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Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

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Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#251

Post by chrismealy »

mercer wrote: post #149
chrismealy wrote: post #111

I had watched about a million Dutch cycling videos before I went to the Netherlands, but it's even better than the videos make it out. Cycling in the Netherlands is safe, easy, and fun. I rode around with a four-year-old and an almost-two-year-old in a cargo bike and not for a second felt any stress or fear (and my kids absolutely loved it as well, fresh air and no carseats). I can't go half a mile in Seattle without…

Cycling in Amsterdam is fun in a sort of stressy rollercoastery way. Utrecht is even worse. If you're in the area though, I can highly recommend taking one of the many bike routes, in particular one that leads to the dunes near Amersfoort. From Amsterdam/Utrecht it's a perfect distance for a day trip and really beautiful.

The only stress I had in Amsterdam was "There are a lot of bikes here" and "Hard to pay attention to the road with all the great architecture." None of the "OMG that guy honking is going to murder me" stress you get in America.

I biked with the kids from Haarlem to Bloemendaal aan Zee. It was the best! Took me a while to figure out Bloemendaal aan Zee and Bloemendaal are different places, so there were some wrong turns, but it was fun all the way.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#252

Post by chris_7 »

avar wrote: post #47

> If anything, having a tatty, battered old > bike affords more status as it attests to > a long and lasting love. As an Amsterdam resident: What a romantic characterization of our high crime rates! Yes, the reason I still ride a shitty old beater of a bike is definitely my long lasting love for that piece of shit, it's not because I know that if I buy anything fancy I'm going to have to never take my eyes off of it,…

Is it atypical to bring your bike inside at work/home?

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#253

Post by bane »

Having spent a little tiny bit of time in the Netherlands in both Amsterdam and The Hague, I suspect it's simply the combination of a flat landscape combined with comfortable weather for strenuous outdoor activity and most people living in pre-car cities which are sized about right for pedestrian activities which fed into a virtuous cycle that both recognized these things and then built legal and physical infrastructure to support them, which in turn made cycling easier and more convenient and so on.

It's very hard to conveniently cycle around many other cities due to not having one or more of the three foundations needed to kick off the cycle. Even in non-optimal cities, putting a cycling infrastructure in place doesn't necessarily result in lots of cyclists and doesn't necessarily determine cycle usage.

For example, the entire U.S. state of Florida might be an ideal biking location. It's flat after all, but most of the state was built to support cars, and the weather can be mighty hot. It also has the highest cyclist fatality rate in the U.S. with Orlando specifically often called out as one of the worst cities in the world to cycle in.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#254

Post by bane »

cdnsteve wrote: post #84

Just came back from a week in Netherlands and stayed in Amsterdam. What a cool place to hang out and take in the sights. Cycling there is huge indeed. The big difference I noticed from Canada was the dedicated infrastructure they have in place. Dedicated cycling lanes everywhere, it's a proper form of transportation. As a tourist, this was weird, I nearly got mowed down a few times but because I was in the wrong and…

The impression I got from Amsterdam is that the city (and by extension the Dutch) has simply accepted all the behaviors that cyclists will do in a less cyclist friendly environment (run stop signs, ignore pedestrians, turn without signing and so on), and then just built infrastructure to support that natural behavior. As a pedestrian unfamiliar with the city, at first I found it hugely annoying that so little space was left to pedestrians, but once I figured out where not to stand, I started to have a much better appreciation for how it contributes the functioning of the city. In fact, I was kind of surprised at how little boat traffic there is these days.

Having read and watched some videos on how the Netherlands does road planning for safety, the approach seems to be a much more "descriptive" approach to adapting road shapes and forms and cycle lanes to the natural behavior of people using those modes of transportation. For example, squeezing the width of lanes down naturally causes car drivers to slow rather than covering the area with signs telling drivers to slow down. This approach is slowly being adopted elsewhere (http://thecityfix.com/blog/naked-streets-without-traffic-lig...).

