11 ms·

How the Dutch got their cycling infrastructure (2011)

120 points by omnibrain 11y ago

manachar 11y ago
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.
- wpietri 11y ago
  San Francisco has been moving in this direction and I couldn't be happier. Some of it is directly inspired by Dutch innovations; a few years back the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's director took a sabbatical in Amsterdam and came back all fired up: http://www.spur.org/events/2011-01-13/going-dutch-creating-bicycle-dependent-city http://www.spur.org/events/2011-01-13/going-dutch-creating-b... But yes, when I tell people outside of SF that I haven't owned a car in years they often look at me as if I had two heads. As the great Vizzini would say, it's just inconceivable.
  - aexaey 11y ago
    BTW, photo in the linked article was made from the top of this 2500-place 3-story-high bicycle parking structure at the Amsterdam Central train station: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fietsflat https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fietsflat edit: grammar
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  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 :)
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Hawaii in particular seems like an insane place to build a car-centric society. It’s not like anyone is going to go on a long road trip, or needs to commute from point to point over a huge geographic area (as one comparison, the island of Oahu has <1/10 the area of the SF Bay Area). I’m guessing the typical Honolulu commute is only a few miles. Some combination of boats, mass transit, bikes, walking, so-called neighborhood electric vehicles, and the occasional jeep seems like it would be much more practical. The money and space spent on parking, wide streets, and car ownership would go quite a long way if diverted to transit.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > as one comparison, the island of Oahu has <1/10 the area of the SF Bay Area And a good part of it is Koʻolau and Waianae which most people probably don't cross daily.
  - sirmarksalot 11y ago
    Downtown real estate in Hawaii is about as expensive as in San Francisco. Most working-class people live in bedroom suburbs like Hawaii Kai, Mililani, or Makakilo, 12-20 miles away. People who live closer to town are largely on the mountain ridges, making it geographically close, but logistically impossible to bike. And a huge number of people also cross the mountains from Kaneohe, Kailua or Waimanalo, using either Likelike or Pali Hwy, both of which have a staggering amount of elevation change.
- pinaceae 11y ago
  also helps when cities/towns are older than the US as a whole. much denser, built for different times. also helps when your country is dead flat. old people can cycle on flat roads. SF style hills ... not so much.
  - _ph_ 11y ago
    This is why electrically assisted bikes are a huge thing. For the weak, they give the ability to ride at a decent speed and also they help with going uphill. Which is also important, if you use the bike as vehicle rather than a sports device, like biking in business clothing.
    - awjr 11y ago
      My wife has an arthritic knee and we bought a e-bike with a throttle. So she can go for a ride with me and then when her knee starts twingeing she can just stop peddling and carry on. We did consider a mobility scooter, but that in no way looks cool in anyway possible.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Have a look at these: http://www.trikkelev.com/ http://www.trikkelev.com/
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Never been in SF, but lived in Switzerland. Everyone cycles there, even in the Alps centric cities.
    - usrusr 11y ago
      Cycling in Switzerland (not as a commuter, but as part of the yearly lycra invasion riding to the alpine roads), I was very impressed with the cleverness of their mix of separate lanes, on-road lanes, mixed traffic and the occasional dedicated cyclepath. The Swiss cycle infrastructure is clearly driven by compromise in terms of money and space, but it always respects the cyclist and is very good at avoiding safety pitfalls like dedicated cycle infrastructure at roundabouts. In Germany, otoh, cycle infrastructure is everywhere (even in placed where law doesn't actually allow it) but suffers a lot from a tradition of building cycle infrastructure for the benefit of cars, dating back to you-know-whom. Instead of picking the type of infrastructure by how well it matches the specific needs of the place where it is built, this decision is mostly driven by one size fits all best practice ideas that change like fashion. The result is a dangerous, inconsistent mess that makes some cyclists envy American "cyclists share the road" signs. Unfortunately, Swiss cities don't have the modal split numbers required to be internationally recognized as a template to copy (even Basel! Maybe statistical methods are to blame?). I think a full copy of Swiss infrastructure would be much more useful than an incomplete imitation of the Netherlands or Copenhagen in places that lack the dedication necessary to do the latter.
- greggman 11y ago
  Don't forget the influence of the auto industry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4
- walshemj 11y ago
