Europe's Sustainable Urban Design

Today we didn't have anything planned but a canal boat trip at 4:00. Prior to the canal ride, I decided to chill and work on my blog... nothing special. The canal ride was nothing less than special. It gave us a chance to just relax, take the city in, and enjoy each other's company. And that we did. We filled the boat with drinks and food... maybe a little too much wine, and set off. During the ride, I realized how special not only the experience of this whole trip was but how special the group itself was. I want to give a special shoutout to everyone that was part of the group if it wasn't for everyone's openness and eagerness to become friends with each other I don't think this program would have been so great. Very early on I felt comfortable with everyone on the trip and this allowed me to open up more and be open to new experiences and learning opportunities. I honestly think if our group didn't gel like this we wouldn't have learned so much, because ...

On our second and last day with Merideth started with a change of plans. Rather than have a lecture then go on a bike ride we decided to go on the bike ride first so we could beat the heat. Thank God. On the bike ride, we learned a lot about the infrastructure of the city and some of the recent projects put into place. What struck me most was the banana and the chips cone intersection design. In this instance, the designers realized that they should design in a way that facilitates peoples natural behavior, because if they do that there is a high chance of people following the design and its rules. On this particular intersection, the designers opted to shrink cycling protective barriers to the shape of a small banana and widen part of the bike lane to make it look like a cone. This added 33% more space for cyclists without having to actually enlarge the intersection. This made the packed house that was the Mr. Visserplein intersection run a lot more smoothly, so smoothly, in fact, t...

Thursday was the first of two days with Meredith Glaser of the University of Amsterdam's urban cycling program. The morning started at 9:00 AM at which time she promptly told the people who showed up at 9:00, "if you're five minutes early, you're five minutes too late". Once the short meeting began Meredith shared a lot about the culture of Amsterdam specifically around using bikes. One of the biggest takeaways from our conversation with Meredith was the fact that most people bike here because of the convenience, but it wasn't always the easiest and fastest way to get around town. It became what it is through a lot of hard work and dedication, that is still going on to this day. This has been a consistent theme in every city we've gone to so far, and it makes me wonder what we could do to a city like Eugene if we got the right mix of elected officials and the people of the city to come together and make a change. Something else that struck me in our co...

Our first full day in Amsterdam started with a meeting and tour from mobility expert Marjolein de Lange. Marjolein works for Fietsersbond the biking union in the Netherlands. They work towards improving and expanding bike-friendly infrastructure through working with all forms of government as well as the public. The work Marjolein and Fietsersbond does can't be described as anything less than badass. During the presentation, we learned that much like all of the other cities we've visited Amsterdam wasn't always a biking city, and it took a ton of work to get to where it is today in terms of sustainable transportation options. In fact, through the 1960's they lost a lot of bicycle infrastructure and put in heaps of infrastructure for cars and their drivers. Heres a photo representing the changes Amsterdam went through during that time. As you can see tons of major and minor driving roads were put in and around the city while tons of biking lanes and roads were...

Tuesday was our last morning in Utrecht and our first day in Amsterdam. How'd we get to Amsterdam you ask? We biked of course! We saddled up our touring bikes one last time and rode 44 KM north to Amsterdam.  I'd have to say that if I ranked all four of our long bike tours, this one would be number one. This is for a few reasons; the main one being separation from car traffic. We were rarely near roads or streets with cars on them, and when we were the vehicles came few and far between. This really helped me enjoy my ride through the Dutch countryside, in fact, I often found myself feeling like it was just a bike ride, not a commute. This was a stark contrast from the previous rides where it was hard to forget we were commuting from one place to another. Not to say I didn't like the other rides, but when there are now cars around you, you have the ability to let your mind wander a lot more. This is one of my favorite parts of long-distance bike rides, it's kind...

On Sunday the group and I had the opportunity to tour the countryside surrounding Utecht by following the river Rhine, as well as experience the suburb master-planned for bike use known has Houten. The ride to Houten was absolutely beautiful. Full of great views, WW2 bunkers, tons of sheep and cattle, and even a stop to swim, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of this ride was either on or adjacent to the roadway in which cars and motorcycles were going pretty fast. At first, this was a scary thought, but to our luck, the power bikes have over moto vehicles in the city carried over to the countryside. Cars and cycles would either wait until they had a safe way to pass us and go around if needed and all of them slowed down significantly when coming near and passing us. This reassured me that I, in fact, was safe. This experience was a little to me. Not that I felt unsafe biking around the countryside of Denmark or Sweden, but here it really felt like I was the m...