
How the Dutch got their cycling infrastructure (2011) - omnibrain
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/
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manachar
Talking infrastructure with people in the US (and maybe elsewhere) is
frustrating. People seem to forget that we can build whatever system we want.
Which is why it warmed my cockles to see this:

"Road building traditions go back a long way and they are influenced by many
factors. But the way Dutch streets and roads are built today is largely the
result of deliberate political decisions in the 1970s to turn away from the
car centric policies of the prosperous post war era. Changed ideas about
mobility, safer and more livable cities and about the environment led to a new
type of streets in the Netherlands."

Here in the US, most people I talk to seem to think the car-based, suburban,
strip malls, business parks, and commercial city center approach is the only
way to do things.

You can see this approach disastrously over-applied here in Hawaii, especially
on O'ahu and around Honolulu.

It's refreshing to see this well thought out reminder that humans are clever
creatures and really can optimize systems for other outcomes.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Absolutely, although it does depend. The Netherlands had and still has today
very small cities where residential, commercial, office and other (local
school, sports centre, park) areas are close together and easily reachable by
foot, bicycle or short distance public transportation (tram, bus, subway).
Building cycling infrastructure immediately pays off because you're building
transportation lanes that have 10 miles per hour speeds, in cities where
citizens mostly make many 1-4 mile trips.

And this is a pretty common European feature really, virtually all our cities
are built in the age of transport by foot or horse and are structured much
differently, coupled with higher rates of population density in the Europe (vs
say the US, or worse, Australia).

That wouldn't work as much in say Australian cities, some of which are known
for their terrible urban sprawl. The notion of building transportation lanes
that average 10 miles per hour when typical citizens work, shop or go to
school say 10 miles or more away from home, doesn't make as much sense.
Australia after all has seen the majority of its cities founded in the past
150 years and saw 2/3rd of its population growth in the past 50 years or so in
the era of ubiquitous cars.

Now of course existing Dutch cities today are expanded with minimizing any
urban sprawl in mind, and cycling is both an instrument to solve issues as
well as drive city design to prevent issues. And new cities are entirely built
with this in mind. But in terms of reinventing existing cities, it was much
easier to do in the Netherlands than it'd be in say the US.

So while I'm Dutch and yes, 40 years ago we were heavily motorised, and had
lots of traffic deaths, and had poor cycling infrastructure, and were able to
reinvent ourselves, and while yes this can apply to all cities worldwide to a
large extent, it's also fair to point out that some cities would really need
radical changes to decrease travel distance and create more density. e.g. by
creating many small city centres where residents can do everything (most of
their shopping, work, entertainment and education within miles of their home).
Such radical changes require very significant leadership and an effort that
dwarfs what the Dutch had to do to get where they are today.

That having been said I've also visited lots of American cities where cycling
infrastructure would seem like a perfect fit. You mentioned Honolulu, I
totally agree, it's a no-brainer to build cycling infrastructure there,
requiring nothing more than what the Dutch did.

Lastly another difference isn't technical, economical or social or relating to
geography or anything like that, but purely political. The Netherlands has
always had an automotive industry but it's always been relatively small.
Virtually all cars are imported. Of the top 10 brands, 3 are German, 3 are
French, 1 American/Swedish/Korean/Japanese. It's pretty well known that the
car industry helped dismantle public transportation in the US, such forces
haven't been as big a factor in the Netherlands (despite the fact Dutch Royal
Shell's oil industry was the largest company by revenue of any company
worldwide in 2013, 2nd in 2014 and 3rd in 2015, revenues equivalent to about
85% of the country's GDP (!), but it's pretty much entirely focused outside of
the Dutch market anyway).

Although I do recall very recently Shell funding helmets for kids which I
thought was pretty funny. In 2010 only 2 kids died in traffic in the
Netherlands, and it's pretty well known that cycling is reduced when cyclists
are forced to wear helmets here and that cycling's popularity has done a lot
for safety. You could take that as a clever anti-cycling measure wrapped in
'safe the kids' rhetoric from Shell, but perhaps that's paranoid.

