September 12, 2013

Canadian cities are adopting the Dutch woonerf

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles,Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 9:37 am

woonerf

Toronto was probably the first Canadian city back in 2010 to build a Dutch-style ‘woonerf’, streets where the boundaries between the areas for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have been removed, and now Montreal and Ottawa are adopting them as well. They’ve also adopted the word ‘woonerf’, a typical Dutch word and construct from 1934 to go with it.

When I was learning how to drive here I had to learn everything about these special residential zones where the driving speed is ‘at a foot’s pace’ (about 15 km/h, although it isn’t actually specified) and where a car must give right of way to all other drivers (including cyclists) upon entering and all other road users upon exiting. As well, any drivers coming at you from the right in a woonerf have right of way, and parking is only allowed where indicated.

(Link: www.bnr.nl, Photo by Payton Chung, some rights reserved)

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August 9, 2013

Solar-powered bicycle lights made in The Netherlands

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

The Pixio bike light has a built-in solar panel with a battery that charges up during sunny days when a bike is parked outside. Five days is enough for two years of biking with the lights on and the Pixio is already good to go for two years of biking with the lights on when you buy it. It comes in a range of colours, and a set of Pixios (back and front, as the law requires) will set you back 55 euro, but then those cheap bike lights and their batteries will run you a lot as well in the long run, never mind the stress they cause. It even has a locking mechanism so you can actually leave it on your bike, as long as your entire bike doesn’t get stolen or removed.

One obviously drawback is if you leave the lights on by mistake, but then that goes for battery-powered lights as well. Raise your hand if you’ve turned off someone else’s bike lights off as a courtesy. Parking your bike indoors like many people do won’t charge your light up, but then if you’re good to go for two years, you can cross that bridge when you get to it.

(Link: www.bright.nl, Screenshot: Rydon.eu)

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August 8, 2013

Kickstarting Dutch ideas: inventions and culture

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Film,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 8:35 am

If you want to feel like an investor, maybe even invest in a project or just browse to get some ideas, have a look at these Dutch projects on Kickstarter. At first glance, films, software and design/inventions seem to be major categories, but I also saw some well-funded music.

Amsterdam: The Belll (yes, extra l), got funded. A customisable, loud, Dutch-made clip-on bell for your bike.

Groningen: The Last Holdouts: ‘One couple’s journey from Antarctica to Holland: A documentary about impossibility and the creative process’.

Amersfoort was the busy city at the time of writing, with three projects vying for cash, although one stood out: Doodle 3D, a sketching tool to print your own personal drawings on a 3D printer.

See also:

Charge your gear on the go using your travel bag (older pic above).

Two inventions—a charger in a safe, and a power strip in a book (and a bonus invention).

(Screenshot: Kickstarter)

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July 10, 2013

The world’s biggest bike garage planned for Utrecht

Filed under: Bicycles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:13 am

All that heavy duty construction work at Utrecht Central station, the country’s biggest train station, will eventually house the world’s biggest bike garage — all three floors of it. The garage will also feature a bike path and fit neatly under the train station, unlike the sea of bikes that can now be found around the station in the photo above.

Also home to Utrecht University, the country’s biggest university, Utrecht is very visibly full of students, many of which bike everywhere.

Just a few days ago we told you about how many wrongly parked bikes had been removed in 2012, but this kind of mega project should help alleviate the problem. The bike garage will be able to accommodate 12,500 bikes, which is exactly five times as many bikes as Amsterdam’s bike flat next to the train station that’s already overflowing.

Designed by Ector Hoogstad architects, the mega garage will open partially in 2016, and be ready entirely in 2018.

(Link: www.bright.nl, Photo Photo of Bikes at Utrecht Central station by Fietsberaad, some rights reserved)

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July 3, 2013

Record number of bikes removed in 2012

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 6:12 pm

Bicycle parking is a serious matter in most major Dutch cities, as bikes parked near busy places like train stations have to be placed in designated areas or else run the risk of getting a fine, just like a car. To avoid ugly clutter, the city of Amsterdam removed a record number of bikes in 2012, some 65,000 ‘wrongly parked’ bikes and bike carcasses. I can sympathise with removing the carcasses, but removing ‘wrongly parked’ bikes implies that there’s not enough bike parking available, something the media writes about all the time.

