Legacy ? What legacy ? Sporting events _don't_ change peoples' behaviour. But proper cycling infrastructure certainly leads to more cycling.

It's become popular for there to be claims that sporting events will be followed by a "legacy" of changed behaviour. Somehow, the public are expected to behave differently after seeing other people exercise. London's Olympics were supposed to have inspired a generation to take up sport and to improve the population's health. Similarly, the Tour de France starting in Britain this year is supposed to lead to an upsurge in cycling (despite the fact that 101 tours have not yet had that effect in France).

Assen. 31 July 2014. One of many motor racing events in the city.

If any place ought to be able to demonstrate the power of a sporting legacy, it's Assen. This small city has hosted the annual motorcycle TT since 1925. A special circuit for the TT, known as "The Cathedral of motorcycling", was built just outside the city in 1955. The TT is a huge event. For a few days each year the city's population is tripled by the enormous crowds of motor-sport enthusiasts who visit to watch the racing. Every local farm becomes a camp-site, the city puts on a huge party with live music in the centre until the early hours. It's a great event !

Assen. 1st August 2014. People cycle past the "donuts" left on the road by a Formula One racing car last night. Is this a motor racing legacy ? This is one of many excellent simultaneous green junctions in the city.

What's more, there are many other motor-sport events every year. But despite all this, the people of Assen make more of their local journeys by bicycle than they do by car. Why ? Cycling has been made extremely safe and it's more convenient than driving. People don't all drive around the city in Formula One cars or ride on racing motorbikes, they react to what works best for them. That is why cycling is the single most popular mode of transport in this city.

Assen 1st August 2014. The European Junior Cycling Tour is taking place in and around the city this week. This road is closed to normal traffic today so that the racers use it. This is fabulous, but it isn't what makes Assen attractive for everyday cycling isn't a few roads closed for a few days per year, it's the comprehensive network of cycle-paths like that on the right of the picture, which go everywhere and are open 365 days a year.

Assen also hosts a great number of cycle sport events. Cycle-sport is extremely popular in Assen - enough that the city has many facilities for different types of cycle-sport. In 2009 the first two stages of the Vuelta a Espana were in and around Assen. At the moment the largest youth cycle racing event in Europe is taking place right here in Assen, this being their 50th year in the city. But cycle-sport in the city no more influences the means by which people make everyday trips by bike than does motor-sport.

Sports are great, but everyday cycling has nothing to do with sport. Not even with cycle-sport.

The child on the right may decide that he likes what he sees. Perhaps he'll join a local club and start racing with those on the road. But he might also prefer football, or be more interested in reading than in any sport. Nevertheless, he's riding a bike now and will do so tomorrow as well because that's a sensible way to get around the city. Note that the car is supporting the cyclists. The road is blocked to through traffic.

Everyday mass cycling is not enabled by temporary road closures, it requires a permanent grid of excellent quality cycling infrastructure. If this is built to a high enough standard then cycling ceases being the preserve of a brave minority and instead, everyone can cycle. Good cycling infrastructure caters for cyclists of all abilities and all speeds.

Infrastructure which is good enough to enable truly safe and convenient usage by children riding en-masse to make school trips is also safest and most convenient for those who like to ride fast.

The Dutch don't cycle because it's "in their culture", people in other countries used to cycle just as readily as the Dutch do now. These days, the Dutch cycle more than anywhere else because the infrastructure makes cycling an easier choice here than anywhere else. There's no mystery. We know what is required to enable mass cycling: Build a grid, make cycling safe, convenient and pleasant for everyone, and people will ride bikes. This applies even in a town famous for motor racing.

Funding of events
By all means host events such as large cycling races. They're a great thing to see. But they should not consume funds intended for cycling infrastructure because once the race has gone through everything will go back to normal.

More smoke and noise here, and preparations for it in our local TV coverage. The TT festival can be very amusing. A few years ago it brought a jet powered motorbike to the city centre. Oddly enough, that also brought no "legacy". I've not seen even one person riding a jet powered motorbike around the city since then.

Mass cycling events, suppressed demand and the need for cycling infrastructure

This time of year is very busy in and around Assen with touring and racing events. The Fietsvierdaagse is a four day cycling event which attracts 15000 participants, people from all age groups and all walks of life.

Most people ride 40 km per day, a distance which is within the ability of just about everyone. Some village centres become virtual no-go areas for cars, but the routes run along the same network of cycle-paths and minor country roads as are used for riding the rest of the year.

The pace is very relaxed with people riding from one cafe to another as you can see in our video of one day last week:

There was also a prologue, a ride of 175 km covered by our local TV station, daily rides of 60 and 100 km for those who like to ride further and faster as well as a mountain biking alternative, an alternative where everything can be accessed by wheelchair, and a 30 km per day special kids ride:

UNICEF say that Dutch children have the best well-being in the world. Don't children from other countries deserve the same ?

But that's not all
This week there's a very different event in Assen. The European Junior Cycling Tour, or Jeugdtour, is the biggest junior cycle race in Europe, and perhaps the world. Competitors come to Assen from many countries in order to take part. The prologue was a short time-trial along one of the main roads in Assen this morning:



For this event a road was closed - one of the main routes by car into the centre of Assen. The parallel cycle-routes remained open for through cycling. But you see, even racers find they prefer to ride apart from motor vehicles...

The upper, wider, red line is a primary cycle-route from the west of the city to the centre. This is the bicycle road to the centre of Assen shown in full in a blog post from a few days ago. The narrower red line is the cycle-path which forms the secondary route on the other side of the canal. The blue line is the road, which was used for cycle-racing today. Both cycle-routes alongside the canal were maintained as through routes for cycling.

