Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:08 - 00:00:18:25
Cathy Tuttle
And I just threw in a couple of pictures of how independent children really are in the Netherlands, too. I mean, once they're in that kind of well, there's this picture actually is is people taking young children, taking their test? Yes. Yeah. Usually a certified.

00:00:18:27 - 00:00:19:17
John Simmerman
11 or.

00:00:19:17 - 00:00:31:25
Cathy Tuttle
12 years, 11 years old. 11 or 12 years old. So there's this. The children that you saw in the previous slide were about that age. And they have complete independence. I mean, that's something that actually makes a child happy.

00:00:31:27 - 00:01:00:01
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Cathy Tuttle, now living in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Cathy has been on the podcast once before. You can check that episode out. I think it was episode number 140 way back in 2022. The link will be in the show notes, but let's get right to it with Cathy Tuttle.

00:01:00:03 - 00:01:02:09
John Simmerman
Cathy Tuttle, Welcome back to.

00:01:02:09 - 00:01:02:26
John Simmerman
The Active.

00:01:02:26 - 00:01:04:28
John Simmerman
Towns Podcast.

00:01:05:01 - 00:01:09:26
Cathy Tuttle
So great to see you again, John. And now I'm coming from a different continent.

00:01:09:28 - 00:01:37:15
John Simmerman
You are? Yes. When we we spoke the last time, which was way back in episode 140. You were living in the Portland area. I'm going to pull this back a little bit there. And even says right there in Portland, Oregon based And yeah, so we talked about the whole concept of needing to have a car plan. And so that was a lot of fun.

00:01:37:20 - 00:01:52:18
John Simmerman
I encourage everybody, if you haven't listened to or watched that particular episode, episode number 140, go back, check it out. That was from way back in 2022. But yeah, you're on a different content now. Where the heck are you?

00:01:52:21 - 00:02:13:22
Cathy Tuttle
So I'm in the city of Utrecht, which is just a 30 minute train ride from from Amsterdam. And it's arguably the best city in the Netherlands, which is the best city in the world for people who bike and take transit. So I'm very privileged and love being here. I've been here for about a year.

00:02:13:24 - 00:02:49:14
John Simmerman
It's funny that you that you say arguably the best. I get pressured of saying, well, what are your favorite cities and what is the best active town? And I try not to to pick favorites and I try not to. To be able to say well the best is this because every city you know like like the Utrecht and Delft, which is one of my favorites and I visit, you know, frequently, they really just have so much and there and there's so much vitality and vibrancy there.

00:02:49:16 - 00:03:11:17
John Simmerman
What's really, really interesting about Utrecht, and we can talk a little bit about this is just how cosmopolitan it is. I mean, it's one of the most vibrant, one of the busiest places, but it doesn't have that same tourist overwhelmed sort of a vibe to it that say, you know, the central area, the old historic area of Amsterdam might have.

00:03:11:18 - 00:03:33:09
John Simmerman
So where we get into the details of of attract and I know we're going to spend a little bit of time about sort of the cultural aspects that you're you're thinking about. For those who haven't watched the first episode or listen to the first episode. I'm going to give you just 30 seconds to introduce yourself to say who the heck Cathy Tuttle actually is.

00:03:33:12 - 00:03:56:22
Cathy Tuttle
Okay. Well, I'm a I'm a city planner and I'm an anthropologist, and I worked for many years for the city of Seattle. And I helped to build and plan 40 parks for the city of Seattle. And then I got very involved in active transportation advocacy. I started a group in Seattle called Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and then I moved to Portland.

00:03:56:22 - 00:04:19:23
Cathy Tuttle
I kind of retired to Portland and got jumped right back into advocacy there, and I'm on the board of a group called Bike Loud, and I'm still on the boards of two groups in Seattle and in Portland by Cloud and Seattle neighborhood Greenways. But now that I'm in Utrecht, I'm part of the Features Bond, the bike advocacy group here.

00:04:19:25 - 00:04:24:29
Cathy Tuttle
So I stay with my my fingers in advocacy space.

00:04:25:02 - 00:05:12:13
John Simmerman
I love it. I love it now. And I think that some people who might be tuning into this, who aren't aware of the dynamics that that are in play there in the Netherlands, they might not realize that there's still that need for advocate AC work in the Netherlands. Obviously the FTS are Bon was was instrumental in a lot of the work that was done in the 1970s and into the eighties and really pushing forward into the 1990s of the build out of what we now know as the Dutch cycling network and the, you know, the modern interpretation and the modern version of the cycling culture that is in the in the Netherlands.

00:05:12:15 - 00:05:18:07
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that. The fact that there is still an advocacy organization.

00:05:18:11 - 00:05:55:02
Cathy Tuttle
How serious a bit of advocacy and in fact the fees are spot is great because they're saying what we have is fine, but we still have to include other people in making this a an even better place for new immigrants that are coming to to the Netherlands, for children who may not be safe now on some of the bike lanes because they're so crowded, we have to address elders who can't get around easily because there's so much traffic on the road from both bikes.

00:05:55:02 - 00:06:29:01
Cathy Tuttle
And there still is car traffic, too. I mean, that's the other thing is people think, you know, the Netherlands, it's just all bikes all the time. But in fact, biking even here in Utrecht is maybe only 30 or 40% of all trips. And there's still plenty of other impediments to getting around safely by bike. Yeah, and the difference in advocacy here is that when the futures Bond writes letters to the government, the government actually takes them super seriously and gets the work done.

00:06:29:03 - 00:06:42:01
John Simmerman
Would you say that that relationship is more is it more adversarial or is it more partnership or is it a balance between the two.

00:06:42:04 - 00:06:44:06
Cathy Tuttle
For advocacy in the Netherlands?

00:06:44:08 - 00:06:47:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, the featured bond, the role that the features, the modern role that.

00:06:47:07 - 00:07:15:07
Cathy Tuttle
Well, I think it depends like in the U.S. I mean some some governments are elected that are just terrific to work with. You know, and that's been true even in the work that I've done in the U.S. You know, it depends on who's mayor, you know, depends on who's been elected to to be the power, the the power within the city and in the case of Utrecht, the person who is in charge of the Transportation Department is from the Green Party.

00:07:15:07 - 00:07:33:16
Cathy Tuttle
The person is in charge of what the vice mayor in charge of kind of municipal works is from the Green Party, as is the mayor. So the citizens of Utrecht have elected people that support the values of people who are biking and getting around in a clean, healthy way.

00:07:33:18 - 00:07:52:11
John Simmerman
And I guess in this is my interpretation and my I guess assumption is that the feature bond is is also sort of at the table in terms of being able to be a working partner with the municipalities. That a correct assumption?

00:07:52:13 - 00:08:16:00
Cathy Tuttle
Yes, for the most part, both at the at the national table and then also at the the local tables when new plans are put in put in place for for changing how much the paths are widened or where they're going to go or where the bike parking is going to be. They're they're asked for advice early in the process, and I think that's super critical.

00:08:16:00 - 00:08:31:01
Cathy Tuttle
And making good infrastructure happen is that they get engaged early and they actually go out and get information from the Futures Board, which is full of experts who've been working on this for ages. Yeah, okay. Well.

00:08:31:03 - 00:08:51:01
John Simmerman
That was a good introduction. And now it's time to look at some pretty pictures and some videos and everything you said through a whole bunch of visuals. One of the things that you sat through is this video of what I would call just a typical scene there. And we tracked.

00:08:51:04 - 00:09:21:13
Cathy Tuttle
What what I told you just to. Yeah, yeah. This one is the only one I said to put the audio up on it because I want you to hear what the street sounds like. Yeah. In a typical, you know, this is early rush hour on a winter evening. Some people are all bundled up. But listen to it. Listen to how much noise is being made on this street that has about 40,000 people passing by on it every day.

00:09:21:15 - 00:09:30:19
Cathy Tuttle
And it's a street that holds 40,000 people. Think about street in your city. Right. And we do.

00:09:30:19 - 00:09:45:19
John Simmerman
See we do see on busses. We do see motor vehicles that are in there. We just saw a person on a mobility trike ride by. And so it truly is an environment that is welcoming, you know, to everybody. And I think that.

00:09:45:22 - 00:09:51:09
Cathy Tuttle
This is what the street looks like. This is what the street looked like 50 years ago. So the same streets.

00:09:51:12 - 00:10:19:05
John Simmerman
Yes, absolutely. In fact, let's make sure I zoom out on this a little bit and we can get all the wording in there as well so folks can see that. So, yeah, this is one of the busiest streets in all of the Netherlands and in and particularly in Utrecht and yeah, I mean, let that sink in. I mean, 1964, the year before I was born, this is what the street looked like.

