Britain reduces the cost of motoring, battles the cost of obesity

This week in Britain:
Fuel duty curbs are multibillion pound tax cut for drivers.


£4.2 billion is spent on obesity every year by the NHS.

Dutch children must cycle at an earlier age

An interesting piece on the front page of our local newspaper in Assen this week, with a headline "Children from Drenthe must cycle earlier."

The article reads: Primary schools are opening on Monday. The holidays are over, and this is reason for Safe Traffic Netherlands to restart their "The schools have begun again" campaign.

Also in this region, children will be travelling to school in large groups for the first time. In September there is a peak in the number of traffic victims in the age group 0-14 years. A salient detail is that one third of these victims are on the way to or from school. Children are an unpredictable group.

The article goes on to explain that in 1972 the average age at which Dutch children went unaccompanied to school was six years. By 2006 this had risen to 8.6 years of age. The reason given by parents for this rise is that they find the conditions too dangerous. This is an issue of subjective safety of course.

The approach suggested by the safety pressure group here is different to what might be expected in the UK and other countries. They are suggesting that children should be allowed greater freedom earlier as more and earlier experience makes children safer on the roads: Practice in traffic is an important part of bringing up children.

VVN calls on parents to send their children to school by foot or by bike as often as possible. It is important to choose the safest route possible and to practice this route with your children. Children only learn by doing, and children become safer as they travel independently to school.

A safe road environment around the school is important. Other participants in traffic around the school play a part.

The view is that it isn't children who cause a problem but adults, and that children should be able to travel unaccompanied by the age of six. An average age of eight, as now, is a bit too old.

Preventing danger to children on the way to school and home again takes several forms, including banning cars from stopping near schools and providing cycle routes which are safe for children to use, even over quite long distances and in winter.

Veilig Verkeer Nederland has also been running spots on the radio about the danger posed to children by drivers:

The longest running TV advert in the Netherlands was is also from this organisation:


VVN are also the organisation which takes care of school cycle training in the Netherlands.

A comparison with Britain is interesting. In Britain there has been a much deeper drop in walking and cycling to school. Now only 12% of seven to 10-year-olds go unaccompanied to school and an enormous national media storm and threats of social services being called in occurred over the Schonrock's children after their parents allowed them to cycle to school unaccompanied. Read the family's own response here. The idea of sending children unaccompanied to school by bike is mainstream in The Netherlands, though of course children here benefit from infrastructure which supports that choice.

In other news, cycle training for children in England is apparently about to be cut altogether as the government considers scrapping "Cycling England", the organisation which for the last few years has been responsible for the "cycling demonstration towns" and other initiatives to support cycling. This comes as part of the austerity measures needed to help the ailing economy - not that the problems Britain currently faces were in any way caused by cycling. This makes no sense at all, of course, but sadly nor did many of the initiatives that Cycling England supported, as the late Chris Hutt used to point out.

Unfortunately, it looks a lot like business as usual for British transport policy. Initiatives come and initiatives go, and people keep forgetting that they've been let down time and time again. There's no real interest in achieving a higher rate of cycling, no overall picture of what is needed, and no consistency to carry on with any policy for long enough that it makes a difference. That's why cycling is flatlining in Britain.

Britain isn't the only place with a problem, of course. We campaign for the right of independent travel for children everywhere.

There are many other examples of school travel in the Netherlands on this blog. Unfortunately I must also point out that for all the good they do, VVN is also a bit too close for comfort to a certain Swedish car manufacturer and their dubious ideas about road safety. Another blog post explores the origins of Veilig Verkeer Nederland?.

More money for cycling in Assen

The latest news from our local government contained this piece. Last Thursday they voted to give an extra €975000 for cycling with the aim of further increasing the level of cycling.

