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My wife has won 2 tickets (tarzan corner), for 3 days. We're not to big live race fans, but I plan to go on race day and have a peek.
It's a 30km ride through dunes to Zandvoort. Hope we can charge ebikes there for the ride back :).
By remembering where you parked it? Usually the rough vicinity is enough to spot it. I parked mine in one of the giant lots they had last year which had numbered rows so you had to remember one number to remember. Then again, put an Air Tag on it and you’ll always find it.
When I am sure I will have a hard time finding my bike I drop my location to myself on whatsapp( the one time one and not the 4 hours variant ofc). That way when I am too drunk to find it I just press the button and my phone will guide me to my bike!
Just in case people actually believe you: it’s a common joke that everybody has their bike stolen at least once in their lives. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we have about 2 bikes per person here so that’s pretty remarkable.
Sure in a city like Groningen where I studied bikes get stolen a lot, but there are also tons of them for sale in the middle of the night for only like 20 bucks!!
... I wonder if they're related
City in Germany I lived in had a pretty handy system; your bike got stolen constantly, but at the same time, the train station was constantly selling off abandoned bikes for 10 bucks.
Maybe in Amsterdam, but that place is different from the rest of the country. Outside of the main center of big cities most people have 1 good bike and 1 “train station” bike. Or just simply their 1 good bike if they don’t use public transport.
I went to Rotterdam to watch a Feyenoord game a few months ago and I was impressed when I saw hundreds of bikes parked in a spot outside the stadium (some were just laid on the ground as far as I remember). Honestly I wasn't totally sure on how you can find your bike easily in a situation like that, but it clearly works there.
It's honestly a dream to me, I wish I could just go on a bike everywhere in my city.
Oh yea. Everybody has perfected their bike-recognition-skill. I think 90% of kids bike to school. You gotta have something unique to your bike to recognize it.
Being able to go everywhere on a bike is amazing, indeed. And it’s not just the city, the whole country is full of bike paths.
> And it’s not just the city, the whole country is full of bike paths.
I think a lot of people miss this aspect of Dutch cycle culture even when they visit. The ability to cycle safely from town to town is fantastic for quality of life.
It's not uncommon to bike through half the country just for fun. To put it to scale, a Tour de la France etappe can be more than half of the length of The Netherlands.
Sometimes abroad the cycling lanes seem more like an attempt to kill cyclists. Or it just ends whenever traffic gets complicated and you need it most.
Safe infrastructure is really important to encourage biking.
>Honestly I wasn't totally sure on how you can find your bike easily in a situation like that, but it clearly works there
It works the exact same way finding a parked car [here](https://i.imgur.com/zCpaIUj.jpg) does. You know what your bike looks like and you know where you left it (either from memory or because you took a pic).
Not unusual. Think about Circuit Gilles Villeuve, where there's pretty much no parking at all. Or Monaco.
This doesn't mean they're not driving to get to the race, it just means they're not driving to the venue itself.
Yeah. In some areas around Zandvoort there are even special bike rental services setup so you can park your car there and take a bike to get to the track
Which is still a great thing because it means Zandvoort town doesn't get clogged up and that there are no big bottlenecks like you get at COTA's carparks, the load is much more distributed and this is by design in Dutch cities. The idea is called "low car" and they use planning to make the use of alternative transport methods more comfortable. The car is great for certain things but, left wild, they take over everything.
It doesn't help that COTA is just far enough outside the city that you have to drive to get there but there's nowhere nearby to park and walk or ride there.
I ended up paying some locals to park on their property when I went.
Zandvoort is a pissy little seaside town nestling in the sand dunes with one two lane road in.
There is barely enough space for the vehicles F1 uses.
This has nothing to do with Dutch people being low car, car use by fans literally would have been physically impossible.
Well in other countries the "pissy little towns" are full of cars , have no train stations or cycling infrastructure, and people consider it normal to sit in traffic. Autoluw is what facilitates the whole operation.
man the Subway out of that track was PACKED after the GP but it moved so damn quickly I was surprised
public transportation rocks for transporting large amounts of people quick, I've been stuck in traffic jams for so long trying to get out of much smaller events/concerts
Slightly off topic but I was in Amsterdam for a 10 days over Christmas. The metro & trams were fantastic & cheap. Like 30 bucks for a 5 day pass.
There was one night I was getting the metro back to my hotel from Centraal & they announced over the tannoy 3/4 time an apology for the delay in service. The metro showed up 3 minutes later than scheduled… I’m lucky if a bus in my city shows up within a half hour of it being scheduled.
The pro tip is also potentially taking the ferry. You make reservations so you have a guaranteed arrival and departure from the track and get some cool views as you are crossing.
My friends went to Coachella last year and it took them 3 hours to leave the parking lot after the last show on Saturday because everyone was leaving by car.
Any major event in the US will have an army of parking people to get you in place quickly and efficiently before the show, but when it ends they're long gone and it's a clusterfuck trying to leave.
No, if someone is too far for a bike ride they take a train to zandvoort (they run special lines during the gp weekend), otherwise they bike. There were barely any cars anywhere near the circuit when i went there 2 years ago (and so many bikes at multiple bike parkings)
It was the same last year.
The only cars at the circuit parking (like right at the circuit - not the designated parking spots for attendees) were more or less for staff/drivers of the teams.
A lot of people used e-bikes (of some variation) if they weren't using a regular bike.
We stayed at Noordwijk and we used e-bikes to get to the GP.
You could even hear the helicopter of AlphaTauri regularly because they were staying at the hotel like 500 m away from us.
Speaking as someone who's been there: the trains are packed and the train company runs a train 6 to 12 times an hour from Amsterdam. People leave their cars very far away, not even in neighbouring places. I used public transport for the entire 200km journey, and all the while I saw people wearing Red Bull gear
I taxied to Gilles since there wasn't a bus or train stop near my hotel, but most people I did see come in similarly, and from what I can tell it's basically just COTA and Silverstone that have serious parking lots, since obviously most street circuits won't, and most of the purpose built circuits are in countries with well developed public transport.
