Originally Posted by
Stadjer
Not really. Utrecht is a 400K city in 650K agglomeration. It has been the capital twice. Universities have been in mostly in the big cities for ages, that doesn't make them university towns.
The scooters have been banned from the bikelanes, and now have to join the cars, with a helmet. It was introduced about two months ago but enforcement has only started this week. It doesn't go down very well. The main problem was a certain age group on (illegally) tuned scooters, the mopeds already had to ride with the cars with a helmet on. The idea to have the low power scooters on the bike lane wasn't that bad, it just got out of hand. Now the people on scooters that still have the intented speed have to ride between cars, also where the max speed isn't 30 km/h but 50 km/h. I guess they should have lowered the max speed at the same time. But we'll see.
Sorry, that was a generalisation. Probably not a good one either. In the end, I feel like Utrecht doesn't have the tourist pull of AMS. (To be honest, I actually hate AMS due to the tourists but end up going occasionally.) I have some collaborators at UU in biophysics, which is extremely strong. I like the city quite a bit but it doesn't have that capital feel, which is nice in some ways and not nice in others.
I was blown away to see scooters on the bike lanes after living in CPH where I never saw that. (Maybe that has changed since I left.)
Glad to hear that enforcement is starting.