Category: infrastructuur
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Interdependence
Read in ‘Building Gotham’ (2003) of Keith Revell: We met at Penn Station, New York. From there we would take the train to Boston. He had the tickets. The station, dating from the sixties, looked like Dante’s Inferno, but then as if you’re in a science-fiction movie, from the Jetsons, a world deep under the…
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Remote worker
Read in Het Parool of 20 May 2015: I was asked to give a lecture on open planning for a team of politicians from Bavaria, Germany. They were visiting Amsterdam, hoping to learn more about local policies on biking. After my speech on globalization, information technology and planning (!), the team would make a…
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A new city
Read in Het Parool of 22 july 2015: Globalization. What does it mean? It means a growth of 15 per cent of internet traffic on the Ams-IX internet node last year. Ams-IX, based in Amsterdam, is the biggest internet node in the world. It’s not a node exactly, because it consists of a network of…
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Delicious liquorice
Read on CityMetric on 1 July 2015: There is a fierce debate going on in Great Britain about the future of its London airports. BAA wants to expand the capacity of Heathrow, west of London. The mayor of London, Mr. Johnson, is favoring the building of a new hub on an artificial island in the…
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Being successful
Read in The Washington Post of 31 March 2015: One of the questions the students, following the course on Cities in Transition at the University of Amsterdam, were asked was: by comparing Moscow with Istanbul, what are the similarities and what the striking differences? Similar is the heavy traffic congestion, for sure. Moscovites complain…
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Next mobility
Read in ‘Nieuwe mobiliteit’ (New Mobility) (2015) of Arie Bleijenberg: Reveiling long term trends. Important news. They sent me a copy of ‘Nieuwe Mobiliteit na het autotijdperk’ (New Mobility After the Car Based Era), written by Arie Bleijenberg, TNO’s Business Director Infrastructure in Delft. They thought I would like it. Sure I do. It’s exactly…
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On the road
Heard in B.Amsterdam, Amsterdam Slotervaart, on 4 June 2015: The evaluation of the Highspeed train public tender by the Dutch politicians has ended last week. What a disaster. Big mistakes were made. Market failures. Technical failures. The Dutch state failed. Still missing those fast trains in The Netherlands. More lucky we are on the road.…
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Happy tunnel
Seen in Amsterdam Bijlmermeer on 5 June 2015: This August the builders will start their amazing construction works. The Gaasperdammerweg – a six lane freeway cutting throug the Bijlmermeer – will be enlarged and tunneled. Roy Berents, an urban planner of the city of Amsterdam, gave a lecture on the engineering of this project…
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Eind goed al goed
Gelezen in NRC Handelsblad van 27 november 2014: Terug uit Seoul, Korea, vis ik in de Amsterdamse Stopera een brochure uit de bak over ‘Zuidasdok. Ruimtelijke plannen in vogelvlucht’. De eerste vetgedrukte zin luidt: “Zuidasdok is een project om de bereikbaarheid van de Amsterdamse Zuidas en het noordelijk deel van de Randstad in de toekomst…