Not Just Bikes tours Houten, a Dutch town designed around cycling, explaining how its layout makes most trips by bike safe and easy. It also promotes a book about the town.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as an example that car-free, leafy suburbs where kids can bike independently are possible.
“It's possible to build a low density suburb that kids can bike through safely”HN comment, 2025
Edited video showing kids biking independently in Houten
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For a counterexample, come visit Houten, NL (I live here and it's great) where you literally see kids around 10 years old biking independently, sometimes with a football (soccerball) or fishing rod in tow. And this is a pretty wealthy area by most standards. Here's a good livestream from my town - link (I share the livestream because that makes it harder to say it's cherrypicked) Or here's a more polished, edited video: this video We literally covered the world in asphalt ribbons of death and then we wonder why kids don't play outside. What's crazy is how many kids are killed by drivers even _after_ kids stopped playing outside. It's like if the number of swimmers fell by 90% and drownings went _up_.
Cites itCalRobertJun 2025
Example of a Dutch town where most trips are by bike
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It’s not public transport but I live in a single family home in a town of 60,000 people and 70% of trips are made by bikes. this video 900 or so people per square km. To give a random comparison (because I know it well) Sacramento has a density of 2000 per square km and far, far worse transportation.
Cites itmettamageSep 2025
“this is one of the best towns to cycle in the Netherlands”
Shows a Dutch town excellent for cycling
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> Growing up in suburban California I was basically in an outdoor prison until I could drive. Having grown up in the Netherlands and having a decision to make where we want our kids to grow up (US spouse), this feels painful to read. I suppose the SWE salaries aren't worth it. Also this is one of the best towns to cycle in the Netherlands: this video
Cites itCalRobertSep 2025
“you _CAN_ have a leafy suburb without the roar of internal combustion and 8 lane stroads everywhere”
Example of a leafy car-free suburb
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The sad thing is that you _CAN_ have a leafy suburb without the roar of internal combustion and 8 lane stroads everywhere. Planners in the US just refuse to build them. We live in a lovely leafy suburb completely car free. But it's this one - this video This morning the four of us biked to the grocery store (we loaded the groceries in the bakfiets). The kids bike to their daycare. We bike to the train when we feel like a day out. I can't fathom trying to raise kids somewhere we need to use a car to do anything.
Cites itmitthrowaway2Sep 2025
“It's possible to build a low density suburb that kids can bike through safely”
Example of low-density suburb where kids can bike safely
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My biggest fear about cars is that one might kill my kid. This leads to impossing all sorts of play and travel restrictions on her that I wouldn't have to if there were fewer cars and more bikes. (Bikes which kids can ride independently to their friends' houses from a single-digit age, by the way, which I would allow her to do if she weren't sharing the streets with cars.) Maybe the problem is that the leafy suburb you moved to is car-dependent? It doesn't have to be built that way, that's a design choice. It's possible to build a low density suburb that kids can bike through safely, for example: this video
Cites itCalRobertSep 2025
“Sadly it’s the last bastion of sanity in a carbrained world”
Commenter lives in this town and praises it
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This is why we moved to this video , where we kick our kids out to play routinely. Sadly it’s the last bastion of sanity in a carbrained world
