[dkarbayev]

As someone who’s interested in living in Amsterdam, I wonder what are options to commute other than by walking, cycling or taking a public transport? As far as I know, electric scooters are illegal in the Netherlands. I fancy motorcycles but I’m not sure if they’ll be banned right after cars (at least those that use ICE).

[bendyorke]

As someone who has lived in Amsterdam for a few years, and have several friends who were very bike adverse when they moved here, everyone ends up biking. It’s very convenient, safe, and enjoyable here, and you can get electric bikes or electric scooters to help if you bike long distances frequently (or just don’t want to bike).

With weather apps that give you the rainfall down to a few minutes, you can escape the weather by either biking in the lulls, participating in a e-bike scooter sharing system, or falling back on public transport when you need.

Very rarely can you get someone faster by driving than you could by biking or public transport (at least according to google maps) so long as you live within the ring. Outside of that I don’t think cars are going anywhere, and there is ample parking near the major public transport hubs. I know plenty of people who park there and take a quick train or metro to their work and don’t complain about the hassle.

It’s a different way of living and I miss driving sometimes but it’s really nice once you acclimate!

[codazoda]

I've only spent 3 days in Amsterdam and I enjoyed the ability to walk the city. I covered quite a bit of ground there and most of the areas were void of cars. Pretty great for tourists; although I'm not sure how much locals like the tourists.

I think I was in "the ring", if we're talking about the adjoining canal systems that circle around the center part of the city.

[cbluth]

"the ring" is considered the freeway that encircles the city.

[mcv]

And the ring of canals is called the "grachtengordel". I challenge any non-Dutch-speaker to try to pronounce that.

[whatweatherapp]

> With weather apps that give you the rainfall down to a few minutes, you can escape the weather by either biking in the lulls, participating in a e-bike scooter sharing system, or falling back on public transport when you need.

Hey, I just made an account to ask what weather app you're talking about? I have tried Dark Sky and Buienradar on iOS but they don't seem to send rain notifications as expected. Right now I'm looking out the window and it's raining (like, the water is collecting on the ground/rooftops) but neither app has notified me. I've just checked to make sure that they have notifications and location access allowed as well.

[cam_l]

The thing that really impressed me in Amsterdam was how freaking polite the drivers were to both pedestrians and cyclists.

..coming from a city where cars will speed up if they see you crossing the road, and regularly muscle bikes into the gutter.

[mcv]

Here it's the other way around. Bikes speed up when they see anyone crossing, and they're the ones muscling cars out of the way.

[WJW]

There are electric mopeds, but tbh the qualifier "other than by walking, cycling or taking a public transport" does not make a lot of sense when talking about getting around in Amsterdam. You can cycle across the city in 15 minutes along dedicated bike paths and public transport is safe, clean and relatively cheap.

[DeusExMachina]

This is almostr true, but it depends where you live and where you are going.

If your travel stays inside the ring (the highway circling the city), yes, travel time is not that long. Although 15 minutes is optimistic. While I have destinations I usually reach in 10-15 minutes, there are other places that take me 25-30 minutes. Which I don't find worth complaining about anyway, but not everything is 15 minutes away.

Living inside the ring is very expensive though, and many workplaces are outside of it. In that case, biking can take 45 minutes to an hour, or become impractical. I have friends living in neighborhoods from which biking is impractical (Bijlmer, Geuzenfeld).

You can always take public transport, of course, and mix it with biking. But biking through a city with 800.000 inhabitants in 15 minutes is not possible.

[Matticus_Rex]

Where would you reasonably commute from where cycling or public transport wouldn't be good options? I'm moving to Amsterdam (probably Amsterdam-Zuid) next year, and unless I go waaaay outside the city, I can get to the center from almost anywhere in less than 25 minutes. I never use public transport in the US, but when I'm in Amsterdam I take it everywhere. Once I'm more comfortable with biking there, that will be even faster (though for the moment it's a bit nerve-wracking).

Electric scooters are around, though. There are a ton of mopeds at the moment, but I share your suspicion that they'll eventually be banned (and I don't totally hate the idea -- Amsterdam would be incredibly quiet without them).

[m000]

Mopeds have already been banned from bicycle paths [1]. Reportedly scooter-related accidents went down from 53 in 2018 to 10 in 2019 [2]. Finally, for e-scooters the situation is more complicated/fluid [3]. Only approved models are allowed and you will probably need to have insurance. E-bicyles are probably the best option if you need to commute medium distances.

