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The best-kept secret of Dutch biking: the Dutch hardly bike at all

194 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

mikeryan 7y ago
It was kind of funny there was a company a few years ago that occupied some prime Market St. retail space in SF that sold "Dutch Bikes". Dutch bikes are pretty huge and make no sense in SF which has, you know, hills. They didn't last long.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  You mean the big cargo bikes with the huge basket up front? I can't imagine those being too popular in SF.
  - T-hawk 7y ago
    I think he means the Dutch bike style that encloses the chain and single-speed drivetrain inside a case. Great for durability and enduring harsh weather, bad for hills where you need gearing.
turk73 7y ago
Americans with a Euro fetish should just move to a European country. What works "over there" has never worked here, no matter what it is you look at.
dougmwne 7y ago
The third graph showing the % of trips by foot, bike and car is amazing. Almost 50% of trips .6 - 1.6 miles in NL are by bike and the percent falls fairly gradually for longer trips. I wish I could see this data for other countries.
w0utert 7y ago
It would be interesting to split out the results between regular bikes and electric ones, now that they are becoming very popular. On an electric bike, distance is much less of threshold for choosing bike over car, and e.g. weather or ‘amount of stuff to take with you’ become the main deciding factors. Maybe electric bikes could bring opportunities for US cities where everything is far apart?
- naravara 7y ago
  The main advantage of an electric bike is less about distance and more about terrain. The distance is nice too, but while electric assist it might have some impact on how long a trip you're willing to make, it'll have a huge impact on your willingness to take trips through hilly areas. This can open up whole new parts of the city for accessing casually by bike.
  - Beldin 7y ago
    Of course, we're talking about the Netherlands here... the country is mostly flat. Sure, there are some places with hills, but the majority lives in the flatter-than-pancake flat part. Where e-bikes can really shine, is increased speed. If you can do 40 an hour (km's), biking becomes a viable alternative to traffic jams. And that's happening already in NL.
- mmahemoff 7y ago
  I thought electric bikes and scooters was going to be the "secret". They are abundant in Netherlands bike lanes and apparently controversial. It's a good thing since smaller vehicles are replacing cars in many places, to make it more accessible to people who can't ride a regular bike, but has some safety and regulation issues to iron out.
  - edejong 7y ago
    I personally hate these very polluting moped abominations on the Dutch bicycle paths. They should’ve been banned (or heavily taxed) a decade ago when the Greens asked questions in parliament due to appalling emissions findings of a Dutch research institute. But, the coward politicians pointed to the EU and implicitly said the health of our bicyclists need to be decided in Brussels.
briga 7y ago
Is 2.5km a day really hardly biking at all? When you consider the fact that Dutch cities are so compact and densely populated, 2.5km of biking gets you a whole lot further than it would in the US, where there is little bike infrastructure and you might need to drive 20 minutes just to get to the grocery store. I wonder what other national biking averages are? Probably much lower than the Dutch national average.
- pkulak 7y ago
  I think you somewhat restated the thesis of the article.
- kokx 7y ago
  I probably bike around 2.5km a day as well. I live in the Netherlands, and I don't even own a car. My bike gets me to most of my regular and daily destinations faster than a car would. Partially because I can take faster routes as a cyclists, and partially because in a car I would have to wait for traffic lights more often and be stuck in busy traffic during peak hours. The only reason why I would use a car, is to get to family that lives further away. But even that stays within 50km. So the dutch public transport system fully satisfies that need for me as well.
- btrettel 7y ago
  Austin cyclist here. My daily commute is about 4-5 km in total. When I get groceries I'd probably travel about twice that distance in a day.
- ferkad 7y ago
  Many people consider it a walking distance. If you go on foot both ways but sit 8h at work you can still find it dificult to hit 10k steps per day (WHO recomendation IIRC).
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I'd consider it walking distance. Unless I was planning on carrying enough stuff to warrant the use of a bike trailer, I wouldn't bother getting my bike out for a trip that short.
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the-dude 7y ago
I've looked at the graphs, they may be right, but it doesn't feel right. Right now, I am living in a city and working from home, so the 1.5km / day figure seems to apply to me. But when I was in school, many many moons ago, the roundtrip to school was 14km and I had a newspaper delivery round adding up to about 20km. So basically as a teen, I did 20km a day, about 6 days a week. disclosure: I am Dutch, living in NL
