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Comment by pharmakom | Hacker News Reader

A great post. My only nitpick is that Amsterdam isn’t a particularly good example of active travel in NL.

From an American perspective it could be. Amsterdam is the largest city in our country and it still pulls together walking, cycling and public transport in a way that doesn’t suck. Of course smaller towns have it easier in some ways because of the way Dutch towns are historically configured. What makes the large cities interesting is that they are somewhat metropolitan and still have the Dutch vibe.

Driving in Amsterdam sucks, parking costs you your leg per five minutes, bikes are very agressive, pedestrians fill the roads because there is more tourism than the city was designed for.

Its one of the worst places in NL I've been, from a driving perspective.

Good. The fewer cars for frivolous purposes, the better

I don’t like it either but it’s very easy to get around if you aren’t in a car. So a good example.

That's the point. Maintaining car infra is expensive, so owning a car should be expensive and discouraged. That's why there using a car to get to a destination usually is much slower compared to a bike. Cars are still allowed for the people that either really need them or don't need them but are willing to pay extra But I agree that Utrecht is a better city bc of less tourists and even more bike infra

Of course, and I admire that, but its therefore not a good example of a city where cars, pedestrians and bikes coexist (because its not meant to be one)

Why? All of them coexist and most efficient ones get preferential treatment, for example priority on intersections/semaphores, more direct/shorter paths for mass transit and bikes What's not that good is the train quality/frequency/price, for this Switzerland is much better (pricey but good quality and frequent), but NL is still ahead of many countries even in this regard

Why not? I’ve lived there for years, and although it’s not perfect, I think it’s very easy to get around both walking and cycling.

Maastricht, to give one example, is considerably nicer for walking and cycling. Remember GP isn't saying it's absolutely bad for walking and cycling, just that Amsterdam isn't great by NL standards. And it's not.

Amsterdam may not be the best existing public transit (+cycling friendly), but it is the most visited city in the NL - and it is good enough at it - that it is understandable how it becomes the standard for how a (large) city can be decent to non-drivers

I myself have never been to any other places in the NL and use Amsterdam as an anecdotal example of how things can be good

(Also of how bikes with peda- instead of handgrip-breakes designed for tall people are tricky for us shorter folk)

I imagine more people who've traveled, and are not from the Netherlands, are likely to have been to Amsterdam than to Maastricht, meaning it's easier to index on how Amsterdam functions than Maastricht for discussion.

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