
Why Amsterdam Works So Well for Bikes - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/10/5-reasons-why-amsterdam-works-so-well-for-bikes/544101/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticCities+%28CityLab%29
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oconnore
I'm totally confident that we could replicate Amsterdam in any US city if we
wanted to. But before we get there, I need an article about what to do about
the fact that so many of my fellow Denver Coloradans _hate_ : bike lanes,
buses, trains, places to live, sidewalks, wind turbines, solar panels (but
also normal road maintenance and traffic). It's like there is a conscious
effort to create more smog and traffic jams.

It is boggling. We can't even start to think about having nice things until we
diagnose this particular social disorder affecting America.

~~~
mfoy_
Call me cynical, but: Anything that threatens the current way of life, the
current status quo, or is representative of a school of thought that clashes
with the aforementioned can cause cognitive dissonance. Simple as that.

Many people don't really _believe_ that driving is wrong, or harmful. But
supporting radical infrastructure changes to accommodate an alternative means
admitting to that to a further extent that most people are comfortable with.

~~~
watwut
Driving is neither wrong nor harmful. And if you want that bike acceptance,
maybe talk about advantages without framing everyone else as "bad". If you do,
you are guaranteed to create yet another pointless culture war instead of damm
bike lane.

~~~
Fricken
If you play good cop, then you're easy to dismiss. If you play bad cop, then
you're 'guaranteed to create another pointless culture war'. You can't win.

But jumping the shark with the personal automobile is certainly _wrong_ and
_harmful_.

From a social standpoint it manufactures inequality. Access to effective
transportation is the single greatest factor in determining an individual's
opportunity for upward economic mobility. And if you live in a world built for
cars and can't drive, well, fuck you.

It's environmentally destructive. This one's easy, but it's important to note
that it isn't just the emissions from the tailpipe, it's all the sprawl and
infrastructure built to accomodate the car. Mankind has chalked up a lot of
black marks in it's short history, but rendering the biosphere uninhabitable?
That takes the cake. In the grand scheme of things, what the hell are we doing
if we aren't at least making a nominal effort to leave the place in better
condition than it was when we arrived?

Economically it's bad for us too. James Kunstler called the suburbs 'the
greatest misallocation of resources in the history of western civilization'.
When I first read that it struck me as a sensational and hyperbolic statement,
but after having it knock around in my head for a few years, I don't think it
is an outrageous claim to make.

One of the inherent contradictions of human nature is that we're surprisingly
adaptable, yet stubbornly resistant to change. Nobody likes to be told they're
doing it wrong, but what else is there to say? You're doing it wrong.

~~~
watwut
I don't play cop at all. I like biking and use public transport fairly often.
I do separate garbage etc. I don't think that driving is inherently immoral. I
think that when you are framing it that way, you are overstating individual
contribution to bad environment. Otherwise said, you are manipulating and
exaggerating and using fear to get your wish.

And better public infrastructure for biking here did came after a lobbying and
money collection and what not from activists. They did not used the "you are
all bad people unless we get what we want" nor "we are hollier then you"
strategy. And yep, such strategy breeds more stubborn resistance - because
while many people are with accepting bike trail and what not (it does not
costs all that much in the grand scheme of things), once you insult them you
pretty much lost before you even started.

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rb808
You missed temperate climate. Yes there is a picture of snow but its rare. As
are hot humid days where you get soaked just standing in the shade - which are
all too common in much of the US.

~~~
ced
Montreal is one of North America's top city for biking and has one of the
worst climates for it. People adjust in all kinds of ways.

It's mostly about density and culture IMO.

~~~
ballenf
Cold is much easier to handle on a bike than heat/humidity. You can wear
warmer clothes and take them off at work, but you usually can't shower and
change into a new set of clothes.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I have to somewhat disagree. I feel so uncomfortable biking in thick clothes
and layers, and you absolutely have to cuff up your pant leg to pedal anyway,
so cold wind feels awful. Not to mention pedaling through snow/slush if you're
on the side of the road is very hard.

~~~
iak8god
> you absolutely have to cuff up your pant leg to pedal anyway

You absolutely do not need to cuff up your pant leg. You just need an ankle
band to keep your pant leg away from the chain: [https://www.amazon.com/High-
Visibility-Reflective-Ankle-Stra...](https://www.amazon.com/High-Visibility-
Reflective-Ankle-Strap/dp/B0006ZK8CO)

------
everdev
Culture helps a lot. In the US bikes are seen as an annoyance by many drivers.

I was in Amsterdam this summer and without much knowledge of the city, found
it easy, safe and fun to get around by bike.

Went to Paris and Barcelona as well and didn't feel as comfortable on a bike
in either of those cities.

