There is only one, and one reason: their country is flat.
A lot of Dutch people come on vacations in Walloon (french speaking part of Belgium) and they never ever can be seen riding a bike because our hilly landscape make it a tiresome activities. Even for inner-city short distance trip.
This reflects in the technological development of their bike: heavy frame, few gears, additional front basket while every teen here rides mountain bike made of carbon fibre, 21 gears at least and state of the art front shock absorbing mechanism. I am only slightly exaggerating. And jealous.
If you think so, it means the author did not emphasize enough that cycling is a life-style and a voluntary effort from the Dutch. There are many flat and dense cities with much less bikes, think New-York, but the Dutch seem to have decided together some time ago that biking was cool and cars not.
They were just in advance. Right now the top-du-top of the "bo-bo" chic in Paris is to not own a car. It means using the bike renting service (velib) and renting a car when you go outside.
Oh, and as I live in Beijing, I can tell you how much I would love the Chinese to take early this bike-turn: they have plenty of them, and many Chinese cities are flat. It's just that for most people in China riding a bike is sign of the past, poor and hungry China, while driving a German multi-ton mammoth is a sign of the future.
You probably know this, but for the sake of HN: Beijing used to be a lot more like Amsterdam. This wasn't a choice on the part of the population: cars were simply unavailable and affordable. You still have some pretty sweet separated bike lanes attached to major roads...but often I was the only riding a bike in them.
Yes I recall back in the early 80's on campus at cranfield we had a masters student from china and he had one of the flying swallow bikes and the uniform.
I think don't think many New Yorkers love cars. And they have just started a new bike share scheme, so hopefully things will change.
And Parisians still love there cars, which is damn ridiculous. If one city needs to take action, it is Paris. Far too many cars, so many they can park anywhere and not get in any trouble. Awful narrow streets, and badly designed as well. One way streets heading into each other. They have the Velib, but most people I know are just too scared to use it. I do, and I have no problem with cars, but I have ridden among cars since I was a kid. Even on a beautiful sunny day, as we have had the last few weeks, people would rather take the underground. They need to take some clues from London, introduce a congestion charge, lots more bike lines. But they will not. Paris would have been a nightmare if it had the olympics instead of London.
This is exactly wrong. Cycling is common in the Netherlands but it's not a life style. I intentionally do not say 'popular' there. You just buy a bike and you're all set. You don't need a helmet or a special outfit. You don't have to spend a ton of money on a super light weight carbon fiber monster. When you want to go somewhere, you don't have to check if the roads are bike-friendly, and you don't have to check if you can park your bike there.
I'm Dutch. I am not a cyclist; I just have a bicycle. It's as natural to me as having three meals a day. Of course, that's only true on a personal level. As a nation, we very much designed for the conditions that are conducive to cycling. The article gets that right.
Having been a passenger and a pedestrian in Beijing, I can confidently say that anyone crazy brave enough to get on a bike there is deserving of respect, from a safe distance.
The only trouble is that the lanes are often under-utilized, encouraging all sorts of other people, vehicles, and piles of random boxes to accumulate there.
I took an all day cycling tour around Beijing the last time I was there (2009), and it was great, except for those times you'd get close to an intersection.
Flat is irrelevant. Don't believe me? Go to Montreal. Outrageous topography, terrible weather, everybody bikes. Biking is about infrastructure and social networks. I live in Orange County, and nobody rides to work, but once they find out you ride, they begin to think that maybe it isn't such a big deal.
Not only is the previous poster's comment not true, it was even covered in the article, in the section "The 70s velo-rution."
Even the comment "one reason: their country is flat" is addressed in the article, with "The famously flat Dutch terrain, combined with densely-populated areas, mean that most journeys are of short duration and not too difficult to complete." That is, urban density is also an important reason.
It's quite clear from the article that many factors affect biking in the Netherlands, and not just, or even primarily, its flatness.
Here's my position:
All those factors are incentives, easier to promote biking but without a mostly flat country it wouldn't work. We could try adding all of the other factors but flatness is obligatory.
I'll have a look at Montreal as another poster mentioned it but I have doubts it is on the same scale as the Netherlands if it isn't flat.
Certainly flatness is a big incentive. Our reaction, however, is against the comment "There is only one, and one reason: their country is flat."
That's simply not true. As the article points out, the Netherlands, like other countries, had a large decrease in the use of bicycles in favor of the car. It wasn't until political protests of the 70s and 80s that that trend reversed itself.
But having hills is not a complete disincentive. I used to live in Gothenburg, Sweden, which has a very extensive cycling network, with many people bike commuting, etc. It also has hills. The key thing is that it's not all hills; the bike paths tend to follow the flat. But I lived near the top of a hill, at about 200 feet above the central part of town, and plenty of people would do that commute every day. (Not that I particularly liked it.)
It's of course a very complicated set of interactions. The city also has good public transportation, so if the weather is nasty it's still easy to leave the bike at home and take the trams and buses to work.
Or consider Trondheim, Norway. According to one web site, "18% of the population of Trondheim is using their bike as a daily means if[sic] transport to work or school." Trondheim is not a flat city, and certainly Norway is not a "mostly flat country."
>>Certainly flatness is a big incentive. Our reaction, however, is against the comment "There is only one, and one reason: their country is flat."
>That's simply not true. As the article points out, the Netherlands, like other countries, had a large decrease in the use of bicycles in favor of the car. It wasn't until political protests of the 70s and 80s that that trend reversed itself.
Ah yes, I see. I was too vague and biased, my mistake. I chose the wrong approach.
Where I live we are often told "why don't ride like the dutchs ?" and after a while it becomes tiresome to explain why we don't.
I think the point is that, there are a lot of cities that are in fact sufficiently flat but do not have a lot of bike usage.
Indeed I wouldn't want to bike around in cities with many sloped streets (Brussels comes to mind) without at least having some decent gears to switch (most "grandma bikes" are single-gear, because it's one less part that can break).
It is not logical to make such a conclusion. If someone is used to cycle in The Netherlands, obviously they will have a difficult time if it is not flat. Further, if the country is flat, bikes of course can adjust to that (heavier bikes, etc). If you're used to cycling in a flat country, then it will be difficult to cycle in a non-flat country. This does not prove anything regarding that you need a flat country though. A typical bike in The Netherlands is crazy expensive, easily 500 EUR+ for one of the regular brands. With a more normal market, the bikes could be way better then what we're getting now.
I'm from the Netherlands, I sweat when I cycle and my bike has 11 non-overlapping gears (similar to e.g. 24 speed overlapping one). There are a load of crappy bikes, mainly due to price of those bikes.
