City centre streets. Perfect for children on their own bicycles, if the city is truly planned for cycling. Cargo bikes shouldn't be required.

Something which people who visit Assen often notice is the lack of cargo-bikes. Somehow an expectation has grown up that cargo bikes are the way of transporting children by bicycle. Actually, children have their own legs and really should be able to use them to transport themselves as soon as they have the ability to ride a bicycle. This of course is only possible if the infrastructure is very very good, and over most of this city that is indeed the case. It wasn't always like this, but motor vehicles were removed from the centre several years ago and that left behind conditions where everyone is safe.

The photos below were taken within ten minutes a little after three o'clock on an afternoon a couple of weeks ago:

All ages and abilities served by one type of infrastructure. The youngest daughter in this family rides on the front of Mum's bike while her slightly older sister rides her own bike. They're heading directly towards the city centre. Directly towards the same streets as shown in the following photos. It's not unusual to see children this young cycling to the city centre. A comprehensive grid of very high quality infrastructure makes this possible.

The city centre streets are used by bicycle by people of all ages. The woman in the centre has more experience, but lots of experience isn't required to be safe here. The youngsters on the right are already able to make their way through the city without an adult to accompany them.

Of course some children are accompanied by parents. These two are heading towards a large square in the middle of the city which was once a car-park.

The youngest child sits on Dad's bike while her older sister rides her own bike.

Mother and son.

Young teenagers have complete independence. This group rode through together. Presumably the lessons for the day had ended. The light grey concrete on the left of the cyclists is textured to help blind people find their way. Paving like this is laid throughout the city centre.

Another mother and son. The mother's bike has a fold down child-seat on the back, which is possibly used sometimes for a younger sibling.

They're all moving in the same direction, but they're not all looking in the same direction. Cycling is very social in the city centre. People are always looking out for their friends and family. A lot of smiles, a lot of waves.

More youngsters riding home from school together. The city centre streets make a good route to many locations.

Teenagers attending secondary school (age 12 upwards) are likely to have further to travel. 

Eating while cycling and riding no hands. These are comparatively safe things to do when there are no cars on city centre streets.

Mum indicates a right turn. The children also will turn up onto the forgiving sloped kerb .

Teens again, riding sociably side by side.

Very young children ride on the back of their parents' bikes. But those who cycle on their own bike are often also very young.

Where have the cars gone ?

Red dots show the locations which feature in the photos
Traffic lights are no longer needed because through
traffic has been removed. The car park no longer exists.
There are now zebra crossings to make it easier for
pedestrians to cross the "road" for bikes.

The photos above show very typical views of the centre of Assen in 2014. Many other Dutch cities look similar. However, it wasn't always like this.

In the 1970s, the number of children being killed on the roads reached a peak. Cycling was in decline in the Netherlands at that time.

Assen, like other cities, was full of motor vehicles. Cars, buses and trucks dominated the city centre streets. Cyclists who remained on these streets were under pressure. The situation was much like that of many cities now. There was "no space for cycling infrastructure" and car parks were full.

If Assen had continued on the path which the city was on, it's unlikely that people would cycle so much in the city as they do now.

Pedestrian zone.
Cycling allowed
on given routes.
Note generous
delivery times.

The problems in the centre of the city were turned around by a second revolution which returned old streets which pre-date motor vehicles to people rather than allowing the problems due to allowing motor vehicles to dominate them to grow.

The city centre area is now a large pedestrian zone. What looks like a road in all the photos above (except the first one) is actually a stripe through the pedestrian zone on which cycling is permitted. This is a design which works very well because it is familiar. "Road" for bikes, "pavement" for pedestrians result in no clashes between cyclists and pedestrians within this pedestrianized area. Signage at each entrance to the pedestrian zone points out this status.

Cycling and walking are the most popular means of transport for shoppers in Assen and these are the modes which are best catered for in the city centre.

