When drivers stop and open windows

In other countries it usually doesn’t mean a lot of good when a driver stops for a cyclist, lowers his window and starts ‘a conversation’.

But this is the Netherlands.


The other night I was waiting at a traffic light at a nearby but unfamiliar junction. Some road works were in progress. There I was, in a small side street waiting to turn left on a big arterial road into the city. It took a real long time! Way too long as it was cold, raining a bit and there wasn’t much traffic. Not even on the arterial. Just one car was waiting there to turn left into the side street where I was standing.

When that car got green the driver made the turn but suddenly stopped as he got passed me. He lowered his window and raised his voice to speak to me. “Sir!” Slightly confused I looked at him; what could he have to say to me? I was just a lonely cyclist waiting for the light to turn green. “Have you pushed the button?” My surprise could be read from my face and before I could think of a response he continued. “It’s because of the road works, sir. You have to push the button now. If you had, you would have gotten green before me.” Clearly this friendly man knew the junction better than I do, including the green phases. He must be one of the few residents here. So I thanked him and after he assured me “it happens to many people sir” he continued in his big dark blue executive style car. I dismounted and walked back to push the button I had overlooked. Sure enough, within seconds the light turned green and I could also continue home.

It’s great to live in a country where there is a lot of mutual respect between drivers and cyclists. Not very strange when everybody can be either one. But I must admit, the level of consideration from this driver was remarkable, even for the Netherlands.

Population density vs. cycling rate for a range of cities

This is another of those myths and excuses that I've covered before, but just keeps on coming up. i.e. that the Netherlands has a high rate of cycling because Dutch cities are especially dense. Some campaigners make a lot of wanting where they live to be more dense in order to try to achieve a higher cycling rate. Actually, there is not much of a correlation between cycling rate and density.

As you'll see in the plot above, it isn't true that cities with the highest population densities have the highest cycling rates. Rather, you'll find that Dutch and Danish cities have the highest cycling rates, whatever their density happens to be, because cycling in them there is a more pleasant experience because these cities have invested in cycling infrastructure in order to make it pleasant. Subjective safety is very important.

The belief that the Dutch live in remarkably highly densely populated cities is just a myth. Assen, where we live, has just 780 people per square km. That's not only significantly less dense than New York, but also than relatively spread out American cities such as Portland (1655 people per square km).

New York makes a great example. Over 10000 people live in each square km of what is a very compact city for its population, yet for all the recent hype about growing cycling, the cycling rate remains extraordinarily low by international standards: Just 0.6% of commutes are by bike. Conditions may be slowly improving, and it's a very good thing that they are, but it's still not yet a place to look to internationally as a success story. They're a long way from the point where all types of people feel safe to cycle for a large proportion of their journeys.

Much to my amusement, some Dutch people believe the same story about density. i.e. that they have relatively densely populated cities. I was once told this as part of a presentation about Groningen, the density of which is actually just 2300 people per square km. Even the capital of the country, Amsterdam, has just 3500 people per square km. The highest density city in the Netherlands is Den Haag with 5900 people per square km, but it's not a leading cycling country in the Netherlands. In fact, in a presentation to us on a visit a few years back, the cycling rate there was described as "quite low".

To summarize, population density has little to do with cycling rate. Even within individual countries there is little correlation. You'll see that less densely populated Portland does better than more densely populated New York, that Cambridge does better than London, Bremen does better than Berlin, and that Groningen does better than Amsterdam.

At this point, it's traditional for some people to respond with comments about average journey distances being so much longer in whichever country they live in. However, I'm afraid that doesn't really hold water either. While the mean distance is skewed due to the maximum possible journey distances being greater, the median for everyday journeys does not vary as much as you might imagine. Even in the USA, every-day journey distances are limited by time more than by the actual distance and 40% of all journeys are under 2 miles in length. The longest journeys may not be practical by bike, but Americans rarely choose cycling as a mode of transport even for the shortest journeys.

By contrast, longer cycle journeys are easier to make in the Netherlands. We find this from our own experience. Places that seemed "too far to cycle to" in the UK are often closer together than we remember them being, and people make the same and longer distance journeys here by bike without a second thought.

The reason for the vastly higher rate of cycling in the Netherlands is not population density, but policy which support cycling, effective campaigning, and successful infrastructure design.

For those who prefer a scatter graph:


The cycling rates for cities with stars after their names are the lowest on my graph, but they're all actually exaggerated relative to the other cities in the list. For these cities I could find only figures for "commuters" and not for all journeys. That the local authorities should choose to publicise this figure instead of one for all journeys is itself an indication that you don't see a lot of school children, parents with children, or pensioners on the streets of these cities. Where there is a healthy cycling culture, commuters are a minority of cyclists.

Attack on critical mass in Brazil

An atrocious incident, whatever one's view of critical mass.

1 March update: If you want more news, The Urban Country has good coverage of what has happened since - as well as some rather unpleasant reader's feedback underneath the article.

Also I recommend Peter Miller's take on "What makes the news and what doesn't".

The importance of direct cycle routes

One of our readers drew our attention to a video that shows a cycle route in Rijswijk which is in effect a suburb of The Hague. It shows a road where cyclists have to make a detour while motorised traffic can go straight on. The man in the video calls this a daily annoyance. And he is right. Most cycle routes in this country are as direct or (more often) more direct than routes for motorised traffic.

In this case (see picture below) the green line (about 100 meters/yards) would be the logical route. There is ample room for a cycle path there, but curiously cyclists are required to take the route represented by the red line. This includes going up and down and even an extra level crossing of a light rail line that would otherwise be crossed on the overpass. There is a shortcut (red dots) using the pedestrian stairs. But all in all the red route is at least double the length of the desired green route.

It is clear from the video that this man is not the only one who feels this is wrong. Many cyclists find a short cut by riding over the grass. The city council doesn’t like that but instead of tackling the problem by making the cycle path more direct, they put up a fence to protect the grass. The fence is of course consequently damaged. Another option is to ride against traffic on the opposite side of the road. Which is not a good solution either.

But it could be fixed: a bridge in this road (just left of the picture and seen in the beginning of the video) is due for maintenance. The man in the video urges the city to correct the mistake while they’re changing the bridge.

