Riding together

Riding through the suburbs

Another of the reasons why it's so good to have a comprehensive network of very high quality cycle paths is that they also are good for people with disabilities to travel by bike.

A few minutes later in the city centre

In this case, two people are riding on an electric assist trike carrying a wheelchair across the back. I saw them first on the way into town, and a few minutes later I saw them again travelling in the opposite direction.

The bike's great, allowing a couple to ride together in this way, side-by-side and sociable. But the people are the important part of this picture. The bike, together with the cycling infrastructure, give this couple freedom that they would otherwise have.

Uninterrupted and unobstructed infrastructure are necessary from their home in the suburbs all the way to the city centre to make it possible for them to use it in this way in comfort, with no problems due to fighting through traffic. It is a legal requirement that all cycling infrastructure has to be accessible to machines like this.

In countries where there isn't such infrastructure, lobbyists for people with disabilities ought to be asking for it. Infrastructure like this is not just for "cyclists". It improves everyone's life.

Falling off my bike

We've now lived in the Netherlands for about 3 and a half years. In that time, I've cycled tens of thousands of km (in 2010 I rode around 12500 km) in many different places, mostly riding quite quickly, sometimes riding quite slowly. Many of those kilometres were on my commute, so at peak times when lots of other people are cycling and driving.

In those three and a half years I've had three crashes on one sort or another. The first was entirely my own fault, and involved just myself. I cornered too fast on loose gravel on a small road in the countryside and fell off.

The second crash was on a day when it had rained, and then froze. One of my Mango's front wheels was on ice, the other was on asphalt and I span around when I braked. Again it was entirely my fault, and involved no-one else.

The third incident was last Sunday. This time, at last, it was an incident which also involved someone else - and more so, his dog. Judy and I had gone for a nice ride around the city and the countryside, and were just a couple of hundred metres from home when what you see in the video happened, on a cycle path in the same area as we walk our own dog. The video makes it look worse than it was. I had virtually stopped by the time I fell over, and I received no injuries at all. If I had not been holding my camera at the time, I would probably not have fallen over.

I've yet to be the victim of anything which could be remotely described as "road rage" or had any close-calls with cars. While the cycle paths here have, as you can see, not been 100% successful in keeping me away from over-enthusiastic friendly dogs, they have been extremely successful in keeping me away from motorists, and the danger that results from them.

There's a lot of completely uninformed nonsense out there about the supposed "dangers" of cycle paths in the Netherlands. Frankly, it's the sort of stuff which can only be written out of ignorance. For example, by those who's only experience of the Netherlands is from travelling here by train in the 1930s, and by those who've never been here at all.

There is no place safer to ride a bike, and no place more pleasant to ride a bike.

Dutch cyclists don't fill youtube with helmet-cam footage of problems that they have on their rides. It would be impossible to make a film like the excellent "Angles Morts" here because it would take several life-times to build up footage of enough incidents to make it look shocking. That's what proper infrastructure design does for cyclists - remove the hassle.

I'm quite happy to accept the occasional problem due to an over-friendly dog over being hassled by drivers and hit by cars.

When cyclists matter - Car crash and public response in Den Bosch

On the same evening as I'd watched some rather frightening BBC footage about a road rage incident in the UK which resulted in nothing more than the relatively minor charge of "careless driving", Mark Wagenbuur sent me this video showing what happened last year to a driver in 's-Hertogenbosch who had been showing off on the road and caused a crash.

The local newspaper was very much against the driver. They describe him as a "pirate" of the roads, and also as a "hufter". That's quite strong language for a newspaper, about as strong as "arsehole" in English. He was arrested and lost his driving license temporarily. He would have lost it permanently had he not passed an expensive exam to retain it. It was in the news for months.


Dutch roads are very safe overall, and extremely safe for cycling and, as Mark points out in the video, they are getting safer: "There were 339 injuries and 7 casualties in 2000. The figures dropped sharply every year to 133 injuries and just 1 road death in 2009. Only 44 of these injured people needed medical treatment." The figures are for all road users in the city, which has a population of about 140000. The attitude of road users has a lot to do with it, even in places such as on the video where the road layouts are rather old-fashioned.

I've previously covered other stories from Den Bosch, several of which show how the city is building better infrastructure for cyclists, the intention being both to increase safety further and to promote a higher modal share for cycling.

Update
Note that things don't always go this way in the Netherlands. When they do, that can be seen as a result of cyclists not being an identifiable out-group and therefore being "deserving" of sympathy from the masses. However, in some cases local politicians blame cyclists for their own misfortune rather than working for better infrastructure which would avoid these problems from happening in the first place.