Of course it's not just the city centre which has cycling infrastructure. An extensive and fine-grained grid of high quality infrastructure stretches across the entire city so that no-one has to cycle in conditions which are not subjectively safe. This is the only way of making cycling accessible to everyone.

When our children were young we still
lived in the UK. The streets were not
safe enough for them to ride their own
bikes so we used this Ken Rogers trike
with child seats. It worked well, but
we wouldn't have needed it in Assen.

What about parents ?
In many places, people who didn't bother with a car before they had children find that they need one once they have children. Of course it is in many ways better if people switch to using cargo bikes to carry their children rather than using a car, however the experience of the children themselves is not so different if they're transported by a parent with a bicycle rather than being transported by a parent with a car.

A high percentage of parents using cargo bikes to transport their children is better than having the same parents driving cars, but while a growing number of cargo bikes might indicate a growing confidence amongst parents it should be seen as a step in the right direction but not as an end in itself.

There are quite a lot of cargo bikes in
Assen. They're used for many other
reasons than to transport children.

Why not cargo bikes ?
So long as they're used for carrying cargo, there's nothing wrong with cargo-bikes at all. There's also nothing wrong with them for carrying small children.

It is only when cargo bikes are seen as a solution for carrying children who are old enough to ride their own bikes (i.e. 4+) that this indicates a problem. The problem is not with the bikes or their riders but with the environment for cycling.

If parents don't think that the local cycling infrastructure is sufficiently safe for their children to have control over their own movement then this indicates that the infrastructure is sub-standard. Children should have conditions safe enough that they can have control over their own movement and not have to rely upon their parents for lifts, either by bike or by car.

Mother of three in Groningen

Where the cycling infrastructure is very good, cargo bikes are relatively rare and mostly used for carrying cargo. It's better for parents and for children if children can be given the freedom to control their own movement.

I'm not criticizing anyone for using a cargo bike to transport their children. People who do this in difficult environments should be applauded for making a positive choice which is not always rewarded by society. We made a similar choice when we lived in the UK and our children were small. We first used a tricycle and later moved on to trailerbikes (also uncommon in the Netherlands for the same reason). It was not always easy to do this because other parents could be quite critical and drivers were sometimes quite aggressive around our children.

It's not always so good as this in the Netherlands
Cities across the Netherlands vary in how easy it is for everyone to ride bicycles. For instance:

• Amsterdam has the lowest rate of cycling to school of any city in the Netherlands, closely followed by Den Haag and Rotterdam.
• Groningen has a marvellous centre, but hostile cycling conditions can be found a short distance north from the centre.
• Assen is also not perfect. In particular, a new dangerous junction south of the city centre makes access difficult for vulnerable people and recently there have been several design mistakes made in new infrastructure.

The Netherlands is still far and away the most successful country on earth at encouraging people to cycle, and at encouraging people to let their children cycle. Assen is a stand-out city even within the Netherlands. But I always warn that you should never assume that this country always gets everything right.

A truly high cycling modal share requires that everyone should be able to cycle everywhere. That is what true mass cycling is all about.

Identifying true mass cycling and achieving true mass cycling

How can we tell if we have true mass cycling ?
If sports clubs used by children after school look like this:


If extra temporary bicycle parking has been constructed but it's still difficult to find anywhere to park your bike when there is a large (non-cycling) event in town:


If thousands of others have already ridden their bicycle to the beach before you get there:


If bicycle ferries sometimes have a long queue on nice summer days:


If school cycle parking is full every day including winter, if railway stations struggle to build extra parking spaces quickly enough to cater for ever increasing bicycle usage, this crisis is reported in newspapers which are critical of more cycle parking not being built more quickly, and if city centres also have this same problem then perhaps you really do have true mass cycling.

One of the first photos of the centre of Assen which I took just after we moved here. It's a normal day and there are hundreds of bikes everywhere. Cycle parking in the centre of the city has been expanded and improved twice in the last six years, as have many things around the city.

