Monday 19 July 2010

's-Hertogenbosch strives to become a "cycling city"


Mark Wagenbuur produced this video showing the ambitions of s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands to become a true "bicycle city". Mark puts it as follows:

The city of 's-Hertogenbosch articulated a new "cycle ambition" in 2009. The bicycle policy for the city is a long term plan to update cycle infrastructure (for both riding and parking) and for promoting cycling. Building for the new plan is already taking place. The city wants to become a real cycle city. The modal share of 33% in 2009 was far more than what other cities in the world have (Copenhagen barely reaches 25%) but it is just average in the Netherlands. 's-Hertogenbosch has the ambition to call itself a cycle city but wants to do so only when the modal share of cycling of all journeys in the city reaches 44%.

(Note that the relatively high figures for cycling modal share shown above are not reliable. They result from not including walking as a transport mode and only considering cycling within the city.)


Mark has also produced videos showing eleven different routes into the city centre. You can view them all from links on this video (click on the grey boxes).

I covered the plans from Den Bosch previously, but Mark's done a much better job. I have several other posts with Mark's videos, others about 's-Hertogenbosch and others about planning.

4 comments:

Freedom Cyclist said...

coming to holland in october!!!! - so excited - can't wait!!

WestfieldWanderer said...

Brilliant. Just goes to show that where there's a will...

Meanwhile, back in your old country, the CTC still bangs on about "vehicular cycling" as the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Very frustrating.

christhebull said...

From a UK perspective, this makes Boris's claims of a cycling revolution seem as ludicrous as North Korean propaganda.

To put it in a motoring context: it's like he's calling the South Circular Road a motorway, when the Dutch would just build a proper one.

Daniel Sparing said...

For those of you interested a little bit more in detail, the Fietsberaad has recently organized a study tour to Den Bosch and the presentation etc. can be found in one of the tabs of this page.

Den Bosch is now trying hard and we have seen many asphalted paths (previously tiles), new bicycle-priority streets (Fietsstraat/Fahrradstraße) and a P+R(bus) terminal.