Sustainable Bike Transportation in Europe

I flew home. Thank you for an amazing trip!

This morning I finished up my final presentation before joining the group to enjoy everyone’s work and final presentations.

5 Takeaways:

1. People bike because it is easy and efficient. To encourage people to bike we must build appropriate, direct infrastructure.
   1. The bigger the street, the better the bike infrastructure must be.
   2. Biking must be the fastest way to get from point A to point B.
2. Framing is important – we are not taking away from people by adding bike infrastructure but rather are adding another mode option.
3. People in the cities we visited do not associate their identity with biking, and the current cyclist identity in Portland, for example, is exclusionary. We must extricate biking from cycling identity and reframe the bike as a tool for travel.
4. Design may reflect and refine behavior. Good design does not need extensive signage or enforcement.
5. Density is one critical component to the success of the bike networks we experienced, especially when considering the decrease in biking over 7km that Ronald explained. While growing populations in US cities will force density, we must also develop a robust and integrated transit and bike network.

I visited the Rijksmuseum which was … fairly unremarkable but got me thinking about museums. If I remember correctly from Art History classes, there are basically two camps in thinking about museums: some believe in global museums that house art from all over the world, and others believe art should stay where it is “from.” I’ve thought of this before in the context of repatriation (when will the British Museum finally give the Elgin marbles back to the Acropolis Museum?), but visiting the Rijksmuseum, I was disappointed by the limited collection of work by the Dutch Masters. Reflecting on the experience after, I remembered how much of Van Gough and Picasso’s work is scattered around the world and not in their respective dedicated museums. With artists who have a large body of work, it is disappointing to not be able to see their progression in relative completion. While I believe there are certainly exceptions (traveling exhibits, exhibits curated around a theme), I think it is very powerful to be able to view the (relatively) complete body of an artists work.

We grabbed a beer at the Oedipus brewery before joining the group for a delightful canal tour – thank you!

After grabbing breakfast out, I worked on my final project briefly before heading out to explore on my own. I headed to Foodhallen and stumbled upon a maker’s fair, and biked around popping into shops and briefly visited the Conservatorium Hotel, which Galen had recommended. I felt very listless throughout the day until we met up with the group in the evening for a tour of the Anne Frank house.

The tour was hard, as always, and it was my first time going through a Holocaust-related museum in a group with non-Jewish people. It felt very intimate to share the experience.

We met up with Meredith again today, first heading out on a bike tour. In the historic center of the city, she explained that there is less infrastructure but high density and shared space that acts as intensive traffic calming.

One of the main aspects of her tour was showing us examples of intersections that were changed to reflect how people use the space and provide logical guidance. At this intersection, traffic lights were turned off for two weeks as a pilot project, which has now turned into a permanent change. In the absence of lights, there are markers on the pavement that indicate who has priority, and who must yield. This change allows for more efficient travel through the intersection, especially for people on bikes. 

The pilot for the above project was conducted in partnership with a number of other pilots throughout the city, the idea being that the media would get all of their outrage and criticism out at once. Another pilot involved restricting car use to create a “fietstraat” or bicycle street – biking volume increase 37% overnight. Desireline studies and other research are necessary for developing these plans, and cycling had reached such high levels that these were feasible solutions.

Meredith also explained the concept of “flow theory” in relation to biking in Amsterdam. Dutch riders want biking to be challenging enough to create a sense of flow, and may use stimuli like their phones to achieve that. 

Ultimately, we must develop a long-term vision – redesigning streets and cities created for people rather than cars, and giving people choices around mobility. 

In the evening, we headed out on a tour of the Red Light District. While our tour guide (as part of his performance) played into some stereotypes I could have done without, he was extremely knowledgeable about the area and very much respects sex workers. I was surprised to learn that, of 9,000 sex workers in Amsterdam, only 1,000 work in windows in the Red Light District. Because 8,000 women are working in hotels or with escort services, it is very difficult to monitor for trafficking or other misconduct. The tour also made me realize an internal conflict that I hold – I respect women’s agency to work in the sex industry, but I think that men soliciting sex is reflective objectification and control. I don’t know how to reconcile this for myself, but it is a good opportunity to consider these topics

This morning, we met with Meredith Glaser, a PhD candidate developing educational programs for visiting student groups, among other research. She tasked us with completing a scavenger hunt that brought us to the post-war, pre-war, and city center of Amsterdam.

The post-war area is outside of the ring road and accessible by transit, car, or bike. Tenley and I took the metro and tram to Osdorp to observe the area and interview some people at a grocery store. We were immediely struck by the scale of the streets, which were much wider and with longer blocks than areas within the city. The streets seemed to be scaled for cars rather than other modes. While there is infrastructure for walking, the long blocks make it less appealing.

We took an Uber from Osdorp (as part of the scavenger hunt), back to our hotel. I was surprised by how easy it was to drive into the city, and by the size of the roads we took. The cyclists felt very separate except for one turn across a bike lane, when the driver waited patiently before crossing the track. We visited a local playground and talked to parents about their preferred mode (biking, walking, and transit), which seem to largely be influenced by their children’s needs and the length of the trip. The parents we spoke with prioritize living in the city for the ethnic and cultural diversity.