A comparison
It all seems so easy here. There is plenty of space to cycle and plenty of people make use of it. There's not really any suppressed demand in the Netherlands. People already cycle and mass events just give an opportunity for another type of cycling. When a road needs to be closed for a cycling event, it's easy to arrange for that to happen. Even the secondary cycle-route shown in the cycle-racing video above has a story to it. To make space for it, the canal was moved sideways by two metres. But it's not like this everywhere...

Ten years ago I had a part time job in the UK in which I took turns to drive a bus full of bikes across the country with other like minded individuals and we'd try to encourage the public to ride our bikes at events.

While the hours were long and the pay was short, I always enjoyed this work. There was actually nothing easier than encouraging people to ride bikes so long as they could do so on a closed track with no cars. People would queue up to take our bikes and ride around with a smile on their faces. However, talk to them afterwards about the possibility of cycling to work or for other practical purposes, "sharing" the road, and of course the smile would drop. This was when I first started to talk about the importance of subjective safety, a regular theme on this blog.

Junior cycle racers from Oxford ride
yesterday on a cycle-path outside of
Assen. Good cycle paths support fast
riders

I wrote about London's Sky Ride four years ago in a blog post in which I also described the inadequacy of London's plans for "superhighways". A year before that, when the event was still called "Freewheel", I wrote much the same. These highly successful events, together with the experience I had on the promotional tours, overcrowding of rare examples of paths separate from motor traffic and even the recent rather ill-judged comments from Sustrans in which they blame their users for the inability of their infrastructure to cope with the sometimes high usage level all add together to demonstrate a huge suppressed demand demand for cycling in then UK.

When is London, not to mention the rest of the UK, going to actually start making progress ? The "superhighways" were built, and they turned out every bit as bad as I said they would, and sadly this has resulted in deaths on the streets of the city. A grand announcement made in March seems to have turned into not very much at all and just this morning I read about how Quietways "could" receive funding in three years time. That's not a promise, just a possibility, but somehow the same man from London who told us 147 days ago that London was already forty years behind the Netherlands has managed to make a headline even out of promising another three years of procrastination.

Some people have less patience than this and we're amongst them. We want to help the process to really start. To that end, last week we invited Boris Johnson and six other politicians from London to come on one of our study tours for free (they have to pay their own expenses). Not one of the people invited has yet responded beyond a single very generic reply

As it happens, there were SkyRide events over on the weekend in the UK. D.J Cook made a nice video in Southampton and Mark Treasure wrote a very good piece about Skyrides and suppressed demand. The video shows well how poeple turn out in their thousands to ride if they will have conditions in which is comfortable to do so. Mark's photos do a good job of how people get home from mass cycling events in the UK, often riding on the sidewalk to avoid the roads. In the Netherlands they do this on the same dense network of cycling infrastructure as they used for the event itself.

What It Really Means to Go Dutch - interview on The Bike Show

A couple of weeks ago, Jack Thurston from The Bike Show kindly interviewed me. He did a splendid job of editing my ramblings down into something coherent and published the result today. You can hear the interview by clicking on the play button below, introduced by no less a cycling hero than Eddy Merckx !

If you can't see the play button, click here to listen to the radio interview

So what does it really mean to "Go Dutch" ?

Cycling home from school with a
friend. No cars near by. UNICEF
rates Dutch children as having
the best well-being in the world.

There have been many proposals recently for "Dutch" infrastructure, some more convincing than others. Many of them, in my opinion, rather miss the point.

First of all it's necessary to know why it is that people cycle so much more in the Netherlands than elsewhere. While some people roll out the same old myths and excuses time and time again, I'm still absolutely convinced that it comes down primarily to one thing: a lack of subjective safety in other countries puts people off.

Cars so far away you can pretend
they don't exist.

Why do I believe this ? It's quite simply actually. I spent many years trying to promote cycling in the UK in many ways, including driving around the country with a huge bus full of bikes for people to try out. It was never even slightly difficult to convince people to try our bikes and to cycle in a controlled environment. There is huge enthusiasm and people virtually snatch bikes out of your hands in order to ride them. The huge pent up demand for cycling is also demonstrated by the massive popularity of other events on closed streets, such as Sky Rides across the UK and Ciclovias in the Americas. Events like this make "cyclists" out of "non cyclists". Such events are not demonstrations of true mass cycling in themselves, but they are very effective demonstrations of unmet pent up demand for cycling.

There are cars, but they're over there
somewhere.

It's not the same story if you ask those same people to ride to work in the rush hour, or to let their children cycle to school. Make these suggestions and you won't find much enthusiasm outside of the self-selected group who already cycle.

In the Netherlands people already do cycle in their thousands. In fact, to be more accurate, they cycle in their millions, every day. It's really impressive. What's more, it's not a narrow demographic, but the entire population. The comparison with other countries is remarkably stark. No-where else is the same.

And this is what it really means to "Go Dutch". It's not specifically about cycle-paths, segregation by means other than cycle-paths, unravelling of routes, how traffic light junctions are designed, or what Dutch roundabouts look like. It's not about how much cycle-parking there is at railway stations or even about cycling being safer in the Netherlands than in other countries.

Disabled with an able bodied friend?
You can ride side by side in safety.

Infrastructure is not an end in itself. Rather, it is the important enabling technology to allow mass cycling to occur where there are motor vehicles. Without motor vehicles, no specific cycling infrastructure is needed. But that is true only when motor vehicles are excluded.

