Bicycle Rush Hour Utrecht (Netherlands) III

Morning rush hour in the 4th largest city in the Netherlands. Streets look like this when 33% of ALL trips are made by bicycle!

This is an ordinary Wednesday morning in April 2010 at around 8.30 am. Original time was 8 minutes that were compressed into 2 minutes, so everything is 4 times faster than in reality. The sound is original.

This is one of the busiest junctions in Utrecht a city with a population of 300,000. No less than 22,000 bicycles and 2,500 buses pass here every day. And yet Google Street View missed it. Because private motorized traffic is restricted here.

These cyclists cross a one way bus lane (also used by taxis and municipal vehicles), two light rail tracks and then a one way street that can be used by private vehicles.

Behind the camera is a railway (you can hear the squeaking sounds of the trains passing) and the main railway station is very close too. A number of rental bikes from the station pass and many of the cyclists will have come by train for the first part of their commute.

For those who frown upon the total absence of bike helmets in this video, consider these findings from a US study:

"Cycling in the Netherlands is much safer than in the USA. The Netherlands has the lowest non-fatal injury rate as well as the lowest fatality rate, while the USA has the highest non-fatal injury rate as well as the highest fatality rate. Indeed, the non-fatal injury rate for the USA is about 30 times higher than for the Netherlands.

Injury rate per million km cycled: USA 37.5; NL 1.4
Fatality rate per 100 million km cycled: USA 5.8; NL 1.1"

From: Pucher, John and Buehler, Ralph (2008) 'Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany'.
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Irresistible.pdf

Category:

Education

Tags:

• cycle
• rush
• hour
• Utrecht
• Netherlands
• Holland
• bicycle
• bike
• cyclist
• cycling
• bikers
• biking
• critical
• mass
• separate
• protected
• path
• track
• way
• lane
• chic

[DJFMful]

Now record while its raining or snowing???

[markenlei]

@DJFMful if you turn on annotations you'll see links to the versions in rain and snow. If you thought the Dutch cycle less then you'll be surprised. The Dutch are not fair weather cyclists.

[bigbillyz]

Anyone else notice how bloody tall they are.

[jfstarr]

Where's all the fat people.....Oh wait, they're in America

[pawpawnorth]

Casual cycling, fun, healthy, efficient, beautiful cities. Netherlands. Bike deaths, careless drivers, areas that aren't walk/bikeable, obesity, corrupt and broke government, car dominance, and suburban sprawl. United States. And god damn, will somebody get rid of those skin tight bike suits that people wear here!

[patrick10001]

@willyleonhard Netherlands*

[MrIheartyout]

<3

[yondaimeeeeee]

@CmlDexter 30 min riding sounds good for your health.. i would do it easy..

[TheJustIdea]

I wish America were like this!

[dinnerandashow]

In America the cyclists would not yield and the vehicles would not care.

[frusciante7]

Ahah I've been there for 5 months, I can tell you you get used to it :D

[jhcfight]

@r3ece7 I see this every day. Mostly when the infrastructure makes it hard to line up. But they do that when they know that they are riding faster. It would be more trouble to pull in everybody at the traffic light. Nobody is ever annoyed, by the way.