Adventures in Dutch Public Transit

tram tracks in The Hague

Yesterday I went to The Hague, which is only fifteen miles from Rotterdam. I started off so well, despite waking up at eight instead of seven like I’d planned. In my casual black boots and smart navy blazer, I glided through the turnstiles like a real Dutchwoman on her way to a real job, instead of an American on a three-month Europe trip, re-wearing dirty socks from yesterday because she ran out of clean ones. That American quickly made herself known, however, when I stepped off the train in The Hague and tried to figure out where to go next. Zuid-Holland (South Holland) is like the Research Triangle of the Netherlands, except instead of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, it’s Rotterdam, The Hague, and Delft. The whole area uses one giant mass transit system, composed of five large metro lines and a web of trams and buses for shorter journeys. This isn’t even taking into account the nationwide intercity trains, like the one I took from the airport to Rotterdam Centraal or the one I’m taking tomorrow to visit my friend Jenna in Utrecht. I bought a tourist day pass for about fifteen euros so I could access the whole system (minus the intercity trains).

what is this arrow telling me to do?

People in the Netherlands do also bike and drive places; when you cross the street as a pedestrian, you have to watch out for the cars and the bikes, including the electric bikes and scooters that my walking tour guide, Peter, called “mosquitoes” because they’re “silent and irritating.” “The worst thing you can do when crossing the street,” Peter told us, a group of Australians, Americans, Brits, and Canadians, “is hesitate. Because then you create confusion. Which creates accidents.”

Cars are more common in Rotterdam than in Amsterdam or The Hague because the center of Rotterdam was almost completely reconstructed after World War II. Nazi bombing destroyed the entire city center, which is why Rotterdam doesn’t look like your traditional Dutch city and is instead stuffed with weird, modern architecture. After the war, they were so anxious to rebuild that they were open to any and all ideas. Enter the Cube Houses, the “Pencil Building,” the public library modeled after the Centre Pompidou in Paris. And that also means that Rotterdam was rebuilt after cars became common, and therefore is more car-friendly.

Bikes still are widespread, though, and I’ve almost gotten hit by many. In a nation of 17.5 million, there are about 23.4 million bikes. It helps that the Netherlands is extremely flat (Europe’s lowest country, as most of it is below sea level), and therefore easy to traverse on two wheels. The Netherlands also made an effort in the seventies to build biking infrastructure because car accidents were becoming increasingly prevalent. So: bike lanes. Many bike lanes.

This was all a lot for me.

bikes!

Back to Charlsie in The Hague. I got lost and took a total of five buses and two trams. Here’s a short catalog of everything I did wrong: I got on the wrong bus. I got on the right bus going in the wrong direction. I got off a bus too late because I didn’t press “stop” and so the bus didn’t stop at my spot. I got off a stop too early. I dropped my umbrella and it clattered so loudly on the bus floor and everyone looked at me. I almost fell over inside the bus because I wasn’t holding on. I looked so lost that a maintenance worker asked if I needed help. I had to ask a bus driver for directions as he was exiting the bathroom during his break. I was scolded for not carrying an ID. And it was raining the whole time. That didn’t exactly help.

Despite all of that, I helped two separate old ladies with directions and made it to a café for coffee and two separate museums where I successfully pretended to be a capable person. I never cried, although that was mostly because when I felt the tears coming on, I would talk to myself out loud, like I was talking to a skittish cat or something. “You’ve got this, Charlsie. You're very capable. You're okay.” By the time I made it back to my hotel and I was sitting at a table, my blazer on the chair next to me and half a beer in my stomach, it all seemed pretty funny. Today, I had a much easier time getting around Rotterdam. Embrace the fact that you’ll probably get lost and/or look stupid. You’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, here are my best tips for navigating Dutch public transit in Zuid-Holland:

• Use Google maps.

• You have to tap in and out every time you get on or off a bus or tram. You can use your debit card to do this so long as it's a MasterCard or Visa. There is no need to buy a separate ticket (tram stops actually do not have anywhere to buy tickets).

• You have to hit the "stop" button on the bus before your stop if you want the driver to actually stop. This isn't necessary for trams; they pause at every stop.

• For the Metro, I would recommend buying either a tourist day pass (fifteen euro) or a two-hour pass (four and a half euro) at one of the machines near/in the Metro station. You will receive a paper card; use that to scan in and out of the Metro and to tap in and out on the trams and buses.

• Download the NS app to buy train tickets (intercity and to/from Schipol Airport). You can buy, access, and scan e-tickets on your phone using the app.