- edejong 7y ago
  Neither to me. Perhaps the elderly, mopeds and weekends might bring the average down, but still. We regularly go on long bicycle trips of +30km. Some of my coworkers regularly race +80km. disclosure: Dutch myself
jedberg 7y ago
I was recently staying with a friend in a suburb of Amsterdam. One night we decided to go to dinner. She has three kids and I have two. She piled four of the five kids onto her bike (it had a basket for kids) and headed over. My wife and I and the baby rode in my car. She only got there one minute after me despite it being a few miles away. I think the reason is because she was able to take the inside passages that are only for bikes, so her trip was much shorter than mine. So not only are their buildings close together, but they are built around walking/bikes, such that those modes of transit are actually shorter.
- the-dude 7y ago
  In almost all NL cities except the biggest ones, a bike outperforms a car on 90%+ of the trips.
  - boudewijnrempt 7y ago
    In the city where I live, Deventer, at least for the inner city, walking even outperforms biking. I recently got a bike again, but I only use it for going places that would take me 20 minutes or more on foot. Of course, I haven't got a car, have never had a car and haven't even got a driver's license.
- btrettel 7y ago
  Cyclist here. I've told people that this can be true in the US as well (taking the exact same route even). I picked my current apartment because it has a relatively short bike commute. Going from my current apartment to where I work takes about the same amount of time by bike or car because the car is at best 5 minutes faster to the general area but that advantage is quickly lost when one has to park and walk to the building. With my bike I park 100 feet from the door. Some drivers might say that counting time to park is "cheating", but I strongly disagree. Time from door-to-door is what matters.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    reminds me of "our city is just as big when you count the suburbs!" but by that standard you have to count the bigger city's suburbs too
aisengard 7y ago
I wonder what the average trip is for Americans in large cities. For me in Brooklyn, it's about 4 miles to my office in Manhattan. Even in an ideal world with no cars, I still wouldn't really be able to bike to work (in terms of my desire to bike that far). If I'm going out to eat in my neighborhood, it's much easier and safer to just walk up to about a mile. So, there's not really much use for me to bike anywhere other than purely for recreation. Maybe I'd bike between a mile and four miles, I'm not sure. But it definitely would be my least-used form of transportation. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I am skeptical how useful a focus on bike lanes will be to the general public in American cities as compared to things like buses.
- gipp 7y ago
  There's definitely a middle distance where biking is the easiest way to get around. Particularly in Brooklyn, if you're traveling perpendicular to the direction of Manhattan you're almost certainly not served by transit anyway.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  NYC is by far the exception, not the rule, when it comes to modes of transportation that are applicable to most other American cities.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  This is certainly a case where the small size and compact nature of European cities give them advantages over American ones. Forget four miles, I have drive forty each way for prior commutes. Biking is great if you're a yuppie making six figures a year at a cushy, white-collar tech job. Not so much if you have to go to a client, have to do something physical, or even work in an office in the rest of the world. Let alone if you are a blue-collar worker, and possibly have to bring tools, equipment, etc. Telecommuting may mitigate this problem, but only for a small sub-set of workers for now, and even long term the fact remains that people still need to go into an office at least occasionally, and a good number of people can't get to work feasibly by bike. Plus, most people want to go somewhere after work, to the store and to church once a week, etc. This is orders of magnitude larger than a mile and a half (apparently the dutch average). I don't see why electric cars can't accomplish sustainability goals without trying to force a demographic shift of that scale (which is very unlikely to happen).
dr_dshiv 7y ago
Big gains for biking "occur when you go from detatched houses to two-story attached townhouses on side streets and four-story walkups on bigger streets. In other words, the big gains for biking occur when you reach the density of Europe’s famously beautiful and livable cities."
- Finnucane 7y ago
  Also, it's only partly about density in terms of population but also how far you have to go to get to stuff. Which is to say, mixed-use neighborhoods with shops and restaurants nearby are going to be more ped/bike friendly than 'bedroom communities' where everything else is far away.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    It's sad that mixed use is banned in so many places in the states. And, that so many people think living in an apartment is for poor people.
