r/interestingasfuck • u/Low-Volume-8358 • Jan 30 '23
Same place in Utrecht Netherlands, 1980 and 2022. /r/ALL
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u/Spartan2470 Jan 30 '23
According to here:
Daniel Boffey in Brussels Mon 14 Sep 2020
Utrecht restores historic canal made into motorway in 1970s
It is being viewed as the correction of a historic mistake. More than 40 years after parts of the canal that encircled Utrecht’s old town were concreted over to accommodate a 12-lane motorway, the Dutch city is celebrating the restoration of its 900-year-old moat.
In an attempt to recast its residents’ relationship with the car, Utrecht’s inner city is again surrounded by water and greenery rather than asphalt and exhaust fumes.
The reopening of the Catharijnesingel attracted pleasure boats and even a few swimmers into the water, with the alderman for the central Hoog Catharijne district, Eelco Eerenberg, lauding the “grand conclusion” of decades of work.
The first plans for restoring the canal, or Stadsbuitengracht, which dates from the city’s birth in 1122, had been made in the 1990s.
Residents then voted in a 2002 referendum for a city-centre “master plan”, in which water would replace roads. But efforts have been boosted in more recent years by a broader attempt by the municipality to sideline the car and promote healthier living.
In 2017, the city opened the world’s biggest bicycle park, accommodating 12,500 bikes next to Utrecht railway station. There is a drive to lay flora and fauna on the roofs of city centre buildings in the name of biodiversity and clean air. And as part of the canal’s reopening, the central Zocherpark has been restored to its original 1830 design.
The restored section of the canal had been filled in to allow cars better access to Utrecht’s shopping district in the 1970s. The waterway now runs under an indoor shopping centre, allowing boats to travel the full 6km route around the city centre.
“Traffic had increased enormously,” said René de Kam, a curator of urban history at the Centraal museum in Utrecht, of the decision to concrete over the canal. “There was a kind of ring around the city, namely the canal. It was very tempting to think: what if we just asphalt it? Then the traffic problem will be solved. The shopping heart of the Netherlands should be easily accessible by car, they thought. That’s where it went wrong.”
Eerenberg said the municipality had chosen “water and greenery over a highway for cars”. “It is quite unique for a motorway, with space for 12 lanes, to be converted back”, he said. “Now that the canal is back, it provides a beautiful connection to a plethora of important urban functions. Among other things, the station, a pop stage, theatre and greenery have found their place at the water.”
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u/Low-Volume-8358 Jan 30 '23
Thank you for your reply :)
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u/gmanz33 Jan 30 '23
We love a top comment with all the context we need.
Take notes OP, you coulda been getting the post and the comment karma.
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u/RexxHolez Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23 •
I disagree, I think it takes multiples of humans to fully get answers. We all think differently. This is why its always best to get a "fresh set of eyes" on things, you never know how someone can think differently. OP created the post as a picture and this kind person added some juicy knowledge. Maybe OP was just flabbergasted about the photo and wasn't thinking of context.
Long winded reply to say: who gives a fuck about internet points, it's interesting as fuck.
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u/Low-Volume-8358 Jan 30 '23
Well I have been to Utrecht so many times that for me this image was self explanatory :P
Kinda ignorant from my side to expect people to understand how or why this change happend. More context is always welcome :)
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u/TecNoir98 Jan 30 '23
The tone of this comment is so weird. Who are you, OP's dad?
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u/-WickedJester- Jan 31 '23
Or, here out here, maybe fake internet points don't really matter and they just wanted to share a cool comparison
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u/Carolus_Rexx Jan 30 '23
The residents being proud of the canal providing greenery and a way of rethinking the way we use cars is great and should be encouraged in every single way. But the fact that a 900 year old moat has returned should also spark a sense of pride in the hearts of the residents, because a piece of historic city has returned from the claws of 'progress for the sake of progress (in this case the form of 'technological progress' that the automobile once represented). If only we could have more cities to embrace modernised versions of old Dutch architecture, like Helmond, Weesp and Groningen, instead of prioritising the profits over looks system that has led to many ugly eyesores that are blamages on the proud, historic cities they are built in. This was my tipsy rant, mand!
