Not Just Bikes and Micromobility news

We had the utter privilege of having Jason Slaughter from Not Just bikes. The author of a highly popular YouTube channel by the same name.

The YouTube channel covers urban design and daily living in the Netherlands especially around the value of bicycling around the urban environment.

Jason’s videos are popular because they hit a nerve. The nerve being that with exception we have got urban design so badly wrong over the past century. By making the car the centre of cities it actually rips the heart out of them. Cars, Jason clearly states simply do not fit very well into the urban city. It is quite literally a geometry challenge. So we should stop trying.

There has always been an alternative to car centric design and now more than ever this micromobility alternative is so compelling.

We have included the Podcast below along with the transcript for reference. (This will be improved over time as the transcript is not perfect.)

We hope you enjoy.

Micromobility news:

Thank you, Jason. And what an absolute privilege to have you on the micromobility news podcast.

I've been a big fan of your YouTube channel and some of my followers here and readers will know it. But for those who do not. Not Just bikes is one of the largest YouTube channels dedicated around the design for non car use, and especially shows that the bike use in an urban environment and not just bikes, benefit everybody, including car users.

It doesn't demonise cars for me and I think for a lot of my readers as well. Spiritually, we're not anti car. This is a misnomer. We want we want cars that are important part of an improved urban environment.

The broader use of bicycles illustrates, especially the new tech that is coming on the electrification of bikes, is the transformative effect the tech will have. Jason, you've done some work in in Paris, especially so I. So take it away.

Not Just Bikes:

Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, I'm based in the Netherlands, we chose to move to the Netherlands for various reasons, but some of them related to the way that they design their cities and the way that people get around here, because I just think this is a better way to live.

Not Just Bikes:

And that's really where the channel came from. But since then, it's really taken off and I've covered all sorts of different places all over the Netherlands and outside as well.

As you mentioned Paris, I did a video about Paris recently. I went there to see the changes that they're that they're making. Back in October, and it's it's incredible because I hadn't been to Paris since 2008, and I just remember it being just cars everywhere. I remember vividly that my wife and I rented a bike and one of those Velib bike share bikes when they were new back in 2008, and it was scary.

Not Just Bikes:

We biked for a little bit and then we put them away and we're like, OK, we're done with that. We're not going to cycle around bears anymore. Going back in October was just incredible. They've taken so much of the road space and given it over to cycling and public transit.

Not Just Bikes:

You can already see that just the whole feeling of the city is changing for the better. And it's phenomenal and it's really encouraging because if it can happen in Paris, then it can happen in other cities as well, certainly.

I used to live in London, Real London, in the United Kingdom. I lived there for five years and it was really scary to cycle there too. I didn't do it actually at all because I was like, There's no way you're getting me out on a bike here, but it's also improving. And you know, there's still a long way to go, but it's really encouraging to see.

Micromobility news:

Jason, we've we talk a lot about how driving cars will change cities, but actually something far more humble is going about that. the bike and the e-bikes. They have such a transformative effect when the deployed correctly. What sort of best practises would you, let's say from a from a policy point of view, have you shown seeing transformative effect? in your examples when you looked at Amsterdam, Holland, Berlin, have you seen in London in particular, have you seen anything that had jumped to mind?

Not Just Bikes:

Well, I mean, I think it's interesting and informative to look at the way the things happened in the Netherlands because here in Amsterdam, it certainly wasn't always a cycling city and if you look at the history of the city.

Even just as recently as the 1970s, you know, actually there's a there's a British guy, David Hambro his name and I remember he was pulling some statistics. This is many years ago showing that there were actually a higher percentage of cyclists in the UK in the 1970s than there were in the Netherlands.

It just is simply not true that the Dutch have always cycled and it's always been this way. And I think it's kind of interesting to see the way things change.

Not Just Bikes:

There were certainly a lot of protests in the 70s about kids being killed in the street and the oil crisis hit at the same time, and they got a little bit lucky where, you know, they started moving towards a safer approach to road use.

What I think is interesting and I think what's maybe helpful for other cities is that the Amsterdam didn't really set out to become a cycling city back in the 70s and in the 80s.

Cycling was still quite difficult to get bike lanes installed in Amsterdam in the 80s and a bicycle Dutch has some videos about that as well. What they were doing, though, is they were focussing on making the streets safe.

