http://citiwire.net/post/2298/
Cycling to Success: Lessons from the Dutch
Jay Walljasper / Sep 23 2010
For Release Sunday, September 26, 2010
Citiwire.net
Jay WalljasperI joined a team of latter-day explorers in the
Netherlands this month on a quest to discover what American
communities can learn from the Dutch about transforming bicycling in
the United States from the largely recreational pastime it is today to
an integral part of our transportation system.
Patrick Seidler, vice-chairman of the Bikes Belong Foundation, sponsor
of this fact-finding mission for transportation officials from the San
Francisco Bay Area, announced we were in search of the "27 percent
solution" - the health, environmental, economic and community
benefits gained in a nation where more than a quarter of all daily
trips are made on bicycle.
Of course, the bicycle enjoys certain advantages in the Netherlands,
notably a flat landscape and a long cycling tradition.
But the idea of learning from the success of the Dutch is not
far-fetched. The Netherlands resembles the United States as a
prosperous, technologically advanced nation where a huge share of the
population owns automobiles. But they don't drive their cars each
and every time they leave home - thanks to common sense
transportation policies where biking and transit are promoted as an
attractive alternative.
Our trip started in Utrecht, where our group marveled at the parade of
bicyclists swooshing past on bikeways separated from the streets.
Immediately, we were asking each other: This raised the immediate
question among for us: Why is biking a way of life in the Netherlands
and only a tiny portion of the transportation picture in U.S.?
We uncovered a big piece of the answer that afternoon at a suburban
primary school, where Principal Peter Kooy told us that 95 percent of
older students - kids in the 10-12 age range - bike to school at
least some of the time. Compare that to the 15 percent who either walk
or bike to school in the United States, down, alarmingly, from 50
percent in 1970, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to
School program.
That statistic alone helps explain the childhood obesity epidemic in
the U.S., and also why so few adult Americans today ride a bike to
work or to do errands - a mere one percent of daily trips.
The success of cycling in the Netherlands can be attributed to what
happens in school. A municipal program in Utrecht sends special
teachers into the schools to conduct bike classes, and students go to
Trafficgarden, a miniature city complete city with roads, sidewalks
and busy intersections where students hone their pedestrian, biking
and driving skills (in non-motorized pedal cars).
These kinds of programs would make a huge difference in the United
States, where 60 percent of people tell pollsters they would like to
bike regularly if they felt safer - but only eight percent actually
do.
A commitment to biking is not uniquely imprinted in the Dutch DNA. It
is the result of a conscious push that began in the 1970s. As Hillie
Talens of C.R.O.W. (a transportation organization focusing on
infrastructure and public space) reminded us, it took the Dutch 35
years to construct the ambitious bicycle system we see today. In the
mid-1970s biking was at a low point in the country and declining fast.
Even Amsterdam turned to an American for a plan to rip an expressway
through its beautiful central city. But the oil crises of that time
convinced the country that they needed to lessen their dependence on
imported oil.
The Dutch gradually turned things around by embracing a different
vision for their cities. While the country's wealth, population and
levels of car ownership have continued to grow through the decades,
the share of trips made by cars has not.
We could accomplish something similar in the United States, by
enacting new plans to make urban cycling safer, easier - and
absolutely mainstream. The morning and evening rush hour of cyclists
in the Netherlands are not all the young, white, male ultra-fit
athletes in spandex we are accustomed to seeing in the U.S. People of
all ages and income levels use bicycles for everyday transportation,
with more women biking than men.
"It's one thing to read statistics about the Dutch biking,"
observed David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors. "It's another thing to see it happening; not just for
hard-core bicyclists but as an everyday way of life for the majority
of citizens. There is actually a road map of do-able public policies
we can adopt to get us where the Dutch are today."
Ed Reiskin, San Francisco's Director of Public Works, added, "They
don't just think about bikes. Every presentation we heard tied
things together - public transit, parking, cars, streets. The Dutch
sense that people are going to do what's easiest. If we think about
how to improve the quality of biking, more people will bike."
Bicycling is popular not only in the charming, old-fashioned centers
of Dutch cities, but in newly built suburban areas as well. We caught
a glimpse of a hopeful future for the world's cities on Java Island,
a cluster of neighborhoods constructed over the past 10 years in what
was once the Amsterdam's harbor. Motorized traffic is shunted to the
side of each cluster of apartment buildings in underground parking
garages, while pedestrians and bicyclists have free reign of the
courtyards that link people's homes.
You feel a liberating sense of ease in these new neighborhoods. I've
never seen kids - even really young ones - who look so completely
comfortable running around. We passed two sets of young girls staging
tea parties, one of them on a blanket just inches from the joint
biking/walking trail that served as the neighborhood's main
street.
Amsterdam city council member Fjodor Molenaar, who met up with us on
Java Island, explained that the Dutch call this an "Auto Luw"
development, which translates as "car light" or "car sparse,"
adding that this planning idea is now the official policy of the
city.
Jay Walljasper, author of The Great Neighborhood Book and All That We
Share: A Field Guide to the Commons (due in January), is an associate
of the Citistates Group, and co-editor of OnTheCommons.org. His
website: JayWalljasper.com.
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