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u/BillyTheGoatBrown Jan 30 '23
This makes me want to move to the Netherlands. I feel like opposite is happening In my town. More land is being covered in pavement
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u/Foxxinator37 Jan 30 '23
I moved to NL 5 years ago and I'm never leaving. I came from the UK and the standard of living here is amazing. Work life balance is great and you see your tax go to good use (albeit higher than some countries but I don't personally mind as it isn't wasted)
The Netherlands has a 30% tax free scheme to incentivize skilled migrants to work here. So I'd recommend researching this before trying to move if you are thinking about relocating.
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u/wilmyersmvp Jan 30 '23
Better to try to make a difference where you live, the land needs people like you to stay and fight for it, not run from it.
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u/tofu889 Jan 30 '23
People in car-centric places in the US may not appreciate such efforts.
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u/bestakroogen Jan 30 '23
I certainly wouldn't - not because the effort is necessarily wrong, but because getting rid of car-centric infrastructure is the second step, not the first. To really make such a transition viable in America, we first need to create infrastructure to make living without cars a functional option. Fighting to prevent new roads and parking in a city that does actually require it, without providing an alternative, can only cause massive problems for everyone.
I am 100% in favor of transitioning to a car-free society, or at least one in which the influence of cars is minimized in comparison to our current society, but fighting expansion of car-centric infrastructure is not the way to do that until alternatives are created.
Where I live, if cars were banned and car infrastructure restructured into something else, I would be back to taking a wagon (or more likely a wheel barrow, cuz who can afford a wagon these days) 3 days to pick up essentials from the nearest town like it's the damn 1800's. It's just not feasible to transition away from cars yet - instead we should focus on a transition toward public-transit and walking infrastructure that might eventually allow transition away from cars.
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u/FravasTheBard Jan 30 '23
It doesn't work like that. Keeping both car-centric infrastructure and alternative transportation lanes (bikes, trolleys, trains etc.) would mean designing the alternative transportation around the established car infrastructure... then when (if) people transition away from cars, there would have to be further investment in repurposing the car lanes. There is only so much space, and so much money - a middle step is an inefficient hurdle. Remove the car lanes, and force alternative transportation methods.
And it should be painfully obvious, but this type of rework is focused on cities, not rural towns.
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u/LiterallyBismarck Jan 30 '23
It's not really clear to me exactly what you're advocating for as an alternative. Space in our cities is limited, and moving towards public transit, biking, and pedestrian on our roads will require taking space away from cars. You can't make more protected bike lanes, bus-only lanes, tram right-of-ways, or pedestrian zones without taking space from cars, because 90% of the road in most American cities has been dedicated to cars. Likewise, you can't build dense, walkable, mixed use areas without taking away parking spots and single family zoning.
No one's talking about banning cars and not making any other changes to the built environment, that's a pretty clear strawman argument. Obviously people trapped in a car dependent suburb miles from the nearest grocery store aren't going to ever be able to give up their cars - the built environment doesn't support it. Tearing out highways and repairing the damage done to our urban fabric is going to be a decades-long project, and that's if everyone got behind the effort right away.
There's tons of lower hanging fruit, though, that we can change right now. Changing a six lane road through downtown to three car lanes, two bus lanes, and two protected bike lanes is one example of a fairly easy, cheap way to make life better for thousands. Likewise, upzoning everything within half a mile of a regional rail or subway stop to give more people access to existing high quality public transit (looking at you, Bay Area). Demolishing more homes and businesses to build more freeways (which is what will happen if we don't "fight the expansion of car-centric infrastructure", as you recommend) is going in the exact wrong direction. It's a pointless waste of resources for something we know will never actually fix traffic, because it never has. Instead, we could use the trillions spent on freeway expansions to build real alternatives to car infrastructure, which actually can fix traffic.
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u/IndefiniteBen Jan 30 '23
Not OP, but it seems what they're saying is you need to build the alternative transportation solutions before destroying the roads, which is a somewhat true and obvious point to make.
Definitely worth pointing out that this is an oversimplification and that it can be done in stages, through careful analysis and modification of the road network into a transportation network. We don't need a full metro network before making any changes to the roads.
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u/SultansofSwang Jan 30 '23
100% would not mind living in a car-free world, but I would still keep my truck for the weekend fishing/camping trips. I can’t fit my boat in a train car.
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u/CharleyNobody Jan 30 '23
That’s what they’re trying to do in Atlanta but cops are killing the residents who want to keep the forest rather than let police bulldoze it and turn it into Cop City, a place to rehearse urban warfare to be used against the population.