As can be seen on the picture, the rest of the cycle routes (on the other side of the road for instance) are direct and up to standards so it is most unusual to have this strange situation. It does make clear that cycle routes must be direct, people don't settle for less and rightly so.

The city of The Hague, third largest in the country and the seat of national government has a bad reputation when it comes to cycling infrastructure. One of my older videos shows an example of shared space gone wrong in the center of the city. David (while still living in the UK) has visited The Hague on a study tour of the Netherlands. The cycling experts in the city confirmed they know they are doing below average. This reflects in the ‘low’ cycling rate of 22% of all journeys. But The Hague is working hard (see picture above) to catch up with the rest of the country.

Link to Google Streetview

Another view from the cycle path

We’ve got something to tell you. “We”? you might think…
Yes, David has asked me to join him on his blog.

My name is Mark Wagenbuur. For regular visitors that could already be a familiar name. Inspired by David’s blog I started making videos showing Dutch cycling infrastructure about two years ago. I published these videos on my YouTube channel. David has shown you quite a lot of them along with his insightful comments. At his request I have also written one guest post as background information to go with one of the more in depth videos.

David has recently invited me to make our cooperation a bit more formal. An invitation I gladly accepted. After some thought we agreed that I will take up the role of ‘regular guest poster’.

Since I will only be a guest poster there will be no major changes to the blog. Nor with its affiliations to "Dutch Bike bits" or "Hembrow Cycle Holidays". David will continue to give you his sharp analysis of everything concerning cycling, especially by comparing the situation in the UK and the Netherlands. But you will occasionally see a blog entry “published by Mark Wagenbuur”, giving you another view from the cycle path.

You can take that quite literally; since I live in the south of the Netherlands (’s-Hertogenbosch), a part of the country that can sometimes be very different from the Assen region in the north-east where David lives. I use my second bicycle every day in Utrecht where I work and I also visit Amsterdam regularly, which are the fourth largest and the largest city in the Netherlands respectively. Assen, although growing rapidly, is not even in the top 20 of the larger Dutch cities, so some things work out quite differently there. As a native Dutchman I have also cycled a bit longer in this country than David has. My main focus will remain to be on video making but from now on I will also try to use words to show you something of cycling in Netherlands.

Also on behalf of David I hope you will enjoy our (further) cooperation.

How wide is your cyclepath ?

When I say that cycle paths here are quite often 4 m wide, I'm quite sure that a lot of people don't believe me.

An amusing way of demonstrating this occurred to me on Saturday. I put my bike sideways on a cycle path which is being resurfaced (so officially out of use, not that this stops many people) in a position where it wouldn't get in the way due to the pile of tiles for resurfacing the pedestrian path, but would demonstrate the width.

As you'll see, if it were possible to ride your bike sideways along here, it would still also be possible for someone to ride in the same manner in the opposite direction without any danger of crashing...

There was a little confusion, so I've added another photo, showing the same spot from the opposite direction. Here you can more clearly see the pedestrian path alongside the cycle path. It's been dug up in the first photo. Also you can see how a temporary dropped kerb was made to allow easy cycle access to the recommended detour route.

And why this cycle path ? It's nothing special as such, but it's part of the most direct route for us to the city centre so I come along here often. I took photos when I saw it was being improved.

Transport for London: Baffling people with huge numbers

Transport for London recently told the world that 2.5 million cycle journeys have been made on the "Barclays" London bike share bikes.

They're continuing with the same style of writing that they established a while back. This can be summed up as trying to baffle the reader by quoting what sounds like huge numbers.

In this press release, you'll read of:

• Cycling to the moon and back 13 times in the first six months
• Covering more than 10,000,000 km
• Building on the massive 117% growth
• Making a huge contribution to the cycle revolution

However, let's look at those figures. Six months, 2.5 million journeys. The numbers sound great, but actually if you look closely at them you quickly see that this is not actually very impressive at all.

London has a population of 8 M people. Between them, they make around 20 million journeys per day. If all the six months worth of shared bike journeys had been made on just one day (requiring each bike to be used an impossible 416 times), then even that would make up only 12% of total journeys in the city. However, actually it took half a year, 182 days, for this many journeys to be made. The total usage equates to only around 0.07% of the total journeys in the city. On average, Londoners are using these bikes not once per day, not once per week or once per month, but about once every 18 months. In fact, as each individual trip is being counted here, you could also say that this is the equivalent of the average Londoner going out and returning home again about once every three years by using these bikes.

So far, the scheme has cost 140 million pounds. The cost to Transport for London for each of the 2.5 million journeys made so far is £56 pounds. The hypothetical Londoner making their once per three year trip to the pub and back is subsidized to the tune of £112. Does that sound remotely like a reasonable or sustainable cost ?

Is this really deserving of the amount of hype which it receives ? It is deserving of comments from the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, such as 'The zest in which people have taken to two wheels and joined the cycling revolution we are engendering in the Capital has gladdened my heart.'. I'd love to see a genuine cycling revolution in London, and in Britain as a whole. However, let's please be realistic: this isn't the revolution you were looking for.

Back in March 2009 when I first wrote about the potential of the bike share scheme in London, I calculated that based on the promoters estimates of future use, it still had a maximum potential capacity of only 0.3% of the total journeys made in the city. Some people criticised me for pointing this out. However, actual usage has been under a quarter of what I wrote about.

By way of contrast, a few days ago I ran a story about the amount of cycling in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has only twice the population of London, but there are over a million bike journeys an hour for the daytime hours of working days. That's more than 14 million journeys per day by bike, or 2.5 billion per six months - i.e. twice the population make a thousand times as many cycle journeys as the "Boris Bikes" are used for.

Of course, Londoners do actually ride other bikes as well. It's estimated that half a million cycle journeys are made every day in London on bikes other than bike-share bikes. These are far more significant numbers than the bike share bikes provide, in fact 36 times as large. What's more, this number has a far greater potential for growth than bike share does, as no-one wants to put 36 times as many of what are already the most expensive bikes in the world onto the streets of London.

