How many Dutch children still go to school by bike ? The rise of driving.

One of the odd things about the Dutch relative to other countries is a habit of washing all their dirty linen in public. Bad news stories have remarkable prominence here and that includes making sure that bad news is heard around the world.

Headlines but a lack of real figures
In the last few days, headlines have started to appear in Dutch and in English about how children in the Netherlands are being driven to school by car far more than they used to be. According to the headlines, "one third" of children now go to school by car. This sounds alarming, and may seem to fly in the face of what cycling blogs, including this one, have written about cycling to school.

Most of the press stories neglected to give a source for their figures and many of them seemed to be based on nothing more than other news websites' stories. This is not great journalism. Yesterday I found what seemed to be a reasonably likely original source for this story and wrote about the figures on the Campaign for Childhood Freedom forum (link removed as this unfortunately did not achieve any traction). This blog post expands on that forum discussion.

How steep is the rise in driving to school?
The figures for cycling and walking to school in the Netherlands remain such that most other countries would be proud to boast about them. However, we have to look at this complaint in the same way as the Dutch are looking at it. For the Netherlands, these figures are not good news. It is true that the rate of driving has increased relative to what it was 18 years ago and even though walking and cycling together are still twice as significant as is driving, they have both decreased.

In 1994, 26% of primary school aged (5-12) children went to school by car. In 2012, 30% did so. Cycling (blue) and walking (red) have dropped. It's a decline in cycling and walking, the issue needs addressing, but it's not catastrophic.

So exactly how do Dutch children get to school?
Below you'll find a quickly made English language translation of the KPVV graphic showing statistics for all schools for all weather conditions for primary school children:

On an average day, 37% of primary school children (age 5-12) cycle to school, 30% walk and 30% go by car. On the worst days this reduces to 34% and 30% and driving increases to 33%. On the best days cycling increases to 39%, walking to 31% and driving drops to 27%

One of the headline concerns of the Dutch is that only 17% of primary ages children (5-12) now travel to school by bike completely independently of adults. By picking on this figure alone, it can be made to look like a very small proportion of children are now independent. However, as you can see from the above graphic, if you add together independent walking (9%) and independent cycling (17%) then 26% of primary school children actually still travel independently to school. It has been known for some time that the average age for independence is 8.6 years and as it happens, 8.6 years works out as approximately 2/3rds of the way through the primary school age group so this is not so far off the proportion of primary school age children who we already knew were travelling independently in 2006.

The KPVV article explains quite a lot more than just presenting these figures. There are huge variations between schools. For instance:

1. The share for cars varies from 6 - 48 % for town schools and 34 - 52 % for country schools.
2. The share for bikes varies from 16 - 65 % for town schools and 20 - 44 % for country schools.
3. The share for walking varies from 18- 63 % for town schools and 17 - 37 % for country schools.

Parents waiting outside a Groningen primary school for young
children as older children ride by. On a study tour in June we
saw a parent stop her car here illegally. Other parents were
shocked and deliberately blocked her way. After going home,
the driver caught up with us by bike to explain, apologise and
ask me not to report her to the police (never my intention).

These variations are actually nothing new. For instance, it's five years since I wrote about how Amsterdam had the lowest first year secondary school cycling rate in the country. This is perhaps what should be expected for the largest and busiest city in the country, and we shouldn't be surprised that other busier or less well planned Dutch cities have lower rates of child cycling than the better planned cities. But problems like this in some of the areas with a larger population skew the average figures for the entire nation downwards and make the picture look worse than it is in the better organised areas.

On the other hand, in some places the frequency of driving to school is very much lower and the frequency of cycling is much higher. It's been illegal to use a car to take a child to primary school in Groningen for several years. Here in Assen a new housing development was planned to enable 2/3rds of primary school trips to be by bike. Neither of these ideas are unique to single places and in much of the country there really are an overwhelming majority of trips to school made by bike and walking. Planning so that journeys are safe and convenient by bike is what makes this possible.