People cycle in the Netherlands because it feels so normal to do so. And why does it feel so normal ? Because cycling is efficient and stress free in a way that simply does not compare with anywhere else. Remarkably, to many people (including many Dutch people) this simple truth is hidden in plain sight. It looks like people cycle simply because "they're Dutch" but actually it's because the experience is so attractive that it pulls people in.

This is what needs to be kept in mind when people talk about "Going Dutch". It's not about putting in a few pieces of infrastructure, it's about civilizing the entire experience of cycling for everyone. Until that happens, cycling will remain a minority pursuit for those people who are relatively confident whatever the conditions.

My mother cycling next to
me during a visit to The
Netherlands. Is there any
need for an explanation of
why this feels safer than
riding at home ?

I wrote a few paragraphs back that the infrastructure is not an end in itself, but that doesn't mean that it's importance should be underplayed. For a high level of cycling everywhere, there must be good quality infrastructure everywhere that there are cars and it must be a very fine grid and have a very high quality level. This is what makes cycling accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, this still does not seem to be well enough understood and it's a reason why attempts to "Go Dutch" are often doomed to fail.

You can't "Go Dutch" on an inadequate budget, by setting a low target to aim for, with a few prestige projects, in a very small area of a town, at just one junction or along one road, by skimping on the standards or by proposing to build good enough infrastructure only where it is easy to do so and ignoring the parts where it is difficult. Mediocrity simply doesn't work.

Isolated bits and pieces don't work. The network is the infrastructure. That's what makes the difference between 2% of journeys by bike and 27% of journeys by bike.

As I pointed out five years ago, a short distance "may as well be a thousand miles" if there are unpleasant conditions for cycling along the route. People simply won't choose to do it.

Ultimately the result of any cycle campaigning, infrastructure building, training, publicity or anything else intended to increase cycling can be measured in its success only if it can be demonstrated that this has genuinely led to more cycling. That's what it's all about.

One more question
While Jack's editing hides it very well (we recorded our own parts separately and he edited the two separate recordings together), we had quite a lot of problems due to dropouts on Skype during the interview. As a result, one question which he asked stands out in the interview as not being answered properly. He sent it to me again this afternoon in email: "One point I thought was particularly interesting - and which I don't quite think we got to a satisfactory answer - was how do UK (or US) campaigners stay motivated in the face of continuously inadequate responses from government."

It's a very good question and it deserves an answer.

I know that some people see my contribution to the debate about cycling as rather negative. I understand why: I do not accept what I read in press releases at face value, I have rounded on child cycle trainers as having presided over a drop in child cycling and I have often criticised campaigners for setting their standards too low. However that doesn't mean that I don't respect those who give freely of their time in order to try to improve the lot of cyclists. I have experienced for myself the difficulties of being a cycling campaigner in the UK and I have seen for myself how slow progress is. There is a certain amount of churn amongst campaigners and sometimes the group memory seems to be short because those who've "seen it all before" give up and are replaced by other people who take the same roles. Some remarkable individuals stay in the same roles for far longer than I managed to and I am impressed by their ability to do so.

The gadget displayed to the right was described by one correspondent as "the most depressing app of 2013", but my intention with it was to help us all to stay focused. I'm going to continue to tell it as it is because I think nothing is gained by pretending otherwise. However, my criticism is not of campaigners and trainers but of the environment that they work in. Good people are putting in an enormous amount of effort but their efforts are being squandered by politicians who talk but do not act.

I see it as vitally important for both campaigning and training to continue and of course people must continue to see for themselves the importance of what they do.

While mass events are not genuine mass cycling, they do have a role to play. They demonstrate support for cycling and they have the potential to get far more people involved than would normally turn up at a "cycling" event. Get as many people on bikes as possible. Demonstrate the pent-up demand which exists. Make people smile because they're cycling. Most importantly, get children on bikes. They're the only source of future cyclists. This is why we think it is of vital importance to campaign for the right of children right to cycle.

A lot of work is still needed on the political front. Lobbying politicians is a good way of making yourself noticed but politicians can be quite good at giving the answer you want to hear. Questioning them and publishing the results is a good way of pointing out that some candidates have more of a clue than others. At a later date this also lets you compare what they said with what they did. Push the benefits of cycling and not cycling itself. The well-being of children is surely of everyone's concern and children demonstrably fair best in the countries where most children cycle. If no-one looks to be doing a good job, try to get yourself elected.

Also organise events for cyclists. There's nothing wrong with "cyclists breakfast" type events which target those who already cycle and reward them for doing what they already do. These events don't do anything much to grow cycling but they support people who are already doing the right thing and help to make life enjoyable.

Fast cyclists benefit from good
infrastructure just like anyone else.
They have the same need for direct,
safe and easy to follow routes.

Make sure you cycle. Try types of cycling that you've not tried before. i.e. if you've never toured, try touring. If you've never raced, try racing. If you've never been out with the local CTC group, go and meet them for a Sunday ride. Of course, I'm not telling you that you must do any of these things if you really don't like the sound of them, but in my experience it's all good fun. Cyclists are a small enough minority already and do not benefit from being perceived as separate "tribes" with different needs. Build bridges between cyclists so that you can work together towards infrastructure which will work for all of you.

Learn about good infrastructure
If you believe it is practical to ban all cars then you can skip this section. Otherwise, changes to infrastructure will be needed if cycling can ever be made acceptable to the population at large.

Become knowledgeable about infrastructure that works for cycling. Don't propose things that you wouldn't want to use yourself. Everyone, from 3 year olds on tricycles through to experienced fast cyclists, benefits from exactly the same things. i.e. direct, safe and easy to follow routes for cycling which are comfortable and pleasant to use. Don't seek out alternatives to well tried designs for infrastructure simply on the grounds that they are novel, less expensive, or not Dutch. Why look for an alternative unless something else from somewhere else has proven to be more successful than the best Dutch examples ? The Netherlands is not perfect, but it is the leading nation in cycling for a reason. If you're considering something else it'd better be good.