    - Finnucane 7y ago
      Condos are for rich people.
larrik 7y ago
> So, 1.5 miles per person per day. > Either way you count it, the Dutch hardly bike at all. Whaa???? How is that "hardly bike at all"? That's an enormous average! I'm guessing the National average for the USA rounds to zero. Honestly, I bet the average for the USA per year rounds to zero.
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hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
Wasn't clear to me from the article, but taking an average of "bicycle miles per day" is always going to be greatly skewed toward 0 if it includes people who never or rarely bike. Would be much more interested in the average bicycle miles per day of only people who take at least, say, 3 or 4 trip a week by bike.
peteey 7y ago
>This level of urban development isn’t just unusual in almost all of the United States. It’s illegal. Bang. In much of America, it is against the law to build dense cities where people are statistically close to work and the grocery store. Why do we have low density residential zoning in the first place? Preferring a large yard is one thing, but how did it come to be that America legally required houses to have yards?
- xeromal 7y ago
  This is just a spit take, but American culture is a bit more independent-minded and always has been since the founder. Having your own property is part of that identity. That's why many went west rather than build up in cities.
  - kqr 7y ago
    How is being dependent on fuel/motorised transport more independent than being able to transport yourself using your own body?
    - xeromal 7y ago
      We had horses and wagons before bicycles. I'm sure that's more car-like than bike-like.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    Moving west and building up happened at the same time, and western city centers are just as dense as eastern ones. The rarification of US cities happened in the 1940s and 1950s, when entire neighborhoods were bulldozed to make room for highways and parking lots that idealistic modernists and self-serving auto lobbyists believed were the future.
  - timerol 7y ago
    This argument really bothers me. "Having your own property is part of that identity" makes sense, but that is pretty much the exact opposite of "agreeing to collective laws that limit what you are allowed to do with your property."
bagacrap 7y ago
People choose a method of transportation based on personal convenience, moreso than cost, sustainability, safety, etc. Dutch citiies make parking inconvenient enough that biking wins out for short trips, and they're dense enough that many trips are short. What's the lesson here? It seems to be saying that no amount of new infrastructure will make people ride bikes.
- brlewis 7y ago
  I don't understand why you think people value safety less than convenience. I think infrastructure that increases safety will encourage cycling.
bastijn 7y ago
Nowadays a whole new trend is arising in the Netherlands. By introduction of the electric bike the cut-off for taking a bike vs. car is much less steep. Regular electric bikes (max 25km/h) make people bike to work for ranges 5-10 km single-trip now, speed pedelecs (45km/h bikes) are extending it as far as 35km single trip. Bikes are becoming more popular not only because people like to live healthy but also because our roads are clogging up (again). Combined with high-speed biking lanes being added to our infrastructure this drives adoption. I expect these graphs to change in the coming 5 years. P.s. Our today's issue is having speed pedelecs which are not allowed on our biking lanes in cities/suburbs/villages (big speed difference) but are just about too slow for the regular 50km/h roads :). P.p.s. Electric bikes are around 2000€ on average. Speed pedelecs start at 3500€ but quickly go to 5000€, and 8000€+ for premium brands is not uncommon. We still love our bikes ;).
- dv35z 7y ago
  For those like me who are unfamiliar with the word `pedelec` : "electric bicycle where the rider's pedalling is assisted by a small electric motor"
  - jiofih 7y ago
    Nearly every electric bike in the Netherlands is pedal-assist, not pure electric. When you see Pedelec, it means S-Pedelec, which is more powerful (45km/h), helmet required, basically a moped. Mostly used by older folks and weekend long-distance cycling groups.
  - namdnay 7y ago
    Isn't that all electric bikes? What other types are there? It's the only type of electric bike I've seen
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      In the Netherlands there used to be electric bikes that go up to about 25 km/h, mostly for the elderly, but in the last few years there are also "speed-pedelecs" that go up to 45 km/h and are popular with commuters. Count as mopeds, and controversial because they are more dangerous (partly because they look like normal bicycles and the rider is sitting upright but they're going much faster than normal bikes, other traffic doesn't expect it). But they do make it feasible to use a bike for longer commutes.
jordanpg 7y ago
