
The 1979 Delft Cycle Plan - fanf2
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/the-1979-delft-cycle-plan/
======
tinbad
Looking back, growing up in/near Delft was probably one of the best
experiences in my life. Being able to get anywhere in our smallish (100k
population) city within 10 minutes (and usually less) by bicycle had some
great advantages when I was in my teens. Without the infrastructure, I
arguably wouldn't have had the same level of independence that lead to some of
the best experiences in my early life. Like biking to school independently,
frequent games of DnD with friends across town and other social activities,
going to library daily to play with computers, drinking alcohol for the first
time and being able to (safely) get home, etc.

In contrast bringing up my own kids in car-centric California seems quite more
limiting. I like to brag to my American friends how I would bike to school by
myself at age 9 and how it would be completely impossible here. Now, I don't
think we should necessarily try to compare or convert every place to one like
Delft but experiencing this increased/free mobility early on in life
definitely changes ones perspective and arguably stimulates greater
independence.

~~~
perfunctory
> Now, I don't think we should necessarily try to compare or convert every
> place to one like Delft

Why not? I think we absolutely should.

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lifeisstillgood
"""People were visited at home and they weren’t just asked how they travelled
where, they were specifically asked for their constraints, the reasons why
they didn’t cycle to supermarket X for instance. The answers were very
concrete: “because intersection Y doesn’t feel safe”, or “because canal Z
forces me to make a detour of that many metres”."""

Just teach this as at civil engineering courses the world over - read this
paragraph once a day for three months and you get a semesters credit.

The world would change

~~~
perfunctory
I am not an expert in surveying but my gut feeling tells me that visiting
people at home and having a personal conversation delivers high quality data,
albeit being expensive. I fear we might loose that quality in the age of
social media and big data.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
We only lose the expensive stuff when we no longer are willing to pay for the
expensive stuff.

And compared tonbuilding roads in places no one wants its cheap.

What is needed is better accountability to the "public" for such civil
engineering decisions - which means generally better more engaged local
politics (this being a virtuous circle since more local people will get
engaged when they realise they have influence over such decisions

If part of the decision making process was a documentary on youtube of
whommakes the local decisions, what the impact of crossing X would be then I
could see more people getting involved

one called call it the nightly news

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andys627
Some cities are having success lately with implementing large networks of
cycle tracks, all at once, rather than one or two at a time.

Calgary:
[http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TP/Pages/Cycling/Cyclin...](http://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TP/Pages/Cycling/Cycling-
Route-Improvements/Downtown-cycle-track-pilot-
project.aspx?redirect=/cycletracks)

Seville: [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-
cycli...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/seville-cycling-
capital-southern-europe-bike-lanes)

These cycle tracks need to be part of a network to work.

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ggm
Small story: I worked at a large in-city University Campus with a lot of green
field spaces surrounding, leading to the carparks and bus stops. People
continually walked on the grass the way they wanted. The university did not
like the grass being mud, so laid paths. They laid the paths in regular
shapes, to achieve formalisms they liked. People did not _want_ to walk on
these directing lines, continued to walk and drove the grass into mud again
the paths which led to the axes they wanted to get to, and radiate from.

Lesson: leave the paths to be set by the feet, sometimes. All they had to do
was photograph the dominant trails and then make paths of them.

~~~
andrewem
That's known as a desire path or desire line:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path)

~~~
ggm
TIL. This should be taught to all transport designers, landscape and other
architects.

Not that these desire-paths are always optimal or appropriate, but it feels
like an awful lot of times in open public spaces, they could be respected or
at least understood.

~~~
bobthepanda
IIRC, these _are_ taught. But it's a bit like a CS ethics course; you can
bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. And even if you believe in
it, that goes out the window if your clients want that context-ignoring modern
architecture. Developers and local power brokers are often more interested in
showing off their ability to afford Zaha Hadid or Calatrava than they are in
providing useful assets to the community.

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bobthepanda
This is an often under-appreciated part of planning: ask people what
frustrates them, and they will tell you.

So many things are dropped in from a birds' eye view without actually asking
people what their problems are, and then people are shocked when it doesn't
solve anything.

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edaemon
The BicycleDutch YouTube channel is great:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei](https://www.youtube.com/user/markenlei)

He covers lots of bicycle-oriented infrastructure projects and history
throughout the Netherlands.

~~~
Someone
The YouTube channel is an offspring from the blog
([https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com)),
which adds text, thematic groups ([https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/index-
by-theme/](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/index-by-theme/)), etc.

~~~
edaemon
They were made in conjunction with each other, but the blog posts contain a
bit more information. I find the videos to be a bit easier to consume, though,
and if I want to know more I follow the blog link in the video description.

