Dick van Veen

Dick is a senior traffic engineer and urban designer with almost 20 years of experience. He is specialized in bridging the gap between traffic and public space, between ‘flowing’ and ‘staying’. It is never only just about cars or traffic, but always involves the human condition. Designing is about interaction between people on the street, whether they are walking, on a bicycle, in a car, in public transport or just idling along. Street design is never a blueprint; guidelines are a starting point, not a finish line.

With his holistic view, his enthusiasm, his creativity and his thinking ‘out-of-the-box’, Dick has been a driver for change at many complex challenges in public space. Dick has an extensive portfolio with studies and actually build design projects throughout the Netherlands, Europe and North America. In the US Dick’s design for a ‘protected intersection’ in Davis, CA. actually proved to be the first one of its kind in North America. His ‘continuous sidewalk’ intersection treatment, build in Canmore, Alberta, in 2015 became an important reference for similar designs through Canada and North America. More recently Dick worked on the Transportation Plan for New Castle, DE, in which several of his designs for important infrastructural bottlenecks are currently awaiting funding. In Seaford, DE, he is currently working on his innovative design

for a double protected roundabout, together with a renowned American consultancy company.

The insights collected through this broad international experience works both ways: it refreshes the way Dick looks at projects ‘at home’ in the Netherlands, while it offers smart insights in how to plug in that Dutch knowledge in international projects. Many of Dicks projects are based in Amsterdam, to which he is seconded to for many years already. This has strengthened his ‘municipal’ look on matters at hand as well. In Amsterdam he is working on the City’s ambition to transform into an even more bicycle and pedestrian friendly city, by traffic calming car infrastructure and by removing 10.000 on street parking places. He works on several projects, which include bicycle streets, parking place removal in residential streets and placemaking.

Besides work Dick volunteers as an advocate for the Dutch Cycling Union, where he is the chairman of his local subdivision in his hometown, Baarn (in between Amsterdam and Utrecht). In the past he also had a political career in the City of Delft, where he was a councilman. If any free time is left, he spends it with his 4 younger kids, riding them around on his cargo bike.

Dick has been an expert for the Dutch Cycling Embassy from the start, almost 15 years ago, and has coached many workshops and design charettes in major cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary besides smaller cities like Reno, Chattanooga and Davis. Besides that, Dick is an experienced speaker at conferences and events.