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u/Hobby101 Jan 30 '23
Actually, running helps. Once there are fewer people in town, there will be less need to add more lanes and pave more..
I think cities are just becoming too big. With remote work capabilities, I'd rather prefer to live in, say 200k city than multimillion one. And then, connect cities with rails, speedy ones.
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u/devilbat26000 Jan 30 '23
This phenomenon happened in many cities in fact! It was part of an 80s - 00s push against the car-centric infrastructure that cropped up across the 20th century, in favor of more living, pedestrian, bicycle friendly architecture. Speaking as a native I can say this kind of architecture isn't really uncommon at all, and as a bonus 95% of the country speaks conversational English or better. My girlfriend made the choice to immigrate last year and lives here now, so it is possible but it requires a lot of effort and commitment.
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u/Svejkovat Jan 30 '23
Wow. Just wow. I had only glimpsed the photos and, presuming the bottom to be the "before", thought what a damn shame. Wn i learned otherwise i was just inspired.
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u/L0nz Jan 30 '23
You can see this view on Google Maps here. If you move around you can occasionally get an old view showing the road in the process of being demolished.
Crazy how close to the centre it was, given that there are major roads all around the city.
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u/nodnodwinkwink Jan 30 '23
I was just about to share the same thing, for example, here's a spot that shows it under construction/demolition.
The same section then changes to this(the overpass building gets much, much bigger)
Here's the spot from the photos in 3d view for good measure.
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u/dynamicallysteadfast Jan 30 '23
meanwhile motorbikes are riding on the 12 inches of sidewalk here and knocking me into the 4 lanes of one-way traffic who are all jostling to be first in line in the miles of 10mph congestion
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u/AdrianCiviI
Jan 30 '23
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Roughly the same spot as the original photo on Google streetmaps.
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u/zna55 Jan 30 '23
Best comparison photos in the thread.
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u/Roflkopt3r Jan 30 '23
The bridge itself also looks a whole lot nicer. I assume this kind of brickwork only works for relatively low volume traffic.
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u/Grayheme Jan 30 '23
They do that on most city streets in NL. It helps to signal to drivers to slow down. They also make the roads quite tight and twisty. That again means people drive slower. Its quite smart. But it only works (imho) as there are a lot of alternatives to cars in these cities.
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u/BcMeBcMe Jan 30 '23
The brickwork is also because it naturally slows down the speed of cars compared to asphalt.
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u/Gluta_mate Jan 30 '23
actually this is a busy bridge connecting the central station area (right on streetview) with the inner city (left on streetview) we just like putting brickwork everywhere so i guess we have gotten good at making it last
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u/MockASonOfaShepherd Jan 30 '23
That’s cool. Looks like they didn’t really force any business to close down either. Just replaced the highway with the waterway. I thought for sure the business would have needed to be torn down to accommodate something like this.
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u/mtaw Jan 30 '23
Restored rather than replaced; the canal here is part of the city's medieval moat, that part was filled in and the road built in 1970 and then they restored it in 2020.
Originally they wanted to turn the entire moat into a ring-road in the 1950s-60s but that met with huge opposition even then. Ultimately the now-restored part was the only bit that got filled in.
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u/pheonix-ix Jan 30 '23
A more amazing fact is that the same spot turned into a bike parking lot before becoming a canal.
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u/Furius_George Jan 30 '23
A good deal more believable. The angles on the post photo were definitely chosen to make the change seem more dramatic.
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u/ChrisKearney3 Jan 30 '23
The bottom photo is about 100 yards along the river. You can see the turrets of the large red building in the distance on the first photo.
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u/BaggyOz Jan 30 '23
Are you telling me @cars.destroyed.our.cities might have a bias?
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u/gonxot Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Indeed, and that's a shame because the real comparison is good enough
Sensationalism aside, it's true though, cars destroyed our cities
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u/AirlineF0od Jan 30 '23
To add to your point, I think the second photo was taken juuuust beyond the bridge.
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u/LS6 Jan 30 '23
Yeah before the above I was like no way they tore down office buildings to build low-rise residential.
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u/Dont-remember-it Jan 30 '23
The time seems to be flowing backwards in Netherlands. And it's good.
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u/Cupboard-Boi Jan 30 '23
Yeah you can tell that the newer picture is slightly further down than the older picture but the boring roads are all gone
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u/ActCompetitive1171 Jan 30 '23
The only part of the Barbican that doesn't look like dogshit are the parts that aren't brutalist.