So that's where the emphasis came in the 70s and 80s. The streets were dangerous, people were getting killed and they wanted to make the streets safe. And to do that, they slowed down cars. They created traffic circulation plans so that cars couldn't go fast.

Not Just Bikes:

Drivers couldn't just drive anywhere they wanted. They had to take certain routes. And these were the things that tamed the streets, if you will. Once the streets became safer, then people started cycling because it was safe again.

I think that's really critical for any city in the world. We really need to focus on two things generally making the streets safer and slowing down cars within cities and to really making it such that you can't just drive everywhere anywhere you want all the time.

Like, we need limitations. I think the most encouraging thing I see out of the UK and I know these are controversial, but low traffic neighbourhoods, it is exactly what you need because as you start to take traffic out of these neighbourhoods, then you get the opportunity for things to get slower.

Then you get the opportunity for people to feel safer, to go out walking, to go out, cycling, to let their kids go cycling as well. And I think that's really the most encouraging thing I say.

Micromobility news:

The encouraging thing about low traffic neighbourhoods is that it's not binary. It's not We ban all vehicles.

It's not that all shades of grey. It's like, No, it's just low. That's all. And so that provides elements of discretion.

If you need to drive a car into for your disabled or it's the time of the day where you have to because you're delivering, you know, something heavy or something needs to go, then you can.

The key is in the word low. And I think a lot of people I speak to around so worried about cars being banned or whatever, it's like, no, look at low traffic neighbourhoods. They actually are not banning that. Don't panic. The cars are not the enemy. It's just reducing discretionary and using forward discriminate to discriminate against heavy car use. That's

Not Just Bikes:

Yeah. I mean, the thing is that this is always the knee jerk reaction of people in cities all over the world, and it was the same thing here in the Netherlands, in the 70s and 80s, too. But the whole thing about saying that these people are car haters or that, you know, they just they hate cars, they just want to ban all cars.

It's a load of nonsense. It's a useless discussion and I refuse to even engage in it because nobody is talking about that. 1990, even when you have like Dutch, the Dutch have a concept of auto loo, the word they use for car free.

It doesn't mean car free. It means that almost no cars but cars can still be used. Motor vehicles can be used when appropriate. Yeah, and I think that's the thing. That's just it's just such a stupid conversation. Again, this is why I don't even I won't even engage with people in this in that start that way because they're not talking at any reasonable level about any reasonable policy.

Because motor vehicles are useful. They are, of course, they're useful. But at the same time, you can have too much of a good thing, too. And as you get, you know, as you get the first motor vehicles in a place, it's they're very valuable. But as you get the thousand and fifty thousand in a place, they become a real pain. I really don't think it's about being any car, it's about being pro city.

And the fact is, yeah, lots and lots of cars are not compatible with a nice city. They're just not. And that's really what it comes down to. It's not about being anti cars or being pro city

Micromobility news:

Living in Amsterdam and Paris. They have one thing in common, which is high density living and parts of London, to where three or four stories were built by their ancestors.

Micromobility news:

They didn't have cars, and they have now had they've withstand the test of the wonderful rendering test of time, which has shown they made beautiful cities.

It is the only reason the last 70 years that cars have become ubiquitous. And so it's only our generation has seen of, you know, and maybe our parents' generation have seen often have seen it.

let's run back the clock, go back to the old way of the high density living and of buildings three to four stories high.

Often no more because you don't have a need to lift this low cost to maintain and just let the audience build and just look at the European cities

Micromobility news:

I do strongly believe that the bicycles and especially ebikes that are coming in the micromobility provide and the enable that vision to be realised. I really believe that. And we just hope the policymakers who listen to this and when I speak to politicians. This is exactly what I'm trying to say to them is that the high density living without the have transport options. Not just the bike, but the micromobility solutions that are coming.

Not Just Bikes:

I meant I was going to say that, I mean, that's really exactly it. I mean, it really comes down to the fact that the cities are not compatible with lots and lots of car use. They're just not. That's a geometry problem. Cars don't fit. Yeah. So they simply don't. And so if you take the cities in the UK, the older cities that are a bit more compact, cars don't fit there. And the thing is, if you try to make cars fit, if you try to knock down buildings to build parking garages, if you try to start knocking down buildings to build wide roads, as they did in America, as they did in Canada, you end up with no city left.