This is consistent with my use of bikes: if it requires any special equipment or preparations whatsoever, I'm not really that interested. Helmets, special clothes, water, locks, repair gear, whatever. That means short rides only. Anything beyond that transitions the use case from "average, practical users" to hobbyists.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Unless you're doing a biking marathon, the only equipment you really need are a bike lock and helmet. Even the bike lock can be dispensed with if you have another means of securing your bike. Special clothes are entirely unnecessary unless you're racing.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I remember when I spent a few days in Utrecht: It was so dense that the walk to the supermarket was about as far as walking across a typical American Walmart parking lot.
coldtea 7y ago
>Is this an error? I asked around for a comparable estimate at the national level. As of 2017, that estimate is 2.5 km. So, 1.5 miles per person per day. Either way you count it, the Dutch hardly bike at all. An average of 1.5 miles per person per day sounds huge. What's the American average? 0.05 miles? What's the baseline from where the author justifies the "hardly bike" line? There are 17 million people in Netherlands, and 800.000 in Amsterdam. If half of the people in Amsterdam go about 5km per day (they wouldn't need much more, it's not a huge city, and they'd mostly go to/from work/school/home) that's 2.5 km per person per day -- the number they post. Half of the people of a city biking everyday is HUGE, and dwarfs any US town 5x easily. Heck, merely 10% of the population biking every day would be huge, and that's easily within the number given. I'd say the same holds for other Dutch cities and villages. So what are we are comparing with?
- SilasX 7y ago
  Yeah, those are my thoughts exactly. The relevant measure is what fraction of adults bike for travel every day (or close to it). Pretty sure the Netherlands crushes the US by that metric.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Relevant for what?
    - SilasX 7y ago
      For gauging what could justifiably be called "how often the population bikes" without becoming clickbait.
- MiroF 7y ago
  Exactly - doesn't take a genius to realize 2.5 km per day per capita is huge.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    2.5km per capita per day is huge. 2.5km per cyclist per day is tiny. The difference between those two statements and the specific details and societal implications thereof is the whole point of the article.
undersuit 7y ago
>Summary: Dutch biking rates are highest for trips of about 1 mile, and when trips get longer than three miles, bike trips start to fall sharply while car trips rise. The summary and the graph supporting it are startling. I think in my city you see a very exponential increase in car transportation starting past the average distance we cross the parking lot, about 500 feet.
thiagomgd 7y ago
I wouldn't say that biking 1.2km PER DAY is "hardly bike at all". What's the average per day for US?
mighty_bander 7y ago
I was astounded when I mapped out a transit ride from a suburb of Amsterdam to the city center - and discovered it was 15 minutes long. I'm not a fan of compact European living (washing machine in the kitchen?!), but that's a hard advantage to ignore.
- jiofih 7y ago
  The washing machine is either in the bathroom, or a tiny closet in the majority of houses I’ve seen :)
JackFr 7y ago
The article spends a lot of words talking about zoning and city structure without any mention of how remarkably flat the country.
Mathnerd314 7y ago
The first graph has a peak at 2010 and is much lower in 2011. I found a post (https://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/artikel/2012/04/netherlands-2011-weather-conditions-slow-down-dutch-market-1019848?vakmedianet-approve-cookies=1 https://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/artikel/2012/04/netherl...) which says the weather was particularly bad in 2011. Statista's graph (https://www.statista.com/statistics/620169/average-biking-distance-per-person-per-day-in-the-netherlands-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/620169/average-biking-di...) doesn't show any dip from 2010 to 2011 at all though. The sources for these graphs are all in Dutch so it's hard to say where the discrepancy lies.
- stevesimmons 7y ago
  Here are the official Dutch stats on trips per annum, split by means of transport. https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/83499NED/table?ts=1572467201735 https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/83499NED/t... vervoermiddel = means of transport fiets = bike per persoon per dag = per person per day Verplaatsingen / aantal = Trips / number Afstand / km = distance / kilometres Reisduur / uren = Trip duration / hours (source: I live part time in Amsterdam. My partner and I have 5 bikes there, despite being there a few days a month)
  - Mathnerd314 7y ago
    That might be the source of the Statista data, as it too only goes back to 2010. The data on km traveled by bike seems to agree with the 2.5 km figure in the original article. The question is where the black-background graphs came from, as they have data from 2006. Particularly the first as the 1.5 km average is very different from the 2.5 km national average.
tschellenbach 7y ago
the author must have not visited The Netherlands...