Density is huge. Just look at the Bay Area. I suspect there is more biking in hillier, but denser, San Francisco, than the very flat, but spread out, Silicon Valley.
A country with few bikes tends to produce sprawling cities.
You need parking space in the inner city, taking away space that could be used to build homes. More street area in the city means less greenery, worse air. But since commuting by car is not too difficult there is incentive to buy a house in the suburbs.
I don't know, plenty of cities are flat.. NYC is mostly flat?
Biking in .nl was actually quite arduous for me the few times I've been. One word: wind. No mountains or anything to break it, it's like being on an endless hill. I did a few short out of town trips (<15km) and I highly underestimated how long it would take because of the wind...
Gas is expensive, land is flat, weather is nice...all true, but then again, the same could be said about Paris, Barcelona, Milan, etc. The most important factor is that they accommodated them.
Cities should always accommodate the lowest common denominators of society first and foremost (starting with pedestrians), and then progressively accommodate more, but never more at the expense of those that came before. It is very difficult to harm pedestrian activity with public transportation and bicycles.
When it comes to cars, the picture changes drastically: people clamoring for free parking are implicitly raising the price of housing for people that do not drive. Wide boulevards and high speed freeways divide cities geographically, increase noise to the point of hindering inhabitability (also increases housing costs), and inhibit movement (which essentially limits trade in the same way that national borders do). Accommodating their preferences for traffic light timing drastically increases walk times for pedestrians. And their speed preferences and right-of-way preferences increase death risks.
That isn't to say that cities shouldn't accommodate cars. They should just stop doing it at the expense of pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transportation users.
People keep saying this all over the thread but it rains so damn much in Amsterdam! The Dutch don't seem to mind, throw on some rain gear and bike 10km to work. Almost no one does that in the US, I think it's just a big expression of cultural differences.
Rain is not a problem - temperature is. In Poland we get two completely opposite extremes. Today it was 40C outside and I can't imagine biking anywhere, and in winter it can go as low as -30C. Again, almost impossible to bike. It leaves you with a few months when biking to work is a reasonable to choice. In the UK though, I could bike to work every single day of the year, because it's never too cold or too hot to cycle. I imagine that the Netherlands are similar.
You do realize that we just got past the heatwave here, and we also got quite low temperatures in December? The Polish winter is a bit harsher, but not that much.
I am from Warsaw, and biked there, and the difference in infrastructure quality and planner priorities is huge. I mean, people still think it's a good idea to build elevated highways in the cities there.
It rains a lot in Seattle, and we still have plenty of cyclists. Rain isn't as big of a factor as extreme heat/cold when considering whether to ride a bike or not.
> but never more at the expense of those that came before
This is the standard anti-bike, pro-car argument in most American cities. That cars are already here, and adding bike infrastructure takes away from space for cars.
The fact is, when you progressively accommodate more forms of transit, it's ALWAYS at the expense of those that came before. And that's ok. Pareto optimization is a lousy way to find a global optimum, in any system.
You could always try making the argument that more people riding means less people driving. Thereby making the roads less crowded for everyone who continues to drive.
In the city I used to live (Eindhoven), I often had the situation that trips were shorter by bicycle than by car. This happened especially when I had to move around the city center, where they have many one-way streets (one-way for cars only) and many red lights (you don't always have to respect those when on the bicycle).
It sucks though when it's around between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius and it's raining...
Every city I have lived in this has been true, cities in the UK, Europe, US and Australia, lots of distance are a lot faster, when you don't have to worry about finding your car, getting through traffic, and then finding a park.
On points 1 and 3 especially, I highly recommend Bike Snob NYC's new book "Bike Snob Abroad." [1] He writes about the viability and acceptability of everyday cycling in New York City (his home), and then does the same while travelling to London and Amsterdam. One of his observations is that infrastructure isn't everything-- cycling is still a "special" thing to do in Portland, the Bay Area, or New York City, after all. Rather, in a place like the Netherlands, cycling is just a normal thing to do that doesn't require specialized, expensive gear, lycra, or even (gasp) helmets.
I don't think there's a simple way to get to that point anywhere in America. His hunch, one I agree with, is that people in this country have to make things The Biggest and The Fastest and The Best, which is why we are at the forefront of bike technology & craftsmanship but are so
pisspoor when it comes to cycling as a safe, simple means of transportation.
I'd be interested to see the fatality rates for riders without a helmet. The article seems to suggest that it's fine to do because cars are careful around cyclists - but that misses the point completely. The helmet is not there to save you from a car crash. It's there to save you when you get distracted and miss a pot hole or hit something.
Perhaps my perception is skewed because I've had two friends be saved from a serious head injury only thanks to their helmets. One rode into a parked car (she doesn't remember how it happened due to amnesia), riding at relaxed speed, and was unconscious for a couple days.
It seems really weird to take that risk just to avoid a slight discomfort.
It's a very hard thing to measure, mostly because double-blind studies are unethical, and well-controlled case-control studies are generally difficult. An 85% reduction in head injuries is often cited, but it's based on a study from the mid-'80s that, it turns out, had some pretty substantial methodological flaws, so it's generally agreed that that number overstates helmets' efficacy pretty considerably. More recent studies put the number somewhere around a 20% reduction in head injuries for adults in the US, accompanied by a slight increase in the rate of torsional injuries to the neck because of the larger circumference of a helmeted vs. unhelmeted head. In general, though, helmet use is not an especially good predictor of the outcome of a bike accident; it's much less well correlated with likelihood of death than, say, the cyclists's speed at the time of the accident.
Because there isn't much risk, really. It is very, very uncommon for an experienced Dutch cyclist to have a serious one-sided accident. Children learning, sick elderly and tourists on the other hand do have accidents more often and for them helmets is a good idea. You see more and more young children wear helmets in the Netherlands when they start out learning to ride a bicycle.
I've been riding bikes in traffic for almost 30 years and never had a serious accident one-sided or not. For about 6 years I also did cycling racing and wearing a helmet was obligatory to participate in training and official KNWU races. And that's a good thing for I did have a number of accidents while racing: falling in the bunch, not holding a bend, jumping from small sand cliffs, breaking equipment, and so on. However, these accidents only happen because while racing one takes risks one does not while riding a bike to work: the speed is significantly lower, they way one sits on a bike is different, the stakes (i.e., winning) are lower, the bikes themselves are a lot sturdier than those racing bikes, and so on.
I think many foreigners don't really understand this difference between riding for transportation and riding for sport or challenge.
To add: I've had many more accidents, serious and not, while walking. Tripping isn't uncommon for me, I've tripped at least once or twice a year. The same for injuring my ankle, walking against a door or window, falling from stairs, and so on.
