Making Cycling Easy - the Dutch Experience

The saying goes, "If you build it, they will come." They come because it's built. The same is true where cycling for transportation is common - in The Netherlands. Having just returned from a 250 mile ride through this beautiful country, I became familiar with the great bike facilities the Dutch have created. Riding through cities, suburbs, and the countryside, it was rare when I rode in a location where no cycle facility was present. This is why the Dutch ride everywhere - because it's easy. They come because it's built.

But it's not only the bike facilities that make bicycling easy, it's the bikes too. The Dutch ride proper city bikes where one sits fully upright, not hunched over like Quasimodo - a posture that most American bikes convey (see below). Also, most Dutch bicycles come with a chainguard, so no pantclip or rolling of your right pantleg is necessary to prevent the chain from soiling or shredding it. Fenders are commonplace to prevent a rat tail of mud on your back when its damp outside. Lights are usually built-in, rather than requiring them to be purchased separately or removed at your destination to prevent theft. Reflective sidewalls of the tires are mandatory to keep you visible to broadside traffic at night. The bike is "fully-equipped" as the car industry would say.

 

Americans too will ride more often if it were easy to do so with safer places to ride and a better interconnected network of bike facilities. While facilities are important, we also need bikes which don't require special clothing, like spandex, to ride. With these two complementary components, bicycling will go far in the U.S.

by Paul DeMaio, BikeArlington

photos credit: Paul DeMaio
illustration credit: Gazelle Cycle Imports Australia

Comments

[Paul DeMaio]

I disagree with your thesis, Allen. "Mechanized walking", as you described it, is driving a car. Bicycling, regardless of whether it's done by a tricycle, electric-assist cycle, unicycle, or bicycle, is all bicycling. Your stance against individuals who cycle because their governments have been successful in creating an urban environment where cycling is the easiest and best option is confounding and misguided.

Where I do agree with you is that more expensive and inconvenient driving will "push" bicycling use. But at the same time, safer and more bicycling infrastructure that people of all ages feel safe using - not just the least risk-adverse cyclists around - is the key to providing the "pull" of encouraging cycle use.

[Allen Muchnick]

The bicycling described here is mechanized walking. While I don't object to such bicycling per se, it's only feasible as a significant transportation mode where 1) driving and parking an automobile is expensive and inconvenient and 2) many destinations are within walking distances.

In Europe, the expense and inconvenience of using an automobile for local urban trips first forces many to stop driving. Then, these non-motorists realize that slow bicycling is faster than walking.

Until driving and parking an auto in U.S. urban centers becomes costly and inconvenient, very few people will use bicycles as in Holland and Denmark, regardless of how much "bicycle infrastructure" the government provides.

Today, ample and free (or highly subsidized) auto parking remains a central feature of Arlington's "urban village" redevelopment.