Compare with the very different public response to a crash between a car and bike in Cambridge last year.

More cycle parking at Meppel railway station

According to the Fietsberaad:

Travellers using the Meppel railway station now have a completely new cycle park. There are more than 1100 spaces in the watched cycle park and on the roof of the building another 650 can be parked.

Next to the building are another 800 spaces. The new manned cycle park also offers repair services, sales and cycle hire. Part of the station also forms a site for OV-Fiets bike share bikes.

This cycle park was built between April 2010 and November 2010. It's another example of expansion is a part of the national "ruimte voor de fiets" ("room for the bike") plan which has so far built 157000 unwatched parking spaces, 30000 watched spaces and 13000 cycle lockers in 350 cycle parks.

Previously I had a post about the golden cycle stand, which was the 200000th erected as part of this plan.

Meppel is a small city of just 31000 people. The cycle park now has spaces for 2550 bicycles, which is enough for one in 12 of the population to park a bicycle at the rail station. You can work out a comparable ratio for your own town. Regular increases of cycle parking numbers at railway stations in the Netherlands is a given. It's going on all the time.

To make a comparison, it's easy to divide the population of your own town or city with the number of cycle parking spaces you have available, either at the railway station or at other destinations. You can see how other Dutch railway stations compare.

Higher income brackets cycle as well in Amsterdam

Direct from the Fietsberaad:

Amsterdam can barely cope with the growing numbers of cyclists, as a survey of mobility in the Dutch capital over the past 25 years demonstrates. There are as yet no bicycle jams, but partly due to the arrival on the scene of carrier bicycles, the width of bike paths is increasingly a problem. And of course parking guarantees a headache.

In busy squares, at train and metro stations, but also near university buildings, shopping centres and leisure spots in narrow Amsterdam streets an increasing amount of public space is taken up by parked bicycles, according to the report ‘Mobiliteit in en rond Amsterdam, Een blik op de toekomst vanuit een historisch perspectief’. Data demonstrate that at these locations often several dozen percent of all bicycles are parked outside the official parking spaces. In June of 2007 for instance 1,390 bicycles were parked at the back of Amstelstation, whereas capacity ran to no more than 1,100. This comes down to an occupancy rate of 126%. For the west side of Centraal Station (including the bicycle flat) this was a staggering 136% in October of 2008. The overall estimated number of bicycle parking spaces (stands, staples and parking facilities) is currently 200,000.

The heaviest streams of cyclists are mainly headed for the central part of the town centre. But bicycle numbers in the immediate vicinity of the town centre and the surrounding ring are impressive as well. The large numbers of cyclists do not cause substantial delays due to traffic jams. But a number of busy routes does have a problem with the width of the bike paths, partly due to the increasing use of carrier bicycles.

The busiest cycling routes are Marnixstraat (1,970 passing cyclists in the evening peak hour), Weteringschans (1,920) and Weesperzijde (1,900).
Nevertheless the bicycle can easily compete with car and public transport in the inner city, according to local authorities. The percentage of car trips by Amsterdam residents has fallen in all distance categories. Bicycle use has greatly increased in all distance categories under 10 kilometres. This has happened, however, not only at the expense of the car, but also of public transport. Over short distances cycling is apparently more attractive than public transport.

Bicycle ownership among Amsterdam residents has greatly increased over the past 25 years (63% versus 73%). Ownership in Amsterdam is below the overall Dutch average (73% versus 88% ). The increase in bicycle ownership was greatest among residents aged 45 and over, among people aged over 65 it has almost doubled (from 27% to 48%). The average number of bicycle trips per person per day is however higher in Amsterdam (0,9 versus 0,8). People there use their bicycles therefore more intensively than the average Dutchman. The largest increase in the number of bicycle trips per person per day occurs in the group aged 45 to 59. This may be due to car parking policies, but also to health advantages or a more positive attitude towards cycling in general, is the impression of the writers of the report. The group aged 12 to 15 also cycles more and is incidentally the group with the highest bicycle use. Among residents in higher income brackets the cycling percentage in the overall number of trips has more than doubled (from 15% to 33% ).

In Amsterdam people park their bicycles at home in a storage facility (46%), in the street (36%), in their home (10%), in the courtyard (5%) or a parking facility (2%). In the districts outside the ring road the percentage of bicycles parked in a storage facility is considerably higher than in the neighbourhoods within the ring road. Within the ring road over more than half of all bicycles are parked in the street(53%), whereas this is rare outside the ring road(4%).

