Toegang voor iedereen? Access to jobs and amenities, per neighbourhood

31 October 2022

PBL published Toegang voor iedereen?, by Jeroen Bastiaanssen and Marnix Breedijk, the first report from PBL's accessibility project. It measures, per neighbourhood, how well people can reach jobs, health care, education, shops and green space on foot, by bicycle, by public transport, by car and by combinations of those, at different times of the day and the week. We built the network model that computes those indicators.

Until then this had not been measured systematically in the Netherlands, so it was not actually known how far accessibility differs between town and country, or between groups of people. It differs a great deal. Thirty per cent of older people cannot reach a hospital or clinic within half an hour without a car.

The report also relocates the problem. Congestion on the motorways of the Randstad is not the core of it. Limited access by public transport and bicycle in suburbs, villages and rural areas is.