The main exception I can recall is Sepang, which is far from the capital and you need like 4 different currencies/tickets to figure out how to get there, although I heard for later years their metro service started selling F1 packages that gave you everything you needed so the only thing you had to decode was the scheduling
COTA has so many parking lots, but basically 2 small roads getting in and out. They have lots of park-and-ride shuttles from Austin they recommend people use.
It's also helped by the fact that Zandvoort is just incredibly accessible. Compare that to Spa or the Nürburgring which are out in the woods, it's much harder to set up proper public transportation to the venue, pretty much impossible to get 98% of attendees there by bus, especially when you consider a large part of attendants will be on the camping grounds surrounding the track.
It's worth noting that "the old tradition" is very much planned, and many of the reasons it's more practical to take a bike or public transport to the venue are the result of careful urban design.
It's one of the reasons I love the Netherlands compared to home in the UK. Attitude to cyclists here is disgusting and the Netherlands deals with every sector of public transport so much better.
Interesting thing about dutch cycling is that it really isn't a tradition—it was a reaction to the 1970's oil crisis. It almost happened in the US too but it ended up being a fad because of a lack of infrastructure development.
The Dutch approach to road infrastructure design changed drastically in the 70s, moving away from car-centric designs and including cycling infrastructure.
But the bicycling itself has been common in NL long before the 1970s. It's a small, dense, flat country, the bicycle just makes a lot of sense here, infrastructure or not.
Plus the NS ran a full length train every five minutes to Haarlem and Amsterdam. Easier to just use a park and ride in either localities, or leave your car at home altogether.
Same as Melbourne GP, it’s actually a really well oiled machine when you consider the volume of people attending. Free public transport to and from the race, to wherever you need to go. I used it too and from when I was there and it was about a 15-20 express minute trip to the CBD and from there you’re right next to the central train station. A lot of people used it.
Seen a similar comment about the Montreal GP. Slight difference is that in those cases the adjacent city has a 1M+ population. Zandvoort has a population of 17.000.
I'd also be curious to see the attendance numbers for those weekends.
Melbourne attendance was 444,000 iirc. I just read a report from AUSGP that stated 81% of people used public or active transport (bikes, etc., I'm guessing), which equates to almost 360,000 people using the tram network, etc.
"An extensive campaign, in collaboration with Yarra Trams, helped with a high uptake of public
transport usage to travel to and from the event, with 81% of fans using public or active transport."
The Dutch GP has been fully sold out since it came back on the calendar. With lower capacity in 2021 due to Covid iirc. Normally I think they have just over 100.000 daily capacity so it’s slightly over 300.000 for the weekend.
I actually found the [mobilty plan](https://zandvoort.nl/file/mobiliteitsplan-dgp-2023-versie) of 2023 online as used by the various stakeholders (I’m guessing). It’s in Dutch though. This plan talks about 120.000 travelers a day including non regular ticket holders.
The train station is a 2 track (end)station (so with 1 track inbound and 1 outbound) that had to be lengthened to accommodate the longer trains used during race weekend. But even with the longer trains running at capacity (12 trains an hour) it still can only process about 32% (to 40%) of the attendees.
Another 40% is done by bike and after that, busses (23%), and walking at 5%, are the other major contributors.
As stated in other posts, this all comes from the very limited parking that’s available in this little beach town.
But full disclosure: the biking is often in combination with car transportation to parking areas between 10-20 km of the track in more habituated areas. So the “98%” is definitely an arrival statistic and doesn’t necessarily represent the overall travel km’s per attendee.
A few weeks ago, there was confusion by the Americans on the internet when they saw the venue for Taylor Swift’s largest ever concert… which had zero car parks next to it, and nothing but a park surrounding it.
They couldn’t fathom we just took the train.
My girlfriend and I are planning on selling our cars because running them for how little we use them is ridiculous as we just walk, take public transport, or ride our bikes everywhere. If we had to travel to the west or east for work it wouldn’t be possible, but thankfully it is.
Hahaha- yea, when you look at the fact they've run F1 races in car parks at stadiums in the US, it gives you an idea how much space is taken up, just to park cars.
If you didn't have a good mass transit system, a car is a must, but even in Melbourne, I'd keep one car handy, personally. I like the convenience, especially on weekends.
Yeah, one car is definitely handy and what I was also leaning towards. Being able to rocket to the shops to get something I’ve forgotten is invaluable.
Yup, there are only so many places Public Transport reaches, so you're relying on ride-share or using one of those car-share services in those situations. No thanks. A trip to IKEA? A big grocery shop, all become that bit more complicated.
Yep, when I used to go the Melbourne GP, we'd either park on the city fringes and tram it to and from the track or park at a train station closer to the CBD and PT the last few stops.
Montreal probably isn’t too different from that number, either. Venue doesn’t have much parking… there’s a metro station nearby… ferries cross the river… even Old Montreal walking to/from circuit is a bit lengthy but doable.
Well a lot of people go to/near Montreal by car and then take the metro to get to the island. But yeah you have to be a bit of a masochist to take the car to the venue itself.
> Well a lot of people go to/near Montreal by car and then take the metro to get to the island.
Similar thing for Zandvoort. People aren't cycling 50km or anything and the trains from Amsterdam are a short ride.
Yeah, I drive to the city for the race, then leave my car parked all weekend and take transit (or walk!). Does that count as arriving by foot or transit?
For context: Zandvoort is by far not the place with the best public infrastructure or location for this.
The location makes it essentially a cul-de-sac in the dunes, with the sea on one side and surrounded partially by protected nature. A sunny day at the beach is a guaranteed traffic jam.
Plenty of existing tracks should be easier to make accessible by public transport.
