Bike ride in Almere: Stad to Haven

In 2026, Almere turns 50 years old! This city in the Dutch Flevopolder was created from nothing, on what was the bottom of the sea only a few decades before. It gave the people of overcrowded Amsterdam a place to live, with lots of space and a garden. Fifty years later, the city has over 230,000 inhabitants. While the city's commercial and geographical centre is in Almere Stad, the district of Almere Haven was the first to be built. In this video I cycle from Almere Stad to Almere Haven. The video starts at a bike parking in Almere Stad, close to the train station. As on most Saturdays, lots of people have come here to do their shopping. They park their bike here, at the edge of the centre, and then walk the remaining distance over the pedestrianised streets to their destination. Or, they came by bus, with Almere's excellent BRT system. This was one of the first cities with separated bus lanes. And because the city was designed and planned from scratch, the designers had the opportunity to design very direct busways, that are always separated from other road traffic, in every part of the city. Frequencies are high, and the buses seem well-utilised. But today we are cycling. As we leave the centre, we enter the Stedenwijk. This district, as basically every district in Almere, consists mostly of row houses. But because of the central location, they are more dense here than in most of Almere's other districts. Bike infrastructure has been integrated in the urban design from the beginning, making it possible to cross the area without meeting many cars at all. We do cross the busway a few times. After the Stedenwijk, there is some empty space and parkland as we cross the highway and a bus station, and head to Almere Haven. Because of these barriers, Haven feels more separate from the rest of the city. Especially these outskirts of Haven are very low density, with houses interspersed by parks, parking lots and businessess. But as we head to the local centre of Haven, density increases a bit. The centre itself is oddly quiet for a Saturday, despite hosting multiple pedestrianised areas with shops and cafés. Perhaps the cold, windy weather is to blame. We end the video overlooking a canal that leads to the marina.