~~~
wnevets
>Culture helps a lot. In the US bikes are seen as an annoyance by many
drivers.

Which is a silly opinion for drivers to have IMO. The more people are biking
the less cars that are in my way.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
True, but with the infrastructure setup in the US, more people biking means
more bicycles on the road for you to deal with and drive around. Most places
don't have bicycle routes and the ones that do have them usually just have a
single, fairly narrow painted lane between parked cars and traffic. In some
places, you aren't allowed to ride on sidewalks because you are technically a
vehicle.

So while it is a silly opinion to have in some cases, in others there are
actual reasons for it which have some solutions.

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MrFantastic
It also helps that Amsterdam is flat and the population density is high.

~~~
sushisource
Yeah. That's a big one. There's a huge bike culture in Seattle and for the
life of me I have a hard time understanding why, this is one of the shittiest
places on the planet to bike. Hills everywhere, wet half the time.

~~~
geephroh
And don't forget to mention that with all of the construction downtown over
the past few years, even the premier separated cycle-tracks on 2nd and around
westlake have been partially shut down and/or re-routed into traffic. A hearty
thanks to our Amazon overlords...

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legitster
How come none of these are about how absolutely flat Amsterdam is? I have
never been to a more flat place in my life than the Netherlands. That
definitely played into the decision for us to bike around everywhere while we
were there, but continued to be uninterested at home.

~~~
fulafel
Cities tend to be on coasts and coastal areas are flat more often than not.
It's not very unusual.

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peterwwillis
tl;dr Bicycles are first class vehicles in Amsterdam, public transit coming in
second, cars last.

This will never work in America because Americans are completely obsessed with
three things: 1) Living in suburbs, 2) Owning cars, and 3) Not paying for
realistic public transportation.

If Americans had to pay for realistic public transportation, it would be
harder to afford a car, and they might not be able to live as far from their
jobs as they often do now. It's not exactly a chicken-and-egg problem as much
as an eat-my-cake-and-have-it-too problem.

If you live in the county seat of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, you're about
50 minutes drive to Trenton, 1hr to Newark, 1.2hrs to Philadelphia. There is
no real public transit to get to a bigger city (one that might have jobs).
There are, however, "shuffle routes", basically small shuttles that run four
or five times a day inside the county, from which you can take more shuffle
routes and eventually buses and trains to get to a major city. But this is
more an exception than the rule: to get into and out of Hunterdon County, you
must use private transit companies like greyhound and trans-bridge.

Large swaths of the country are like this, and it directly affects cities
because people are coming to work in the cities in cars, or via trains and
buses after they drive to them. Bikes are not really even remotely an option.

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hellofunk
Amsterdam's bike-friendliness is at best average compared to the rest of the
Netherlands :)

~~~
Doxin
As a dutch person: Amsterdam is, in my opinion, a scary place to ride your
bike. It's far too busy and people seem to care more about overtaking you than
about safety.

I can't imagine what other countries must be like if this is the pinnacle of
cycling :P

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wffurr
I ride my bicycle in Boston year-round, and I found Amsterdam to be pretty
stressful to bicycle in. Very crowded streets and very confusing traffic. I'm
sure it was much less dangerous than Boston, but I never really adjusted to
the pell mell chaos in Amsterdam. Maybe I just wasn't there long enough.

~~~
grenoire
You get used to it. It's a different set of skills, and your reaction times
also improve over time. Hand signals help too.

Although I still avoid the very center, with all the oblivious tourists
walking on bicycle lanes...

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I have been that tourist. It takes a few to adjust to the heavy bicycle
traffic while walking around there because it challenges the "who-goes-first"
hierarchy.

The states: Cars go first, and watch out. Norway (Trondheim): Pretty much walk
where you will, others will stop. Amsterdam: Bicycles go first, and the others
wait.

~~~
grenoire
The real hierarchy in Amsterdam is trams > cycles > cars > pedestrians.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Heh. Yeah, I forgot about the trams. Its been a bit since I've been the
annoying tourist - probably time to go again :)

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Rainymood
In Amsterdam when you're on a bike you become a demigod. Crosswalks? Screw
that. Traffic signs? Screw that. You're on a fucking bike and you're in
amsterdam: you're a demigod. You are the one to rule them all, no pedestrian
or car will be able to stop you!

Source: Lived in Amsterdam when I was a student

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jseliger
Interestingly, too, virtually any American city _could_ copy all five.

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pmoriarty
The trams and tram tracks in Amsterdam is still a problem for bicycles. Cross
the tracks wrong and your bike tire gets stuck in the tracks and you go head
first in to the street. Trams themselves can be as deadly as cars are to
bicyclists. Fortunately they are more predictable and confined to their
tracks.

