About
About cycle infrastructure in and around Amsterdam, with printable cycle routes in the city region. The videos give an impression of real cycling conditions in and around Amsterdam, and the type of cycle infrastructure. The cycle
routes are cross sections of the urban region – they go about 15-20 km outside the centre, and then back again by a different route. All are printable: only the text of the blog post prints. Some of the videos are purely to illustrate a route.
Cycle infrastructure and policy in the Netherlands plays an important role, for cycle lobbies in English-speaking countries. Perhaps the new activism is a reaction to the old ‘counter-cultural’ cycle activism there. In any case, activists tend to present a myth about cycling in the Netherlands. They exaggerate the extent of cycle infrastructure here, and the prevalence of cycling.
This blog also covers some of these myths. The most striking claim is that cycle infrastructure is actually
the cause of cycling, and that the Netherlands has succeeded in generating cycling by building cycle infrastructure. In fact experience in the Netherlands shows the opposite: massive expansion of cycle infrastructure has failed to alter cycling’s modal share, stable for years at 7% of passenger-km. Well-publicised local gains therefore imply that cycling is declining, elsewhere in the country.
There is no evidence from the Netherlands that cycle infrastructure
motivates people to cycle. Cycle activists outside the Netherlands seem blind to the obvious relationship: there is more cycle infrastructure here, because more people cycle – and not the other way round. It is easier to blame their government for not building cycle paths, than to face the reality, that in their country, almost no-one wants to cycle. Some seem to prefer campaigning for infrastructure, because they have a libertarian aversion to repressive measures against motorists. In any case, this blog is not intended as a platform for ‘culture wars’ among Anglophone cycle lobbies. Comments are open again, but mainly to allow users to correct errors in the cycle route descriptions.
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