If you have all these problems then you have true mass cycling. Assen certainly does have this problem.

Other Dutch cities have all the same problems because similar policies have led to similar results right across the Netherlands. Everyone cycles. Children, students, commuters, older people, slow or fast, women and men, people with disabilities, immigrants. Everyone. That's why cycle-parking is particularly an issue.

Cyclist in London. Wearing a reflective
vest but squashed between a bus and a
pole. Not everyone would do this.

How can we tell if we don't have true mass cycling ?
Cyclists are the coal mine canaries of our towns. If cyclists are few and far between, frequently dress in canary yellow, wear helmets, face masks and other protective equipment, are largely of an identifiable cultural group (often male 20-45 years of age), they're viewed as an out-group, openly hated or picked on by the local press and if you simply don't see bicycles being used in the numbers that you see them in the videos above then you do not yet have true mass cycling.

How can we create true mass cycling ?
If you want mass cycling where you live, you must first identify where future cyclists can come from.

Campaigns aimed at "cyclists" or for "cycling" are unlikely to work because in this case you are campaigning specifically for the hated out-group so this creates limited sympathy amongst the public at large. Those people who already find conditions on your streets to be acceptable for cycling already ride bikes. We can't reach more

There are three sources for more cyclists:

1. Children
2. Non-cycling adults who don't drive
3. Non-cycling adults who do drive.

Children ride their own bikes in the
centre of Assen and they hunt for their
own cycle parking spaces. They would
not be here if this was still a busy
traffic light junction with many cars

Children don't get much choice about how they travel as their choices are made for them by their parents. This applies equally to those children who are allowed to walk, cycle or take public transport independently as it does to those who are not. Every parent cares for their children and every parent tries to do what they see as the best, safest, most convenient, thing. Campaigning for the right of children to be able to make independent journeys by bicycle in safety could benefit a lot of people. We know that there is widespread concern about safety and about health and we know that cycling offers a solution to these problems. We also know that cycle training on its own does not lead to more cycling. Cycling only becomes attractive if it is made safe and convenient.

UNICEF rates Dutch children as having the best well-being in the world and this comes in large part because they have freedom to make their own journeys by bicycle. Shouldn't all children be so lucky ?

People who are dependent on public transport often complain about the problems that they have with their transport. It's expensive. It's indirect. It's time consuming and there are delays. Public transport is not seen as aspirational and is often viewed as second best to owning and driving one's own car. It's difficult to make people choose public transport unless forced by being unable to afford their own transport. Public transport usage is highest in countries where it is more difficult to own and use cars and lowest in countries where cars are most affordable. However, users of public transport can be offered another alternative: the bike. In wealthy countries where cycling has been made accessible and convenient, public transport usage remains at much the same low level expected due to wealth but that bicycles offer a positive choice that people will take instead of using cars.

A cyclist in London. Cyclists wear
these clothes to cycle because even
they don't feel safe in this situation.
Most people would rather drive here.

Non cycling adults who drive are actually in a very similar situation to those non-cycling adults who do not drive. They don't want to take public transport for the reasons listed above and cycling is simply not seen an option for most people in most countries so they are taking what for them is the easiest, safest option. Driving doesn't have to be the only option: wealthy countries which have made cycling accessible and convenient find that while their public transport usage remains at much the same low level expected due to wealth, people will make a positive choice to cycle rather than to drive.

Free parking !

Parking is inexpensive or free in many
places in the Netherlands. It's not
necessary to punish people out of cars
 if the bicycle offers a truly attractive
alternative.

There is an odd idea even amongst cycling campaigners that drivers will only give up driving if it is made too expensive or too inconvenient. This has always struck me as an odd position to take for someone who chooses cycling for him/herself because even that person is making an assumption that driving is a preferable option for anyone who can afford it. The Netherlands does not demonstrate this to be true at all.

