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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

by 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).

by r3bl 11y ago

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).