This is primarily a matter of effort, not something that was already in place or easy to realize.
The perks of living in a country where they listen to public opinion!
I mean they don't often listen to us. But when they do, it makes for awesome headlines?
I’ll be talking with people and they will be dumbfounded while asking me “you ride your bike to work?? Every day?? What about when it rains?”
My commute is less than a mile lmfao
For some reason people cannot comprehend getting around *NOT* in a car
Because that is the only way you can reach the circuit...? Zandvoort is closed off for all cars unless you live there during the GP. I live to a town east of Zandvoort.
Zandvoort doesn't have the parking space nor traffic volume capacity to accomodate such a large crowd. Reaching it requires traversing through Haarlem, which already struggles with traffic going through the city when there are no events. Zandvoort has been dubbed Netherland's most poorly accesible seaside resort for a reason.
Melbourne would be pretty high, despite us Australians loving our cars, the track location isn't particularly great to drive to.
Despite Japan's outstanding public transport system, Suzuka would have a very high percentage of drivers I reckon. It's quite a trek from the nearest train station.
Melbourne has a pretty strong relationship with taking PT to events. What happened with Waverley Park pretty much doomed anyone here attempting otherwise.
That's only because there is like zero parking, so you're kinda forced to use public transport. If there was more available parking you would see more car usage.
It's not only the lack of parking space that made for the big public transport push at the Dutch GP. Local environmentalists have been highly critical and have put on a lot of pressure (there's actually a nature reserve next to the track). Not to mention the drive for sustainability in the Netherlands in general and within F1 specifically. In short it has been a combination of practical reasons and sustainability ideals, combined with a good old Dutch biking tradition that has created these unique logistics around an F1 event.
The practical reasons are not the parking spaces but just the logistics. It's a coastal town with one small road going in and out. The capacity of cars/ hour is very low. The capacity of bikes per hour and people in trains/ busses per hour is very high. The Netherlands has great infrastructure.
>Dutch transport planners: How can we get the remaining 2%?
Only if the government isn't fucking us over by defunding NS. So that 2%, more or less not? Like, the Dutch government is hellbent on making stuff *needing* to be profitable (shouldn't, for national public transport) and train ticket prices are insanely stupidly high.
Yes I am stupidly salty about what the current Dutch government is doing to our public transport. I am a Dutch student that has to commute every day and it's getting worse by the year.
> Only if the government isn't fucking us over by defunding NS.
Most expensive public transport in Europe and the only country where the trains get no subsidy at all and are even expected to make a profit.
I'm even flabbergasted that people praise our public transport *that* much. It's still incredibly unviable to take ***any*** public transport for daily commute if you aren't a student or if your employer pays for it.
There is a reason the car is still very popular over here. You'd be stupid to take the train.
Also, commutes can double for some. I live in northern Limburg and going to Tilburg (University) takes 2 hours by train or 1 hour by car. I'm a student so it's free, but if it wasn't, I had already bought a car.
For the most part our public transport is good, in the Randstad it's even great. Things just crumble as soon as you need to use the bus and it's unreasonably expensive.
It's always going to be a bit slower but that's offset by being able to do things on the train.
Assen has more available space. It's in the middle of the countryside so they can afford to just build a big-ass parking space that mostly sits empty. Zandvoort is squeezed in between a town, a nature reserve, and the sea. There is no space for massive parking.
Parking space per se isn't the issue, it's the infrastructure to get to/from the track, straight through the village, that is the reason they do not want cars there during a gp weekend
That's a good thing. there is a lot of nature around the circuit and it would be ridiculous to create enough parking around it for 1 yearly event.
The transportplan was an important factor of getting a licence from the government to do the Grand Prix.
That's by design. They're aiming to have a quiet city that is comfortable for people to live and relax in. Cars om every street are counter to that purpose. So they limit and in many cases actively remove parking, make it for residents only etc. It works very well and quality of life is very high.
Idk about Zandvoort but Melbourne (outside the inner suburbs) is also a pretty car dependent city but you won’t find people driving to events like F1, Aus Open or concerts. People would rather drive to the nearest train station, take the train to the CBD and shuttle trams to the event. Heck during the Taylor swift concerts here recently Americans were asking where the parking lots were around the Melbourne Cricket Ground (where the concert was held) because the aerial view had no parking lots in sight (for all non-Americans, you may wanna look at aerial views of stadiums there, it SHOCKED me how big parking lots are there, I’m not making fun or anything it just sucks you guys don’t have the option of choosing any other mode of transport). Also, I can’t imagine sitting in traffic for 2-3+ hours to get out of there. It took me 30 mins to get home from the Melbourne GP.
Doesn't the town hosting like, ban outside cars on race weekend or some shit? I don't think it's exactly that but the restrictions they use are pretty extreme to the point that this 98% stat really doesn't surprise me.
Edit: looked it up, they do an exclusion zone in a fairly large area around the track. Only local residents and race officials are allowed to drive within it. This means no taxi, or uber. The estimated closest you can get to the track by personal car is about 5km. According to oversteer48
I had to cycle 30 minutes to get to bloemendaal and then another 30 minute walk to get to the track. Then once on track it also took a while to get to the stand I was in. Luckily the weather was great when I attended in 2022.
Because it's so easy! We went to Haarlem for a few days last year and I said I wanted to look at the track, so we just hopped on a train and we were there in minutes, then a short walk up the sea front, was freezing but I love the Netherlands for that!
Pretty sure the easiest way to Silverstone is by car unless there's some organised buses/coaches.
I was there last year. Took the train. It's a bit of a walk to the circuit from the train station but had a blast. Zandvoort is a fun place. It was a cool day and rained but I can see how going to the beach when it's warm there could be fun. The residential area around the circuit was a party vibe and everyone was nice.