You may also remember that a while back it was revealed that 84% of users already have their own bike and that almost half of users would otherwise ride their own bike. So, only half of the 2.5 million journeys over the last six months are actually new cycle journeys. To a large extent, the system is being used as a cheap to the user, but expensive to the tax payer, method of keeping existing cyclists bikes safe from vandalism and theft. Perhaps if London had spent some money on improving its inadequate cycle parking then this wouldn't be the case.

To bring about a genuine "cycling revolution in London, the environment must be made more conducive to cycling. People want to do it, but they need their local government to stop wasting vast amounts of money on silly things like bike share and invest properly in those things which have a proven history of success in promoting cycling.

Gloucestershire campaign groups in conflict

Two new blogs have recently come online from Gloucestershire, England.

In the red corner, the well established and traditional Popular Cycling Front of Gloucestershire who are working towards "minimising the continued decline of cycling by tinkering around the edges of the road network". Excellent, rousing stuff which will no doubt result in a huge rise in cycling numbers any time around now.

In the blue corner: The Peoples Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, with a dream of "Cycle-paths the Dutch won't laugh at". What a dangerous bunch of radicals...

Pedestrianization without adverse effects for cyclists

It may seem surprising to some, but these photos and video show a pedestrianized area in the Netherlands. It's in the shopping and social centre of a brand-new housing development on the outskirts of Assen. Cyclists are allowed. The signs say so.

These are not old buildings in an old city centre. Rather, everything you see here was built in 2009 and 2010. The official opening was in December of 2010. Shortly before, this was farm land.

It's a very child friendly place. Children can be seen in the video running amok in front of a delivery van, which has to move at a very slow speed as a result. They also ride on various small-scale human powered vehicles in the shopping streets.

Everyone knows that pedestrians come first here, and behaviour is according to this principle.

Cyclists are allowed to cycle all the way through the pedestrianized zone, and ample cycle parking is provided outside all the shops to encourage cyclists.

However, this is not really a through route for cyclists. Cyclists whose destination is elsewhere, and who wish to get wherever they are going faster, will take other convenient, faster routes rather than riding through here. This is important as it makes no sense to have a pedestrianized area which allows bikes and is also a major through route for cyclists.

You can see the main route from the centre of this city to the centre of this housing development in a previous blog post. Another post shows part of the route in the opposite direction.

You may be wondering what happens should you want to drive here ? Well, actually you can do that too. This whole place is in fact built on top of an underground car park. Residents living in apartments here have allocated secure parking underneath, and visitors to the shops can also drive.

Car parking here is free of charge. It often is so in the Netherlands. Should we ever want to buy a large item here which could not easily be transported by bike, there would be no problem with driving to these shops. However, we probably never will do this. Cycling is too convenient.

The only driving route from our home to this place (in blue) has two sets of traffic lights on it and three roundabouts. It starts off by heading in the wrong direction, and the distance is significantly further than any of the many plausible routes by bike (some shown in red). Additionally, if we cycle then we can park our bikes directly outside the shops. A car would be buried somewhere underneath and involve a few minutes walk to the shops:

If it were not possible to park your bike immediately outside the shops, and if bikes had to be placed in the same underground car-park as cars, then this would make the car much more competitive in terms of time. Perhaps it could even be quicker than cycling if you were lucky at the traffic lights.

This is why in order for pedestrianization not to favour the car over the bike, it has to accommodate cyclists very well. That's exactly what we see here. The sign shows that it's a pedestrian area, but underneath it says "cycling allowed". A nice simple message, and an essential one. Take away easy access by cyclists and you actually create a car-oriented pedestrianized area which promotes driving over cycling. I've seen that before.

This new centre provides not only a range of shops (supermarkets, baker, toy shop, stationery, flower shop, chemist, hair-dresser, opticians etc.), but also primary schools, adult education facilities, a sport hall, cafes and restaurants, a public library, a town hall, health and fitness centre, medical centre. It's a proper centre for the community. And of course all these things are convenient to cycle to.

The temporary cycle path (3.5 metres wide, smooth asphalt) which currently provides access for people who live north of the centre:


If I show something old, someone always says "but you couldn't do if it were new". If on the other hand, I show something new like this, someone always says "but you couldn't do it if it were old". However, the city centre of Assen also provides an excellent example of somewhere which is both pedestrian and cycle friendly, and Assen is 750 years old. Where there is a will to do so, cyclists can be accommodated well anywhere. Policy in Assen prefers cycling, so we get cycling. If you do what works then mass cycling is possible anywhere.

I published this a bit earlier than originally planned after hearing about troubles with pedestrianization in Canada.

The centre which is the subject of this post has its own website.

How to vote

Here in the Netherlands we've Provincial elections coming up on the 2nd of March. I guess we're not eligible to vote, as we haven't received voting forms this time around.

Intercityfietser has put together guidance on who to vote for depending on how positive different parties, in different regions are about cycling in general, and also on providing for longer distance cycling.


Almost all the parties have something to say, and most are quite positive about cycling. The best two marks locally are for the CDA and D66, two parties quite separated in the political spectrum:

CDA: Drenthe is the number 1 cycling province, but also with the largest multi-day cycling event (the fietsvierdaagse) in the Netherlands. Must make sure that the area has the best quality cycle paths of the Netherlands reaching all tourist sites and attractions. Development and construction of a dense network of hiking, biking and horse trails. Combating traffic congestion and helping the environment by promoting cycling in Drenthe with a focus on commuters. Working with the municipalities to improve the cycle network to get riders from A to B in a safe and comfortable manner. Organising an award for the best municipality with regards to cycling. Pooling expertise or various partners in cycling.

D66: Encourage people to go out in their free time by providing nature areas, cycle routes and subsidies for cultural events. Aiming at strengthening the green character of the area, of increasing sustainability, and creating attractive living and working areas. Good public transport and good and safe roads and cycle paths. Support for further separation of cyclists and pedestrians (vulnerable road users) from motor vehicles. More cycle paths, not only for recreation but also for riding to work and school. Getting users together with the planners to ensure good standards. A network of electric bike charging points on good quality cycle paths. Increase in interoperability between cycling and other modes, with for instance, covered cycle parks at carpools. In favour of organizing activities which don't have a negative effect on people or the environment, the endless cycling and walking paths in Drenthe offer ample opportunity for "clean" recreation.

