Another view from the cycle path

We’ve got something to tell you. “We”? you might think… Yes, David has asked me to join him on his blog. My name is Mark Wagenbuur. For regular visitors that could already be a familiar name. Inspired by David’s blog I started making videos showing Dutch cycling infrastructure about two years ago. I published these videos on my YouTube channel. David has shown you quite a lot of them along with his insightful comments. At his request I have also written one guest post as background information to go with one of the more in depth videos. David has recently invited me to make our cooperation a bit more formal. An invitation I gladly accepted. After some thought we agreed that I will take up the role of ‘regular guest poster’.

Since I will only be a guest poster there will be no major changes to the blog. Nor with its affiliations to "Dutch Bike bits" or "Hembrow Cycle Holidays". David will continue to give you his sharp analysis of everything concerning cycling, especially by comparing the situation in the UK and the Netherlands. But you will occasionally see a blog entry “published by Mark Wagenbuur”, giving you another view from the cycle path. You can take that quite literally; since I live in the south of the Netherlands (’s-Hertogenbosch), a part of the country that can sometimes be very different from the Assen region in the north-east where David lives. I use my second bicycle every day in Utrecht where I work and I also visit Amsterdam regularly, which are the fourth largest and the largest city in the Netherlands respectively. Assen, although growing rapidly, is not even in the top 20 of the larger Dutch cities, so some things work out quite differently there. As a native Dutchman I have also cycled a bit longer in this country than David has. My main focus will remain to be on video making but from now on I will also try to use words to show you something of cycling in Netherlands. Also on behalf of David I hope you will enjoy our (further) cooperation.

How wide is your cyclepath ?

When I say that cycle paths here are quite often 4 m wide, I'm quite sure that a lot of people don't believe me.

An amusing way of demonstrating this occurred to me on Saturday. I put my bike sideways on a cycle path which is being resurfaced (so officially out of use, not that this stops many people) in a position where it wouldn't get in the way due to the pile of tiles for resurfacing the pedestrian path, but would demonstrate the width.

As you'll see, if it were possible to ride your bike sideways along here, it would still also be possible for someone to ride in the same manner in the opposite direction without any danger of crashing...

There was a little confusion, so I've added another photo, showing the same spot from the opposite direction. Here you can more clearly see the pedestrian path alongside the cycle path. It's been dug up in the first photo. Also you can see how a temporary dropped kerb was made to allow easy cycle access to the recommended detour route.

And why this cycle path ? It's nothing special as such, but it's part of the most direct route for us to the city centre so I come along here often. I took photos when I saw it was being improved.

Transport for London: Baffling people with huge numbers

Does this man look trustworthy ?

Transport for London recently told the world that 2.5 million cycle journeys have been made on the "Barclays" London bike share bikes.

Instead of straightforwardly presenting data which shows the true extent of the usage of these bikes and puts it in a context which helps the reader to understand what the numbers mean, London has used a style of writing which often is used for projects like this. i.e. Trying to impress the reader by quoting what sound like huge numbers, and doing so without any context so that the meaning of it remains clouded. In this blog post, I explain what the numbers really mean.

What they say
In London's press release, you'll read of:

• Cycling to the moon and back 13 times in the first six months
• Covering more than 10,000,000 km
• Building on the massive 117% growth
• Making a huge contribution to the cycle revolution

Some context
However, let's look at those figures. Six months, 2.5 million journeys. The numbers sound great, but actually if you look closely at them you quickly see that this is not actually very impressive at all. This equates to 2.28 journeys per bicycle per day or less than a quarter of the estimated ten uses per bicycle per day that promoters used when selling this system.

London has a population of 8 M people. Between them, they make around 20 million journeys per day. If all the six months worth of shared bike journeys had been made on just one day (requiring each bike to be used an impossible 416 times), then even that would make up only 12% of total journeys in the city. However, actually it took half a year, 182 days, for this many journeys to be made. The total usage equates to only around 0.07% of the total journeys in the city. On average, Londoners are using these bikes not once per day, not once per week or once per month, but about once every 18 months. In fact, as each individual trip is being counted here, you could also say that this is the equivalent of the average Londoner going out and returning home again about once every three years by using these bikes.

So far, the scheme has cost 140 million pounds. The cost to Transport for London for each of the 2.5 million journeys made so far is £56 pounds. The hypothetical Londoner making their once per three year trip to the pub and back is subsidized to the tune of £112. Does that sound remotely like a reasonable or sustainable cost ?

Is this really deserving of the amount of hype which it receives ? It is deserving of comments from the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, such as 'The zest in which people have taken to two wheels and joined the cycling revolution we are engendering in the Capital has gladdened my heart.'. I'd love to see a genuine cycling revolution in London, and in Britain as a whole. However, let's please be realistic: this isn't the revolution you were looking for.

Back in March 2009 when I first wrote about the potential of the bike share scheme in London, I calculated that based on the promoters estimates of future use, it still had a maximum potential capacity of only 0.3% of the total journeys made in the city. Some people criticised me for pointing this out. However, actual usage has been under a quarter of what I wrote about.

