompton, but after finding our way out of the airport, it was pretty neat to roll under the airport taxi way
Not long into our trip we got held up on route to Utrecht by this lift bridge… Always fun to watch the first time. On the last trip, we get held up at a few in Rotterdam which was frustrating.
Getting across the bridge, we were soon making our way along a somewhat rural or suburban fietsstraat or bicycle street, this was immediately interesting as on such roads in Canada, the thought of adding traffic calming is often unthinkable, but here the red surface, the pavement markings and the subtle speed humps all do enough to make this feel comfortable.
I didn’t take too many other photos on the way to Utrecht from the airport, jet lag was kicking in, and our priority was getting there. Wandering around our new neighbourhood for the week as the sun was going down saw some great light.
No hi-viz… no worries…
No helmets either, just casually getting around the city as the sun goes down, safely and comfortably on streets with separate or slow moving traffic…
It was soon time to sleep before exploring more of Utrecht than we were able to on the fietspad trip. Walking toward the centre for a bit of shopping, even after having spent much time in the country, it is again such an eye opener to see people riding around like it’s just a normal thing to do…
A trip north of town took us to the solar road and odd sign with all the children’s faces I posted previously, on the way there a bi-directional bike path/parking lane…
Just a family get around on bicycles on a bicycle street, again, more photos in a previous post on that. Look to the background a little, note the side street with continuous sidewalk. The parking close to the intersection will be severely restricting sight lines. It’s normal for a driver to pull forward onto the sidewalk to find a gap. Remember, a partially blocked continuous sidewalk is better than a partially blocked curb return intersection.
This is pretty neat, it took me a few to figure out this underpass is entirely for a bus lane that drops under the intersection and rises back up after. that’s a huge investment to save a short amount of travel time. Now that’s Bus Rapid Transit! More on that as we go…
Think we were working our way towards Houten to the south of Utrecht here. Kind of a nice bike path, but there was actually the odd vehicle using this. Truly a multi-use pathway.
Still heading to Houten, this neat little bridge appeared, not sure if it has a purpose, but it’s different and that’s something we need more of.
Leaving Houten and heading back toward Utrecht a different way than we had the previous trip, this is a neat rural shared facility. I really like this idea with the smooth bike path and textured shoulders on the side.
Another day, another direction in Utrecht, the photo doesn’t really capture it, but what you see here is a single lane roundbout, but what’s most interesting is that it lies on what might be classed as an Arterial roadway that the City has been reducing from two lanes to one lane. This was previously a two lane signalized roundabout. Take a look back through time…
Heading west from the roundabout above, note the sign restricting vehicle access to the City. It states environmental zone, closed to diesels. Remember when we had the air care program in BC. Today, we have no formal emissions or safety checks for vehicles, which I find absolutely bizzare!
A little further along, I’ve mentioned this previously, but where we must have through and right turn vehicle traffic in the same lane going at the same time as through bicycle traffic, I like these flashing pay attention signs by the signal head rather than the static signs we put up in advance… Of course having a society where most people driving also ride a bicycle helps with awareness too…
Just more people getting around on bicycles.
You may have to zoom into the background on this one, but this shows something that may not be commonly appreciated. Often, bike paths will transition between dedicated facilities and frontage roads that allow people to access their homes without disrupting traffic on the adjacent roadway. They are very low volume and low speed and generally comfortable.
A recently constructed street on the outskirts of Utrecht is comfortable enough to ride around and share the road despite no real traffic calming efforts. Still a lot of space given over to on-street parking, albeit they’ve tried to green it up a little, but 4 lanes of parking… To be fair, in BC we have plentiful underground parking with most homes and we still have street parking on both sides.
Just another angle from the same spot above, a modern Utrecht building. Not sure if these are apartments or townhomes as we’d call them. No balconies as are common here, but a bench on the street.
Wayfinding signs on the bike path. These are everywhere, literally at every turn, ok nearly every turn. You really don’t need an app or a map. Just follow the signs.
The famous busiest bicycle intersection in Utrecht, the Netherlands, maybe the world. It’s a sight to see… Could have stood here all day! it’s uni-directional coming toward the camera, but behind me you could stay on the uni-directional lane, or cross over diagonally to the bi-directional facility which takes you to the train station. The one with the 12,000 capacity bike parkade.
I just watched people being blown backwards along this path through Utrecht University. The day I took this photo it was much calmer. The rainbow path must be a kilometre long through campus. I like when people do something different. It turns a path into an attraction and that’s almost always a good thing!
This spot is one of my favourites in Utrecht, sitting here with a beer and some snacks.. Life doesn’t get much better…
If the deck is too busy, there’s always the steps to the left… Just a great little gathering spot that gets the evening sun…
I need to work on taking more pictures in the evening.
The City doesn’t sleep as they say, people still need to get places after dark. I’ve talked with a few people about the difference in social experience in a City like Utrecht. In Metro Vancouver with people spread out, and often moving further into the suburbs as they need space to raise kids, socialization is more difficult, meeting up downtown, requires a long drive and parking issues, or a transit ride that might need three transfers. In Utrecht, when anybody can get safely into the centre by bike in 20 minutes or less, it’s much easier to just go hang out without much planning. A bit like what Taylor Swift said about a night just coming together in New York v LA.