On the other hand, of those who replied, the PvdA locally gets a bit of a negative remark because their response is merely that they want to maintain Drenthe as the number one cycling province and make it easier to get stolen bikes back. That's not enough.

The VVD gets the lowest mark, with the writer seeming to think that they view the car as the main form of transport in a sparsely populated region like this.

None have anything actually negative to say, of course, as that would be political suicide.

Judy and I went out for a ride today, taking our dog for a walk at the same time. We found that yet another new cycle path had been created near our home:

I feel confident that whoever gets into power locally, progress will continue. In any case, proportional representation is the norm so power will be shared, and those political parties who are represented will have to discuss and make sensible decisions between them.

I found the voting information through, and "borrowed" the illustration at the top from, ligfiets.net.

A million journeys per hour by bike

A few days ago, I posted some information about statistics on cycle usage in the Netherlands. Mark just made an excellent video illustrating these very same statistics: In the daytime on a normal working day in the Netherlands, more than a million journeys are made by bike every hour.

Remember that the population of the Netherlands is just 16 million. That's only twice the population of New York or London. However, the number of journeys, spread across a whole country is much higher: 16 million Dutch people make more cycle journeys between them than 300 million Americans, 65 million British and 20 million Australians all added together, and they do so with greater safety than cyclists in any of those countries.

Shopkeepers prefer cyclists

Branko Collin sent me an interesting story today:

The popular Ferdinand Bol shopping street in Amsterdam (which crosses the Albert Cuyp market) has been partially closed off while the city of Amsterdam has been tunneling a subway underneath. Now that the end of the tunneling is in sight, the city's department of infrastructure has announced it will put the original double tram tracks back in.

The street's shopkeepers' association is none too pleased about this, as it reduces the space for cyclists and pedestrians.

It was reported here and here.

An unremarkable morning and a pleasant evening

The video shows a Monday morning from a few weeks back. I made the video at around 11 in the morning, which is a very low time for cycling - especially so on a Monday morning like this one as the shops are all shut.

This is a very typical scene of what it's like when it's not rush hour.

Cycling is relaxing, not stressful. There's no need to concentrate unduly on potential dangers.


The next video was made on the way back from an event in the city. We rode home after midnight, separated from the light motor traffic the whole way. Again, it's relaxing, not stressful.

In the Netherlands, cycling is for everyone. It's not only for commuters, not only for confident young adults, but for everyone in all stages of their life and at all times of the day and night.

The simple ordinariness of cycling in the Netherlands is what is so special about it.

I've covered the scene of the first video twice before, once in rush hour and once demonstrating the degree of separation of cars from bikes.

All those myths and excuses in one post

For some time I've been using the tag "excuses" on some posts on my blog. However, it's a bit ambiguous and even though I've explained what I mean a few times, some people still think I mean something else.

So, here I am trying to set the record straight. To me, these aren't so much excuses that individuals use to explain why they don't personally cycle, but excuses made even by existing cyclists for why it is that they think their country is different to the Netherlands. It seems rather odd to me that even people who campaign for cycling in their own country would prefer to make an excuse for why it doesn't happen rather than work towards a higher level of cycling, but that's how it is. It's easy to fall into a trap of believing that there is a fundamental difference in the people, the geography, the weather, or whatever.

Busting these myths is a part of what needs to happen if cycle campaigners elsewhere are to start to campaign more effectively. Asking for half measures won't do it. You need to ask for the best possible conditions for cycling if you want cycling to become a mass activity as it is in the Netherlands.

Recently I've started to refer to these as "myths and excuses", and included links to each type of "excuse" on the right hand side of the blog.

Here they are again, with longer descriptions. Click on the titles to see several articles about each excuse, or there are a few links after each one. Hopefully this will be of some assistance for campaigners:

Our streets are too narrow. This one comes up all the time. From tiny villages in the UK, which really do have narrow streets, right through to places like Los Angeles where generally speaking they have enormously wide streets, a lot of people honestly believe that the place they live in somehow has less space for cyclists than the Netherlands does. It's a myth. The Netherlands has town designs from the medieval right through to the 21st century, and in all of these, space can be found for cyclists if the roads are (re)designed accordingly.

Providing for cyclists is too expensive. It's simply not true. Providing infrastructure for cyclists is actually incredibly cheap in comparison with providing infrastructure for the same people to make all their journeys by car. In the Netherlands it has been shown that even the relatively lightly used intercity superhighways are cheaper to build than not to built. What's more, it leads to other savings. For instance, in the health service, and even gives companies a competitive advantage over those from other nations.

Our population is too spread out. This is a favourite of Americans and Australians, who believe that their large countries lead to their population making far longer journeys. Thje maximum distance you could travel is of course larger in a larger country. However, average (median) journey lengths don't vary very much. The reason why is that practical everyday journeys (to school, shops, work) are constricted more by time than by distance in itself. Even in America, 40% of urban journeys are 2 miles under.. If you compare the whole of the country of Netherlands with cities in other places then the population density argument completely reverses, yet the Netherlands still has a much higher cycling rate.

We have hills. Another plea from people who imagine that the Netherlands is completely flat and that this is the reason for cycling. It's not as simple as that. In a flat country, headwinds are phenomenal, so it's not really so big a gain for cyclists as is often imagined. That's something that people who live in the area of the UK called Holland, which is just as flat as the Netherlands, also know. However, they don't cycle any more than people elsewhere in the UK because they don't have cycle-paths and their towns have been developed to exclude cyclists. What's more, not all of the Netherlands actually is that flat. In fact, the Amstel Gold cycle race is held here - and is famous for its vicious hilly course. Limburg is a hilly province in the Netherlands. Also bear in mind that Switzerland achieves a much better cycling rate than many other countries, despite being rather mountainous, and that in Britain in 1949, over 30% of total road distance travelled was by bike. The geography hasn't changed, though road conditions have.

Our distances are too great. Actually, as I mentioned before, they're not. Actually the Dutch have the longest commutes in Europe. Of course, sometimes distances they feel like they are too long due to the conditions that cyclists face.

It took decades in the Netherlands. Actually, it took about 15 years. However, what's your point ? The problem is not actually making a proper start. People have been making this excuse that it takes too long for far more than 15 years, when they could instead have been working towards making real progress and now have something similar to what the Netherlands has.

