Bikes, trams and trains: Can other countries adopt the Dutch commute?

This article is part of The New Commute, a special report on urban mobility in Europe from POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities. Sign up here.
A worker cycles to the train station every morning, parks their bike in an underground garage, hops on a train and then a tram, and reaches their office within about an hour of leaving their house.
This daily, multimodal, cross-country journey is a reality for many Dutch workers. Made possible by strict regulations that contain development in tightly packed urban areas, it’s a model that’s becoming increasingly popular among planners and policymakers.
For commuters, it allows them to live in one part of the country and work in another — without spending hours stuck in traffic. “The Netherlands is a sort of big commuting area — especially for wealthier knowledge workers who can afford it,” said Tibor Rongen, a researcher at the University of Groningen.
The Dutch model of packed urban centers sprinkled across a largely otherwise empty countryside allowed planners to create a system of so-called mobility hubs, merging transport options like busses, trains, subways and shared vehicles, bikes and scooters.
“In the Netherlands, from the 1960s onwards, there was a clear policy that urged the municipalities to only develop within their municipal boundaries, or very close to their municipal boundaries,” said Rongen. “As a result, cities were densified … and that also justified the investment in public transport hubs and allowed them to thrive.”
In contrast to countries that have allowed cities to sprawl out into the countryside, “people will use their cars more,” he said.
The Dutch model is not without its challenges. In the city of Utrecht, for example, more than half of the jobs are held by workers who live outside it, according to the Dutch Statistical Office.
As one of the Netherlands’ most important economic and technological centers, Utrecht’s population has grown steadily in recent years. The number of residents increased by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2021 to nearly 360,000, and it is forecast to exceed 500,000 by 2050.
To deal with the strain, the city put in place a 10-year mobility plan, building more bike lines, pedestrianizing parts of the city and creating a network of “public transport hubs” that “connect functions such as living, working and amenities,” said Lot van Hooijdonk, Utrecht’s deputy major for mobility. 
The central station, for example, integrates bus, tram, rail and an underground three-floor bicycle parking lot whose 12,500 spaces make it the largest such facility in the world.
Cars were very much not part of the equation. Commuters driving into Utrecht are encouraged to leave them at “Park+Ride” locations on the periphery and buy an affordable combined ticket covering daily parking costs and urban public transport travel. By reducing congestion, “we keep the city accessible and livable,” explained van Hooijdonk.
Utrecht’s policymakers have also urged workers — and their employers — to minimize commuting at all whenever possible. Working through a public agency called Goedopweg (or GoodWay), the city “advise[s] companies on how to get their employees to travel more sustainably,” said van Hooijdonk, or simply work from home.
The question for public planners outside the Netherlands is whether the Dutch model can be imported into regions with different urban geographies. 
Rongen, of the University of Groningen, said it was critical to work at a regional, or even national level, to ensure that problems in one part of the country don’t impede progress in another. 
“If you implement mobility hubs and you don’t have, say, a good parking policy or low-emission zone in your city, there might be adverse effects that you hadn’t foreseen,” he said. “It’s the packaging of policies that makes them successful.”
He pointed out that the long-distance commuting offered by mobility hubs was not an opportunity everyone could afford. “One of the disadvantages of these urban-densification processes is that they often go hand in hand with gentrification,” he said. While wealthier workers might be able to afford new luxury apartments built around multifunctional transport hubs, “other people end up being priced out of the urban housing market.”
He also said that encouraging people to leave their cars on the outskirts of the cities might not be welcome by the communities that are being used as parking lots. 
“If the idea is that people should commit to parking on the edge of the city … that would mean having large car parks somewhere near the highway,” he said. “What would be the price of that? And doesn’t that still lead to a high rate of car use? “
Van Hooijdonk, the deputy mayor of Utrecht, concurred. “Travelers do not abide by municipal boundaries,” she said. “The regional scale is a logical one.”