It should also be noted that there are also special types of school to which more children will also be driven. In the area where we live there are absolutely no school buses at all except for those which pick up children who have special needs and take them to schools to which they may not be able to travel unaccompanied, perhaps located further from their home than another school which is less suitable for their needs. At special needs schools you also find far more private cars than at average schools. I don't know if schools like this were included in the KPVV figures but if they were they will have made the numbers look worse. There are also other schools which have unusually large catchment areas such as English language "international" schools for families of temporary workers. I don't know if these are included in the KPVV figures either, but they would also push the average upwards if they are.

Note that all the figures above are for primary schools. i.e. children up to the age of 11 or 12. There is a much higher rate of cycling to secondary schools than to primary schools. Almost all secondary school aged children travel independently and almost all of them travel by bicycle.

Some schools don't allow some children to cycle
Some primary schools in the Netherlands, particularly older schools which have not been improved, don't actually have sufficient cycle-parking for the number of children who want to cycle. At some of these, children are not allowed to cycle if they live within a specified radius, perhaps 1 to 1.5 km, of the school. They are supposed to walk instead, but of course this is not always what happens.

The best solution to overflowing bicycle-parking at school is to build more bicycle-parking. Keeping up with the demand is difficult but cycle-parking is expanding all across the Netherlands.

It's good that the issue has been raised
I think the KPVV and others in the Netherlands are absolutely right to raise this issue and I hope that the decline in cycling and walking can be stopped. It is the job of campaigners everywhere to be critical and to show figures in a negative light. This is the only way to make progress. Perhaps the alarmist headlines are required within this country in order to wake people up and stop this decline. It worked before.

Nowhere can afford to be complacent and to sit on its laurels, and that applies even to places which see themselves or are seen by others to be leaders. However the exposure of this story in English could be misleading and that's the reason why I have written about this story. For other countries, the Netherlands is still the best place to look towards in order to see how to cater for mass cycling to school. However, even here you need to find the best examples to copy.

Fietsersbond campaign
I'm very happy to see that the Fietsersbond is using this publicity to call for better conditions for cycling near schools. Amongst other things they are calling for a 100 m car free zone around all schools and woonerven (15 km/h speed limit and child priority) and kiss&ride places at the edge of the 100 m car free zone.

The Netherlands is still a long way away from being the sort of place where an "eco" school would ban cycling.

Mistranslations and misunderstandings of Fietsberaad articles

View of a residential area in Almere
from one of the very direct cycle-paths
which go through the suburbs of the city

I've noted before that the workings of the Fietsberaad are quite often completely misunderstood by English language commentators. Sometimes this isn't so much the fault of those who read the publications as those who write them.

A new example has come up, and this time it is especially ripe for misinterpretation !

The English language version of a Fietsberaad article, titled "Almere abandons traffic separation principle" says the following:

"Almere has about 190,000 residents and the government has asked the municipality to expand by another 60,000 residences. A characteristic of Almere, as is the case with other new towns, is the strict separation of traffic types. Almere has, for instance, a completely segregated network of bus routes. The municipality’s new Mobility Plan will abandon this concept, at least in part, through the introduction of city streets. City streets are streets or lanes that exhibit a more urban look by diminishing the separation between the traffic and its surroundings. According to the municipality this should enhance the urban experience, participation, and public safety."

That is all the English language version of the article says, and as a result it sounds like a straightforward case of a Dutch city giving up on segregation of modes. However, it's actually a case of a rather less than perfect translation which manages to give entirely the wrong impression of what is being done.

The original Dutch version of the same article is entitled "Almere gaat minder vrijliggende fietspaden aanleggen", or "Almere will construct fewer separate cycle-paths", and the text has a completely different emphasis than the English language translation:

Almere cycle-path offering a direct
route by bike alongside a road with a
30 km/h speed limit which offers an
indirect route by car

Rather than saying that Almere will abandon segregation of different modes, the Dutch article goes into some depth about why Almere has a lower than average (for the Netherlands) cycling modal share for a city of more than 100000 people and how they will improve the cycle-path network with special emphasis on social safety:

