Haarlem-based Traffic Advisor evaluates Austin's Dutch-inspired cycle network (Part Two)

Рет қаралды 3,636

Күн бұрын

In part two of my Austin bike infrastructure tour with Steffen Berr, Traffic Advisor with the City of Haarlem, The Netherlands, and the creative force behind the Build The Lanes Channel, we make our way from the Downtown Austin Transit Station via the amazing 4th Street cycle path and into the evolving streets of Austin's east side, which are slowly being transformed into more people-oriented places.
It's worth noting that the city of Austin has had a very productive ongoing relationship with the @cycling_embassy which has been instrumental in helping bring about this activity promoting transformation.
Thank you so much for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs-up, leave a comment below, and share it with a friend. If you'd like more content like this, please Subscribe to the Active Towns Channel, and be sure to "Ring" that notification bell to select your notification preferences.
Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
- Part One of my ride w/ Steffen: • First Impressions of A...
- Part Three of my ride w/ Steffen: • Haarlem-based Traffic ...
- Part Four of my ride w/ Steffen: • Haarlem-based Traffic ...
- Part Five of my ride w/ Steffen: • Final thoughts of Haar...
- My Previous interview with Steffen: • A look inside Dutch st...
- Subscribe to Steffen's Channel Here: ‪@buildthelanes‬
If you are a fan of the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting the effort as an Active Towns Ambassador in the following ways:
1. Join our Patreon community. Contributions start at just $1 per month: / activetowns
(Note: Patron benefits include early, ad-free access to content and a 15% discount in the Active Towns Merch Store)
2. If you enjoyed this video, you can also "leave a tip" by clicking on the Super Thanks button right here on KZfaq or thru "Buy Me a Coffee" www.buymeacoffee.com/activetowns
3. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store: bit.ly/ActiveTownsStore
Credits: Video and audio production by John Simmerman
Music via Epidemic Sound: bit.ly/3rFLErD
Resources used during the production of this video:
- My recording platform is Ecamm Live: bit.ly/3rwsUup
- Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite: bit.ly/35DBDDU
For more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:
Website: www.activetowns.org/
Twitter: / activetowns
Newsletter: bit.ly/SubscribeActiveTownsNe...
Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.
Since 2010, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."
The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.
Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.
Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2024

Пікірлер: 51

@j.vanderson6239 3 ай бұрын

What I always miss in North American infrastructure is the lack of attention for esthetic beauty. Don’t underestimate the importance of that for users to feel safe and comfortable

@Lolwutfordawin 3 ай бұрын

Very true. Though I see the same problem in Germany too. Anything spent on making things pretty seems to be seen as a waste of money despite being proven to improve people's happiness and in some/many cases lowers crime too. (Especially things like pedestrian underpasses pre and 📯 beautification)

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yep. So true.

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

@@Lolwutfordawin "Pretty" might be a misleading term. "Inviting" is perhaps the more apt?

@Lolwutfordawin 3 ай бұрын

@@stephensaines7100 nah, I'd stick with pretty / beautiful. There's not really any resistance to putting in things one could deem inviting like benches or other public amenities, but efforts to not put in a cheap concrete square in favor of actually pretty things are often attacked by conservatives in the name of fiscal responsibility.

@ar134_ Ай бұрын

So right. A patchwork of grey all around and then the red concrete which is an improvement, but then they patch it up again with those ugly green squares with the white arrows. Just use the red and stop confusing people with yet another color painted on a color.

@carstarsarstenstesenn 3 ай бұрын

Austin is great. Here's to hoping they keep going exponentially!

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

We're making progress for sure... exponentially would be super cool. Thanks so much for tuning in. Cheers! John

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

What's notable to me is how they approached (are approaching) this with a degree of humility: (gist) "We can learn from the best, and we should...and so we shall!) Some other cities have done this, some in CA I believe, and it's not just good manners, it's also more cost effective, and efficient in terms of the bang for the buck.

@shaneshawaii 3 ай бұрын

Austin looks really nice! Someday, we'll have to take the Texas Eagle down for a visit.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

It's coming along. I'm planning to hit the Amtrak rails (the Texas Eagle in particular) to produce some future Active Towns content - perhaps as soon as this fall when I return from Europe... I can easily walk or bike to the Amtrak station near downtown. I have no excuse. hehe 🤣 Thank you so much for tuning in. Cheers! John

@kailahmann1823 3 ай бұрын

Steffen said something very important about residential streets: On a slow (20 mph), low volume street sharing with cars is actually safer (!) than any bike lane - because there the collisions are not from behind, but from the side with every driveway being a potential conflict. So the cheapest way to make a street bikeable isn't a painted bike lane, but really enforcing a low speed limit, where you have no through-traffic.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yep. This brings us back to why it's so important to have narrow residential streets to encourage lower speeds and modal filters to keep volumes low. Cheers!