194 points by oftenwrong 7y ago

It was kind of funny there was a company a few years ago that occupied some prime Market St. retail space in SF that sold "Dutch Bikes". Dutch bikes are pretty huge and make no sense in SF which has, you know, hills. They didn't last long.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
You mean the big cargo bikes with the huge basket up front? I can't imagine those being too popular in SF.
- T-hawk 7y ago
  I think he means the Dutch bike style that encloses the chain and single-speed drivetrain inside a case. Great for durability and enduring harsh weather, bad for hills where you need gearing.

turk73 7y ago

Americans with a Euro fetish should just move to a European country. What works "over there" has never worked here, no matter what it is you look at.

dougmwne 7y ago

The third graph showing the % of trips by foot, bike and car is amazing. Almost 50% of trips .6 - 1.6 miles in NL are by bike and the percent falls fairly gradually for longer trips. I wish I could see this data for other countries.

w0utert 7y ago

It would be interesting to split out the results between regular bikes and electric ones, now that they are becoming very popular. On an electric bike, distance is much less of threshold for choosing bike over car, and e.g. weather or ‘amount of stuff to take with you’ become the main deciding factors. Maybe electric bikes could bring opportunities for US cities where everything is far apart?

naravara 7y ago
The main advantage of an electric bike is less about distance and more about terrain. The distance is nice too, but while electric assist it might have some impact on how long a trip you're willing to make, it'll have a huge impact on your willingness to take trips through hilly areas. This can open up whole new parts of the city for accessing casually by bike.
- Beldin 7y ago
  Of course, we're talking about the Netherlands here... the country is mostly flat. Sure, there are some places with hills, but the majority lives in the flatter-than-pancake flat part. Where e-bikes can really shine, is increased speed. If you can do 40 an hour (km's), biking becomes a viable alternative to traffic jams. And that's happening already in NL.
mmahemoff 7y ago
I thought electric bikes and scooters was going to be the "secret". They are abundant in Netherlands bike lanes and apparently controversial. It's a good thing since smaller vehicles are replacing cars in many places, to make it more accessible to people who can't ride a regular bike, but has some safety and regulation issues to iron out.
- edejong 7y ago
  I personally hate these very polluting moped abominations on the Dutch bicycle paths. They should’ve been banned (or heavily taxed) a decade ago when the Greens asked questions in parliament due to appalling emissions findings of a Dutch research institute. But, the coward politicians pointed to the EU and implicitly said the health of our bicyclists need to be decided in Brussels.

briga 7y ago

Is 2.5km a day really hardly biking at all? When you consider the fact that Dutch cities are so compact and densely populated, 2.5km of biking gets you a whole lot further than it would in the US, where there is little bike infrastructure and you might need to drive 20 minutes just to get to the grocery store. I wonder what other national biking averages are? Probably much lower than the Dutch national average.

pkulak 7y ago
I think you somewhat restated the thesis of the article.
kokx 7y ago
I probably bike around 2.5km a day as well. I live in the Netherlands, and I don't even own a car. My bike gets me to most of my regular and daily destinations faster than a car would. Partially because I can take faster routes as a cyclists, and partially because in a car I would have to wait for traffic lights more often and be stuck in busy traffic during peak hours. The only reason why I would use a car, is to get to family that lives further away. But even that stays within 50km. So the dutch public transport system fully satisfies that need for me as well.
btrettel 7y ago
Austin cyclist here. My daily commute is about 4-5 km in total. When I get groceries I'd probably travel about twice that distance in a day.
ferkad 7y ago
Many people consider it a walking distance. If you go on foot both ways but sit 8h at work you can still find it dificult to hit 10k steps per day (WHO recomendation IIRC).
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I'd consider it walking distance. Unless I was planning on carrying enough stuff to warrant the use of a bike trailer, I wouldn't bother getting my bike out for a trip that short.