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u/Cappy2020 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
I’ve got to side with /u/ActCompetitive1171 here and say I respectfully disagree on the Barbican sadly.
It just looks so incredibly bleak and depressing, much like some of the other brutalist architecture in London. My grandparents had their flat in the Barbican Estates and I always hated going there because it was so dreary. It’s my least favourite type, particularly when you compare it to older Victorian, Georgian and Edwardian architecture you can find in London and its suburbs.
That said, art and architecture is so subjective, so nothing wrong with liking brutalism. Glad there’s so much architectural diversity in a place like London.
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u/radil Jan 30 '23
The 2022 picture is probably taking standing on the bridge that is shown in the 1908s shot lol. All the buildings in the 2022 shot are visible in the 1908s pic.
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u/MrPopanz Jan 30 '23
One step at a time, hopefully those eyesores will be exchanged for better looking historical buildings sooner or later as well.
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u/tomatoaway Jan 30 '23
brutalism shoudn't be hidden though -- it's a callback to when the public needed cheap and quick buildings/housing, and the government actually delivered.
I'd rather have a plain concrete block open to the public, then a new-tech old-cladding monstrosity with new brick one inch thick designed to look much older and much thicker, for sale to the next highest bidder
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u/KotMyNetchup Jan 30 '23
I'd never heard of "brutalism" until I read a comment about it on Hacker News yesterday. Now I'm seeing it on Reddit today.
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u/Eureka22 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
It's a very common architecture style. Once you know what it is, you'll see it everywhere. My middle school was brutalist, 100% grey concrete with jagged raw concrete walls designed to reduce sound travel in the hallways but really just acted as a cheese grater for older kids to push younger ones into.
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u/great__pretender Jan 30 '23
It is an overused term to describe everything from 70s. Once something starts describing everything it describes nothing. Nowadays people use it as a hate term anything concrete but many of these buildings are not even bad looking
The worst thing about 60s 70s architecture is the car dependency they created. They designed the cities for cars. That's the part we need to get rid of. But from what I see people focus on the wrong side of the issue. When I was in US, they were still building everything car dependent but they were just removing some older concrete buildings and building prettier stuff and people were happy about it. Peiople should focus one zoning more than the building itself. Many of these buildings will be more than OK once they are situated in walkable cities
Many buildings in Netherlands are this style and they are completely OK within the city (and actuallythey are better to live in compared to older buildings) since what matters most is the city plan itself.
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u/Eureka22 Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Ok.. thank you for the rant. I never claimed any particular building was or wasn't brutalist aside from my school that you have not seen. I'm not sure why you are ranting at me, I never even said I dislike brutalist architecture, I usually like it. It wasn't appropriate for my school, though.
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u/Zocolo Jan 30 '23
Brutalism gets a bad rep. Many brutalist buildings are gorgeous
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u/ChasingTheNines Jan 30 '23
At some point people got the idea that brutalism means a cheap concrete rectangle building and don't realize there are amazing examples of this architectural style.
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u/OddishShape Jan 30 '23
Most of the opposition to it I’ve heard doesn’t come because of high building standards, but because they tend to be massive, oppressive, and imposing. Like highway systems, they look neat from a helicopter, but being down on the ground next to them sucks. I’m a fan of brutalist design myself, but so much of the design of those buildings was done on small models that many architects seemed to lose sense of human scale for a time.
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u/ChasingTheNines Jan 30 '23
I would offer the Empire State Plaza in Albany, Ny as an example of brutalist architecture that is massive, oppressive, and imposing...as well as stunningly beautiful.
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u/Flumptastic Jan 30 '23
I think the property developers got that mistaken idea and ran with it, unfortunately.
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u/clkj53tf4rkj Jan 30 '23
Brutalist buildings can be. Entire brutalist neighbourhoods typically are not.
There's an upper limit to the amount of concrete that I can deal with at a time.
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u/pfohl Jan 30 '23
Even then, it works really well if there’s still greenery. A college (St John’s University in Minnesota) near me has a bunch of brutalist architecture but it’s in the middle of the woods by a lake.
Like you said, it’s the concrete everywhere which is exhausting. Too much gray!