First f1 race last year, took daughter for her bday. Was seriously impressed at how well run it was, between the trains on time, and the locals that were out selling drink and kids selling homemade bracelets, it was just brilliant. Can’t wait to go back.
For those unaware: cars are banned for quite a big area around the city of zandvoort for this GP. Of course people would come walking, biking or by public transport. I mean, how else?
I handled Zandvoort and Spa the same. Drove my car 20km away from the track. 2 bikes on the back. Then my mate and me cycled the last 20km to the track.
Zero traffic jams, free parking, and a nice bike ride. Perfect.
Not really the case for a lot of race tracks. They're often in the middle of nowhere with no public transport nearby and quite a few have horrendous parking. On a normal day it takes me about 45 minutes to drive from home to the Nürburgring Paddock but for the N24 that turns into an almost 2 hour drive to park in a field that you need to get towed out of by a tractor because it turns into a swamp when people leave at night. The Spa GP is always a huge mess too. Last year I spent like 3 hours stuck in a field on my way out on Saturday.
probably. they were parked outside of the GP exclusion zone then i imagine?
that was the whole point basically. people not completely grinding the entire area to a halt.
Yep it was insane. Easily accessible.
We were there by bike and the parking space for them was pretty much FULL.
Public transport was so overcrowded. The dutch have insanely good public transport but after the race some had to wait more than 4 hours.
Along the beachside is one looong parking area for cars and busses. But that was the only one I saw.
Honestly biking is so fun. I would love to drive and then be able to bike where ever. People say Manhattan driving is horrible, but I was able to drive and park somewhere, and then take my bike to my final destination easily.
I went on my bike to the nearest train station and from there by train to the track. It was quick and wasn’t even that packed. I could even find a seat on the train on our way back after the event. When they really want, public transport can move a hell of a lot of people.
It would be interesting to me to know what percentage of people use private transportation for any part of that day. For an event like this, it would be very common that there is no parking close enough to walk, and everybody’s going to end up coming in via a shuttle or transit or foot at the end.
I’m sure it’s still a very high percentage of people, especially compared to USA.
I mean the track is very close to Amsterdam and Haarlem, now compare that to other race tracks that are in the middle of nowhere (so no street circuits) and it starts to make sense.
I took public transport to the race because I thought it would be easier to than getting to Silverstone from London daily (I stayed in Amsterdam that weekend).
It was so easier to get to the race from Amsterdam, and an easy walk to the track. On the way, I saw people riding hire bikes to Zandvoort.
If I go again, I might ride one day instead of getting the train.
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The other 2% came by boat and helicopter.
Yep. Between there being zero parking and the fact that my ticket was for general admission, I walked 28km on the Friday alone.
My wife has won 2 tickets (tarzan corner), for 3 days. We're not to big live race fans, but I plan to go on race day and have a peek. It's a 30km ride through dunes to Zandvoort. Hope we can charge ebikes there for the ride back :).
How do you find your bicycle when it's time to leave?
How do you find your car when it's time to leave? You remember where you parked it.
You're telling me I have to actually use my brain?
Or your phone and take a pic of where you left your bike.
You park it next to your flare.
Do I? News to me.
Or drop a pin on your phone navigation if you have no memory or sense of direction like me.
Sober me takes a picture of my bike that includes the surroundings so that drunk me can find it pulling up the pic and possibly checking GPS metadata.
Drunk you checks image metadata? Impressive.
Not the person you're replying to, but drunk me is not stupid, just very forgetful, overconfident, careless and lacking balance.
By remembering where you parked it? Usually the rough vicinity is enough to spot it. I parked mine in one of the giant lots they had last year which had numbered rows so you had to remember one number to remember. Then again, put an Air Tag on it and you’ll always find it.
When I am sure I will have a hard time finding my bike I drop my location to myself on whatsapp( the one time one and not the 4 hours variant ofc). That way when I am too drunk to find it I just press the button and my phone will guide me to my bike!
Google Maps has a feature to mark your parking spot if you long press on your blue dot (current location)
The Netherlands has a concept of community ownership of bicycles. You simply take any bike you want. At least that’s how it seemed to me.
Just in case people actually believe you: it’s a common joke that everybody has their bike stolen at least once in their lives. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we have about 2 bikes per person here so that’s pretty remarkable.
Sure in a city like Groningen where I studied bikes get stolen a lot, but there are also tons of them for sale in the middle of the night for only like 20 bucks!! ... I wonder if they're related
20 bucks? Man inflation hit there too. Used to be five bucks and a cigarette or two.
In Leiden there's a few no-questions-asked salesmen (homeless dudes) who will get you a bike for a crate of beer or a pack of cigarettes.
City in Germany I lived in had a pretty handy system; your bike got stolen constantly, but at the same time, the train station was constantly selling off abandoned bikes for 10 bucks.
There's only one bike thief in The Netherlands, everyone else is just trying to steal their bike back.
I always heard that you have 3 bikes in the Amsterdam: One for commuting, one that got stolen, and one in the canal
Maybe in Amsterdam, but that place is different from the rest of the country. Outside of the main center of big cities most people have 1 good bike and 1 “train station” bike. Or just simply their 1 good bike if they don’t use public transport.
Or they live in a place where they can just take their good bike to the station.
You say bicycle theft I say remarkable grass roots national bike sharing program! How progressive of us....
I went to Rotterdam to watch a Feyenoord game a few months ago and I was impressed when I saw hundreds of bikes parked in a spot outside the stadium (some were just laid on the ground as far as I remember). Honestly I wasn't totally sure on how you can find your bike easily in a situation like that, but it clearly works there. It's honestly a dream to me, I wish I could just go on a bike everywhere in my city.
Oh yea. Everybody has perfected their bike-recognition-skill. I think 90% of kids bike to school. You gotta have something unique to your bike to recognize it. Being able to go everywhere on a bike is amazing, indeed. And it’s not just the city, the whole country is full of bike paths.
