The Netherlands, Week 2

Again, this post is catching up the weeks that have flown almost completely by since I have arrived in Delft, the Netherlands.

Week 2

Monday, July 13
Today we were assigned our first of two design projects. My group was named Starchineers (STAR ARCHitect engINEERS) and was composed of equal part architect and engineer. The Starchineers were tasked with redesigning Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester, MA. Our goal was to implement bike facilities that connect to Neponset Trail, improving the Greater Boston bicycling network. We worked to incorporate Dutch designs into our redesign. Our final design was titled "Road Feast." Many transportation engineers end up slimming down roads to fewer lanes to install additional facilities such as those for pedestrians or bicycling. The Starchineers, however, were able to add two way cycle tracks to both sides of the street without losing any of Gallivan Boulevard's traditional function.

This work was due on Friday, July 17th and can be found online on our class blog at: Gallivan Blvd: A Road Feast (Starchineers). I can only take credit for some of the mock ups; the color schemes and boards were created by our star architects.

Tuesday, July 14
This was probably my favorite day so far. We started off on a bike tour to learn about the water management the Netherlands must use to prevent their below sea level land from being flooded. We saw the intricate networks of dykes and the plans for flood water. For example, we saw pumps, which traditionally were wind turbines, that are used to pump water between dykes to keep level water. Additionally, we saw a field filled with cows next to a canal. We learned about how in heavy rain, the water will flood the field where the cows grazed. This controlled flooding prevents unnecessary flooding or damage to the surrounding areas.

Can you imagine this field flooding!?

After this leisurely water resources bike tour, we visited a greenhouse. Here everything was completely automated. There were significant measures used to reduce energy consumption and incorporate renewable energy. A few examples are geothermal heating where they take warm groundwater to heat the greenhouse in the winter and cool water in the summer. They have other practices that maybe I will dedicate an entire post to later.

Engineers live for organization

From there, we biked to the center of Naaldwijk where our professor had us try pickled herring. I have uneasily tried a lot of food and am often pleasantly surprised at how delicious it can be. On the other hand, pickled herring tasted exactly as gross as I thought it would. I couldn't finish all of it and spent the rest of the day questioning if that was what was swiping around in me, but at least I tried!

After lunch we headed to the beach called Monster where we body surfed as a group then walked the beach collecting shells. Monster interestingly enough is not named after a Dutch sea creature but a large church in the area. In this area, there was a huge coastal engineering project to revitalize the beach. Engineers dredged the shore and provided beach nourishment, essentially added tons of sand to the beach, to increase the width which provides overall coastal protection. To me, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of engineering so I was thrilled to visit.

Annie finds sea shells by the sea shore

We're "duning" it!

To wrap up this amazing day, we made a fantastic class taco dinner, my first taste of quasi-Mexican food since May!

Wednesday, July 15
The group took the train to Houten today to learn about this quaint, perfectly planned city. Houten was redesigned in the 1960's to expand from a city center with a centralized train station. Every point in Houten was designed to be close enough to be a short bike to the city center where residents have access to the train. Additionally, grocery stores surround the town so people can reach them easily by bike. The biggest catch is cars must travel in a figure eight around the outside of the town.

Engineers and city planners have designed this town to give bicycles priority. It is easy to bike anywhere, however driving is at times significantly longer. Our professor has very high regards for this quaint town. Some students had mixed reviews: can this place be so perfect? It did have epic playgrounds, a surplus of wind turbines, and that safe quiet feel for children, families, and elders. The biggest catch is there is about a 10 year waiting list for people trying to move into this utopia.

Houten city center--notice there are no cars!

PSU Kate yielding into the bike roundabout

Houten: where kids can play without their parents 

Houten: fit for all bikers

Classic Dutch: Loving a big fan

Thursday, July 16
Today we were back in the classroom working on our projects. Again, check it out at: Gallivan Blvd: A Road Feast (Starchineers). We also had the chance to see the Portland State University (PSU) students we had been studying with present on their city's road redesigns. This was a great chance to understand our professors expectations and edit our designs accordingly. Unfortunately, we also had to say goodbye to our new PSU friends, until next time. It was a pleasure getting to know you all!

Friday, July 17 
Finally on Friday we presented our Gallivan Blvd: A Road Feast (Starchineers) project! We received positive feedback from our professors, which is the only reason we are comfortable posting this many times in a row!

The other non-school related excitement was I got wifi this day! A little late, but has definitely confirmed my addiction to the internet and the modern comforts of the twenty first century.