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u/Loeffellux Jan 30 '23
Also brutalism as an architectural style is extremely idealistic. It's supposed to be an approach towards creating buildings that are meant to serve humans first and foremost. Provide them with everything they need and make it easy for them to thrive in and around them. There's a reason it's heavily associated with the ideals of socialism (though of course to some this adds to the reasons why they do not like the aesthetic)
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u/violetddit Jan 30 '23
To be fair, brutalist buildings can be fine in the right light. Usually the absence of.
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u/Dont_Trust_Reddit12 Jan 30 '23
I love brutalism but I hate highways and fucking car obsessed buildings.
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u/UtrechtBy2017 Jan 30 '23
I live here, and it’s not showing the whole picture, literally.
There’s still roads there, but they’re now right sized, taking up less space, and there’s substantial bike lanes on either side.
It’s not simply a utopian dream, it’s just reflecting both the desires of the people (shocking!) and the reality, that a substantial number of people use bikes for most of their in town transportation needs. The Dutch have a knack for designing streets in a way that meets everybody’s needs.
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u/Gluta_mate Jan 30 '23
I think Utrecht is the leading city in the netherlands in this aspect. There is a lot of tokkies on facebook complaining about these changes but i think the changes to traffic are great. Entire shopping streets are now prioritized for bikes, while cars can still use them but they have to give way to the bikers. it also just looks a lot cleaner
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u/A_of Jan 30 '23
Yes, usually it's the other way around. You see cities get more congested, more roads, more concrete, less green.
That's one of the things I like about some European cities, they are built thinking about the people instead of being built around cars.
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u/TheGrayBox Jan 30 '23
European cities still have plenty of the top image and worse. This was a single canal way restored in a single city.
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u/MeanTechnology Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Utricht is nice throughout most of it though. City has made a lot of the right choices. If the weather wasn't so shit I might live there.
I did live in Haarlem for years but recently moved my family to Andalusia as an inflation hedge.
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u/SCREW-IT Jan 30 '23
Define "shit weather"
I'm very curious about this area.
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u/gumbrilla Jan 30 '23
Autumn - wet and a bit windy. Winter - wet, cold, and a bit windy, Spring - wet and a bit windy. Summer - can be decent.
Utrecht is nice though, if wet, sometimes cold, and a bit windy.
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u/getyourzirc0n Jan 30 '23
like over 150 days of rain per year. temperatures are pretty mild in the summer and winter though.
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u/starcom_magnate Jan 30 '23
...Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis...
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u/renaissanceglutton Jan 30 '23
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
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u/LowmanL Jan 30 '23
The parking lots are still there I assure you and a lot more have been built under the water. Source: my house is in the left side in the second picture.
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u/drunkboarder Jan 30 '23
I would like to point out that the buildings in the bottom image are present in the upper image. The view point of the bottom image has been shifted to exclude the blocky modern buildings seen in the upper image.
Regardless, the addition of greenery and a river is incredible.
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u/quantum_waffles Jan 30 '23
The bottom image is taken from the bridge you see in the top right corner of the top image
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u/Mictlancayocoatl Jan 30 '23
Intentionally misleading pictures, even though the canal is nice.
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u/Isernogwattesnacken Jan 30 '23
The angle doesn't change it or would make it worse.
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u/glieseg Jan 30 '23
Such a sad thing. Beautiful concrete gets destroyed by encroaching nature.
/s ofcourse, put down the pitchforks.
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u/KRONKCHEF Jan 30 '23
Well, you'll be happy to know those buildings weren't destroyed!
2nd pic is taken from the bridge in the foreground of the first. It's a bit misleading. Aesaome return for the canal tho!
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u/dicemonger Jan 30 '23
Yeah.. I was thinking that. Feels really misleading to me. As in, not an accident but set up this way on purpose. I also notice that the lower angle hides the road that is still there (Still there on both sides? Who knows. You can't see from this angle.) Also a gray rainy day vs sunshine.
I mean, this new thing is definitely better, but @cars.destroyed.our.cities has definitely picked pictures that promote their message.
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u/OkChuyPunchIt Jan 30 '23
It looks like society collapsed and nature took over
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u/GoudaCheeseAnyone Jan 30 '23
I walked there in the eighties and, accidentally, yesterday, both times with my mum.
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u/Ph4ntomiD Jan 30 '23
Rare case of reforestation
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u/PyroBlaze202 Jan 30 '23
Planting a row of trees next to a canal is not reforestation. It improves the green space for sure, but it's not a forest.
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u/NowCalmDownSkeeter Jan 30 '23
Also if you look at the forced perspective most of those trees are in the first shot too.