On the last point, that's something that comes up occasionally when helmet laws are discussed in Denmark: is there evidence that wearing a helmet on bike is more helpful than wearing a helmet as a pedestrian? If not, shouldn't a mandatory helmet law also mandate it for pedestrians?
There is also evidence that wearing a helmet in a car can reduce head injuries in some kinds of accidents, especially at highway speeds. Therefore one might wonder if a mandatory-helmet law should actually include all forms of transportation, including cars, bicycles, and walking. Or perhaps a subset, such as required for bicycles only when on major streets, and for cars only when on highways.
Helmets only protect from certain types of injuries and they are often misworn. The larger analysis also need to consider that some people won't ride a bike if required to wear a helmet; eg, to prevent helmet hair while on the way to an opera. There are also health benefits to biking, vs. driving or taking mass transit.
My personal view is that biking slower than 10 mph (which is the same as running a 6 minute mile) doesn't need a helmet for the cases you are talking about any more than street runners need a helmet.
10mph is considered a slow biking speed, but it's what you'll find with city bikes in an urban environment like the Netherlands.
The larger analysis also need to consider that some people won't ride a bike if required to wear a helmet; eg, to prevent helmet hair while on the way to an opera.
In Denmark a more common reason isn't hair so much as where to put the helmet. People bike everywhere, and usually you just leave your bike in some random location on a sidewalk, with the rear wheel immobilized with a built-in device that most bikes have (minor theft deterrent). Then you're left either having to carry the helmet with you everywhere, or to try to lock it to the bike somehow (presumably with an extra lock you carry just for that). Also, it drizzles a lot, so your helmet will be very wet if you leave it outside, unless you carry an extra bag or cover for it that works together with a lock.
For commuting between home and office it's not an issue, and more people wear helmets in that case. Of my coworkers, I would say about 1/3 wear a helmet when commuting, skewed towards those who live further (~10km), and those who are somewhat older (>40 y/o). Parents with young kids also tend to wear helmets, rather than trying to explain to the kids that they have to but mom and dad don't.
I think people make the "where to put the helmet" into a bigger problem that it is. I wear a helmet when biking, and I ride my bike everywhere (I'm Danish). I always just hang the helmet on the handlebar, my reasoning "who would steal a helmet". I've been right the last 10 years.
Also really, do you care it's wet? It has holes in it, your going the get your head wet anyway.
I have taken the view that helmets don't usually help much, but that people often perceive wearing a helmet as being the definition of safety, rather than obeying the rules of the road and paying attention to the road and what is going on around you. In my view, those are far more important than what you have on your head.
Personally, I haven't seen anyone saved thanks to a bike helmet, but I have seen people get into minor accidents because they were ignoring traffic rules and not paying attention to the road. Lots of people in the US seem to treat bikes as more of a kid's toy, to be cruised around the local neighborhood without a care in the world. They don't have the damage potential or expense of cars, but they are still vehicles that are many times faster and less maneuverable then you are on your feet, and so deserve your respect and attention.
There have been various studies done regarding bicycle helmets. My conclusion on those: helmets make biking more annoying. You need a helmet, you need to put it on and off. It is a minor annoyance, but huge problem in making biking popular and easy/thoughtless.
Secondly on the safety: there are studies where they compared the average distance between people on bikes with helmets and without. Cars gave bikes less distance to people wearing helmets. The likely explanation is that because they seem more safe, you need to pay less attention to their safety (decreasing distance is a result).
Lastly: There is a TED talk about making bikes more stable using electronics. Apparently the most common bike accident is a one-sided accident by "old people", IIRC.
By far the most important factor is that it's flat and population density is high (meaning most bike trips aren't necessarily very far).
An out of shape person riding a bike a few kilometers over very flat terrain is fairly easy, even with a crappy bike. Throw in more hills or longer distances and things change dramatically. Even a single small hill or overpass on a bike journey changes the amount of effort needed by a huge margin and increases the fitness minimum that would result in that journey feeling comfortable.
Outside the cities people still cycle. It is no uncommon for highschool students in the country to cycle over 10 km to and from school (for some up to 20 or 30 km), do the same to meet friends after school, to go clubbing, to go to parties, to go to do things and so on. In the Netherlands there is no such thing as a school bus. There is no driving a car without an expensive and difficult licence after you're 18 years.
And the flatness has a downside too: strong headwinds, always it seems. Certainly, it is easier than riding over hills or mountains, I wholeheartedly agree with you, but it ain't all roses and sunshine either.
Then again, my fitness when I was young was great. Heck, I don't think I've ever seen one of my schoolmates fail the Cooper test during physical education class unless sick or disabled somehow.
Hills: that's not really true if you have a bicycle with a gearing system. You can get a cheap new one with 7 speeds for about the same as a smart phone. That's enough to get past most hills with some but not a lot effort, especially if it's tuned to out-of-shape persons (which modern bikes seem to be). You can always get off and walk the steepest slopes.
There are plenty of other flat and dense places in the world that have almost zero cyclists. It's the infrastructure that makes the Netherlands special.
I've lived in Amsterdam since 1997 – since I was 6, so I'd like to voice my opinion as I do not completely agree with everything that has been written in the article.
> If you chain your bike in the wrong place you could find that it is removed and impounded, and that you will have to hand over 25 euros to get it back.
Unless it says that you can't lock up your bike in the area, you pretty much can. I have never heard or experienced anyone's bike being impounded for chaining it up to a pole or post that is not officially "a designated area to chain your bike."
> In that kind of relationship it is longevity that counts - so the older, the better. It's not uncommon to hear a bike coming up behind you with the mudguard rattling against the wheel. If anything, having a tatty, battered old bike affords more status as it attests to a long and lasting love.
Wrong. Cheap bikes are just that, cheap. That means that when your bike is stolen it's not as painful. It also means that buying one…is cheap (I'm repeating myself, I know). If you're going to get a bike for 20-50 EUR don't expect it to be some kind of fancy machine. There's no love affair with bicycles, it's simply a matter of utility.
> Of course, the cycle paths lend themselves to sauntering along in summer dresses in a way a death-defying, white-knuckle ride in rush-hour traffic does not. It is also partly because of this that people don't need showers at work to be able to commute by bike - it's a no-sweat experience.
I know PLENTY of people who sweat on their bikes and who constantly carry around deodorant. I sweat like hell on a bicycle because I own a mountain bike. Especially with a backpack on it's a sweaty ride. Maybe it's also because I _hate_ riding at a moderate pace. I'm constantly pushing my bike. Then again, I don't ride my bike every single day.