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the-dude 7y ago

I've looked at the graphs, they may be right, but it doesn't feel right. Right now, I am living in a city and working from home, so the 1.5km / day figure seems to apply to me. But when I was in school, many many moons ago, the roundtrip to school was 14km and I had a newspaper delivery round adding up to about 20km. So basically as a teen, I did 20km a day, about 6 days a week. disclosure: I am Dutch, living in NL

edejong 7y ago
Neither to me. Perhaps the elderly, mopeds and weekends might bring the average down, but still. We regularly go on long bicycle trips of +30km. Some of my coworkers regularly race +80km. disclosure: Dutch myself

jedberg 7y ago

I was recently staying with a friend in a suburb of Amsterdam. One night we decided to go to dinner. She has three kids and I have two. She piled four of the five kids onto her bike (it had a basket for kids) and headed over. My wife and I and the baby rode in my car. She only got there one minute after me despite it being a few miles away. I think the reason is because she was able to take the inside passages that are only for bikes, so her trip was much shorter than mine. So not only are their buildings close together, but they are built around walking/bikes, such that those modes of transit are actually shorter.

the-dude 7y ago
In almost all NL cities except the biggest ones, a bike outperforms a car on 90%+ of the trips.
- boudewijnrempt 7y ago
  In the city where I live, Deventer, at least for the inner city, walking even outperforms biking. I recently got a bike again, but I only use it for going places that would take me 20 minutes or more on foot. Of course, I haven't got a car, have never had a car and haven't even got a driver's license.
btrettel 7y ago
Cyclist here. I've told people that this can be true in the US as well (taking the exact same route even). I picked my current apartment because it has a relatively short bike commute. Going from my current apartment to where I work takes about the same amount of time by bike or car because the car is at best 5 minutes faster to the general area but that advantage is quickly lost when one has to park and walk to the building. With my bike I park 100 feet from the door. Some drivers might say that counting time to park is "cheating", but I strongly disagree. Time from door-to-door is what matters.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  reminds me of "our city is just as big when you count the suburbs!" but by that standard you have to count the bigger city's suburbs too

aisengard 7y ago

I wonder what the average trip is for Americans in large cities. For me in Brooklyn, it's about 4 miles to my office in Manhattan. Even in an ideal world with no cars, I still wouldn't really be able to bike to work (in terms of my desire to bike that far). If I'm going out to eat in my neighborhood, it's much easier and safer to just walk up to about a mile. So, there's not really much use for me to bike anywhere other than purely for recreation. Maybe I'd bike between a mile and four miles, I'm not sure. But it definitely would be my least-used form of transportation. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I am skeptical how useful a focus on bike lanes will be to the general public in American cities as compared to things like buses.

gipp 7y ago
There's definitely a middle distance where biking is the easiest way to get around. Particularly in Brooklyn, if you're traveling perpendicular to the direction of Manhattan you're almost certainly not served by transit anyway.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
NYC is by far the exception, not the rule, when it comes to modes of transportation that are applicable to most other American cities.
big_chungus 7y ago
This is certainly a case where the small size and compact nature of European cities give them advantages over American ones. Forget four miles, I have drive forty each way for prior commutes. Biking is great if you're a yuppie making six figures a year at a cushy, white-collar tech job. Not so much if you have to go to a client, have to do something physical, or even work in an office in the rest of the world. Let alone if you are a blue-collar worker, and possibly have to bring tools, equipment, etc. Telecommuting may mitigate this problem, but only for a small sub-set of workers for now, and even long term the fact remains that people still need to go into an office at least occasionally, and a good number of people can't get to work feasibly by bike. Plus, most people want to go somewhere after work, to the store and to church once a week, etc. This is orders of magnitude larger than a mile and a half (apparently the dutch average). I don't see why electric cars can't accomplish sustainability goals without trying to force a demographic shift of that scale (which is very unlikely to happen).

dr_dshiv 7y ago

Big gains for biking "occur when you go from detatched houses to two-story attached townhouses on side streets and four-story walkups on bigger streets. In other words, the big gains for biking occur when you reach the density of Europe’s famously beautiful and livable cities."

Finnucane 7y ago
Also, it's only partly about density in terms of population but also how far you have to go to get to stuff. Which is to say, mixed-use neighborhoods with shops and restaurants nearby are going to be more ped/bike friendly than 'bedroom communities' where everything else is far away.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  It's sad that mixed use is banned in so many places in the states. And, that so many people think living in an apartment is for poor people.
  - Finnucane 7y ago
    Condos are for rich people.

larrik 7y ago

> So, 1.5 miles per person per day. > Either way you count it, the Dutch hardly bike at all. Whaa???? How is that "hardly bike at all"? That's an enormous average! I'm guessing the National average for the USA rounds to zero. Honestly, I bet the average for the USA per year rounds to zero.