00:10:19:08 - 00:10:40:20
Cathy Tuttle
And so, you know, it's been tweaked with ever since 1964. I mean, it it didn't automatically turn into the street that you just saw in that video. It started in this condition. And already you can see there was a lot of tweaking going on. There were bike lanes on this street. There is a very wide, nice crosswalk on the street.

00:10:40:26 - 00:11:13:22
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, there's a lot of things on this very major 40,000 vehicle a day or person that day street that I think a lot of American cities would be delighted to have protected bike lanes, big lights, big wide crosswalk, a little median island dedicated bike dedicated bustling. But the Dutch are in the process of continual improvement. And this this particular street is an example of that.

00:11:13:25 - 00:11:36:25
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, just think about that. Think about what street is in your town that has 40,000 vehicles on it. I mean, I'm thinking about in Seattle. Aurora is about to be redone. I'm thinking about in in Portland, 82nd or Powell Boulevard or about to be redone and they carry 40,000 vehicles. This is 40, what, 40,000 vehicles could look like in New York City.

00:11:36:28 - 00:12:28:03
John Simmerman
Right. And I think that's a really, really good point, is to differentiate between the concept of moving vehicles versus is transporting and giving people the opportunity to move through a space. I had this conversation a couple of years ago with with Leonard now right there in the city of Utrecht, and we were looking at some of the streets and he was saying, Yeah, I mean, we can move as many as ten times as many people through a street that looks like this, where we have transit prioritized and people oriented infrastructure like bicycle infrastructure emphasized because it's just far more efficient to move people, a large number of people through bikeways and leveraging transit than it

00:12:28:03 - 00:12:33:21
John Simmerman
is for single occupancy automobiles, because those are just incredibly space inefficient.

00:12:33:23 - 00:12:51:07
Cathy Tuttle
Yep. So so the thing that I and I actually wanted to bring you into my house. Do you see the tulips behind me? But I also want to just to show you the tulips in front of me. This is my view. I'm looking out the window right now, and this is what I see, these beautiful tulips and this courtyard.

00:12:51:14 - 00:13:17:25
Cathy Tuttle
So the city has zoned this 100 person apartment building so that there there's this huge courtyard that I overlook in another urban context. This might be all infilled as well. You know, this might be just full to the brim with housing, but this can still be a very dense city and yet allow green, allow kind of healthy places to to be.

00:13:17:28 - 00:13:25:07
John Simmerman
Can I interject real quick and say that since you just mentioned that it might be filled with something else? When I look at this, I'm looking.

00:13:25:09 - 00:13:25:28
Cathy Tuttle
At it here.

00:13:25:28 - 00:13:28:07
John Simmerman
In Texas. That would be car parking.

00:13:28:09 - 00:13:30:18
Cathy Tuttle
You you got it.

00:13:30:20 - 00:13:42:13
John Simmerman
It would be filled with cars because maybe maybe there is that orientation of, you know, orienting to the street. And and so there is not a massive parking lot in front of the.

00:13:42:13 - 00:13:46:01
Cathy Tuttle
Developer, but there is a parking lot under that. That's beautiful.

00:13:46:01 - 00:14:02:26
John Simmerman
And again, this isn't anti anti-caa. It's not like the Netherlands is a massively anti-caa country in in but there to use the term from our first episode, there's a car management plan.

00:14:02:29 - 00:14:31:28
Cathy Tuttle
And they're managed to be out of sight in this particular context. And instead I get birds and quiet quiet on that major street with 40,000 people moving through it and quiet in my backyard, even though it's full of 100 people live here. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about, I've been thinking a lot about I've been here for about a year, is the value is that public space have that are reflected in the built environment?

00:14:32:01 - 00:14:57:18
Cathy Tuttle
I think that, you know, we see a lot of great videos coming out from all sorts of creators, not just bikes and bicycle Dutch and filmed by feature and all these these these terrific programs. And they're about the the infrastructure itself. But as an anthropologist, as well as a planner, I think that there are values that are reflected in the space.

00:14:57:20 - 00:15:04:19
Cathy Tuttle
And I wanted to go through some of them and give some examples and some some of the images that I sent you. Yeah.

00:15:04:22 - 00:15:11:29
John Simmerman
Can can I show so can I show the next photo? Because I think this is a reflection of some value to it.

00:15:12:01 - 00:15:13:18
Cathy Tuttle
So this is my parking?

00:15:13:21 - 00:15:18:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, that is a reflection of, of some of the values, just like you're saying.

00:15:19:00 - 00:15:43:24
Cathy Tuttle
Yep. Yep. So this is, this is my bike. I wanted to introduce you to it because it's how I get around. I don't have a car here. Actually, I don't have a car anywhere, but I spend most of my my days getting from place to place by bike, even though I live, you know, in walkable. maybe a ten minute walk from that that street that I showed you in the first slide video.

00:15:43:24 - 00:16:07:15
Cathy Tuttle
But bikes are just so easy to use. So, so. So let me just kind of run through the five values that I wanted to talk about. So so the Dutch have struck me as being some of the most practical common sense people on earth. They like to be logical, they like to be punctual. I don't know if you've ever been linked to a Dutch meeting, but it is a big no no.

00:16:07:17 - 00:16:09:00
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah.

00:16:09:02 - 00:16:15:10
John Simmerman
Fortunately it was another Dutch person who was causing us to be late. So that were it worked out, you know.

00:16:15:12 - 00:16:43:09
Cathy Tuttle
But they are the most kind of rational, commonsense, logical people on on this earth. So that's reflected in the space. So that's one. Another is they're very interested in consensus building, in listening and adapting. I mean, you can see that in the street so much. It's been a way of a little push, a little pull. It's a very important value in the society is being concerned.

00:16:43:09 - 00:16:43:27
Cathy Tuttle
There's a term.

00:16:43:27 - 00:16:46:17
John Simmerman
For that, too, right?

00:16:46:20 - 00:16:49:21
Cathy Tuttle
I haven't learned it yet in Dublin.

00:16:49:23 - 00:16:53:15
John Simmerman
Yeah, I think it's a polder. Something something.

00:16:53:18 - 00:17:01:18
Cathy Tuttle
yeah. I mean, Polders are the are the canals that need to be drained in certain ways to make sure that and I'm sure.

00:17:01:18 - 00:17:13:14
John Simmerman
We'll get some and I'm sure we'll get some comments to this video down below of the context of that. But it seems that you're sparking something in my memory that part of that consensus building is.

00:17:13:16 - 00:17:43:25
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, the word might be like polder, like, you know, like, you know, being a polder ish person. But but listening and adapting and along with that is another value, which is a very high degree of tolerance, especially the tolerance of other cultures. I think because the Dutch have always been going out from the Netherlands to other places and then embracing what they learned and bringing it back, they they tend to be a very tolerant people.

00:17:43:25 - 00:18:07:26
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah. So fourth, the fourth concept is the Dutch really are interested in self-reliance. You know, they want to be independent and self-reliant, but it's also coupled with this idea of being a place that does a lot of sharing. And at first glance, that doesn't seem to sort of fit together. They share, and yet they want to be self-reliant.

00:18:07:29 - 00:18:37:00
Cathy Tuttle
But I think a big part is that they want to make sure that everybody has the ability to be self-reliant. So they share tools, they share bicycles, they share ideas, they share just ways of getting around. They share housing, but at the same time, they want people to be able to do for themselves. So it's a you know, maybe it comes from their agrarian past or their polder culture, but they're a self-reliant but sharing people.

00:18:37:05 - 00:19:06:06
Cathy Tuttle
And then finally, very important value in the Netherlands is saving money, right? They they value frugality over bling. You know, they want things to be a good cost. You know, it's a big value. In the Netherlands. This thing costs very little. So common sense, consensus building, tolerance, sharing and saving money. And you see all of those reflected in the streets.

00:19:06:08 - 00:19:32:26
Cathy Tuttle
And that's what I wanted to look at. It's like seeing how some of those values actually actually came out in the street. So the next thing that I wanted you to pull up was a little video of me biking along the road to where I go. So this is the side of my building. Behind those walls is where the that beautiful backyard is that's shared by 100 households.

00:19:32:28 - 00:19:53:03
Cathy Tuttle
And then I just go along this beautifully paved road and you can see there's lots of cars, right? But there's also tons of bikes. This is rush hour. I'm on my way to my my Dutch class. But look how many cars are parked there. And then there's this big surprise. There's a windmill out there that's a historic landmark.

00:19:53:05 - 00:20:18:11
Cathy Tuttle
Doesn't function as a windmill, but there are a number of windmills in my my neighborhood. You can see that, you know, you expect every Dutch road is going to have this this, you know, glorious predicted bike lane. But it doesn't it's a road that's shared by cars. Again, bringing up that quality of sharing with the you know everybody has has given a little bit in order to get a lot.

00:20:18:14 - 00:20:27:20
Cathy Tuttle
And you can see trucks you know the Dutch road system is not universally just for people on bikes right.