> The fact that everyone cycles, or knows someone who does, means that drivers are more sympathetic to cyclists when they have to share space on the roads.
> In turn, the cyclists are expected to respect and obey the rules of the road. You may be fined for riding recklessly, in the wrong place or jumping red lights.
Lol that is if the cops are around. People who drive cars are annoyed and afraid of cyclists because if anything were to happen, the driver would be at fault. When I was getting my driver's license my instructor kept telling me that I should never let a cyclist pass if I have the right of way. Cyclists are arrogant in this regard, I've been on both sides of the table (road?) and I can tell you that when you're on a bike, you know the cars are going to be careful around you because if anything happens, it's usually their fault. Running red lights or engaging in risky maneuvers happens all the time.
What strikes me as odd is that this article doesn't mention one of the most important reasons for cycling within cities: It's not attractive to own a car. Owning a car is expensive. Gas is expensive. It's almost impossible to park and maneuvering around the city center is very very difficult.
Have a look: http://goo.gl/maps/wRRoZ . It takes skill to drive around the canals, especially with the cyclists and scooters buzzing around you.
> If you're going to get a bike for 20-50 EUR don't expect it to be some kind of fancy machine.
If you're getting a bike for as little as 20 EUR, except it to be stolen, if it is not obviously a "frankenbike" made from spare parts of discarded half-bikes. I have no respect for people that buy stolen bikes (yet many people do).
The bikes I've owned (they do get stolen a lot ...) were usually about 100-150 EUR for a sturdy no-frills "grandma bike". I might be able to get one cheaper second-hand if I looked harder, but when I'm without a bike, I really do need a new one quickly because it's my main means of getting around in the city, cars are inefficient (in the city) and public transport quickly adds up the costs you might as well have spent on that new (or second-hand) bike.
Amsterdam might not be a good example though, I've heard from my friends that live there it's annoying to get around in the touristic city centre, because of the tourists. Not even so much because the foreign tourists aren't used to bikes, but (from my own experience) tourists generally walk around in groups and Amsterdam's sidewalks are small, so they just sort of spill everywhere.
BTW I have never seen a "cars are guests" sign, anyone know what cities have those?
Here's a funny video of an American tourist reacting to the car-free city centre of Groningen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7gi2RxM1Qg (I'm aware it's not really representative of the typical American tourist, don't worry, but it's quite amusing still :) also for accuracy: the centre is not completely car-free; taxis, buses, police, ambulances etc are allowed, and there's a sort of maze of one-way streets that cars can take if they really need to be somewhere, except for the roads directly next to the very central city square)
I admit I buy bikes that are propably stolen. I lost one very expensive and one half that but still expansive bikes and I knew I would never get them back. They propably left the country. Now I still want to drive a mountain bike but I won't let them steal them for the 3rd time...that would be stupid. Thats why I buy them on the net, from newspapers or on flea markets for cheap. I am sorry for the guys whos bikes those propably are but as I don't expect anyone to give me my bike back by reporting it to the police on the other side of europe, I think realistic people should not expect me to buy the bike and bring it to the Police...those guys are advertising openly. If the Police is not giving a damn, why should I? I'm not a milionaire or Robin Hood.
>>. Thats why I buy them on the net, from newspapers or on flea markets for cheap
As a person who had a really expensive bike stolen - I would never buy a bike from those places, I would not want to finance any criminal activity.
If you want to buy a cheap bike there are charities which sell them, and these bike will never be stolen since they are given to a charity for free, so why would you steal a bike to give it away for free? And they the charity fixes it up and sells it for 30-40 euros so they are cheap and reliable.
> As a person who had a really expensive bike stolen - I would never buy a bike from those places, I would not want to finance any criminal activity.
This is kind of a prisoners dilemma. You don't buy, others will, and you won't stop anyone, only hurt yourself financially. Problem must be solved in other ways, because "voting with your wallet" is not always effective way.
It's not always about efficiency. It's about just not being part of it for moral reasons. You can't not support something ideologically but still partake in the activity without being hypocritical.
> You can't not support something ideologically but still partake in the activity without being hypocritical.
I can think of many situations where you could. And economic benefit often outweighs any ideology in places where people barely make it to the next paycheck.
We don't have that kind of charity places here in germany or in my town. Edit: Even if we had, I wouldn't go there. I may not be a millionaire but I am not poor also. I am sure there are poor people who would need that bikes more then me.
Don't understand me wrong. I understand that I support the crime that hurt me in the first place. I am not stupid but when I see how the Police gave up on that kind of crime, why should I still support it with new bikes? I rather support them with the small ammount of money instead and still have my mountainbike and am not that angry when it gets stolen again.
I think there is a difference here though. By buying cheap bikes which might have been stolen, you can be supporting criminals which then see it as a profitable activity. If you buy a new bike you are not encouraging crime,because nobody will steal it if there is no place to sell it.
And I am pretty sure the police haven't given up on that crime, it's just easy to get away with it. When my bike was stolen a police officer came over and took the frame serial number,a picture of the bike and I do know they look around - I have been stopped on my bike before by the police who were looking for stolen bikes. It's just that those bikes can be easily packed on a truck and taken to another country,where no one will care, and there is no method to track a bike abroad, there should be a database with frame numbers that would be shared internationally.
Edit: And those charities are not just for poor people. The one where I live has all the bikes for sale arranged neatly in a shop, the only difference is that all of them have been donated, they fixed them and now they are selling them for reasonable amount of money to help people in need.
Yes, I did also go to the Police with my frame numbers. I also heard of people who know people who got their bike back...if you know what I mean.
As I said, when a criminal act reached the point where the (possible) criminals advertise their goods openly (in newspapers, on the net, on flea markets), I think they just crossed the line. They a) seem to be sure to not be cauth and b) have already enough customers. So with my decision to not give them 100€ but "give" them a new bike worth 10-times that, I support their established market even more.
When I was ~15, I idioticly tried to sell a box full of my copied C64 games. I have been visited by some undercover cops who sued my parents for very much money. I never tried that again...
I think the 'charity' part is not towards the buyer. There may not be any near your place, but the concept is you give a free item to the charity, someone buys it for a price, and the profit is used for people in need.
That doesn't make sense -- if the police really don't care, why you just steal one? It seems to me, that apart from having no ethical sense, you're simply a coward.
Quit rationailzing your behavior -- either sin boldly or stop doing it.
They probably didn't leave the country they probably left the area you live in and were sold on the net, via newspaper or in flea markets to someone who justified buying stolen goods in exactly the same way you just did.
