Delft Neighborhood Tours

One of our first introductions to the course was to pair up with two Northeastern students and proceed on a self-guided tour of different neighborhoods of Delft. Specifically we would be looking at three different neighborhoods that were developed in different decades, from the 1950's - 1990's.



Bike Tunnel beneath A13 arterial road

I was paired up with Karan and Josh, and we first ventured to the neighborhood of Delfgauw. Delfgauw developed in the late 1990's, and centered around a shopping center called De Emerald. Technically, Delfgauw is not a part of Delft (it is part of the municipality of Pijnacker-Nootdorp) but do to the proximity to Delft it functions as a neighborhood of the city. Biking from the university requires traveling underneath the A13 arterial road through a great bike tunnel that is well lit and has only a slight grade. On the other side you are near the southern border of the neighborhood of Delfgauw. Initial observations revealed there were pre-dominantly semi-detached houses and the farther out you traveled the larger (and more detached) the houses became. Parking was mostly provided, as well as playgrounds. We reached what appeared to be the eastern border at Zuideinseweg where on the other side were farms with cattle. Zuidenseweg was a small, rural two-way road, perhaps 14 feet wide, with advisory bike lanes on both side. One interesting treatment we observed was located at a bridge where traffic is forced to one-lane, thus forcing vehicles to slow down if someone else is coming in the other direction. From here we biked to De Emerald. De Emerald is a large shopping center, surrounded by a moat, and accessible by car, bike, and bus. Plenty of car parking was provided, and there were a number of specialty shops as well. One thing that was noticeable was the density of housing surrounding the shopping center. Immediately outside De Emerald, the housing was much more dense, and the farther you went way from the shopping center the more detached the houses became. Clearly, this was part of the plan in order to make walking and biking to the shopping center easier and more convenient. It was also clear that traffic was guided to certain through roads, while the neighborhood roads were designed for local traffic traveling at slower speeds. This was done with speed tables, sharp turns, and dead ends.


De Emerald shopping center

Traffic Calming onZuidenseweg

 










We made our way to the second neighborhood, Oost-Tanthof. Oost-Tanthof or East Tanthof was developed in the 1980's. It was immediately striking how quiet the roads, uniquely designed to specificly discourage through traffic, and how easy it is to get lost with curving streets or streets that just end. There were walking paths throughout the neighborhood that even discourage bike traffic by placing metal bars across the path at certain locations. The neighborhood was fairly dense with row houses, and a number of homes had backyards. The shopping area was quite difficult to find, and was mixed-use development with apartments on top of the supermarket, Jumbo. Very little car parking was provided. Instead a number of bike parking facilities were prevalant. A bus only traffic lane ran through the neighborhood and connected to neighborhoods farther north.

 

The last neighborhood we visited was just north of Oost-Tanthof called, Binnenhof. Binnenhof was developed in the 1950's and 1960's and consists of tower in the park, high rise developments. The main attraction for us visiting the neighborhood was the roundabout which was recently added in 2011 at Delflandplein junction. This new design provides safer crossing for pedestrians and cyclists by giving priority to them while vehicles yield. The most interesting part of this roundabout was the transit priority signal. Tram lines as well as bus lines run through the roundabout. Anytime the a bus or tram approaches the roundabout signals indicate to motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists to stop. The tram or bus then proceeds through the intersection. It is really neat to watch all these modes of transportation work in harmony.

New Roundabout with transit priority signal