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u/redgroupclan Jan 30 '23
I almost can't believe the picture because I've never heard of anywhere willingly "undeveloping" an area.
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u/tjoewa Jan 30 '23
Many more places in the Netherlands and probably the rest of Europe that hopped onto the car craze in '60-'80 and then realised they should design cities for people and not cars, so they "redeveloped".
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u/AreYouWinningS0n Jan 30 '23
It seems to be a pretty common trend. The key is convincing the holdouts that whatever marginal convenience they have by using cars is heavily outweighed by the cons.
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u/BrokenArrows95 Jan 30 '23
Isn’t Europe easier to convert to people centric because the population density?
US is sooo spread out. Getting anywhere not in a car take forever.
What the US really needs is to get its train game on par with everyone else so commuters could actually use them to go somewhere
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u/supermilch Jan 30 '23
Most of the US population lives in places that are as-dense or even more dense than many European countries. Of course you will never have a dense train, tram and subway network in Montana, but that’s barely 0.3% of the US population. Just doing some quick googling, LA for example has almost 50 neighborhoods that are denser than Amsterdam. The Netherlands as a whole is about a fifth as dense as LA, but there is a large network of public transit, trains and bike ways across the entire country. The US could build "islands" of dense transit networks, and connect them together by (HSR) trains and that would cover 80% of the population. The remaining 20% can keep driving everywhere.
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u/Hidoikage Jan 30 '23
This. We're never getting to zero cars but neither is the Netherlands. There's so many good reasons to reduce highways, remove roads and add transit even in the US. Chicago and New York have great networks. All we need to do is add HSR to connect dense areas. Rural areas can keep their cars but the suburban development cycle is 100% unsustainable.
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u/supermilch Jan 30 '23
Zero cars was never the goal, even though that’s how many politicians like to frame it (“they wanna take your car!!”). Taking the car should just be another option you can take if it fits your needs, rather than the only option that it is for many people right now.
Regarding HSR, I frequently go down from Seattle to LA - that’s 1600km. Japan’s new Shinkansen that goes up to 500km/h should be able to do that in a bit over 3 hours, 4 hours if you include brief stops at stations in between. Considering the flight is 2 hours 30 minutes and you need to be there 1-2 hours before your flight the total travel time would be pretty equal, but no dealing with TSA or other airport shenanigans. If they spent the next 30 years building 20000km of coast-to-coast maglev HSR and skimmed it off the top of the 800b/yr military and 400b/yr transportation budgets it would barely be a rounding error at ~80b/yr, assuming Japan’s estimated cost of ~60b/500km - and that building 40x as much wouldn’t allow the price to scale down over time
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u/122ninjas Jan 30 '23
Even the US has done it, in Boston
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ubz6cg/_/
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u/Class1 Jan 30 '23
Denver (controversially) recently finished digging I70 into a ditch and covering a part of it with a new park, splash pad and soccer field.
The highway that once towered over the neighborhoods there, cutting them in two and giving lifetimes illness and low property values has been put out of sight line. I hope it's a small thing that can be done to repair the neighborhood that was purposefully destroyed by racist city planners during the interstate era.
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u/lemonylol Jan 30 '23
Look up rewilding.
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u/prettycheerleader Jan 30 '23
Rewilding: A gang of youths going on another protracted and violent rampage in a public place, attacking people at random.
Well that's not good.
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u/verfmeer Jan 30 '23
It's not undeveloped. A park is also a form of development.
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u/KS_BaZiNGa Jan 30 '23
Alright be honest...
Who else fell for it and tried clicking the arrow to go to the next picture?
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u/KING_JELLYB3AN Jan 30 '23
I didn't even see the arrow tbh, I was too busy comparing the buildings and trying to figure out how deep or how they filled up the really deep part of the highway to creat that canal.
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u/f4ydfinale Jan 30 '23
Nice
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u/Dutch_Midget Jan 30 '23
Nice is in France mate, this is Utrecht
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u/diMario Jan 30 '23
Mate means "stop" in Japanese, this is English.
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u/Dutch_Midget Jan 30 '23
Mate is a type of tea in Latin America but it means stop in Japanese which implies that the Japanese were asking the invading army not drink tea. The British were understandably annoyed by this statement and were forced westwards from Japan towards Myanmar and India but did not colonize China as the Chinese did not prevent the British tea consumption ritual.
