r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	up_hills
Comment	1. You're comparing the Netherlands, a densely and evenly populated country, to Scotland, a place where most of the people live on a single belt and has swaths of empty, near-uninhabited land. 2. Amsterdam kind of sucks to the rest of the Netherlands in terms of bike infrastructure. In fact, about half of the Netherlands sucks compared to the other half of the Netherlands. You're also comparing apples to oranges. In the Netherlands, the motorways are sometimes the \only\ way to travel a significant distance by car. Some cities are split into chunks to completely disallow driving from one to the other without using an arterial or ring road. In some places, you need an electronic tag just to get in the neighbourhood with a car. In a city, there is limited space. Urban density for UK and Netherlands cities is very similar. If the UK were to go full Netherlands, a lot of the roads would shrink to a single lane each way and a lot of parking would disappear. On a national level, the Netherlands' strategy is not to get the cars out. They have big motorways with fast, efficient junctions. On a city level, if you want to drive in you're fucked. Also, the Netherlands has very, very few multi-lane roundabouts. They have single lane roundabouts that cut speed on entry and exit, with crosswalks for bikes and pedestrians on each arm. In the UK, most of the roundabouts are two-lane minimum, with wide motorway-style exits to allow for drivers to enter and exit as fast as possible.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/gca3fw/can_we_just_keep_the_cars_off_kelvin_way/fpasqub/
Created	Sat 2nd May 2020 10:28pm
Status	normal ()

1. You're comparing the Netherlands, a densely and evenly populated country, to Scotland, a place where most of the people live on a single belt and has swaths of empty, near-uninhabited land.
2. Amsterdam kind of sucks to the rest of the Netherlands in terms of bike infrastructure. In fact, about half of the Netherlands sucks compared to the other half of the Netherlands.

You're also comparing apples to oranges. In the Netherlands, the motorways are sometimes the \*only\* way to travel a significant distance by car. Some cities are split into chunks to completely disallow driving from one to the other without using an arterial or ring road. In some places, you need an electronic tag just to get in the neighbourhood with a car.

In a city, there is limited space. Urban density for UK and Netherlands cities is very similar. If the UK were to go full Netherlands, a lot of the roads would shrink to a single lane each way and a lot of parking would disappear. On a national level, the Netherlands' strategy is not to get the cars out. They have big motorways with fast, efficient junctions. On a city level, if you want to drive in you're fucked.

Also, the Netherlands has very, very few multi-lane roundabouts. They have single lane roundabouts that cut speed on entry and exit, with crosswalks for bikes and pedestrians on each arm. In the UK, most of the roundabouts are two-lane minimum, with wide motorway-style exits to allow for drivers to enter and exit as fast as possible.