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Bike lanes are a result not the reason of having so many people driving bicycles in Amsterdam. Being a shitty town to drive in let alone parking even when the c

by dep_b 9y ago

Bike lanes are a result not the reason of having so many people driving bicycles in Amsterdam. Being a shitty town to drive in let alone parking even when the car was still king really helped pushing people towards bicycles, but you can't retroactively apply medieval road structures and canals to US cities. On the other hand Rotterdam has a post war road structure and still a lot of people use their bicycle, perhaps that's not even a hard requirement. What you really see is that because so many people were using bicycles everywhere people just got fed up having cyclists criss-crossing between cars and pedestrians and finally gave them their own lanes - out of pure annoyance. So every US citizen that wants to have those nice lanes simply needs to make sure enough people on bicycles annoy the shit out of everybody else in the streets and you will get your lanes. Be sure to ride like a real asshole and practice flashing vulgar gestures while riding. Pretend you're invulnerable. Learn sequences of insults with lots of hard sounds in them. Nothing beats swearing in Dutch though. Every tourist almost hit by a cyclist in Amsterdam knows exactly what I mean! ;)

raarts 9y ago
It had nothing to do with annoyance. The real reason for separate lanes is safety. There is so much attention for traffic safety amongst the Dutch, especially towards kids in traffic. 50 years ago traffic in the Netherlands was not unlike the US now. Until in the 70s an action group called Stop de Kindermoord (“stop the child murder”) succeeded in getting the government to pay attention and make a turnaround. I remember this from my own childhood. Many kids died in traffic accidents. The attention to the safety of children is still present today, more bike lanes are being bult, kids need to do a traffic exam (on bikes) in 7th grade, existing roads are being remodeled for safety. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...
- dep_b 9y ago
  Of course it's about safety as well. Several of the children I knew when I grew up were killed in traffic, all roads it happened on have separate bike lanes now. But sharing the roads with kids that go to school can also be an annoyance, tending to ride with three kids next to eachother and making sudden movements because they're fighting/playing.

by dep_b 9y ago

raarts 9y ago

It had nothing to do with annoyance. The real reason for separate lanes is safety. There is so much attention for traffic safety amongst the Dutch, especially towards kids in traffic. 50 years ago traffic in the Netherlands was not unlike the US now. Until in the 70s an action group called Stop de Kindermoord (“stop the child murder”) succeeded in getting the government to pay attention and make a turnaround. I remember this from my own childhood. Many kids died in traffic accidents. The attention to the safety of children is still present today, more bike lanes are being bult, kids need to do a traffic exam (on bikes) in 7th grade, existing roads are being remodeled for safety. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...

dep_b 9y ago
Of course it's about safety as well. Several of the children I knew when I grew up were killed in traffic, all roads it happened on have separate bike lanes now. But sharing the roads with kids that go to school can also be an annoyance, tending to ride with three kids next to eachother and making sudden movements because they're fighting/playing.