Ideally, both trams and cars would be completely underground or above-ground,
and have no possibility of collision with bicycles or pedestrians at all.

~~~
chrisdbaldwin
Can confirm. My mother face planted in this exact way while biking in
Amsterdam.

~~~
Nanite
For crossing tram tracks it's best to approach with an "angle of attack"
greater than 30 deg. to avoid your wheels getting guided by the track slots.

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YouKnowBetter
The "forgotten" reason why Amsterdam works so well for bikes is that they're
exempt from all laws and everything & body will be prosecuted and/or lynched
when one interferes with their G*d given Rights.

Source: lived in the city's center for 30 years.

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eggie5
The main reason why biking is so popular in Amsterdam is mostly because it's
flat and secondly all the other things like cars being second-class
citizens...

------
fnord77
also it is very flat.

despite the many bikes here, SF sucks for biking because of the hills

~~~
GoToRO
With an electric bike everything is flat :)

------
dkarl
A pet peeve of mine is how infrastructure-oriented, and therefore how mid-to-
far-future-oriented, city cycling discussions tend to be. There are people on
the road right now. City planners like to assume that all current cyclists are
a distinct breed of weirdos and there are no marginal gains to be made by
making marginal improvements. It will take grand action to get "normal" people
to ride bicycles. In truth, regular cyclists are just the tail of a larger
population of people who want to bike more and drive less, and who
occasionally try. Every improvement to safety and convenience means more of
those people will ride for transportation more often.

 _1\. All streets are bike streets_

This is already true for people who leave home on a bicycle expecting to
handle all their daily business. Please consider that basically everyone who
leaves home on a bike is forced to include some segments of "car" streets in
their route. Planners like to imagine all of a city's cyclists moving around
on the streets and paths they've specifically improved for bicyclists, like
they've laid out a model train track and all the toy trains are running on it.
If cyclists were restricted to traveling that way, it wouldn't be a practical
means of transportation. Educate drivers and take cyclists into account in
traffic engineering. Make cycling a little more tolerable now and you'll have
more cyclists and more of a political mandate for infrastructure projects in
the future.

 _2\. Separated cycle tracks, not bike lanes_

I hate the "not" here. I know the author is describing Amsterdam, but he calls
his five points a "template," and "not bike lanes" doesn't belong on any
city's template for becoming bike-friendly. Bike lanes are cheap and quick to
install, so put them everywhere you can spare the space. I know they're not
all that safe. I've been hit in one. At the same time you work on installing
bike lanes, work on the grant and bond proposals that will let you build
separated cycle tracks in the future. There's grass-roots interest in cycling
_right now_ in the United States. People want to bike, and they're trying,
despite the lack of infrastructure. Focusing solely on expensive, high-profile
improvements that are years out is a disservice to people who are taking to
the roads right now, and it could leave a lot of them with a sour taste in
their mouths as they struggle to safely navigate the streets near their work
and wonder why there's so much excitement about projects that even if fully
completed years from now will still leave them many blocks short of their work
and other nonnegotiable destinations. Bike lanes might not have a place in the
future, but none of us live in the future as of yet.

(I suspect planners and advocates feel pushed towards the most ambitious
projects by career considerations, and I can sympathize with that. Everyone
wants to be the most forward-looking. Everyone wants to have the highest hopes
and standards. Everyone wants, when the future finally arrives in reality, to
have been the first to get there in their heads. Everybody wants to be seen as
valuing the least advantaged and most vulnerable people who will be the last
(in perception, not necessarily in reality) to finally be brought onto the
road by the most advanced evolution of infrastructure. Nobody wants to be
associated with the suboptimal and downright dangerous compromises we will
live with until then.)

------
gxs
Queue comments about what a travesty it is that US cities were built to
accommodate the automobile.

To be honest, I think it's one of the coolest things that we take for granted.
I can step outside, hop into my car right now, and drive literally anywhere in
the US. I drive home from the Bay Area to LA all the time and I always find
this very cool.

Do I think we need more public transportation? Absolutely. And more bike lines
since I ride my bike to work too. While we're at it, better laws to protect
cyclists and public facilities for bike storage and repair.

What I'm getting at is that we should embrace multiple forms of transporation
and not take for granted what we do have.

~~~
jozzz
> I can step outside, hop into my car right now, and drive literally anywhere
> in the US.

Where can't you do this? It's possible to drive from London to Beijing if you
really want to.

~~~
AstralStorm
And comparatively easy to use trains as well. Likely much more convenient,
faster and safer too.

Or if you do not care about climate change, a plane trip is still better than
a car trip.

~~~
metawhatnow
> Or if you do not care about climate change, a plane trip is still better
> than a car trip.

IIRC it's actually better than a car trip greater than a few hundred miles,
especially if you're driving alone.