@rangersmith4652 3 ай бұрын

I harp on this point a lot: difference in speed is a primary hazard. This is why schemes meant to force cyclists and pedestrians onto the same path are a bad idea, and making drivers slow down is often better. And it's dirt cheap compared to creating new infrastructure. Drivers want to go fast; they're in a hurry because they know they can leave late and go fast. They need to be taught to plan better and exercise patience and restraint.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

@@rangersmith4652 Yep. No arguments here. I will add, that I run across many situations in The Netherlands where people walking and biking must share space and sometimes it is true shared space with motor vehicles, people walking, biking and obviously people using mobility devices such as wheelchairs... and it works, because of the points you bring up and the understanding implicit that the space, the public realm is not intended to be a high speed raceway for motor vehicle drivers. Thanks so much for tuning in and for your contribution to the conversation. Cheers! John

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

I agree wholeheartedly! And often it's the wish of the neighbourhood, especially those with children or older folks, that the speed of the traffic be reduced. This all goes back to what many older streets were designed for, and that's 30mph speed limits. On '30mph': I was just Googling '30mph history' to find reference to the following adage, I could find nothing at this time, there's huge amounts of discussion on '30mph', but an adage states: "The reason for 30mph limits is that it was determined in the Thirties that 28mph is the highest rate of speed that humans can react in time to events that happen when driving". There's a reason most farmers, when driving down back-roads, trundle at 28mph. It's as fast as their senses deem to be safe. And 28mph is as fast as (for all but racers or nutjobs) cyclists feel is safe and sensible. Getting back to slower speed limits...30mph speed limits, at least in urban areas, allows for a much more inclusive use of the roads. In Googling on the subject, I see a resurgence of folks actually asking for 20mph! If I had kids, and lived in an urban area, I would too.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

@@stephensaines7100 Yeah, part of what makes these local access streets (in The Netherlands and elsewhere) truly safe and inviting is that the design speed of the streets encourage and reinforce speeds closer to 25-30 kph (about 15 mph) and at those speeds two magical things happen - it's not magic really, it's physics - crashes are avoided and if they do occur they are much less likely to result in a fatality. In too many car centric cities, residential streets have 25 or 30 mph signs, but the roadway and lane widths send a message that the comfortable driving speed is 40-45 mph which brings with it an exponential increase in fatality rates.

@dimrrider9133 3 ай бұрын

Great to see the US try to get more then only carlanes.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

It's a battle, but we're making progress slowly.

@carstarsarstenstesenn 3 ай бұрын

We've been trying, it's not easy here!

@dimrrider9133 3 ай бұрын

@@carstarsarstenstesenn I know but we have corrupt politicians to only not at the level of the biden clan...

@reneolthof6811 3 ай бұрын

Sound advice not to ‘go Dutch’ too quickly! Gradual improvement is really the key to our success. Quick fixes usually end up being more expensive and less effective!

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yep. We're definitely employing the gradual improvement approach. Although the car-brain status quo would disagree. lol🤣

@carstarsarstenstesenn 3 ай бұрын

It's Texas so I don't think they have to worry about that too much 😂

@barryvandertas2234 3 ай бұрын

At least at the beginning of the video some proper design is in place, and also great to see it is used as well. So it is possible in the US, good luck.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, as we make our way into the Mueller neighborhood, we'll see some more "proper" permanent infrastructure in an entire community network... stay tuned for that. Thanks for watching. Cheers! John

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

I'm impressed that Austin looked elsewhere to learn on cycling infrastructure, and learn from the best. ( See: Austin Mayor and Dutch Royal Celebrate Pedal-Powered Partnership ) There's so many excellent points being made in this vid, but @5:50, Berr's point on (gist) 'unprotected protected lanes' applies to a lot of North Am cities. I'm in Toronto, and this mistake is rampant, as I'm sure it is in many other NorthAm and elsewhere cities. In Toronto's case, one of the most popular cycle lanes east-west, Bloor Street, actually (albeit arguably) is more dangerous in spots than if there wasn't a lane at all, as it gives many cyclists a false sense of security, and carte-blanche then to cycle with abandon. This video is profound in not being about Austin, which is fascinating, but about North Am adaptation to cycling w/ Austin being used as the subject. This is excellent viewing and learning.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for tuning in and for your contribution to the conversation. We have some more fun Dutch-inspired street design infrastructure in store as we make our way north to the newly developed community of Mueller, our former airport. Cheers! John

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

To buttress my claim above on 'painted cycle lanes being ineffective' (something I think we all agree on) the following vid takes it even further. His experience is that painted is more dangerous than nothing at all in terms of how close traffic passes. Enter "Testing the most dangerous roads | Why painted bike lanes suck" in KZfaq title search. There's some really excellent channels on cycling infrastructure on KZfaq. ActiveTowns obviously being one of them. I'm looking forward to Part III of this particular series.

