Mobility man - cycle superhighway

This is one of a series of promotional films about transport produced by the Nijmegen / Arnhem region.

The action largely takes place on the snelbinder cycling bridge in Nijmegen.

The man at the start is asking about a "fietssnelweg" between Nijmegen and Arnhem. The two cities are roughly 18 km / 11 miles apart. The presenter goes on to explain that when distances are greater than around 15 km, this can be offputting to a lot of cyclists, so the conditions need to be made better for cycling, so that the route is more attractive for cycling, and that's the way to get more people to cycle. They also need to encourage bicycles more suitable for longer distances.

This fietssnelweg is still in development. It is expected to be complete in 2012. There is a website for it and currently a competition is being held where people can contribute their ideas for how the route can be made better.

At the end you see a glimpse of what is claimed to be the fastest cycle courier service in the world - a velomobile used daily to take packets between Nijmegen and Arnhem. However, it appears that the local government actually wants to promote electric vehicles.

Nijmegen's big bridge for cyclists

Sometimes a really big link is required to make cycling convenient. This huge cycle bridge in Nijmegen is one of them, complete with escalators to help cyclists take a short cut.

Note the width of the bridge. It is wide enough to prevent conflict between cyclists travelling in opposite directions.

The bridge is known as the "snelbinder". This is a play on words. The elastic bungie straps that many Dutch people have to attach luggage to their bicycles racks are also called snelbinders, and the word suggests that it is something that provides a quick link. The main span is 235 metres long and the bridge reaches 26 metres in height.

There is a wikimedia photo on the left showing the escalator for bicycles. Click for a larger version. There are also some more photos of the bridge here.

Nijmegen is considered to be the oldest city in the Netherlands. The city has an urban population of 280000 people.

I previously featured a video showing town centre cycle parking in Nijmegen. Nijmegen is also the location of the largest bicycle museum in the Netherlands.

There are also escalators for bikes which run beside steps for people. However, the closest I've been able to find to a video showing these in use is this.

This blog post features one of Mark Wagenbuur's excellent videos

Why this isn't so important as you might think Exceptional infrastructure like this is always interesting to see, but what causes people to cycle in large numbers is the very tight network of everyday, but high quality, cycle routes.

A visit to Nijmegen

This video has explanatory captions which are only visible when it is viewed on a computer and not on a mobile device

Nijmegen, 160 km south of where we live in Assen, is considered to be the oldest city in the Netherlands. It's a city with many beautiful buildings which celebrated its 2000th year in 2005.

My friend Terry (who visited us last year and features in another post about a bike ride between Assen and Groningen ) lives in Nijmegen and I visited him last Saturday by train, taking along my folding bike.

The free of charge, guarded and secure cycle park that we use is one of five in the city.

Nijmegen has many historic buildings, and much reconstruction was required after the second world war to repair the city. Much of the devastation of the city was the result not of the occupying forces, but of Allied bombers accidentally bombing the city centre on February 22nd 1944.

Many of the older buildings were recreated much as they used to be. However, the shopping centre was rebuilt with wide avenues to take motorised traffic, on the American model. As you'll see from the video, this is not how they have remained.

While the Netherlands is not a hilly country overall, Nijmegen is quite a hilly city. This has not prevented it from having a high rate of cycling.

In 2002, the new government of Nijmegen decided to invest €10M over 4 years in new cycling infrastructure. The population is 161000 so this comes to over €15 per person per year.

Nijmegen was nominated as Fietsstad 2008 (Cycling City 2008) but lost out to Houten.

I also visited Nijmegen back in 2005, and wrote about the bicycle museum. The centre of Nijmegen is, like most city centres, "nearly car free".