00:20:27:23 - 00:20:51:00
John Simmerman
Yeah. And there's there is that tension there, too, that we we we know that they're dealing with many of the same challenges that many other cultures and many other cities are dealing with that will press play on this video, too, because this is the you know, the fact that this is a tete a testament to the fact that, yeah, they have they have freeways, too.

00:20:51:00 - 00:20:53:08
John Simmerman
They have expressways.

00:20:53:10 - 00:21:01:20
Cathy Tuttle
And yet look how well they're shared, you know, look how well well, also look at the size of the vehicles on the on the freeways. Yes.

00:21:01:20 - 00:21:27:10
John Simmerman
They're for the most part, they're not as big, correct? Yes. What's interesting, though, too, is that, you know, when I do see the expressways, the national highways like this, one of the things that I'm always impressed with is I'm usually getting a bird's eye view like this from one of the overpasses of one of the cycling facilities, one of the feeds pads that happens to be going over them.

00:21:27:17 - 00:21:53:14
John Simmerman
In fact, one of my favorite ones is just outside of Utrecht making my way to Hilton. You know, you go over that, you go over and you can stop and you can, you know, shoot a little video just like that. And it's it's very interesting. And so but there is that balance. There is that tension that's in place that, you know, between the fact that we are sharing they are sharing space with these motor vehicles.

00:21:53:17 - 00:22:26:16
John Simmerman
And it it's not utopia. They're still they are very, very concerned with the fatality rates that they are seeing out on their roadways. And specifically a couple of years ago, I think it was now they had a report on the serious injuries and fatality rates on their streets that were the 50 kilometer per hour streets and, you know, really striving to say, hey, in the spirit of what you talked about earlier, is that there is that spirit of continuous improvement.

00:22:26:16 - 00:22:50:01
John Simmerman
They want to continually improve their streets. They're like, yeah, this is unacceptable. We need to be addressing the fact that the serious injuries and fatality rates through collisions is too high. We need to be working on that. And some of the biggest concerns is that there still are those situations where there's conflicts between people walking and biking and people driving.

00:22:50:03 - 00:23:15:09
Cathy Tuttle
Right. But, you know, the the clip that you showed of people driving, you know, people are driving in a in a sensible way, in a logical, practical, punctual way. You know, one of the reasons they don't, you know, are trying not to have have collisions is that people if they collide cause long traffic backups and that makes people late you know, like that you.

00:23:15:09 - 00:23:44:06
John Simmerman
Know can I say can I can I say one thing real quick, Cathy, since I pulled the video back up again, is that also what happened a few years ago was Waze did a survey of internationally where the most satisfied and, you know, drivers were and the Netherlands came up out on top is that it's like, yeah it's like it is one of the most satisfying places for drivers to drive.

00:23:44:08 - 00:24:00:25
John Simmerman
And I think that is reflect what's partly reflected in that is that there is mobility choice and so the driving experience is a much more pleasurable experience compared to other places. Where to drive is really not much fun at all.

00:24:00:28 - 00:24:22:12
Cathy Tuttle
Well, people love their cars in the Netherlands, and in fact, because it's a wealthy country per capita and per household, more people own cars in the Netherlands than on cars in the U.S. I mean, it's a it's a very wealthy country. But the thing is, people don't use them the same way that they use them in the US there, and they don't use them as often.

00:24:22:14 - 00:24:43:28
Cathy Tuttle
And that's what I'm doing for. Well, yeah, that's what this graphic graphic this about is, is I did a windshield survey of 800 car drivers. This was last year, 800 car drivers in the Netherlands. And the question was, why do you own a car and what do you do with your car? And these were the answer people gave.

00:24:44:00 - 00:24:59:28
Cathy Tuttle
And the main thing that they did with their car was go on vacation, visit relatives, visit friends. So, you know, and then you're getting into the 50% heavy shopping. But nobody is using them to get to work to take their kids to school in a summer.

00:24:59:28 - 00:25:08:09
John Simmerman
But say, yeah, it's not that not, not, you know, I think it's like 22% work is far away.

00:25:08:12 - 00:25:36:27
Cathy Tuttle
So. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I gave actually the same survey, same number of respondents and responses in Portland last year. And in fact, US results were the same for the top reasons. People use their cars for vacations, visiting relatives, visiting friends. But then the lines were also very high for taking the kids to school, going to work, going to grocery shopping.

00:25:36:27 - 00:26:01:21
Cathy Tuttle
It's sort of the lines were like all blue all the way, right? So people are using their cars for everything, whereas in the Netherlands, they're just those top, you know, three or four main reasons and then the rest are more incidental and more they do, the more like, you know, once a week or only on the weekend, they go and do their sports activity or go visit a friend or go take grandma grocery shopping.

00:26:01:24 - 00:26:08:21
Cathy Tuttle
But the rest of the time, you know, they're not like the US. We use the car for everything. Yeah.

00:26:08:23 - 00:26:19:14
John Simmerman
Everywhere. All the time, all year. I love the fact that just that 2% household chores or getting the child to school 4%.

00:26:19:14 - 00:26:21:11
Cathy Tuttle
Isn't that amazing?

00:26:21:13 - 00:26:50:05
John Simmerman
It's just the most of it really is reflective of the of the point of the fact that when you create a community environment where there is mobility choice, then people can make kind of fitting in with those five values that you said you're talking about. They can make the pragmatic, logical sort of choice of their mobility and based on their values, and it's cost effective.

00:26:50:05 - 00:27:10:16
John Simmerman
You know, it's like, what's the most frugal thing for us to do? Well, it's not to be jumping into a very, very space, inefficient energy hog of a car and drive there. No, it makes way more sense for us to to walk bike used public transit to be able to get to our daily needs.

00:27:10:18 - 00:27:55:09
Cathy Tuttle
Okay. I wanted to call out to Marco, to brewmaster and Talia for Canada, who have been the people in the Netherlands that have done some of the most thoughtful work on car culture in the Netherlands. I think that many people in the Netherlands are still studying, you know, the bike as a standalone object. And and Marco Antonia are actually looking at car culture as a culture and how the Netherlands can actually control cars and sort of take them out of the equation and start looking at public space and safety as well as their own values.

00:27:55:11 - 00:28:16:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. And and he he does a good job in the book that they recently written there to of talking about some of the reality is a it was great because he was able to share some of his own experiences growing up there and shared an experience of a fatality that happened with one of his his childhood friends and childhood friends.

00:28:16:25 - 00:28:36:00
John Simmerman
And and so it kind of is like a foundation to where the rest of the book goes. And then he even talks a little bit about his current situation of where he's living now and the relationship of, you know, the automobile, even in the Dutch context.

00:28:36:02 - 00:29:00:03
Cathy Tuttle
So I included this because this is a view from my language school. I take Dutch lessons to two mornings a week, and this is where the students park the students and stuff. And it's just incredible when you look at the cars across the street there, seven or eight cars there, how much space is occupied by bike parking versus how much is occupied by car parking?

00:29:00:05 - 00:29:40:09
Cathy Tuttle
And it's interesting that Utrecht, of course, still allows car parking along the canals. But one thing I wanted to mention about it is and I did surveys along the canals of, you know, that that survey that I showed you in the previous slide, and a lot of people responded to that parking here costs upwards of it depends, but between one and $4,000 a year to park here and within the next five years or so, every single bit of curb space in Utrecht will have some cost associated with it.

00:29:40:11 - 00:30:08:24
Cathy Tuttle
That is, you can't park anywhere on any street without paying a price to park there, which is logical. I mean, a parking space. But imagine charging for parking in the U.S. in a residential neighborhood. You know, imagine even charging for parking in some shopping districts. You know, the merchants wouldn't like it there. And yet, you know, it's something that actually makes the city more livable.

00:30:08:27 - 00:30:27:19
Cathy Tuttle
Yes, of course, people need to park along the street in front of these these houses that they're living in, but they're paying money to park their and they're paying something that's reasonable that they're willing to pay. And it gives the city the money to do some of the infrastructure work that they do as well. So it's a value.

00:30:27:19 - 00:30:38:14
Cathy Tuttle
You know, people say, yes, we can share, but we have to share by giving something, not just taking something. Yeah.

00:30:38:16 - 00:30:46:17
John Simmerman
Our good friend Donald Shoup would be quite proud over of the high cost of free parking.

00:30:46:19 - 00:30:47:07
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah.

00:30:47:10 - 00:30:51:00
John Simmerman
And here, here we are. In a classroom. Or in.

00:30:51:03 - 00:30:58:19
Cathy Tuttle
A classroom. This is. This is a planning meeting. This is so. So why? Yeah, so one of the two ways. Let me ask.

00:30:58:19 - 00:31:18:07
John Simmerman
You this before we before you get into the details of this, Earlier on the previous photo, you had mentioned that this is the view from your language class. So I think I assumed that the next slide was of your class. So how's how's, how's learning Dutch coming along?

