On the final day of the heat wave, we met again with Meredith, who is studying to get her PhD in Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She is originally from the states, but is specifically interested in cycling and has worked a bit in Amsterdam to utilize public space to it fullest. We started by going on a bike tour with Meredith who showed us around some streets that she helped become more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. There was one specific intersection in which the banana lane was introduced to create more space for turning cyclists. In the same intersection, the French fry crosswalk was created to mirror the way pedestrians cross the street. They observed that people crossing were moving in a diagonal direction across the street, so they made the crosswalk move diagonally. These are the sorts of infrastructure designs that make total sense, but can be completely overlooked by city planners.
After biking around, we congregated in a classroom at the University of Amsterdam to discuss our experiences on the scavenger hunt the day before. We talked in small groups and large to learn from our classmates about their experiences with the Dutch. I found that the best examples of what cycling and life is like in the Netherlands always came from good stories. This is the basis for creating change and selling it to the people that need to here it. “Stories sell policy” as Meredith put it. It doesn’t particularly matter what you’re selling, but if you have a good story for it then people are going to want it. I get goosebumps from stories that are meaningful. The closer it hits to home, the more likely people will be motivated to create real change.
Only in the United States, people in power are less motivated to create real change. Stories help, but we need something even more to find compromise and the willpower to create policy that works. Just two days ago, in the span of 24 hours, there were two mass shootings in the states of Texas and Ohio, murdering 30 people in total. It was the 250th and 251st mass shooting in the states in 2019 alone. How is it possible that nothing remains to be done about gun violence in America? The stories of the family and friends that lost someone in mass shootings remain to not be enough.
I knew this going in to the trip, but it continues to put me in a state of awe about just how behind the United States is. This trip started with the infrastructure being extremely car oriented and our roads filled with congestion, pollution, and unhappy people. But, are you kidding me with some of this other stuff that the U.S. has to figure out first? Healthcare? Education? Gun control? Abortion? Immigrants in cages at the border? Literally any sort of climate policy? The wage gap? Police brutality? The list goes on. People are living in their own bubbles in the states and my Eugene bubble is included.
To take things in a different direction entirely, we were given a Red Light District tour in the afternoon. This was an extremely valuable tour to understand why the Red Light exists and how women are brought into prostitution. There are lots of immigrants that come to Amsterdam to make a better life for their children. It is free to get a permit, but they pay a company to have a room for a few hours, making their money back and much more from both locals and tourists. It is a huge tourist attraction and if Amsterdam ever wanted to get rid of it (which they have tried), there would be riots. It is a unique place with loads of history and it was so much more interesting to learn about it from someone rather than just wandering around. Another good day in Amsterdam came to an end later that night as we survived the last of the heat wave.
