On August 14th, our last day as a class together in the Netherlands, my design group and I presented our ideas for how to improve USF's campus and bring it in line with Dutch design standards. Our segment was a stretch of the academic core of campus that is currently plagued with confusing intersections with many conflict points, an intersection lacking safe signage and separation, and no dedicated bike facilities. Our aim was to integrate all sustainable modes under one plan and to try and shift the corridor away from car dominance while increasing safety and comfort for people.

The main improvements we made were a full-size, two-way cycle track like we've grown familiar with in the Netherlands spanning the duration of the segment, new signals for protected bike and pedestrian crossing at the intersection, more signs and bike parking along the corridor, an elevated bike bridge to better protect pedestrians travelling near the hilly portion, and general consolidation of pedestrian sidewalks and paths. We based our ideas heavily off of what we've experienced as a class as well as the Campus Master Plan, which fortunately does lay out a vision for a multimodal future on campus.

On August 12th, we learned about the City of The Hague, or Den Haag, from Frans Botma, who works in the department of Urban Development and Traffic. Den Haag is the third-largest, but densest, city in the Netherlands and serves as the seat of the national parliament and the royal family's residence. The city has been growing considerably over the past few decades and has been working to increase public transit mode share and move away from cars. It has focused heavily on increasing the density of the center city and has recently pedestrianized significant portions around the main job and commercial centers. Many of the intersections in this area don't have any traffic controls at all, yet still were able to move a constant flow of people through in all directions, which I found miraculous!

The main takeaway I found in Den Haag was the importance of density to a city's public transportation network. The city has been able to develop a stunning pedestrian-based core and extensive public transit network, but it wouldn't be possible without the interwoven nature of the city's residential, commercial, and job centers in close quarters. 80% of residents are less than 600 m from a tram stop and even more are within that distance of protected bike facilities. Once a city reaches a certain density, it is simply not possible for cars to dominate due to geometry. This is a bit discouraging for Florida and the US, as most of our cities are at a much lower density than is found here. However, it is encouraging to see a potential path forward, as infill and densification should in theory be more popular in the future as Florida runs out of space to sprawl out to.

On August 13th, we had the chance to hear from Andre Botermans, International Cycling Ambassador, about Houten. Houten is a new sort of suburb located about 5 miles south of Utrecht with about 50,000 residents. The entire community was planned in the 1960's as a "groikern," or a type of growth core, during the period where the national government was attempting to sustainably double the country's population by 2000. Originally Houten was only a small village of a few thousand, but this changed quickly with the addition of two new train stations linking to Utrecht and the associated development that followed. The city was planned from the beginning with the bicycle in mind. It has two radii of less than 2 miles from each of its train stations, making cycling or walking easy and enjoyable for any trips within the town. Perhaps most importantly though, the city consciously chose to grow a network of bike paths through the "City Heart," a network of green park space throughout the city while restricting motor traffic to the ring road.

I thought Houten was especially interesting as it seemed like it could potentially offer some more parallels to life in Florida than some of the older cities we visited that could trace back their infrastructure and history back hundreds of years. Despite having a heavy car ownership rate among its residents (over half drive a single occupancy vehicle to work), it's still a community where it's extremely pleasant to bike and hasn't had a single traffic death inside the ring road ever. While I'd certainly prefer a city where even fewer people drove to work, this sort of "compromise" seems much more suitable to the auto-dominated reality that we're used to at home.

On August 5th, we were fortunate to be able to hear from Ronald Tamse, a traffic engineer who works for the city of Utrecht. Utrecht is the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands and is well-known for having the busiest rail station in the country due to its central location within the country. It's also a world-class cycling city too, as it was recently named the third best city in the world for cycling by the Copenhagenize Index. Ronald gave us a fantastic presentation from the top floor of the Utrecht City Hall and then gave us a tour of both the historic central Utrecht area and some of the newer additions to the city, such as the just-opened bike parking garage that now clocks in as the largest in the world with 12,500 spaces. We also got the opportunity to ride on one of the city's public buses, our first experience with ground public transportation.

The main takeaway I got from the presentation and tour was that the Dutch are committed to constant improvement and have not achieved their remarkable mode share and safety record simply by inheriting and maintaining it. A number of recent innovations such as low floor boarding, national standardized OV-cards, and a revitalized tram system with many new lines have all been recently added in addition to their new physical infrastructure like the new train station and parking garage. It was also refreshing to see a city with such cutting-edge new facilities still maintain their history and liveability in their old city center.

Before leaving for the trip, we were assigned to read an excerpt of "Bicycling Infrastructure for Mass Cycling: A Transatlantic Comparison," by Dr. Peter Furth. Dr. Furth and many others in the academic and advocacy communities endorse the Dutch Model of cycling infrastructure: separated facilities for pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicles. They argue that focusing on the engineering aspect of cycling and ensuring that safe and well-designed spaces for cyclists are available is the most effective method of increasing bike safety and popularity.

However, not all agree with this view. Many engineers, planners, and elected officials have for years taken an opposite stance: that bikes should instead mix with motor vehicles as much as possible and that separated lanes actually decrease safety. They argue that this "vehicular cycling" increases safety by increasing visibility of the cyclist in traffic and forcing the cyclist to take on more defensive behaviors while cycling. One of the biggest proponents of this philosophy is John Forester, a traffic and cycling professional who has argued for decades in favor of vehicular cycling and successfully advocated many state and national transportation groups to adopt its tenets.

While vehicular cycling has lost popularity in recent years as American engineers and planners increasingly base their designs off of the success seen internationally, it has had a long-lasting effect on the status of cycling in the US. It seems likely that many DOT's happily embraced vehicular cycling not for its merits but because it was a low-cost alternative to building separate facilities that also avoided inconveniencing motorists. While cycling with traffic may have been quicker and more comfortable for some active and able-bodied cyclists, this has definitely led to more vulnerable cyclists to avoid cycling altogether due to the perceived danger in mixing with larger and faster vehicles.

After experiencing riding a bike in both the US and the Netherlands, it's very clear the vehicular cycling is a seriously flawed way of approaching bike infrastructure. In the US, I occasionally have had to bike with traffic when there aren't bike lanes available. Even though I'm fairly experienced and confident, this is usually stressful and I don't feel that there is any real advantage from the slight increase in visibility. In the Netherlands, where it is illegal to mix with traffic, I felt secure and protected on the bike facilities and never wanted for a moment to switch into the street! There was one day where I missed a crossing for a bike path and accidentally rode with traffic for a moment, and almost immediately a motorist rolled down the window to shout at me to move to the "fietspad," a suggestion I was happy to oblige.