Cars Were Guests on Amsterdam’s Streets Even Before the Pandemic

Building a livable and accessible city with clean air and more space for pedestrians, cyclists, and children to play on the streets has been the primary goal of my work for the city of Amsterdam.

Like many other cities around the world, the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam faces a significant planning challenge. To accommodate growth, we need to build 290,000 more homes by 2040. Creating this livable and accessible city involves making it future-proof—a complex task made up of many smaller, interrelated sub-tasks.

To address these challenges, we have developed several initiatives, one of which is to make the city car-lite. By 2025, we plan to remove about 10,000 public parking spaces. We’ve also introduced what we call “knips,” where some main roads that run through the city are cut in two. This strategy lengthens routes that previously passed through the city center, encouraging more cars to stay on the peripheral roads.

It’s important to note that creating a car-lite city is different from pursuing an anti-car policy. We are not against cars, and we understand that many residents depend on their vehicles. That’s why we are investing heavily in public transportation for the future. In fact, public transport is central to our policies because it ensures mobility for all.

For example, the opening of the Noord-Zuidlijn in 2018—a metro line connecting the northern part of the city with the center and the southern part across the River IJ—has already resulted in significant social and economic benefits.

Source:

https://www.clc.gov.sg/docs/default-source/urban-solutions/urbsol18pdf/5_opinion_carswereguests.pdf