Riding through Peelo in the winter. Direct routes by bike, less direct by car

Note that explanatory captions on this video are visible only if you watch on a computer and not on a mobile device.

It was -7 C ( 19 F ) this morning, warming up to a maximum of -4 C ( 24 F ) by this evening when it started going back down again ( it's -8 C or 17 F as I type this). It's now cold enough that the lakes are frozen over such that they can be walked and skated on.

I took this video on a ride right through Peelo, a 1970s / 1980s residential area of Assen, today. It's the same area as where I rode through the woonerven a few days back. The same area as where hopscotch is permanently built into the road.

Direct routes for cyclists, in red, don't exist by car

In the video we ride from point A to point B on the map, a distance of about 1.5 km or 1 mile through this suburb. Our route is along the cycle path shown by the wider red line which provides the main West-East route for cyclists, and of course also links with other routes to other destinations at either end.

The narrower red lines show some of the other larger cycle paths in the area which make up part of the grid of routes required.
Shops, schools and other services are all conveniently placed right on the main cycle path through the area. This cycle path provides the most direct route from West to East. It is not possible to make such a convenient journey by car because the roads take less direct routes with a lot of bends. It is to the advantage of cyclists that driving routes are unravelled from cycling routes.

The photo shows how a road ends in a cycle path in front of these houses (the sign reads "fietspad" - Dutch for "cycle path"). It is a straight line along this path to one of the schools shown in the video. To drive there would require a considerable detour along many small roads. It is virtually always possible to make shorter journeys by bike than by car in this area, and this is why most journeys in the Netherlands take less time by bike than by car.

For another view of this area, showing how convenient it is to get from homes onto this cycle path, see the video on a previous post.

This area of Assen, as well as newer and older residential areas, features on our study tours for planners, campaigners and others interested in the role that infrastructure takes in encouraging cycling.

What are streets for ? (part two)

Quite a few people responded to a previous post showing a hopscotch game chalked onto the street outside our home. However, children playing on the street doesn't only happen completely informally here.

This example is a hopscotch game which is built into a road surface, using coloured bricks. It is one of several in the same area.

This area, Peelo in Assen, extensively uses the idea of the woonerf or "home zone". The speed limit on these streets is walking pace, and cyclists and pedestrians have priority over motor vehicles. The woonerven are connected together by roads which have a speed limit of 30 km/h (18 mph) as well as by cycle paths which give the most direct and convenient routes.

This idea was very common in the Netherlands in the late 1970s through to the 1980s when this area of the city were built. Similar thinking can be seen in developments from the early 1970s and in later developments.

A video showing the streets around this area is here:

Explanatory captions on this video are visible only if you view it on a computer and not on a mobile device.
While this estate is now nearly 30 years old, many of the features of it are still not apparent in areas of housing being built in other countries. This area of Assen, as well as newer and older residential areas, features on the Study Tour.

Everything nearby

The map of Assen on the left was part of the presentation given by the City Architect, Wybe Nauta, as a part of May's Study Tours.

Note that each area of housing within the city is built with its own facilities so that everything is within walking and cycling distance.

For instance, the blue areas show shops, which are spread throughout Assen, but note also the lack of out of town shops to compete with these and encourage driving.

Primary schools are much more numerous than secondary schools and are not shown on this map.

Population density has little to do with cycling share

Everything is, of course, linked by a remarkably fine grid of high quality bicycle paths which makes the experience of collecting your shopping, or going to work or school or travelling to sport facilities an attractive activity without using a car. The level of subjective safety is always very high. The city is considered to be compact - the map shown covers an area which is barely more than 7 km from west to east - however, population density is actually very low.

It's different for villages. They have some shops, but people also make longer journeys to get to shops in the cities and these trips are also often made by bicycle. However, the facilities for them are of course first class, so routes to secondary schools, for instance, are well used, and well maintained.

Where it has been made convenient and safe, as it is in the Netherlands, cycling is an attractive mode of transport. People cycle in the Netherlands for much the journey lengths and for much the same purposes as people drive cars in other countries (proven some years after this post when figures for journeys in London came to light).

Cycle parking at home

The ground floor of this 1970s apartment block
provides secure cycle-parking for all residents.
There is a separate locked room for each flat
and also a communal area for extra bikes.
This is normal in the Netherlands. Indoor
cycle parking has been a legal requirement
for most of the time for several decades.

A law in 1992 laid down standards for the size of cycle storage that it was compulsory for all new homes in the Netherlands to be built with.

In 2003 the incumbent government overturned this legislation, and was much criticised for that decision.

Fietsersbond (the cycling campaign organisation) and some consumer organisations objected strongly about this change, and some cities implemented their own by-laws to put the storage back.

On the 19th of August this year, the law came back into force.

The regulations require a minimum of 6.5% of the floor area of an apartment or house (minimum 3.5 square metres) to be provided as storage, and for it to be a minimum of 1.5 m wide. While there is nothing to prevent people from using their storage for something other than a bike, these dimensions are chosen deliberately to make sure that there is ample secure residential cycle parking.

A friend of ours lives in one of the apartments in the block on the left. Though they were built in the early 1970s, well before the 1992 law, the entire ground floor (1/12th of the building) is storage. These apartments each have 100 square metres of usable floor space and the storage is larger than the minimum legal requirement. People who live here keep their bikes safely in this storage.

This article refers to the situation between 2003 and 2008 when the storage was not compulsory, and some developers provided storage which was down a steep flight of steps into the basement, or completely absent. The problems due to a lack of convenient storage are obvious: Raised risk of theft, bikes being stored in such a way so that they are less convenient to use than cars, risk of the bike rusting if the storage is not adequately designed. These issues are all covered by the article.

If cycling is to be popular, it has to be convenient. This includes having somewhere both convenient and safe to keep your bike, and that's why cycle parking is provided with housing.