Amsterdam is a city where cycling is embraced beyond anything I have ever seen. Bikes outnumber cars, and are used by what seems like everyone, for any and all journeys, in any weather. For much of the time we were there it was raining, but that didn’t seem to reduce the flow of bikes like it does in London. The bikes aren’t sporty or even particularly well looked after in the main, but they are locked to each other and to every available space along every road in the city centre. Bikes are a part of life rather than a hobby.
The infrastructure of the city not just allows for bikes, but actively works for them. I’m not talking about the extensive bike lanes, bikes allowed to travel the “wrong way” up many streets, and separate signals, although they all help, but the smaller touches that make it easy to use a bike everyday. For example, flights of steps have rails fitted to help get a bike up or down,
and dotted around the city centre are free underground, secure, and staffed bike parks.
For big city events extra bike parking is provided in a way that makes the nod towards something similar that London sometimes makes look ridiculous.
All in all, the attitude towards riding a bike is entirely different. Rather than seeing cyclists as a special group, Amsterdam expects everyone to ride and so caters for them accordingly. It all adds together to make the city more pleasant and attractive and there are lessons for the rest of the world to learn.
Perhaps the only odd thing in the set-up is that mopeds are allowed to share the bike lanes. I find this odd, but it seems to work, and bicycles outnumber the scooters easily unlike they might here. Bearing in mind the speed that the people of Amsterdam cruise along at on bikes anyway and the weight of the Dutch bikes, it probably makes things fairly even.
We’ll be bringing you more bike related stuff from Amsterdam here through this week.
A
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