Better Late Than Never: “It’s never too late to be a bike city”
Though I am not a city cyclist, everything about biking in urban areas fascinates me a lot.
As urbanization has developed for many decades, cities no matter where they are need modern mobility solutions, and moving around on two wheels seems like the way out of the transportation puzzle.
Copenhagenize Design Company’s Index of the most bike-friendly cities was released in 2015, which provides a measurement to rank cities by its friendliness to bicycle riders. Various factors have been involved in methodology of this index, including Bicycle Infrastructure, Bike Share Program, Modal Share For Bicycles, Traffic Calming and so on. And I group those cities by nation and European cities have dominated the Top20 list with no doubt.
France(4): Strasbourg, Nantes, Bordeaux, Paris
Holland(3): Amsterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven
Spain(2): Seville, Barcelona
Germany(2): Berlin, Hamburg
Denmark(1): Copenhagen
Sweden(1): Malmö
Belgium(1):Antwerp
Slovenia(1): Ljubljana
Argentina(1): Buenos Aires
Irland(1): Dublin
Austria(1): Vienna
United States(1): Minneapolis
Canada(1): Montreal
With the second largest number of cities in Top20, Holland is well-known for its bike culture. In fact, Besides those three mentioned in the list, cities like Hague and Rotterdam are also considered as good examples as bike-friendly cities since long time ago. It reminds me of an article published in 2010, introducing a five-day bike exploration in this bike kingdom. The author from United States who intended to discover what American communities can learn from the Dutch about transforming bicycling in the U.S, concluded that
“A commitment to biking is not uniquely imprinted in the Dutch DNA. It is the result of a conscious push to promote biking.” — Jay Walljasper [4]
For the initial part of bike promotion, Dutch Cities focus on starting bike education earlier. For example, Utrecht City administration sends bike teachers to primary schools conducting bike classes weekly. The courses include safe-ride education which help kids bike and walk more safely, also ensure them to become safer drivers who will look out for pedestrians and bicyclists in the future. The result of this policy is remarkable which 95 percent of older students, in the 10 to 12 age range, bike to school at least some of the weekdays.
When it comes to safety of city riders, policy-makers in Holland outline the strategy that separate bike paths as much as possible from streets used by other motor vehicles, which in some cases means designating certain streets as bike boulevards where two wheelers gain priority over automobiles. Though it sacrifices the speed of movement especially for car drivers, it gains popularity by most of the citizen. In terms of safety of bikes, Installing more bike racks or special bikes sheds and building parking facilities in the basements of new complex have been included in municipal long-run plan of bike promotion in cities like Hague[5][6].
Bike promotion doesn’t mean that cities give up constructions of other transportation forms. Cities transportation planners still pay attention to constructing a robust public transit system which supplements the biking infrastructure. From my own experience, my friend and I had a one-day Bike&Train trip from Heidelberg to Strasbourg this summer. During the journey we enjoyed the city tours on bike in Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden and Strasbourg, especially riding across Rhine River, the border of Germany and France, also benefited from the point-to-point convenience of the trains in other parts of the journey with the speed of transit. Although It’s not convincing since my story took place in a multiple city area, I think the convenience and pleasure I experienced could be brought to a single city.
“We saw a bold new vision of urban life where people matter more than motor vehicles.” — Jay Walljasper [4]
Better late than never. The valuable Dutch experience embodies that based on concrete plan to make urban cycling safer, easier, and more convenient, city administrations in other parts of the world can enact policy to make city biking mainstream. And due to the seriousness of issues on traffic jams and air pollutions in major cities, why not be bike-friendly from now on?
“It’s never too late to be a bike city”
Reference:
[1]“Bicycle Dutch: All about cycling in the Netherlands”
[2]“The 20 Most Bike-Friendly Cities on the Planet”, Mikael Colville-Andersen, COPENHAGENIZE DESIGN CO.
[3]“The Criteria For The COPENHAGENIZE Index”, COPENHAGENIZE DESIGN CO.
[4]“How to Make Biking Mainstream: Lessons from the Dutch”, Jay Walljasper
[5]“Bike parking The Hague Central Station”, Verita
[6]“Parking your bicycle in The Hague”, Holland-Cycling
