Good morning #TrainBubble #BahnBubble 👋 This week I'll be in the Netherlands, and planning to do a bit of scouting about the #CyclingOnRails situation in the area (without bicycle but with the photo equipment 📸). Anything I should be aware of? Any recommendations?
Benelux is one of the remaining blind spots on my map to bring your bicycle on board of trains, so I'm also planning to pass by Belgium and Luxembourg on my way back 📸 https://cycling-on-rails.com/train-bicycle-guide/
So I ended up checking some trains straight after arriving in Utrecht as I'm told Dutch stations are all cordoned off by ticket gates.
Starting with the soon deprecated "Koploper" ICM. Funny front shape with a driver cabin above what used to be a corridor to allow coupling 2 trains together.
I didn't find the bicycle spots (edit: see the replies for where to find them). And a weird definition of wheelchair accessible: just a wheelchair logo but the same flight of stairs.
Next up the VIRM double-deckers. Dutch trains like funny shapes. 🙃 A bit hard to enter during rush hour, unless you go in the counter-flow direction!
Then the Sprinters, this time with generous mixed-use space and at-grade boarding. 💯
I watched @notjustbikes 's video about Dutch brick street design last night, so I had to put it in practice in my walk around: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cq1kV6V_jvI
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And the Amsterdam-Frakfurt ICE from Deutsche Bahn, with 8 bicycle spots in second class, this time marked as such on the displays! 🙌
#CyclingOnRails #FietsInDeTrein #FahrradMitnahme #CrossBorderRail #a11y
And now a little sub-thread about the bicycle garage at Utrecht's Central Station. One cannot write about cycling & rails in the Netherlands without mentioning it!
The main garage open in 2019 has 12500 parking spots, making it the largest in the world! See the official description on the city's website: https://www.utrecht.nl/city-of-utrecht/mobility/cycling/bicycle-parking/bicycle-parking-stationsplein
Obviously, bringing this many bicycles on board trains wouldn't scale for commuter traffic, even if trains suddenly had 100 bicycle spots each.
Some 22,000 high-quality bicycle parking places will be realised at the largest public-transport hub in the Netherlands. In the new Utrecht Central Station area, near the public-transport terminal, these parking places will be divided over five large bicycle parking
To me, the most impressive part is how this bicycle parking blends into the landscape. It's 3 floors deep, just under the main station's plazza between the station building and a mall.
If you don't know it's there, you won't notice it. Which is a testament to how dense bicycles are! #Utrecht
To give an idea of the scale: there are 3 floors, with 30-ish rows each, and the longest rows can store up to 250 bicycles if I counted correctly (check my math on the pictures!)
There is also a separate section for bicycles with panniers or children seats, and public bicycle rentals. However, all the rental bicycles were gone when I checked, so a few people queued to wait for more bicycles.
Unfortunately, it seems that only bicycles that conform with the standard shape are allowed here. No tandems, no cargo bikes, etc.
Another important feature is the live system showing the number of free spots per row, and extends to street signs even further away in town. A core aspect of accessibility!
Continuing with some thoughts about the check-in gates in the Netherlands. It's convenient that you can simply tap in and out with your public transport card or bank card.
However, every time you switch to a different railway operator, you have to check out and check in again, which can be confusing for tourists (you have to know which operator your trains belong to), and even locals may forget this step.
The gates are usually color coded, but I wonder how it works for blind folks. 🤔 #a11y
Some thoughts about urbanism in the Netherlands: while the bicycle infrastructure is top-notch, going around as a pedestrian outside of dedicated pedestrian zones in city centers was underwhelming to say the least.
For example:
- sidewalks are very narrow,
- sidewalks are sometimes missing along cycling routes, creating desire paths on the grass,
- sidewalks disappear altogether when there's no space left,
- paths sometimes involve steep stairs as the gradual ramps are reserved for cyclists.
Simultaneously, it's clear to me that urbanism is still very car-centric in the Netherlands, for example:
- main roads have many lanes even in cities,
- on those, cars clearly drive faster than 50km/h, even in cities,
- dense network of highways (look at a map),
- dedicated lanes to turn in each direction,
- residential streets full of parked cars.
In Utrecht, the extensive space still allocated to cars didn't seem adequate given low car usage.
All in all, the hierarchy of transport modes in NL seems to be: bicycles > cars > public transport* > pedestrians. Other example: pedestrians need to press the beg button to get a green light.
So it seems that the development of cycling infrastructure wasn't done at the expense of car infrastructure. Curious what @notjustbikes thinks!
*You may argue between cars & public transport (e.g. Utrecht has dedicated bus lanes). But density of highways seems higher than density of railways.
I took the ferry from Rotterdam to Dordrecht, upon advice from @bovine3dom confirmed by the locals @partim and @patrick: views were nice along this branch of the Rhine delta. You can bring your bicycle on board and check-in like regular public transport (it's mainly used by locals).
The boat was speeding quite a bit outside of cities to reach the destination in 1h, so I felt a bit bad burning so much fuel as it isn't electrified (yet?) 😬
This concludes my Netherlands visit. It was a pleasure to meet @partim and discuss the RailwayHistoryMap project: go check it out at https://map.railwayhistory.org/. And to have a tour of Den Haag with @patrick.
And to discuss the @erpu project with both of them. If you care about improving cross-border rail for passengers in Europe, you should really join the mailing list and soon the association once it launches!
@partim Yeah, it's great that the beg buttons actually work! It's mainly surprising as a visitor from a place were they are just ignored (like most of the world). I was (pleasantly) shocked when I clicked and the lights turned green immediately!
I'd also note that you usually need to be a fast walker to cross these many-lane streets in one go.
Exactly what I experienced when I was visiting NL!
It was awesome to see and cycle the infrastructure for bikes but when walking it felt like being back in germany or even worse...
@clanger9 What isn't clear to me is whether pedestrians are allowed on the wide cycling paths in these cases (although the speed difference wouldn't make a great experience).
For instance, are you allowed to skip the stairs if you have a stroller, or use the cycling path on a wheelchair?
@clanger9 I'm 100 % sure that you're supposed to use the cycle path when there isn't a proper foot path. (Edit: FOOT path)
It's free if you're there under 24 hours. So you're just checking out most of the time, not paying. The "free" bit is typical for these fietsenstallings.
Fun fact: there often isn't much space left during the business day. When the Jaarbeursplein fietsenstalling was temporarily closed last winter, this fietsenstalling was always completely full during the day. It was nuts.
@cycling_on_rails @notjustbikes And the new Renault 4 that MyWheels introduced in Amsterdam. On the first picture with the KGB license plate.
Got a €10 discount code by e-mail for it yesterday: RENAULT4
Apparently the thing also serves as a battery for the electricity grid.
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