[1] https://newmobility.news/2019/04/08/mopeds-in-amsterdam-no-l...

[2] https://nltimes.nl/2019/09/16/amsterdam-use-cameras-enforce-...

[3] https://www.vraaghetdepolitie.nl/verkeer/overig-verkeer/mag-...

[Matticus_Rex]

Ah, so they're just illegally using the bicycle paths. Interesting.

[mcv]

It's a confusing situation. They have only recently been banned from some bicycle paths, but not all. So you need to pay attention.

[blunte]

I'm curious what modes of transportation you would like, other than scooters? You've ruled out the practical common ones.

Walking is great and effective. Biking works well too. Public transport is there for you too. Keep 1-2 extra "station bikes" parked in practical locations around town. Then you can use whatever method you want based on the circumstance.

You can't ride an electric scooter on the sidewalks (or the paved areas in front of shops and such); it's just too chaotic, with stones and gaps and things that won't do well with scooters. And you would have to be pretty bold to ride a little scooter on a bike path along with all the people who are on bikes (you WILL have a collision at some point, and you'll be on the losing end when compared to a big Dutchman on a 50lb steel bike)... or worse yet, a big moped will run right over you.

My advice is go there and be open minded and flexible. You'll find a mode or combination of modes that works (everyone else does).

[Symbiote]

Many people are riding escooters on the cycle paths in Copenhagen. There are private ones and several hire companies breaking every regulation they can find.

I don't know the accident statistics offhand, so this might justify our refute your point.

[neals]

Why not bicycle? We have electric ones and all of our infrastructure is built to accommodate.

[jdnenej]

Ebikes work really well. The only disadvantage I can think of is it's much harder to take a bike on public transport than a scooter so the escooter makes a better option for getting to the pt stop

[the8472]

There are foldable bikes that are easier to take on public transport.

[jdnenej]

They are still massive compared to a folded scooter

[Symbiote]

Not really.

A child's kick scooter is small, but adult sized electric ones are long and fairly bulky.

A folding bicycle is roughly backpack sized, and easy to stand over (like a backpack) on a metro train.

[IkmoIkmo]

Scooters aren't being actively policed. Electric mopeds work fine, as do electric bicycles if you don't like regular ones. There's public transport bikes as well.

Further you can still take taxis, rideshare or rent something like a car2go, for which parking is more feasible, if you use it every now and then.

I mean... what else is there to want?

[willbw]

You can ride a moped, people ride them in the bicycle lanes in Amsterdam. Though I think that's a little unsafe for everyone else.

I would add Amsterdam is one of the easiest cities to get around in, I don't know why you would exclude public transport as an option as it is clean and efficient there.

[icebraining]

As of this year, mopeds can no longer ride on bicycle lanes: https://nltimes.nl/2019/04/08/amsterdams-scooter-ban-bike-pa...

[lonelappde]

I love that in Amsterdam, they don't have motorcycle gangs, but they have scooter gangs.

[mcv]

We do have a motorcycle gang: the Hell's Angels. They used to have a city-funded club house until the city got sick of their criminal connections and found weapons in a couple of raids. Not entirely sure what the status is at the moment. (Though it's entirely possible they started out as a moped gang in the early 1970s.)

[drukenemo]

It’s indeed a kind of person who tend to ride scooters....

[mcv]

> "As far as I know, electric scooters are illegal in the Netherlands"

Careful here. "Scooter" can mean two different things in English. It can be a moped (which is what Dutch people call a scooter), which is entirely legal in Netherland if you've got insurance for it; or it can be a motorised step, which is currently illegal. Although that's not stopping one of my co-workers from using one for his commute.

Also legal are e-bikes, although that's a developing issue, as they're technically electric mopeds, which means they require a helmet, whereas the users would prefer to see them treated as a bike, which wouldn't require a helmet. I don't think anyone actually uses a helmet (except on the super fast ones), but legally they should.

[whatweatherapp]

What is a motorised step? Is it like the "bird" scooters that I see people complaining about because they get left in the walkways?

[mcv]

Could be. I see very similar images when I google for both terms.

[jacquesm]

We do have electric scooters but a much more expensive kind, figure 2-3K at least.

[calcifer]

> I wonder what are options to commute other than by walking, cycling or taking a public transport?

Honestly that sounds a bit like "what are my options for breathing other than using my nose or my mouth?".