1. The city is relatively spread out, and has many small centres. In its development is has provided fewer opportunities for employment than residences. This has resulted in many people having commutes which are too long for cycling. Also the cycle-path network in Almere has a problem with low social safety. These factors have worked against a high cycling modal share.
2. Almere seeks to have a main cycle-path network of very good quality that links all important destinations, with 4 m wide red asphalt cycle-paths, direct routes with priority for cyclists (it was the first place in the Netherlands where I saw a traffic light which defaulted to green for bikes) and with a good record of traffic safety.
3. Due to the low density of Almere, the city is finding the cost of maintaining a tight grid of high quality cycle-paths for the entire area is too high. As a result, maintenance doesn't meet the usual high Dutch standard. For this reason, while Almere will stick with a 300 m x 300 m grid of paths in urban areas, they are considering building cycle-paths at a lower density in less busy suburban areas.
4. The lower density of cycle-paths in future suburban developments will be achieved by building them only when necessary. Streets in newer developments are less likely to have segregated cycle-paths than was the case previously, but if there are more than 15000 traffic movements per day, it would cause an unsafe situation, or would hinder traffic flow then segregation will still be used to improve safety and comfort.
5. Furthermore, more attention is to be placed on the social safety of cycle-paths in Almere. Where possible, there should be more "eyes on the bike-path" so that people feel it is safer to cycle. There is to be more thought about where the paths go in order to make this so. The aim is to achieve at least one truly socially safe cycle-route between each district.

Parking at a railway station in Almere

So there you have it. An English version of an article which makes almost entirely a different case to the original Dutch, and which will almost certainly be misunderstood and misinterpreted by readers in the English language.

I don't read every publication by the Fietsberaad in both Dutch and English, so I don't know how often this sort of thing happens.

More about Almere
Almere is the newest city in the Netherlands, built on the world's largest artificial island, Flevoland. The first house built in Almere was completed in 1976 and the city is still under construction. For a Dutch city, Almere has a "low" cycling modal share. "Low" means that "only" 31% of all journeys under 7.5 km are made by bicycle, or 19% of journeys in total.

These are very low figures for the Netherlands, actually lower than the average for the whole of the country (27% of journeys across the entire country are by bike). However, anywhere outside of the Netherlands, Almere would be seen as a leading cycling city.

We are native English speakers with many years of experience of cycling both in the UK and in the Netherlands. We understand the contexts of both English speaking countries and the Netherlands. We do tours on which we demonstrate and explain how cycling infrastructure works in the Netherlands on which misunderstandings like these are avoided.

Turbo Roundabouts. Be careful what you wish for.

After writing about Bow Roundabout in London a week ago, I looked around and found other people had done the same. However, at least two had proposed what is very much the wrong solution. The idea of a "Turbo Roundabout" came up on both the Cyclists in the City and Pedestrianise London blogs. It's not the right solution.

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. If you're not absolutely sure what a Turbo Roundabout is (in particularly, a "turbo-roundabout" as might be implemented by TfL) and not absolutely sure that it is what you want, then don't ask for one.


This video from the Fietsberaad shows a "Semi"-Turbo Roundabout in Hilversum. It initially appears to work quite well in the video designed to promote the idea, but this is merely a "semi-turbo" roundabout and in many ways actually more closely resembles normal Dutch roundabouts. I caution to look out for where there are two lanes of motor vehicles which need to be crossed at once by cyclists and pedestrians - a case which is excluded from the video:

The next video came up as a related video on youtube. It's a simulation of a Signalised Turbo Roundabout. It shows how motor-vehicles flow nicely around the roundabout, but there is no consideration of cyclists or pedestrians in the simulation:

Indeed, the whole point of the turbo roundabout is to "improve traffic flow". Turbo-roundabouts were never intended to make things better for cyclists or pedestrians. Cyclists don't much like them. The Fietsersbond (Cyclists' Union) in the Netherlands has complained about unacceptably long crossing delay times for cyclists at Turbo Roundabouts.

As I said before, "be careful what you wish for". Why ? You might end up with something similar to what is in the next video - a real, live, turbo roundabout in Eindhoven videoed by someone who isn't trying to sell the concept. The title is "Floraplein in Eindhoven very dangerous for cyclists":


Note how crossing double exit lanes causes trouble for cyclists.