Not Just Bikes:

It is sad for me, growing up in my hometown of London. London, Ontario, Canada. I think London, as I like to call it.

It is as I always remember downtown being this really crappy place when I was growing up, like nobody would go downtown.

I remember they bulldozed a whole couple of blocks to build a mall down there in order to attract people there. And I remember going to that mall as a kid and then not anymore going.

I just remember downtown was crap. And what was really sad is that when I was an adult, I found some old photos of what the downtown of my hometown looked like of London, Ontario. And it was it was beautiful. I mean, London was named that because it was supposed to be the capital of Canada. But Upper Canada, as it was called at the time, at the fork of the Thames River, and they had some interesting ideas. But it was a beautiful city. It really, really was.

It was a beautiful city with beautiful buildings downtown and it was it was wonderful and they destroyed it trying to fit cars. Because that's really what happens when you try to fit cars in a city. You'll end up destroying the city because it's just simply not compatible. And so now when you go to downtown London, Ontario, it's a most of the land is surface parking lots.

There's some big parking garages, there's a bunch of buildings that have no street frontage at all. It is a sidewalk with a with a giant brick wall. I mean, it's not a nice place to be. And you have to look at this, this history of this and say, What are we doing?

Not Just Bikes: I get that motor vehicles are useful tools. Of course they are. But like, let's not be ridiculous about this. Let's not literally destroy our cities and destroy the liveability of our cities and destroy the safety of our cities and people's health. Because this tool is useful.

I think that's really what I'm hoping for into the 21st century is that people realise that we went too far with this. We got very excited about these really useful tools and we just went too far. And it's time to dial that back and to realise that actually mixed use walkable neighbourhoods are a better way to design a city.

There are better ways of getting around, and we can use motor vehicles where they're appropriate and not as like a sledgehammer for every single problem.

Micromobility news :

Absolutely. And just so you just said something that was really useful, he said. Walkable cities. Walkable high density cities. Not Just Bikes: And mixed use

Micromobility news:

Walkable cities makes you believe that goes to the very heart of the town and city debate. And we have, as you say, lost sight of that. And one. And you know what is happening now with, you know, the energy shock. I think this is going to really drive some positivity now and with looking at really, do people need to use these things? Finally, we have, you know, we have we have we have something more than government. We have more than fiscal policy, government fiscal policy to tax and spend around.

Micromobility news: They (Gov) realise the car is addictive. It is addiction. If you think about it to cars addiction, you don't need to use it, use it and it's bad for you health. The definition of addiction and you know, the higher oil prices, so-called high, they could be a lot higher. Not that Government can do much about it.

Finally, we have something that can actually look at it and actually really study is just a really good way of looking ourselves. Looking ourselves into a paradigm of a car used.

Which is almost, as you've illustrated, almost impossible without decades of suitable planning to leave. And what Holland and your videos on YouTube illustrated. It takes an alignment of stars to actually improve the city through, you know, the bike lanes. And how do you say that increase the highlands living walkable cities? The alignment starts. You've got to have a mayor and a political. You can have the political clout of a new. And that's very important.

Not Just Bikes:

It's certainly been necessary in Paris with any deal go really driving these changes. And certainly the thing that there were a lot of protests in the 70s about road deaths all over the world.

Amsterdam did get a little bit lucky, but it never would have happened without the oil crisis to so that that was a triggering factor in there. I think without that, Amsterdam would be overrun by cars and there'd be a highway running right through the neighbourhood I'm sitting in right now.

Micromobility news:

So now we've got high energy crisis happening right now. We're such an important time for our work. It's really exciting. It's energising that finally, we have the impetus. We can actually really focus minds. have you seen anything around the world, not just in Europe? The way you would say that is, if you've seen in Asia and the car use of bike use in particular, have you seen anything that you've read is really blowing your mind in terms of bike use?

Not Just Bikes:

I don't know, I become a little bit jaded since being in the Netherlands, nothing is quite good enough for me. Yeah, quite well. I don't know. The thing is like, I used to go to Asia a lot and it's been quite a long time since I've been there. So I would really like to get back to Taipei in particular because I used to live there. I see that that bicycle lanes are being installed in Taipei, which I never thought would happen.

They have a long way to go, though, but honestly, I think that's the most sad to me is I used to go to China and Beijing. I remember the first time I went to Beijing, there were bicycles everywhere. It was incredible.