A road which still has a tiled cycle path from a couple of decades ago is to move over to smooth asphalt, and another rougher path is to be surfaced better too. There is another €200000 for recreational cycle paths around the city, and as a stimulous to the economy, a cycle path is to be built sooner than was planned along one of the roads outside the city (one of the roads we covered on Sunday's ride). Also €145000 is reserved for safety improvements especially on school routes and around schools and there is to be yet more cycle parking at the train station and at bus stops. There is also to be extra guarded cycle parking at events.

I'd missed this story, but Judy pointed it out to me and so did my local correspondent, Frits, who also said, "Cycling facilities are cheap". He went on to say that this is "Quite a bit cheaper than other roads, and far more effective." Quite right too.

Note that Assen's population is just 65000, so this is an extra 15 euros per person in the city. To get an idea of how significant this is, scale it to the size of your city. e.g. for London with its 8 M population, you'd need the council to decide in one of its meetings to allocate about an extra 110 million pounds. It may sound a lot, but how much are they spending on roads for cars ?

Headline news

Front page headline news in today's "Metro" - a free national newspaper available at the train station.

"Cyclists struggle with full cycle parking". The article, continued on page three with a headline "Where did you leave your bike?" is about the continuing crisis in railway station cycle parking in the Netherlands. The newspaper reports on how due to the growth in cycling, cyclists taking their bikes to railway stations have a growing problem of finding somewhere to park. Rotterdam is building a new underground cycle park for over 5000 bikes, Amsterdam is building a new one for 7000 bikes.

The number of people arriving at the railway stations by bike rose on average by 40% in 2008 and in university cities the rise was around 50%. The railway company is predicting another rise of 30% in the next ten years.

Overall, an additional 100000 cycle parking spaces are to be built at railway stations across the country, and another 150000 existing places are to be renewed. That's enough new and renewed spaces for one in 64 of the population of the entire country. The newspaper is asking quite seriously whether this is enough. The Netherlands has just 16M people. For the USA (for instance) to achieve the same thing, they would have to build 4.6 M cycle parking spaces at railway stations.


"Going by bike to the station ? You're not the only one..."

The Netherlands has a higher cycling rate than any other country and there are cities here with higher cycling rates than any cities elsewhere. This is why so much cycle parking is needed. Dutch cyclist counts don't even include those people who are cycling to the railway station or bus stop. They're counted only as public transport users. There are other posts about integrated transport or specifically about cycle parking.

The high cycling rate is the result of policies to increase the directness and safety of cycling.

Meanwhile, there are efforts to get cycling combined with public transport higher up the agenda.

Is York now "anti-car" ?

A fairly old story from earlier this year, but new to me. Verging on "you couldn't make it up"...

York in England has a higher rate of cycling than most parts of that country. Joe Watt, the "cycling champion" of the city recently quit his job over a new piece of infrastructure.

When asked if it was because the city was becoming anti car, replied that he thought that was the case. More here in the local news article.


View Larger Map

This is the scene of the trouble. The junction of Clifton Green and Water End. This road has perhaps been made ever so slightly more friendly for cyclists than it used to be, but it still falls drastically short of Dutch standards.

The rate of cycling in York remains lower than that anywhere in the Netherlands. You can see why. Cycle facilities need to be much more subjectively safe and give cyclists an advantage in directness if they are to attract the majority of the population to cycling.

Freewheeler's blog points out that Joe Watt's first action on taking the post was to denounce cyclists for taking part in a naked bike ride. Personally, I'm not that fussed about naked bike rides. However, I see such protests as an indication that all is not well with cycling. If conditions were good enough, there would not be much interest in such a protest.

April 2012 Update
More news about this junction. The minor improvement made for cyclists three years ago is now to be removed. One step forwards... one step back again... This is not progress.

Eating ourselves to death ?

The UK newspaper "The Independent" just ran an article entitled "Eating ourselves to death".

