 Hello everyone and welcome to the Spokes podcast by the Urban Cycling Institute and today we have here with me Valter from the city of Amsterdam. So good to have you up Valter. Thank you George. And what do you do at the city of Amsterdam? I'm a policy advisor on cycling ferries and traffic safety and that means that I make plans and discuss plans for the future of cycling and also answer a lot of questions about cycling in the city and my focus now is together with my colleague Gia Ilhorst is on bicycle parking lot to do of course in Amsterdam. We already do a lot of projects here in the city and we see that yeah a lot of people use the new facilities but there's still a lot of work in this field. And bicycle parking is it most problematic at the train stations or what kind of hot spots are you working on now? The train stations are still one of the main focus points of course but we see now that more and more people can find a place at the stations but for example at the central station we are building the biggest facility so far in Amsterdam for 7000 bicycles and we're already thinking forward of what will be needed next but the focus is more and more on the neighborhoods with tiny streets not a lot of space for pedestrians and we see that the number of bicycles especially inside the Ring Road area is still increasing so we need more space for bicycle parking. Yeah so how long have you been working at the city of Amsterdam and what was your job before that because you have a very interesting history. Thank you I work at the municipality of Amsterdam for 9 weeks now. Okay only 9 weeks. And before I worked also as a policy advisor at the municipality of Leiden and that was for almost 3 years and when I started there it was all questions of cycling about the infrastructure, the bicycle parking and other questions and the last one and a half year or so my focus was also on bicycle parking in Leiden. Okay. Leiden is also a real cycling student town right? Yes. So we are here on this feet splat or a bicycle street and this is newly constructed right almost a year old and not even that could you tell us a bit about what is the idea behind this bicycle street? Yes yeah this is actually the next phase in cycling in Amsterdam. We now see so many cyclists compared to the number of cars on certain streets like this one that we could choose to mix again which is quite strange if you look at history because Amsterdam became a cycling city again because we started constructing separated bicycle lanes which was very much needed and still is. But here we chose to give more space to the enormous amount of cyclists on the whole inner ring road as we call these streets and before this was constructed we only had a little bicycle lane about 2 meters wide or even narrower and now you see that the cyclists take all the space and can have their position and yeah I think it's a brilliant solution. It's very comfortable away from parked cars, lots of room to pass and actually not that many vehicles. Very smooth, now vehicles really adapt to it not everyone but about 90% of the people really changes the behavior. And here we have a marking on the street here that really says bicycle street, autos, cars are guests. So do you think cars actually behave that way when they drive? Most of them do. So it's not perfect but busy traffic I would say it's never perfect but it's a solution that works a lot better than the old solution and we also see a lot of people choosing this route now instead of other routes. And it's my personal, my daily route from home to work. Shall we go through the Rijksmuseum? This is it right? On our left? Almost. Okay. The next left. Yeah let's go through the Rijksmuseum channel. One of the most beautiful cycle paths in Amsterdam. It is. Yeah. And iconic. You also work with ferries right? And that's kind of a weird part of your job profile. Explain to us why ferries are very important to the Amsterdam context as well. In Amsterdam there is the odd situation that there is only one bridge to the other side of the water to Amsterdam north. There you see the end of the cycle street and you immediately can feel that the car will take its place. Maybe a coincidence. That's good for the viewers, that was an example of when the rules aren't really respected right? Yeah. This is one of the taxi drivers. And now we're back to the way the street was before the bicycle street was implemented. The ferries are very important for people living and working in Amsterdam north and also for visitors because there are more and more visitors for Amsterdam north. For example for the EYE film museum and also to the NDSM. And if you compare Amsterdam to other Dutch cities and European cities then you see that the distance to the other side of the water is not that big. But we don't have the bridges and the tunnels, there's one tunnel and one bridge and that's why the ferries are so important. There's a lot of bridge boat traffic along that coast by the central station. Yes, one of the busiest boats, itineraries in Europe. In place of the ferry there's plans or is it going to happen to build a bridge? Is that in the planning phase or is that like going to be realized? And if it is, do you know a timeline for that approximately? Yes, it's still in the planning phase and there is now a commission working on this bridge ideas. I hope the commission will also visit this park because they will experience how important the city life walking cycling is for the city. But what we see with the ferries, which function very good but not everyone chooses to use it because it can take quite some time to reach the other side and when the bridge here is less travel time but also you know better when you will arrive at your destination. What we can see now is the outer ring road because the cycle street we just cycled in is the inner ring and now there is a proposal to also make a second bicycle ring. Okay, and that's the fifth canal ring we're talking about, right, the very outside canal ring. Yeah, and even a bit more outside the city, we're almost there. So the inner ring right now is being built with bicycles as priority and then this outer ring it's traditionally more as a car highway with 50 kilometers an hour as a speed limit. One of the few in Amsterdam, we were talking earlier that most streets, how many percent is actually 30 kilometers an hour? Yeah, about 90 percent. 