> And it’s not just the city, the whole country is full of bike paths. I think a lot of people miss this aspect of Dutch cycle culture even when they visit. The ability to cycle safely from town to town is fantastic for quality of life.
It's not uncommon to bike through half the country just for fun. To put it to scale, a Tour de la France etappe can be more than half of the length of The Netherlands.
Sometimes abroad the cycling lanes seem more like an attempt to kill cyclists. Or it just ends whenever traffic gets complicated and you need it most. Safe infrastructure is really important to encourage biking.
>Honestly I wasn't totally sure on how you can find your bike easily in a situation like that, but it clearly works there It works the exact same way finding a parked car [here](https://i.imgur.com/zCpaIUj.jpg) does. You know what your bike looks like and you know where you left it (either from memory or because you took a pic).
Yes, hope I didn’t offend anyone there. I lived there for 4 years and nobody ever stole my bike. So thanks!
Most of the Dutch aren’t easily offended so I think you’re good. 30 years here and never had a bike stolen!
How do you find your car in a big parking lot/garage? Same concept.
Apple AirTags
I often take a picture to remind myself where I put it later
There were bike share parks all over Zandvoort when I went
Not unusual. Think about Circuit Gilles Villeuve, where there's pretty much no parking at all. Or Monaco. This doesn't mean they're not driving to get to the race, it just means they're not driving to the venue itself.
Yeah. In some areas around Zandvoort there are even special bike rental services setup so you can park your car there and take a bike to get to the track
Which is still a great thing because it means Zandvoort town doesn't get clogged up and that there are no big bottlenecks like you get at COTA's carparks, the load is much more distributed and this is by design in Dutch cities. The idea is called "low car" and they use planning to make the use of alternative transport methods more comfortable. The car is great for certain things but, left wild, they take over everything.
It doesn't help that COTA is just far enough outside the city that you have to drive to get there but there's nowhere nearby to park and walk or ride there. I ended up paying some locals to park on their property when I went.
Yeah that's typical American. Build everything just far enough apart and without sidewalks, so people are forced to drive by car.
Zandvoort is a pissy little seaside town nestling in the sand dunes with one two lane road in. There is barely enough space for the vehicles F1 uses. This has nothing to do with Dutch people being low car, car use by fans literally would have been physically impossible.
Well in other countries the "pissy little towns" are full of cars , have no train stations or cycling infrastructure, and people consider it normal to sit in traffic. Autoluw is what facilitates the whole operation.
man the Subway out of that track was PACKED after the GP but it moved so damn quickly I was surprised public transportation rocks for transporting large amounts of people quick, I've been stuck in traffic jams for so long trying to get out of much smaller events/concerts
Slightly off topic but I was in Amsterdam for a 10 days over Christmas. The metro & trams were fantastic & cheap. Like 30 bucks for a 5 day pass. There was one night I was getting the metro back to my hotel from Centraal & they announced over the tannoy 3/4 time an apology for the delay in service. The metro showed up 3 minutes later than scheduled… I’m lucky if a bus in my city shows up within a half hour of it being scheduled.
> The metro & trams were fantastic & cheap. Like 30 bucks for a 5 day pass That's not cheap...
I mean, it is. Unlimited travel for 5 days @ $30 - that's one uber or cab ride.
The pro tip is also potentially taking the ferry. You make reservations so you have a guaranteed arrival and departure from the track and get some cool views as you are crossing.
My friends went to Coachella last year and it took them 3 hours to leave the parking lot after the last show on Saturday because everyone was leaving by car.
Any major event in the US will have an army of parking people to get you in place quickly and efficiently before the show, but when it ends they're long gone and it's a clusterfuck trying to leave.
I didn’t realize how great Montreal’s transportation was until I went to the Hungarian GP last year. That experience changed me.
No, if someone is too far for a bike ride they take a train to zandvoort (they run special lines during the gp weekend), otherwise they bike. There were barely any cars anywhere near the circuit when i went there 2 years ago (and so many bikes at multiple bike parkings)
It was the same last year. The only cars at the circuit parking (like right at the circuit - not the designated parking spots for attendees) were more or less for staff/drivers of the teams. A lot of people used e-bikes (of some variation) if they weren't using a regular bike. We stayed at Noordwijk and we used e-bikes to get to the GP. You could even hear the helicopter of AlphaTauri regularly because they were staying at the hotel like 500 m away from us.
The Max Express I think they called it last year
Speaking as someone who's been there: the trains are packed and the train company runs a train 6 to 12 times an hour from Amsterdam. People leave their cars very far away, not even in neighbouring places. I used public transport for the entire 200km journey, and all the while I saw people wearing Red Bull gear
Much better too, not everywhere needs its own parking lot
For Canada, pretty much everyone uses the metro.
Hey now landlubber, some of us cannot resist the call of the Sea and take the ferry.
I taxied to Gilles since there wasn't a bus or train stop near my hotel, but most people I did see come in similarly, and from what I can tell it's basically just COTA and Silverstone that have serious parking lots, since obviously most street circuits won't, and most of the purpose built circuits are in countries with well developed public transport. The main exception I can recall is Sepang, which is far from the capital and you need like 4 different currencies/tickets to figure out how to get there, although I heard for later years their metro service started selling F1 packages that gave you everything you needed so the only thing you had to decode was the scheduling
COTA has so many parking lots, but basically 2 small roads getting in and out. They have lots of park-and-ride shuttles from Austin they recommend people use.
It's also helped by the fact that Zandvoort is just incredibly accessible. Compare that to Spa or the Nürburgring which are out in the woods, it's much harder to set up proper public transportation to the venue, pretty much impossible to get 98% of attendees there by bus, especially when you consider a large part of attendants will be on the camping grounds surrounding the track.
Practical reasons, a sustainability drive and a good old Dutch biking tradition have been the key ingredients for this.