00:31:18:09 - 00:31:45:11
Cathy Tuttle
Pretty good. I did, you know, years of Duolingo. And then I decided, you know, I really need to just hammer down, take classes and and do volunteer work. That's entirely in Dutch. And that's the way that I'm. I'm learning it. And I'm hoping within the next by the time I see you in the in the summer, that I'm going to be good enough to I mean I've, I've been good enough to do it sort of every day living kind of stuff in Dutch.

00:31:45:13 - 00:31:50:25
Cathy Tuttle
But I'll be good enough to actually have meaningful conversations with people by the summer.

00:31:50:28 - 00:31:56:28
John Simmerman
So for the Planning Commission meetings, planning meetings, are they in Dutch?

00:31:57:00 - 00:32:30:22
Cathy Tuttle
Absolutely. This is a great way for me to learn Dutch is it's just show and it's you know, it's obviously the vocabulary that I care the most about being a planner. I'm curious about how people respond, you know, and I actually contribute to things in Dutch in these planning meetings. And, you know, it's what I wanted to say, though, is that the you know, the the tone, the tenor of the meetings is very similar to what you'll see in the U.S. You know, the kinds of people that show up are the the older people.

00:32:30:25 - 00:32:57:18
Cathy Tuttle
Right. The the white people, the property owner people. And yet, you know, they're willing to make a lot of compromise at these meetings. But so I have a couple of pictures of just typical planning meetings. If you want to just scroll through the next one or two of them. I mean, you've seen this picture, right, and not this particular picture.

00:32:57:18 - 00:32:59:06
Cathy Tuttle
But this is this is.

00:32:59:08 - 00:33:04:09
John Simmerman
This is the classic, you know, open house planning meeting. Yeah. Picture.

00:33:04:09 - 00:33:26:17
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is, you know, and I mean, I if I had one kind of complaint about the planning meetings is they don't do a very good job here in the Netherlands of reaching out to the immigrant communities of actually engaging nonwhite, younger disabled people who have, you know, specialty.

00:33:26:17 - 00:33:28:09
John Simmerman
In other words, the same challenge we have.

00:33:28:13 - 00:33:56:19
Cathy Tuttle
Yes, absolutely. But I think that Americans do a better job of trying to be a little bit more deliberate about that kind of outreach. And I think the Dutch are still working on it. However, the thing that allows people to use consensus and I wanted to just bring this up because it's it's the revelation that I learned about last year is that any city so Utrecht is a city of about 350,000 people.

00:33:56:21 - 00:34:35:09
Cathy Tuttle
You know, any city, Utrecht size or larger in the Netherlands has an open space handbook. So they look at how they are supposed to do any kind of change to their open space, whether it's a park plaza or a street with these handbooks that are very detailed and really smart. So I looked at the handbooks from a number of different cities, but they specify exact like what materials need to get used, how they're supposed to be implemented, how much it costs to maintain those materials, and where to source these materials.

00:34:35:09 - 00:35:11:09
Cathy Tuttle
And so they're the same throughout the whole city. If you look through this, this and how much emergency services need to use these these places, the reason that I bring this up is that not only do they produce these handbooks that people need to adhere to and the specifications, but all of the various departments that deal with these materials, be they the plumbers, the park commissioners, the emergency service people, the transportation planners, they all have to come together and reach consensus twice a month in Utrecht.

00:35:11:10 - 00:35:39:01
Cathy Tuttle
I don't know if it's the same number of times in other cities, but this forces people to give and take, right? The emergency services people might want something different than the the plumbers want and might want something different than the the parks people want. And yet they all come to understand what each other issues are. And the city becomes stronger for it because they're educating each other, because they're learning from each other.

00:35:39:04 - 00:36:10:17
Cathy Tuttle
So this handbook that they adopt and adopt and change every three years or so becomes this this vehicle that allows them to travel to better and better city plans. It's ecological, it's practical, and it's also something that allows people to do some compromise on. So I got to know the emergency services people and that's how learned about these these handbooks and also learned about it through the the parking people.

00:36:10:20 - 00:36:47:09
Cathy Tuttle
So in Utrecht, it's rent vendors and and then Herbert Timmons Frank does the kind of the open space handbook in general and Herbert Timmins is specializing in bikes and then I cover hi in the parking department and they all know each other. They all sit around the same table. They all kind of reach compromise. And because they've reached this consensus, when they go out to the community, they can say, Yes, we've looked at all these different things, these aspects of the city, and we've reached a compromise of how to create a city that's kind of best for people.

00:36:47:09 - 00:37:15:17
Cathy Tuttle
So it's something you know, I've done these kinds of of projects where you're making changes to a park or a street and instead of like running around from the emergency services department to the to the the the Parks Commission to the streets Commission to the plumbers, electricians, just to everybody, it'd be great to have this one table where people are reaching compromise.

00:37:15:20 - 00:37:19:14
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah. And a handbook that kind of guiding you do it. Yeah.

00:37:19:16 - 00:37:25:27
John Simmerman
And we've been paused here on the the emergency services fire department to.

00:37:25:29 - 00:37:27:04
Cathy Tuttle
Show your engine. This is a.

00:37:27:04 - 00:38:16:03
John Simmerman
Little teeny fire engine. Yeah. We in North America bear with us. Those of you in in Europe watching this, we're so fascinated with the fact that your equipment is right sized to an appropriate dimension. Way too many of our vehicles, emergency services vehicles in the United States are super sized beyond belief. And then sometimes there's a friction that takes place between those emergency vehicles and departments like the fire department, resisting against right sizing you, creating streets that are more human scale, because they say, well, we know we can't have that narrow lane, we can't do this, we can't do that because our equipment won't fit.

00:38:16:10 - 00:38:29:04
John Simmerman
We need to transform our built environment, our cities to accommodate our vehicles versus the other way around. So, yeah, we are fascinated by your delightful, cute little fire trucks and they and.

00:38:29:06 - 00:38:52:27
Cathy Tuttle
You know that the Dutch are just like the fire department in the Netherlands. They just laugh at the American fire trucks. They just think they're the strangest things, you know, that these these respond to, you know, the the the Dutch in Utrecht can respond to any emergency. I think that's within 8 minutes anywhere in the whole city.

00:38:52:29 - 00:39:11:08
John Simmerman
And I've seen plenty of first responders over in Europe are responding on bicycles and also motorcycles, too. So EMS always just a rolling an oversize vehicle for something that doesn't need that oversize vehicle.

00:39:11:10 - 00:39:30:16
Cathy Tuttle
And every fire truck is exactly the same. So they're interchangeable. If one breaks, they just get another one to kind of plug it in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. And in fact, this this this little video here shows that the bike paths, a lot of them are also emergency service response paths. Right? That's an ambulance.

00:39:30:18 - 00:40:01:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, that is an ambulance, folks. And I'm glad you included this little clip, too, because too often, our ambulances are also de facto looking like this size. It's ridiculous. The other neat thing and I love the fact that you included those dimensions in those guides that looked at materials and everything. I loved this little video clip that you have of, you know, some of the workers laying down the wonderful pavers.

00:40:01:11 - 00:40:27:18
Cathy Tuttle
That's very prescribed to the clinkers. And it's very prescribed. You know what kind of material, what the underlayment needs to be, you know, what the pattern needs to be for every, you know, part of the city. You there's there's there's areas of the city that are very, you know, fine and polish. They're sort of mid-level, which is what this this particular site is that need to be nice but not super nice.

00:40:27:18 - 00:40:54:15
Cathy Tuttle
And then there's kind of the more suburban areas of the city and that handbook lays it out. People know exactly what to do. So things can get built quickly, repaired quickly. And this is an entire street along a canal near the train station. Just just south of of the central station and attracted that is getting finished. And actually in the next slide so this this was put in over the summer.

00:40:54:15 - 00:41:15:18
Cathy Tuttle
This is the completed pathway that was done in about two months. Yeah. Which is a beautiful pathway. But this is sort of the mid-level improvement for a canal path. And it looks like this gorgeous place that's been like this for the last 100 years. And yet it's a brand new pathway.

00:41:15:23 - 00:41:41:21
John Simmerman
It's a brand new and brand new. What's interesting, too, and Stefan Baer and I had this conversation. Stefan is the traffic advisor for the City of and we talked a little bit about the use of clinkers and the types of streets and in the contexts that that the cities are the Dutch cities are looking to employ of when to use them, how to use them, and the strategies for using them.

00:41:41:23 - 00:42:10:29
John Simmerman
And what I love about that approach is just on a street like this and some of the other, you know, residential access streets where you're deploying the use of the red colored bricks and clinkers, it's it's also sending a message that a this is a slow speed zone. It's it's not an area that you as a driver are going to be expecting to go be driving quickly and and tourism to.