Obesity is rising fast in the UK. Deaths due to obesity have risen by 35% over five years, even though there is a lot of under-reporting (read the article). By the year 2050, the cost to tax payers of medical problems due to obesity through the National Health Service and other agencies is expected to rise to £50bn a year. That is a huge amount of money. Just maybe spending a small proportion of that sum on truly encouraging cycling might be a way of reducing this vast expense later on ?

It's pretty obvious from walking down the road here that there are far fewer obese people in this country. It's also obvious that there are a lot more active people.

In related news, the BBC recently had a story on how "Increasing activity levels in middle age can prolong life as much as giving up smoking". Another good reason to promote cycling. Dutch over 60s make a quarter of all their journeys by bike. They are relatively fit and trim, and they have a longer life-expectancy than British people - despite the higher smoking rate and availability of food as pictured here.

The image is of poffertjes (small pancakes served in this case with cream, strawberries and lots of sugar) and beer as eaten by a participant on one of our tours last year. Delicious, and not too unhealthy so long as you are getting plenty of exercise on a cycling holiday.

Dutch cycling retains its popularity

Velomondial points to the latest version of the wonderful "Cycling in the Netherlands" document from the Fietsberaad. I highly recommend a read of this document. It contains a lot of statistics, but gives them in an easy to read form with some really wonderful photos.

Commentators from elsewhere may be interested in this passage from page 71 (page 36 of the PDF file): "Wearing a bicycle helmet for daily trips is unusual in the Netherlands. Only competitive cyclists or mountain bikers tend to wear a helmet for their sport. Some parents give young children bicycle helmets. Usually the helmet is simply packed away for good before the offspring are 10 years old. There is certainly no support for mandatory helmeting. The fear exists that making it mandatory would cause a drop in bicycle use."

Pushing of cycle helmets has recently been blamed for a reduction in cycling in Denmark.

Policies here are still aimed mainly at increasing cycle usage by improving infrastructure to result in an improved experience for cyclists. This has been pursued to a greater extent than in any other country and it has succeeded to a greater extent than in any other country. Overall, the Netherlands still has by far the highest cycling rate with 26% of journeys by bike. Denmark is still in second place with around 19% of journeys by bike and by way of comparison, the English speaking countries all still have around 1% of journeys by bicycle.

The photo shows bikes outside a village church last Sunday. This is a popular way of getting to church. Sadly, the Danish cycling rate dropped since this article was written.

Cyclists are ill less often - Dutch companies gain competitive advantage

A new report from the Dutch Research and Testing organisation the TNO says that every 1% increase in the number of employees that cycle to work saves their employers €27M per year due to lower sickness costs. The research was carried on behalf of Tineke Huizinga, the deputy minister for traffic and works.

The article says that employees who regularly cycle to work take on average one day less sick leave per year than their non-cycling colleagues. If employers encourage employees to cycle to work more, then they can save more.

Across the Netherlands, 26% of all commuting journeys and 10% of business trips are already made by bike, though of course in some locations these figures are somewhat higher. The TNO suggests in the article that employers should be trying to increase these figures, but already that €27 M for 26% of commuters adds up to a total of 702 M Euros per year saved by Dutch employers due to their employees cycling.

The main reason given by those who currently cycle is that it is good for health, while for those who don't cycle the main reasons are the distance that they live from work, the weather, that they will sweat and the journey time.

The ministry of traffic and works is shortly to start a test of financial incentives for cycle commuting also in order to increase this percentage.

The Dutch spend more money on cycling infrastructure than any other country in the world, but even that amount is less than they are saving for businesses by having such a high cycling modal share.

Oh, and that figure is for the small Dutch population of 16M. If it scales, then a 1% difference in the UK is worth about 95 million British pounds, or in the US about 2/3rds of a billion US dollars - that's just for a one percent rise. If Britain could achieve the level of cycling seen in the Netherlands, it could save employers nearly 2 and a half billion pounds per year. For the USA it could be over $17 billion per year.

That's enough to pay for a lot of cycling infrastructure.