Lots of thought also into mixed-mode junction design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQMgbDJPok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#255

Post by ZenoArrow »

avar wrote: post #232
dankohn1 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain why police don't do a huge crackdown on bike theft in Amsterdam? I heard repeatedly when I was there about how bad the theft is. Is there something stopping cops from putting out a dozen fancy bikes without locks every day and arresting everyone who grabs one and rides off? Is the legality of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment different in the Netherlands? Because it seems like a relatively s…

They do decoy bikes, e.g. here's a news article about a thief being caught by police stealing a decoy bike for the second time in 6 months published just 3 days ago (in Dutch, but it Google Translates): http://www.nhnieuws.nl/nieuws/207931/Fietsendief-in-Amsterda... The problem is that the police have other stuff to do, and they might as well be pissing in the wind with the amount of bike theft here. They could do a…

> "The problem is that the police have other stuff to do, and they might as well be pissing in the wind with the amount of bike theft here. They could do a huge crackdown, but that's unsustainable and after the crackdown we'll be right back to the same theft rate."

How about using CCTV at bicycle locking points? Combined with satellite imagery it should be a relatively non-resource intensive way to catch the thiefs. Of course, there's still the question of whether a surveillance-based solution is worse than the crime it's meant to address.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#256

Post by lovemenot »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #158
dghughes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bike infrastructure in most countries is generally very bad compared to car infrastructure... My city just created a law that motorists who don't leave a 1m gap between their vehicle and bike will be fined. The problem is the "bike lane" is just a picture of a bike on what used to be the paved shoulder, the 30cm wide paved shoulder. And the biked lane can narrow down to nothing in some places. And it often includes…

No, it absolves the forward operator of everything and blames the rearward operator for everything. You often can't pass another motorist without going into the oncoming lane either. The fundamental question is whether you see the road as a way for all people, or if you see it as primarily a resource for the wealthy, with the poor allowed provisional access based on their degree of disturbance to the flow of money. Y…

I agree with your reasoning about preferential road usage, but would have preferred it without the economic diatribe. Two unpowered wheels does not necessarily imply poorer than four powered wheels. Relative wealth is an irrelevance to your main argument about preferential speed.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#257

Post by glandium »

pfranz wrote: post #160
ramy_d wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't leave your bike unlocked anywhere. Ever. At anytime. How come this isn't the initial reasoning? In fact, you can't leave anything unattended or not secured. This goes for cars, bikes, luggage, homes, i don't know what else.

I was surprised to see hundreds of unlocked bikes in Japan. Sounds like it's common over there: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/3loaqx/bikes_par...

Bike theft is also common in Japan.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#258

Post by glandium »

mercer wrote: post #98
ramy_d wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it - that competition is of bike thefts for unguarded and _unlocked_ bikes. Surely it means nothing. Do people not buy bike locks in those regions? Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?

I've had three bikes stolen in about three months time. Each time, I used what was considered a high-end lock. I was usually more bummed out at losing the lock because they cost me more than the bike. The best strategy, I find, is to avoid leaving the bike in theft 'hot spots', especially in the weekend. If that can't be avoided, make sure to put the bike behind another bike, preferable a fancy one or one with a shit…

The weirdest thing happened to a friend a long time ago (not in the Netherlands though). He had a fancy lock on a crappy bike. The bike was there, but not the lock.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#259

Post by seanmcdirmid »

avar wrote: post #47

> If anything, having a tatty, battered old > bike affords more status as it attests to > a long and lasting love. As an Amsterdam resident: What a romantic characterization of our high crime rates! Yes, the reason I still ride a shitty old beater of a bike is definitely my long lasting love for that piece of shit, it's not because I know that if I buy anything fancy I'm going to have to never take my eyes off of it,…

Funny. In Japan, there are many places where people don't even bother locking their bikes.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#260

Post by jlg23 »

jdietrich wrote: post #166
jlg23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken? Yes. One thing that still works is to get two different high-end locks and to always use both. Most thieves specialize in one lock only. But I'd still not leave a decent bike outside over night.

Here in the UK, savvy bicycle commuters buy an extremely heavy chain [1] and leave it locked up outside their office. Bicycle locks are a compromise because they need to be light enough to carry. If you don't carry your lock, you can use a massive lump of metal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lDcViM1EKc

Then UK thieves are clueless. The recommended padlocks (SS50C or SS65C) can be picked (search for model + "picked" on youtube) in less than 30 seconds. For bystanders picking the lock looks like you are just too stupid or drunk to use your key.
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