Unlike cars, which are quickly demonised, bikes are supposed to be good, and dissuading anyone to take their bike instead of public transport would be blasphemous. In 2011, 54,000 bikes were removed and in 2010, 34,000. Since there’s an increase in the use and ownership of bikes, the big cities need more racks, but municipalities are basically ignoring the problem and causing a new one: expensive and tedious bureaucracy for anyone who wants to get their bike back.

In a recent post about recycling bicycle parts, cities remove (steal) bikes under the guise of keeping bicycle parking manageable and keeping the streets clean. The bikes are stored at a depot where rightful owners can retrieve their bikes after paying a ‘fine’. A lot of people don’t bother picking up their bikes and just get another one, putting more bikes out there.

(Link: www.amsterdamfm.nl)

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June 24, 2013

Ninety-nine years of Tour de France in comic book form

Filed under: Bicycles,Comics by Branko Collin @ 2:11 pm

Next Saturday the hundredth edition of the toughest bicycle race on the planet will start, the Tour de France.

Dutch comics artist Jan Cleijne has written and drawn a book called Helden van de Tour (Heroes of the Tour) in which he reviews the past 99 editions.

Het Friesch Dagblad notes that with the hundredth Tour ahead of us, the market is about to be saturated with bicycle racing books. “But it looks like Helden van de Tour will be one of the winners. […] A jewel of a graphic novel.”

Sevendays.nl writes: “Comics artist Jan Cleijne visits all the historic highs and lows, from World War I to the scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong, and talks about what the Tour is all about: endurance. He lets us experience the blizzards, the puddles, a 70 metre drop, glorious victories and molten asphalt. His drawings take on the colours of the stories, ochre during the climb of an arid Mount Ventoux, gray during the hellish ride of 1926 through the Pyrenees.”

“The book is an homage to a race that is worthy of its legends, but it also puts the focus where it hurts,” Zeit Online writes. “The author, born in 1977, is an enthusiastic amateur rider himself and it shows. His voice is critical throughout the book but also emphatic. Precise and loving are the brush strokes with which the Dutchman paints both the drama of the famous riders and the small anecdotes that take place near the sidelines. […] It is a funny but also a serious book.”

You can find a couple of sample pages at Manners.nl under the ‘Klik dan hier’ link.

Illustration: “In 1951 the yellow jersey was worn for the first time by a Dutchman. His name was Wim van Est. He had never seen a mountain before in his life. The ascent was very slow. The descent was much too fast.” (Miraculously Van Est survived.)

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June 10, 2013

The Upcycle recycles bicycle parts

Filed under: Bicycles,Design,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 1:00 pm

Two young designers from Delft have started making desk lamps, trouser belts, jewelry and even bicycles from impounded bicycles.

MSN writes:

Industrial design student Lodewijk Bosman, 25, and Hidde van der Straaten, 28, founded “The Upcycle” in university city Delft in January 2012 to exploit a typically Dutch problem. With so many bikes [in the Netherlands] come parking problems, and if they are left in the wrong place or simply abandoned, the authorities pick them up and take them to the pound.

Lodewijk and Hidde [buy these] abandoned bikes and parts […].

A Upcycle bedside lamp, priced at 88 euro, consists of a bike light with a new LED bulb fitted to a stem made of a few chain links and intertwined spokes — all standing on a wooden base wrapped in plaited inner tubes.

Dutch cities impound tens of thousands of bikes each year. Sometimes they are oprhan bicycles, abandoned by their last owner, but often cities just steal bikes under the guise of keeping bicycle parking manageable and keeping the streets clean. The bikes are stored at a depot, which in the case of Amsterdam, is far way from downtown. The rightful owners can retrieve their bikes after paying a fee—a fine, as the city spin doctors call it. The depot is so far out of town that there is even a cab service in Amsterdam that advertises its rides to the depot. As a result, lots of people don’t bother collecting their bikes, and those that are not retrieved are sold off to second-hand bike shops and to The Upcycle apparently.

