How the Dutch SOLVED Street Design

The current North American street design is not sustainable, the commute time and fatalities are escalating. But is the solution finally here? In this video we'll do a deep dive into how the Dutch design their roads and transportation network so effectively to reduced commute times and fatalities.

Bio:
Adam Yates is a real estate developer living in Toronto who works on master planned communities and mixed-use / residential developments. On this channel, Adam explores complex urban design and City building topics with rigor and optimism, helping his audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build.

Attribution:
-Roads and Car Aerial shot by Levinkoshy at Videvo
-Not Just Bikes priority networks

[kailahmann]

The rule of thumb: If two modes of transportation share the same space, the slower sets the speed. In reality there are exceptions for places where pedestrians are extremely rare.

[humanecities]

3:41 I was just on the bus in Calgary, Canada and it was stopped at a red light, on a transit way, with no cross traffic, and with the parallel road on a green light. It’s shocking how even when millions are spent on a transit way, the busses still don’t get signal priority.

The Dutch do a great job at creating effective movement of people, rather than building for cars and tacking on other things, “just in case someone doesn’t drive…”

[henkoosterink]

USA and Canada are 50 years behind in road and street design.

[rarothers]

Great concept! Crazy how people are fighting this type of design in Toronto when it clearly works!

[deldarel]

"The Amsterdam network" All of the Netherlands.
But that's part of the beauty of it. It's all connected, and that's a large part of why it works so well.

[alfredorodriguez]

Dude!!!! I did my research paper on “EV are not the future for America” and talked a lot about walkable cities and reliable transportation and I love you went into detail how they use their streets. got yourself a subscriber

[FlyingOverTrut]

Great video, Adam. Keep it up. I'm really glad to see the increase in urbanist content on YouTube.

[mavadelo]

3:35 uh... that is not the "Amsterdam network", that is the Dutch network Those two are not the same. That said, the Amsterdam Biking network would basically look comparable to the national network in density. There are very few places in a city where bikes are not allowed. Defacto every street is part of the network.

[diedertspijkerboer]

At 4:45, bicycles don't really have priority at the intersection shown. Instead, there are separate traffic lights for bikes, taking away the conflict with cars. This approach is standard at intersection with main roads where cars can go fast.
At slightly more minor intersections, there are roundabouts with separate lanes for bicycles. The bikes then will typically have priority for ones inside urban areas.

[jabberwock]

This is the first video I've watched on your channel and was pleasantly surprised by the production quality, given your channel is still an emerging one. I like that the animations are a little retro. As for content -- this was a GREAT primer on road infrastructure, I wish a video like this was around when I got into urbanism, it'd have connected the concepts for me faster. The graphs and such are really helpful in comparing countries.

[autohmae]

1:44 These ideas didn't come from discovery, people first protested in the streets about the high number of deaths caused by cars, especially among children. And then over time more and more solutions were created and probably still learning, tweaking

[penry]

Did a cycling trip across the Netherlands recently, I was blown away by the infrastructure, not only in the cities but also in the rural areas. Literal separate cycle highways between small towns and cities.

[benbaartman]

Well, as a Dutch person I would say: just start with creating a separate, red coloured lane at the side, reserved for bicyclists. That's not that much of an anchievement (and not that costly), but it is at least half of the job, looking at safety matters. Bu that, the bicyclists will feel respected ánd they are sooner noticed by cars, which rapidly reduces the number of accidents.

[kenneth]

Great video! Something that often gets overlooked is the material of which the road is made of. In residential neighborhoods in the Netherlands you will almost always find bricks instead of asphalt. Driving on bricks create more noise, which causes you (generally) to drive a bit slower. It's cheaper in maintenance too.

[JoopHbR]

As a Dutch traffic engineer I would say that there's lots of improvement still to do in the Netherlands. Fatalities are going up, especially in the group of elderly people with a n e-bike. We are not yet there....

[Nomenius]

Great video, showing the road types that are used is neat, but showing how they form a network with other road types is so much more useful to get an idea of how they can or should be mixed together. I personally play with designing a grid city in my off time, and seeing how and when to mix things just makes finding potential design considerations so much easier. I hope you can make more technical stuff or just show where you could find more like this for the seemingly vanishingly rare group of urban design nerds.

[mediataal]

Very good video. I am also a filmmaker myself and am impressed with how you made this. Very clear, compact and to the point.

[Basta]

Plenty of Dutch urban planning innovations can be implemented in North America. However, there is still a problem of zoning. Many North American homes are far from their daily destinations and thus require motorized transport of some form.

Outside North America, most people generally live within walking distance to most of their daily destinations. Walking is an option for groceries, restaurants, shops, offices, schools, and transit stations. In that situation, having a car is more of a luxury than a necessity. For those where a car is a necessity (elderly/disabled) or extremely convenient (families), there will be more space to move around and less traffic if there are less cars on the road.

Its not just about the transportation network, its also about the distances and accessibility between the daily destinations.

[nimeshinlosangeles]

Wow! Great succinct explanations. This should be the go-to video for anyone first getting exposed to these ideas.

[Sacto]

Actually, if I remember from another YouTube video, the first attempt at bicycle-friendly streets ended up causing *MORE* problems with congestion. It took a total rethink of the street design to get it right.