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Grade separated bike lanes.
Most of them have no grade, and the ones that do are very low height. The safety feeling actually comes from sharing spaces, and not from being shielded - a result of road design, parking spaces and general city/street layout.
One thing the article doesn't mention is how long the bicycle trips are. Surely the relative compactness of their cities are a major contributing factor! I live in America and commute on my bicycle almost every day. For me the biggest obstacle isn't the hills (which there are plenty of) or even sharing the road with cars (which is admittedly extremely unpleasant) but the fact that in the quasi-suburban area in which…
What do you consider a long trip? In my case I cycle 6.8km each way everyday, which is probably slightly above the average.
I have what I consider a fairly easy bicycle commute which is double that.
It's mild and flat.
The South Bay area where I grew up has incredibly good geography/weather for biking, and yet bike rates are an order of magnitude below Dutch cities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what would be the kind of distance you're talking about? When growing up in the Netherlands it was common for kids from my town to cycle 20 km every day going to school.
That's an hour each way at a fairly decent clip on a bike[1]. In my book that's a long commute. [1] At roughly the speed I can bike in moderate to cool temps without getting excessively sweaty.
From having completed the London to Brighton bike ride at the weekend I have a good idea of what really makes the difference and that is having roads closed to motor vehicles. The London to Brighton route is closed to traffic and some of the rural stretches are as wide as a Dutch bike path. Up until now I have believed sharing the roads is how to go but now I know that cycling infrastructure is needed. It is the expe…
How are you going to get to places in heavy rain or snow?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of them have no grade, and the ones that do are very low height. The safety feeling actually comes from sharing spaces, and not from being shielded - a result of road design, parking spaces and general city/street layout.
Sharing spaces works fine when speeds are low and streets are relatively narrow. It's still important to have physical separation for arterials, though.
One thing the article doesn't mention is how long the bicycle trips are. Surely the relative compactness of their cities are a major contributing factor! I live in America and commute on my bicycle almost every day. For me the biggest obstacle isn't the hills (which there are plenty of) or even sharing the road with cars (which is admittedly extremely unpleasant) but the fact that in the quasi-suburban area in which…
What do you consider a long trip? In my case I cycle 6.8km each way everyday, which is probably slightly above the average.
One thing the article doesn't mention is how long the bicycle trips are. Surely the relative compactness of their cities are a major contributing factor! I live in America and commute on my bicycle almost every day. For me the biggest obstacle isn't the hills (which there are plenty of) or even sharing the road with cars (which is admittedly extremely unpleasant) but the fact that in the quasi-suburban area in which…
> Few Dutch people don lycra to get out on their bike, preferring to ride to work, the shops or the pub in whatever clothes they think appropriate for their final destination.
> Of course, the cycle paths lend themselves to sauntering along in summer dresses in a way a death-defying, white-knuckle ride in rush-hour traffic does not. It is also partly because of this that people don't need showers at work to be able to commute by bike - it's a no-sweat experience.
So, reading with some context clues, the answer is "not long enough to work up a sweat."
One thing the article doesn't mention is how long the bicycle trips are. Surely the relative compactness of their cities are a major contributing factor! I live in America and commute on my bicycle almost every day. For me the biggest obstacle isn't the hills (which there are plenty of) or even sharing the road with cars (which is admittedly extremely unpleasant) but the fact that in the quasi-suburban area in which…
One thing the article doesn't mention is how long the bicycle trips are. Surely the relative compactness of their cities are a major contributing factor! I live in America and commute on my bicycle almost every day. For me the biggest obstacle isn't the hills (which there are plenty of) or even sharing the road with cars (which is admittedly extremely unpleasant) but the fact that in the quasi-suburban area in which…
> The famously flat Dutch terrain, combined with densely-populated areas, mean that most journeys are of short duration and not too difficult to complete.
The problem in the US is, in no small part, due to zoning. I've been making my way through this:
http://amzn.to/2tkSbsH - "Zoned in the USA"
And the detailed look at how other countries do things is interesting - they're certainly no "libertopia", but far more typologies of housing are allowed, as well as commercial uses in primarily residential areas.
It's worth a look for those who are deeply interested in the topic.
I actually have quite a collection of articles about this stuff, as it's been one of my main interests lately: