This is Jeska (yes’ kah for all you Americans) of the Dutch Cycling Embassy. She is the project director who helped put together our technical tour. I cannot compliment her and the rest of the Dutch Cycling Embassy enough for how well they assisted us on this trip. I have been on technical tours before, and this has been by far the smoothest and most professional.

The Dutch Cycling Embassy that cycling embassy is a group that helps bring the knowledge and experience of the Netherlands to other interested parties. They describe it much better so I’m just going to quote they’re about us page.

An intermediary between the demand for Dutch cycling expertise and Dutch parties that can deliver. The Dutch Cycling Embassy is a non-profit with a public private network for cycling-friendly cities and regions worldwide. Our network brings together the best of Dutch cycling: knowledge, experience, and experts from private companies, NGOs, research institutions, and national and local governments.

The technical tour group is comprised of 15 people: 12 from the Georgia ITE section one from Lexington, Kentucky, one from Charlotte, North Carolina and one from Mathews North Carolina.  Those of us from the Atlanta region have had many informal breakouts talking about where we could apply the things we see in the locations and counties and municipalities that we are familiar with. One of the things that the Dutch cycling embassy does so well is emphasize the procedures, processes, mindsets, and incremental improvements that can successfully bring about the type of walking and cycling infrastructure that we see here in Utrecht, Rotterdam, Houten, and tomorrow, Amsterdam. 

And while I just referred to walking and bicycling infrastructure, it’s not separate facilities from the motor vehicle infrastructure. They’re all together, providing mobility for all modes in the way that we talk about in the United States, but never quite achieve. Mostly because of our mindset as a car centered nation that happens to provide services to people on foot or on wheels.

One take away from this technical tour is I thought I would have more time and energy to do daily wrap ups but honestly, by the time we get back to the hotel at night I’m so wiped I’ve got nuthin’. So some more detailed discussion and examination of  the things we have seen will probably have to wait until next week or later. 

It’s been a little hectic, and not a lot of time to put together a well written compilation of knowledge learned and ideas I’ve have had. But to substitute for that here are a bunch of pictures.

I am in the Netherlands this week with other members of ITE Georgia Section to see first hand the Dutch way of building and maintaining safe roadway infrastructure. I expect to learn quite a bit, however, the most important lesson is easy. How did the Dutch do it?

They decided to do it.

Fundamentally, the role of the automobile in the United States is set by entrenched policy decisions, including the methods of zoning which leads to suburban sprawl and the resistance to reducing existing motor vehicle lanes to provide for other modes of travel such as pedestrians, bikes, dedicated bus lanes, etc.

The thing to remember is that the reason we have the transportation network we have is because of decisions that have been made in the past. But those decisions do not need to control our future. If we want a transit centered, bicycle friendly, walkable neighborhood, we can have it. We just have to decide to do it and acknowledge that it will take time and resources. It’s about choices. And right now all of the choices we are making say that the Car is King.

Over the course of this week, I’ll be throwing out several thoughts. A lot of these will be less well formed because I will be preparing them nightly after a day full of activities, but I hope to come back to them and add more detail. The way we treat our infrastructure in the United States is really important because it lasts for a long time. Decisions made today will echo for 20 to 50 years or longer. 

Jennifer, Griffin and I spent a week in the Netherlands, mostly Amsterdam, enjoying ourselves and doing all the touristy things. We’re here because next week I’m participating in a technical tour in Utrecht with a bunch of my Georgia ITE colleagues. You’ll see a bunch of posts about infrastructure and roads, but for now here’s some photos and commentary from our trip.

Unsurprising, I’m sure, but there are an awful lot of bicycles in Amsterdam. Moving around the city center is fast, convenient, and relatively safe because everyone yields to everyone else. I think I heard a car honk twice over the course of the week. 

Whenever we travel, we always dine at good restaurants. We don’t regard it as splurging so much as participating in the food economy. We dined one night at Rijks, a one star Michelin restaurant. We all had the tasting course and Jennifer and I had the wine pairing after which Griffin was irritated because we had had too much to drink.

If you go to Amsterdam, you have to visit the Rijksmuseum. It is the national art museum and well worth the trip. It’s like visiting the Met in New York; you can’t do it all, so pick a couple things to go see and don’t worry if you don’t see all the others.

We visited Amsterdam in the middle of tulip season so we had to visit Keukenhof, an easy 40 minute bus ride from Amsterdam. And it’s only 40 minutes because of the traffic jams due to all the people going to Keukenhof. It was packed with people, but it honestly wasn’t that big a deal. We got plenty of time to look at the flowers.

Rather than heading straight back to Amsterdam after our tulip visit at Keukenhof, we spent the night in Noordvijk to be at the beach, see the sunset, and go to the ESA Space Expo. We could’ve continue to participate in the wonderful transit system in the Netherlands and taken a bus but honestly, we decided to get a rideshare to save us some time.

We spent three more days in Amsterdam and did a lot more tourist things such as walking a lot, went shopping, had a high tea at the Duchess, went to the Van Loon museum, visited the KattenKabinet, and generally had a good time as a family.

Today I am in the Hague for solo touristing after sending Griffin and Jenn home. Tomorrow I will be in Utrecht where we will start our technical tour and I’ll have some commentary about what we see and what we learn. Throughout it all Baby Foxy will be learning with me. She’s been to more countries than I have!

I flew out to San Jose, CA last Sunday and was picked up by my sister and brother in law. They very generously provided me with a spare bedroom and a desk from which I could sleep and work during the day (mostly on an East Cost schedule) while hanging out with my Dad in the afternoons and evenings. We’ve lost several relatives this year and it is important that I got to spend this time with him (and of course my sister and brother in law to whom I am extremely grateful for feeding and hosting me this week).

My dad and I hung out in the evenings, working on a puzzle and watching football.

My sister took Dad and I to Fremont Peak, which is something I had not been to before. Great views from the top of Monterey Bay and all the land leading up to it.

While I was here we needed to do some standard Santa Cruz things such as visit the “frozen surfer” (reference to Han Solo frozen in carbonite) with the surfer memorial bench next to it.

I’l be heading home tomorrow, back to good ‘ol Georgia. It’s been a great visit but I’m ready to go home.

This is another post to see if ALT text is coming through correctly.

I’m new to using the iOS app for WordPress so here is a test image to see what the post spits out from the information I put on the image in the media library.

Our family has a long history of traveling with the critical stuffies from Griffin’s life. This particular stuffy is Baby Foxy. Baby Foxy’s name is a long story but suffice that there is a Foxy also.

Baby Foxy is traveling with me to Santa Cruz, California this week where I will work from my sister’s house on my own childhood furniture, and hang out with my sister and my dad in the evenings.

Baby Foxy (to date) has traveled to England, Netherlands, Thailand, many US States, and has been present for important meals and events over the last ten years. I foresee their travel experiences continuing.

There has been a mega-long hiatus on this site, as you can see if you peruse the posts below. But as of November 26, 2024, it’s back. The hiatus was caused by many things, primarily the increase in microblogging by me on Twitter and the reduction in long-form pieces I was writing. Plus, I had a child, and my job responsibilities were increasing, and, and, and.

But now with Twitter dead, and Bluesky growing, I was motivated to recover the Eyebrow so that I could point my Bluesky site at it (Bluesky’s version of “verification”) and so that I can place some thoughts here, where I own the site and no one can throttle me.

Welcome back, and I expect that I’ll have a few items to say over the next few weeks.