Lessons from the Dutch

Around 2019, I introduced the concept of continuous sidewalks to the City of Nanaimo while helping with the development of their complete street engineering standards. The idea was inspired by a short trip to Amsterdam in 2015, and quickly grabbed the attention of the industry.

In pursuit of more, I began exploring other aspects of Dutch street design that could offer further benefits. In 2022, I spent four weeks cycling around the Netherlands, documenting observations and later publishing them in my book Fietspad. I’ve returned every year since to document further observations of Dutch street design, capturing those thoughts in subsequent blog posts.

Lessons from the Dutch presents a brief overview of these findings in one concise little booklet (or zine), aiming to increase awareness of Dutch design techniques and inspire their implementation in Canada… As we work to prevent serious injuries and fatalities while enhancing the comfort and safety of those wishing to travel actively, we can always learn and innovate. Many of the concepts presented here are already being implemented in projects or explored through industry initiatives, with the aim of incorporating these proven techniques into future Canadian guidance. Hopefully you will consider how you could integrate some of these ideas on your next project in whatever capacity you can…

Want a Hard Copy of Lessons from the Dutch?

Hard copies of LFTD aren’t available for purchase like my other books, but I do usually have copies on hand should we meet in person... The Lessons are what’s important though and you can read those below… Just click to enlarge and scroll through… A v2 is in the works…

Cover image with a background of numerous bicycles in black and white. The title 'Lessons from the Dutch' by Roy Symons is centered in a white square overlay.

Cover page for 'Rolling Streets in the City,' featuring a black square with white text and a QR code.

Text from a document page about Dutch street design inspiration and research.

A person standing beside a bicycle on a roadside, holding a sign that reads 'fiets pad,' with a landscape of hills and a partly cloudy sky in the background.

Text explaining work at ISL, street design innovation, and collaboration via LinkedIn QR codes.

Four black and white photos of men with QR codes, each with a name, location, and possibly profession.

A group of people with bicycles and helmets on an urban street, with tall buildings in the background. Text overlay states, "We're beginning to do good things in Canada...".

A person in a polka dot helmet standing with a bicycle on a city sidewalk near a utility pole, with buildings and a street crossing in the background.

Black and white photo of a street scene with cyclists riding on a designated bike lane on Harbour Road, Victoria, with vehicles and buildings visible in the background.

Black and white photo of a street with parked cars and two cyclists riding on a protected bike lane.

Street scene with cars, pedestrians, and tall buildings on a city street in Vancouver, with a cyclist crossing a marked crosswalk under traffic lights.

A black and white photo of a street corner with people walking, some on crosswalks, and a cyclist riding across the intersection. Trees and cars are visible in the background.

A black and white photo of people biking and walking on a city sidewalk near a bike lane marked with a bicycle symbol, with trees and a street sign in the background.

Black and white photo of two people riding bicycles on a street, with trees and power lines in the background, and a signpost nearby.

Black and white photo of a street with parked cars on both sides and a cyclist riding down the middle, with trees lining the street and power lines overhead.

Nighttime street scene showing a car parked at the curb, streetlights, a pedestrian walking along the sidewalk, and trees lining the street. Text overlay describes nearby signals and NRTOR system in Canmore.

Black and white photo of people on a city street near a crosswalk with bike lanes. Text overlay states, 'It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect,' with additional paragraph about bike lane conditions and best practices.

Black and white photo of a sidewalk with pedestrians and a cyclist, storefronts, parked cars, and trees along the street.

Black and white photo of a city street with cyclists and pedestrians. Multi-story buildings line the street, and there are trees and miscellaneous street objects. Text overlay reads, "The Dutch have done the pilot project...".

Black and white photo of a group of people riding bicycles on a city street, with apartment buildings and trees in the background, credited to Eindhoven.

Black and white photo of a city street with parked cars and bicycles. Pedestrians are walking on the sidewalk, and trees line the street. Text overlay mentions the Netherlands' door-zone bike lanes and advises not to build similar ones in Canada.

Black and white photo of a city street with parked cars, a pedestrian crossing, trees, and buildings on either side.

Black and white image of a Netherlands city intersection with traffic lights, parked cars, houses, and a tree, demonstrating separate turn lanes for vehicles.

A street scene in Utrecht, Netherlands, showing bicycles and cars at an intersection with various traffic signs and signals, including a blinking 'Let Op' sign to increase driver awareness.

A street scene with a bicycle lane and a sign in the foreground. The sign has a QR code and text in Dutch asking if the door is green.

Black and white photo of a city street with buildings, a bicycle, and a person wearing glasses and a face mask.

Black and white photo of a group of cyclists riding through a city street at a bike scramble event with signs indicating bike lane rules in Dutch.

Black and white image showing a pedestrian crossing with two push buttons, one that adds longer crossing time. Text explains the benefit of providing longer walk times.

Black and white image of a city street with cars and bicycles at a roundabout, with trees and buildings in the background. The image is labeled 'Protected roundabout, Rotterdam'. Text below states, 'Roundabouts can be protected too. Dutch roundabouts

Black and white photo of a city street with cyclists on bike lanes, pedestrians on the sidewalk, and buildings in the background.

Black and white photo of people riding bicycles on a city street in Utrecht, Netherlands, with buildings and trees in the background.