@bjd7703 3 ай бұрын

Great video! I really like the shared path idea at 15:00. Seems like a cost effective and safe way to expand the network of protected bike lanes. Expand the sidewalks into the road and redraw the road lanes smaller. Will slow traffic too.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much! Yes, exactly. More good fun in Part Three as we make out way into the Mueller neighborhood. Cheers! John

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

@15:00 For me, as a seasoned cyclist for over half a century, all sorts of alarm bells go off. Kudos to Austin for trying, but I'd rather just take the road than do that or pull off of the road and walk across that intersection. As to being willing to dismount and walk across some intersections, it's very defeating, both mentally and physically, but safety is paramount.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, I pretty much never do that (dismount), nor is that behavior requested or required in any of the infrastructure we highlighted here... when there is mixing at the transit stop, people riding a bike would obviously need to proceed with caution and yield to anyone walking or getting on/off the bus. Yes, it is a much different type of riding. When I'm on my racing bike, it's often easier, safer, and more comfortable to "take the lane," when I ride one of my city bikes traveling at pedestrian-friendly speeds it is entirely comfortable for me and others, including people walking. So, it's context-sensitive. I like to reinforce, that the build-out of an all ages and abilities cycle network is not for you and me (confident and experienced "cyclists") but for the 60-70% of the population that currently does not ride but would do so if it was safer and more inviting.

@stephensaines7100 3 ай бұрын

@@ActiveTowns All excellent points and context. [When I'm on my racing bike, it's often easier, safer, and more comfortable to "take the lane," when I ride one of my city bikes traveling at pedestrian-friendly speeds it is entirely comfortable for me and others, including people walking.] This is very true in many cases, myself included. State of mind on a given ride but for the same place often renders a different answer. Your point (nature of cyclist/cycling as per which stream to use) is worthy of much more discussion. Given my comments on that particular intersection, there might be times where I wouldn't dismount, but cycle through either on the road or the indicated bike lane. There are times that I wouldn't. Part of that is at least down to age (I'm mid Seventies, and sometimes I 'lose my nerve'). But that ties into your point, and that of your guest, as to how that should be inclusive in the design.

@RealConstructor 3 ай бұрын

If Austin has a road maintenance plan with decent funding from tax revenues, they can be more than halfway in 20 years, like said at 20:00. Every time a road is up for maintenance, remodeling, resurfacing or reconstruction, the city can turn the whole road section into a safer street with cycle lanes. It goes gradually. Traffic deaths cost society more than constructing safer streets. Start road construction with the streets towards the center or downtown like the spokes of a wheel. From university or business district towards the center. In Europe this works because most shops, restaurants and bars are in the center. Maybe this would be a little different in the US, but you get the picture. Connect the points of interest with each other.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Exactly! 👍

@miles5600 3 ай бұрын

10:35 the semi truck just ran over the plex post. another thing i see in europe and not in the US is that semi truck trailers have rear tandem axle steering which allows CDL drivers to make smaller more precise turns.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yep. Still room for improvement. Always.

@miles5600 3 ай бұрын

@@ActiveTowns yes, but hopefully they’ll catch up to improvements that’re already implemented in other countries. I’m convinced that the internet is making this an easier and faster process cause of all the information that’s available and the visual representation of these things like on KZfaq. Anyways it’s good to see Austin expand their network and ofc see my friend Steffen :)

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

@@miles5600 Yes, for sure the internet is helping to spread the word, which is crucial because we must grow awareness in the communities at large. Thanks so much for tuning in once again.

@ce17ec 3 ай бұрын

Think how the whole picture of the urban surrounding would improve if they would put all those cables underground instead of all these poles and ugly cables going everywhere ..... And a lot less objects in the way of bike lanes and walkways.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Yep! One of my pet peeves... hang in there though... when we make it up to Mueller you'll see an entire community where they did bury all the utilities and build in the Dutch-inspired cycle network from the start. Thanks so much for watching. Cheers! John

@the_real_Wieniet 3 ай бұрын

Got a request, Can you go to Alisson North Dalles. See how it goes over there.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Hmmm... Allison Dr in North Dallas (Richardson)? I can't find anything for Alisson North Dalles... can't tell if there's a typo (or two) in there... what's the context?

@chaseberggren6778 3 ай бұрын

The problem with the low speed street early in the vid (6th St) is the parking. Get rid of parking on the bike network streets and you get Danish and Dutch safety standards.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for watching and for contributing to the conversation. Certainly if the parking was removed protected bike lanes could be installed. Cheers! John

@chaseberggren6778 3 ай бұрын

@@ActiveTowns No, I didn't mean a bike lane could then be put in. I was trying to say that when parking is removed on an otherwise low volume street, the street becomes safer for cycling. As long as parking remains, then even on low volume streets a proper (barrier) bike lane is needed.

@ActiveTowns 3 ай бұрын

@@chaseberggren6778 Hmmm... well in North America on a street like East 6th if we only eliminate the parking it will most likely no longer be a slow street or a low volume street as it will appear to be an overly wide raceway that would then encourage faster driving and more drivers will flock there. This all assumes no major reconstruction of the roadway. If we are doing a complete rebuild, narrowing the travel lanes way down, then yes, this would work well. Unfortunately no rebuild of this nature is possible in this location within the next few decades - we have to work with what we've got.