Covered car parking places to hire in
Assen city centre. €28 per month, all
in. It's not the price of parking that
makes people cycle here. The price is
so low because demand is low, even
for free parking. Mass cycling brings
benefits for drivers.

Amsterdam is an easier place to drive in than many other large cities. In most places, car parking is neither difficult to find nor expensive. Running costs and fuel are about the same as elsewhere in Europe. Dutch people who have a choice of cycling or driving make a positive choice to cycle because it fits their needs. Cycling is often the easiest option in the Netherlands not because driving is particularly bad but because cycling is particularly good.

I think it's very important to remember that present day drivers in other countries are in exactly the same situation as everyone else. They are taking what appears to them to be the easiest safe option. The main reason why people drive is that because for them this is the least bad way of getting about. We know already that Londoners make the same journeys by car as Dutch people make by bike, but it's not only the distances and purposes which are the same. The motivation to drive in London is exactly the same as the motivation to cycle in the Netherlands. Whether the choice is made to cycle or to drive, that choice is based mostly on what feels safe and is convenient. If cycling was easier than driving and just so safe then this would attract current day drivers to ride bikes instead.

If cycling campaigners as a small out-group confront drivers as if they are the enemy, this can only be counter-productive. It is also completely unnecessary. The Netherlands has achieved the highest cycling modal share in the world without being harsh on drivers. The carrot is stronger than the stick.

The carrot
So what does attract people to cycling ? That's easy to answer - a comprehensive network of very high quality cycling infrastructure which offers shorter faster journeys, fewer stops and on which people feel very safe to cycle. This is what makes cycling attractive and makes cycling into a positive option rather than something which it is a struggle to convince people to do.

This is also exactly what the Netherlands has built. This country has achieved a greater level of success than anywhere else and that is why it makes sense to learn from this Dutch success.

This photo illustrates a "problem"
which keen Dutch cyclists sometimes
complain about. Children riding 20 km
to school, riding in a group and taking
up the entire cycle-path as they do it.
Note that I had to go back to 2009 to
find a photo which showed this.

Apart from a lack of cycle parking, what else do people complain about where there is true mass cycling ?
I went on a recreational ride with some local cyclists this morning and the conversation in a cafe turned to a familiar topic: School children slowing them down.

To me, this is a very nice problem to have. It's a problem which only exists because school children actually do cycle in the Netherlands.

Other common complaints are from older cyclists complaining that sport cyclists go too fast and don't use bells and from sport cyclists complaining that older people riding together go too slowly and don't hear bells when they're rung. There are occasionally small conflicts but these are all minor issues in reality.

We rode 50 km this morning, mostly
quite quickly. At one point we were
held up very briefly by this couple
riding side by side with their dog
in a basket. I'm absolutely not going
to complain about this. Drivers get
stuck in traffic jams far more often
than I have to slow for other people
when cycling.

The one topic almost guaranteed to trigger a response amongst Dutch cyclists is mopeds. In this country, moped riders are an identifiable minority. Mopeds are ridden for a similar small proportion of total journeys as are bicycles in countries such as the UK or USA. Moped riders are an out-group in the Netherlands just as cyclists are an out-group in other nations and many of the same prejudices which are applied to cyclists in other nations are applied to moped riders here. In particular, Dutch people often think that mopeds are exceedingly dangerous when in fact they are not nearly so dangerous as they are commonly thought to be.

Complaints about cycling in the Netherlands can be seen as an examples of "First World Problems". Dutch cyclists have relatively little to complain about in comparison with their counterparts in other countries. If we had to ride with trucks passing centimetres away and deal with cycling infrastructure design which was as poor and inconvenient to use as is often the case in other countries and if society as a whole seemed to be against them as is the case for cyclists elsewhere then these concerns would be of greater importance here than the relatively minor concerns that people see as a problem.

A word about "bike culture"

In the past, I might have tagged a piece like this "bike culture" and thought not too much of it. Unfortunately, I think the term is being misinterpreted.