It's because of the price of gas. Yes, running a car is more expensive here than in America or Australia. However, it's not much different at all from the UK. America, Australia and the UK have the same 1% modal share for cycling. So don't wait for higher petrol prices, or higher car parking charges, in order to make people cycle. Cycling should be made into a more attractive option for everyone and then it can be a positive choice that people make.

It's the weather. What amuses me about this one is that people use it in all directions at once. Either it's too cold in their country, or it's too hot in their country. In at least one example, the complaint was that their city was too cold relative to the Netherlands, even though had on average warmer winters than the here. Our weather varies by a surprising extent. In the three years that we've lived here, daytime temperatures have varied between -12 C (10 F - much worse if you include wind chill, which I don't) and +38 C (100 F). People don't stop cycling in either extreme. Commuters still go to work, all sorts of people still go shopping and the children still cycle to school. However, recreational destinations do change. People are more like to cycle to go skating when it's cold and to the beach when it's hot.

Cycle-paths are slow. Yes, this one keeps coming up. I tried pointing out how much quicker my commute is here than it was in the UK, and even showed someone riding along a cycle path at over 60 km/h, but people still cling to this belief. It's nonsense. Well designed cycle paths prioritise cyclists on them over cars on the road. Here we have traffic lights which default to green for bikes, others which allow only cyclists to make a right turn on red, and give cyclists green lights twice as often as drivers, a growing network of intercity bicycle superhighways for long distance commuters, journeys within town which take a more direct route from the roads and avoid traffic lights.


So, why is it that so many people choose to cycle here, when they wouldn't if they lived elsewhere ? That's simple. The Dutch did all of this. And in particular, took care of this.


Update 15/2/11
Quite a few people pointed out other "excuses" in the comments, and I made a comment answering some of them. Here's a slightly edited version of that text:

"Our streets are too wide" and the closely related "You can't drive in medieval cities in the Netherlands". This is about claiming that cities elsewhere are too new to incorporate cycle infrastructure. It's exactly the opposite of what the "too narrow" people claim. The latter, "medieval", variant can be credited to a strange chap whose only experience of the Netherlands was on a train journey in the 1930s. Anyway, again it's nonsense. Some cities in the Netherlands do indeed have centres which date from medieval times. However, other cities and towns have been established right through history, including one of the very newest cities in the world which was established in the 1970s on land which had been sea bed until a short time previously. Plenty of space for wide roads there. However, all Dutch cities, no matter how old or new, are great for cycling in.

"You'll have problems at intersections". Not if well designed. I've examples of quite a few.

"Mass cycling is for poor countries"? Try looking here. Propelling yourself by consuming imported oil is detrimental to the economy. Cycling makes your country's economy stronger.

"Segregationists are splitters". What is this ? A playground squabble ? What I find most amusing about this accusation is the idea that cyclists haven't been split on many issues for ages. What's more, cyclists in low cycling countries are about as split as they possibly can be from the mainstream. Achieving a higher cycling rate re-integrates cyclists into society, which is what you need if you want to see cyclists being taken seriously on all levels, including in the event of crashes between motorists and cyclists.

"It doesn't matter what non-cyclists think". Hilarious. If that's what you believe then don't expect ever to grow the cycling rate. Growth can only come by convincing non-cyclists to take up cycling. If you don't take into account why people don't cycle (this is the reason) then you won't ever grow cycling.

If cycle paths are built "we'll be banished to dangerous crap forever". Isn't that the problem now ? That the roads which "cyclists" ride on are "dangerous crap" so far as everyone but very enthusiastic cyclists are concerned ? Cycling has reached its lowest possible ebb in the English speaking world. Whatever direction campaigning takes, to end up with a worse situation than a mere 1% of journeys being by bike, as at present, is rather unlikely. There is, almost literally, nothing to lose.

"Weren't the Dutch government always supportive of cycling" ? Actually, no. In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s cycling in NL declined rapidly while the government prioritized road building and cars. I've several examples on the blog, also before and after photos of Assen, and Mark Wagenbuur recently made a nice video showing what Amsterdam was like in the 1970s.

"There's a lack of political support". I have a lot of sympathy with this. There certainly is a lack of support in many countries. However, take note from the Netherlands. Successful campaigning here started by pointing out the deaths of children, not merely "cyclists". This removes the problem of cyclists being a minority. Everyone is concerned about children. This blog includes a number of articles about campaigning.

"Where there are no children cycling there is no need for this concern". Nice counterpoint, but children also die when walking, and in cars due to the way roads are developed and used in many countries.

What's more, car centric road design harms the development of children. Dutch children have an extraordinary amount of freedom of movement. That's all part of the reason why Dutch children are the happiest in the world. In fact, the top four countries for child well-being in this list from UNICEF just happen to also be the top four countries for cycling.

So, as it turns out you need cycle paths not only to stop children from dying when cycling, and not only for the sake of but also to help their development into healthy, happy adults. Personally, I find that quite a compelling argument.

There are a lot of stories about children on this blog precisely because children are important. Quite apart from anything else, they're the only source of future cyclists. If children aren't riding bikes, what chance does cycling have ? One of my favourite photos of local children is this one, of a girl riding home from school and with a few wobbles practising riding no hands as she went:
If you've not seen it before, take a look at the video of what our local primary schools look like.

I think "John in NH" makes a good point in the comments about wanting manuals and standards to be improved. Most road engineers in the Netherlands are just the same as those in the USA or anywhere else. They're not mavericks, they're simply competently doing their job, and following all the relevant guidelines. Most of the infrastructure exists simply because the standards have been followed.

Update 19/2/11
The excuses keep piling up, including a hilarious one which appeared on Dave Warnock's blog. Apparently, "it is a historical fact that the Nazis invented segregated lanes." Unfortunately for this "fact", Adolf Hitler wasn't born until four years after the creation of the first cycle path in the Netherlands. Besides, what kind of argument is this anyway ? Allegedly, Mussolini "made the trains run on time", but does that mean that all "right thinking" people should now prefer that they don't run on time ?

Update November 2011
The excuses keep rolling in:

"But we have driveways". Mark did a good job of dispelling this one. Believe it or not, so does the Netherlands. They are just designed differently.