  You have to compare geography and the pre existing built environment though
  - ska 11y ago
    True, to a point. Geography should affect planning, but we haven't done a particularly good job of that in many cases. There is also a real danger of a sunk cost fallacy being applied to the later (existing infrastructure), for example.
- Scarblac 11y ago
  It seems that the US likes to do everything in a more decentralized way though. After the flooding near New York a few years back Dutch consultants were brought in to see what could be improved, one of the hard things was that in the US they had to work with small local governments everywhere whereas in the Netherlands flood prevention is mostly a national issue solved by national infrastructure projects.
r3bl 11y ago
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.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles than it has citizens. It's definitely true that most dutch people have at least one bike and quite possibly more than one. But we also have a huge bike theft problem and a good chunk of the new bicycles sold are to replace stolen ones.
- kwhitefoot 11y ago
  > It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles than it has citizens. Or it could be because it has a larger number of stolen bicycles than it has citizens, at least I have a vague memory of seeing a news report to that effect, might have been an exaggeration of course :-)
- aexaey 11y ago
  > 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).
neonbat 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
- walshemj 11y ago
  My dad did some consulting for LU (on the power side) a while back he was amused that the 1930 kit was lasting much better than the newer 1970's stuff.
chrismealy 11y ago
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 ...
awjr 11y ago
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-cycling/ http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/08/24/how-to-solve-pavement-cyc... 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 11y ago
  >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.
huuu 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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
smonff 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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-design-guidance/?lang=en http://gov.wales/consultations/transport/active-travel-desig... 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-bad-banes-management/ http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-example-of...
hellofunk 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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. ;)
  - tiku 11y ago
    This has to do with the fact that cyclists are more vulnerable than cars and thats why a car is always responsible. Kinda like in skiing or snowboarding that you're responsible for who is in front of you.. It works fine because the most roads dont have cycling paths next to them, if they do it is divided so cars cant easily get on the bike path and viceversa.
    - awjr 11y ago
      The dutch implemented presumed liability. The more vulnerable road users is presumed innocent until proven otherwise. On UK roads, you only have this for driving into the back of somebody.
      - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
        Just a small note to add is that we implemented this in the 90s, long after cycling was ubiquitous and cycling infrastructure was, too. Not that you made this claim but I just want to add that this wasn't what made cycling popular or safe if anyone is wondering. It was a relative afterthought that surely must have helped, although how significant it has been to improve safety is hard to say. Cycling deaths dropped by about 20% - 25% since then, but that was a relatively minimal drop compared to say car deaths (80%) or even pedestrians. It's important also to know what this liability refers to, it's not criminal (i.e. you go to jail because you're in an accident that kills someone and you're in the car, thus presumed liable. It's not like that at all. You might go to jail but only for the right reasons, it's not presumed.). The liability refers to financial liability to the insurer of the car (and such insurance is mandatory by law in the Netherlands and virtually everyone sticks by that). Apart from a possible increase in insurance premiums because the accident puts you in a 'higher risk' category, there aren't any consequences for the driver. Which means that a lot of people in the Netherlands aren't even aware of this rule. In fact most of the time they aren't even aware after an accident, because it's mostly a thing insurance companies deal with behind the scenes. Not likely to affect driving, then.
eveningcoffee 11y ago
Another vibrant bicycle culture is in Berlin.
- usrusr 11y ago
  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.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    I just love those idle minutes in the tube when no one can get ahold of me for once.
  - eveningcoffee 11y ago
    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.
- Dorian-Marie 11y ago
  There is a great Critical Mass community there: http://www.critical-mass-berlin.de/ http://www.critical-mass-berlin.de/
neographikal 11y ago
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.