Just another night shot, trying to see what my camera is capable of after dark. If anyone cares, this entire trip I had only my Fujifilm X-T5 with a 35mm F2 lens on it.
Doesn’t get more Dutch than that…
Heading west towards The Hague along a suburban fietsstraat with the typical red surface, large stencils, and frequent speed humps. The humps are pretty subtle, I’m not sure they’d do much to slow down North America drivers. Here, they do just enough. I’m still in favour of speed cushions rather than humps in North America.
There’s this great book called fietspad, you should check it out…
Crazy tree’s…
Can you tell it’s a school zone? Again, a little creativity brightens the street up, and maybe make you more aware than a sign that would go largely ignored.
MUP conflicts by the sea, riding down from The Hague to the Hook of Holland.
A day trip back to Delft. The Dutch are still improving things, this was a bi-directional path around the roundabout the year before, now uni-directional.
A new splitter island to divert people around our out of the roundabout. People on bikes have the right of way except when trams come through.
Small streets… This would never happen in North America, but it should, and we need cities to see the value in them.
Not a small street, the main shopping street. Robson Street in Vancouver should look like this.
A brief stop back at the Hovering, we dropped the Brompton cases off by the hotel here as we’d be flying out of Eindhoven to Nice later in the trip.
Fietsparadijs, I thought this was a made up word when the Bruntlett’s used it in the Foreward, but a real world I guess. This is Limburg in Belgium, where we travelled through on the way to Maastricht.
We’d been riding for about two weeks constantly when we got to Maastricht. The uncomfortable cobbles and lack of bike infrastructure in the centre was a welcome excuse to take a break from riding.
We were staying just over the other side of the river from the centre, in a neat little neighbourhood. This seems like a recently new pedestrian bridge.
But nothing more than a bike rail at the end…
There are a few bridges, some primarily active modes, come of course for traffic, this is the next one along which has an odd little lift bridge that raises up about a metre or two, but in a way that you can still cross. Never seen that before.
This was the awesome tree canopy just around the corner from where we were staying.
A few more shots from the neighbourhood…
People ride around the centre, but are usually just sharing the cobbled streets…
So that was Maastricht, we took the train from here to Arnhem, again, handy as the train station was just around the corner.
Arnhem is a good base to get the train to Germany (to visit a friend), saving an hour compared with going from Amsterdam. We rode around a bit here, there are national parks around this area which make for good riding. One thing I didn’t photograph was an advisory bike lane on a 60 km/h road. I’d estimate 1.5m bike lanes and 3 to 4m vehicle lane. The problem with this design on this road, is that drivers tend to stay in the vehicle lane to pass which is too close, rather than use the full width of the road to pass wider. It made me think that advisory bike lanes should only be recommended on lower speed roadways which makes sense, as you’re essentially sharing the road.
Back in Arnhem itself, the train station is of course accessible by bike…
But if you arrive by bike, you’re more likely to just walk out the main entrance…
The city has a decent amount of bike paths and the usual network of pedestrian streets in the very centre.
From here, we’d head to Eindhoven, fly out to Nice to meet my parents for a few days. We’d already dragged them around the Netherlands twice… Back at the Hovenring to pick up the Brompton suitcases… Is the Hovenring bike infrastructure or car infrastructure? Either way, it’s pretty neat…
Just a short roll away from the Hovenring, this street is typical of several BRT streets int he Netherlands. A wide street, but with a bus only centre section, protected bike lanes, and then what are essentially frontage roads.
You can read about Nice in my other blog post, we landed back in Eindhoven, unpacked the bikes, rode to the train station and headed back to Utrecht for the final few days. While we’re on BRT streets, lets start there, we stayed just outside of the centre this time around the corner from this BRT route…
We were staying close to the big yellow bridge. Is it sponsored by Jumbo? or just a coincidence…
Speaking of Jumbo, we were generally Albert Heijn people on our trip last year. The yellow Jumbo branding screamed discount grocery, but it’s actually better than AH IMO… Seems like they’re trying to soften that yellow branding in this relatively new store…
Alongside the BRT line above is a pretty constant flow of people on bikes, especially at peak times…
Staying the other side of the railway tracks, you must cross to get to the centre… Feels pretty safe most of the time…
Maybe marginally less so after dark… Different underpass just up from the one above…
Reminder about small streets… Not every street needs a road…
While we’re on things we need, what if every local street was traffic calmed by default, not an afterthought because people speed. Do you think this street was retrofitted with speed humps, or they just thought this is a residential street where people should drive slowly… Let’s make all local streets slow streets in North America, especially any new ones!
There’s not much left other than a few final images from Utrecht… Another road not for cars…
Judging gaps…
312 spaces available out of 12,000… Imagine if we just had a bike parkade with 312 spaces…
Few more spaces available now…
Comfortable with your kids riding around the city centre by themselves in North America?
Finally managed to grab a coffee at the cafe above the busiest bicycle intersection in Utrecht. The window seats are in high demand, I think just from bike geeks marvelling at the sights…
Over and out…
Well done if you made it the end. Hope you found some of it interesting… Until the next one…