"Cycle training will increase cycling". Sixty years of evidence tends to suggest that it won't.

"Cycle-paths would cause flooding / light-pollution / removal of trees". Next to the damage caused by building roads, these considerations are trivial for cycle-paths.

"I cycle so you could cycle too". People often think that because the conditions are good enough for them to cycle that everyone else would too, perhaps after a bit of training. Actually, this is not remotely true.

Update December 2011
A survey by a Dutch website for expats revealed that when people leave the Netherlands one of the things they miss most is cycling. Just as other nationalities start cycling when they live in the Netherlands, Dutch people stop cycling when they live in places where cycling isn't pleasant. It's not "in the genes", the reason is the infrastructure.

It was also revealed that Dutch commutes are the longest in Europe, somewhat defeating the argument that the Dutch only cycle because their journeys are short.

Update January 2012
Some people think that high levels of cycling in the Netherlands are due to "Strict Liability" or that "Strict Liability" must be in place to make cycle-paths safe. Neither of these things is true. The policy which has lead to more and safer cyclists is called Sustainable Safety.

A few days ago, the bike in the photo at the top, which belongs to the grand-child of one of our neighbours spent most of the day either being ridden along, or parked in the middle of, the street that we live in. No-one drove into it. No-one came close to doing so. That's what is needed if people are to feel confident about letting even very small children play outside: a very high degree of subjective safety. You can also see the answers to these "excuses" all at once.

It's quicker by bike

A few days ago, a campaigner from the UK sent me a document to review. Amongst other things, it said: "Many existing cyclists want to continue to cycle on road because of speed and convenience. They see a segregated system as slow – although modern cycle routes in Europe can be as fast-moving as cycling on the road."

This is yet another of those myths about cycle infrastructure - that it must always be secondary to roads, leading to slower journeys than a cyclist could make on the road, and only at it's best being "as fast-moving" as cycling on the road.

This is not actually true. Cycling infrastructure at its best can lead to quicker journeys than using the road. And that's what we have here: traffic lights which default to green for bikes, others which allow only cyclists to make a right turn on red, which give cyclists green lights twice as often as drivers, a growing network of intercity bicycle superhighways for long distance commuters, journeys within town which take a more direct route from the roads and avoid traffic lights, and many other things which make cycling more convenient than driving. If cyclists had to use the roads, then they'd not be able to take advantage of this.

The graph shows relative speeds by bike or by car for distances. Note that these are not cherry picked, but are an average for the whole country, and an average for all cyclists. In the Netherlands, that means the whole population. The average speed for all is slowed down somewhat by the very much wider demographic of cyclists here vs. other countries. Primary school children, meandering teenagers and pensioners are slower than enthusiastic cyclists of working age. Faster cyclists have an advantage over a considerably longer distance.

Nevertheless, "In the city, cyclists on average reach their destinations 5% quicker than drivers, and in the bigger cities (>100000 residents) usually more than 10% quicker. For distances of up to 3 km, the bike always wins. From 4 km, mostly not.".

In the Netherlands, there are many ways in which cycling has been made faster than driving

The graph comes from The Fietsersbond.

Who cycles in the Netherlands ?

I've mentioned before that in the Netherlands, everyone cycles. This graph shows how cycling rates vary with age and sex within the Netherlands, expressed as the average number of cycle journeys per day made per person.

It shows a number of things: that cycling is very popular with school age children, for instance, and that it drops off a bit for working age adults as for some the commute is "too far" by bike. You'll also see that women in their 30s, 40s and 50s cycle more often than men. This is due to women being more likely to be at home looking after children than their male partners. As a result, they more often cycle with young children to school, or make shopping and other utility trips by bike. This is what leads to the Netherlands uniquely having 55% of trips overall by women.

Cycling stays with people through their entire life. Even the over 75s make an average of around 0.3 trips per day by bike.


Here we see the reasons for bicycle journeys. Only 16% of all cycle journeys are commutes. The largest percentage, 22%, are shopping trips, 18% are school journeys, 14% are social, and 11% are to go visiting.

This level of cycle usage, across both sexes, all ages, and for all purposes, requires infrastructure which has a high level of subjective safety.

But let's go back to that figure of just 16% of cycle journeys being for commutes. In all too many places, commuting rate figures are touted as "modal share". Actually, commutes make for just a small percentage of total journeys, and that should be the case for cycling too. However, by promoting cycling as just something for commuters, and ignoring the other 84% of potential cycle journeys, there's no need to make conditions suitable for everyone to cycle. This is not what has happened in the Netherlands.

I am not impressed with people touting "commuting" modal shares because they have missed out the big picture. What is important is that everyone should be able to make journeys by bike, not just self-selected confident young adults, who are mostly male.

These figures came from the same source as last week's post, the Fietsersbond. Marc has also written about these statistics.

Joining in with the mass

New figures from the Fietsersbond throw light on the astonishing number of journeys per day made by bike in the Netherlands. The graph gives a picture of what's going on, but there's also some more detailed text accompanying it:

Dutch people cycle a lot. Of course there is more cycling in the summer than in the autumn and winter. But cycling rates also vary between days of the week. On an average working day, 5 million people make an average of 14 million cycle journeys. Monday and Thursday are the top days with a million more journeys than on the other days of the week. On Saturday, 11.5 million cycle journeys are made, and on Sunday 6.5 million.

Through the week, between 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, more than a million cycle journeys are made each hour. The high point is between 8 and 9 in the morning with 1.75 million cycle journeys during the hour. In that hour, many journeys to work and school are made, and more bicycles are in use than cars. Cycling on a typical week-day:

Time	Description	Total
8:00	By 8 in the morning, 750000 cycle journeys have already been made. Most of them are to work.	0.75 M
8:30	Most children are now at school. Another 450000 cycle journeys pass in half an hour.	1.2 M
9:00	Most adults are now at work, and college students are now on the way.	2.5 M
12:00	Another 2.5 million cycle journeys during the morning for a variety of reasons.	5 M
13:00	1.5 million more rides. Primary school children (5 - 11 years old) cycle home for lunch.	6.5 M
14:00	Another 1.2 million cycle trips pass in the early afternoon.	7.7 M
16:00	Most children have left school, and they cycle to friends, sportsclubs etc. In the last two hours, 2.5 million cycle journeys were made.	10 M
17:00	Another 1.2 million cycle journeys pass in the late afternoon. Many people make shopping trips and school children head home from sports clubs. The evening rush hour is about to start	11.2 M
18:00	Most people are now home. Another 1.2 million cycle journeys have passed.	12.4 M
24:00	Another 1.75 million cycle journeys are made in the evening. Many club (sport) cyclists go for rides, night school students ride, club members meet, and people go out on the town by bike.	Over 14 M

In the day, 5 million cyclists have made around 14 million cycle journeys.