00:42:11:02 - 00:42:41:25
John Simmerman
Well yeah. Anders is a biker too it's it's certainly not made to be ultra ultra smooth. But the other thing especially when they do keep it that consistent red color it is also to the drivers that by the way you're going to be sharing space with people on bikes and you can expect that. And so you get that consistency of that color scheme that we also see on the the feed struts and the bike sharing the bike priority streets that are out there.

00:42:41:25 - 00:42:56:07
John Simmerman
So I love that consistency that in most cases sometimes you run into cases where they've used a different color, but in most municipalities they're using that consistent red color on the clinkers and the red asphalt.

00:42:56:09 - 00:43:24:19
Cathy Tuttle
And look at this, just yeah, beautiful bollards. You know, there's those concrete bollards. The the street lights and those have all been selected by a city planning process in the it's called a handbook or open button or prompter, the Handbook of Public space because the street is considered a public space. So the, you know, the designer didn't have to like go to some manual or invent something on their own.

00:43:24:19 - 00:43:34:03
Cathy Tuttle
It just like every street that is in this kind of an area will get the same treatment with the same degree of material, material.

00:43:34:06 - 00:43:37:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, You know, I love it. I love it. Okay.

00:43:37:20 - 00:44:01:16
Cathy Tuttle
So this is this is one of the many, many, many festivals that that Utrecht has. I mean, it's an insane number of festivals for a city of this size. And you can't turn around without another one. So this is a winter festival, the Light Festival. There's another photo of the King's birthday, the Königsberg Festival, or Pride Fest. So that's the King's Day.

00:44:01:18 - 00:44:36:02
Cathy Tuttle
That's coming up in April. And then there's another one called Pride Fest. We have everywhere. But actually why I pulled this particular one up is this is a new tract and it's on the canal wall, kind of the main canal that used to be a freeway, so that the freeway was taken out, the canal put back in, and people sitting on either side are sitting on stairs that were built in the last year by the municipal government to because things like this would be happening.

00:44:36:02 - 00:44:48:23
Cathy Tuttle
These major events along the canal. And they're great places to sit in the sun during the rest of the year. So it's a very busy, festive area of the festival site.

00:44:48:26 - 00:45:12:22
John Simmerman
What a great transformation. Right. You know, this is this has been such a joy to watch. And I say watch because I've been returning to Utrecht not every year, but many years since 2015, when they were still in the process of of digging out the highway and and reestablishing what was once a canal back in, transforming it back into a canal.

00:45:12:25 - 00:45:33:09
Cathy Tuttle
Just I mean, can you imagine? I did not see the city when it had the freeway there. And certainly I watched these stairs on the on the right side of the photo being built to another brick stairs. And and they're a beloved part of the city. And, you know, you would look at them again and think, they've been there for decades.

00:45:33:09 - 00:45:36:05
Cathy Tuttle
But, you know, brand new past year.

00:45:36:08 - 00:46:04:18
John Simmerman
One of the fabulous interviews that I had was with Hertz Vanderbilt. The guy behind the film defeats the channel when when I was riding with him past this, he was saying, we paused here and and he was talking about how delightful it is now that he can he can paddle, he can get in his his canoe, his boat, and he can he can paddle all, you know, up through here as a little bit of a kayak, you know, sort of workout or whatever.

00:46:04:20 - 00:46:37:02
John Simmerman
And just experience the city in a different way and just how much joy that brought him because he he grew up right there in the city. And so being able to to see something that, you know, he grew up with as being just this nasty freeway highway, a highway to nowhere, essentially, you know, get taken and transformed. And so, again, another lesson to cities around the globe, if you're a car centric city and infrastructure is in place and people are telling, you know, it can't be removed, you can't fix it, that ain't true.

00:46:37:03 - 00:46:45:10
John Simmerman
You can fix it. You know, where there's a will, there's a way. And there was a lot of people that worked hard to make this transformation happen.

00:46:45:12 - 00:47:25:21
Cathy Tuttle
And it's a beautiful and, well, you know, use and love space. I just threw in a couple of pictures, too, about unique festivals that I think are really important that the government supports that are so important for building tolerance and building social bonds. And this one I love, it's called soup out, either a hook, which means soup on every corner, love it, and it lets people new immigrants and it's a week long open their houses, just have an open, open house or open a community center and make the soups that they're familiar with and share them with the broader community.

00:47:25:21 - 00:47:31:19
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, it's it's something that the government has actually put real money into and invested in.

00:47:31:22 - 00:47:33:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's so great. Yeah.

00:47:33:17 - 00:47:59:07
Cathy Tuttle
And then this is another festival that happens twice a year called Concert and by the Berlin, which means basically performances in the neighborhood. And this is another open house kind of thing where people do music and dance and poetry readings and just open their houses. And this particular festival has been going on for the last ten years or so.

00:47:59:10 - 00:48:20:11
Cathy Tuttle
And it's just like this. I mean, this I hear this wonderful klezmer concert here. I went to, I think four different concerts in the West bordered by Tiburon, and they were all over it. But it was a way of getting to know my neighbors and getting to know their particular talents and a government supported way of opening your house and sort of opening your heart.

00:48:20:13 - 00:48:31:06
Cathy Tuttle
This is a map of where all the the glory and the borough and the music performances were around to tracks. It just a tremendous outpouring of love through that.

00:48:31:08 - 00:48:34:08
John Simmerman
It seems like you're you're not finding anything to do there.

00:48:34:08 - 00:49:26:18
Cathy Tuttle
Cathy Yeah, but I mean, I think, you know, it's one of the things that it's super important for, for kind of creating the community cohesion and perhaps, you know, the people that are participating in that will later start coming to some of these public meetings and making suggestions for how they want their city to be transformed. This is a really interesting holiday that started in the beginning part of the 1900s called Orphans Fear Dogs, which means four nights of it's a four night walk and all public, all schoolchildren between kindergarten and high school, too, depending on their ages, between a kilometer every night to ten kilometers every night.

00:49:26:20 - 00:49:47:17
Cathy Tuttle
And they they go out with their parents every single evening for a whole week and take a walk. And then they all collect at the very end from all this. This is an out in which you said you visited, which has a new book coming out about it, too. Yes. They give you information about that.

00:49:47:24 - 00:49:55:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, I'm very familiar with that. In fact, I was able to profile that new book being.

00:49:55:06 - 00:49:56:10
Cathy Tuttle
Robert and.

00:49:56:15 - 00:49:58:18
John Simmerman
Yes, Robert Dirks and all of that.

00:49:58:22 - 00:49:59:14
Cathy Tuttle
Andrew.

00:49:59:16 - 00:50:02:03
John Simmerman
On that that I did with Kylie.

00:50:02:05 - 00:50:02:15
Cathy Tuttle
Right.

00:50:02:15 - 00:50:12:01
John Simmerman
Kohl's is is one of the residents there and out. And so I'll be sure to include that link in the show notes as well, folks, because that's a fabulous profile of.

00:50:12:06 - 00:50:19:10
Cathy Tuttle
Of it's a suburban community that has been kind of created from the ground up. That's khafre a very, very.

00:50:19:13 - 00:50:42:27
John Simmerman
Well, and I wouldn't even call it Khafre. Kathy. I would really call it a community where many of the residents actually do have cars. But the circulation plan that has been created, they have a management plan for the cars where the the cars are not able to the drivers are not able to penetrate into the into the city center.

00:50:42:29 - 00:51:01:27
John Simmerman
And so everything in the city center is accessible by walking, biking and transit. Whereas if you're a resident with a car, you drive in from the Circle Road, the Circulator Road, and then you can access and park your vehicle. And then what? Your home. You don't want your home, your car free.

00:51:02:00 - 00:51:27:08
Cathy Tuttle
And you have free parking. So I wanted to mention to this, this fellow in the center welcoming all the children, all the four or 5000 schoolchildren from all over Hoboken. And he did high fives and shook hands with almost every one of them, is the mayor of the town of Gilbert Isabella, and he is also the president of the National Features.

00:51:27:08 - 00:51:30:22
John Simmerman
BOND he is. Wow.

00:51:30:24 - 00:51:58:00
Cathy Tuttle
Is so he is a very supportive person for for biking and for walking clearly here. But again, that the of here for dogs it is something that brings everybody in the community together, people of all ages and all of, you know, the new immigrants and the established people in town and such a strong way to get people walking and get people.

00:51:58:00 - 00:52:09:26
John Simmerman
Active, too. This is the first time I've hearing of this particular event. Do you know what the origins of the event or what were the purpose of the origins of it?

00:52:09:28 - 00:52:29:22
Cathy Tuttle
I think it was just to get a get people healthy and get people walking. And I know it was actually I read about it on and like Wikipedia, it was banned during, you know, when there was a Nazi occupation because they didn't want people healthy and out there walking, right? So it might have had something to do with that as well.

