TILBURG: Exploring this southern Dutch city in the North Brabant province

Traffic outside city centers tends to go faster so it’s deemed more efficient and thus safer to prioritise motor vehicles…

You talk a lot of nonsense You have no idea what you are talking about

I've always had the impression that cycling infrastructure in the south of the country is worse than in the rest of the country. They seem to be stuck in a more car-brained past.

Well, that was a trip down Memory Lane. I was born in Tilburg. Been living in Cyprus and Germany for over 20 years now, but I remember Tilburg like yesterday.
Tilburg was deemed the most middle-of-the-road city in NL, and as such frequently the testing ground for new things, like separate traffic lights for bicycles, and separate red-asphalt bike paths. Or pre-internet online banking (never saw a chequebook since 1986).
A pleasant provincial city, nr 5 or nr 6 depending on when you look, and pretty safe and comfortable for cycling, also to neighbouring towns. Never used a car when I lived there!
Although I like driving a car, I distinctly DO NOT like being pushed into one, when it clearly isn't necessary, or even decreasing the quality of living. City centers shoud continue to accommodate for cars (I drove my seriously ill mother to city centers for YEARS) but should be de-prioritized. Tilburg and Breda do a decent job I must say!
Comparing to many other countries I've seen, and comparing to what I remember when I left The Netherlands....

Multi-lane Car sewer? Don't forget that modern cities, and population concentrations are only possible because of the modern car. If you really don't like cars so badly, you should advocate for smaller, even more provincial towns. Which is where I live in now. They have less facilties, but are slower tempo, and nicerderst... :-) If you take cars away from modern concentrated cities, you end up with prisons. 15 minute prisons. And smart money is already leaving the prisons for the low-classes. I don't think in those terms, but governments do.... watch out with what you'd wish for, ActiveTows! Other than that... Good job, ActiveTowns! 🙂

That first roundabout is within city limits and in general slower traffic has priority over cars at roundabouts inside city limits.
Pedestrians on a zebra crossing have priority over cyclists.

John had a bit of a grumble day that day.

That up and down on the sidewalks at the villa's are there because of lack of space. As of the sidewalk is private property and these are not easily given up. and earlier the 70 km speed 2 lane is a ramp to the highway and outside city boundary. Shark teeth are just for help. Please always read the signs! There are yield signs.

As I pointed out in the comments to an earlier video You nicely picked up the differece between the old medieval cities (in Noord-Brabant these are Bergen op Zoom, Breda and ‘s-Hertogenbosch) and the newer industrial cities like Roosendaal, Tilburg, Oss, Eindhoven and Helmond. The choices in the past and now regarding infrastructure are sometimes telling!

Tilburg and Eindhoven don't have a historic city center like Breda and Den Bosch. They were a combination of small villages that grow together during the time of industrialisation. Between the villages unfortunately there was space for a more car centric city development after WW2 😟

Well, Tilburg isn't known to be particularly interesting, beautiful or well-designed. So, now you know that too😂

I am also a traffic expert and was born and still live in Tilburg. As a professional I do not agree with the many comments you made. If you think district collector roads and arterial roads to other residential areas with 70 km/h are wrong, you are not only frustrating the centre but the total accessibility of an entire urban area. And if all adjacent cycle lanes have to be moved for you to behind a row of trees or parked cars, even a residential area becomes unliveable and you ignore the fact that integral separation of all traffic types is not the solution. In an inner city, mixing traffic types is often the way to make travel safer and to reduce speeds.

To give some context as to why tilburg is sutch a car centric hell hole. Tilburg used to be a textile manufacturing city which colapsed in the 1960s. The then Major Cees Becht, better known as Cees de Sloper (Cees the Wrecker). Decided to knock down half of the city center. And seeing that it was the 60s it became very car-centric. A mess they are still cleaning up to this day 60 years later. Now it has been improving slowly.

But not with some begrudgement from the Boomer generation who don't like that their removing space for cars.


