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Day trips from Amsterdam

July 15, 2016 / / 0 Comments

This is a list of day trips that you can take from Amsterdam. We might have different ideas of what constitutes the duration of the day. Once I get to a city I “travel quickly”: I walk fast, bike fast, and don’t linger too often at a point of interest, so I can see lots of places. This advice assumes you’ll arrive into the city center (where the train stations are) between 10 and 11 AM.

Naarden and Hilversum

Visit “vesting” Naarden (Naarden fort) to see a star-shaped fortress from the 1600s. You can take a bus or bike there from the train station.

Hilversum is a richer city and has a lot of typically Dutch architecture, especially of buildings designed by Richard Dudok. Go here if you’re in the TV and radio industries. You’ll need a bike if you want to see even half of them. A lot of them are schools and apartment buildings.

These two cities are a <15 minute train ride away from each other, with trains every 15 minutes.

Haarlem

Haarlem is a short ride from Amsterdam and has a working windmill museum, near a panopticon-style prison. Perhaps stop here on your way to Zandvoort an Zee (beach resort).

Rotterdam

Get here early and leave late. Take the Intercity Direct to the city by 10 AM. That’s the high-speed train, and don’t forget to pay for or buy the “toeslag” (supplement) and you’ll get there about 30 minutes faster for a minor extra cost. Or, take the slower, scenic route there in the morning and the fast route back to your lodging in Amsterdam at night.

Rotterdam is a very large city and has a lot to do. Rent a bike from Zwaan Bikes in Groothandelsgebouw on the next block west of the train station (my favorite in the world).

Go on the 75-minute long harbor tour operated by Spido that starts on the northwest side of the Erasmusbrug (Erasmus bridge).

In the evening, grab a bite to eat at Fenix Foods Factory and get a beer from Kaapse Brouwers in the same converted warehouse building.

Delft

Delft is a very pretty city to walk around. It’s very touristic so you will see a lot of shops selling the local blue porcelain. I bought lavender goat cheese here, and it was delicious. Climb the steps to the top of the cathedral in the Grote Markt (main square). If you like architecture, head over to the university, TU Delft. You can walk there from city center in less than 20 minutes.

Eat at Huszár which is a couple “blocks” south of the train station.

The Hague – beach alert!

If you don’t go to the beach, you could do Delft and The Hague in the same day, providing you aren’t spending time at museums and you have a bicycle to move a little quicker. Walk through the royal palace, Binnenhof.

Take a tram or a bike to the beach at Scheveningen.

Zandvoort an Zee – beach alert!

This is a small beach resort town on the North Sea. Walk from the train station to the beach and keep walking until you find a beach lounge you like. Then grab a seat and order a drink (it’ll take a while for someone to come over, so find a menu yourself because it’s typical for a Dutch server to not bother bringing you one unless you ask for it).

Almere

This one’s only for people who want to see a New Town in the Netherlands, or are really curious to know and see how polder works, and how the Dutch reclaimed an entire province from a sea (which is now a lake). Research the history: IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee, Flevoland (the province)

Chicago has too many traffic signals

June 21, 2016 / / 7 Comments
IMG_2496

People wait at a stop light on the first major ring road in the city center of Amsterdam. Photo: Northeastern University, Boston

I was flabbergasted to learn today that there are only 5,500 signalized intersections in all of the Netherlands. I was reading Mark’s blog “Bicycle Dutch” and he interviewed a city traffic signal engineer in Den Bosch, who described how different road users are prioritized at different times based on the complex programming. (Watch the video below.)

In Chicago there are more than 3,000 signalized intersections. And I believe this is way more than we need.

I understand more than the average person how traffic moves in each place and how it “works”. There is such a thing as too many traffic signals because at some point the signals (their proximity and their programming) start causing delays and conflicts.

Saying that traffic – of all kinds, bikes, trucks, buses, delivery vans, and personal vehicles – moves better in cities in the Netherlands than in Chicago is an understatement.

Aside from their impacts on traffic (which can be good in some situations, but aggravating existing problems in other places), signals are very expensive to purchase, install, and maintain.

In Chicago, an alderman (city councilor) can use part of their $1.3 million “menu” money annual allocation to purchase a traffic signal for $300,000. That’s money that won’t be used for transportation investments that reduce the number of severe traffic crashes as well as reduce congestion like bus lanes and protected bike lanes.

Let’s review

I compared their populations (about 17 million in the Netherlands and 2.7 million in Chicago) and saw that Chicago has a lot more traffic signals per person.

On Twitter, however, I was challenged to find the number of traffic signals per mile driven, not per capita.