The scale of cycling in the Netherlands is quite phenomenal. If you go out, at any time of the day or night, you're not unusual, but are joining with a mass of other cyclists making their journeys. It's impossible to travel far on a bike without seeing other cyclists. I don't think I've ever made it further than 200 metres from my home (in a 100 m long cul-de-sac) before seeing at least one bike. Riding a bike is not in any way a political statement. It's just normal.

The figures above are national figures, applying to the whole country. The Netherlands has a population of 16 million people. That's just twice the population of London or New York. However, the cycling rate of the country as a whole is far higher than that of cities in other countries. By comparison, treating the country as a "city", the people here are spread out at a remarkably low density of just 400 per square kilometre, vs. 4800 per square kilometre in London or 10000 people per square kilometre in New York.

However, despite having the advantage of high density and the resulting short journey lengths, neither of these cities manage more than a small fraction of the cycle usage of this whole country. London has only around 2% of journeys by bike, and New York even less at only around 0.6% of commutes. In neither of those cities would you find masses of school children riding at any time. (more about population density and cycling)

The difference comes down to infrastructure which invites you to cycle. Cycling is not a difficult thing to decide to do in the Netherlands.

Mark Wagenbuur made a video to illustrate this post.

I've several posts about what brought this level of cycling about. Key to it all is of course a high degree of subjective safety.

Friday 11th update: City Cycling magazine has re-launched today, and there's a quote from me in it which is on this same scheme.

Bradford and Amsterdam at the start of the 20th century

A few days ago Judy showed me this film of Bradford at the start of the 20th century. Shortly afterwards, I saw the one below showing Amsterdam at a similar date.



I was struck by the similarity of the two films. In both cases, the roads have trams, horses pull carts, dogs run freely, and there are bicycles and pedestrians.

What neither film shows, compared with the present day, is motor cars. As a result, human beings are free to walk, talk and relax in the street.

Cities around the world looked similar for most of the 20th century. It is only later, particularly from the 1970s onwards, that the bicycle was once again prioritized in the Netherlands, and from then onwards the similarities have faded as development took a very different path.

A survey last year found Bradford to be the 'worst city in Britain for cycling'. However, on looking for information on Bradford I found an amazingly long list of websites about cycling in Bradford, with hard working people involved in campaigning, training, and quite a lot of sport cycling.

Unfortunately, the problem is the infrastructure. If Bradford still looked like Amsterdam it would have a higher cycling rate than it does. But sadly, while the Netherlands moved on in road design since the 1970s, the UK did not, and Bradford is quite typical. So far as we've been able to tell, this is what the street shown in the Bradford video above now looks like. This may well also be the route of the local bike bus:

View Larger Map

For real change to occur, Bradford, like all towns in the UK, needs to do what works.

Update 11 March David Domestique made a comment, which made me look at the website again, and that's where I saw this video of the bike bus in action:

It's a nice example of good people getting on with doing things in a positive manner. However, they still need government support if cycling is truly to grow.

This second video shows the conditions faced by cyclists who take part in the bike bus:


I'm not criticising the riders one bit. If I was there, I'd hope to find such agreeable people to ride with. But feeling a need to do so is one of the problems which the UK faces. Cycling is not nearly as subjectively safe as it needs to be for the masses to want to ride. There's a reason why rush hour looks somewhat different here.

The films come from BFIfilms and Mark Wagenbuur.

Riding together

Another of the reasons why it's so good to have a comprehensive network of cycle paths is that they also are good for people with disabilities to travel by bike.

In this case, two people are riding on an electric assist trike carrying a wheelchair across the back. I saw them first on the way into town, and a few minutes later I saw them again travelling in the opposite direction.

The bike's great, allowing a couple to ride together in this way.

However, uninterrupted and unobstructed infrastructure are necessary from the suburbs to the city centre to make it possible for them to use it in this way in comfort, with no problems due to fighting through traffic.

In countries where there isn't such infrastructure, lobbyists for people with disabilities ought to be asking for it. It improves people's lives.

Falling off my bike

We've now lived in the Netherlands for about 3 and a half years. In that time, I've cycled tens of thousands of km (in 2010 I rode around 12500 km) in many different places, mostly riding quite quickly, sometimes riding quite slowly. Many of those kilometres were on my commute, so at peak times when lots of other people are cycling and driving.

In those three and a half years I've had three crashes on one sort or another. The first was entirely my own fault, and involved just myself. I cornered too fast on loose gravel on a small road in the countryside and fell off.

The second crash was on a day when it had rained, and then froze. One of my Mango's front wheels was on ice, the other was on asphalt and I span around when I braked. Again it was entirely my fault, and involved no-one else.

The third incident was last Sunday. This time, at last, it was an incident which also involved someone else - and more so, his dog. Judy and I had gone for a nice ride around the city and the countryside, and were just a couple of hundred metres from home when what you see in the video happened, on a cycle path in the same area as we walk our own dog. The video makes it look worse than it was. I had virtually stopped by the time I fell over, and I received no injuries at all. If I had not been holding my camera at the time, I would probably not have fallen over.

I've yet to be the victim of anything which could be remotely described as "road rage" or had any close-calls with cars. While the cycle paths here have, as you can see, not been 100% successful in keeping me away from over-enthusiastic friendly dogs, they have been extremely successful in keeping me away from motorists, and the danger that results from them.

There's a lot of completely uninformed nonsense out there about the supposed "dangers" of cycle paths in the Netherlands. Frankly, it's the sort of stuff which can only be written out of ignorance. For example, by those who's only experience of the Netherlands is from travelling here by train in the 1930s, and by those who've never been here at all.