Also agree that for the Renovation of the: Stadhuisplein (City hall square. With the white palice). A for effort C for execution. The bikepath is bumpy and hard to distinquish from the pedestrian pavement, which leads to them suddenly walking into your path without looking.

I have a strong suspicion that the city didnt raise the sidewalk at these ramps because they lead up to obviously very expensive detached houses. From my experience, these homeowners are often the people that suffer a bit from the nimby syndrome. So, they will probably hire legal council if the city would plan something like that, because their own driveway on their private land would no longer align with the public sidewalk. So, they will probaly cliam damages because now they, of course *ahem*, hire builders themselfs to raise their driveway...

So, its all going to be a long and expensive process to get it all done to a point where the city decides the money is just spend way better elsewhere. Its a tactic often used, because these wealthy individuals cant prevent the city doing what they want with the sidewalks obviously, but they can make it as cumbersome as possible.

This is actually a big problem, to a point that some rich homeowners are just blocking city plans, like a new highrise for example, just for the sake of it in the hope of getting something out of it. This causes many projects to be much more expensive than needed. And yeah, on the one hand its good that the state cant just mess up peoples private land without them, as a citizen, having a say in the matter.

But on the other hand abusing the law just for your own financial gain is a tricky one. Because how are you going to prove that? A minor inconvenience might actually be big deal to someone, who knows? And actually following that through all the way to a judge is a long and expensive process. I mean, if you have to put a whole construction project on hold for months, its often a lot cheaper to just pay these people whatever they are asking for or just not bother, like what probably happened here.

From about 3.15 onwards there is an alternative route, all the way to the city centre with separated bike paths through a quiet residential neighbourhood that is used by most of the locals.

The bicycle path along Paleisring (with the white palace) is a failure in my eyes. If there just a few bikes on it then it's fine. When it gets busier it's way to narrow

I don't appreciate your use of profanity. It doesn't come across very professional, as you've claimed to be. Cyclists and pedestrian traffic is not given priority outside of the built up area due to the low number of said cyclists and pedestrians and higher speeds of traffic.

Pretty much my daily commute to work by bike. It is not too bad and takes as long with the car as with the bike. My word, didn’t know it was this ugly…I do take home a different route on that dual totally separated cycling path from west to east. Too bad you missed that one. I believe that dual cycling path was a ‘world’s first concept’ (I could be exaggerating)

Hello John, there is no point in blaming communities like Tilburg to be car dependent. They are, even if they don’t want to be. Public transport outside de Randstad is much less accessible and getting less so because buslines are taken out by every new concession. So there is no alternative. Also, you can’t compare a city like Tilburg with Delft. Tilburg is serving a large rural area, which is car dependent by default where as Delft is serving only it self, which makes it easier to prioritize the own population. You see this difference on all levels, fi the place of the sharkteeth on the roundabout. Very logical from a Tilburg perspective. I also have the feeling you didn’t take the main bike route to the centre, but followed the main arteries.
You also have to recognize the need to prioritize different kinds of traffic I think. In the suburbs there will be much less pedestrians using the sidewalk then cyclists using the bikepath. So it is very logical to keep the bikepath flat instead of letting the cyclists having a rollercoaster ride over every single private access.

Yes,it is not so that bikes are always the ones that have priority.I dont know either why that is,it should be on any roundabout,but it isnt.. Sorry about that from me as a Dutchman.

Tlburg was the first city in the netherlands that had a red bycicle path in the netherlands anmd also the fitst street were car traffic got limmited to favor biscles.

the modern bycicle infrastucture in the netherlands started in Tilburg.

the road you went into the city is called bredaseweg,
200 meters noth of that road there is a bisicles only bikepath that tunnels under the 4 lane road you were crossing.
also it takes you direct into the city center.

Lol in the Uk this would be gold star cycling and walking infrastructure. But I no this ist the best the Netherlands have to offer I have been to Amsterdam and Utrecht . this year I visited Valkenburg Hilly part of the Netherlands it was a pretty town but it had lots of car parking in the centre not good for cycling and walking . if they just had out of town car parkin particularly for tourist and coaches and removed most of the car parking in the centre it would make a big difference.