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hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

Wasn't clear to me from the article, but taking an average of "bicycle miles per day" is always going to be greatly skewed toward 0 if it includes people who never or rarely bike. Would be much more interested in the average bicycle miles per day of only people who take at least, say, 3 or 4 trip a week by bike.

peteey 7y ago

>This level of urban development isn’t just unusual in almost all of the United States. It’s illegal. Bang. In much of America, it is against the law to build dense cities where people are statistically close to work and the grocery store. Why do we have low density residential zoning in the first place? Preferring a large yard is one thing, but how did it come to be that America legally required houses to have yards?

xeromal 7y ago
This is just a spit take, but American culture is a bit more independent-minded and always has been since the founder. Having your own property is part of that identity. That's why many went west rather than build up in cities.
- kqr 7y ago
  How is being dependent on fuel/motorised transport more independent than being able to transport yourself using your own body?
  - xeromal 7y ago
    We had horses and wagons before bicycles. I'm sure that's more car-like than bike-like.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  Moving west and building up happened at the same time, and western city centers are just as dense as eastern ones. The rarification of US cities happened in the 1940s and 1950s, when entire neighborhoods were bulldozed to make room for highways and parking lots that idealistic modernists and self-serving auto lobbyists believed were the future.
- timerol 7y ago
  This argument really bothers me. "Having your own property is part of that identity" makes sense, but that is pretty much the exact opposite of "agreeing to collective laws that limit what you are allowed to do with your property."

bagacrap 7y ago

People choose a method of transportation based on personal convenience, moreso than cost, sustainability, safety, etc. Dutch citiies make parking inconvenient enough that biking wins out for short trips, and they're dense enough that many trips are short. What's the lesson here? It seems to be saying that no amount of new infrastructure will make people ride bikes.

brlewis 7y ago
I don't understand why you think people value safety less than convenience. I think infrastructure that increases safety will encourage cycling.

bastijn 7y ago

Nowadays a whole new trend is arising in the Netherlands. By introduction of the electric bike the cut-off for taking a bike vs. car is much less steep. Regular electric bikes (max 25km/h) make people bike to work for ranges 5-10 km single-trip now, speed pedelecs (45km/h bikes) are extending it as far as 35km single trip. Bikes are becoming more popular not only because people like to live healthy but also because our roads are clogging up (again). Combined with high-speed biking lanes being added to our infrastructure this drives adoption. I expect these graphs to change in the coming 5 years. P.s. Our today's issue is having speed pedelecs which are not allowed on our biking lanes in cities/suburbs/villages (big speed difference) but are just about too slow for the regular 50km/h roads :). P.p.s. Electric bikes are around 2000€ on average. Speed pedelecs start at 3500€ but quickly go to 5000€, and 8000€+ for premium brands is not uncommon. We still love our bikes ;).

dv35z 7y ago
For those like me who are unfamiliar with the word `pedelec` : "electric bicycle where the rider's pedalling is assisted by a small electric motor"
- jiofih 7y ago
  Nearly every electric bike in the Netherlands is pedal-assist, not pure electric. When you see Pedelec, it means S-Pedelec, which is more powerful (45km/h), helmet required, basically a moped. Mostly used by older folks and weekend long-distance cycling groups.
- namdnay 7y ago
  Isn't that all electric bikes? What other types are there? It's the only type of electric bike I've seen
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    In the Netherlands there used to be electric bikes that go up to about 25 km/h, mostly for the elderly, but in the last few years there are also "speed-pedelecs" that go up to 45 km/h and are popular with commuters. Count as mopeds, and controversial because they are more dangerous (partly because they look like normal bicycles and the rider is sitting upright but they're going much faster than normal bikes, other traffic doesn't expect it). But they do make it feasible to use a bike for longer commutes.

jordanpg 7y ago

This is consistent with my use of bikes: if it requires any special equipment or preparations whatsoever, I'm not really that interested. Helmets, special clothes, water, locks, repair gear, whatever. That means short rides only. Anything beyond that transitions the use case from "average, practical users" to hobbyists.