The Netherlands is one of a select group of nations which has
an overall positive current account balance. Being the world's
leading cycling nation has clearly not harmed the economy.

I have seen cycling organisations make similar claims when I lived in the UK, but it is something else for a government department to be behind this. The commuting statistics come from this document, which is well worth seeing for it's wonderful photographs apart from anything else.

More cycle parking at Beilen Railway Station

Extra bike places

BEILEN - By order of ProRail, more covered cycle places have been built at the train station in Beilen. The parking now has room for 624 bike (previously 288). At the same time 64 bike lockers were placed as well as a space for 12 motor-scooters."

Sometimes little stories like this, buried on page 45 of our 56 page weekly free local paper, tell a big story. Beilen is a small town 20 km or so south of Assen with a population of under 10000 people. However, cycle parking at the station is being taken very seriously indeed.

Compare with the grandeur of this press release from First Great Western in the UK:

First Great Western and First Great Western Link’s Transport Integration Manager, Jonathan Radley commented: “As part of the UK’s largest public transport operator, First, we’re committed to integrated transport and helping our customers to make joined-up journeys. This extra cycle parking adds to existing provision at our stations, and we hope will make it easier for cyclists to find a space, particularly at busy times. We’re grateful for help from the Department for Transport and CTC in making this project a reality.”

Customers of First Great Western and First Great Western Link together make almost 60 million journeys a year with many travelling to or from the station by foot, on bikes, by bus, taxi or even by ferry.

Transport Minister Derek Twigg said: “The quality of cycle parking is a key factor in determining how confident cyclists feel about using their bike to get to the station. That’s why fairly simple, low-cost improvements like those at First Great Western and First Great Western Link can have an positive impact in encouraging people to leave their cars at home. We’re pleased to play our part in this scheme, alongside improvements to cycle routes led by local authorities across the country.”

The new parking takes the total number of bicycle spaces at Reading to 160, with 302 at Bristol Temple Meads, 38 at Plymouth, 20 at Southall, 16 at Thatcham (including 4 cycle lockers), 100 at Maidenhead, 4 at Charlbury, 8 at Mortimer (including 4 lockers), 534 (including 10 lockers) at Oxford and 6 at Bramley.

A big and impressive looking press release. But hang on... Just 200 new spaces spread between ten stations ? A total of 302 at Bristol ? That's less than half the total at Beilen, and Bristol has over 400000 residents. More than 40 times the population are fighting over less than half the amount of cycle parking at the railway station. Can it be right that availability of residents of Britain's "Cycling City" have 1/80th of the availability of cycle parking that is normal for a small Dutch village ?

Beilen is a typical Dutch town and has enough parking spaces for 1 in 15 of the population to leave their bikes at the station. Bristol, on the other hand, is the newly crowned "Cycling City" of the UK and has enough for 1 in 1350 people to do the same. Is that enough ? Is it enough to justify such a press release ?

Mind you, they're doing better than Plymouth. That city has a population of over 250000 people but just 38 spaces. Enough for 1 in 6500 of the population to cycle to the station...

Of these cities, Oxford, with it's 151000 population and 534 spaces is doing the best. They've enough spaces for one in every 282 residents. However, Oxford is historically one of the places with the most cycling in the UK. Even there the expectation is that cycling to the station will be over an order of magnitude less popular than in a small Dutch town.

It's not just the railway station of course. When I cycled through Beilen a few weeks ago I took a photo of bikes parked at a bus stop as well as a bit of video which you can see here.

It's sometimes difficult to explain to people from the UK or USA just how much cycling there is here, both in the cities and in small towns. Cycling is incredibly popular in this country. It's not just an incremental difference, but a staggering one. What's more, cyclists are very well looked after, and not only at railway stations. Come and see it for yourself.

3/1/2009 update

Judy went to Beilen and took some photos of the new cycle parking. You can see the new tulip style bike racks under cover in the photo to the right.


There are also secure lockers, for which there is a fee.