Saturday, July 18
This was my first day in Amsterdam. A lot of the day was spent on a tour from the Cyclist Union. We learned about designing Amsterdam to make the city bike friendly. What they did was create a ring road around the city providing car access and inside the ring road there was a reduction of car traffic, providing bike and pedestrian priority. Although these efforts were obvious, my honest opinion was that it was still a very hectic city. As the largest city in the Netherlands this of course makes sense, however it was sometimes uncomfortable or difficult to get around, especially in a posse of 30.

In Amsterdam we had one assignment that got to look a little deeper into bicyclist and pedestrian crossings. You can see the blog we wrote for our class here.

After class ended at 4pm (like I said, we've been really busy!!!), a group of us toured the Heineken Experience and learned about the world famous beer. This included a tasting at the top floor balcony... way cool! The evening turned into some biking around exploring while some of us went "window shopping." When night arrived we went to a small, local, but awesome bar/club that was everything I have ever wanted in a night out. Bartenders rang bells once an hour for celebrations there was always a new song that included so many favorites such as "Bills" and "Let it Go" from Frozen. They also told me "All I Want for Christmas is You," meaning I think they wanted us to stay until Christmas. This was reinforced when they handed out Santa hats. All in all, fantastic night and we even made it home on the last train!

Classic Dutch Canal

Raised speed hump

A taste of tourists in front of Rijksmuseum

Sunday, July 19
After a long hard week we took a much needed rest day. I slept in, went for a run, went to church, then ended up at unlimited pannenkoeken in Delft's square. Pannenkoeken are pancakes that the Dutch treat like omelets and fill with anything from bacon, cheese, fruit, and more. I ate as many pancakes as I could and left full and happy.

Welcome to the Netherlands! (Part 1)

I apologize it has been so long since my last post. I have been very busy in the Netherlands! That, and internet access evaded me until this past Friday. That being said, I have had two jam-packed weeks of the Netherlands, transportation, and bikingbikingbiking.

In other news, I have decided to let this blog flow into the rest of the summer. This post will be part one because I have so much to write about and don't want to leave any out. As soon as I get through the past two weeks I will get back to a routine of regular posts.

I'm already 1/3 of the way through my time here, I can't believe it! To preface my time in the Netherlands is focused on sustainable transportation. The Dutch are famous for their bike infrastructure. Their roads, cities, and I think even the people are designed to give bicyclists priority. We are studying their transportation system here to see how they have about 1/3 as many road fatalities per capita than in the United States. The most impressive part is that it hasn't always been like that. In the 1970's there were protests in Amsterdam to stop the expansion of roads and protect the Dutch children from the threats of the car. Needless to say it worked and the Dutch are now ahead in their transportation engineering. Like any good tourist, we hope to bring home their safest measures to the people of Boston and the United States and get Americans on bikes!

Our professor has us staying in Delft in a few different dorms a good distance from TU Delft (the university we are based out of). Just like my typical commute from home, we have to cross a roundabout and a water body (unless a boat is passing under the bridge) to get to class. The biggest difference here is we bike EVERYWHERE and the biggest safety threat is traveling in a pack of 28-40 people down a 4.5' cycle track. There have been a few bumps along the way, but everyone has made it to school in the morning so I would say we're successful as a whole.

I don't know how to cover all the time we have without leaving anything out. As much as I want to keep everyone at home informed, I don't want to lose all the memories I am gaining so I am going to go through a brief day by day recap. I will only get through two weeks ago tonight then will continue with last week in my next post. Some days are more exciting than other and if it entices you to stay until the end yesterday was on of the more exciting days (see what I did there to make you want to come back for my next post? :) ).

Friday, July 4
The date of my last post. The rest of the Northeastern students arrived in the afternoon. Everyone got our bikes and worked on getting settled. A few of us ventured into downtown Delft for some quiet Fourth of July drinks. No fireworks but I discovered the great views of the sunset from my room.

The 15e definitely isn't the penthouse but it doesn't get much better than this

Sunday, July 5th
We had our first unofficial bicycling adventure with my Northeastern classmates to Den Haag (the Hague). It was almost 15 miles round trip. The Hague is where the Dutch government is located, though we didn't see them on a Sunday. There, some of us (not me) had their first taste of pickled herring. Those brave souls liked it but I decided to save my taste testing for a later date (stay tuned). We did some wandering around but plan on going back so didn't commit to much, except a new sweater at Primark. There was some rain in the forecast and when it started to drizzle we took shelter in an Irish pub. Great nachos. Eventually we thought we read the radar correctly and embarked on the ride home. We were 15 minutes into the hour bike ride home when the skies opened up. It was a Dutch christening. After being so warm across Europe the days before, the soaking rain was a welcome feeling for me and the fields that shone greener as we passed. I loved it. There are not enough times in life when all you can do in life is laugh and pedal on. This was one so I definitely didn't want to let it slip away unenjoyed. And of course as soon as we arrived home the skies cleared for another beautiful sunset.