Maybe they did leave just the area. Did not change anything for my legaly bouth and stolen bikes. They are gone and never returned.
Don't understand me wrong. I understand that I support the crime that hurt me in the first place. I am not stupid but when I see how the Police gave up on that kind of crime, why should I still support it with new bikes? I rather support them with the small ammount of money instead and still have my mountainbike and am not that angry when it gets stolen again.
It's only 20-30 euros more for a decent non-stolen second-hand bike, if you look around a bit.
Unless the stolen bikes you buy are in fact so cheap you can't have any possible doubt they are in fact stolen and you might as well steal them yourself.
The guy who wrote this article does not sound like a cyclist at all, where as you do.
The real question is why are bicycles not popular in more places. In Australia especially, wide roads, the cities are not that big, the weather is mostly nice, and so few people cycle.
I think the biggest reason is the lack of good safe bike paths and infrastructure most places. As someone (in the US) who bikes nearly every day as my primary form of transportation I'm quick to admit that bike commuting is dangerous. I love it, but it requires constant vigilance and careful attention not to get hit by a car or a door (and I live in Portland which is much more bike friendly than most US cities). Bikers frequently share lanes with fast moving cars and it's very common for bike lanes to end unexpectedly, leaving the cyclist in a dangerous spot.
I'm willing to accept these risks, but for most people it's not worth it. My wife also enjoys biking, but hates to ride on busy streets for fear of ending up on the wrong end of a distracted motorist. This limits her options to weekend pleasure rides on dedicated bike paths.
The trick to getting more people to cycle is to invest heavily in bike path infrastructure so that more people will feel safe using it as a primary form of transportation.
- Spacey or dedicated lanes are a major requirement. And in my fantasies I'd like two kinds of lanes, speedy and casual. Riding around 25kmph for commuting can be dangerous if the lane thins out, people ride/run slow, kids play around.
- Also, secured parking spots. I refrain from riding when I don't know where I'm gonna park. Too easy to pick/steal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGttmR2DTY8 . Or a <20 bucks tagging device (in 2013 it's probably easy for many manufacturers)
I am from Portland, as well. And the "bike friendly" claim seems like a joke after having lived in Amsterdam for nearly two years.
I don't think we (Portlanders) have a clue what bike-friendly is. It would be nice if biking in Portland were safe enough that you didn't have to wear a helmet - like it is here in Amsterdam. (I happen to be back over here in AMS for a month).
I don't know about Australia, but Netherlands is basically a flat country where its tallest mountain (hill?) is 320 meters above sea level. Therefore, cycling is particularly easy.
And things are often at reasonable biking distances. Here in Palo Alto the city is flat and the weather is even more agreeable than the Netherlands, however, people mostly drive because they either live in a different town and commute to Palo Alto, or they live in town and commute somewhere else.
Longer distances make it a bit harder, but they can work if there's an integrated cycle-path network, and ideally some integration with transit. For example, Palo Alto to Mountain View is only 6 miles (10 km), a distance that's very common to bike in Copenhagen, and yet nobody bikes it in the Valley. Part of the issue might be that there aren't great routes. You either bike down El Camino, a rather intimidating proposition, or else you have to piece together a complex route by weaving through residential neighborhoods.
The bike->train->bike option can also increase the practical bike-commuting area, but it's hampered by Caltrain not running often enough or to enough places.
I made the Palo Alto <-> Mountain View ride 4/week for four years. My ride was bout 9 miles, which is longer than I'd expect most people to ride, but I couldn't afford to be closer.
Biking on the same roads as cars is generally not fun. I first used Middlefield most of the way, but that meant biking in with the cars. It wasn't until much later that I discovered Bryant street, which prohibits through motor traffic but allows bike traffic through. It's pleasant enough, but you are still sharing a road with cars and I've seen many simply blow through the stop signs on those residential streets (there are rarely any other people around anyway). Even with Bryant, half my ride was on a major auto thoroughfare.
The position of bike lanes on American streets is stressful for bicyclists. You basically have cars on either side. On one side you have cars driving and who want to make right turns across your lane. On the other side you have parked cars with drivers-side doors that completely block the bike path when open. These people also want to cut across your lane to enter traffic.
In my roughly eight years of bicycling around the bay area I've only been hit once by an auto, and that was one where he was fully at fault for making a left turn into me when he acknowledged he saw me in the opposing lane and thought I was slowing for him (I slowed because it looked like he was going to turn without having right of way). It was low speed and I wasn't injured. However, bicycling around the bay is not fun, despite having a few decent bike paths.
I've also biked in Amsterdam and I can attest that we have a long way to go. I believe we need to change our cultural attitude towards bicycling first, then the rest will follow.
This is true, NL is a small country and we really have to be conservative with our space. I was amazed to see, when I was in the US, how widely spaced out everything is, especially the suburbs. Those distances do add up quickly and perhaps make for less interesting bike rides. I'd probably still get one if I lived there, just because it's easier to get around for small distances, but I've heard for some people the nearest supermarket is a few miles away, then yeah, going by car makes a lot of sense.
You can't easily change such geographic/cityplanning type of differences either, I think.
It takes a long time. Vancouver, BC was very successful with this because they built a new transit system back in the '80s (Skytrain) and then clustered density around the stations. It's been extremely succesful, and there is also a complimentary system of bicycles boulevards for people to ride bikes.
Here in the US, however, the car rules, for better (but mostly) worse. I had an incident on my bike last Monday in Palo Alto with a car where I fell and broke my hand.
Trying to code with a broken hand is rather... interesting.
I would question whether Australian cities are not that big. Sydney covers an area comparable to Greater London. I've lived in Perth, Sydney and now London and I've progressively cycled less through each of those moves. Perth is a cycling paradise with an integrated cycle path network, Sydney ok depending on where you're commuting, and London is a nightmare even with the token 'cycle superhighways'. For me it all comes down to what is the least frustrating way to get to and from work.
They are popular in old cities in Holland. It's not so much that people prefer riding a bike in Holland to riding a car in Australia, with its _wide roads_. They prefer a 5 minute bike ride to a 30 minute hellish experience equal in complexity only to navigating the mars rover from earth. It isn't so much that bikes are so great, as that cars are a horrible horrible form factor for old cities.
And if you look at other old cities, you see the exact same form factor. Except those cities aren't flat, so instead of bikes they ride around on scooters. Think Rome, Greece, Paris.
Secondly, our other cities (Suburbia mostly), have all these nice bike tracks, because this is how our children navigate to school, their sports club and friends, independently from about 5 to 12 years old. (as they grow older, you increase the radius you allow your child to navigate and explore freely)
These bike lanes are safe, because it's our children riding there. Unsupervised. But their parents will use their car for everything, because in those cities you actually have the choice. And dutch people are just as lazy comfort creatures as everyone else, if given the same choice.