Try to get politicians and planners to come on our study tours. Come along yourself. This blog started originally as a way to keep in touch with people who'd been on the tours. The tours started because we realised back in 2006 that no-one was doing such a thing. There have always been many misconceptions about what had been achieved in the Netherlands and we do our best to show people how it really is. We're now in a unique position to explain things with the perspective of having lived both in the UK and the Netherlands and because we speak English as a first language this helps to prevent misunderstandings.

We're not affiliated to any government agency and we pull no punches. We show not only where things are good, but also what doesn't work so well.

Other good stuff
Please also read Mark Treasure's blog post from earlier this week entitled "Why do the Dutch cycle more than the British ?"

Still wondering about the success of mass cycling events ? Get up high enough and you'll see lots of people take part even in cities which set ludicrously long time-scales for progress on cycling.

Just in case you think you're safe in Scotland...

Spokes, the Lothian Cycle Campaign, has produced a handout about the upcoming transport budget cuts in Scotland.

Oh, hang on. Did I say cuts ? It's only a cut for walking and cycling. The total budget for transport is being increased from £1804m to £1884m, while the part of that budget which is for walking and cycling combined is being reduced from £20m to £15m.

There are 5.2 million people in Scotland, so the budget for cycling and walking combined is being reduced from £3.84 per person per year to £2.88.

In other words, the budget is being reduced from 1% of the transport budget to 0.7% of the transport budget. That's not investing in cycling, it's fobbing off cyclists.

Scottish politicians who promised to "increase the proportion of transport spending on ... active and sustainable travel" would seem to have gone back on their word. Another broken promise.

You can read more on the handout itself (click and it gets bigger) or on the Spokes website.

It's a long way from the level of expenditure which is required for growth to a significant rate of cycling. The Dutch spend about €30 per person per year on cycling.

However, some local authorities in Scotland remain bullish: In Dumfries and Galloway, where the cycling modal share is approximately 3%, the new local transport strategy says "Overall, cycling and walking infrastructure is considered to be of a good standard and the council consequently considers that only incremental improvements to existing networks will be required in the short term".

Clearly they're not aiming very high. If the infrastructure was truly good, the modal share would be higher. There is pent up demand in Scotland just as anywhere else, but people don't cycle as much as they'd like to due to a lack of subjective safety.

The Cycling Action Plan for Scotland says that 2% of children in Scotland currently cycle to school. Cycling Scotland say it's 1% of primary school children and 2% of secondary school children. Like many organisations which despite lots of hard work still don't manage to increase the school cycling rate significantly, they are both placing more emphasis on training than on infrastructure improvements. That's why you don't see scenes like this every single day around every Scottish school.

£2.88 per person per year isn't enough to change the infrastructure so that cycling becomes something that people want to do. It can't be achieved on a shoe-string, and it certainly can't be achieved when budgets shrink rather than grow. When the transport budget in Scotland is growing, what can possibly be the excuse for shrinking the budget for cycling and walking ?

July 2013 update. D & G council talks to the press
In Dumfries, the BBC reports that "Plans to extend a sustainable travel project have been put on hold until firm evidence is produced to prove its effectiveness".

Less than two years ago, as you can read above, I pointed out that their boasting of already having "a good standard" of cycling infrastructure was premature. Considerably more investment is required to produce conditions in which people feel safe to cycle. Building just a few scattered and half-hearted pieces of infrastructure has never worked. A comprehensive network with very high quality is required.

Dumfries and Galloway could have sent representatives on one of our Study Tours two years ago in order to find out what was required, but they didn't. We would still like to welcome people from Dumfries and Galloway in the future. There is much to learn. Assen is town not much larger than Dumfries and we experience far harsher winters winters than does Dumfries but people cycle here in numbers which are unknown anywhere in the British isles. Come and see how this was achieved.

Yes, good cycling infrastructure really does lead to people cycling more. Immigrants cycle far more in The Netherlands than most people think (also distances and fuel usage)

All around the world there are people who try to reduce their impact on the environment by cycling. However, people who cycle for this reason are never very large in number. In most places only a minority find conditions to be such that they are willing to "make a sacrifice" by behaving differently from the majority. The Netherlands is different in that the average person cycles. They may not do so as much as cycling extremists (this fraction of the population exists here just as elsewhere) but because average people are much more numerous, their contribution is far greater. 100% of the population using a bike for over a quarter of all their journeys is far more significant than 1% of the population using a bike for 99% of their journeys.

Comparison of popularity of different transport modes for Turkish, Marokkan, Surinam and Antillian immigrants and the Dutch native population. From page 52 of this report.

Key: Ritten = journeys. Aandeel = share. Auto = car as driver or passenger. OV = public transport. Motor of Brommer = motorbike or scooter. Fiets = bicycle. Lopend = Walked.

On average, the native Dutch population uses a bicycle for 27% of their journeys. The total average number of journeys per day is 2.74, and people use a bike for 0.74 journeys per day.

Dutch infrastructure makes cycling
available as a practical means of
transport for everyone

By comparison, immigrants from nations with much less cycling cycle less than the native Dutch. However, these figures are also very interesting. I think it notable that Turks in the Netherlands use a bike for 9% of their journeys, Marokkans for 11%, Surinamese for 13% and Antillians for 15%. While these are lower figures than for the Dutch, they're still significantly higher than cycle usage in their countries of origin.