Is this mass cycling ?
By way of contrast, a few days ago I ran a story about the amount of cycling in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has only twice the population of London, but there are over a million bike journeys an hour for the daytime hours of working days. That's more than 14 million journeys per day by bike, or 2.5 billion per six months. Let's state that in another way: The Dutch population is twice as large as London's population, but they're making a thousand times as many cycle journeys as the "Boris Bikes" are used for.

In fact, no shared bike scheme can ever possibly scale to cope with mass cycling. It would simply take too many bikes. What's more, as shown above, it can never introduce cycling as part of a regular habit to anything like the whole population of a city because the total capacity is so small for any affordable system (even a very expensive system)

Large bike share schemes are what cities install if they want to give off the appearance of being interested in cycling without investing in the infrastructural change which is necessary to make a real difference. There were already over a million bikes in London before the bike share was installed. People need safe and attractive conditions for cycling, not more bikes.

Of course, Londoners do actually ride other bikes as well. It's estimated that half a million cycle journeys are made every day in London on bikes other than bike-share bikes. These are far more significant numbers than the bike share bikes provide, in fact 36 times as large. What's more, this number has a far greater potential for growth than bike share does, as no-one wants to put 36 times as many of what are already the most expensive bikes in the world onto the streets of London.

You may also remember that a while back it was revealed that 84% of users already have their own bike and that almost half of users would otherwise ride their own bike. So, only half of the 2.5 million journeys over the last six months are actually new cycle journeys. To a large extent, the system is being used as a cheap to the user, but expensive to the tax payer, method of keeping existing cyclists bikes safe from vandalism and theft. Perhaps if London had spent some money on improving its inadequate cycle parking then this wouldn't be the case.

To bring about a genuine "cycling revolution in London, the environment must be made more conducive to cycling. People want to do it, but they need their local government to stop wasting vast amounts of money on silly things like bike share and invest properly in those things which have a proven history of success in promoting cycling.

Gloucestershire campaign groups in conflict

Two new blogs have recently come online from Gloucestershire, England.

In the red corner, the well established and traditional Popular Cycling Front of Gloucestershire who are working towards "minimising the continued decline of cycling by tinkering around the edges of the road network". Excellent, rousing stuff which will no doubt result in a huge rise in cycling numbers any time around now.

In the blue corner: The Peoples Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, with a dream of "Cycle-paths the Dutch won't laugh at". What a dangerous bunch of radicals...

Pedestrianization without adverse effects for cyclists

Explanatory captions on this video are visible only if you play the video on a computer and not on a mobile device.

It may seem surprising to some, but these photos and video show a pedestrianized area in the Netherlands. It's in the shopping and social centre of a brand-new housing development on the outskirts of Assen. Cyclists are allowed. The signs say so.

These are not old buildings in an old city centre. Everything you see here was built in 2009 and 2010. The official opening was in December of 2010. Shortly before, this was farm land.

It's a very child friendly place. Children can be seen in the video running amok in front of a delivery van, which has to move at a very slow speed as a result. They also ride on various small-scale human powered vehicles in the shopping streets. This suburb was designed to enable 2/3rds of primary school children to cycle to school.

Everyone knows that pedestrians come first here, and behaviour is according to this principle. But note that the design is according to this principle as well.

Cyclists are allowed to cycle all the way through the pedestrianized zone, and ample cycle parking is provided outside all the shops to encourage cyclists.

However, this is not a through route for cyclists. Cyclists whose destination is elsewhere, and who wish to get wherever they are going faster, will take other more convenient, faster routes rather than riding through here. This is important as it makes no sense at all to have a pedestrianized area which is also a major through route for cyclists.

What's more, it's actually unusual to see a van being driven in this location. A delivery only road built behind the shops serves for most deliveries.

You can see the main route from the centre of this city to the centre of this housing development in a previous blog post. Another post shows part of the route in the opposite direction.

You may be wondering what happens should you want to drive here ? Well, actually you can do that too. This whole place is in fact built on top of an underground car park. Residents living in apartments here not only have the legally required secure bicycle parking, but also have have allocated secure car parking under the development. Visitors to the shops can also drive.

Aerial photograph from 2007.
No permanent buildings yet in the
centre, but many facilities were
provided as temporary buildings.

Car parking here is free of charge. It often is so in the Netherlands, a country which is not "anti-car" as some cycling advocates imagine it must be. Should we ever want to buy a large item here which could not easily be transported by bike, there would be no problem with driving to these shops. However, we probably never will do this. Cycling is too convenient.

Free indoor car park. It never fills up.

The only driving route from our home to this place (in blue) has two sets of traffic lights on it and three roundabouts. It starts off by heading in the wrong direction, and the distance is significantly further than any of the many plausible routes by bike (some shown in red). Additionally, if we cycle then we can park our bikes directly outside the shops. A car would be buried somewhere underneath and involve a few minutes walk to the shops:

If it were not possible to park your bike immediately outside the shops, and if bikes had to be placed in the same underground car-park as cars, then this would make the car much more competitive in terms of time. Perhaps it could even be quicker than cycling if you were lucky at the traffic lights.