Petrol price vs. cycling rate for a range of countries

Note that even though this is almost flat between Great Britain and the Netherlands, this is the best case graph for people who think there's a correlation between car fuel price and cycling. This is because this graph concerns only the price of petrol.  If you compare diesel prices then it doesn, those are somewhat lower in the Netherlands vs. other countries. Diesel costs less here than in the UK, for instance and perhaps unsurprisingly, diesel cars are common in the Netherlands.

One of those myths that won't die is that the Netherlands has a high rate of cycling because the price of petrol ("gas" to Americans, "benzine" in The Netherlands) is high. This seems particularly to be suggested by Americans, because the price of petrol in their country is so low, and so is the cycling rate.

However, I don't believe this to be the case. If you remove the USA, and Australia to a lesser extent, many other countries have very similar petrol prices, but markedly different rates of cycling.

The graph shows the rate of cycling as a percentage of journeys in several countries in the world, plotted along with the January 2011 prices for petrol.

There are three areas of this graph which show a story.

On the left you can consider the USA, Australia and Great Britain. All three of these countries have a cycling rate of around 1%, but the petrol prices are spread widely - between 60 cents and €1.47 per litre.

You can then consider the largest part of the graph, Great Britain through to Finland. In all of these countries except Austria and Switzerland, the petrol price is very similar: between €1.40 and €1.48 per litre. However, the cycling rates vary across nearly the whole spectrum, 1% of journeys at the low end and 11% of journeys at the high end. The two end positions are taken by Great Britain with petrol at €1.47 per litre and Finland where petrol costs €1.48 per litre.

Lastly, take a look at the top three: Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. If you look hard enough here, then you can see an upward trend in both petrol price and cycling rate. However, petrol in the Netherlands is actually only 11% more expensive than Finland (€1.62 vs. €1.48) while the cycling rate is 2.5 times as high (27% vs. 11% of journeys).

But what about diesel ?
But actually, this doesn't tell the whole story. Because we've considered only petrol and not diesel, we've simplified the issue. When I last covered this, I noted that while petrol was more expensive in the Netherlands than in the UK, diesel was 14% cheaper in the Netherlands than in the UK. Considering both petrol and diesel together, the price of fuel is actually more equal between nations than it appears on my graph. For the driver of a diesel engined car (roughly half of new cars sold in Europe run on diesel), the fuel to run it is actually cheaper in the Netherlands than in Britain - yet these two countries span the widest range possible of cycling rates.

I think it's fair to say that there's no real relationship shown here between the price of fuel for cars and the cycling rate. Even when fuel for cars is expensive and congestion results in journeys being slow and inconvenient, people will continue to want to drive if driving remains the least bad option.

The cost of taxation and insurance are also not factors which make driving more expensive in the Netherlands. Insurance for new drivers in particular is much cheaper in the Netherlands than in the UK.

Many myths and excuses exist for why the cycling rate in other countries is lower. The only thing which really explains why the Netherlands stands out so far above other countries is that the experience of cycling is so different. In the Netherlands, cycling takes place away from the threat of motor vehicles on good quality cycle paths and roads which prioritize cyclists. Never is it necessary to take on busy motorized traffic by bike, or even to ride up the side of rows of stationery vehicles. This leads to an outstanding level of subjective safety, and as a result all types of people cycle.

To see the policies, infrastructure and campaigning which have lead to the Netherlands having both the world's highest cycling rate and also the world's safest cyclists, click on what works.

Fuel is actually free of charge for car commuters in the Netherlands

Because the Dutch government encourages businesses to pay their staff 19 c per km free of tax for commutes, the cost of petrol / diesel is actually zero or can even be negative for most car commuters. Yes, people are actually paid to drive in this country.

Cycling rates for the graph are taken from here and here. Prices for petrol (current in January 2011) come from here, here and here.

I covered the same excuse previously. However, it keeps coming up again, so I think it's worth repeating.

Houten - A typical day in a cycling town

A few days ago, Kever53 subscribed to my youtube channel. I had a look at his videos and found this great one which shows off Houten.

You'll see all types of people cycling, including the sporty, Mums with children, children on their own. Young, middle-aged, and elderly.

It's like a microcosm of the Netherlands as a whole. Everything's connected by cycle paths, housing, shops, schools, railway station, beach, and at the end you see how the old village centre is also connected.

Houten is a town of 38000 people in the Netherlands. It's an ancient city, but in 1966 was designated as an area of growth and started expanding rapidly. Houten is known world-wide as a town which was designed to prioritize cycling. The result has been a high rate of cycling and a very low rate of injuries on the roads and cycle paths.

Many things which were tried out first in Houten have spread across the country. However, Houten's achievement is still significant. Three years ago, Houten won the title of "Fietsstad 2008".

I've blogged about Houten before. You can find these posts here.