(Photo: The Upcycle)

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June 3, 2013

Den Bosch turned old country road into nature preserve

Filed under: Bicycles,Nature by Branko Collin @ 12:47 pm

When the city of Den Bosch expanded eastward in the 1980s, it gobbled up an old stretch of Meuse dike called Heinis. Originally developers wanted to build a business park there, but protests put a stop to those plans.

Instead, the city decided to build around the area as Mark Wagenbuur writes:

For ages this country road ran through the fields, but the city expanded and new parts were built north and south of this east west road in the late 1970s. Residential areas to the north and an industrial area to the south. By 1980 the old road was suddenly in the middle of the city.

When this was still a real country road there were many rural houses on it. […] Many of the more contemporary houses were destroyed but all the monumental farm houses remained. There were so many of those that the road still has the atmosphere of a country road.

Motor traffic on the old road is now restricted, with bridges spanning gaps in the old dike to let bicycles across.

From a conservationist’s perspective, the area is important for its ‘wheels’ (I don’t think there is an English word for the phenomenon), small but sometimes deep ponds made by kolks breaking through dikes, what IVN/Vogel- en Natuurwacht ‘s-Hertogenbosch e.o. calls “mementos of the sometimes unsuccessful battle against water.”

Here is a Google maps link. Although I cannot show you many photos of the area, the link above to Mark Wagenbuur’s article also leads to a video of a bike ride through the area.

(Photo of a ‘wheel’ in Heinis by Geert Smulders who released it into the public domain)

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May 13, 2013

Bike path under Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to open tomorrow

Filed under: Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 9:33 am

On a dreary Saturday I snapped this picture of the entrance to the recently opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

This is also a photo of the only bike path in the world that bicycles are not (yet) allowed on, which is why there are barriers and security guards.

When in 2003 renovations started the architects came up with a plan to move the museum entrance from the side to the tunnel underneath the museum. This would bring museum visitors in closer proximity to the cyclists who fully expected to still be able to use their age old bike path. The footpath (not shown here) is several meters wide, but as anybody who lives in Amsterdam knows, tourists will not look where they walk.

Museum director Wim Pijbes has traditionally been against the bike path, Eindhovens Dagblad reports, and probably would shed no tears if people stopped noticing that there was one.

Although the Netherlands does have a concept of right of way (recht van overpad), people here make much less of deal about it than in, say, the United Kingdom where the Rambler’s Association actively works to keep public paths over private property open. The Rijksmuseum is, as the name implies, publicly owned.

The new Rijksmuseum opened on 13 April of this year. The bike path will be opened tomorrow evening, although the city reserves the right to close it ‘at busy times’ until it has had the time to put in extra security measures.

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May 7, 2013

Amsterdam tops list of best biking cities in the world 2013

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 10:00 am

Although they say it took them more time than they had expected, Copenhagenize’s 2013 Index of bicycle-friendly cities is out, and Amsterdam is the orange on top.

“We ranked 80 cities in 2011 and increased that to 150 this time round. Although this time round we had the help of over 400 individuals on every continent – our eyes and ears on the ground – to assist with the ranking. Lots of changes in the Top 20 what with the addition of 80 new cities. ”

Some interesting bits about the list:
– Utrecht came in 3rd and Eindhoven 6th.
– My home town of Montréal came in 11th (tied with Munich and Nagoya), as the only North American city.
– France and Germany each have three cities in the top 20.

All in all, most top biking cities are European ones. I mentioned in passing on French Belgian radio last week how dangerous it was to cycle in Brussels, so I am glad to see Antwerp in the list.

From what I have seen and read, in the United States and in many parts of Canada, fitting in cyclists so late in the game is more of a nuisance and a diluted green affair than actually making cycling a valid and accepted mode of transport like it is here. It could make more sense in the long run to concentrate on electric cars in countries where the distances are greater than trying to get people to cycle two months out of the year when the weather is nice. Winter has to be a major factor worldwide for using a car over a bike. Copenhagen and Malmö have serious winters and are pretty far up the list, but they have relatively small city centres and apparently very good cycling infrastructure. I know for a fact that it took a lot of lobbying to get my home town of Montréal to build bike paths at the end of the 1980s.

(Link: www.copenhagenize.com, Photo by Flickr user comedynose, some rights reserved)

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