It's not so much that it's great to ride a bike in Holland, as that it's safe (because its how our children navigate) and that in old cities navigating a car a complete waste of time, energy and money. You will _literally_ sweat more.
Erm, when was the last time you were in Australia? Cycling is huge here, especially in Brisbane. The local council has spent a great deal of money putting in bike lanes and paths all over the place, and they're very well used. Every workplace I've been in for the last 5 years has had a large group of riders who commute every day on a bike, and most of those also cycle for leisure on the weekends.
Additionally the council has put in a bunch of rental bike stations all over the place, although most people prefer to just use their own I think.
I ride to work 4-5 days a week, and it's fantastic. It's faster than the bus (by a factor of 2, IF the bus shows up on time, or shows up at all), good exercise, cheap, and environmentally friendly. Our workplace has an End Of Transit facility (fancy name for bike lockers, racks, and showers), which has a long waiting list of people trying to get in.
I had a bike impounded twice for parking it in a wrong place around the Zuid station. But it was only 15 euros to get it (they keep them on a parking lot in the direction of Halfweg
It could well be that Dutch people like cheap bikes because they are cheap (the bikes not the people! Although, ...) But even when they buy a new one they prefer the "oldtimers" - new bikes that look like they are from the 20s.
It's true that there are probably people who sweat, but there are very few people who take a shower at work
I agree that cyclists don't really respect red lights or right of way, but the article is correct that drivers are more sympathetic to cyclists than everywhere else
>I had a bike impounded twice for parking it in a wrong place around the Zuid station
I'm pretty sure there are signs everywhere in Zuid station that should place your bike in the freely provided bike parking lots. If they would allow every one of the thousands of people coming in with a bike to just park it in front of the station randomly, nobody would be able to get into or out of the station.
It's just common sense man.
> new bikes that look like they are from the 20s.
Because we optimize for durability, not status, not speed nor features. We assume abuse and we leave our bikes unsupervised the majority of the time. It's not just stealing .. having a hard to physically destroy bike prevents annoying kids and drunk teenagers from vandalizing your bike.
>It's true that there are probably people who sweat, but there are very few people who take a shower at work
I haven't ever been in an office with a shower. I don't know any place where it would even be an option. But every person sweats a little every day anyway. Fresh sweet don't smell. It's the old sweat that smells.
Sure, I wasn't complaining. In fact I think they should do it more often. Since they sell the unclaimed bikes to second hand bike shops it would perhaps decrease the prices...
> we optimize for durability
That is true, but you have to agree that there could be durable bikes which don't have the oma/opa fiets look and come with a normal stand not that useless frame which tends to get loose after half a year and doesn't even keep the bike standing in moderate winds..
Yes, the canals and touristic city centre in Amsterdam aren't a great example of bike-friendliness (which indeed also affects the pedestrians). Compare to Utrecht, which also has canals, things seem to be laid out a bit more sensibly.
(btw if anyone visiting NL and you have the time, do yourself a favour and don't just stick to Amsterdam, it's a 20 minute cheap train ride to Utrecht, which is just as pretty, but with less tourists swarming everywhere and therefore also less tourist-traps)
They are super bike friendly, considering how many people walk around there. It actually feels like a superpower, to silently fly through the crowds on a narrow one way bike lane. I just did that in july.
My girlfriend now wife put her bike up against a post near the train station in Leiden, with a chain. Later that day? Gone. Had to pick it up at the cities yard of bikes. Happens regularly if you're careless about where you park.
I can imagine that if you do that sort of thing around a very busy object, such as a station or a hotspot for tourists, then the city authorities will step in. But if you chain it to a post somewhere in a quiet part of town, or if there are already a thousand bikes chained there, they're not going to throw a fuss.
With all this focus on cities I'd like to give some perspective for people in the countryside. Simply put: within towns it's similar to cities but even easier (because there's less traffic to worry about), but outside of town the longer distances make it more convenient to go by car, unless you have a lot of time to spare.
That said, it's different if you're a teenager. You can't get a drivers license until you are 18 (16 for scooters though). We don't have school buses here. Regular public transport usually comes by once an hour at inconvenient times (for example, you arrive either 50 minutes early of 10 minutes late for class), take the long way round to pick up as many people as possible because otherwise it wouldn't even be profitable, and still manage to have the closest bus stop a few kilometers out of town. As a result, if you don't have a car and need to go to the city, going by bike is often just as fast if not faster, and of course cheaper. So going to secondary school by bike is extremely common - me and my sisters used to bike 18 km to and from school every day, and while few in my school lived that far away, based on my school I estimate 10 km to be the average distance for countryside kids biking to school.
I still roll my eyes when my friends say I live "far out of town" because it's a ten to fifteen minute bike ride.
Same here: rode 18km to school, and a few hours later another 18km back. As this was how everybody from my town went to school it wasn't something you gave any thought to!
Oh yeah they (we) do, in the long run it matters. Driving around town, to and fro work, driving around for groceries etc. It adds up. A bike's gas is essentially free because nobody actually factors in the calories. I guess the biggest hurdle is simply how uncomfortable it is to drive around and park.
Do tell. I'm back here in Amsterdam for a month. Lived here for about 2 years, a couple years back... and we did some travel in other parts of NL while we were here. Biking didn't seem all that much different outside of Amsterdam, other than the volume of people doing it.
The sheer volume of bikes is much, much higher in Amsterdam.
The culture of beat up bikes is not typical for the Netherlands, except maybe for student towns. Also, it is much cheaper to get your bike "fixed" in Amsterdam, so old bikes are kept going longer. ("fixed" being a bit relative because of the cultural difference, bike shops in Amsterdam will use duct-tape if necessary)
The middle-class mommy "bakfiets" was typical for Amsterdam until very recently.
Car ownership amongst people who can easily afford one is much lower in Amsterdam than anywhere else in the country. Nowhere is it that hard to get around by car than in Amsterdam, and in most places it's hardly possible to live without a card.
The total disregard of cyclists for traffic rules, including ignoring red lights and not having any lights at night is typical for Amsterdam.
Lots of outsiders (there are barely any locals left in the heart of Amsterdam) have turned cycling into a bit of a cult. Outside of Amsterdam, cycling is much more "normal".
In other words, the road to a healthy utopia of happy people on bikes is not to compromise, but to accept all of the cyclists' demands while completely ignoring the motorists' complaints.