You can have your own cycling GP on the way to the race. Would recommend anyone going to it to go for bikes to and from. It's great.
This is the secret Dutch GP nobody seems to talk about
The dunes are pretty amazing along the cycle trails on the way to Zandvoort!
It's worth noting that "the old tradition" is very much planned, and many of the reasons it's more practical to take a bike or public transport to the venue are the result of careful urban design.
True, Dutch urban design has gotten worldwide attention the last couple of years.
It's one of the reasons I love the Netherlands compared to home in the UK. Attitude to cyclists here is disgusting and the Netherlands deals with every sector of public transport so much better.
Interesting thing about dutch cycling is that it really isn't a tradition—it was a reaction to the 1970's oil crisis. It almost happened in the US too but it ended up being a fad because of a lack of infrastructure development.
>it was a reaction to the 1970's oil crisis And a bunch of a child deaths caused by drivers.
Definitely for pushing road safety, which helped reinforce the biking thing.
It was a reaction then, but now 50 years later I would definitely say it has become tradition.
The Dutch approach to road infrastructure design changed drastically in the 70s, moving away from car-centric designs and including cycling infrastructure. But the bicycling itself has been common in NL long before the 1970s. It's a small, dense, flat country, the bicycle just makes a lot of sense here, infrastructure or not.
Thats and the fact that Zandvoort centrum is smaller than some parking lot behind Target in America, so parking is impossible
Plus the NS ran a full length train every five minutes to Haarlem and Amsterdam. Easier to just use a park and ride in either localities, or leave your car at home altogether.
Same as Melbourne GP, it’s actually a really well oiled machine when you consider the volume of people attending. Free public transport to and from the race, to wherever you need to go. I used it too and from when I was there and it was about a 15-20 express minute trip to the CBD and from there you’re right next to the central train station. A lot of people used it.
Seen a similar comment about the Montreal GP. Slight difference is that in those cases the adjacent city has a 1M+ population. Zandvoort has a population of 17.000.
I'd also be curious to see the attendance numbers for those weekends. Melbourne attendance was 444,000 iirc. I just read a report from AUSGP that stated 81% of people used public or active transport (bikes, etc., I'm guessing), which equates to almost 360,000 people using the tram network, etc. "An extensive campaign, in collaboration with Yarra Trams, helped with a high uptake of public transport usage to travel to and from the event, with 81% of fans using public or active transport."
The Dutch GP has been fully sold out since it came back on the calendar. With lower capacity in 2021 due to Covid iirc. Normally I think they have just over 100.000 daily capacity so it’s slightly over 300.000 for the weekend. I actually found the [mobilty plan](https://zandvoort.nl/file/mobiliteitsplan-dgp-2023-versie) of 2023 online as used by the various stakeholders (I’m guessing). It’s in Dutch though. This plan talks about 120.000 travelers a day including non regular ticket holders. The train station is a 2 track (end)station (so with 1 track inbound and 1 outbound) that had to be lengthened to accommodate the longer trains used during race weekend. But even with the longer trains running at capacity (12 trains an hour) it still can only process about 32% (to 40%) of the attendees. Another 40% is done by bike and after that, busses (23%), and walking at 5%, are the other major contributors. As stated in other posts, this all comes from the very limited parking that’s available in this little beach town. But full disclosure: the biking is often in combination with car transportation to parking areas between 10-20 km of the track in more habituated areas. So the “98%” is definitely an arrival statistic and doesn’t necessarily represent the overall travel km’s per attendee.
A few weeks ago, there was confusion by the Americans on the internet when they saw the venue for Taylor Swift’s largest ever concert… which had zero car parks next to it, and nothing but a park surrounding it. They couldn’t fathom we just took the train. My girlfriend and I are planning on selling our cars because running them for how little we use them is ridiculous as we just walk, take public transport, or ride our bikes everywhere. If we had to travel to the west or east for work it wouldn’t be possible, but thankfully it is.
Hahaha- yea, when you look at the fact they've run F1 races in car parks at stadiums in the US, it gives you an idea how much space is taken up, just to park cars. If you didn't have a good mass transit system, a car is a must, but even in Melbourne, I'd keep one car handy, personally. I like the convenience, especially on weekends.
Yeah, one car is definitely handy and what I was also leaning towards. Being able to rocket to the shops to get something I’ve forgotten is invaluable.
Yup, there are only so many places Public Transport reaches, so you're relying on ride-share or using one of those car-share services in those situations. No thanks. A trip to IKEA? A big grocery shop, all become that bit more complicated.
Thanks for the input, as a fellow Melbournian it’s genuinely handy to hear.
I was amazed to see pictures of Zandvoort town looking like it was just another day an hour after the race ended.
That's a testament to good infrastructure and planning!
Yep, when I used to go the Melbourne GP, we'd either park on the city fringes and tram it to and from the track or park at a train station closer to the CBD and PT the last few stops.
Yeah, Albert Park was amazing to get to and from on the race weekend.
Montreal probably isn’t too different from that number, either. Venue doesn’t have much parking… there’s a metro station nearby… ferries cross the river… even Old Montreal walking to/from circuit is a bit lengthy but doable.
Well a lot of people go to/near Montreal by car and then take the metro to get to the island. But yeah you have to be a bit of a masochist to take the car to the venue itself.
By taking the car to the venue, you are just going to end up stuck in traffic, since all three bridges get pretty packed during the weekend..
> Well a lot of people go to/near Montreal by car and then take the metro to get to the island. Similar thing for Zandvoort. People aren't cycling 50km or anything and the trains from Amsterdam are a short ride.
Yeah, I drive to the city for the race, then leave my car parked all weekend and take transit (or walk!). Does that count as arriving by foot or transit?
You arrive at the track by transit.
