Abandoned Cybercatworks

  Recently the high-speed rail company Eurostar announced that they were considering scrapping their services to the Netherlands in the coming years due to increasing reliability problems, capacity problems and delays for the passengers(1). If implemented this would practically remove all proper high-speed rail from the Netherlands and cut us off from connections to London and Paris. While I do not like Eurostar much with their extremely high prices and seats being difficult to book on a short notice do I however completely understand where they are coming from and do I find this a troubling development.   Let me be clear. High speed rail is a good thing. If implemented properly it can pull large urban areas closer together and put short to medium distance flights out of business, something that is very much needed if we are truly serious about becoming a more sustainable society and for tackling climate change. However there is the crux. If implemented properly. It has become...

  Note: This article started live as a video script. Most of the content has been regained but alterations have been made to adept to the blog format.  This… is Lage Zwaluwe train station. It is a train station located between the three Dutch cities of Dordrecht, Roosendaal and Breda and has regional train connections to all three of those places. It is also one of the most poorly designed and serviced train stations in this part of the Netherlands.   Now I can already hear you ask: “But Pim how is that possible? Those charismatic North American urbanist Youtubers told me that the Netherlands is urbanist heaven! Surely you must be exaggerating!”. Now hold your horses there because we are getting ahead of ourselves. I will talk about the portrayal of the Netherlands on urbanist Youtube later. For now let’s take a look at Lage Zwaluwe station and see what connections it has and how it’s location makes it impractical and difficult to use.    Oh my look at how ...

 Disclaimer: Ik ben een wit persoon die in een West-Europees land leeft. Wat ik hier schrijf en mijn mening over hoe dit onderwerp ontwikkeld is niet relevant in vergelijking met de mening van hen die het meest geraakt zijn en worden door het Nederlandse kolonialisme. Het is niet mijn bedoeling om de stemmen weg te nemen van hun die het hardst gehoord moeten worden. Ik raad ten zeerste aan om de kennis van de slachtoffers van het Nederlandse slavernijverleden boven die van mij te nemen! Disclaimer: I am a white person living in a Western European Country. What I am writing here and my opinion on how this subject develops is irrelevant in comparison to those that were and are hit the hardest by Dutch colonialism. It is not my intention to take away the voices that should be heard the most. I strongly suggest that you take the knowledge of the victims of the Dutch colonial past above my own! English can be found below. NEDERLANDS Op 19 December 2022 heeft premier Mark Rutte excuses g...

Note: This article is gonna focus mostly on Dutch public transport since that is what I am mostly familiar with. The things that I am about to mention in this article may not work or apply in every situation. Readers discretion is advised. Not too long ago I was distraught by the news that Arriva was apparently gonna scrap some bus lines in the city where I live after 21:00(1). I was distraught by this news since these were cuts in not only city bus lines but also regional lines to more provincial towns and villages. I have been(at the time of writing) looking for a different home for some time now and due to my lack of a car or a driver's license I would be dependent on a bus line to get anywhere, should I find a home in one of these places. This feeling of distraught only intensified when I discussed this with some friends of mine and they informed me that even more bus lines were probably gonna be scrapped in the Breda region(another region I am looking at for a new home)(2).  N...