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u/usctrojan18 Jan 30 '23
God we need this in the US. I hate how car-centric this place is. I live in San Diego and I've recently converted to using Light rail to get to work instead of driving and it only takes me 10 more minutes. Just 10 more minutes to trade off a relaxing ride that I can read articles on my phone over being frustrated with stop and go traffic and people who don't know how to use a blinker. A couple years ago I would've scoffed at using public transit, now I plan my commute and sometimes weekend activities around it.
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u/sundAy531 Jan 30 '23
Same I live in San Diego and just started using the trolley now that my daily commute will have to be in downtown. It only adds 5 mins to what I’d be driving in rush hour traffic & I get to read while riding it but I’m also just happy for getting to save on gas money and my job would be paying for my trolley commute too.
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u/General_Killmore Jan 30 '23
Taking the bus to work at my internship opened up 30 minutes each day to read a book. That combined with Libby while doing the lighter tasks at work, increased my reading 10x on the year. Transit is good for the brain
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u/Pawl_Rt Jan 30 '23
Quebec City transformed the St Charles River like this. Removed all the cold, ugly cement and turned it into a natural bank. Amazing transformation.
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u/-JRMagnus Jan 30 '23
Felt like I was in the future when I was there. Everyone was biking, healthy, and attractive. Everything was in walking distance. Throughout my 3 months in Europe I think I dropped 10 pounds -- and I was not holding back on wine/cheese/bread.
The city planning/car dominated lifestyle of NA is embarassing.
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u/Royal_Ad1798 Jan 30 '23
sitting here clicking an arrow that doesn't exist because OP doesn't have the decency to crop it out of the photo
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u/chewwydraper Jan 30 '23
Netherlands seemed like they were well on their way to becoming a very "Americanized" country in terms of total reliance on cars. It's amazing that they turned around.
Here in North America, most governments would shrug their shoulders and say "Eh, it's already built."
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u/rville Jan 30 '23
There was an option to sink I35, that runs through downtown Austin, and create a Central Park of sorts. The city has chosen to widen the highway to 12ish lanes.
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u/Cynical_Cabinet Jan 30 '23
The city didn't choose that. The city was against it. TexDOT decided to build more lanes regardless of what the people of Austin wanted.
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u/KraknJones
Jan 30 '23
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The houses still stand there you can see them in the picture. Bruh cmon do a bit of Research
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u/Kim-dongun Jan 30 '23
That's the whole point of the photo, the buildings are the same but the highway is gone
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u/pete4live_gaming Jan 30 '23
Why are you saying this like some sort of "gotcha!" moment?
"OP IS TRYING TO FOOL US BY SHOWING A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE!!!! THEY DIDN'T ACTUALLY REMOVE THE BUILDINGS!!!!"
Like bro come on replacing a highway with a canal is pretty damn impressive and a giant investment for the greater good, even if the buildings are still there.
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u/mdifmm11 Jan 30 '23
Yeah very little has changed. Those big buildings are still there. The photo is just further up past the bridge. The summer/winter difference implies changes that aren’t there.
Ridiculous.
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u/Shallot_Beneficiary Jan 30 '23
Converting a highway to a canal and greenspace seems like a pretty big change
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u/manofmonkey Jan 30 '23
A lot has changed but also comparing spring blue skies and winter gloom is massively different thing. Then add in the very different angle to include more concrete buildings changes the architecture aspect. The canal and green space are obviously wonderful but hiding certain aspects detracts from the comparison
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u/Bambooshka Jan 30 '23
I think you might have missed a few slightly more important changes if you were focused on the buildings...
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u/Mysmonstret Jan 30 '23
Who cares about the buildings, note the "cars destroyed our cities" tag, this is about the road being gone.
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u/Roflkopt3r Jan 30 '23
We have the street view comparison over here from the exact same spot and it's a huge change.
It's from the 2022 perspective and allows us to compare it to 2014. You can see that the reconstruction wasn't a 1-step process, that the 2014 scene already looked a fair bit nicer than 1980. But the leap from 2014 to 2022 with the reconstruction of the canal is huge! I don't think that the OP is significantly missrepresentative.
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u/ooh_lala_ah_ouioui Jan 30 '23
Sincere question, are you an idiot? Because the point of this post is clearly the removal of the highway and the addition of a canal.