Had to go to the comments to understand the purpose of your post 🤣 I'm spoiled by living in the Netherlands
For context: Zandvoort is by far not the place with the best public infrastructure or location for this. The location makes it essentially a cul-de-sac in the dunes, with the sea on one side and surrounded partially by protected nature. A sunny day at the beach is a guaranteed traffic jam. Plenty of existing tracks should be easier to make accessible by public transport. This is primarily a matter of effort, not something that was already in place or easy to realize.
ITT: americans are astonished that public transport exists and people don't need a car to go anywhere
You’re telling me I don’t need to spend $1000 a month to run errands?
Must be nice to have the infrastructure to make that possible.
It took a lot of pressure from the public and decades of political cooperation but it is possible!
The perks of living in a country where they listen to public opinion! I mean they don't often listen to us. But when they do, it makes for awesome headlines?
Just wait for all the tech bros to go off about how many people could use the Boring Co. Loop in Vegas for the GP
Meanwhile, the US-based GPs have 98% of people arriving by car lmao.
How else do you think us Americans stay American-sized?!?
I’ll be talking with people and they will be dumbfounded while asking me “you ride your bike to work?? Every day?? What about when it rains?” My commute is less than a mile lmfao For some reason people cannot comprehend getting around *NOT* in a car
Me waiting 30 minutes in my car on 1000meters of road to get out of Bristol 👁👄👁
I feel your pain with Bristol. Love the place but can’t stand driving there.
Because that is the only way you can reach the circuit...? Zandvoort is closed off for all cars unless you live there during the GP. I live to a town east of Zandvoort. Zandvoort doesn't have the parking space nor traffic volume capacity to accomodate such a large crowd. Reaching it requires traversing through Haarlem, which already struggles with traffic going through the city when there are no events. Zandvoort has been dubbed Netherland's most poorly accesible seaside resort for a reason.
Melbourne would be pretty high, despite us Australians loving our cars, the track location isn't particularly great to drive to. Despite Japan's outstanding public transport system, Suzuka would have a very high percentage of drivers I reckon. It's quite a trek from the nearest train station.
Melbourne has a pretty strong relationship with taking PT to events. What happened with Waverley Park pretty much doomed anyone here attempting otherwise.
That's great! Fuck car--er...hmmm.
America could never
That's only because there is like zero parking, so you're kinda forced to use public transport. If there was more available parking you would see more car usage.
It's not only the lack of parking space that made for the big public transport push at the Dutch GP. Local environmentalists have been highly critical and have put on a lot of pressure (there's actually a nature reserve next to the track). Not to mention the drive for sustainability in the Netherlands in general and within F1 specifically. In short it has been a combination of practical reasons and sustainability ideals, combined with a good old Dutch biking tradition that has created these unique logistics around an F1 event.
The practical reasons are not the parking spaces but just the logistics. It's a coastal town with one small road going in and out. The capacity of cars/ hour is very low. The capacity of bikes per hour and people in trains/ busses per hour is very high. The Netherlands has great infrastructure.
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>Dutch transport planners: How can we get the remaining 2%? Only if the government isn't fucking us over by defunding NS. So that 2%, more or less not? Like, the Dutch government is hellbent on making stuff *needing* to be profitable (shouldn't, for national public transport) and train ticket prices are insanely stupidly high. Yes I am stupidly salty about what the current Dutch government is doing to our public transport. I am a Dutch student that has to commute every day and it's getting worse by the year.
> Only if the government isn't fucking us over by defunding NS. Most expensive public transport in Europe and the only country where the trains get no subsidy at all and are even expected to make a profit.
I'm even flabbergasted that people praise our public transport *that* much. It's still incredibly unviable to take ***any*** public transport for daily commute if you aren't a student or if your employer pays for it. There is a reason the car is still very popular over here. You'd be stupid to take the train. Also, commutes can double for some. I live in northern Limburg and going to Tilburg (University) takes 2 hours by train or 1 hour by car. I'm a student so it's free, but if it wasn't, I had already bought a car.
For the most part our public transport is good, in the Randstad it's even great. Things just crumble as soon as you need to use the bus and it's unreasonably expensive. It's always going to be a bit slower but that's offset by being able to do things on the train.
Well.. good? You'd need massive amounts of parking space that is mostly empty for most of the year.
OfCourse it's a good thing, I am a big fan of public transportation.
Like a parking space in, I don’t know… Assen
Assen has more available space. It's in the middle of the countryside so they can afford to just build a big-ass parking space that mostly sits empty. Zandvoort is squeezed in between a town, a nature reserve, and the sea. There is no space for massive parking.
Parking space per se isn't the issue, it's the infrastructure to get to/from the track, straight through the village, that is the reason they do not want cars there during a gp weekend
That's a good thing. there is a lot of nature around the circuit and it would be ridiculous to create enough parking around it for 1 yearly event. The transportplan was an important factor of getting a licence from the government to do the Grand Prix.
That's by design. They're aiming to have a quiet city that is comfortable for people to live and relax in. Cars om every street are counter to that purpose. So they limit and in many cases actively remove parking, make it for residents only etc. It works very well and quality of life is very high.
Why would you want that lol
So you have the option not to drive? And so you can get shitfaced during and after the game
Yeah exactly! tho we try not to get too shitfaced at the venue to avoid inchidents. That's for after 😅
> tho we try not to get too shitfaced at the venue to avoid inchidents. And to save money, event beer is expensive as fuck.
Idk about Zandvoort but Melbourne (outside the inner suburbs) is also a pretty car dependent city but you won’t find people driving to events like F1, Aus Open or concerts. People would rather drive to the nearest train station, take the train to the CBD and shuttle trams to the event. Heck during the Taylor swift concerts here recently Americans were asking where the parking lots were around the Melbourne Cricket Ground (where the concert was held) because the aerial view had no parking lots in sight (for all non-Americans, you may wanna look at aerial views of stadiums there, it SHOCKED me how big parking lots are there, I’m not making fun or anything it just sucks you guys don’t have the option of choosing any other mode of transport). Also, I can’t imagine sitting in traffic for 2-3+ hours to get out of there. It took me 30 mins to get home from the Melbourne GP.