120 points by omnibrain 11y ago

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.

wpietri 11y ago
San Francisco has been moving in this direction and I couldn't be happier. Some of it is directly inspired by Dutch innovations; a few years back the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's director took a sabbatical in Amsterdam and came back all fired up: http://www.spur.org/events/2011-01-13/going-dutch-creating-bicycle-dependent-city http://www.spur.org/events/2011-01-13/going-dutch-creating-b... But yes, when I tell people outside of SF that I haven't owned a car in years they often look at me as if I had two heads. As the great Vizzini would say, it's just inconceivable.
- aexaey 11y ago
  BTW, photo in the linked article was made from the top of this 2500-place 3-story-high bicycle parking structure at the Amsterdam Central train station: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fietsflat https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fietsflat edit: grammar
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
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 :)
jacobolus 11y ago
Hawaii in particular seems like an insane place to build a car-centric society. It’s not like anyone is going to go on a long road trip, or needs to commute from point to point over a huge geographic area (as one comparison, the island of Oahu has <1/10 the area of the SF Bay Area). I’m guessing the typical Honolulu commute is only a few miles. Some combination of boats, mass transit, bikes, walking, so-called neighborhood electric vehicles, and the occasional jeep seems like it would be much more practical. The money and space spent on parking, wide streets, and car ownership would go quite a long way if diverted to transit.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > as one comparison, the island of Oahu has <1/10 the area of the SF Bay Area And a good part of it is Koʻolau and Waianae which most people probably don't cross daily.
- sirmarksalot 11y ago
  Downtown real estate in Hawaii is about as expensive as in San Francisco. Most working-class people live in bedroom suburbs like Hawaii Kai, Mililani, or Makakilo, 12-20 miles away. People who live closer to town are largely on the mountain ridges, making it geographically close, but logistically impossible to bike. And a huge number of people also cross the mountains from Kaneohe, Kailua or Waimanalo, using either Likelike or Pali Hwy, both of which have a staggering amount of elevation change.
pinaceae 11y ago
also helps when cities/towns are older than the US as a whole. much denser, built for different times. also helps when your country is dead flat. old people can cycle on flat roads. SF style hills ... not so much.
- _ph_ 11y ago
  This is why electrically assisted bikes are a huge thing. For the weak, they give the ability to ride at a decent speed and also they help with going uphill. Which is also important, if you use the bike as vehicle rather than a sports device, like biking in business clothing.
  - awjr 11y ago
    My wife has an arthritic knee and we bought a e-bike with a throttle. So she can go for a ride with me and then when her knee starts twingeing she can just stop peddling and carry on. We did consider a mobility scooter, but that in no way looks cool in anyway possible.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Have a look at these: http://www.trikkelev.com/ http://www.trikkelev.com/
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Never been in SF, but lived in Switzerland. Everyone cycles there, even in the Alps centric cities.
  - usrusr 11y ago
    Cycling in Switzerland (not as a commuter, but as part of the yearly lycra invasion riding to the alpine roads), I was very impressed with the cleverness of their mix of separate lanes, on-road lanes, mixed traffic and the occasional dedicated cyclepath. The Swiss cycle infrastructure is clearly driven by compromise in terms of money and space, but it always respects the cyclist and is very good at avoiding safety pitfalls like dedicated cycle infrastructure at roundabouts. In Germany, otoh, cycle infrastructure is everywhere (even in placed where law doesn't actually allow it) but suffers a lot from a tradition of building cycle infrastructure for the benefit of cars, dating back to you-know-whom. Instead of picking the type of infrastructure by how well it matches the specific needs of the place where it is built, this decision is mostly driven by one size fits all best practice ideas that change like fashion. The result is a dangerous, inconsistent mess that makes some cyclists envy American "cyclists share the road" signs. Unfortunately, Swiss cities don't have the modal split numbers required to be internationally recognized as a template to copy (even Basel! Maybe statistical methods are to blame?). I think a full copy of Swiss infrastructure would be much more useful than an incomplete imitation of the Netherlands or Copenhagen in places that lack the dedication necessary to do the latter.
greggman 11y ago
Don't forget the influence of the auto industry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-I8GDklsN4
walshemj 11y ago
You have to compare geography and the pre existing built environment though
- ska 11y ago
  True, to a point. Geography should affect planning, but we haven't done a particularly good job of that in many cases. There is also a real danger of a sunk cost fallacy being applied to the later (existing infrastructure), for example.
Scarblac 11y ago
It seems that the US likes to do everything in a more decentralized way though. After the flooding near New York a few years back Dutch consultants were brought in to see what could be improved, one of the hard things was that in the US they had to work with small local governments everywhere whereas in the Netherlands flood prevention is mostly a national issue solved by national infrastructure projects.

