Day nineteen. The Heat is ON. Before I even start talking about my day, you all need to know how hot it is. The poor Dutch have not experienced this heat before, ever. It is so warm that they have to spray water on the metal bridges to keep them structurally stable. Already a lot of cafes and shops are putting up signs saying they will be closed Thursday and Friday the hottest of the days. So on that note, I will share with you about my day.
The group meet with Marjolein de Lange, a leader in Fiersterbond, the local bicycle union of Amsterdam. She shared with us the history of how Amsterdam has gotten to where it is today in bike infrastructure and followed with a bike tour of the newly designed streets. Every city we have encountered has had an event that caused a realization into switching over to more bike-friendly street design. These events could be the oil embargo in the 1970s, the death of children riding their bike to school, the overcrowding of cars on the streets and public squares. Well, all these things happened in Amsterdam, as well as the proposed expansion of the national highway system. This is where the Fiersterbond came in and started talking to city officials about looking at bottleneck areas for cyclists. These bottleneck areas were places where it was too narrow for bikes and cars at the same time, the Fiersterbond was simply asking for equal access to the intersection. Once the bottlenecks were fixed and traffic was moving, the city officials started working more with the Fiersterbond, realizing the benefits of cycling, moving then to the redesign of small connector streets to the larger streets. We then hopped on our bikes to observe the changes that were made. Some of the changes were geared toward street parking, removal of travel lanes, adding protected bikeways, or one-way streets. After the tour, we stopped at a lake to go for a swim. Normally, I wouldn’t jump into water that is brown but because of the heat and the bike ride, I felt it wouldn’t hurt. Later today we will be meeting with a group of professionals some my age and others older about their experiences of living in the Netherlands. It will be good to hear how they have adapted.
-Chip