There is no place safer to ride a bike, and no place more pleasant to ride a bike.

Dutch cyclists don't fill youtube with helmet-cam footage of problems that they have on their rides. It would be impossible to make a film like the excellent "Angles Morts" here because it would take several life-times to build up footage of enough incidents to make it look shocking. That's what proper infrastructure design does for cyclists - remove the hassle.

I'm quite happy to accept the occasional problem due to an over-friendly dog over being hassled by drivers and hit by cars.

When cyclists matter - Car crash and public response in Den Bosch

On the same evening as I'd watched some rather frightening BBC footage about a road rage incident in the UK which resulted in nothing more than the relatively minor charge of "careless driving", Mark Wagenbuur sent me this video showing what happened last year to a driver in 's-Hertogenbosch who had been showing off on the road and caused a crash.

The local newspaper was very much against the driver. They describe him as a "pirate" of the roads, and also as a "hufter". That's quite strong language for a newspaper, about as strong as "arsehole" in English. He was arrested and lost his driving license temporarily. He would have lost it permanently had he not passed an expensive exam to retain it. It was in the news for months.


Dutch roads are very safe overall, and extremely safe for cycling and, as Mark points out in the video, they are getting safer: "There were 339 injuries and 7 casualties in 2000. The figures dropped sharply every year to 133 injuries and just 1 road death in 2009. Only 44 of these injured people needed medical treatment." The figures are for all road users in the city, which has a population of about 140000. The attitude of road users has a lot to do with it, even in places such as on the video where the road layouts are rather old-fashioned.

I've previously covered other stories from Den Bosch, several of which show how the city is building better infrastructure for cyclists, the intention being both to increase safety further and to promote a higher modal share for cycling.

Compare with the very different public response to a crash between a car and bike in Cambridge last year.

More cycle parking at Meppel railway station

According to the Fietsberaad:

Travellers using the Meppel railway station now have a completely new cycle park. There are more than 1100 spaces in the watched cycle park and on the roof of the building another 650 can be parked.

Next to the building are another 800 spaces. The new manned cycle park also offers repair services, sales and cycle hire. Part of the station also forms a site for OV-Fiets bike share bikes.

This cycle park was built between April 2010 and November 2010. It's another example of expansion is a part of the national "ruimte voor de fiets" ("room for the bike") plan which has so far built 157000 unwatched parking spaces, 30000 watched spaces and 13000 cycle lockers in 350 cycle parks.

Previously I had a post about the golden cycle stand, which was the 200000th erected as part of this plan.

Meppel is a small city of just 31000 people. The cycle park now has spaces for 2550 bicycles, which is enough for one in 12 of the population to park a bicycle at the rail station. You can work out a comparable ratio for your own town. Regular increases of cycle parking numbers at railway stations in the Netherlands is a given. It's going on all the time.

To make a comparison, it's easy to divide the population of your own town or city with the number of cycle parking spaces you have available, either at the railway station or at other destinations. You can see how other Dutch railway stations compare.

Higher income brackets cycle as well in Amsterdam

Direct from the Fietsberaad:

Amsterdam can barely cope with the growing numbers of cyclists, as a survey of mobility in the Dutch capital over the past 25 years demonstrates. There are as yet no bicycle jams, but partly due to the arrival on the scene of carrier bicycles, the width of bike paths is increasingly a problem. And of course parking guarantees a headache.

In busy squares, at train and metro stations, but also near university buildings, shopping centres and leisure spots in narrow Amsterdam streets an increasing amount of public space is taken up by parked bicycles, according to the report ‘Mobiliteit in en rond Amsterdam, Een blik op de toekomst vanuit een historisch perspectief’. Data demonstrate that at these locations often several dozen percent of all bicycles are parked outside the official parking spaces. In June of 2007 for instance 1,390 bicycles were parked at the back of Amstelstation, whereas capacity ran to no more than 1,100. This comes down to an occupancy rate of 126%. For the west side of Centraal Station (including the bicycle flat) this was a staggering 136% in October of 2008. The overall estimated number of bicycle parking spaces (stands, staples and parking facilities) is currently 200,000.

The heaviest streams of cyclists are mainly headed for the central part of the town centre. But bicycle numbers in the immediate vicinity of the town centre and the surrounding ring are impressive as well. The large numbers of cyclists do not cause substantial delays due to traffic jams. But a number of busy routes does have a problem with the width of the bike paths, partly due to the increasing use of carrier bicycles.

The busiest cycling routes are Marnixstraat (1,970 passing cyclists in the evening peak hour), Weteringschans (1,920) and Weesperzijde (1,900).
Nevertheless the bicycle can easily compete with car and public transport in the inner city, according to local authorities. The percentage of car trips by Amsterdam residents has fallen in all distance categories. Bicycle use has greatly increased in all distance categories under 10 kilometres. This has happened, however, not only at the expense of the car, but also of public transport. Over short distances cycling is apparently more attractive than public transport.

Bicycle ownership among Amsterdam residents has greatly increased over the past 25 years (63% versus 73%). Ownership in Amsterdam is below the overall Dutch average (73% versus 88% ). The increase in bicycle ownership was greatest among residents aged 45 and over, among people aged over 65 it has almost doubled (from 27% to 48%). The average number of bicycle trips per person per day is however higher in Amsterdam (0,9 versus 0,8). People there use their bicycles therefore more intensively than the average Dutchman. The largest increase in the number of bicycle trips per person per day occurs in the group aged 45 to 59. This may be due to car parking policies, but also to health advantages or a more positive attitude towards cycling in general, is the impression of the writers of the report. The group aged 12 to 15 also cycles more and is incidentally the group with the highest bicycle use. Among residents in higher income brackets the cycling percentage in the overall number of trips has more than doubled (from 15% to 33% ).

In Amsterdam people park their bicycles at home in a storage facility (46%), in the street (36%), in their home (10%), in the courtyard (5%) or a parking facility (2%). In the districts outside the ring road the percentage of bicycles parked in a storage facility is considerably higher than in the neighbourhoods within the ring road. Within the ring road over more than half of all bicycles are parked in the street(53%), whereas this is rare outside the ring road(4%).