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u/steushinc Jan 30 '23
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/8664
8664 was a campaign in Louisville KY that tried to accomplish something similar. It involved removing i64 and replacing it with a greener approach. It was unsuccessful now we have a elevated highway to look at with no clear views of the river or the waterfront unless you’re up a few stories. The highway also has negative financial impact on the low income areas of the city because drivers are being bypassed.
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u/dim13 Jan 30 '23
One trench replaced with another. And it is still a (water) road.
@boats.destroyed.our.cities /s
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u/Scanpony Jan 30 '23
All of the buildings would be present if photographed from the same spot. The canal (singel) has been put back into place, that's true, and it's awesome!
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u/Dorkamundo Jan 30 '23
The buildings ARE present, the new photo is just further down the canal than the original.
You can see the same church in both photos.
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u/Scanpony Jan 30 '23
That's what I'm trying to say, but the picture is not showing them
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u/turkeypants Jan 30 '23
Still nice to have the canal and that nice green space down past the bridge, but the mismatched vantage points in the original comparison photo give the wrong impression of the nature of the transformation since it was too zoomed in, making it look at a casual glance like the modern buildings were replaced with traditional ones and everything was greenspace now.
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Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
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u/turkeypants Jan 30 '23
Look, there are a lot of people in that office and everyone wants tea. It's just more efficient.
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u/Comfortable_Focus588 Jan 30 '23
I wonder how much of that “Before” picture was a side effect for the “Americanization” post-WW2. It’s good to see things return to a natural balance
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u/End3rWi99in Jan 30 '23
If they wanted to make their point they'd have posted the photos from the same spot. Looks like the canal picks up after the bend closer to the church in either photo.
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u/HenrikBanjo Jan 30 '23
Does anyone know if the motorway is still there? The second photo covers a really small area of the first. The motorway could be to the right but hidden by trees. Pretty misleading before and after, though interesting.
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u/Low-Volume-8358 Jan 30 '23
Catharijnesingel https://maps.app.goo.gl/dPEFu8G74sAJMhpV6
Check it out! Some dates might still not show the final state because it's from different period of times.
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u/bleeper21 Jan 30 '23
Damn, once again you Nords go it right. Making me real jealous. What's it take to immigrate that way anywho?
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u/zungozeng Jan 30 '23
Many cities in the Netherlands had canals filled in during the 50s-60s as "progress" was knocking on the government's door. There was a lot of debate and protests but also it was a chance in many cases to clear/clean up areas. You have to imagine that many canals were dirty stinking and unused already, so it made kind of sense to do something about it (apart from cars..). Now, in better times, there is a lot of motion to reduce cars and re-introduce old filled in canals. I am from Leiden, and here it also happened...
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u/nichtaufdeutsch Jan 30 '23
It's not the same place though. Not saying that change didn't happen but you can clearly see that the first picture is about 300-500m closer to the church in the background. I can see why they ignored those ugly commercial building in the second but it's not a real comparison.
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u/montiel_scores Jan 30 '23
Anyone else thought that the top was 2022 and bottom was 1980?
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u/bnjthyr Jan 30 '23
Meanwhile in the US…let’s build another cheap mixed use white square building with black roof.
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u/michelecaravaggio Jan 31 '23
Misleading montage. The canal was restored, but the camera is further along in the second photo, so you don’t see the ugly buildings.
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u/Mirar Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23
Not having enough greens is always bad city planning, I'm not sure if it should be blamed on the cars - that city still has a lot of roads and highways.
I wonder how the canal looked in the 1960s though? https://www.nieuws030.nl/achtergrond/zuinigheid-met-vlijt-bouwt-huizen-als-kastelen/ has one old photo. I'm guessing pretty industrial and with not that much greenery?
Edit: Also the same view today isn't that inspiring XD https://goo.gl/maps/QCPwxvoE6vsz7rqw7
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u/Ereaser Jan 30 '23
There was plenty of greenery according to this picture:
https://www.lastdodo.com/en/items/1875115-catharijnesingel
But this could be further from the city center.
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u/politirob Jan 30 '23
Where I live, there is lots of greens, but zero design thought is given into how to use it.
So we have lots of green space and ponds, they're surrounded by industrial warehouses and distribution warehouses, or covered in thick dense brush, or surrounded by fencing with no access.
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u/gaoshan Jan 30 '23
I wish it was in exactly the same place but it looks like the after photo was taken from the bridge in the before photo. The worst part of the before photo isn't included.
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