Fun fact, Dutch support for Israel in the 70s may have helped the cycling
culture get a tiny boost. OPEC boycotted oil sales to the Netherlands for its
arms sales to Israel who was embroiled in the 73 war with various OPEC
members. Dutch PM responded with car-free sundays due to oil scarcity. Of
course soon after OPEC expanded the list of countries beyond the Netherlands,
we started getting oil from South America and Africa instead and it didn't
last very long either (ironically there was even a bit of an oil glut in Dutch
harbours because one of the biggest refineries in the world was in Rotterdam
so whenever it supplied e.g. France or Germany it could circumvent the
boycott), and driving less on sunday led to driving more on saturday, so it
wasn't extremely significant but I thought it probably helped a tiny bit :)

~~~
brc
I'm really coming around to the idea of car-free Sundays. Even from something
like 5-11 am I think a lot of places would really benefit from that.

This Sunday I participated in marathon/half marathon and it was great to see
the streets empty except for runners, occasional cyclists taking advantage of
the closed streets and lots of pedestrians watching the crowd but also filling
the cafes everywhere.

You specifically mentioned Australia - while Melbourne is flat and cool, both
Sydney and Brisbane are hilly and hot for half the year. The country also has
insane helmet laws, so that even the bike-sharing programs are essentially
unused simply because you have to wear a helmet or face a fine. So the bikes
sit in the sun and rain and virtually never get used.

Removing the helmet laws for adults would go a long way to higher adoption in
the dutch model. But 'safety' laws are hard to ratchet back, given all the
effort that went into telling people they couldn't be trusted with their own
judgement in the first place.

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awjr
I'm chair of CycleBath
([http://www.cyclebath.org.uk](http://www.cyclebath.org.uk)) and we're having
one hell of a time pushing for better cycle infrastructure. I think one of the
more interesting problems we have is that cyclists are treated as an outlier
group within the UK.

There are certain cities that "get" cycling e.g. Cambridge (
[https://vimeo.com/133736570](https://vimeo.com/133736570)) but persuading the
general public that it is worth spending money on cycling is extremely hard.
We have recently taken the approach to educate people that attend the Police
Community Liaison meetings where they can spend 50%+ of the time discussing
illegal pavement cycling, as to why it happens.
[http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/08/24/how-to-solve-pavement-
cyc...](http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/08/24/how-to-solve-pavement-cycling/)

I truly believe that the transport policy of your local authority defines the
health and wellbeing of your residents. I think the fact the cost of
healthcare in the UK is "hidden" as it is "free" has subtlety enabled a car
centric culture to persist. My father who lives in Florida stated that people
are demanding cycle tracks. They want to keep fit and keep their healthcare
insurance low.

In the UK obesity in boys is around 16%, in the Netherlands it's around 1.6%.

The other problem with cycle infrastructure is that if it's not good for a 7
year old to ride on, it's not going to work for the general public.
Segregation is key and definitely do not allow your local authority to create
shared space where pedestrians and cyclists mix "happily".

Then you have the biggest issue. Cycle infrastructure is only as good as the
weakest link. So local residents can massively impact the quality of the
network and thus the ability for people 5 miles away to make a decision to
choose to cycle. So you get a piece-meal approach to cycle network development
in the hope that it will join up eventually :(

As an aside, I noted somebody felt 10miles was too far on a bike. I would
suggest investigating e-bikes. They are rather good these days and can happily
tank along at 15.5mph (Europe), even faster in some countries.

~~~
hueving
>In the UK obesity in boys is around 16%, in the Netherlands it's around 1.6%.

Not to detract much from your larger point, but this is much more likely due
to diet than cycling. If the UK is picking up eating habits similar to the US,
the ~200 calories a day you might burn from a leisurely bike commute (can't be
vigorous enough to cause sweating) isn't going to be enough to offset the big
caloric imbalances that lead to obesity.

~~~
kaonashi
How is ~10% of average daily caloric intake insignificant?