Not many people realise how successfully integrated immigrants are to the Netherlands with regard to cycling. Each of these immigrant groups comes from a nation with almost no cycling yet after exposure to the Dutch environment and infrastructure, immigrant groups in this country compare favourably with the other top cycling countries. This demonstrates how powerful it is to have infrastructure which attracts people to cycling. Source.
Integration is difficult. It's relatively easy for us due to our European background, but it's still extremely difficult to move to another country and to fit in. However much some people might like to think that immigrants don't try to fit in, there is proof here that at least so far as modes of transport are concerned, immigrants in the Netherlands can be shown to have gone some considerable way to integrating, even if they never cycle to the same extent as the native population.

The person in this photo most
likely to be regarded as member
of an out-group is the racing
cyclist, not the woman in front.

If immigrants can't resist the temptation to cycle when they come to the Netherlands from countries with almost no cycling then it's quite logical to assume that if the infrastructure was taken to countries with almost no cycling then the population would be equally attracted to cycling. Cycling sells itself, so long as people don't have to ride alongside motor vehicles.

Conclusion
Cycling is not "in the genes", it's in the infrastructure ! Even Dutch people often make this mistake, but the success of the Dutch cycling infrastructure is obvious wherever it exists and whoever gets to ride on it. Dutch people who leave this country and no longer have the infrastructure usually stop cycling.

Exactly the same infrastructural developments which encourage cycling amongst the Dutch native population are effective amongst people with no existing habit of cycling: If you build it, they will come. The effect on the wealth of the nation as a whole, and on the environment, from convincing people en-masse to cycle for a significant proportion of their journeys is enormous. The means to achieve this can be seen in the Netherlands and if duplicated elsewhere it will have a similar effect.

Distances travelled and fuel usage
Over the last few days, two of our vehicles have gone past mileposts of one form or another. It's quite clear that we've "gone Dutch" as well.

I've ridden the Mango 16000 km (10000 miles) since it was new 22 months ago. That's only an average of 700 km per month, which won't impress anyone who's working towards a world record. I work just one day a week in Groningen now, so I'm not riding the Mango to commute quite so often as I was.


On the other hand, our car needed its APK (annual inspection) this week. This was a chance to take note of how much we've been using it. For the first three years that we lived here, it wasn't used at all, but fourteen months ago we started the process of getting it on the road. Since then, between us, we've driven 2400 km (1500 miles).

Let's work out some simple numbers: 16000 km if driven by car instead of ridden by bike, based on earlier figures, would have cost us about €1700 euros, and produced about 2700 kg of CO2 emissions.

The Mango isn't the only bike that I ride. Local journeys with the Xtracycle or town bike to the post office and supermarket also add up at a surprising rate. The rest of the family also have their own bikes and use them daily.

If all four of us had travelled the whole time by car, and we were using it as "dad's taxi" to take our teenagers everywhere they wanted to go, then it would have covered a considerably greater distance and the costs for us, the country we live in, and the environment that all of us share would have been considerably greater.

A similar effect can be seen in reverse. When Dutch nationals emigrate to the UK or USA, they typically end up making few journeys by bicycle, approaching local norms. The environment in other countries discourages cycling, and the Dutch are just as easily discouraged by unpleasant cycling conditions as people born elsewhere.

Stop the Child Murder

I often get asked what can be done to increase the cycling rate in countries outside the Netherlands. It's often noted that there is little government or public enthusiasm for spending even small amounts of money on the small number of people who are currently cyclists.

I think it's a good idea to look at what worked in the Netherlands.

Cycling in the Netherlands declined sharply in the post-second world war period. In the 1950s and 1960s, existing cycle paths were in many cases removed in order to make space for more cars. "From 1950 to 1975, the bicycle was almost entirely excluded from the government's vision"(Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999). The number of deaths on the roads rose, especially amongst children on their way to and from school. In 1972, a total of 3264 people were killed on Dutch roads, and at around the same time, in 1973, 450 road deaths were of children.

Note that this was a long struggle. The
photo shows Minister Zeevalking
receiving information from protestors
in 1982. (wikimedia)

1973 was also the year that the pressure group "Stop de Kindermoord" ("Stop the Child Murder") started. The object of this group was to point out the number of deaths caused to children and to campaign to reduce them. They successfully influenced the Dutch government to re-emphasize building of segregated cycle paths, and to make money available to pay for them. This resulted in both a rise in cycling and a reduction in cyclist deaths, reversing the previous trend. It has been a success not only for child cyclists, but for all cyclists, and indeed for the population as a whole.

There is a lesson here for other countries. I'll take Britain as an example.

It is difficult to campaign for better conditions for "cyclists" in Britain. Cyclists are a minority group, and not a very well liked minority at that. Cyclists can be considered to be an out-group. This is a large part of why it is that cycling initiatives come and go in Britain. There's no real emphasis placed on results because too few people see it as important. When cyclists in Britain are hit by cars, they get very little sympathy from the public at large.

Campaigning for child safety is different. Very different. Children are not a minority group. Most families include children, all adults used to be children. Child safety is an issue which is important to everyone and difficult to ignore. All parents want their children to be safe.

It is clear that there is a problem with child safety on the roads in the UK. This is the underlying reason why it is that children are increasingly being driven to school. It is the reason why American style school buses are proposed for British kids, and even the reason why someone made the news for driving with his walking child on the school run. When British parents attack traffic wardens next to a school, they even do this in part out of concern for the safety of their own children. These are not solutions to the problem, but they are reactions to it. They demonstrate that parents are not remotely happy with the roads as they are.