The herring before

Kurt before

Kurt and a little less of the herring after

Tyler bicycles Boston (and the Hague!)

Can't get enough sunset pictures

Monday, July 6
Today was the first day of class and our first official bicycling adventure. We received an overview of transportation in the Netherlands in the morning than visited bicycling infrastructure around Delft. We visited a two-way cycle track, woonerf (neighborhood that is closed to most cars) single lane roundabout (roundabout with bicycle lanes and safe pedestrian crossings), bike boulevard (road with bike priority), and  protected intersection (intersection that provides a safe crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists). The links for our class blog above will take you specifically to my groups write-ups. If my descriptions aren't enough, these will provide more information. If you just want to see what I did, check out the single land roundabout.

Tuesday, July 7
A few birthday shutouts today, if you're reading this you know who you are. Today was packed with lectures. Some highlights:

• Whenever the Dutch design a road and give space to a car, they also give space to the bike.
• Many people are stressed by traffic so the goal of transportation engineers should be to provide people with a less stressful environment for biking. This addresses the idea that not everyone is a vehicular cyclists (the people you see with the heart to bike like a car) and many people would be interested in biking if there was a safe, less stressful route to their destination. This belief is not shared by the entire business but I will leave you with a question of which you would prefer: if you could bike to work sharing a lane with cars going 30 mph or in your own cycletrack separated from those same 30 mph cars by a 6' wide row of trees?
• Most manuals used by transportation engineers in the US does not consider bicycling infrastructure--something our professor is determined to change!

Wednesday, July 8

Today we received a presentation from one of the Portland State professors about the measures Portland, OR is taking for sustainable transportation. The interesting thing about Portland is that they have redefined their transportation hierarchy to prioritize pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit, commercial vehicles/trucks, high occupancy vehicles, then signal occupancy vehicles as the least important. This is a bold move that has allowed them to advance plans for their bicycling infrastructure but more importantly the safety of people. If you looked at the previous list, who is most at risk of being injured or worse in a collision? I would say for sure the pedestrians and bicyclist. 

We also went on our second tour of Dutch infrastructure and visited locations with bike specific underpasses and bridges, bike lanes, and advisory bike lanes. I worked on the advisory bike lanes post but have some edits to fix. These are drafts that we will be revising throughout the semester so you may see some of our professors comments in all caps. We will be updating those later this week.

The day ended with a welcome BBQ where we got to meet and get to know each other, Portland State students, Cal Poli students, TU Delft professors, and some other guest speakers. There was also an open bar for a bit which lead many of us to have the Dutch experience of Heineken. All I can say to that is: good food, good people, good fun.  

Thursday, July 9

Some more birthday shutouts, especially to my beautiful, bride-to-be cousin Kate! Today we spent the day touring Rijswijk. We visited many locations throughout the city, particularly their bicycling and public transportation infrastructure. We also received a presentation from the city department in their absolutely gorgeous city hall. Some highlights are as follows:

• We got to see a drawbridge that rotates on its axis instead of lifting up. This is a very cool thing to see, especially when the bridge is dedicated to only bicyclists. However there is one downfall, starting bicycling up a bridge on a hill in a large group is no easy task.
• By the train station, there were crossings setup so a pedestrian or bicycle could walk with a "green wave," meaning the signals allowed people to get all the way across the street without stopping.
• There was coffee at the city hall meeting....

 We also created a photo blog for the city that you can check out here: http://nuweb1.neu.edu/holland2015sustrans/?page_id=12171.

Prof. Paul Wiggenraad, TU Delft and a bike bridge

Jeff, Katie L, and some traffic calming measures

Green Wave!

Professor Furth!

