Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 380 posts

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#61

Post by TulliusCicero »

chrisper wrote: post #24
Theodores wrote: post #7

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?

Oh no, not snow!

> Not many cities can boast 27 percent of cyclists continue using their bikes several times a week all year-round, especially not in cities with eight and half months of winter or an average of 256 days of thermal winter and snow. Oulu, Finland (population 191.000), however, is no ordinary town. It is a town where 98 percent of the cycling network is maintained all winter and all routes have street lighting.

https://wintercyclingblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/oulu-finl...

With the right infrastructure and services, snow is no obstacle.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#62

Post by scardine »

jmcphers wrote: post #8

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…

I live in Brazil and commute by bicycle daily, 10.5 km each way (6.5 miles, mostly cycleways).

Not without problems however: the air polution in Sao Paulo recommends against physical activities, the cycleways are of very questionable quality and the Pinheiros river stinks as hell.

I can spot some capybaras (they are like giant guinea pigs) in the morning, have to dodge their excrement in the cycleway (they shit like a horse, no kidding).

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#63

Post by mrob »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #33
kps wrote: post #2

It's mild and flat.

It's also windy and rainy. 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.

I think non-cyclists underestimate how much headwinds slow you down. Wind resistance is proportional to the square of (your velocity + headwind). It's a major factor in cycling speed, which is why velomobiles can be so much faster than normal bicycles. A strong headwind feels like riding up a hill, and flat terrain typically has stronger winds.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#64

Post by TulliusCicero »

giobox wrote: post #58
TulliusCicero wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you don't live in a bike friendly country.

None of these costs have anything to do with location. It was the same when I lived in Copenhagen - arguably doesn't get bike friendlier than that!

In general, the better the infrastructure is, the easier it is to get away with a crappy, crappily maintained bike. And the less you need bike-specific clothing, too.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#65

Post by giobox »

victornomad wrote: post #59
giobox wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While cycling is obviously much, much cheaper than a car, I'd argue its a myth to say it's 'free'. Start commuting a _reasonable_ distance regularly by bike and you are going to incur running costs, as well as often not insignificant investment in essential accessories you might need depending on where you live - clothing, panniers, lights, helmets, locks... There's a fair amount of things on a bike that, like many o…

I bougth a second hand bike for 40eur 5 years ago, and I only had to fix the wheel once (5 eur). Never had to buy clothes, special locks or anything fancy... I use it daily...

I think for most cities, locks and lights are unavoidable costs, if you want to stay safe and still have your bike be where you left it... Some would argue a helmet should be too, but experienced cyclists know better than to open that debate up!

Unless you live somewhere with a great climate, foul weather clothing inevitably ends up needing bought if you intend to commute all year round by bike.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#66

Post by eeZah7Ux »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #41
Fricken wrote: post #15

Bicycles are an amazing transportation tool. Why are they so unpopular everywhere else?

Bike infrastructure in most countries is generally very bad compared to car infrastructure, or even walking infrastructure. This leads to not many people cycling, which gives you a chicken and egg problem: few cyclists mean little political support for biking. For cars in the US it's the opposite: even when major cities get big enough to where cars clearly aren't scaling well anymore, cities are often reluctant to re…

No. The chicken and egg problem existed when cars where the new thing and roads where designed for people on feet, bikes, cable cars, trams and horses.

Then car companies did a lot of lobbying.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#67

Post by ashark »

bradlys wrote: post #37
ricardobeat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider a long trip? In my case I cycle 6.8km each way everyday, which is probably slightly above the average.

Anything longer than 30 minutes each way is probably beyond what many people would like to spend commuting. So, that's about 4-7 miles (depending on variety of conditions). Which, I gotta say, is not very far for most Americans. Most of us commute around 15 miles each way.

> Most of us commute around 15 miles each way.

The really crappy part is how much of that 15 miles is caused by car infrastructure. Imagine how much closer one might be to work if the distance were compressed, removing about 80% of all street and highway width, the entirety of all road buffer zones (highways often have several times as much of this as they have actual road), front yards (= mostly to keep house back from busy road and allow space for cars on driveway), parking lots (often several times as large as the place they're meant to serve), and so on. I'd be surprised if such compression didn't shave about half the distance off.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#68

Post by ack »

hk__2 wrote: post #51
htaunay wrote: post #9

Why wouldn't it be? It's faster than the tram; a bike is cheap and cycling is free; its way easier to park than a car; its healthy; there are cycle paths everywhere (inside and between cities); and everyone else does it, so you usually have company.

> its way easier to park than a car On the other hand it’s also easier to get a bike stolen than a car.

Anecdotal: I've had more cars than bikes stolen (6 cars, two bikes if you include my daughter's).

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#69

Post by maxerickson »

ricardobeat wrote: post #29
joeyo wrote: post #6

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.

I felt pretty unsafe when a van driver decided to share the bike path with me to make an illegal pass. I moved off the path over into the grass median and narrowly avoided getting hit head on.

Middle of the afternoon in a quiet village in the Netherlands. The cycling on the rest of the trip was pretty good though.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#70

Post by adrianN »

mc32 wrote: post #13

Southeast Asia is heavy on bikes, and used to be more so than now, and they didn't have infrastructure or culture --it was need. Japan is heavy into bikes too, and there aren't dedicated lanes, not that I'd object, but it's not necessary to make it popular. The one thing in Japan, where accidents aren't as regular as in southeast Asia, is that both bikes and cars obey traffic signals --I think that helps a lot. Also…

In Japan you either have very wide roads where the lanes a wide enough that a bicycle and a typical (=small) Japanese car fit reasonably well, or you have narrow side streets where cyclists can just take the whole road without annoying anyone. It's a very good system imho.
Post reply on HN