Campaigners often talk about there being a suppressed demand for cycling in Britain. It's true. There is. When I was a campaigner in the UK, many people would tell me that they were very keen to take up cycling, but for one reason or another.

However, the suppressed demand for conditions in which children are safe on the streets is very much greater. This is what any campaigner who wants to see mass cycling return to the UK ought to be campaigning about. Get parents on your side and there will be a mass move to change infrastructure and improve conditions.

I can see the responses from a certain element of the cycling community in the UK. i.e. those who are concerned about being "forced" to use sub-standard shared-use paths next to the road. However, this is all part of the problem. Sub-standard facilities are of no use to anyone. Not only are they no good for confident adults to cycle on, but they will also never provide the level of subjective safety required for British parents to think their children are safe on a bike. I've seen many examples of what happens in Britain. Planners think that if they provide a couple of hundred metres of astonishingly bad quality shared use next to a school that they've actually done something. People afterwards ask why it is that such facilities are not used. The answer is very simple: they are not usable. The quality is much too low. Tokenism isn't the answer.

It's a grave mistake to think that low quality off road provision "for slow and inexperienced cyclists" is all that is needed, and that "fast cyclists" will always be better off on the road. If separate infrastructure is not good enough for a confident adult to use then it's not good enough for kids to ride to school on either.

The differences between British and Dutch streets are very easy to see. They're actually almost exactly the same as the differences between Dutch streets in the 1970s and now. i.e. British streets now resemble Dutch streets 40 years ago. It's not actually all that expensive to achieve such a transition - it simply takes a consistent policy over years.

Road casualties in the Netherlands have dropped steeply, even as cycling rates have risen. Now approximately 720 people per year die on Dutch roads. 180 of them are cyclists, and 22 of those are children. The cycling figures may sound high, but they are in part a reflection of the number of cycle journeys made. The Dutch now experience an overall risk which is less than a quarter of that in 1973, and for children it's now a twentieth of that in 1973. Dutch cyclists are now the safest in the world. Of course, the campaign goes on to reduce the figures.

Meanwhile, British roads have become safer for drivers, but they have not achieved such good results for vulnerable road users. It would only take about fifteen years to turn this around, following which even better plans can be made.

Between 1972 and 2013, fatalities on the roads dropped
dramatically in the Netherlands. Child fatalities have
reduced to just 2% of the previous level.

2014 update
Since this blog post was written, Dutch roads have continued to get safer. In 2013, there were a total of 570 road deaths in the Netherlands, just nine of whom were under 15. Five were child cyclists, four were child pedestrians. Even one death may be seen as too many, but this is still startling progress over the peak in the early 1970s.

How success was achieved
Note that this great success in improved safety was achieved with children still cycling en-masse, and without distractions such as bicycle helmets. The improvement in safety came due to improving the infrastructure which people use. The Netherlands now has an extensive grid of high quality cycling infrastructure which covers the nation. This doesn't only serve children, but all cyclists and cycling is safer in the Netherlands than in any other nation.

In 1989, "Stop de Kindermoord" changed its name to "Kinderen Voorrang" ("Priority for children"). In 2001 they became part of the larger road safety campaign, 3VO / Veilig Verkeer Nederland ("Safe Traffic Netherlands") who continue to campaign for lower road deaths. The statue in the photo is "Fietsles" ("cycling lesson"), by Kees Verkade. It's in Groningen, here.

Do you want to know more about the history of cycling in the Netherlands, read more stories tagged with history and the articles linked from here, particularly The Dutch Master Plan 1999. There are also many stories about school travel. Also another post referred to current work of Veilig Verkeer Nederland.

I recommend also reading responses to this post by Karl McCracken, Dave Warnock and NicoleP.

Cyclists' Special

Way back in 1955, this popular film was made of cycling in Britain:

Part two can be viewed on youtube

It's a great film. I find it interesting to see that once-upon-a-time, British Rail bent over itself to make taking bicycles on trains easy even occasionally for large groups - this film was made by an organisation which existed specifically to make films like this.

Britain was a very different place when this film was made. It was normal to cycle. When that film was shot, in 1955, British people still each cycled an average of over 350 km per year, a figure very similar to modern day Germany, and about a third of that now in the Netherlands. This was a time when people travelled in total a lot less than they do now so these are significant figures. British people made these bicycle journeys over the very same landscape as where many people now make excuses about hills and the weather to explain the current low cycling rate in the UK:

Many British people don't realise that even within their own lifetime, before motoring took over from everything else, it was quite normal for all sorts of people to ride bikes for everyday journeys.

Of course, the group in the film aren't entirely average. They're cycle-tourists, and have relatively fancy bikes. You can see that from the dropped handlebars (British touring bikes traditionally have dropped handlebars, usually set a little higher than most racers would have them) and from the derailleur gears which many of them have.

"Hills or headwind don't put me off,
A Sturmey Archer hub gives wings to my bike."

The film was made a time of transition, when tourists started to use derailleurs instead of the same three speed Sturmey Archer hub gears as normal everyday bikes had. Yes, those hills were once ridden on bikes with three gears, and little was made of it. In fact, contemporary advertisements tended to stress how easy it was to climb a hill with the luxury of three gears.

The change in British attitudes regarding cycling took place over many years. Rather like the proverbial frog in a pan of boiling water, many people didn't notice what was taking place around them. Drivers in Britain, who have had the infrastructure of the entire country altered to suit them, now quite commonly believe that they are the victims of a "war on the motorist". Indeed, the government has just taken more steps to placate them.