00:52:29:24 - 00:52:31:16
Cathy Tuttle
You know what popularized it.

00:52:31:23 - 00:52:39:16
John Simmerman
Well, during occupation, you know, a lot of things were banned, including just getting around on your bicycle for any other purpose.

00:52:39:18 - 00:52:40:27
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, too.

00:52:40:29 - 00:52:41:29
John Simmerman
Fascinating.

00:52:42:02 - 00:53:16:13
Cathy Tuttle
okay. Now. Okay, so the bike sharing. Well, it's about sharing in general. So these things are called old DVDs. So these men's bicycle and these are the bicycles that are provided while you pay €5 for 24 hour use right at every every single Dutch train station has over four feet. Yeah. And there are, I think 2000 at the Utrecht train station and it looks like a lot.

00:53:16:15 - 00:53:31:01
Cathy Tuttle
They get taken out, they're gone by ten in the morning. It's amazing. So what you're looking at are share bikes that people share. I mean, that is what's, what's.

00:53:31:05 - 00:53:53:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And what's great about this is these bikes are actually the property of, you know, the transit authority, the, you know, the, the they maintain the reason why. Yeah. They maintain them and it's integrated with your transit card. And so when you're, when you get off the train at your destination, you may have ridden your own private bike to the train station.

00:53:53:05 - 00:53:54:08
Cathy Tuttle
The train station, about.

00:53:54:08 - 00:54:21:16
John Simmerman
40% of all train trips are in fact by access by a private bicycle. And then, you know, let's just say you're you're you're at you know, you live in Utrecht and you're riding your bike and you park in the beautiful 12,000 parking spots, one of the many 12,000 different parking spots in the in the garage there. And you get to a new destination and you can use that same transit card to check out if.

00:54:21:16 - 00:54:44:14
Cathy Tuttle
You're going to a meeting, if you're going to visit art museums or visit friends so you don't have to take the car. So this is the well, actually, there are two main parking garages under the Utrecht station. This is the first one they built that holds, I think, 3500 people on bikes. And it was too small very quickly.

00:54:44:16 - 00:54:49:22
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, imagine that. 3500 bikes too small.

00:54:49:24 - 00:54:56:18
John Simmerman
And I, I just pulled the number 12,000 out of my head. It may not be at all correct because I did this.

00:54:56:18 - 00:55:27:09
Cathy Tuttle
One with this number, this is the new this is the new branch that opened a few years ago and it has 14,000, I want to say. So together they have 17,000 ish places for people to park their bikes. And I think this parking garage, I mean, every visitor that comes here, I take them to the parking garage. I think it is like a temple to great architecture and beautiful design.

00:55:27:12 - 00:55:29:19
Cathy Tuttle
And it is it's incredible.

00:55:29:20 - 00:55:49:22
John Simmerman
I'm cracking up here because it's like you can just imagine, you know, of people who are not in the bubble of urbanism and they get your family comes to visit you there and Kathy says, okay, I'm going to show you this most amazing thing. We're going to go to a bicycle parking garage.

00:55:49:25 - 00:56:17:09
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, you and I. But it also reflects this this thing about this value, this Dutch value of, you know, sharing and self-reliance. I mean, I think it's a great kind of manifestation of that, that that beautiful way of of actually, yeah, this was my bike last year. I got a different bike this year, but this is a double decker parking lot.

00:56:17:12 - 00:56:38:08
Cathy Tuttle
And also I think it's four storeys high, which is how I can fit in 14,000 bikes in one garage. And if this were a place that had to store 14,000 cars, there would be no room for basically anything else in downtown Utrecht. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:38:14 - 00:56:55:10
John Simmerman
Another great view. Great view that will be obvious. Do you know if they have opened up the ability for people visiting the Netherlands to use their transit pass to do this, or do you still have to have a Dutch bank account to be able to.

00:56:55:12 - 00:57:11:16
Cathy Tuttle
You still need to have the the Dutch account because you know if the Dutch with their their their transit card are taking them all out, you know, there's just too much pressure on I think having that.

00:57:11:18 - 00:57:37:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And that's fine because you know for, for, for those of us who are visiting from outside the nation, we can rent a bike or do what I do. I bring my own Brompton and all and all of y'alls love to tease me about riding my Brompton in the Netherlands. But that's the reason why if I could easily use the overheats, maybe I wouldn't need to bring my bike.

00:57:37:14 - 00:57:40:02
Cathy Tuttle
For Brompton on on the train for free.

00:57:40:04 - 00:58:04:11
John Simmerman
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because it folds up. It's so small, it goes underneath my seat. It's not taking up any space, which I'm very conscious of. I don't want to take up any extra space because the trains are also full. So the other great scheme, bike sharing scheme that's out there is this that I just love. I always smile when I see the bright blue front wheel of the swap.

00:58:04:11 - 00:58:05:17
John Simmerman
These. This is so cool.

00:58:05:23 - 00:58:28:21
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah That's how you know that it's a swap meet is that blue tire and you see a lot in Utrecht because there are a lot of students and a lot of visitors. It's it's actually a pretty expensive scheme. The thing that that actually makes it worthwhile is that if you have any kind of mechanical problems, if you have a flat tire, anything goes wrong with it, you can swap it out.

00:58:28:24 - 00:58:30:09
Cathy Tuttle
So rents escalate.

00:58:30:16 - 00:58:47:16
John Simmerman
Yeah, hence the name swap. It's they, they, they will, they will literally just swap it out and boom, you've got a new ride and you know, and oftentimes it's more efficient to do that than necessarily try to really figure out, okay, what's the issue with it, etc.. They'll just bring you a new, new bike boom.

00:58:47:18 - 00:59:02:25
Cathy Tuttle
And the other reason that some of the Dutch people I know who have swapped feet so I've decided to have swap things is that you don't worry about theft, right? So if you have locked it and it gets stolen, you can get another swap fits. Yeah. Yeah.

00:59:02:27 - 00:59:14:04
John Simmerman
And this particular version is there there electric assist version as well. So they have the, the old fashioned analog and then they also now do offer an electric assist version too.

00:59:14:06 - 00:59:27:02
Cathy Tuttle
So But they're pretty pricey. I mean the bike that I have is a you know, cost me €100 and a swap fits for six months is more than €100. So yeah.

00:59:27:04 - 00:59:39:24
John Simmerman
No, it's there's a price associated with that. But if you or somebody who needs a dependable ride, you are not good at fixing your own bike. You might decide to.

00:59:39:27 - 00:59:56:16
Cathy Tuttle
It's, it's and you have the theft concerns. Yeah absolutely. If you're doing a move if you're if you have kids for a while you know I have some friends who are visiting with with young children in the summer. You know, I'm going to recommend that they get a cargo route.

00:59:56:19 - 01:00:21:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. So the car guru for the listening only audience, what we're looking at here on screen is an urban arrow that has a custom paint job of a yellow side panel. It's car guru, so it is a cargo bike sharing type of an electric assist cargo bike sharing scheme where if you are in need of a cargo bike, you can rent one.

01:00:21:07 - 01:00:35:22
John Simmerman
They're deployed around the cities of the cities that this has been deployed in and you can use an app to be able to unlock the vehicle, take it, do whatever you need to do, go pick up some something big.

01:00:35:29 - 01:00:39:05
Cathy Tuttle
Grocery shopping, go to the garden supply store or something like that.

01:00:39:05 - 01:01:01:18
John Simmerman
And again, a car replacement, rather than having to rent a car or use your own car to do an errand or whatever, or even pile the kids in, for that matter, Maybe you're going someplace where you don't feel comfortable with the kids riding that entire time. You can drop those kids into the front bucket there of this urban arrow and go explore.

01:01:01:19 - 01:01:31:07
Cathy Tuttle
Again, fix really nicely with that sharing and self-reliance value of the Dutch. And then there's another new company called Bike Flip that I wanted to mention that I think it's a really clever company, so it turns out that kids start off with those little balance bikes where they walk along and then when they're about, you know, three years old or so, they start pedaling on tiny little wheels and then they get a little bigger and a little bigger, and they go through about ten sizes of bikes right.

01:01:31:08 - 01:02:02:10
Cathy Tuttle
And this company, it's actually a place where I've been volunteering, lets parents bring the old bike back or you swap out the bike. You know, look up a new bike on online and deliver it to you as your kid grows. So you go through and you flip your bike. What's nice too is that they have subsidies from the government so that very low income people, new immigrants, can get these bikes for free for their kids and they can grow up through the the various ages of kids on a bike.

01:02:02:12 - 01:02:31:14
Cathy Tuttle
This is this is their main branch just outside of Utrecht. And they have you know, they're very interested, too, in kind of the circular economy and keeping waste out of the system because bikes generally when when they're done get melted down and built into new metal things. And this is a way of keeping bikes in circulation and they can provide a pretty reasonable bike for just a few euros a month for kids.

