Final Reflections

It is hard to believe the two weeks are up, but today was the final day for the Sustainable Transportation in the Netherlands. I must say we covered a lot of miles on our bikes, traveling a number of different facilities, biking all over Delft and to other cities such as The Hague, Rotterdam, and Rijswik. We were able to bike around Houten as well, and explored Utrecht on foot. It was a fascinating learning experience stepping out of our limited United States environment and experiencing firsthand what world class cycling facilities can look like. It was interesting to see how the Dutch have adapted to dangerous intersections, incorporated transit through them as well, and how they integrate the bicycle with all modes. I am also grateful to all the city officials, engineers, and other professors at Delft University who took time out of their schedules to show us how they have gotten to this point and what they are still hoping to accomplish. I also want to thank Peter Furth and Jeffrey Rosenblum for accompanying us and sharing their knowledge. I look forward to going to going back home and applying all that I have learned to the streets of New York City.

 

I also cannot stress how I knew absolutely no one going into this trip, but I walk away with many friendships that I hope will last. We had such a good group of people to learn from, travel with, drink a wide variety of beer with, and even share a room with. I also really enjoyed the company of the 20 Northeastern undergrads. They were great to have around, and always had a positive attitude. It was also interesting to learn more about Boston as well. And finally, I must thank Dr. Rob Bertini. He has been extremely helpful with this trip, from the planning aspect, to buying train tickets, giving directions, giving me much needed coffee, and of course answering all my questions. He is a valuable resource and this would not have happened without him!

Im going to miss this people.

Final Design Project: SW 1st Ave, Porltand, Oregon

This blog documents the final design project inspired by our team spend learning from the Dutch. This was done as a team effort with two other classmates.

SW 1st Ave Road Diet
(Orginally presented by Todd, Borkowitz, Bradford Tower, and myself)

SW 1st Ave is located south of Downtown Portland. The project limits are Columbia Ave in the north to Arthur St in the south.


Red circle highlights project location

Project limits: SW Columbia St to Arthur St

Our objective was to redesign SW 1st Ave to improve bicyle safety and connectivity into Downtown.


Some of the problems included:

• Lack of bicycle connectivity on SW 1st AVe between Southwest neighborhoods and downtown
• Exposure of bicyclists to fast-moving motor vehicles
• Wide car lanes seemingly encourage high vehicular speeds and minimize roadway space for bicycling
• Standard intersection design on the corridors offers limited safety for roadway users

Another concern was the development of the Southwest corridor with a new transit line as highlighted by the image below.

 







Project location with a bike map of Porland.

Below our images of the existing conditions, along with existing dimensions, followed by our proposed designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following images include a Turbo Roundabout as highlighted by Dutch Transporation Engineering.
This rendering depicts what our proposed design would be for the intersection of SW 1st Ave at Arthur St.

Benefits of this proposed design included better access to downtown for cyclists, improved safety with the reduced number of travel lanes as well as reduced travel lane widths.

 

 









Vrijenbanselaan: A Bike Facility Documentation in Delft

As part of our Sustainable Transport in the Netherlands course, Bryan and I documented one segment of transportation facility and its bicycle infrastructure. The segment we examined was  Vrijenbanselaan, a road that crosses a main bridge north of Delft’s City Center. See map below for contextual view of the segment within greater Delft. The original post can be found here.



Because the facility cross section changes over the length of the segment, we made five cross sections. Below is a diagram depicting where the cross sections were approximately taken.

Section Map

We made graphics for the following cross sections using Streetmix.
Section A includes cycletracks on both sides, the western side having a two-way cycletrack and the eastern side having a one-way cycletrack. These are dropped soon as the road approaches the bridge toward central Delft.

We broke up the north side intersection into two cross sections (B and C) because of its complexity. The north side (B) of the intersection is a total of 111′ of ROW (including sidewalks). It accommodates pedestrians, bikes, motor vehicles, and light rail transit in designated facilities.

The south side (C) of the intersection is 104′ wide, as one of the travel lanes is merged with the tram lane, and the corresponding median drops out.

Section D is north side ramp leading up to the bridge, and is a total of 53′ in width. The sidewalks are dropped, with a sidewalk on a local street on the east side absorbing pedestrian traffic traveling over the bridge.

Section E illustrates the cross section of the  Reineveld Bridge, and is a total of 61′ in width. There is only a sidewalk on the east side of the bridge, which is connected with the local street sidewalk mentioned above.

Section F illustrates the approach to the southern intersection, and is 92′ in width. Sidewalks on both sides are restored.

This transportation facility represents a compromise between many different modes of transportation in their competition for street space. Light rail transit is given dedicated lanes at certain points (where there are medians), while motor vehicles can use the space as a passing lane when no transit vehicles are occupying the lane. Bikes are only accommodated with bicycle lanes throughout the facility, which is uncommon on many facilities we’ve ridden in the Netherlands; especially on a multi-lane road including a bridge.

Houten

Houten, outlined in red

 

On Wednesday, 7/9 we took the train to Houten, a small suburb just south of Utrecht. We were given a presentation by the city's planner, Andre. He highlighted some key points about Houten, including the small population of about 50,000, and then walked us through the planning initiatives of the city. This included the National Planning Act of 1966-1974 to address the housing shortage. Some key features of this plan included the Ring Road, a road that encircles the entire community. It is designed to limit traffic to 70 kmh, but acts as the major arterial and access point to all neighborhoods. In other words you cannot access neighborhoods by driving through other neighborhoods, you must drive out to the Ring Road. In order to keep the traffic at 70 kmh it is designed with curves. Another key feature of this development was the Green Belt through the heart of the city. This provided open, green space for residents and was quiet as no vehicle traffic could cross it.