90 percent, that's amazing. So is there a goal to make even more to make it closer to 100 percent? It's difficult because there's still a lot of cars and you see it on the outer ring, Stadtau de Skade, for example, that there is still a lot of cars so if you would make it 30 kilometers an hour and doing nothing else, not decreasing the intensity of cars, then I think it's difficult to maintain such a rule. A lot of people running this red light as we're waiting. Especially walking. Yeah, red beans, maybe Stadtau de Skade. And then we'll make a left here, we can just wait, right? Yeah, let's do this. It's not that well designed for a left turn and this is one of the more busier car intersections actually, right? Yes, yeah and a lot of those big buses also because of the museums here. Yeah. Also quite a lot of foreign traffic. I think we're good. Is here light? Sorry, no problem. You see it's very narrow, riding side by side is almost impossible here, right? OK, so can you tell us a bit about Amsterdam's future because there's a division document that got released. I think it's Dutch and English, charting the path until I think 10 years in the future where you have the different, it's like carnets, pedestrian network and then the bike network. What went into that plan? Yeah, the newest plan is called Amsterdam Autolu, that's the Dutch name. It's difficult to translate, but maybe you can say car light, and this street is one of the examples where our council says we have to do something, we have to decrease the amount of people going through the area with a car and yeah, it's not decided yet what the streets will look like, but there's definitely going to be more space for pedestrians and cyclists. Yeah, a big concern for tourists, right, especially around this area where actually it is that the pedestrians are feeling very uncomfortable in the city due to the high volume and almost chaotic nature of cycling here. Yes, yeah, and it's about the chaotic situations for tourists that are not used to a bicycle city. Yeah, and it's also the bicycle parking, you can, and scooter parking, no pets, I mean. So what kind of people do you think will start moving into the city in the next 10, 20, 30 years, and what type of people are you designing the city for? It's a vision for Amsterdam. And we design, especially from the mobility department, we also try to design more for the youngest and the oldest, but we still have a way to go to really comply to their needs, because we know that there's quite some older Amsterdam inhabitants that say, I don't feel safe anymore on the bicycle, because the bicycle paths are so busy and so narrow and still in a couple of occasions, we saw some just three minutes ago, and yeah, and it's not only older people, it's also young people that say, especially at rush hour, that can feel unsafe to cycle. That's something we want to prevent and we want to make plans before this happens. That's a major issue. I'm always amazed in the Dutch context how many people are working on this issue of cycling, because in let's say the North American context, you know, in the smaller or medium-sized cities, you would have like one person, half a person even working on cycling and pedestrian issues. Even in big cities. Yeah, even in big cities. So how many colleagues do you have that kind of work in this area of cycling? In the policy field, so a bit more strategic, I have four colleagues, but not full-time. So if you take only the full-time, you have about two and a half persons, and then there is a lot of colleagues from the project department, we call it the bicycle program with a lot of projects on infrastructure and bicycle parking in it, and also cycling behavior and the ceiling cyclists have and also pedestrians, and that has more than 20 colleagues. More than 20, and this would include then the engineers as well? Yes, some of them have engineering backgrounds, but there's also a lot of colleagues, like for example from the assets department that also contributes to a lot of projects. And don't forget that even for Amsterdam, this is quite a new situation. In the zeros, in the beginning of the zeros, there was only one or two people working on cycling and none on the pedestrian department. Wow, that's amazing. Even in Amsterdam, huh? Yes, a big mental shift. And do you feel that mental shift or the shift in the overall attitudes towards city building, is that changing towards this idea that you mentioned earlier of building for young people, building for old people, building for inclusivity? It's a shift. Yeah, there is a slow shift, but there's also a lot of questions still, how to do it and how to break the status quo. So an example is the way we reconstruct streets, when for example the sewage system is being repaired. And in most occasions the assets department will say we will do this project and the surface, so the tar mark or the the street stones will be exactly the same as what they wear. And that can be a problem for pedestrians and cyclists, because yeah, you need some change in the city because some streets are still 70s or 80s like a bit. We are close to the van Waustrad now. You can see a very broad profile there and it's quite unsafe still. That's an example, but there's still a lot that we can change, but it's difficult to break the status quo. Yeah, and of course you here, you still have drivers who park in the way. It's deliveries, this issue of trying to fit all these needs. Yeah, delivery is a very important part of all our street projects now. We want to make more space for delivery and less space for stationary cars. Yeah, because if you don't provide any space for deliveries, then people are going to start parking in the bike lane and really gum things up, right? Yeah. Anyways, so I guess we're getting very close to your office here. Yeah, we need to go to the left now, I think. On it we can take the waste presider and just go on. So this is all part of the second bicycle ring that's in the plans. Which is pretty awful right now, but it will get better. So actually talking about low-hanging fruits, the worst streets are the ones that should actually be prioritized, right? Yeah, but it's not low-hanging fruit because you see that there's also a lot of cars here and here again deliveries. So yeah, I wouldn't call it low-hanging fruit because it's quite difficult to change it in one day, but yeah, in the near future it's definitely possible. Projects like The Munt, a place in Amsterdam where there was a lot of cars about three years ago. Now there is a circulation plan there and there's so much more space, especially for pedestrians. Nice. So you got lots of work ahead of you, City of Amsterdam, and I hope everyone learned a lot from this conversation. Thanks for joining us, Walter. We're going to try this moving handshake and I'll see you later, eh? Yes. Take care.