So, I did, and I was surprised by the result.

This assumes I collected the right statistics, and converted the driving figures correctly.

The surprise: There are more passenger miles driven (known as VMT) in the Netherlands, per capita, than in Chicago. I actually can’t even get passenger miles driving in Chicago – I can only find “all miles” driven. And that includes trips on interstates that pass through Chicago but where the driver or passengers don’t stop in Chicago.

Here’s the analysis, though.

Driving

  • According to the OECD, there were 145,400 million kilometers driven on roads, for passenger transport, excluding bus coaches, in the Netherlands in 2013 (the latest year for which data was available in the Netherlands). That’s 145.4 billion kilometers. (Source, no permalink.)
  • According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, there were 11,150,109 thousand miles for all kinds of road transport, in Chicago in 2013. That’s 11.2 billion miles, which converts to 17.9 billion kilometers. (Source)

Population

  • In 2013, the Netherlands had 16,804,430 inhabitants (they had declared reaching 17,000,000 this year), according to the OECD.
  • In 2013, the City of Chicago had 2,706,101 inhabitants, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2009-2013 ACS 5-year estimate.

Signals

Results!

  • The Netherlands has over 39 signalized intersections per billion kilometers traveled.
  • Chicago has over 167 signalized intersections per billion kilometers traveled.

Essential apps for traveling in parts of Europe

May 29, 2016 / / 0 Comments
Train Radar

The Train Radar in Reisplanner Xtra (from NS, the Dutch intercity train operator) is a fun feature to show you trains nearby. The rest of the app is essential for efficient use of NS trains.

I’ve used a bunch of apps that are necessary when you’re traveling within and between countries in the parts of Europe I’m staying in an visiting this year.

The first app you should install is maps.me (iOS, Android, Amazon). It stores maps offline by downloading them from OpenStreetMap. Before leaving for the next city, download it on wifi! Each city takes up 25-60 MB on your phone, and it’s easy to delete a city’s map after you depart. This app is super fast, looks nice, has offline route planning, and can show any area in the world.

Travel apps for the Netherlands

  • Reisplanner Xtra, is essential because it has a journey planner for traveling within the country. It also shows real-time information, and even has a map of all the trains running in the country at that moment. It lists real-time OV-fiets bike availability.
  • NS International, for looking up timetables for trains between the Netherlands and France, Germany, and Belgium. You can’t buy tickets in the app, but it will link you to a shopping cart on the NS International website.
  • 9292.nl, journey planner app for all public transport in the Netherlands. It doesn’t have network maps, though, if you’re only interested in where the Rotterdam Metro goes.
maps.me gets data from OpenStreetMap, the wiki-style map that regular people around the world edit (including myself). The map improves as more people add more information!

maps.me gets data from OpenStreetMap, the wiki-style map that regular people around the world edit (including myself). The map improves as more people add more information!

Travel apps for Germany

  • DB Navigator, this has all public transport in Germany, including intercity trains. It even has intercity trains for so many other countries, regardless if that train has service in Germany. When you look up timetables for trains outside Germany, it will rarely be able to show you the price, but just seeing the schedule, and what trains are available, is important. You can buy tickets within the app, and use the app as a mobile ticket.

Other travel apps

  • Rome2rio, is remarkable because it will show you all ways to get between two cities, and it works worldwide. It incorporates timetables and maps from local transit systems, intercity coach buses, intercity trains, flights, and driving. It’s multimodal, too. It won’t book tickets, but it’s the only service I know of that focuses on showing the multitude of options – simultaneously, with prices! – for future travel planning. And it’s super fast – I think it’s getting results before you even push the “search” button.
Rome2rio showing directions between Stockholm and Malmo

Rome2rio shows results for all modes (and combined modes) between two cities, here listing 11 options on trains, buses, cars, and plans between Stockholm and Mälmo, Sweden.

  • Skyscanner, this flight-finding service has more intra-Europe airlines than services popular in the United States (like Hipmunk, Orbitz, and KAYAK).
  • Captain Train is a continental train ticketing company with a nice app that will sell you tickets for service within and between many countries.
  • Voyages-sncf, is useful if you’ll be taking fast or regular intercity trains in France, but I don’t believe it has mobile ticketing. However, you can buy tickets in the app or on the website and pick up the tickets at a vending machine at many train stations in France. This is where I bought a Thalys (high-speed train) ticket; it’s better than NS International and the Belgian equivalent from SNCB.
  • United, this airline has implemented a superior entertainment system. I call it “Netflix in the sky”. To be clear, Netflix isn’t involved. It works like this: Install the United app on your device, and then connect to the airplane’s wifi network. There’s a server in the plane that has a lot of movies and TV shows, and these stream directly to your device. This is especially useful in United’s older 767 planes that don’t have seatback screens (IFE).

