Modern
environmentalists and transportation planners have often dreamt of
places which require no automobiles to move yourself from point A to
B. In the City of Houten, this dream has come true. Houten is located
south of Utrect in The Netherlands and has approximately 50,000
people where driving within the City takes longer than bicycling.
Travel with me through Houten to not only explore the fantastic
facilities, but also discuss the social implications of these
facilities on the a child's quality of life and compare these
facilities with a similar suburban City of Palo Alto.
This is one of the
'Main Streets' of Houten. This street is peculiar because there are
no vehicles in sight and the street is rather narrow. The fact of the
matter is this street is supposed to carry no cars, only people,
bikes, and the occasional moped. Bicycle travel is the highest on the
food chain in Houten. Here is another scene:
Yes, speed bumps
for bicyclists, which are usually installed to indicate a difference
of road character. In this case, the speed bumps are used for a
neighboring elementary school. These roadway obstacles are also used
for motorists, but in America we would rarely see them for bicyclists
only. Fascinating. Let's wander further through this City:
Translation: Cars
are Guests. In other words, Cars must yield to bikes.
As you look down
the intentionally narrow street, two vehicles can hardly pass each
other head on, which is important to force drivers to drive slower to
pass each other. Furthermore, a more narrow street prevents cars
to pass bicyclists. But they couldn't anyway because cars passing
bicyclists is illegal on this street. Am I dreaming still? What's
next!?
Wait, this picture
illustrates a typical roundabout! Where are the bikes? Wait, you aren't allowed as a pedestrian or bike up here? Look a little further...
There is basically a roundabout just for bikes under the roundabout
for cars. Whoa. They double stuffed this intersection like a double
stuffed Oreo? Delicious. Here is also another video of my riding
around the middle. Beware, the movie is silly.
What's not silly
is the tender loving care for cyclists by constructing a roundabout
which completely separates cars and bikes. Okay, the show of Houten
is almost over, only a few other showcase pictures.
The weather was
sunny and about 70 degrees, good weather for a beach trip all in the
City of Houten! Here there were kids playing devoid of their parental
units. Kids playing without adult supervision is an interesting
concept which requires further discussion. So let's take a detour of
the facility showcase and move to a discussion mode with starts with
a personal story.
I grew up in Palo
Alto, one of the 'premiere' suburbs of the bay area so I'm told.
Biking around as a kid was really easy, I thought, and seemed safe.
My mom told me otherwise and said other parents were shocked when
they found out I was wheeling around on my bike.
Apparently some
parents thought the streets of Palo Alto were not safe and instead
drove and picked up their kid every day. I won't forget the queues of
cars waiting at the elementary, middle, and high schools. Anyway,
remembering this story combined with Houten's facilities pops the
popcorn kernals in my brain so I wonder: 1) What is the importance of
independence as a kid? 2) How does infrastructure helps a kid's
independence? 3) How does Houten construct facilities correctly and
what should Americans know? First, let's go back to the beach of
Houten.
Quite a few people
on the trip commented while at the beach at Houten and was
paraphrased like “Wow! Kid's can simply go the beach or ride around
town and don't need parents to look over their shoulder.”
In particular,
Kate Drennan (Urban Explorer from Portland) told me about a
collection of thoughts she accumulated over the years about the
importance of 'unstructured' play time. Kate explains. “Children
learn how to make their own decisions when with other kids and
without the presence of parents. They also learn about social
structures and how they work, which means they may have conflicts
with each other”. Does the reader remember the classes we took on
conflict resolution in elementary school? These courses were needed
because children are inexperienced in dealing with conflicts.
However, kids need experience.
If kids don't have the opportunity to make their own decisions
during 'unstructured' play time they will not gain experience.
Furthermore, if kids don't gain conflict resolution experience by
making decisions on their own, kids do not gain independence. The
more common alternative is parental supervision during play time
which would intuitively prevent conflicts from becoming full blown.
And how do kids have unstructured play time? I think the environment
(infrastructure) is a large contributing factor to unstructured play
time.
Caption: The
'local' streets of Houten. The blue bicycle sign with the
strikethrough simply means the dedicated bike street is over. But,
the fietstraat (cars are guests) is just after the dedicated street
is over, so don't worry, as a cyclist, you are still prioritized!
Houten makes
bicycling as safe as breathing by way of the bicycle paths leading to
every destination: schools, the three downtown areas, the beach, and
all housing developments. If there isn't a dedicated bicycle path
characterized by not being able to see automobiles, the other option
isn't bad and the cars are 'guests' and must let bicyclists do
whatever they want, because in many ways, they can't even physically
pass the cyclist given the roadway width is so narrow. Construction
of these bicycle only paths are important because not only will kids
be safe riding on them, parents will know their kids will be safe on
them. Said another way, the parents will know their kids will be safe
in their local environment. Infrastructure is important because with
roadway environment perceived to be unsafe, of course you don't want
your kid out and about!
In summary, how
did Houten construct a City correctly?
A) Restricting
automobile travel. In Houten, you can't cut through the City; no
roads will get you there. But you can bike there!
B)
Kids are safe biking (or walking) to play with their friends.
C) Parents will know their kids will be
safe because the environment is safe.
D) Kids can learn at an earlier age
to make their own decisions and gain experience being more
independent.
Overall, Houten
has appeared to design their City well.
On the contrary,
did Houten construct their City incorrectly? Well, If we compare
Houten as a 'suburb' of Utrect with other suburbs of large American
cities we find none of the suburbs with the exception of Davis,
California even consider the bicycle as a viable means of every day
transportation. Houten is also a 'planned' community, where almost
the entire City was built post 1990s (Exception: old town), so there
is little history or culture, or identity because of the rapid
growth. Lastly, even though there is excellent rail transit access to
Utrecht (the city is centered around the train station, which is 15
min away), one may feel like you are in a bubble in Houten (I'm not
sure the bubble phenomena is negative or positive or just is).
My general thoughts about suburbs when you compare Houten vs. a Palo
Alto: Houten is leagues better from a safety and environmental
(emissions and comfort) point of view.
*Insert aerial of Houten vs. Palo Alto at the same scale. Include
bicycle facilities
Caption: Houten and Palo Alto are about the same size and population,
yet, Houten has much better bicycle facilities.
As
our group tour exits Houten's magical bubble and I snap back into the
real world I don't wonder why we can't build more Houtens, but rather
I wonder why we don't try
to retrofit more cities like Houten. The Dutch appear to be very
satisfied with Houten's safety performance and have copied the
exceptional to other Dutch cities. Houten has been setup so kids can
gain valuable social experience via unstructured play, which would
have been difficult because of the lack of safe facilities to roam.
Lastly, Houten gives parents assurance their kids will be safe
because of the safe facilities. So instead of my mom's friends being
shocked of a kid roaming on a bike, I'd like my
mom to be shocked of kids who don't
let their kids out to roam by bike. We can do better for our American
cities and children.