You can tell this is all very new because the sand still hasn't settled between the tiled surface.

Groningen's main railway station has nearly 10000 spaces and is added 500 cycle-parking spaces every year until 2015. Groningen has less than half the population of Bristol.

Utrecht makes another interesting comparison with Bristol. Utrecht has just 300000 people, but there are over 14000 cycle parking spaces at the station, and this is being expanded...

Naturally, even with high quality cycle parking as shown here it's also essential to protect your bicycle with a very secure lock.

This might be a good time to mention again that 40% of all train passengers in the Netherlands arrive at the station by bike, and that because they only use a bike for part of their journey none of them count towards the cycling statistics. Also see the other posts about integrated transport.

Newsbrief

A little while ago I signed up for the Fietsberaad Nieuwsbrief which lets you know what is going on with cycling in this country. The Fietsberaad is the Dutch cycling experts group.

A new copy of the email Nieuwsbrief arrived yesterday, and here are some of the main items in it:

I'm pleased to be able to report that Houten has won the title of Fietsstad 2008 (Cycling City 2008). Councillor Marianne Kallen said "we are very proud." Houten was the first place in the Netherlands to try a lot of novel ideas. I have covered Houten before.

Also, it's great to see that Assen's plans for a new countryside path that I also covered before also gets a mention. Follow the link to see what it will look like.

Minister Eurlings of the ministry of traffic and works has announced an extra 30 million Euros of funding for cycle parking at railway stations and improvement of five cycle routes which it is believed could have a particular effect in reducing traffic jams. They were highlighted by a campaign called "Less queuing with the bike." Fietsersbond, the Dutch cycle campaigning organisation has criticised the plans, saying that at least 60 million Euros is required to make the improvements that are needed, and for the result to be of "Olympic Quality" (a phrase use earlier by the minister).

The Fietsberaad is not so happy with the latest proposals for roundabouts. Most roundabouts in the Netherlands currently have a single lane for cyclists to cross, but these "turborotondes" will reduce safety and comfort for cyclists. An example is given showing a better way of doing it, giving priority to cyclists at the crossings. (turbo roundabouts have remained controversial. See further posts about this type of roundabout, one of which includes a video showing a real life example of the problem illustrated here).

The German centre for health reports that Dutch people keep cycling in bad weather but Germans don't. Their report goes on to say that more than 63% of Dutch people use a bike at least three times a week. In Germany and Denmark this is 45% and 46% respectively. Eighteen percent of Dutch people ride more than 30 km per week and 31% ride between 10 and 20 km per week. Germans ride on average a bit less than the Dutch, but more than the Danes.

All three nationalities see cycling as good for health, brings you closer to nature and allows flexibility in journeys, but only in Germany is health the most important reason to cycle. In a questionnaire, 77% of Germans put health as the number reason to ride. 47% of people in all three countries said too long a distance would put them off cycling, and a third don't much like cycling.

Bad weather stops around 40% of Germans from riding, but only 18% of the Dutch and 25% of the Danes. Only 19% of Germans cycle to work, vs. around 30% of the Dutch and Danes.

These three countries are those that John Pucher and Ralph Buehler wrote about as being at the forefront of making cycling irresistible.


In other news, The Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam is introducing a new policy of free folding bicycles for workers in an attempt to reduce the current 45% of workers who arrive by car to 20-25% and according to the Swiss BPA, a safety organisation which wants to make cycle helmets compulsory, 38% of Swiss cyclists now wear a helmet, up from 18% in 1999. This is, of course, a vastly higher percentage than in the Netherlands. However, vastly more people cycle in the Netherlands than in Switzerland, and they're safer too.

There were one or two other bits, but you'll have to subscribe yourself if you want to read them.

The Fietsberaad also produces a regular magazine about cycling infrastructure.

Lowering speed limits

Today's local newspaper brings the news that the speed limit on rural roads around Assen is being reduced.