What apps do you recommend and why?

There are many kinds of shared space

May 29, 2016 / / 0 Comments

A guy standing in the middle of the intersection

I took this photo outside the café Memory Lane in Rotterdam because the man in the white shirt was standing in the “middle” of this intersection for a couple of minutes. Before he took this position, he was walking slowly across the intersection to the opposite corner as his car. He’s a livery driver, and he appeared to be waiting for his passenger.

This intersection is raised (the sidewalk is level with the road surface), and is uncontrolled (there are no traffic signals, stop signs, or yield signs). A bicyclist or motorist can pass through this intersection without having to stop unless someone is walking, or a bike or car is coming from their right.

This junction has no crosswalks, either. And no one honks. Especially not at the man who’s in the roadway.

Because he’s not in the roadway. He’s in a street, and streets are different. Streets are places for gathering, socializing, eating, connecting, traveling, and shopping. There was plenty of space for him to stand here, and for everyone else – including other motorists who were in their cars – to go about their business.

Oh, how Chicago land use is controlled by spot zoning

May 23, 2016 / / 3 Comments

If you only had a zoning map to try and understand how the different blocks in the City of Chicago relate to their neighborhoods and the city at large, you might have the idea that the city has no neighborhoods, but is actually a collection of tiny, randomly dispersed zones of differing land uses.

And then when you walked those areas you’d find that the zones, which attempt to prescribe a land use, at least nominally, don’t have anything to do with the restaurant, housing, and commercial building mix of uses actually present.

No plan would have been devised to create a map like this.

Over the last five years, and surely over the last 14, the City of Chicago has been divided (really, split) into an increasing number of distinct zoning districts.

The city’s zoning map is updated after each monthly city council meeting, to reflect the numerous changes that the 50 alders have approved individually. (Their collective approval occurs unanimously in an omnibus bill.)

Every few months I ask the Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) for the latest zoning map, in the form of a shapefile (a kind of file that holds geographic information that can be analyzed by many computer programs). While Chicago has one of the country’s best open data offerings, some datasets, like zoning, don’t get updated in the catalog.

There are two ways I can analyze and present the data about the quantity of zoning districts. Both, however, show that the number of distinct zoning districts has increased. This means that the city is divided even more finely than it was just six months ago.

Analysis 1: Period snapshots

I have the zoning shapefile for five periods, snapshots of the city’s zoning map at that time. From August 2012 to now, May 2016, the number of discrete zoning districts (the sum of all B3-5, RS-1, DX-7, etc. zoning classes) has increased 7.8 percent.

Period Zoning districts change

August 2012

11,278

 –

September 2014

11,677

3.42%

June 2015

11,918

2.02%

November 2015

12,015

0.81%

May 2016

12,162

1.21%

I collect the period snapshots to show the history of zoning at a specific address or building in Chicago, which is listed on Chicago Cityscape. For example, the zoning for the site of the new mixed-use development in Bucktown that includes a reconstructed Aldi has changed four times in four years.

aldi zoning history

Analysis 2: Creation date

The zoning shapefiles also have the date at which a zoning district was split or combined to create a new district, either with a different zoning class (RT-4, C1-1, etc.) or a different shape.

With the most recent zoning shapefile I can tell how many new zoning districts were split or combined and a record representing it was added to the list. The records start in 2002, and by the end of the year 7,717 records were created.

The following year, only 14 records were added, and in 2004, only 6. The Chicago City Council adopted a rewritten zoning code in 2004, and I guess that the zoning map was modified prior to adoption. After 2004, the number of new zoning districts picks up:

year zoning districts added by splitting/combining cumulative change

2002

7717

7717

 –

2003

14

7731

0.18%

2004

6

7737

0.08%

2005

267

8004

3.45%

2006

497

8501

6.21%

2007

561

9062

6.60%

2008

592

9654

6.53%

2009

304

9958

3.15%

2010

245

10203

2.46%

2011

271

10474

2.66%

2012

277

10751

2.64%

2013

299

11050

2.78%

2014

397

11447

3.59%

2015

367

11814

3.21%

2016

173

11987

1.46%
none listed

175

12,162

 –

It seems there’s a light relationship between the recession that started in 2008 and the number of zoning changes made. There are more made annually before the recession than after it. It actually seems to track with building permits (sorry, no chart handy).