The Dutch do not cycle simply because they "have cycling in their culture". The "cycling culture" of the Netherlands is the direct result of infrastructure which makes cycling pleasant, convenient and safe.

When Dutch people leave this country and go to live in a place without good cycling infrastructure, they give up on cycling. When people migrate to the Netherlands from places without cycling infrastructure, they start cycling.

The Dutch respond to their built environment much as does anyone else, wherever they were born.

Who cycles in the Netherlands ? Everyone cycles in the Netherlands !

Average number of bicycle rides per person per day for the entire Dutch population for all seasons combined broken down by age and sex

To a first approximation, everyone cycles in the Netherlands. The graph above shows how cycling rates vary with age and sex within the Netherlands, expressed as the average number of cycle journeys per day made per person.

It shows a number of things: that cycling is very popular with school age children, for instance, and that it drops off a bit for working age adults as for some the commute is "too far" by bike. Males between 20 and 50 years of age cycle the least. This is because they're most likely to have a job requiring a long commute. Women follow a similar pattern, but there is a jump in cycling between "25 to 30" and "30 to 40" as this is the age at which women have children, and having children allows women to return to cycling. This first happens with children on their mother's bike and later with women accompanying their children on their own bike before at eight years old they are able to ride unaccompanied to school. Men don't get this chance so often so men cycle less.

This is due to women being more likely to be at home looking after children than their male partners. As a result, they more often cycle with young children to school, or make shopping and other utility trips by bike. This is what leads to the Netherlands uniquely having 55% of trips overall by women. Men cycle less on average than women because they are more likely than women to be making the longest commutes in Europe, and doing so by other means of transport.

Cycling stays with people through their entire life. Even the over 75s are predominantly still active. They make an average of around 0.3 trips per day by bike, or more than two trips each week.

The Dutch use their bikes for exactly the same purposes as people in other countries use their cars

Here we see the reasons for bicycle journeys. Only 16% of all cycle journeys are commutes. The largest percentage, 22%, are shopping trips, 18% are school journeys, 14% are social, and 11% are to go visiting.

This level of cycle usage, across both sexes, all ages, and for all purposes, requires infrastructure which has a high level of subjective safety.

But let's go back to that figure of just 16% of cycle journeys being for commutes. In all too many places, commuting rate figures are touted as "modal share". Actually, commutes make for just a small percentage of total journeys in any country, and that should be the case for cycling too. However, in many countries there is not the required subjective safety for everyone to cycle. In these countries, promoting cycling as just something for commuters and ignoring the other 84% of potential cycle journeys removes the need to make conditions suitable for everyone to cycle. This can never be the route to mass cycling on the scale that it is seen in the Netherlands.

I am not impressed with people touting "commuting" modal shares because they have missed out the big picture. What is important is that everyone should be able to make every type of journey by bike. We should be cautious of figures designed to impress which emphasize the easier demographics to attract to cycling - one of which is the confident young adult, often but not exclusively male, riding to work and back.

These figures came from the same source as last week's post, the Fietsersbond. Marc has also written about these statistics.

Joining in with the mass. Just how much do the Dutch cycle, and why do they do it ?

Use of different transport modes by time of day (in millions of journeys).
Fiets=bike, Auto=car, OV=public transport, Lopen=walking

New figures from the Fietsersbond throw light on the astonishing number of journeys per day made by bike in the Netherlands. The graph gives a picture of what's going on, but there's also some more detailed text accompanying it:

Dutch people cycle a lot. Of course there is more cycling in the summer than in the autumn and winter. But cycling rates also vary between days of the week. On an average working day, 5 million people make an average of 14 million cycle journeys. Monday and Thursday are the top days with a million more journeys than on the other days of the week. On Saturday, 11.5 million cycle journeys are made, and on Sunday 6.5 million.