JohnFen 7y ago
Unless you're doing a biking marathon, the only equipment you really need are a bike lock and helmet. Even the bike lock can be dispensed with if you have another means of securing your bike. Special clothes are entirely unnecessary unless you're racing.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I remember when I spent a few days in Utrecht: It was so dense that the walk to the supermarket was about as far as walking across a typical American Walmart parking lot.

coldtea 7y ago

>Is this an error? I asked around for a comparable estimate at the national level. As of 2017, that estimate is 2.5 km. So, 1.5 miles per person per day. Either way you count it, the Dutch hardly bike at all. An average of 1.5 miles per person per day sounds huge. What's the American average? 0.05 miles? What's the baseline from where the author justifies the "hardly bike" line? There are 17 million people in Netherlands, and 800.000 in Amsterdam. If half of the people in Amsterdam go about 5km per day (they wouldn't need much more, it's not a huge city, and they'd mostly go to/from work/school/home) that's 2.5 km per person per day -- the number they post. Half of the people of a city biking everyday is HUGE, and dwarfs any US town 5x easily. Heck, merely 10% of the population biking every day would be huge, and that's easily within the number given. I'd say the same holds for other Dutch cities and villages. So what are we are comparing with?

SilasX 7y ago
Yeah, those are my thoughts exactly. The relevant measure is what fraction of adults bike for travel every day (or close to it). Pretty sure the Netherlands crushes the US by that metric.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Relevant for what?
  - SilasX 7y ago
    For gauging what could justifiably be called "how often the population bikes" without becoming clickbait.
MiroF 7y ago
Exactly - doesn't take a genius to realize 2.5 km per day per capita is huge.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  2.5km per capita per day is huge. 2.5km per cyclist per day is tiny. The difference between those two statements and the specific details and societal implications thereof is the whole point of the article.

undersuit 7y ago

>Summary: Dutch biking rates are highest for trips of about 1 mile, and when trips get longer than three miles, bike trips start to fall sharply while car trips rise. The summary and the graph supporting it are startling. I think in my city you see a very exponential increase in car transportation starting past the average distance we cross the parking lot, about 500 feet.

thiagomgd 7y ago

I wouldn't say that biking 1.2km PER DAY is "hardly bike at all". What's the average per day for US?

mighty_bander 7y ago

I was astounded when I mapped out a transit ride from a suburb of Amsterdam to the city center - and discovered it was 15 minutes long. I'm not a fan of compact European living (washing machine in the kitchen?!), but that's a hard advantage to ignore.

jiofih 7y ago
The washing machine is either in the bathroom, or a tiny closet in the majority of houses I’ve seen :)

JackFr 7y ago

The article spends a lot of words talking about zoning and city structure without any mention of how remarkably flat the country.

Mathnerd314 7y ago

The first graph has a peak at 2010 and is much lower in 2011. I found a post (https://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/artikel/2012/04/netherlands-2011-weather-conditions-slow-down-dutch-market-1019848?vakmedianet-approve-cookies=1 https://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/artikel/2012/04/netherl...) which says the weather was particularly bad in 2011. Statista's graph (https://www.statista.com/statistics/620169/average-biking-distance-per-person-per-day-in-the-netherlands-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/620169/average-biking-di...) doesn't show any dip from 2010 to 2011 at all though. The sources for these graphs are all in Dutch so it's hard to say where the discrepancy lies.

stevesimmons 7y ago
Here are the official Dutch stats on trips per annum, split by means of transport. https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/83499NED/table?ts=1572467201735 https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/83499NED/t... vervoermiddel = means of transport fiets = bike per persoon per dag = per person per day Verplaatsingen / aantal = Trips / number Afstand / km = distance / kilometres Reisduur / uren = Trip duration / hours (source: I live part time in Amsterdam. My partner and I have 5 bikes there, despite being there a few days a month)
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  That might be the source of the Statista data, as it too only goes back to 2010. The data on km traveled by bike seems to agree with the 2.5 km figure in the original article. The question is where the black-background graphs came from, as they have data from 2006. Particularly the first as the 1.5 km average is very different from the 2.5 km national average.

tschellenbach 7y ago

the author must have not visited The Netherlands...