So what's the alternative ? I didn't have any photos or videos of my own to show here because we don't have turbo roundabouts in this area. In fact I've documented before what all the roundabouts in Assen look like. None are turbo roundabouts, and none cause problems for cyclists.

Some other ideas are pointed to by the website set up by people who are campaigning to improve or replace the Floraplein turbo-roundabout. It includes a link to an interesting presentation about alternatives to turbo-roundabouts written by Peter Kroeze of Ligtermoet and Partners.

When observing from afar it can be difficult to tell what really works from what does not work. We've already seen both shared space and strict liability given far too much credit for the cycling conditions in the Netherlands. Let's not add Turbo Roundabouts to the list of things that are misunderstood.

If you want to know what real Dutch cycling infrastructure is really like, why it works, and why cycling is so popular and so safe here, please book a study tour. Not many people have the experience that we have of living and cycling in two countries as different as the UK and the Netherlands, and we can pass a lot of this knowledge on within a few days. Reading blogs like this, reading articles and looking at Google Streetview can only get you so far.

2013 update - Bedford in the UK building a turbo-roundabout 'for cyclists'
A year after posting this blog post, warning that Turbo Roundabouts, no matter how attractive the name sounded, were never intended to be used by cyclists, a story appeared about the "walking and cycling officer" of Bedford in the UK was proposing to use "Dutch experience to improve cycle safety" by building a turbo roundabout which is actually worse than the example from Eindhoven shown in the video above because there is to be no cycling infrastructure at all.

In Bedford cyclists will be asked to
give-way or dismount by these signs,
which have never been used before.
If changing the law, why not do it
for something more worthwhile ?

On the Bedford turbo roundabout, cyclists are supposed to either share the road with cars or to cross the road like pedestrians. They are branding this as "Dutch" even though it is something which you would absolutely never see in the Netherlands. Frankly, it's difficult to imagine a larger mistake than this.

This recalls an online conversation which I had in 2011 with another Bedfordshire planner. He also wanted to build a "Dutch" roundabout which omitted cycling infrastructure. Various reasons why were given, including the "difficulty" of combining existing on-road cycle-lanes with a Dutch style roundabout which had cycle-paths and his idea that "not all" Dutch roundabouts had separate cycle-paths.

The discussion with the Bedford planner prompted two blog posts from me to illustrate what I had said to him in email. One of these posts demonstrated that there is no problem at all in merging from an on-road cycle-lane onto a properly designed Dutch roundabout. The other post demonstrated how every single roundabout in Assen has separate facilities for cycling because that is the norm in the Netherlands. His concept of a "Dutch" roundabout without separate cycling infrastructure was not similar to real Dutch infrastructure.

Cycling infrastructure is not an optional extra on roundabouts. Where cyclists have to use the same roundabout junction, specific infrastructure must be provided.

It's disappointing that after having had this long conversation and tried to explain to one Bedford planner, another should still have similar misconceptions two years later. Note that the first Bedford planner also pushed through his flawed ideas, building a dangerous design of roundabout branded as "Dutch" in Cambridge.

Signed off by campaigners
Despite my warning and others, this project continued. Further investigation by myself in 2014 revealed that the Turbo Roundabout in Bedford had been signed off by representatives of several British cycle campaigning organisations: Tony Russell (Sustrans), John Franklin (Cycle Nation), Chris Peck (CTC), Ruth Jackson (British Cycling), Ralph Smyth (CfPRE) as well as Robert Semple (Transport for London).

It's extremely disappointing to find that campaigners have such low aspirations as to rubber stamp a proposal which is as dangerous for cyclists as this roundabout design.

Update 2015

No on-carriageway markings
Carriageway exit angle too sharp
Double Yellow Lines over c/w exit

A downloadable report is now available about this roundabout. One image, along with its caption, is shown on the right.

I recommend reading the report in full. Amongst other conclusions, it is said that "Arrangement of cycle crossings maximises possibility of conflict between cyclist and pedestrian"which shows the many problems caused by the design used in Bedford.

This mistake should not be repeated.