[uniformlyrandom]

That is s a good interview question. Gills? Direct oxygen injection?

[scarejunba]

A big problem is removing the CO2 (or you get acidosis) but how about "heavy pump attached to perfluorocarbon liquid with high oxygen content through hole in chest into lung"?

[radicalbyte]

Personally I don't live there because it stinks. The air quality sucks thanks to the airports and the legion of mopeds (why haven't we banned 2-stroke engines?).

Live in one of the satellite towns and commute with the train. You'll have a proper quality of life and commuting here is easy.

[jacquesm]

> why haven't we banned 2-stroke engines?

They have been banned.

https://www.amsterdam.nl/veelgevraagd/?productid=%7BB9B8F66D...

[radicalbyte]

That's a great start, but it's only Amsterdam. It should be nationwide. Those engines are worse than even big old diesel engines.

[Matticus_Rex]

Compared to what? Compared to the vast majority of cities, the air quality in Amsterdam is pretty good.

[radicalbyte]

The three big cities here have bad air quality compared to the less densely populated areas which are still within commuting distance with public transport.

I live about an hour commute from Amsterdam in an area where the air quality is considerably better than it is in the cities.

[scarejunba]

Current AQI is actually identical to San Francisco. What a coincidence!

[choeger]

The central idea is that you want to live as close as possible to work. You shall pay lots of money for the privilege of a cramped, overages, badly maintained apartment in some central location. You are not to have any other constraints on your choice of living space than that. In particular, you are not supposed to live 20km outside the city. Unless that 20km happens to be in walking distance to some remote train station. But you're still weird then.

Edit: Everything I read about these urban Paradise concepts screams "small town" to me. Where I grew up, that was how a small town functioned and of course it was quite nice. But that is not how a city functions.

Personally, I wonder how long it will take cities to depopulate after they made commuting too hard. In my observation, the car just acts as a proxy for the conflict between people living in the city and people that merely work there.

[noobermin]

>But that is not how a city functions.

This concept of a city didn't stop cities from functioning before cars and it won't stop cities from functioning after them.

[sergiosgc]

A large city, like London, in the XVI century, would be in the low hundreds of thousand inhabitants range. Two orders of magnitude less than today.

[icebraining]

If we're going to use arbitrary points in time, at its peak Ancient Rome had over 1M inhabitants, and Chang'an had almost 2M, all before the IX century.

A more apt comparison might be London right before the car became common place, though.

[sergiosgc]

The moment in time you pick for London does not change the picture. Victorian London still didn't have a million souls.

Rome's 1M population is a disputed number. Cities of tens of million inhabitants are all post-industrial and none work solely on mass transit. The car is an essential piece of the equation.

Car-less cities are an interesting thought experiment, but none has gone past the implementation barrier. That part of the equation should go into the though experiment.

[icebraining]

> Victorian London still didn't have a million souls.

Can you provide a link? I'm either confused about what "Victorian" or "London" mean, because it seems to me that metro London definitely had over 1M people in the late 19th century.

[tonyedgecombe]

Pre-war London had a population of 8 million and cars were strictly for the wealthy.

[choeger]

What city did actually function before the invention of individual motorized traffic? Rome? London? Would you want to live there back then as a simple citizen?

[matthewowen]

Is this a serious question? Let's take 1900 as an example year that's before individual motorized traffic (the car existed but clearly wasn't popularized). New York had a population of 3.5MM. London was 6.5MM. Paris 2.7MM.

If we're going to identify something key to the growth of cities, surely it is mass transit. Much of this isn't apparent in modern cities in the USA because so many of them tore apart their streetcar systems in the middle of the 20th century as policies shifted to favor the private automobile. But mass transit seems to me like the thing that drove the growth.

[choeger]

Just research how 1900 London was like for the average worker and then tell me you'd want to live like that.

[spion]

Just research how London is today. Most people don't use cars at all.

[tonyedgecombe]

Well it wasn't full of diesel and petrol fumes. The great stink was forty years earlier, they already had decent sewage systems (many of which are still in place now).

[XCSme]

I live in Amsterdam and I love it, public transport is amazing and cycling lanes are one of the best in the world. I never used a car here and never felt that I have to. Yes, rent is expensive, but it's like that because there is demand for it. If I wanted to live in the country side, yes, I would leave 20 km outside the city, but why would I want to leave that far away when I that means spending hours daily just to get where I want to? I fell in love with being able to bike or take the tram to get where I need in 15mins average.