Friday, July 10

Today our focus included some of the suburban planning aspects of transportation engineering. This is tightly linked with sustainable transportation, especially how the Dutch set up their cities. Planners believe in the finger approach, which means rail transportation lines reach out from city centers then land surrounding the transit lines are built up. As density increases, rings starting in the city center of transportation routes such as light rail and buses connect destinations. By setting their land up with a backbone (or in this case phalanges) there is a strong sense of connected neighborhoods. Additionally, each neighborhood is equipped with grocery stores, schools, and many essentials close to home. With this organization, people have shorter trips to reach their shopping and other destinations, allowing them to bike on these small trips. To see an example of this, we visited Leidschenveen-Ypenburg, a small town outside of the Hague. Some highlights:

• Tyler and I made friends with a Dutch woman over lunch who gave us the real scoop on transportation: she prefers traveling by moped. Mopeds are currently terrorizing bicycle paths around the Netherlands (who said it was ok to have a 35mph moped on a bike path?!)
• We visited some dikes and pump stations. I am most interested in hydrology and this always fascinates me. When I think of the Netherlands, I think of the windmills that were commonly used to pump water to mind the levels on the dikes. However, the pump we visited used a steam engine which is now on display. You can't tell from pictures but there was a significant 3 meter (almost 10') difference between water levels but it doesn't flood. AMAZING!

Tyler was warm and trying to make his pants into shorts

Old pump house

Old pump

Saturday, July 11
Today was all about roundabouts. I find roundabouts exciting because every day I left my hometown I had to cross one. For everyone who doesn't know: there is a difference between a roundabout and a rotary. Rotaries are typically much larger, higher speeds, and see higher traffic flow whereas roundabouts are smaller, safer, and are more awesome (that last one might be my opinion). Roundabouts process more cars per hour than a typical signalized intersection because they don't halt flow. People are often skeptic but I encourage you not to be. We also got to visit something called a turbo roundabout that you can see below.

Turbo Roundabout

After our tour we went to the best place to spend any free time: the beach!! The beach we went to in the Hague was very commercialized, which wasn't a bad thing when you have a Ben & Jerry's shop on the water. I am not going to lie, the water was chilly at first. Italy ruined my love of cold water.... (spoiler alert: we've been swimming since then and I think I am back to my Atlantic water loving self). Some of us stayed until sunset but I came back for a nice group dinner.

Our group wanted to play Frisbee, the wind didn't want that happen

We sat by the brown bear marker, right past Club WOW 

Sunday, July 12
Today was our first free day since we started class so we got a slow start then headed to Rotterdam by train. Rotterdam was rebuilt after the second world war so it has an interesting compilation of architecture that has been surrounded by artwork, some of with questionable motives. We wandered through the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen before making our way to a jazz bar. If we had planned better we would have gotten tickets for a massive jazz concert that was in town that weekend with artists such as Tony Bennet, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige, John Legon, Alabama Shakes, Hozier, and many more. However, we were told some artists were headed to the jazz bar so we were optimistic. We found our way via yellow wooden bridge but were unfortunately hours early for any live music. It was still a great day and way to conclude our first week.

The Rotterdam Crew

Street Art

The Yellow Wooden Bridge

I am always seeking a new favorite color 

That is all I have in me tonight, but stay tuned to hear about week 2!

If you just can't wait, here is my friend Matt Duranleau's blogs that is much more recent to see a version of what we've been up to: http://duranleauinthenetherlands.blogspot.nl/.

Also, we are continually updating our class blog so to see that at any point the link is: http://nuweb1.neu.edu/holland2015sustrans/. (FYI: This is a work in progress through the end of our time here. You might see draft comments from our professor, feel free to check back because it will be updated!)

Running Around the World, Resettling

Typically on the eve of the Fourth of July (when my family piles in for pre-fourth race complaints and the town I went to high school in holds their fireworks) I am somewhere wrapped up in the American comforts of a cookout, family, friends, and the salty crust of the ocean left over on my skin. This morning I am in Delft, the Netherlands waiting for my classmates arrive. I am here, soaking in my temporary WiFi and suffocating from the humidity until I can venture out to the Delft Market. 

Past Itinerary, Final

• May 14 - June 16     Cagliari, Italy
• June 16 - June 18    Brussels, Belgium
• June 18 - June 20    Paris, France
• June 20 - June 22    Munich, Germany
• June 22 - June 24    Lucerne, Switzerland
• June 24 - June 27    Geneva, Switzerland
• June 28 - July 2       Paris, France
• July 2   - August 7   Delft, the Netherlands

Paris, France

My second time in Paris consisted of a much longer stay, five days to be exact. We stayed at an airbnb very close to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, one of the highest elevations in Paris. We had a quaint studio apartment that my dear friend Stephanie was having trouble parting with because she was deeply in love. 

The first day back in Paris we took very slow, with naps and homework breaks. We did however explore our neighborhood, which like the rest of Paris, everything was "soldes." For those of you who don't speak French, this does not mean "sold out" but means "on sale." This is a beautiful sign! Although I didn't end up buying anything, it was great to pretend like I could own a sandwich bag-sized purse for only €600.