Bike Path along the Green Belt

 

The Fourth Spatial Act Extra or VINEX was planned in 1992. This included a second growth region. Andrea, referred to this has the butterfly spreading its wings as Houten almost replicated its current footprint just farther south. Again, the Ring Road stretched around this new development, and again was designed to keep traffic at 70 kmh with a curving roadway. De Koppeling was the main roadway that bisected the two halves of Houten, and had design features to keep traffic at bay such as roundabouts and curves.

 

Houten has 135 km of bicycle paths, and bikes cross the Ring Road via 15 tunnels and one bridge. One of the highlights of Houten was the integration with biking and trains at the main train station. The train station has raised platforms for people getting on and off the trains, but below the station itself is parking for 4,000 bikes. In other words a cyclists bikes into the station, parks his or her bike, and almost immediately is able to walk up some stairs and board a train. I have never before seen such an easy flow from biking to catching a train. Open, green space was provided in a pentagon looking path centrally located. This was referred to as Five Wall.

Integration of bike parking at the train station

We were given a map to explore Houten’s unique bicycle infrastructure, or “Very Important Bicycle Spots”. This included a number of features such as the Green Belt, bicycle facilities crossing the Ring Road, some bicycle bridges, the Old Village, Five Wall, and of course the double roundabout on two levels. The double roundabout was used to accommodate cyclists through a complicated intersection. This was done by raising the travel lanes, and keeping the bike paths at or near grade. This way cyclists could easily travel through an intersection, avoiding vehicles, while also avoiding having to climb a slope. It was pretty amazing, and deserved a couple of a trips around.

Map showing Very Important Bicycle Spots

Approaching the double roundabout

A bicyle and pedestrian bridge

 

 

Utrecht

Utrecht, centrally located

On Monday, 7/7 we visited Utrecht, in the heart of the Netherlands. We were met at the train station by two gentlemen that work for the municipality and also by Mark Wagenbuur, a filmmaker who has made a number of videos documenting cycling in the Netherlands. We were taken to the new bike parking facility at the train station called Jaarbeursplein. It was located on the edge of a plaza, underneath stairs that people use to access the train station. The facility itself was very large and impressive - room for 4,000 bikes.




Entrance to the Jaarbeursplein

We then attended a presentation given by a planner for Utrecht. Utrecht is signifiant because as it sits in the heart of the city it is a large transit hub. It has the busiest train station in the country, recieving more passengers than the main airport, Schipol. Utrecht is the fourth largest city in the country with 310,000 inhabitants and also has the largest university. It is also a very old city, founded in 70 A.D. by the Romans on the River Rhine (which as since shifted course). 

Some interesting modal split numbers include 41.3% of the population travel by car, 13.7% by public transit, 26.3% by bike, and 17.2% by walking. 

Utrecht's focus has been on intregrating cycling in infrastructure and policy. This includes establishing more and better bike parking, such as at the main train station. And policy intiatives such as a National Bike Rental System(OV Fiets) of which as of 2013 there were 160,000 members that took 1.3 million trips. 

Parking for 4,000 bikes!

After the presentation we were teamed up in groups to explore and document certain facilities throughout Utrecht. I was paired with Kayla and Emily and were were given the Jaarbeursplein bike parking facility. We visited this before the presentation, but we wanted to walk around the entire station, and see what other bike parking facilities were there. There was plenty of bike parking on the east side of the station with both outdoor and indoor facilities. But you could see how so many bikes take up valuable real estate along buildings and in sidewalks. Jaarbeursplein was constructed to remove bikes from outdoors and put them inside, creating a large open public space that is immediately accessible and viewable when you exit the station. It offers a great example of how to creatively integrate all transportation modes, including walking as pedestrians can now walk through the square.

Amsterdam Bike Tour with Pete Jordan

On Saturday, 7/5 a number of us went to Amsterdam for the day to get a bike tour from Pete Jordan, author of In the City of Bikes - a very compelling book about the Amsterdam cyclist, the high and lows, the complete history, the battles to get more bicycle friendly, and much more. In other words  the perfect candidate to lead us around Amsterdam and point out unique aspects of the city. As I just had finished the book, I was very curious to what a number of the places looked like that he wrote about in the book.

Biking In The City of Bikes!

Biking through the Rijksmuseum

I am not going to run through every detail of the tour, but I do want to point out some of the highlights. We were able to see what the city has done to accommodate bike parking at the train station. This includes a massive three structure building in front of the train station, a decommissioned ferry boat to house bikes, and floating bike parking facilities behind the station. Another interesting stop was along a bike path that ran through the squatters quarters. It was neat to see buildings with large murals that have been rehabbed by squatters. We also stopped to observe construction of ongoing transportation projects, including the construction of a new Metro line, a somewhat controversial project due to cost overruns. Probable, the highlight of the whole tour was the bike path running through a tunnel between the Rijksmuseum. This tunnel was written about extensively in his book. The museum for years have wanted to close it, but due to the important connection it has remained open (except for a number of years when the museum was getting renovated). Biking through it felt like biking through a domed cathedral with beautiful lighting, and huge glass windows on both sides that you can look into and see people viewing art. Pete Jordan described it as one of his favorite places to bike, and I must agree. The tour ended in Vondelpark, a beautiful park filled with bikers and pedestrians. We talked a bit more with Pete, asked questions, and said much thanks for such a great tour. There is so much to cover concerning the history of the Amsterdam cyclist. I highly recommend reading the book, and if you have the opportunity to bike around the city.

Along the Amstel River

The remainder of the afternoon we ate Dutch pancakes, biked along the Amstel River, walked around neighborhoods, and then watched the Netherlands beat Costa Rica in penalty kicks to advance to the semi-finals in the World Cup.