Find out about proper infrastructure designs.
We run cycling infrastructure study tours precisely in order to try to help councils like Bedford to not make such expensive and dangerous mistakes as this one. Planners need to be educated. They need to learn from the best examples and not just guess at what they think best practice might be. We'd be very happy to host a contingent from Bedford if they'd like to see what the Dutch really do so that future "Dutch" innovation in Bedford can be inspired by the real Dutch infrastructure.

2013 second update
The British arm of a Dutch based company has proposed turbo roundabouts for the UK which I believe would not be built in the Netherlands. Read a blog post about this, including pictures of real Dutch Turbo Roundabouts.

Also read a blog post which summarises several things which are "Dutch" but which should not serve as inspiration.

2014 update. Assen is building a turbo roundabout
Assen is building a turbo roundabout to serve a motorway junction in the south of the city. As such, it is correctly being built in a place where there are many motor vehicles but where neither pedestrians nor cyclists have any reason to go. Watch a video showing this roundabout and how difficult it is even to get near it by bicycle.

Transformation of a city centre street

Drivers' access to these city centre
streets are controlled by a one-way
system. Bicycles are excepted.

There are many things about streets in the Netherlands which are misunderstood. For instance, many people write that Dutch cyclists "still share with drivers" on many streets. It's true in the literal sense, but streets here are not the same as streets in other countries such as the UK. This can be difficult to understand, as the difference is not so obvious as when there is a segregated cycle-path. However, even on streets like this, cyclists benefit from a form of segregation of modes without cycle-paths. It's not "sharing the road" as many people think of it because routes for drivers and cyclists have been unraveled from one another.

The direction of the one-way street
varies for drivers. Always a through
route by bicycle.

In this post I show a few streets in the centre of Assen and show how they work for cyclists and drivers such that despite their appearance, they are optimized for cyclists. After watching the video, read further to see a map showing the layout and  towards the bottom of the post for photos of what the same streets looked like in the 1960s when they were optimized for drivers.

Note that this video has many captions which explain what you are looking at. They are only visible on a computer and not on a mobile device.

This video shows the route for bikes directly through the city centre along Noordersingel, Nieuwe Huizen and the most Southern part of Groningerstraat. It's shown on this map in red:

Click for Google Maps. The video follows the red line from bottom to  top. Drivers are directed by the one way system along Javastraat, Jan Fabriciusstraat and Het Kanaal. This removes them from the route through the centre taken by cyclists.

These used to be the busiest streets in Assen for motor vehicles. However, they were redesigned, using a one-way system which prevents motor vehicles using it as a through route. Drivers now have to take the streets in yellow, which are optimized for driving and which have traffic lights on them.

The one-way system for drivers. Cyclists can use any of these streets in any direction.

Note how the The cycle route is more direct and doesn't have delays caused by traffic lights, but drivers can't use it because for them it is no longer a through route. By these means, the streets are calmed and cyclists are given priority in the central area. This has been so successful that very few moving cars are encountered by cyclists on these streets now - a huge contrast with the older situation. Note that in many places, this street is less than 12 m in width. That figure includes all available width including pavement (sidewalk), parking, cycle lane and road.

Read more about this street, watch a more up-to-date video.

Here are some photos of how it used to look:

In the video we ride from right to top/left from approximately 0:45 until 2:02. This photo shows how the same streets looked in the 1960s.

This is how the junction at 1:15 in the video looked in the 1960s. Note how pedestrians had to walk on narrow sidewalks behind barriers which prevented them from crossing the road wherever they wanted to and how there was "not enough space" for cycle-paths on these streets. This is similar to many current British road layouts.

This junction appears at 1:38 in the video. In 1965, this was the busiest junction in Assen and traffic lights were needed in this location. There is a blog post and video specifically about this junction.

There are shops on these streets which sell items such as washing machines and televisions. These are the types of goods which many people would rather transport by car than by bike. They can do so. You don't need any special permission to drive along here, these are still streets which are open to all users including drivers. However, the way in which they have been developed prevents their use for through traffic.

This is an example of segregation of modes without cycle-paths. It works. Even in the city centre. Due to their central location, and that they remain a through route for bikes even though not for cars, these streets are very popular with cyclists. A count here showed nearly 9000 cyclists per day using these streets: a very impressive figure in a small city of just 67000 people.