~~~
hueving
When you're 500 over, you need to recognize that biking isn't going to fix
your problem. People pretend exercise just magically fixes obesity when it's
rarely that close of an imbalance for obese (not overweight) people.

~~~
kaonashi
You'll gain weight at half the rate.

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smonff
The Paris cycling infrastructure is freaking non-efficient. And dangerous.
Pedestrian and cycling zone are way too mixed, accidents between the two are
very easy. Now, pedestrians hate cyclists and cyclists hate pedestrians. You
cannot cycle freely becahse the cycles paths are a kind of bigger pedestrian
path.The only place where you could use the bike in an efficient way are bus
paths (also including taxis). It's interesting but not really secure as busses
are very disrespectful with bicycles.

The political action is a fail in the case of Paris, because they did it only
to say _let 's see, we did something for you_, but they didn't reply
understood the things that are explained in this video. They don't want to
take the risk of loosing pro-cars electors and it is a pity.

~~~
awjr
Yup, happens in the UK. It is cheaper and less politically divisive to build a
shared path rather than take on-road parking away to create segregated cycle
infrastructure. One of the things I am trying to push into our local council
is for them to use the cycling and walking audit tools that were developed as
part of the Welsh Active Travel guidance
[http://gov.wales/consultations/transport/active-travel-
desig...](http://gov.wales/consultations/transport/active-travel-design-
guidance/?lang=en)

They are available here should you want to use them ;)
[http://cyclebath.org.uk/resources/](http://cyclebath.org.uk/resources/)

We've had a few schemes where 3-4 multiple designs were submitted and the
final chosen design was poor for cycling and walking. Having a cycling and
walking audit scores against each design would have given a stronger case for
other designs. [http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-example-
of...](http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-example-of-bad-banes-
management/)

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hellofunk
It is interesting that a lot of the younger Dutch citizens I meet here do not
realize that it has not always been the way it is now, that the deep reach of
the bicycle was a deliberate policy shift away from an equally extreme shift
_towards_ cars earlier in the 20th Century. However, among the older citizens
I meet, they indicate that throughout their whole lives, bikes were always a
common mode of transport; just perhaps nowhere near the ubiquity of today.

~~~
awjr
I was on a train talking to a dutch guy about cycling. He said the dutch are
crazy cyclists and do crazy things. I then asked him who would be to blame if
a car hit him "The driver of course." What if you hit a pedestrian? "That
would be my fault".

I also had to explain to him that cars do not have to give way to cyclists at
junctions so watch out. He thought that was crazy. ;)

~~~
toothbrush
I'm loath to get into this discussion, but i'm actually very much in the Dutch
camp on this one. Here in France cars and bicycles are considered 'equals' as
far as road rules go, and it's a nightmare. 1000kg of death metal (no
reference to the band) versus about 15kg and an exposed human are no match.
I've learned to cycle _really_ defensively here, since motorists just don't
treat you with the proper respect. Mind, by 'proper respect' i don't mean that
cyclists should be treated like holy cows, but simply that people should all
be conscious of the hierarchy of vulnerability. If a cyclist crashes into a
pedestrian (even if the pedestrian did stray into the bicycle path) i find it
reasonable that the cyclist, being the heavier faster object, should pay more
attention. Likewise for the car. It's a disgrace that cyclists end up having
to pay for car repairs when in many cases there would've been no accident if
the car had been driving respectfully [0] — even if the infrastructure (that
is, in France a "bicycle path" is simply an already narrow 50km/h car lane
with a bicycle icon painted on post facto) doesn't encourage it.

0\. This happened to me. It taught me to drive _extremely_ defensively. You
will not believe the number of times i have had (for example) a green traffic
light, and have had to stop for oncoming traffic turning left in front of me.
I have right of way, but 1000kg of steel trumps right of way Every Time. If i
sound a little ranty, it's because i'm rather bitter about the state of
affairs here.

~~~
hellofunk
It definitely helps as a cyclist if you live in a place where all the drivers
on the road are also cyclists. They respect you more. In many cities here in
the Netherlands, many roads do not even allow cars; only bikes can cross the
car barriers, so you only have pedestrians and bikes on the street.

There are actually more bicycles in Holland than there are people!

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r3bl
This year I spent some time in Rijswijk (a small city right next to The Hague)
and I was able to get to The Hague's center and back without ever having to
leave the bicycle track.

Seriously, their bicycle tracks are amazing. Physically detached from
pedestrians and cars and ciclysts have separate traffic lights.

It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles than
it has citizens.