Those are often not two groups of people. They are one and the same. That’s at least my experience here in Germany (where people bike less but still quite often). And that creates lots of empathy.
Also, it’s you – the motorist – who is moving around the several ton metal monster so of course you have the responsibility to make sure not to hurt any of the squishy meatbags around you. That just always seemed obvious to me. Keep a good car’s width distance to bikes when overtaking them (and not overtaking them if there is no space for that) and so on. (Also, I don’t know how the laws are in the Netherlands, but at least in Germany it isn’t so dramatic. Yeah, you are always responsible for keeping pedestrians and bikers safe but your liability is limited in certain ways.)
From my experience in Amsterdam (lived there for two summers), there aren't two disjoint sets: cyclists and motorists. Everyone has a bike and many people have a car. It's usually more pleasant to bike somewhere.
My personal experience from living and biking in both Copenhagen and London is that that word - demands - sets a very adversarial tone that is not at all helpful in London. No-one talks about cyclist's "demands" in Copenhagen, but they are well accommodated in city planning because there are a lot of them (of course, there's a chicken-and-egg thing here). In London, the organised cyclists come off as extremely militant and righteous and I have no difficulty believing that's a turnoff for plenty of people, ultimately hurting the cause.
This was actually filmed for Newsnight last night, it was quite interesting. Mostly it was in the context of 'why is cycling so popular and great in the Netherlands and what can we do to get people cycling in the UK', but it felt like it ignored a whole host of social factors that'll make it difficult in the UK.
Potentially, we could have had a similar experience to the Dutch however during the 70s/80s the car was raised to be as important as house ownership (there's some specific quote from a member of the Conservative government to that effect, but I cannot for the life of me remember it). Cars are massively important in British life, the roads have been designed specifically for them, traffic lights (new ones) are designed more for drivers than pedestrians. The car lobby is huge, there was a guy from the Association of British Drivers who basically said 'why would anyone cycle, it's one of the most risky occupations you can undertake, you should have a car'.
It's nice to see how well organised the Netherlands is (despite what I'm sure are many flaws in the system), but it'll take another oil crisis to shake British love for cycling.
As a postscript, I've just started cycling part of my commute recently (9 mile round trip), and whilst cycling in Britain is definitely doable, it's scary how close some drivers get to you at times. I think it's a lack of respect of the distances, and a little blindness to anything outside of your bubble rather than malicious intent, but I can't imagine any parent being happy about sending their teenagers out on the roads.
I also cycle my commute. When I used to cycle to the old office this was 14 mile commute on a variety of surfaces. When I initially rode on the road I would gutter crawl; cars would pass real close.
Then I read a few tips on cycling safer and realised that my gutter crawling was actually very dangerous as cars will try to squeeze past to overtake. I don't know how confident you are but for me, riding a third into the lane at all times has improved my safety as cars will now only overtake if they have a ton of room and they'll always go way over into the other lane to do it. I will also take the full lane if I feel I need to. I essentially just needed to be more confident. YMMV
I've actually started moving further out and establishing my area on the road, and it has helped, but I'll often have to slow down and move in. Without typecasting it's often people in 4x4's (Range Rovers, X5s etc), I don't believe it's always down to the person driving it being, well, an asshat but due to the size of the vehicle changing your perspective.
Thankfully a lot of my commute is on cycle paths, but the quality level of road surfaces is some what variable.
Actually, what surprised me most about this article is the percentage of people that use public transport (it's displayed in one of the tables in the article).
The UK has one of the lowest subsidies for public transport compared to other European countries. We also have the highest fares. And yet, more people in the UK travel by public transport than Germany and France - two countries with much higher rail subsidies, modern high-speed rail services and lower fares. That just doesn't seem to make sense!
Public transport makes more sense if people are more packed in, because the stations are more likely to be 1) close to the things you wants to go to and 2) close to your house.
Meanwhile, private transport becomes less attractive because of traffic jams.
It definitely also helps that a lot of cycle route paths are actually well considered and planned out giving a decent network of coverage for making journeys, rather than being a badly indicated part at the side of the road as in the UK so you are either still at the mercy of traffic for safety or end up (as I suffer from) having to use the roads and being screwed by one way systems making it no easier while being more dangerous than by car.
I lived in Breda, The Netherlands for a month several years ago. I agree completely with the article: its a matter of both culture and safety. There are dedicated bike path lanes--fully separated from the roadways. Moreover, both cyclists and drivers alike follow the law.
Compared to New York City, where I live now, it's the exact opposite. Bike lanes, in the few places they exist, are rarely anything more than a faded paint line on the road. Very few people (pedestrians, cyclists, or drivers) follow the rules of the road. Even as a twentysomething male--presumable predisposed to a higher degree of risk--riding a bike in NYC seems downright reckless.
A contributing factor to its dangerousness may be the city's density; you have trucks at all hours dropping off newspaper deliveries, Amazon.com packages, FreshDirect orders, and so on. These may be some of the worst offenders--not necessarily because of the drivers but also how the vehicles lack visibility.
I find biking in NYC pretty calm as long as I'm not running red lights. To me it feels safer than biking in San Francisco did. There is a significant set of protected bike lanes and there are a fair amount of bikers on the road. Drivers not signaling is certainly a problem and it is important to not follow traffic laws when it's safer.
I disagree. Cycling has become a lot more popular, and easier, in NYC in recent years and especially in recent months since CitiBike started.
I live by 1st Ave, where there is a physically separated bike lane from Houston up to the low 40s. It's a breeze to get uptown on it, and every morning I even see young women in fashionable clothing biking on citibikes to work in midtown.
2nd Ave also has a bike lane that goes in the opposite direction but it is not separated. However there are so many cyclists on it now that cars are aware. Honestly the real danger on 2nd ave is not cars, but the potholes and other road quality issues. If you're not watching the road (literally) you can hit some nasty snags and fall.
3rd thru 5th Ave are not great. 6th Ave has a bike lane but it's not as comfortable as 1st and 2nd. Further west and you can take the Hudson River path, completely separated and along waterfront, anywhere.
The biggest hassle is lack of bicycle parking in Manhattan. That's why CitiBike has been a boon to commuting by bike. They are having their own issues with keeping up with demand and poor hardware and software but hopefully they'll smooth it out.
They are improving cycling a lot in the city and I know the paths will improve.
And a not about the crazy NYC streets. Driving in this city is not something you can do half-asleep. I find drivers are not able to let themselves get distracted because you need to always be alert. Cycling is nuts sometimes in the sense that you've got so much stimuli around you and potential hazards everywhere. The result, though, is that everyone is pretty alert and cars know you're there, and cyclists are also extra careful.
