Netherlands Trip
December 23, 2005
More on Freight in the Netherlands
One of our final meetings in the Netherlands was one attended by Tom Miller (Sam Adams' chief of staff) and myself with two representatives of the freight industry: a freight forwarder and a representative of their industry association. The meeting was at Schiphol airport, a major European hub of air freight activity. The area is a major inter-model center, transferring goods between ocean-going ships, canal barges, rail, trucks and air-freight.
There were a number of perspectives that I found striking. One that stood out is a discussion of the reliability of various modes. I was surprised to hear that the greatest certainty of on-time delivery was by water, i.e., river and canal! You can get as far as Vienna by canal from Holland!
One interesting technique they employ is to off-load container ships to barges that then bring the containers to several terminals where they can be transferred to trucks or rail. That way you don't congest one terminal with all the trucks required to off-load the ship. I wonder what would happen to truck traffic projections for the Columbia Crossing if the Port of Portland and Port of Vancouver could cooperate in a scheme like this?
We talked about the growth of trucks and they acknowledged the same trend in Europe and even showed me a schedule of truck deliveries from the Netherlands to Eastern Europe and Central Asia (e.g., Turkey and Iran).
We talked a little bit about the "last mile" delivery problem, particularly in the light of a number of Dutch cities that close their centers to cars. They said that generally deliveries to stores in such city centers were made between 7am and 10am, after people are awake (so noise is not an issue) but before the shops open and large number of pedestrians are present (and when trucks are allowed to deliver in the auto-restricted areas).
If only garbage removal in NW Portland could be organized on these lines!
In fact, several delivery companies have specialized in the niche of delivering to shops in town centers in this pattern. Rather than complaining about the "costs of regulation", they have recognized and exploited a market opportunity.
And of course we talked about bikes. When we told them that bikes lanes in freight districts were controversial in the U.S. and asked about freight districts in the Netherlands, the response was "of course we have bike lanes, how else would the employees get to work?" They also noted that if a company buys a bicycle for an employee to commute on, that's tax deductible.
Finally we asked about truck-bike conflicts, particularly right-turning accidents where a cyclist gets hit by a truck that cannot see him/her. They acknowledged that this unfortunately occasionally happens (although their accidents stats are far better than ours) but that two solutions were being worked on - better mirrors with more visibility (I think this is true here in the U.S., too) and the addition of a bar to the undercarriage of trailers. If a cyclist is hit by a turning truck, the bar pushes the cyclist aside, rather than under the wheels. Gruesome but pragmatic?
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:29 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
December 21, 2005
Rotterdam, a Different Dutch CIty
We've been combing through our notes from our Netherlands trip, and have one or two more posts left...
While our visit was centered in Amsterdam, we had the chance to visit a number of cities, and Rotterdam provides an interesting contrast. It is the commercial center of the country and a major port city (about half of the land area of the city is consumed by the port). The city center was also destroyed during WWII, so it has a very different feel from the historic streets of Amsterdam.
The attitude toward cars is also different. The planners we spoke to used the phrase "durable access" to describe mobility in the city. They want to give citizens the choice of mode and make them all work well. They have organized major radial corridors into and out of the city and made them work well for cars, transit and bikes. Typically this means that you have the ability to drive to the city center if you want, but you'll find it much cheaper to park at the outskirts of the center and take transit or walk the rest of the way. Pricing of parking is one of the key balancing tools. You can get there by car if you're willing to pay the price.
They are also investing in upgrading their tram (streetcar) service on these radial corridors, with an emphasis on shortening trip time. They are moving the trams to dedicated right of way, giving them signal priority, spacing stops about every 500 meters and using low-floor cars to make boarding easier and faster. More like our Light Rail than our Streetcar.
Nonetheless, they achieve a 23% bicycle mode share in both the city center and the city in general, and you see the same attention to quality bicycle facilities that you do in Amsterdam.
While many of us on the trip fell in love with Amsterdam, the model in Rotterdam may be much more applicable to what we can strive for here in Portland.
Posted by Chris Smith at 5:48 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
December 8, 2005
It's the Little Things
Adapting the built environment for bikes is not always a matter of big capital investments. Sometimes it's the little things, like this strip outside the window of a shop in the old city of Utrecht. It's just a notched strip of metal that you can lean your bike against. The notches keep your bike from sliding and falling against the window.
Posted by Chris Smith at 7:12 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
December 1, 2005
Netherlands Trip Featured in the O
Our traveling companion Jeff Mapes writes in the In Portland section of the Oregonian this morning about our field trip to the Netherlands. Over at Bike Portland Jonathan has already done a nice summary of the article so I won't repeat it here. I'll just take the opportunity to mention that we've created a new category to consolidate all our posts regarding the trip (20 and counting).
Posted by Chris Smith at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
November 30, 2005
Who Needs an SUV?!
One of the most striking things we saw in the Netherlands was whole families traveling together by bike. Perhaps the most touching scene, which we saw several times, was a parent riding side-by-side with a younger child, with a hand outstretched on the child's shoulder to guide him or her.