Meanwhile, many British cycle campaigners have continued to campaign for the same thing as they always have. i.e. the "right to ride on the road", even though those roads have become a far more hostile place for cyclists than they used to be, and decades of campaigning on these same issues have not resulted in any progress. The reason is quite simple: the over-abundance of motor vehicles makes British roads an unpleasant place to be on a bike. This is now the main reason why people don't cycle.

It makes me very happy to see that there is at last a move in the UK now towards campaigning for the same sort of infrastructural change as prevented the Netherlands from suffering from the same fate as befell the UK. You can find examples of this here, here and here. It took time for the decline to occur, and it will take for cycling to grow back. However, there is enormous pent-up demand, as can be seen anywhere that something attractive to ride on exists.

A change in attitudes can come, but only due to a real change in how it feels to cycle. Go back and look at the people in that film again. There are no reflective vests and no helmets. In 1955 people felt safe on a bike on Britain. Remember what I said about pit canaries a while back ?

The chart appeared in a previous post, but I think it worth repeating in a different context. Another small point: Have you ever seen such a large group on a CTC ride ? Touring cycling thrives when more people cycle. All types of touring are popular over here.

Good news from Rostock

The Fietsberaad reports that:

The German town of Rostock has managed to more than double bicycle use over the past ten years. According to local authorities by means of an active bicycle policy, emphasising taking along a bicycle in public transport.

The formerly East German town - with well over 200,000 inhabitants - infers the growth of bicycle use from a survey by Dresden University among 638 households, a mobility study carried out every five years.

The data prove that the percentage of cycling rose from 8.7 per cent to 20.2 per cent from 1998 to 2008. The percentage of public transport in combination with cycling and walking increased from 58.5 per cent to 64.6 per cent. Use of cars for commuting purposes fell by 5 per cent to 35.4 per cent.

Local authorities see the cause of this – besides the increase in fuel prices – in the vastly improved bicycle facilities. In addition to measures like lowering curbs (in Germany cycling on the pavement is quite common), more bicycle parking facilities, allowing contraflow cycling in one-way streets and improved signposting, the use was also strongly affected by allowing bicycles to be taken along in public transport and Bike and Ride measures. The image of cycling has been positively targeted as well. Campaigns have been conducted to tempt recreational cyclists as well as promote commuter cycling.


Compare with a city in the Netherlands with a "low" rate of cycling

The effect of population density on cycling

Much is sometimes made of the requirement for cities to have a high population density in order to encourage cycling. It is said that it is essential for populations to live in densely packed areas to keep journey distances short before people will take to cycling.

Looking at the behaviour of the Dutch, who cycle more than the people of any other country, this seems to be a flawed suggestion. Or at least an over-simplification.

It is true that the population density of the Netherlands as a whole is quite high. There are nearly 400 people per square km in this country. Much higher than the 32 per square km that you find in the USA. However, whole country size scales don't really have much to do with the journeys that most people make on a daily basis.

Let's try this with densities of provinces or states, and cities within them. Assen is the capital of the province of Drenthe. This province has the lowest population density in the country, with 183 people per square kilometre. The capital of Drenthe is Assen, which has an area of 83 square km and 784 people per square km.

Five US states are denser in population than Drenthe. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland all have higher densities, New Jersey's population density is higher than that of the Netherlands as a whole. Delaware has the closest density to Drenthe, at 170 per square km. The capital of Delaware is a small city called Dover home of just 35000 people spread across 58 square km - which makes 617 people per square km.

These figures are really not so different to those for Assen. Assen's population makes 41% of all journeys by bike. Does anyone know the cycling rate of Dover ? Would it be reasonable to assume it's somewhat lower than Assen ?

Los Angeles in the 1950s

Or look at the bigger cities. Los Angeles has over 3000 people per square km, but just 0.9% of commutes are by bike. New York has over 10000 people per square km. That's more than twice the population density of Amsterdam, but while 38% of all journeys in Amsterdam are by bike, only 0.6% of commutes are by bike in New York (which amazingly is still enough to be in sixth place amongst large American cities).

The same is also true of Devon in Delaware. Take a look at high school parking in Delaware and compare it with high school parking in Assen. Would it be conceivable for an American school to hold a triathlon as my daughter's school did here in Assen, telling the students to ride their bikes unaccompanied to a swimming pool at a sports centre 20 km away ?

It's quite mind-boggling just how little Americans cycle. However, it's also quite obvious why. Infrastructure has been designed over decades in such a way that it excludes cyclists. The photo was taken in the 1950s in Los Angeles.

Does where you live look like an inviting place to cycle ? Driving is the norm in many places because the infrastructure is designed around the car and it makes driving appear to be the only reasonable option. You see cars and car centric infrastructure almost anywhere that you randomly drop the Google Street View man in the USA. Whereas you've a good chance of getting cycling infrastructure and cyclists in street view scenes in the Netherlands.

It's perhaps interesting to note that the highest cycling rates in much of the Netherlands are actually in the North of the country, in the least densely populated areas, where journey lengths are often a bit longer. It's not population density which really makes the difference in cycling rates, but infrastructure which makes cycling into an obvious option. It has to be the most convenient, pleasant and safe way to get about. That's why 93% of the Dutch population ride a bike at least once a week.

There are many other excuses for why populations of other countries don't cycle.

I featured that photo at the top before. It's what Los Angeles already looked like in the 1950s. Roads like this are a large part of why people would choose not to cycle.

A Californian commute

Margaret from California sent me this video of her commute. I think it's telling that while she's on the roads there are no other cyclists, but as soon as she's on the pleasant path on the beach there are other cyclists. After the end of the pleasant path, there are again almost no cyclists in the video.