So, as far as Manhattan goes, biking is the best and often quickest way to get around, weather permitting. I don't find it unsafe unless you let your guard down or ride recklessly. You have to remain defensive and you have to stay off certain roads (I don't bike on the major streets, i.e. 14th, 23rd, Houston). You have to be assertive; you can't be afraid to yell in a driver's face when he turns and cuts off your path without looking and you have to use the bell liberally around cars.
You make a good point. I live in a small city in NY, and the streets are basically free-for-all zones. You have pedestrians with toddlers crossing in the middle of the block in traffic, cars driving 50mph down narrow sidestreets and lance armstrong wannabe cyclists blowing lights and riding on sidewalks to pass cars.
NYC is more than Manhattan, and while I could see some areas in Manhattan that are ok-ish for bikes, many parts of Queens, Brooklyn, etc are difficult for cyclists, and certainly not amenable to casual bicycling.
The geography of Amersterdam is different thinking beyond topography. The streets are narrower as well.
It's the synergy of all pieces that exist. Their population is healthier (in part because of cycling, and quality food, and good healthcare, education, etc), so cycling is a fun and useful activity. They have the city planning designs for cycling lanes that are safe, make you feel safe. And yeah, other incentives and de-incentives applied to driving.
Because its weather isn't oppressively hot like the Gulf Coast? (I bike to/from work, and live on the Gulf Coast. Fortunately it is only a couple hundred meters.)
Second. I live in Houston, and my commute is 3.5 miles each way. If the sun is up and you're outside, you are sweating. Doesn't matter how slow of a jaunt it is.
For those not familiar with summer near the Gulf, the high the past week has been consistently 95-100 F, with relative humidity ranging from 40% to 90%.
Thirding the Houston biking club (we should grab beers sometime!).
The nice thing about moving here is that everything is flat, the roads are fun if you have a mountain bike, and you know that everyone else outside (walking, biking, or driving) is as sweaty and gross as you are.
It's not about the flatness or the distances or the weather, it's about the culture.
I can't count how many times I have been called a fag, or a loser, or have been engulfed in a cloud of black smoke from a diesel pick up truck, or have been physically threatened by the driver to make a point that I don't belong on the road. I live in Colorado, but it could be a lot worse.
I'm writing from Oulu in Finland and we are considered to be a cycling town. The reason why it is so popular is simple. Walking paths double as cycle paths and this works because they are as wide as a car lane. The other reason is because Oulu is designed in such a way where most of the residents live in apartment blocks -- all within cycling distance to the town centre. Most workplaces are also located around town.
Turku here, which is also considered to be a cycling town. I was really shocked to see Finland placed fourth on the list of bike friendly countries. I'll admit that most bike lanes on the countryside are great but the bike lanes in cities are generally not safe to ride on. Both pedestrians and drivers have no idea that they should take bikes into consideration when moving around. Most bike lanes are poorly marked and are blocked by bus stops, dooring areas, stopped cars, pedestrians, snow dumps and dead ends. There's no consistency and impossible to follow all the rules and not get killed if you bike as your primary transportation.
Ranking countries in terms of cycling friendliness is also kinda misleading as countries are on completely different levels. The Netherlands and Denmark are leaps and bounds ahead of Sweden, Sweden is leaps and bounds ahead of Finland.
I live in Austria and cycling is very popular here. E.g. I use my bike everyday often multiple times it's the preferred transportation unit and I do not have to own a car and can reach every part of the city and all the things I need in 30m.
There is just no need for a car here. If I want to get further away I can use an excellent (although, admittedly rather expensive) public transport system.
It surprised me that Slovakia is among 10 most cyclist friendly countries. There's almost no infrastructure like bike lanes or bike stands and the country itself is mostly mountainous. Strange.
As a dutch person, i want to correct some of the arguments made.
Bikes are popular in _old cities_, and _with kids_, but adults living in suburbia will drive and use a car for everything, just like an american in sururbia would.
In old cities, they are the best form factor. And if Holland weren't flat, we would all be driving scooters (like they do in Rome, Paris or Greece). It's the form factor that works best in old cities, because the roads are simply _too small_ and the population density is _too high_. Cars are for moving furniture and deliveries in old cities, not for navigation. I live in Utrecht where you would sometimes have to navigate around the city for 30 minutes to reach a place you could walk to in 2 minutes. Then you pay 3 to 7 euro's an hour to park your car, after looking for 10 minutes to find a free spot. It's a hellish experience, you will only opt-in to, if you really need to.
Secondly, we raise our kids with freedom and independence, and that starts with trust. That means, between the age of 5 and 10, your child will start navigating to and from school, their sports club and friends, by themselves, using their bike. And yes, we were doing this for decades before mobile phones even existed. If your child was late out of school, you would generally just assume they were with a friend, or working on a school project. And most of these kids live in suburbia. The reason few people choose to raise kids in the city, is exactly because you can't allow them to navigate freely: you would be more inclined to escort them.
Now, suddenly, its clear just why these bike paths are so safe. Our children are riding there: unsupervised. They are not just safe in terms of traffic, but also safe in social terms. The paths are always in the view of shops and houses and other traffic. They aggressively clear bushes and dark corners. So people can keep an eye out on the kids.
And getting a driver's licence is much harder in Holland. You would have to be at least 18 years old, pass about three exams and spend hundreds of euro's, and the legal amount of alcohol in your blood until you are 21, is 0,000000000% If you make a big mistake, you'll loose the right to even apply for a new licence until you are 21.
So bikes are used in old cities, because those city planners didn't know cars were going to be invented the next century, and they are used by pretty much all of the youth in Holland, everywhere.
The american style, of navigating your child from your prison home, using your prison family car, to the prison school, is not the dutch approach to raising children. People that drive their kids to school get a serious talking to, and schools are often in fuck-off-cars neighborhoods, optimized for child safety and free exploration. Places where cars shouldn't be going faster than 15 km/h, and where all kinds of obstructions are placed to slow them down.
It's not about health. It's not about having a pro-bike culture. It's about what's a usefull form factor, and how do we raise our kids.
That probably helps, but most of Europe has relatively high gas prices, and yet the popularity of biking as a method of daily transport varies widely between countries.
A lot of Dutch people come on vacations in Walloon (french speaking part of Belgium) and they never ever can be seen riding a bike because our hilly landscape make it a tiresome activities. Even for inner-city short distance trip.
This reflects in the technological development of their bike: heavy frame, few gears, additional front basket while every teen here rides mountain bike made of carbon fibre, 21 gears at least and state of the art front shock absorbing mechanism. I am only slightly exaggerating. And jealous.