The second day in Paris, we tried to go to a museum that was closed because it was Monday. Instead we wandered back to the Notre Dame area to do some revisiting of my favorites from the last time I was in Paris. On our walk there we enjoyed an orchestra playing its final set for the day in the Luxembourg Gardens. There was a lot to see but we were hungry so we moved onto for crepes at my favorite place. I decided to add the banana to my Nutella crepe for potassium. Since we have been walking almost 10 miles every day I need it! To be perfectly honest though, if you are eating Nutella, whatever you put it on is just a vessel for the Nutella. After our snack lunch we stopped by the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore and perused the nooks and crannies of books we long to read. Over the course of the past two months, I have added almost 40 books to that list, which is well past daunting. We caught our breath outside the Notre Dame and decided to take the Metro home for the evening.

The third day in Paris we visited Giverny to find Claude Monet’s house and gardens that has served as the inspiration for impressionists everywhere. You too can see why in some pictures below! The gardens seemed to fill all imaginable cracks in the town to create a vibrant display of color and life. Every little flower made up a pixel of life that finds its way into the impressionistic art. We also visited the Degas exhibit that questioned his roots in impressionism. Degas is famous for painting people and dancers, whereas his fellow impressionists focused on landscapes. Through his work, Degas tried to capture the almost scientific art of the body through dance. If he painted like this today, there would be a lot of dance moms upset at their exploitation of their youth, but now we worship him as a great artist. His work was spectacular, but in my opinion some depictions of young dancers gave off a lustful aurora that creeped me out a little. In Giverny, we rented bikes. There was some technical difficulty with one of the bikes that a nice Irish man helped us out with so we were able to make it back for our train.

Stephanie biking to Giverny

Anyone could paint if they looked through this window!

The fourth day in Paris we visited the Palace of Versailles. The temperature peaked that Wednesday to 100°F, which is really hot in case you’ve forgotten. There was some relief when walking through the palace, but it was crowded and if you easily collided with someone else’s sweat, if you didn’t walk into their selfie stick force field first. My favorite part was the architecture videos (what a civil engineering dork I know!) showing the construction of the palace up until the French Revolution. Did you know: Versailles started as a hunting lodge? It has grown a long way from that! The gardens were not quite like Giverny and were more like glorified rows of hedges. Especially in that heat we were not able to cover a lot of grounds so next time I will definitely rent a golf cart. That, or perhaps Marie Antoinette left a horse drawn carriage for me… perhaps not though, she’s been forgetful since she lost her head….

To our surprise, the gold did not melt  (we were ate 38°C and needed to get to 1064°C)

Stephanie's tourist posing was on point!

How they make it so perfect

It was so hot the water dried up

On our way back, there was a little issue with the train. We ended up stuck for 2 hours with no ventilation. To reward ourselves, we went back to the Arc de Triomphe then got massive amounts of ice cream.

Sunset

Farewell moon

 Delft, the Netherlands

I closed off Paris on the fifth day as I walked to Gare du Nord for my train to Rotterdam. If you remember from my previous posts, I did a project on Rotterdam in my last class so this is very exciting. However, Rotterdam was not my final destination. I got my first taste of train help from a jolly Dutchman who was actually born in my final destination: Delft. I will say this now and again: I will be in Delft, the Netherlands for the next month and three days. My professor for my next school session, Professor Peter Furth, met me there and showed me to my room and bike.

In Delft, I have my own room on the 15e floor, which really means the 16th floor if you count in European floors. I have my own bathroom, cook plate, fridge, desk, and no WiFi! It is sad how weak we become without modern comforts. So there are still some kinks to work out, but I haven’t let that stop me. 

Yesterday was July 3rd. I met a group of students, professors, and their families from Portland (Oregon) State, Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State), and Georgia Tech. Together, our posse of about 20 biked to Kinderdijk. There was no complaining because there were children under 10 who could do it, so we had to persevere! We had to take a ferry for the very last leg, but once we arrived to Kinderdijk, we found traditional Dutch windmills. Dutch hint: kinder=child, dijk=dyke. A quick Google Maps says it is 60 km round trip, so almost 40 miles, but you always have to get a little lost so I think we added a few more to our daily total. I rounded out this evening with befriending some neighbors enough for their temporary WiFi password, family FaceTime session to the beach, and some much needed R&R.

Along the way

The Northeastern are arriving this afternoon and I can’t wait to be with some American’s on Independence Day! I am off to the market until then but to everyone reading at home: Happy Fourth and stay safe!