r3bl 11y ago

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.

jacquesm 11y ago
> It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles than it has citizens. It's definitely true that most dutch people have at least one bike and quite possibly more than one. But we also have a huge bike theft problem and a good chunk of the new bicycles sold are to replace stolen ones.
kwhitefoot 11y ago
> It's no wonder that the Netherlands has a larger number of sold bicycles than it has citizens. Or it could be because it has a larger number of stolen bicycles than it has citizens, at least I have a vague memory of seeing a news report to that effect, might have been an exaggeration of course :-)
aexaey 11y ago
> 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).

neonbat 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
walshemj 11y ago
My dad did some consulting for LU (on the power side) a while back he was amused that the 1930 kit was lasting much better than the newer 1970's stuff.

chrismealy 11y ago

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 ...

awjr 11y ago

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-cycling/ http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/08/24/how-to-solve-pavement-cyc... 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 11y ago
>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.

huuu 11y ago

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 11y ago
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

smonff 11y ago

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 11y ago
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-design-guidance/?lang=en http://gov.wales/consultations/transport/active-travel-desig... 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-bad-banes-management/ http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-example-of...

hellofunk 11y ago

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 11y ago
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. ;)
- tiku 11y ago
  This has to do with the fact that cyclists are more vulnerable than cars and thats why a car is always responsible. Kinda like in skiing or snowboarding that you're responsible for who is in front of you.. It works fine because the most roads dont have cycling paths next to them, if they do it is divided so cars cant easily get on the bike path and viceversa.
  - awjr 11y ago
    The dutch implemented presumed liability. The more vulnerable road users is presumed innocent until proven otherwise. On UK roads, you only have this for driving into the back of somebody.
    - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
      Just a small note to add is that we implemented this in the 90s, long after cycling was ubiquitous and cycling infrastructure was, too. Not that you made this claim but I just want to add that this wasn't what made cycling popular or safe if anyone is wondering. It was a relative afterthought that surely must have helped, although how significant it has been to improve safety is hard to say. Cycling deaths dropped by about 20% - 25% since then, but that was a relatively minimal drop compared to say car deaths (80%) or even pedestrians. It's important also to know what this liability refers to, it's not criminal (i.e. you go to jail because you're in an accident that kills someone and you're in the car, thus presumed liable. It's not like that at all. You might go to jail but only for the right reasons, it's not presumed.). The liability refers to financial liability to the insurer of the car (and such insurance is mandatory by law in the Netherlands and virtually everyone sticks by that). Apart from a possible increase in insurance premiums because the accident puts you in a 'higher risk' category, there aren't any consequences for the driver. Which means that a lot of people in the Netherlands aren't even aware of this rule. In fact most of the time they aren't even aware after an accident, because it's mostly a thing insurance companies deal with behind the scenes. Not likely to affect driving, then.

eveningcoffee 11y ago

Another vibrant bicycle culture is in Berlin.

usrusr 11y ago
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.
- dasil003 11y ago
  I just love those idle minutes in the tube when no one can get ahold of me for once.
- eveningcoffee 11y ago
  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.
Dorian-Marie 11y ago
There is a great Critical Mass community there: http://www.critical-mass-berlin.de/ http://www.critical-mass-berlin.de/

neographikal 11y ago

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.