~~~
aexaey
> It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles
> than it has citizens.

Many people in NL have two bikes per person if a daily commute's too long to
be comfortably done by cycling alone:

\- one bicycle at home to cycle to the train station near the place of
residence;

\- second bicycle parked overnight (and over weekend) near the train station
of the city one work in, to continue the trip to the office.

...and in the afternoon - same exercise in reverse.

This practice is so widespread in fact that a year or so ago, it was a matter
of public debate - who is due to pay for those huge bicycle parking places
next to the train station: Municipalities (because those bike parking places
are on municipal ground), or NS, the Dutch train operator (because it is NS'
customers who make use of those bike parking).

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chrismealy
The author, Mark Wagenbuur, is hugely influential in America. Without his
videos America would still be stuck in its vehicular cycling rut. I doubt
there's a city planner in America who doesn't get sent links to his videos all
the time. Now if Americans could only stop losing their shit every time on-
street parking is removed ...

------
huuu
As Christopher Alexander explains in his books: we forgot how important it is
to build for humans. I think that's the core of the problem.

But sometimes it's difficult to see what this means. Building roads for cars
isn't bad because it's helping humans to travel. But when car roads overtake
the pleasure of being outside something went wrong.

~~~
awjr
I think the major issue is that we prioritise roads for cars. When I was in
Orlando, Fl., we tried crossing the junction near our hotel on foot and gave
up and drove. We need to prioritise walking, then cycling, and then driving.
Segregating each form of transport is key. In the USA, putting roads onto a
"road diet" is easier in many cases due to the size of the lanes you have.
[http://gizmodo.com/what-the-heck-is-a-road-
diet-1727066519](http://gizmodo.com/what-the-heck-is-a-road-diet-1727066519)

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neographikal
With the widespread adoption of the ebike the cycling has gotten another
impulse. With the help of the motor larger distances can be covered with ease,
instead of people cycling 5-8km to work you now see a lot more people covering
something like 10-15km with the bike (I myself do around 16*2 if it's not
raining or bitter cold).

The bike saves a ton of emissions, helps in the reduction of traffic jams thus
saving a lot of polution and cycling is healthy. But even in the Netherlands
the politicians don't always get it, this year the tax rebate for bikes bought
for home-work trips has been canceled.. Too expensive, I really can't see how,
but hey.

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eveningcoffee
Another vibrant bicycle culture is in Berlin.

~~~
usrusr
Which really puzzles me, given their transit infrastructure. Do they still
lack cell coverage in the subway? Smartphone on transit is what killed my
cycle commute. I just love those sleepy minutes idly indulging in some light
social media infotainment before the day really starts.

~~~
eveningcoffee
It is not that everyone is cycling, just a lot of people. Many (most?) people
still choose the U-bahn or tram (on the east side).

I think that it is a question of lifestyle. Instead of choosing hot and moist
U-bahn, you have a refreshing ride on the bicycle. Especially when the
distances are short. Well, this is just a hypothesis.

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neonbat
For some reason New York City is unable to keep a couple of 1970s train cars
in motion _cough L train_. Given this fact is unlikely to change I see the
move towards more bike heavy infrastructure as a good move. Citibike has done
pretty well in New York and they keep installing new way stations or "bike
ports" as I like to call them. Very exciting.

~~~
Ollinson
All of the train cars on the MTA L line were made between 2006-2010

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_(New_York_City_Subway_car...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_\(New_York_City_Subway_car\))

~~~
neonbat
Yeah I can make a cotton gin and a horse drawn carriage in 2015 . When
something is created has no fixed or forced relationship to the effective age
of the underlying technology.