01:02:31:16 - 01:02:33:07
Cathy Tuttle
It's a it's a great system.

01:02:33:09 - 01:03:14:01
John Simmerman
I love this too, and another brand that I love to support. They they have their North American headquarters here in Austin. Their world headquarters are in Austria, just outside of Vienna. And it's that's the womb bicycle company. And they provide everything for for kids from again the balanced bikes on up and they also have a similar type of program where you know the parent can you know, turn the bike in when it's time for the kid to size up to the next bike and they can, you know, take care of, you know, bikes all the way up until a child is somewhere around a teenager about 13, 14 years of age.

01:03:14:01 - 01:03:34:11
Cathy Tuttle
That's exactly this Yeah. This model. And they're nice quality bikes but they use the ones that, you know, people have donated or they get a big shipment of, you know, a thousand bikes and then they refurbish them and put them out. I love it. And I just threw in a couple of pictures of how independent children really are in the Netherlands, too.

01:03:34:14 - 01:03:46:15
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, once they're in that kind of. Well, there's this picture actually is is people taking young children, taking their test. Yeah, Yeah. Usually a certified.

01:03:46:17 - 01:03:47:18
John Simmerman
11 or 12.

01:03:47:18 - 01:04:11:11
Cathy Tuttle
Years, 11 years old or 11 or 12 years old. So there's this children that you saw on the previous slide were about that age and they have complete independence. I mean, that's something that actually makes a child happy, is to be able to have their own wheels and get around. So here's volunteers, probably parents evaluating how well the children are completing a route, an urban route on their own through the city.

01:04:11:13 - 01:04:26:11
Cathy Tuttle
And, you know, judging if they're safe enough to be able to go by bike to their sports games or to visit friends. And what a what a great way to just build self-reliance in children.

01:04:26:13 - 01:04:50:04
John Simmerman
And what's really interesting, too, about this is when you arrive in you spend time in the Netherlands, you might just kind of assume that it's just a free for all that, you know, people just grow up this way and and it's it's like, no, they are quite intentional about doing things like this. And the these exams that take place to really certify that yeah.

01:04:50:07 - 01:05:27:02
John Simmerman
By the time because there is that expectation by 11 or 12 you as a child are able to get around on your own and be able to get to meaningful destinations and do so safely and really, truly understand what it's like to be able to get around. And what I love about the way that it's done is that you will see them with the, you know, this this process and you'll see them going through the exams out on real city streets, which is just, you know, to me, that's just really brilliant having, you know, done bike ed programs led by GED programs for fourth graders.

01:05:27:02 - 01:05:46:25
John Simmerman
And, you know, we would do a little traffic garden type of thing on the basketball court and teaching bike handling skills and whatnot. I mean, this really takes it to that next level of assuring, ensuring that, in fact, you know, they are able to get around their community and be able to go about their daily needs.

01:05:46:28 - 01:05:49:28
Cathy Tuttle
And that they're so, you know, building self-reliance from the ground.

01:05:49:28 - 01:06:01:21
John Simmerman
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, building that self-reliance. So we're now looking at a photo on screen here from 1977. So we're going back in history a little bit here.

01:06:01:23 - 01:06:23:07
Cathy Tuttle
You know, And I actually wanted to pull out your beer from from bicycle Dutch, who. Yes. Is the person who digs these old photos up. And I think he provided this one as well. And this is, you know, in a truck to a commercial street. You can see there are bike lanes probably in the door zone set, right?

01:06:23:07 - 01:06:24:17
Cathy Tuttle
I think so.

01:06:24:19 - 01:06:27:26
John Simmerman
It's hard to say. I'm looking at it, too.

01:06:27:28 - 01:06:29:01
Cathy Tuttle
I think that's.

01:06:29:03 - 01:06:32:03
John Simmerman
Right. It might just be a free for all.

01:06:32:05 - 01:06:35:11
Cathy Tuttle
Bike that they're line by line. I think they're.

01:06:35:13 - 01:06:41:27
John Simmerman
On the on the left. Yes, I think you're right. I think it is like a door zone sort of situation. Yeah.

01:06:41:29 - 01:07:07:10
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, I think you're correct. So this was a situation 50 years ago and the the the little video I have in the next slide here is a I don't know if it's the same street. It might be Amsterdam, fifth and, and Utrecht, but it's, you know, it's not like super elegant but it gets the job done, you know, bikes now are protected, but they're still parking.

01:07:07:12 - 01:07:31:27
Cathy Tuttle
Right. Right. And it allows people to who are biking to and or using mobility devices of all kinds to actually access stores to do parking to kind of pay attention to what's going on in their community. I mean, it's a it's a huge transformation, even though it's just taking a tiny bit of space, Right.

01:07:32:00 - 01:07:51:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I love this to a thank you so much for providing this video, Cathy. For those of you in the listening audience or look at seeing a scene here of, you know, just a, you know, directional bicycle path, bicycle lane, it's protected. It's protected by some trees is protected by, I think a.

01:07:51:11 - 01:07:52:10
Cathy Tuttle
Lot of narrow.

01:07:52:12 - 01:07:53:08
John Simmerman
So it's it's.

01:07:53:08 - 01:07:54:08
Cathy Tuttle
Narrow.

01:07:54:10 - 01:08:18:20
John Simmerman
But what's what you're seeing, you're seeing so many different dynamics. You mentioned a person on a mobility scooter. There you see a commercial delivery person almost salmon ing the opposite direction and almost hitting the person on the mobility scooter. But because the speeds are so low, it's like it's a collision that never happened because everybody's moving at more human pace.

01:08:18:23 - 01:08:37:17
John Simmerman
And then the next thing you see is a person, you know, riding by with a little trailer behind. And it looks like they may have had either some sporting equipment or maybe that was a musical piece, amuse musical equipment device strapped into it. There's just so much life and so much vibrancy. That's how.

01:08:37:20 - 01:08:41:02
Cathy Tuttle
There's parking. There's people walking.

01:08:41:02 - 01:09:22:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, so much so, so much going on. And this is another image that you have here or excuse me, a video that you have here of of just the busy for of people. We've got busses, we've got people walking, we get people biking and it takes us back to that conversation that we started with that very first video of how much life can happen between our buildings in this public realm, between our buildings, which in North just typically gets turned over to automobiles and becomes really a traffic sewer rather than a vibrant place that's really happening.

01:09:22:20 - 01:09:45:22
Cathy Tuttle
The other thing that's notable is how calm people are. There's somebody walking with a child. They're old people walking across the street this again, is that street that carries 40,000 people a day. And yet there's not the you know, the person who has the child isn't dragging them along, crying and, you know, walking, you know, fearfully across the street.

01:09:45:22 - 01:10:07:16
Cathy Tuttle
The old people are walking at a dignified pace. The people are crossing the street on their bikes or going at a slow pace, paying attention to bikes, even though there's lots of activity, there's lots of other vehicles, there's busses, there's other pedestrians. But people are moving in a way that supports human life. Yeah.

01:10:07:19 - 01:10:17:01
John Simmerman
And you'll also notice there's there's zero controls happening here, too. People are passing when it's safe to pass. People are proceeding. Look at.

01:10:17:01 - 01:10:27:27
Cathy Tuttle
That child. You know, I mean, imagine if you had a child you were crossing any street in Europe, you're in any North American city that had 40,000 vehicles, You know, you'd be panicked. Yeah.

01:10:28:00 - 01:11:01:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, exactly. And and if I were to to criticize this in any way, shape or form, it might be that, you know, for the future, it might be a situation where we try to turn more of this space over to even more people and, you know, try to reimagine where the transit and how the transit is happening so that there is know fewer conflicts, you know, with the busses, because even in that environment, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that there could be some casualties, you know, in that situation.

01:11:01:28 - 01:11:17:16
John Simmerman
But this is so much further along from a development perspective, from where we're at and most car centric cities globally that I think there's so many great lessons to learn from this, especially since, you know, compared to what this was like in 1964.

01:11:17:18 - 01:11:42:12
Cathy Tuttle
Right. And You know, it's also lined with businesses and lined with, you know, people shopping in line with with activity happening. I mean, the Dutch to figure it out. And this is sort of the last point is in the Dutch are people that are very cost conscious. You know they know that using bikes builds wealth for for everyone know, this is a great example of it.

01:11:42:14 - 01:12:05:02
Cathy Tuttle
I wanted to also just kind of end with the fact that there's all these great bike lanes everywhere. It's not just in the densest part of cities, it's everywhere. And the other thing that I as I was looking through my slides the other day is I've noticed that e-bikes are being used in an interesting way in the Netherlands.

01:12:05:02 - 01:12:38:22
Cathy Tuttle
This is a slight grade up and the person on the right has the e-bike, I think, and then the person on the left is holding onto their arm and getting a little boost to go up the hill as they're biking. So it's a kind of a common thing. And actually the next slide shows the same action. Somebody is holding on to the person next to them, not because they're great friends, although I'm sure they are, but it's because the one person has the e-bike and the other person gets a little boost moving up that slight grade.