The subtitle, Zestig op platteland, gives the gist of the story: 60 km/h in the countryside. That's 37 mph. Quite enough for country roads.

It carries on: "In the coming weeks, on all country roads around Assen, a maximum speed of 60 km/h is being adopted in order to increase road safety outside of the built up area as well as inside. On the main roads to Vries, Rolde, Hoogeveen and Smilde, the existing speed limit of 80 km/h (50 mph) is being retained."

The article goes on to explain why: "This is in line with the national recommendation for "sustainable safety" - a national scheme to reduce traffic deaths (which are already low in the Netherlands). The new speed limit is better for pedestrians and cyclists as well as motorists. It's hoped to decrease the number of incidents of motorists crashing into berms and trees. It's more in keeping with the touristic character of the countryside."

A 60 km/h road, with cycle-path alongside because there's
enough traffic that cycling would not feel safe here

The roads which remain at 80 km/h are all 6.3 metres or wider and have segregated cycle paths. These roads provide good access out of the city in all directions. Many of the roads which have 60 km/h speed limits also have very good quality cycle paths. e.g. the one to the right.

Surely 60 km/h is enough for anyone on a narrow country road...

On the other hand, compare with the cycle path on a road near Cambridge featured a couple of days ago. Is it surprising that people feel happy to let their children cycle to school here, though they don't in the UK ?

Speed limits inside villages are already predominantly 30 km/h (18 mph).

Note that not only do low speed limits make cars less dangerous, they also act to discourage people from driving on roads with the lower speeds because journey times using them are longer than journey times on other roads, and especially on motorways where the limit is usually either 120 or 130 km/h.

For more about rural cycling, see the rural tag. There are also more posts on speed limits in the Netherlands.

The photo shows participants on a Study Tour in May this year. If you would like to be shown this infrastructure, please book yourself on a tour.

News from the green

Each week our local paper includes 4 pages or so of information from the local government about what is happening around the city. A "brink" is a green in the middle of a town, and generally where you'll find the town hall. Hence "Berichten van de brink" or "News from the green"

On the left you can see the first page of this week's communication. The main story is about a statue for the city centre. The "Old Beech".

However, there's nearly always something for cyclists too, and the item I've zoomed in on is about a cycle path to be built connecting the North of Assen with one of the outlying villages, Zeijen. There is already a very good quality cycle path connecting the city to the village (featured in a video at the end of this blog post), but the new one which opens at the start of next year will provide a different route and be intended more for recreational rides.

The path will take the route of an existing right of way called the "Schoolpad" as many years ago it was the route for taken by school children. However, it was never properly surfaced and has been out of use except for agricultural vehicles for many years. I've ridden on it, and at present it's rather bumpy. Similar to many bridleways in the UK.

The "restoration" of this path will give it a smooth concrete or tarmac surface and the result will resemble the artist's impression in the article, complete with the lining of oak trees to give a pleasant appearance and provide a habitat for bats. The path will be broad enough that agricultural vehicles can also use it for access to the fields, so it will have a proper foundation and be built to the standard of a road.

This two kilometre long high quality path will cost half a million euros to complete. It is far from the only work planned for the rest of this year and next year. Further blog posts will cover others.

This path will feature on our cycling tours next year.

When I lived in Cambridge I proposed for many years that a route be established between the North of Cambridge behind the regional college to Landbeach, following the line of the ancient Mere Way. This is similar in many ways. It would provide a direct route from a village to the city (in this case from a village which doesn't currently have a good quality cycle route, and directly to an area with education and employment) and it would follow an existing right of way. Landbeach is a bigger village with a population of 825 vs. 680 for Zeijen, so you might think it would have a higher priority. However, sadly there was no will to provide such a route for cyclists, and no funding available.

The video below shows part of the existing high quality route between Zeijen and Assen, and which was featured on this year's study tours.


See also how this cycle-path is kept clear of snow in the winter.