While unfortunately I didn't get any photos of that scene, I did get a number with mothers transporting younger children by bike, plus bikes outfitted for that purpose.
Shopping with Mom
The Dutch answer to the SUV
Note the trailer AND the rear seat!
Posted by Chris Smith at 6:56 AM | Comments (19) | Permalink
November 22, 2005
To Helmet or not to Helmet?
One of the powerful impressions I brought home from Amsterdam was that no one wears a bicycle helmet.
The message that sends is that cycling is a safe activity.
Does our culture's insistence on helmets send the opposite message? Should I stop wearing my helmet to symbolize my conviction that cycling is a safe mode of transportation for everyday use? I know one Metro Councilor who has taken this approach (and another who wears his helmet assiduously).
On the other hand, we don't have the infrastructure or culture that the Netherlands has.
Not one who leaps to judgement, I decided to experiment. On my bike/bus commute to work, I left the helmet home for a couple of trips.
My first reaction is that this let me wear a hat instead, which was much more helpful with current weather.
And most of the time I felt pretty comfortable.
But on the stretch of my commute that takes me down Barbur Blvd, I felt a little exposed, particularly on one rainy, dark late afternoon when I knew I wasn't as visible to the drivers (yes, I have lights).
So here's my tenative conclusion: when I'm just riding around the central city or on neighborhood streets, I'm going to give myself permission to leave the helmet at home.
If my trip is going to involve mingling with arterial traffic however, I'm going to wear my helmet.
What do you think, should I have my head examined?
Posted by Chris Smith at 6:28 AM | Comments (19) | Permalink
November 21, 2005
Road Diet, Dutch Style?
Since I reflected on road diets in my last post, let me share these photos from the recent Netherlands trip. My guess is that this road may once have had more auto lanes and went on a road diet at some point.
With this post I'm also experimenting with a different way to display photos from Flickr, so I may be tweaking a bit.
This street had a slip lane carved out of it. It was primarily used as a bicycle lane. Cars were 'allowed' to use it (including accessing parking), but they did not get priority.
This lane served the neighborhood retail very well.
Posted by Chris Smith at 11:08 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
November 17, 2005
Traffic Circles in the Netherlands
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One of the unique bicycle features in the Netherlands is that traffic circles ('rotaries' if you grew up on the east coast like I did) have a separate lane for bikes. Concrete islands help regulate the flow of autos to avoid conflicts with bikes.
The best part? Cyclists have priority in the traffic circles. Our delegation from Portland enjoyed this so much that we get kept circling for the joy of it. It was only after 3 circuits that we realized that we were preventing any cars from entering or exiting the circle. Oops...
Posted by Chris Smith at 7:01 AM | Comments (9) | Permalink
November 16, 2005
Traffic Enforcement in the Netherlands
We had the opportunity to spend about two hours with Chief Smoorenburg during our visit to Amsterdam (the chief's HQ was outside Utrecht, a one hour train ride, 30 minute tram ride and 20 minute walk from Amsterdam). The Chief is responsible for traffic enforcement for the county surrounding Utrecht.
That's PDOT bicycle coordinator Roger Geller (left) and BTA Executive Director Evan Manvel with the Chief.
Perhaps the first thing that we noted was that the Chief's unit had 80 officers for an area with 1.1M residents. By way of comparison, Commander Bill Sinnott tells me that Portland, with a population of about 550,000, has 46 officers in the Traffic Division. So the resource levels are not radically different relative to population.
The secret to why accident rates in the Netherlands are much lower than the U.S. must lie somewhere else.
So with 25-40% of trips made by bicycle, where does the Chief focus his enforcement resources? On cars. That's still where he believes the biggest potential reduction in accidents will come from.
But what about the bikes - do they run red lights? Yes, I'm afraid it's a worldwide phenomenon [which I do not condone]. Of course, the stats on that may be different than in the U.S., since there are virtually no stop signs to run. During our time in Amsterdam we saw all of about three stops signs. Short of a traffic light, yield is the general way of dealing with conflicting traffic streams. This seems to make both cars and bikes pay more attention - and perhaps more respect - to each other.
Another eye-opener was the Chief's response to complaints about speeding. When they are requested to do speed enforcement on a street, they first analyze the engineering of the street. If they conclude that the street is designed for a higher speed than the posted limit, they won't try to bring the speeds down by enforcement - they turn the issue over to the transportation department to fix the road instead!
Posted by Chris Smith at 6:22 AM | Comments (15) | Permalink
November 15, 2005
Licht aan! (Get Lit!)
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Sometimes the parallels are just eerie. In the Netherlands a major safety campaign was under way to get cyclists to have proper lights. They even had cops handing out lights. Sound familiar?
The difference I noticed with a lot of 'programs' like this in the Netherlands is that they get a lot of promotion - posters, etc. We don't seem to do promotion on the same kind of scale here.
Posted by Chris Smith at 6:38 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