This is why in order for pedestrianization not to favour the car over the bike, it has to accommodate cyclists very well. That's exactly what we see here. The sign shows that it's a pedestrian area, but underneath it says "cycling allowed". A nice simple message, and an essential one. Take away easy access by cyclists and you actually create a car-oriented pedestrianized area which promotes driving over cycling. I've seen that before,  more than once.

Free indoor cycle-park at a school in
the complex. Overflowing.

This new centre provides not only a range of shops (supermarkets, baker, toy shop, stationery, flower shop, chemist, hair-dresser, opticians etc.), but also primary schools, adult education facilities, a sport hall, cafes and restaurants, a public library, a town hall, health and fitness centre, medical centre. It's a proper centre for the community. And of course all these things are convenient to cycle to.

As the whole area is not yet complete, this temporary cycle path (3.5 metres wide, smooth asphalt) provides access for people who live north of the centre:


Before any of the above was built
People lived in Kloosterveen for several years before the shopping centre shown above was built. During this time there were temporary facilities provided on the edge of the site now covered by the new central development:

Temporary car-parking by temporary supermarket, chemist, post office and snack bar

Temporary cycle-path leading directly to the cycle-parking in front of the temporary supermarket

By the provision of temporary shops, people were allowed to form the habit of shopping locally rather than arranging their lives around making longer journeys in order to go shopping.

If I show something old, someone always says "but you couldn't do if it were new". If on the other hand, I show something new like this, someone always says "but you couldn't do it if it were old". However, the city centre of Assen also provides an excellent example of somewhere which is both pedestrian and cycle friendly, and Assen is 750 years old. Where there is a will to do so, cyclists can be accommodated well anywhere. Policy in Assen prefers cycling, so we get cycling. If you do what works then mass cycling is possible anywhere.

I published this a bit earlier than originally planned after hearing about troubles with pedestrianization in Canada.

The centre which is the subject of this post has its own website.

How to vote

Here in the Netherlands we've Provincial elections coming up on the 2nd of March. I guess we're not eligible to vote, as we haven't received voting forms this time around.

Intercityfietser has put together guidance on who to vote for depending on how positive different parties, in different regions are about cycling in general, and also on providing for longer distance cycling.


Almost all the parties have something to say, and most are quite positive about cycling. The best two marks locally are for the CDA and D66, two parties quite separated in the political spectrum:

CDA: Drenthe is the number 1 cycling province, but also with the largest multi-day cycling event (the fietsvierdaagse) in the Netherlands. Must make sure that the area has the best quality cycle paths of the Netherlands reaching all tourist sites and attractions. Development and construction of a dense network of hiking, biking and horse trails. Combating traffic congestion and helping the environment by promoting cycling in Drenthe with a focus on commuters. Working with the municipalities to improve the cycle network to get riders from A to B in a safe and comfortable manner. Organising an award for the best municipality with regards to cycling. Pooling expertise or various partners in cycling.

D66: Encourage people to go out in their free time by providing nature areas, cycle routes and subsidies for cultural events. Aiming at strengthening the green character of the area, of increasing sustainability, and creating attractive living and working areas. Good public transport and good and safe roads and cycle paths. Support for further separation of cyclists and pedestrians (vulnerable road users) from motor vehicles. More cycle paths, not only for recreation but also for riding to work and school. Getting users together with the planners to ensure good standards. A network of electric bike charging points on good quality cycle paths. Increase in interoperability between cycling and other modes, with for instance, covered cycle parks at carpools. In favour of organizing activities which don't have a negative effect on people or the environment, the endless cycling and walking paths in Drenthe offer ample opportunity for "clean" recreation.

On the other hand, of those who replied, the PvdA locally gets a bit of a negative remark because their response is merely that they want to maintain Drenthe as the number one cycling province and make it easier to get stolen bikes back. That's not enough.

The VVD gets the lowest mark, with the writer seeming to think that they view the car as the main form of transport in a sparsely populated region like this.

None have anything actually negative to say, of course, as that would be political suicide.

Judy and I went out for a ride today, taking our dog for a walk at the same time. We found that yet another new cycle path had been created near our home:

I feel confident that whoever gets into power locally, progress will continue. In any case, proportional representation is the norm so power will be shared, and those political parties who are represented will have to discuss and make sensible decisions between them.

I found the voting information through, and "borrowed" the illustration at the top from, ligfiets.net.

A million journeys per hour by bike

A few days ago, I posted some information about statistics on cycle usage in the Netherlands. Based on that blog post, Mark Wagenbuur made the video above illustrating the very same statistics: In the daytime on a normal working day in the Netherlands, more than a million journeys are made by bike every hour.

Remember that the population of the Netherlands is just 16 million. That's only twice the population of New York or London. However, the number of journeys, spread across a whole country is much higher: 16 million Dutch people make more cycle journeys between them than 300 million Americans, 65 million British and 20 million Australians all added together, and they do so with greater safety than cyclists in any of those countries.