Through the week, between 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, more than a million cycle journeys are made each hour. The high point is between 8 and 9 in the morning with 1.75 million cycle journeys during the hour. In that hour, many journeys to work and school are made, and more bicycles are in use than cars. Cycling on a typical week-day:

Time	Description	Total
8:00	By 8 in the morning, 750000 cycle journeys have already been made. Most of them are to work.	0.75 M
8:30	Most children are now at school. Another 450000 cycle journeys pass in half an hour.	1.2 M
9:00	Most adults are now at work, and college students are now on the way.	2.5 M
12:00	Another 2.5 million cycle journeys during the morning for a variety of reasons.	5 M
13:00	1.5 million more rides. Primary school children (5 - 11 years old) cycle home for lunch.	6.5 M
14:00	Another 1.2 million cycle trips pass in the early afternoon.	7.7 M
16:00	Most children have left school, and they cycle to friends, sportsclubs etc. In the last two hours, 2.5 million cycle journeys were made.	10 M
17:00	Another 1.2 million cycle journeys pass in the late afternoon. Many people make shopping trips and school children head home from sports clubs. The evening rush hour is about to start	11.2 M
18:00	Most people are now home. Another 1.2 million cycle journeys have passed.	12.4 M
24:00	Another 1.75 million cycle journeys are made in the evening. Many club (sport) cyclists go for rides, night school students ride, club members meet, and people go out on the town by bike.	Over 14 M

In the day, 5 million cyclists have made around 14 million cycle journeys.

Nearly a fifth of all cycle trips are to or from school. Children
account for more than 2.5 million of the cycle journeys made
each day. Over half of all trips to primary school and a
majority of journeys to secondary school are by bike. It is
enabled in part by well designed complex intersections.

The scale of cycling in the Netherlands is quite phenomenal. If you go out, at any time of the day or night, you're not unusual, but are joining with a mass of other cyclists making their journeys. It's impossible to travel far on a bike without seeing other cyclists. I don't think I've ever made it further than 200 metres from my home (in a 100 m long cul-de-sac) before seeing at least one bike. Riding a bike is not in any way a political statement. It's just normal.

The figures above are national figures, applying to the whole country. The Netherlands has a population of 16 million people. That's just twice the population of London or New York. However, the cycling rate of the country as a whole is far higher than that of cities in other countries. By comparison, treating the country as a "city", the people here are spread out at a remarkably low density of just 400 per square kilometre, vs. 4800 per square kilometre in London or 10000 people per square kilometre in New York.

However, despite having the advantage of high density and the resulting short journey lengths, neither of these cities manage more than a small fraction of the cycle usage of this whole country. London has only around 2% of journeys by bike, and New York even less at only around 0.6% of commutes. In neither of those cities would you find masses of school children riding at any time. (more about population density and cycling)

Inviting infrastructure
The difference comes down to infrastructure which invites you to cycle. Cycling is not a difficult thing to decide to do in the Netherlands. It comes naturally because cycling is so convenient and so safe.

This high percentage of all trips by bike is only possible because almost everyone cycles in the Netherlands. If only a limited subset of the population ride bikes then it will remain a minority pursuit no matter how enthusiastic that minority might be. In order to achieve true mass cycling this must be a means of transport attractive to the whole population.

Read also a three day later blog post about the wide cycling demographic of the Netherlands. A week after this blog post was published, Mark Wagenbuur made a video based upon this post. Several other blog posts detail what brought this level of cycling about. Key to it all is of course a high degree of subjective safety and making cycling into a convenient mode of transport.

Getting to church

Sunday morning. The bells are ringing, and people are going to church.

I'm not a church-goer, but I do like to go for a bike ride on Sunday mornings. Today I cycled past a nearby church to see how the congregation got there and I took this photo.

By this church there were three cars and the bikes shown in the photo. I didn't try to count the bikes.

Another church in Assen on another day

This is the scene outside every church on every Sunday
The photo at the top of this blog post was also used on the Church Times blog.