Cycling Amsterdamsestraatweg, Utrecht, Netherlands

Link for video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOkbz4tm324&feature=youtu.be

The first thing that caught my attention in this video was the history of the road shared in the first minute.  I am curious to know how many of the people riding knew that they were on Napoleon's Imperial Route No. 2.  That road reminds me of Mt.Vernon Ave in San Bernardino, CA.  Mt.Vernon is actually Route 66.  I remember singing about Route 66 when I was younger, but I had no idea that I was so close to the historic road.  Going back to the video, the images shown captured innovation.  When I looked at the 1890's picture, I noticed dirt roads and no bicycles.  Jumping to the 1930's, I noticed the electrical lines hanging, the cobblestone road, and abundant bicycles.  This is interesting because "safety bicycles" were invented around 1890 to replace the ridiculous big wheel.  As we can see, the safer bicycles caught on with the help of a paved road.  As we approach the 1970's, the road was paved over with asphalt, and the number of cars on the road increased.  It seemed like the cars and bikes shared the road.  In the 1970's, the trees along the road were knocked down, and there was a distinct bike lane.  As time went on, the bikes got separated from the motorists, creating beautiful islands with trees and bike parking that was far more plentiful than car parking.

The other element that was neat was the synergy and calmness of the current road.  In the 6 minute video, the cameraman stopped once.  He did a good job of pointing out neat features like the bike left turn lanes.  His use of short annotations helped toss in many facts and features without detracting from the experience.  Based off this video, I believe that a similar road layout could work in downtown SLO.  It would need some modifications since the cross-streets tend to get congested during the daytime.  An induction loop detector signal light would probably be most appropriate for the queuing, however, the bike lane might need an IR sensor to double-check bike presence.

Overall, I liked the video.  The music made the ride that much more enjoyable.  After seeing this, I can't wait to cycle in the Netherlands!

~Alex

City Cycling Response

Chapter 6 of City Cycling answered many questions that I had on bicycle policy, mainly why we don't separate bicycle lanes.  The most memorable part of the chapter was realizing the bias toward cyclists in the United States.  AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, said, "...no designated bicycle facility can overcome a lack of bicycle operator skill."  While the previous statement is true, that sentiment is inappropriate if you are a transportation organization.  AASHTO used this logic to justify the Vehicular Cycling (VC) theory.  VC basically says that bikes should use the roads in the same fashion as slow-moving vehicles.  Therefore, there is no need for any bicycle-specific infrastructure.  That is irresponsible.  Why do we carry babies and guide small children when walking in public?  It is because we understand that children are smaller, slower, and fragile.  As a result, a baby running into an adult is problematic when compared to two adults bumping into each other.  Why don't we realize this with bicycles?  I believe the answer is in the mindset.  When a baby runs into an adult, we see a 20 pound person colliding with a 200 pound person.  The average person knows that the physics will be in favor of the 200 pound person winning.  If we break down the communication of a bike-car incident, we default to thinking a bike (vehicle) colliding with a car (vehicle).  We SHOULD think of it as a 200 pound person colliding with a 2000 pound object.  When put in this frame, it is easier to understand that bikes do not fare well against cars.  One of my favorite sayings to illustrate this is, "bike plus car equals car" (unknown).  If more people heard that saying, perhaps we could convince spending on bike safety via infrastructure.

To prove the benefits of cycling, I compared my daily school commute by mode (walking, car, bicycle).  The starting point was Walnut and Santa Rosa with the final destination as the business building (bldg 02).  The table below summarizes my results:

While bike parking is free, I figured $.10 per trip would help offset for maintenance.  The car trips cost $2.50 for parking and $.50 for gas.  Walking is free.  If you look at the car's return column, it takes 20 minutes to return because traffic on campus when leaving at the end of the day (6 pm).  The advantage of cycling to school becomes apparent when I account for the value of my time ($10/hr).  Both car and bicycle use 25 minutes of my time; this works out to about $4.17.  Walking uses one hour, so it costs $10 of time.  When I combine the cost of time with the cost in the table, I get: car $7.17, bike $4.27, and walking $10.  Therefore, the most cost-effective option is riding my bike to school.  Since I am saving $2.90 over the next cheapest option, I wouldn't mind investing some of the savings into the bike infrastructure in SLO.  In fact, I think that many Cal Poly students would not mind donating $20/year toward improving bike safety and reliability in SLO.

~Alex

About Me

Welcome to my TU Delft blog.  My name is Alex Sandoval, and I am a senior civil engineering student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  I grew up in San Bernardino County, California, so the cooler weather in the Delft will be a major bonus during this trip.  By completing this course, I hope to gain a European perspective that will help me innovate and excel in North American transportation.

I decided to apply for this trip because the Netherlands seems to have mastered bike and pedestrian integration into traffic.  Also, I want to find a way to make people divorce their cars-- or at least rely on/use them less.  Last summer, I studied abroad in Peru.  While I was there, I met only a handful of people that owned cars.  The majority of the population used buses and taxis.  In my five weeks there, I found that I did not need my own personal car as much as American car companies had led me to believe.  As a result of last summer, I only drive when absolutely needed.  This was an easy change to make; it required leaving five minutes earlier (for most trips).  Not only was it easy, but I also saved on gas money!  I went from filling up my truck once every two weeks to once a month.  This decreased consumption saved me about $80 per month.  I hope that this trip will equip me with the tools to convince people around me to think about using multimodal transportation more often.

Thank you for reading this blog post, I will keep posting as the course progresses.

~Alex