Nearly 9000 cyclists a day use this route now. They use the entire space. Encounters with moving motor vehicles are rare.

Streets which some commentators from outside the country think are "shared equally" with motorists are in my experience never anything of the sort. This is not a rare arrangement, but a very common one in streets like this - optimized for cycling, but allowing access to drivers. Where there is significant through traffic, cycle-paths are required to preserve an acceptable level of subjective safety. That includes just North of where the video in this post ends.

Access to this road by car is possible, but it's not a through route by car any more so people drive here only for access.

While cycling always benefits from segregation from motor vehicles, that does not mean that all cycling is on cycle-paths. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all streets. Sometimes segregation is achieved by moving cars elsewhere. It is very easy to get an incorrect impression and to miss things like this. Unfortunately, some people visit the Netherlands and go home again still with the wrong impression. This is why we offer study tours and encourage campaigners and planners to come on them. They are a means to explain how details like this work, and to show people actual working examples.

The photos come from the book "Assen Verandert" which we reviewed. There are a number of other posts about Groningerstraat, showing more about the road North from the end of the video in this post. You'll note that where the road is busier, there are cycle-paths because you can't achieve a high enough level of subjective safety for mass cycling on roads with a large number of motor vehicles.

Raalte - a town without "clearly visible reasons" for its high cycling rate ?

A new Fietsberaad article discusses how Raalte has "a high percentage of bicycle use without any clearly visible reasons".

When I read this article, I immediately thought this was the type of press-release from the Fietsberaad that was ripe for quoting out of context by that special breed of cycling campaigner who is against cycle-paths. David Arditti pointed out this morning that this has indeed happened.

For a reader with no experience of the Netherlands, the Fietsberaad article is actually very misleading. I've cycled through Raalte a few times now, on the way to visit a friend in Deventer. Last time, I stopped for a beer at this cafe before continuing:


Grotere kaart weergeven

The cafe is on the edge of a pedestrian area, which as is normal in the Netherlands also allows bicycles. While sitting there, any number of bikes went past. It is not a busy through route for cars.

On the way into Raalte, I rode on this cycle path, which linked up with all the other cycle paths and cyclist oriented roads which made up my 100 km journey that day:


Grotere kaart weergeven

When in Raalte, I rode on these cycle paths to get to the cafe in the centre:

Grotere kaart weergeven


Grotere kaart weergeven


Grotere kaart weergeven

Note that just like elsewhere in the country you can see all age groups cycling and especially children cycling on their own, with the high degree of subjective safety necessary to make this a reality.

On the way back out of the town, I rode along here:

Grotere kaart weergeven

For the Netherlands, this infrastructure, joining up everything, is just considered to be normal. You can go to any town in the country and find this cycle paths and roads prioritized for bikes which link up everything. Elsewhere, this would be exceptional, but for the Dutch, this is not something to make a fuss about. That is what the article is trying to say - that the town has had success with promotion of cycling given normal infrastructure for cycling but without any extra special big projects for cyclists.

It's misleading to think that Raalte used only "audacity" to achieve a high cycling rate. Like anywhere else in this country, the infrastructure of this town emphasizes cycling as a means of transport in a way you don't find outside the Dutch borders.

Please don't make the mistake of believing that the "audacity" mentioned in the Fietsberaad article has anything at all to do with promoting cycling in other countries. It doesn't. Only when you already have the extensive and well designed infrastructure can you can say you don't have to do much to get people to cycle. They're starting from a completely different base here.

Please read Mark Wagenbuur's comment which goes further in explaining the headline is a case of an unfortunate translation of the original article more than anything else.

To copy Dutch success you need to copy successful Dutch policy
We offer study tours in order to help to educate people about real cycling policy. We show what truly works as well as demonstrating what does not. Lessons are learnt from both these things. Because we're native English speakers we do not suffer from the translation difficulties which can otherwise occur.

Like the rest of the country, Raalte isn't perfect, of course. I found an obstruction there last year. However, that wouldn't have been possible if not for the fact that the cycle paths existed, and one particularly pleasant one coaxed me into riding towards the wrong end of the town.