So many bicycles. It made the Netherlands look like nothing. And you know, I went back there a few years later and there were fewer and I went back a few years later and there were even fewer. And then I remember going back in 2008, and it was just it was just traffic.

Not just Bikes:

Literally a bus couldn't get through traffic. So we literally just got off the bus and walked the last two kilometres because it was faster.

Micromobility news:

But I've heard that they just banned bikes because it wasn't part of the Great Leap forward. They literally said, you cannot bike and enter into centre of Beijing.

Micromobility news:

It was seen as a backwards thing to do. But, you know, the same thing was happening in the Netherlands. I've read a lot of things from the 50s and 60s. A lot of articles from then and the political discussion in the 60s was literally like, we have to get rid of these bikes. Like there were there were people seriously saying this and without a lot of pushback, saying like, we got to get rid of this, like, what are we doing? It's the 20th century and we still got all these people riding around on bicycles. What are we doing? And so what was happening here, too?

Micromobility news:

So in the UK, I went in here in London, I went to a local council, Westminster Council debate on, as you know, scooters in the UK is still quasi illegal. It is an offense, I mean on roads, but we know that they've given it a licence to do that as changing, as you know, anyway, the local governments have been given a licence to deploy trials of e-scooters. Now some can vote to be in the trial or not have a trial. And I went to Westminster Council and at the end I asked the councillors when they went off for their vote.

Micromobility news:

They allowed the scooters trials to happen, lime and others deploying in the area. I asked some of the people about some of the local councillors why they voted against the escooter trail, and they said it was dangerous.

They said that those who own scooters are mostly drug dealers. They said e-scooters are a menace. They are they are litter on the road. They are something to be banned.

I asked each councillor how do they get to the meeting. They all had driven, of course. And I was like, well, therein lies your problem.

Micromobility news:

These policy makers have a debate and they actually think that ebikes, escooters and ebikes are literally dangerous and also ridden by drug dealers. That's what they actually think it's utterly backward. It's like the car companies have captured the policymakers and will never let them go. It's like they're in the trance. There is progress happening and I want to be part of the solution and your work. Jason's just been excellent with some of the videos. We've got a million views, I think, on your own.

Not just bikes

Yeah, and many of the videos have over a million views. I think I think some have three or four million views, which I don't really keep track of the numbers too much because you get sucked into it too easily. The last part, I just let it roll it up and see how it goes. I usually find out that something hit a milestone of four or five million views because somebody else contacts me and says, Congratulations.

Micromobility news:

One of the things going forward that I'm interested in is I wouldn't ask on swappable batteries. And as you say in Taipei and one of the things in Asia that I've seen coming to the UK and in Europe, all the swappable batteries like to go is the battery swapping tech for four mopeds and others.

Now I'm making an assumption that once you have swappable batteries, this is going to transform e-bikes and micromobility solutions and including rural as well.

Micromobility news:

Because once you enable this, you reduce the range fear and it becomes utterly compelling. You don't need to use a car. Then you have power battery swapping banks, (Which is really going to help rural mobility) and I really believe that you will find power bank. I mean, they're happening in Taipei now, and I think that I'm just making a prediction here. I think it's going to be pretty good. It's going to be the thing that's going to turbocharge bike use in cities.

Not Just Bikes`

Well, we will see I haven't seen that yet in Amsterdam, but they're trying an awful lot of things here, and that's what actually is really interesting about Amsterdam is that they are very, very clearly trying to be a leader in 21st century mobility. So you see microcars around all over the place, you see electric cargo bikes, you see mobility scooters, covered mobility scooters and everything in between. It's actually really interesting.

_Micromobility news

Jason, I'm really looking forward to coming to the Amsterdam in June. The mobility world and maybe there is also the Mobility E-mobility Conference in October, and they also have a cargo bike festival

I'm a big fan of the cargo bikes. And you know, after you and Jason, thank you so much and it's been an absolute privilege to talk to you. I really I really feel you are doing wonderful work. You also show that people are watching your videos for more than just a `ASMR Value.

Your channel illustrates how nuances the challenges are. Isn't it so much that urban design is subtlety, safety and nudging good behaviour for road users/ And so what you're doing is, I suggest, thank you so much and I really will no doubt hopefully see you in June.