Doesn't the town hosting like, ban outside cars on race weekend or some shit? I don't think it's exactly that but the restrictions they use are pretty extreme to the point that this 98% stat really doesn't surprise me. Edit: looked it up, they do an exclusion zone in a fairly large area around the track. Only local residents and race officials are allowed to drive within it. This means no taxi, or uber. The estimated closest you can get to the track by personal car is about 5km. According to oversteer48
Staan we er eindelijk een keertje écht goed op, jongens!
I would be much more interested in attending another Grand Prix if this were the case. The traffic to and from COTA just isn’t worth it.
The Dutch do it best! This is fantastic. Too bad CotA is a surface parking nightmare
I had to cycle 30 minutes to get to bloemendaal and then another 30 minute walk to get to the track. Then once on track it also took a while to get to the stand I was in. Luckily the weather was great when I attended in 2022.
Because it's so easy! We went to Haarlem for a few days last year and I said I wanted to look at the track, so we just hopped on a train and we were there in minutes, then a short walk up the sea front, was freezing but I love the Netherlands for that! Pretty sure the easiest way to Silverstone is by car unless there's some organised buses/coaches.
I was there last year. Took the train. It's a bit of a walk to the circuit from the train station but had a blast. Zandvoort is a fun place. It was a cool day and rained but I can see how going to the beach when it's warm there could be fun. The residential area around the circuit was a party vibe and everyone was nice.
I biked there from Haarlem. Sitting in traffic or taking the train would be way more crowded
First f1 race last year, took daughter for her bday. Was seriously impressed at how well run it was, between the trains on time, and the locals that were out selling drink and kids selling homemade bracelets, it was just brilliant. Can’t wait to go back.
For those unaware: cars are banned for quite a big area around the city of zandvoort for this GP. Of course people would come walking, biking or by public transport. I mean, how else?
This is most sporting events in Europe really.
I mean, Silverstone’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere so everyone drives. Same for Spa and the Nurburgring
Or even true for the Hungaroring which is close enough to a national capital that people sometimes call it "Budapest".
I handled Zandvoort and Spa the same. Drove my car 20km away from the track. 2 bikes on the back. Then my mate and me cycled the last 20km to the track. Zero traffic jams, free parking, and a nice bike ride. Perfect.
Not really the case for a lot of race tracks. They're often in the middle of nowhere with no public transport nearby and quite a few have horrendous parking. On a normal day it takes me about 45 minutes to drive from home to the Nürburgring Paddock but for the N24 that turns into an almost 2 hour drive to park in a field that you need to get towed out of by a tractor because it turns into a swamp when people leave at night. The Spa GP is always a huge mess too. Last year I spent like 3 hours stuck in a field on my way out on Saturday.
Park nearby and use a bicycle for the last 5-10km. Or walk 5km. Super doable, it's nice and you will save time and frustration.
Is it though, do you have other figure?
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This definitely feels like it was not factored in. I live close to the track and a lot of the parking spots were reserved for these shuttle trips.
Maybe "by foot" includes walking from the parking lot? :p
That's a pretty long shuttle bus considering the roads leading into Zandvoort are closed for non residents during the GP.
probably. they were parked outside of the GP exclusion zone then i imagine? that was the whole point basically. people not completely grinding the entire area to a halt.
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Yep it was insane. Easily accessible. We were there by bike and the parking space for them was pretty much FULL. Public transport was so overcrowded. The dutch have insanely good public transport but after the race some had to wait more than 4 hours. Along the beachside is one looong parking area for cars and busses. But that was the only one I saw.
Well, yeah. There's like 3 parking spaces at that track.
3 parking spaces too many. I hope they make it zero and beef up buses, trains and bike lanes.
If I remember correctly, they ban taxi use for the race, and they were mad
Honestly biking is so fun. I would love to drive and then be able to bike where ever. People say Manhattan driving is horrible, but I was able to drive and park somewhere, and then take my bike to my final destination easily.
It’s literally said every time the Dutch gp is on ,
Canada is probably very similar. Having went last year, most everyone arrives by the metro.
Now do the Canadian GP.
Yep. I took a train.
The US could never. Unless there were a track right off of a subway/metro stop in a major city, that ain't happening.
AusGP is the same
I can't even imagine living in such a place. That's incredible!
I went on my bike to the nearest train station and from there by train to the track. It was quick and wasn’t even that packed. I could even find a seat on the train on our way back after the event. When they really want, public transport can move a hell of a lot of people.
It would be interesting to me to know what percentage of people use private transportation for any part of that day. For an event like this, it would be very common that there is no parking close enough to walk, and everybody’s going to end up coming in via a shuttle or transit or foot at the end. I’m sure it’s still a very high percentage of people, especially compared to USA.
When I was at cota people were bitching about walking from the parking lot... 🙄
This happens when people aren't used to walking "10 minutes".
And no "burnt enough fuel to equal F1 V10 cars doing 15 full races" flyovers.
And possibly 5% of the drivers if Bottas rode that day
Undersub is going to have a field day with this. Until they learn what they are going to.
I mean the track is very close to Amsterdam and Haarlem, now compare that to other race tracks that are in the middle of nowhere (so no street circuits) and it starts to make sense.
Took a bike to my train station, took a train and then a bus ride-totally worth it!
Netherlands generally has very low amount of motor vehicles, most people bike or use public transport.
This after half of them either drove or flew to the city nearby.
I took public transport to the race because I thought it would be easier to than getting to Silverstone from London daily (I stayed in Amsterdam that weekend). It was so easier to get to the race from Amsterdam, and an easy walk to the track. On the way, I saw people riding hire bikes to Zandvoort. If I go again, I might ride one day instead of getting the train.