It's a good illustration of the ability of good quality cycling infrastructure to encourage cycling. It comes down to subjective safety. If people feel that cycling is safe, they will do it.

Margaret has a second video of another commuting route. Almost all roads, and few other cyclists:


I discussed something similar in the context of the UK last year: If you build it, they will come.

Recreational cycle paths are very nice, but really good cycle facilities which provide convenience and safety lead directly to a higher cycling rate.

The pleasant bike path in the first video is "The Strand" bicycle path.

Recent events in London - and superhighways ?

Two recent events in London give a good example of what works for increasing the level of cycling and what does not.

First, Cycle Fridays. This is an attempt to get Londoners to cycle to work by accompanying them on the roads. On Fridays it's possible to ride with other commuters through the traffic to get to work. Six different routes to four destinations are on offer. On the best day so far, this attracted just 88 people shared between the six routes.

Second, the London Sky Ride. This involved closing 15 km of streets to provide a car free experience. 50000 people took part. Even that is only 0.6% of the London population, but it's orders of magnitude more than were tempted by Cycle Fridays.

I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again. If you want to see mass cycling, the experience has to be pleasant, safe and convenient. Riding in London traffic doesn't score very highly for any of these things, which is why it was less popular than "Sky Ride" which at least achieved two of them.

In attempting to grow cycling, Britain seems willing to try almost anything other than the only thing that actually works - which is... building proper infrastructure for cycling.

TfL's idea of a Superhighway.
Riding in in a blue stripe
with a bus in it.

London has made a lot of bold claims, but when you look at the details on the TFL website you find that their idea of a "cycling superhighway" is a strip of blue tarmac on the road as shown to the left (they've since removed this photo and put on some others which are equally unconvincing). They're not exactly aiming high. Even the artist's impression shows a bus in the cycle lane. This ought to be the "before" photo of a set of "before" and "after" photos, not what is being aimed at. It's really not remotely enough to attract mass cycling.

Segregation so complete as possible
in Assen. 2.5 m wide one-way path

Perhaps London ought to aim for something a bit more like this, which is not an artist's impression but something retrofitted to a few km of streets in Assen a couple of years ago. Get people away from the cars and they're more likely to be attracted to cycling.

Normal Dutch 2.5 m wide one-way
cycle-path. Behind the bus-stop.

Oh, and it's a good idea to make sure that bus stops are more like this, so that buses don't cut across cyclists. Buses and cyclists can co-exist very well, but not in the same lanes.

Neither of these examples of Dutch cycle-paths are described as superhighways, of course. They're simply efficient city cycle paths. Junctions on them have been shown previously.

Dutch superhighway by busy road.

The Netherlands also has "superhighways". They're called "fietssnelwegen" and are inter-city routes. These are built to high standards, 2.5 m minimum for single direction, four metres wide if bidirectional. So far as possible they have priority over side-roads so that cyclists can make uninterrupted journeys over long distances. The idea of these is to provide a network of fast inter-city routes right across the country which lure people from cars even over longer commuting distances. It has been shown that building even these is cheaper than not building them.

I have a similar path, though with somewhat more separation from the motorway, on my commute. It's designed so that high speeds are possible and I typically stop just once in 30 km.

Another thing London needs to address is that they are simply not aiming to put the routes close enough together for them to be effective. This was researched by the Dutch back in the 1970s, results were published. A very fine grid of subjectively safe cycle routes is essential for a high modal share. This successful policy has been followed ever since, leading to the Netherlands having the highest cycling rates in the world. Why try to re-invent the wheel ? And why do so badly ?

A miniature cyclist

That cyclist is not drawn to
actual scale.

Shortly after writing the text above I noticed something else very odd about the first fake photo from London. The cyclist is scaled down relative to everything else and is no taller than the gray car which is about the same distance away. This gives the impression that the cycle lane is wider than it is.

And another thing. I've had a few people say that London adding cycle lanes is a good thing and that I shouldn't be complaining about it. Here's the explanation: Yes, adding cycle lanes is a good thing. However, if they're going to describe them as "superhighways" then a bit more effort is called for. Compare what's on offer with a mere "fietsroute+" in the Netherlands, or indeed just an average "cycle-path".

London is planning down to a level such that it will fail to product a high modal share for cycling.

Update 11/10/2009: London has produced a video display which works by pedaling an exercise bicycle so you can see how the "superhighway" will look. This also doesn't look particularly impressive.

9/11/2009: TFL changed their website to get rid of the "artists impression" with the miniature rider above, replacing it with the super cheesy "supercyclehighway-man" seen on the right.

In other news, the "superhighway" is now revealed to be a 1.5 m wide cycle lane on the road, with the only unique feature being blue paint. Given that the minimum recommended width for an on road cycle lane in the UK was already 1.5 m, with 2 m being recommended in areas with more motor traffic, this doesn't sound all that "super"

What's more, the standards where we live now call for single direction cycle paths to be a minimum 2.5 m wide, and bidirectional paths to be 4 m wide. They are separated from the road by a minimum of 1.5 m. That's the measure of a "cycle path" here, without the hyperbole of calling it a "super" anything.

Finally, to see more about cycling "superhighways" in the Netherlands on a completely different scale (intercity routes which will cover the entire country), look at the other posts tagged with superhighways. These join up a dense network of routes which already cover the whole country.

We operate cycling study tours and would be very pleased to be able to help London to come to grips with what is required to achieve a genuine cycling revolution.

For more on the London "superhighways", click here. Don't worry that decent infrastructure costs too much. It's cheaper to invest in it than not to. Even the benefits to employers add up to rather more than is spent. So go on, London, do a proper job !