We explored the city center last, finding refuge in the shade of the shared space behind the Central Station. While this area used to be occupied by cars (which have since been moved below ground), there is now dedicated space for bikes, mopeds, and pedestrians, as well as a shared space where the different modes must negotiate space. Observing for 10 minutes went by quickly, as I saw people skillfully flow around obstacles (pedestrians, tourists, etc.) while also maintaining their line and speed.

Beat from the long day and the heat, we headed back to the hotel to wrap up our work. I grabbed dinner at a great Indonesian restaurant before seeking out a hotel with air conditioning to get through the next couple nights.

This morning, Marjolein de Lange, a mobility consultant for cycling, walking, and road safety, and a campaigner at Fietsersbond (the cycling union in Amsterdam), taught us about the history of transportation in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is about 219 km^2 and has 4,852 inhabitants per km^2. Amsterdam initially encountered challenges because of the necessary separations between living spaces and industrial spaces where people worked. While there was an early biking plan illustrating the time to reach the city center, the traffic planning through much of the 20th century, like many places, focused on making more space for cars.

While car ownership grew with post-war prosperity, the oil crisis, and traffic violence sparked people to start thinking differently. 

Cycling improves space, flow, and efficiency. While 30 cars can get through a traffic light in 60 seconds, 50 bikes can get through in 15 seconds. Cycling is healthy for people and the city; it is low tech, and offers low cost mobility. Cycling also helps social safety because people are more likely to help others if they are on a bike than in their car. 

How to you precipitate this shift? You make cycling safe for all, make it easy, and make it fast. Start with orgware (getting planners on the same page, organization), hardware (infrastructure), and software (people, education, skills).

The city council really defines the progress here, but despite right or left leaning, the council generally supports biking. This does differ per district, though, and wealthy areas are slow to adopt and thus have many problematic streets. 

Amsterdam funds roadwork with money from car parking. Paid parking brings in money, reduces cars, and make space. Parking policy is space policy.

When people got too hot and sleepy to continue to focus, we went out on a bike tour. We saw areas with continuous and raised sidewalks and cycle tracks, which not only reduce the speed for cars turning onto the road, but also indicate that cyclists and pedestrians have priority. We also learned about the recent ban on scooters in the bike lane (with some exceptions), and that for the first eight weeks, the policy was not enforced but used as an opportunity to inform. 

We continued our ride through different neighborhoods and finished at a lake south of the city. I split off, grabbing a salad and taking it to Vondelpark. I joined up again for a happy hour with some local young professionals – it was interesting to hear about their projects and perspective on implementing improvements in the US. Surprising to me is how central cars are – in their view, when you remove cars you have a ton of space to work with, but you have to account for where those cars will go.

We grabbed dinner at a tasty Indian restaurant, then picked up some wine and enjoyed it in the park with many other people looking for a cool spot.

Today we rode our bikes from Utrecht to Amsterdam! We passed through small towns and rural areas, and had a long stretch along a main canal. Passing through a suburb of the city, we enjoyed a dedicated cycle track along a large road with 2-3 lanes for cars in each direction. Motorbikes were allowed in the bike lane in this area, but not in Amsterdam. 

For dinner, we had a few beers and Falafel at Tap Zuid before retreating to our hot room to try to sleep.

On our last day in Utrecht, I took a mellow morning to catch up on writing before returning my bike and heading out for a run. It was my first time really traveling on foot in Utrecht, so it was cool to run through pedestrian-only parks, and try running in the bike lanes (no one minded! They just rode around me!).

We reflected with Ronald, discussing topics like context-sensitive design, cars as guests on the road, uniform infrastructure, and productive mistakes. One of the concepts that is really sticking with me is that if you design for the behavior you want, you really don’t have to tell people the rules. It was a great opportunity to hear what other people are thinking, and what’s sticking out to them.

This morning, Ronald and his wife Bea graciously hosted us for some treats before we set out on our ride. Taking a roundabout way out of town, we followed bike paths over an enormous highway, along a large canal, and into the countryside. A portion of our trip was on a road that had two permeable bike lanes and one lane for car traffic, but allows two-way travel for all vehicles. To me, this signifies that all vehicles are welcome on the road, but that we must once again slow down and negotiate space. It’s a lovely road to ride, so can you really fault the other modes for enjoying the space?

We took a long break, swimming and relaxing, before hopping on our bikes and heading to Houten. The bike path brought us through beautiful pastures and a small town celebrating their 50th birthday. Along the way, Catherine asked me which of the cities (Copenhagen, Malmö, or Utrecht) I could see myself living in. While there is so much I love about Copenhagen, I really like the size of Utrecht, the flow and prioritization of biking, and the energy of the city. 

We arrived in Houten, a city planned around bike use. While you can access houses and penetrate parts of the city with a car, the city is designed for bikes. In areas that cars are allowed, cars are still reminded that they are guests, while bikes are the permanent residents. Houten has a number of different building styles, which, for me, prevents it from feeling too Stepford-like. Houten has two city centers, and houses 50,000 people. There is no social or subsidized housing, though, so residents do come from a fairly similar economic status. Houten has two train stations that allow for easy commuting, as well as an efficient bike route that will get you to Utrecht in about 20 minutes.

Seeing Houten made me realize the potential for newly developed areas. While those are perhaps in the minority compared to established places that need improvement, there is such significant opportunity in building from the ground up. If we must develop an entirely new area instead of increasing density elsewhere, the least we can do is prioritize bikes in that area.

Leaving Houten, we quickly made our way to the pancake house. We had a great time, and a super fun ride home as a group.