A black and white image showing pedestrians in a street zone with marked pedestrian areas, with a building and trees in the background. The scene promotes building streets for pedestrians.

Black and white photo of a residential street in North America with cars parked on the side and people walking. Tall trees line the street, and a sidewalk is visible.

Black and white photo of a person riding a bicycle on a city street with trees and buildings.

Black and white photo of a cyclist riding on a street with cars parked along the side. The street has a pedestrian crosswalk and a designated bike lane, with text painted on the pavement. Buildings and trees line the street in the background.

Black and white photo of a city street scene with cars, people, and a building in the background, overlaid with text discussing making streets accessible for everyone through surface indicators.

Black and white photo of two cyclists riding on a suspension bike roundabout with cables overhead, and spacing guardrails on the side of the road.

Black and white photo of a bicycle on the Dafne Schippers Bridge over a school in Utrecht, with a caption about the economic benefits of bicycle infrastructure.

People with bicycles standing on a street along the rainbow bike path in Utrecht, with buildings in the background.

Black and white photo of two people riding bikes on a solar-powered bike path with trees and open fields in the background.

Black and white photo of a coastal landscape with sand dunes, trees, and a person riding a bicycle on a paved pathway.

A printed guide or article with a black-and-white, halftone style photo of a highway and bicycle route signs, titled 'Add Bicycle Highways on Key Routes', and instructions about marking routes with clear, continuous signs.

A person wearing a cap and jacket sitting in a wheelchair with an umbrella, driving a vehicle during rainy weather.

Black and white photo of a bicycle parking area in an airport terminal with numbered pillars, a large circular ceiling light, and a sign promoting secure bicycle parking in Amsterdam.

Black and white photo of cyclists and pedestrians on a street in the Netherlands, with buildings, cars, and wayfinding signs in the background.

Close-up of a printed page explaining route options for cyclists, featuring a pixelated black and white image of a map or sign, with a section titled 'Give People Route Options' describing a node network system for plotting routes.

A group of people riding bicycles in front of buildings with European architectural style, with a sign overhead and the text 'What can you do to get us there?' at the bottom.

Bicyclists and pedestrians on a city street with a street sign showing the direction and designation for bikes, in front of a building with multiple windows and trees.

Cover image for 'Rolling Streets in the City Bicycles Photography' with a black background and white text.

Want to Watch Lessons from the Dutch?

Building on the zine, I turned the lessons into a bingo sheet of sorts and played a game of #LFTDbingo with Nic Laporte when our paths crossed in Eindhoven… See how many LFTD’s we tick off in an hour or two below, and let us know if you can do better…

Download PDF versions of my other books for free

Free PDF versions of my books can be downloaded using the links below. The site will still ask you to go through the checkout process to get the download links, but won’t ask for payment details. Some people have asked if they can contribute something. There’s no obligation, but if you’d like to, I’ve added a donation page here that supports the running of this website and future content.

Bike Lanes PDF Book

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Protected bike lanes, they create so much controversy, yet provide so many benefits. When bike lanes were just paint lines at the side of the road, only the fearless used them. Then a few cities started separating and protecting the bike lanes from motor vehicle traffic, and as the network of protected lanes expanded, more and more poeple began to ride a bike, and more and more cities began to build protected bike lanes.

Bike Lanes is a bit different from most urban cycling books. Photographs are central to the book, with each conveying an important principle of bike lane planning or design. Each photograph is accompanied by a short narrative that stands on it’s own, or combines to form the larger narrative in the book. Some photographs feature bike lanes I’ve helped design as a Professional Engineer working in British Columbia, Canada. Some others helped tell the story. All are examples from the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Hopefully you learn something and are inspired to plan, design, build, advocate for, or simply just try out some protected bike lanes for the first time.

Except Bicycles PDF Book

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Except Bicycles follows on from my previous book Bike Lanes, this time focussing on neighbourhood bikeways. A neighbourhood bikeway is generally a local street with low traffic volumes and speeds making it a safer route option than most. What makes it a neighbourhood bikeway though, are the design features that contribute to lowering those traffic volumes and speeds. There are many local streets that might be considered safe to ride a bicycle, but a neighbourhood bikeway will be a specially selected route considered to be an important corridor and part of a larger overall network, providing meaningful connections between other bike routes, origins and destinations. Neighbourhood bikeways provide an excellent opportunity to build some key parts of a network at relatively low cost and impact. Except Bicycles could best be described as a photo essay taking you on a journey through many examples of the typical features you will find along a neighbourhood bikeway.

Fietspad PDF Book

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fietspad, or bike path in English, documents a trip across many parts of the Netherlands in September 2022 to document it’s bicycle infrastructure. With only a loose plan in place, the intent was to just ride from city to city, stay the odd extra day in some and document what we saw. It wasn’t a trip just to see the highlights frequently shared on social media, although there are some.

The hope was to document the real bike infrastructure that people use every day, from big cities to smaller towns, urban to rural environments, the good and the bad. I took photos as we travelled and recorded my thoughts at the end of each day. The book wraps with things I’m interested in seeing done in the North American context.

Cities visited included Utrecht, Gouda, Delft, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Nijmegan, Arnhem, Zwolle, Groningen, Amsterdam, and Zandvoort as well as many places between. fietspad shares what we encountered, providing approximately 400 pages of Dutch bicycle infrastructure.