01:12:38:24 - 01:12:40:07
Cathy Tuttle
But this, this, this.

01:12:40:09 - 01:13:03:13
John Simmerman
And that brings up the good point of why it's so important to have these wider cycle is so that a, it's a social activity. You want to be side by side to be able to do that. And you'll frequently see parents doing the same thing. You know a hand, you know, behind the back of a child and kind of helping them move, move along and get up a steeper grade.

01:13:03:15 - 01:13:25:11
John Simmerman
And so it's very much part of, I think, treating people who are getting around through active mobility modes with dignity of you really making experience, truly an inviting experience. And a big part of that is those wider facilities that are quite comfortable to be able to go side by side.

01:13:25:14 - 01:13:44:07
Cathy Tuttle
And also, you know, getting back to the sharing thing, I mean, these are streets that are shared. This is this is a car and truck street that these these several people on bikes are on, and yet they're using it in a very comfortable way. You know, they don't feel threatened at all as they're biking along and they're older.

01:13:44:07 - 01:14:06:05
Cathy Tuttle
They're able to ride with dignity. This is this is close to where I live, close to where my language classes and to showing people bike in all kinds of weather, but also that there are lots of delivery vehicles still within. You know, what a lot of us would call the pedestrian areas of of downtown Utrecht. And there's lots of drop offs.

01:14:06:05 - 01:14:35:27
Cathy Tuttle
This is only in the early morning when the big trucks can come. But there's lots of ways that streets are shared at all times of the day. But one of the things that that brings up is that I wanted to just put a plug in for the Cargo bike festival, which hope or it's in October, and it's something that the Dutch are really starting to embrace as well because cargo bikes sense at the city level.

01:14:36:00 - 01:15:08:18
Cathy Tuttle
The big trucks can come early in the morning, but there's still deliveries that need to happen and the cargo bikes are where it's at. The kind of innovation that's going on within the kind of cargo bike community I think is more important than what's going on in anything in American automotive work. I mean, the e-vehicles and the autonomous vehicles are just it's kind of the same tune just played in a slightly different key, whereas cargo bike technology is completely transformational and how people get around.

01:15:08:18 - 01:15:34:28
Cathy Tuttle
So yeah, some of the things that I get at Cargo Bike Festival last year are just wonderful and they they have a track where you can try out all different kinds of cargo bikes and compare what works and what doesn't. There were some that just blew my mind. You know, there was a cargo bike that was a trash collection collection bike, and there were other ones that, you know, sort of stretched the boundaries of what a bike really was.

01:15:34:28 - 01:15:41:13
Cathy Tuttle
But it's that micromobility that is most appropriate for cities and makes sense from an economic perspective, too.

01:15:41:15 - 01:16:08:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And, and of course, you know, folks that have been following along closely to the channel know that I've had use solutions on the channel. So the International cargo bike festival is his organization that he his event that he puts on each year. So be sure to check out that episode of when I interviewed him and I was there for the festival back in 2022.

01:16:08:05 - 01:16:14:01
John Simmerman
So I was on site there. So I do have some videos that you can check out here on the channel as well.

01:16:14:02 - 01:16:24:01
Cathy Tuttle
This is this is my favorite. This is a about a Bach Fitz That's actually a like a a a jitney. You can put people on the train.

01:16:24:04 - 01:16:53:02
John Simmerman
Patricia Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, you can, you can, you can sit two people in front cycling without age has a version of this, you know. Trisha where they get around to the retirement communities and the nursing home communities and be able to get people who are no longer able to to ride on their own, but still benefit tremendously from having a breath of fresh air.

01:16:53:02 - 01:17:03:20
John Simmerman
And so it was a an absolute joy being able to profile the cycling without age. Also on a previous episode. So, yeah, those are fantastic.

01:17:03:21 - 01:17:23:01
Cathy Tuttle
It's a beautiful bike. It's a beautiful bike. Actually. There were a couple bikes. This is a few more in the I'm sure you have a lot of these videos too. So much fun to just test out these different ways of carrying material around cities. This is another bike that can see three children on it that Longtail.

01:17:23:03 - 01:17:58:10
John Simmerman
Yeah and and to your point is it's like these are you called it micromobility too. And this is part of what we are seeing more cities in the the European countries embracing is this concept of look yeah businesses need to get their their products delivered and their services you know addressed and and so but when you're dealing with limited space and you know, it just makes way more sense to deploy something that's appropriately sized for what you're doing.

01:17:58:17 - 01:18:09:07
John Simmerman
And if you have to bring in a big vehicle. Okay, let's let's have a specific window of time when there is less stress on the streets, when there's also battery.

01:18:09:09 - 01:18:22:18
Cathy Tuttle
I mean, how much this thing weighs versus. Yeah, yeah. This was everybody's favorite bike at the cargo bike festival, including mine. It's the it's the post delivery bike. Yeah. So, so much fun to ride.

01:18:22:21 - 01:18:53:05
John Simmerman
Yeah. And that's that's the end. That's the end of the visuals there Cathy to close us out, any final thoughts, especially given the context of, of what we were talking about earlier from a cultural perspective and as an anthropologist, when like you're seeing things through that lens, similar to how I see communities through the lens of, of public health and encouraging people to live a healthy, active lifestyle.

01:18:53:07 - 01:19:25:14
John Simmerman
So I have that lens of is this an activity asset or not? You you're clearly in in your realm out there. You're clearly just absolutely soaking this up. As an anthropologist. You're like really seeing that that intersection that's taking place between the culture that is has been established and the culture that continues to evolve this very day, as well as these events that are happening and how they're supporting other people.

01:19:25:16 - 01:19:29:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, you've got to be just pension yourself and every day.

01:19:29:10 - 01:19:40:20
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, we often hear that, you know, it's, you know, you have to look at a city's budget to actually look at how you know, what their values are.

01:19:40:23 - 01:19:44:24
John Simmerman
Right. What they prioritize. Show me your budget and tell you what your city prioritizes.

01:19:44:27 - 01:20:09:05
Cathy Tuttle
Yeah, but it's also it's showing your your cultural values as well. I mean, you know, you judge a government by how it spends its money and you choose as a society to elect people to spend money in a certain way and the Dutch values. So, you know, and I actually I would love to hear from any Dutch people who are listening to this show.

01:20:09:05 - 01:20:38:29
Cathy Tuttle
It's, you know, the ones that are the values that I've come up with of, you know, that practical logic, functional value, the consensus building, the tolerance, the sharing and self-reliance and the saving money values, you know, do those make sense and are those values reflected in the in the values that you see in the built environment? Are these things that do you think your government does for your streets?

01:20:39:01 - 01:21:05:21
Cathy Tuttle
And you know, also, I'd like to know about what what people in other countries see as the that are reflected in the streets that their government provides for them. You know, what have we chosen to invest in because it reflects who we are. You know, our place reflects who we are because we we are in the place. You know, we are the people that live in it at this particular time.

01:21:05:28 - 01:21:09:00
Cathy Tuttle
At this particular point in time. Yeah. Yeah.

01:21:09:03 - 01:21:20:12
John Simmerman
Very well said. Okay, folks, you heard her. Let us know what you think in the comments down below. And Cathy, I look forward to seeing you in just a couple of months. This is going to be.

01:21:20:12 - 01:21:21:29
Cathy Tuttle
Fun sitting here.

01:21:22:02 - 01:21:31:20
John Simmerman
Yes, it Felicity and also in your fine city of Utrecht, I will come spend some time with you. Thank you so much for joining me once again on the Active Towns podcast.

01:21:31:22 - 01:21:33:28
Cathy Tuttle
It was great. Thank you.

01:21:34:00 - 01:21:45:05
John Simmerman
He thank you all so much for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Cathy Tuttle. And if you did, he give it a thumbs up. We'll leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, honored to have you subscribe to the channel.

01:21:45:11 - 01:21:46:08
Cathy Tuttle
Just click on that.

01:21:46:08 - 01:21:47:02
John Simmerman
Subscription button.

01:21:47:02 - 01:21:47:18
Cathy Tuttle
Down below.

01:21:47:18 - 01:21:58:06
John Simmerman
And be sure to ring that notifications bell. And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns channel, please help support my efforts by becoming a patron supporter. Buy me a.

01:21:58:06 - 01:22:00:29
Cathy Tuttle
Coffee YouTube Super Thanks right down below.

01:22:01:02 - 01:22:26:18
John Simmerman
As well as making donations to, the nonprofit, it's all easy to do just navigate over to Active Towns typology and click on that support button again. Thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time. This is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active town's ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super.

01:22:26:18 - 01:22:38:04
John Simmerman
Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.