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How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

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Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#221

Post by madmoose »

nextos wrote: post #69
cr1895 wrote: post #13

It wasn’t always this way. There’s an interesting clip from a documentary in 1972 about the neighborhood De Pijp in Amsterdam, when it was still very much a car-centric city. At the time children in the area protested how dangerous the streets had become and how they lacked safe areas to play. https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/amsterdam-chil... Compared to the situation now, it’s vastly improved. Fortunat…

It was the same with Denmark. And especially Copenhagen. They went from a very car-centric society to a remarkably bike-centric one. Despite bad weather. All due to the Oil Crisis. Unlike other governments in the rest of EU, it seems that both the Dutch and the Danes understood a change was needed. I've read urbanism brochures from the 1960s, when the Technical University was getting moved from central Copenhagen to…

Copenhagen's history with bikes goes far back, here's some newsreels from the 20s and 30s: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/05/-/9014/

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#222

Post by adrianN »

schlumpf wrote: post #209
bluejekyll wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers often make mistakes here, and especially bicyclists. A lot of cars try to turn from the middle lane, which makes passing on the left more dangerous for cyclists. On top of that, many cyclists attempt to pass on the right, while cars are turning right. You are absolutely correct, but so many people don’t know the rules well enough to even realize they’re breaking them.

Cyclists also willfully break traffic rules in SF with alarming regularity. Stop signs are generally regarded as ornamental, and even lightly traveled red lights. I am reminded of this every time my seven year-old cycling companion asks why such and such a person hasn't followed the rules when they blow past us. Both classes of vehicles have to be diligent.

To be fair, SF seems to have four-way stop signs at basically every intersection. I don't think we have four-way stop signs anywhere in Europe. Coming to a full stop and accelerating again every hundred meters slows you down a lot more on a bike. It's a pretty stupid road design for cars too, it kills your fuel economy.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#223

Post by bluejekyll »

schlumpf wrote: post #209
bluejekyll wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers often make mistakes here, and especially bicyclists. A lot of cars try to turn from the middle lane, which makes passing on the left more dangerous for cyclists. On top of that, many cyclists attempt to pass on the right, while cars are turning right. You are absolutely correct, but so many people don’t know the rules well enough to even realize they’re breaking them.

Cyclists also willfully break traffic rules in SF with alarming regularity. Stop signs are generally regarded as ornamental, and even lightly traveled red lights. I am reminded of this every time my seven year-old cycling companion asks why such and such a person hasn't followed the rules when they blow past us. Both classes of vehicles have to be diligent.

In Idaho it is perfectly legal for bicycles to treat Stop signs as yields, and Red lights as stop signs.

It was attempted to get a similar law passed in CA: AB 1103.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler...

Many cyclists would agree that a rolling stop allows them to get through, when there is no traffic, the intersection much faster and more safely due to the dangers of an intersection. I'm not arguing for blowing through at top-speed, and they must stop when pedestrians are in a cross-walk.

Just because it's the law, doesn't mean it's correct.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#224

Post by adrianN »

rorykoehler wrote: post #177
kazen44 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is suchs a strange concept to me as a dutchman. Americans seem to think biking is mainly a sport instead of a mode of transportation. Most dutch people ride on bicycles which are either A) in a constant semi-broken state (students are notorious for this) or B) riding a luxery city bike (usually high income families).

You only have to drive across the border to Germany to find full-kit alpine hikers (poles and all) walking their leisurely stroll in their local park. This reflects essentially the same attitude as what the GP described.

Maybe it's different in west Germany, but I've never seen anyone wearing hiking gear in a park.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#225

Post by sAbakumoff »

Rainymood wrote: post #2

As a Dutch person I am pleasantly surprised by this article, it gets basically everything right. One thing though is that our geography works well with biking. I visited the US recently and you can drive for 30 minutes in a car and you are still in LA, if you drive for 30 minutes in the Netherlands you're in a completely different city. Everything is just closer and hence more bike-able. As a dutch person I would abs…

> As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's simply too dangerous.

well, while it's very safe to ride a bike here in Netherlands, sh*t still happens regularly and crazy drivers are there. Past year I had this accident : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUY7psClcbQ

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#226

Post by skrebbel »

lucb1e wrote: post #213
ebikelaw wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something nobody should ever do, because the danger of being strangled is significant. https://helmets.org/playgrou.htm

That URL certainly looks like it didn't make it. For a minute I thought you managed to cut out a part somewhere in the middle but the link works!

It's a DOS 8.3 filename :-)

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#227

Post by KozmoNau7 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #183
Scott_Sanderson wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But less than 1/10th as bad as cars, no?

Maybe. I'd rather breathe pedal bicycle air than internal combustion exhaust fumes, for sure. And I'd rather pay bike prices than car prices, sure. But, designing for not-cars feels like a choice of designing for humans or designing for bikes, not both. If things are close enough for walking then most people don't need bikes. If there's dense, regular, clean, affordable public transport, you can't really bring one bi…

Bicycle and pedestrian traffic mesh rather well with each other, and both mesh well with public transit. I submit Copenhagen as an example, you should come visit sometime :-)

The problem with car traffic is that it only really meshes well with car traffic. Making it mesh with public transit requires a lot of parking, and cars take up way too much space on the streets compared to bikes, the density is way too low for the amount of people moved.

Modern commuter bikes are simple, reliable and low maintenance, usually with hub gears and sometimes with belt drives that don't need lubrication. Even chains can be kept running for years and years with no maintenance at all. And you can absolutely bike in your normal clothes, people do it every single day here, summer or winter.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#228

Post by sAbakumoff »

cr1895 wrote: post #13

It wasn’t always this way. There’s an interesting clip from a documentary in 1972 about the neighborhood De Pijp in Amsterdam, when it was still very much a car-centric city. At the time children in the area protested how dangerous the streets had become and how they lacked safe areas to play. https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/amsterdam-chil... Compared to the situation now, it’s vastly improved. Fortunat…

Also, here is a set of photos that show how Amsterdam changed http://sustainableamsterdam.com/2015/12/livable-cities-campa...

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#229

Post by kqr »

tlb wrote: post #33

Another way in which biking in (some parts of) the US isn't casual: pretty much every biker you see in Silicon Valley has bike shorts, a jersey advertising a race or energy drink, clip-in shoes and is riding at VO₂ max. I feel out of place tooling around in street clothes.

Try tooling around on an old bike in street clothes – but at VO₂ max. Easy way to make the bike short-race jersey-energy drink-clipin shoes feel very out of place...

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#230

Post by Vinnl »

analog31 wrote: post #200
Rainymood wrote: post #2

As a Dutch person I am pleasantly surprised by this article, it gets basically everything right. One thing though is that our geography works well with biking. I visited the US recently and you can drive for 30 minutes in a car and you are still in LA, if you drive for 30 minutes in the Netherlands you're in a completely different city. Everything is just closer and hence more bike-able. As a dutch person I would abs…

>>> As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's simply too dangerous. A lot of Americans also think it's too dangerous. It's an obstacle to getting more people on bikes. When people at my workplace see me with my bike, or find out that I'm a cyclist, they beg me to be careful, promise to wear a helmet, and so forth. I have friends who are avid cyclists, but who limit their riding to d…

> A lot of Americans also think it's too dangerous. It's an obstacle to getting more people on bikes.

Well, in the Netherlands it was supposedly the reason for demands for safer infrastructure, which in turn led to people starting to cycle more.

> Google Maps gives different routes for bikes and cars.

It does the same in the Netherlands, but I guess that's for a different reason: often roads are one-way only for cars, and bidirectional for cyclists.

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