How Amsterdam Does Cycling (2/2)
How Amsterdam Does Cycling (2/2)
If you want people to change their behavior, you should make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
This is the second part of a two-part series on cycling in Amsterdam. You can check out the first part here, and make sure to subscribe to catch future newsletters!
Today’s update is a ~7-9 minute read.
Today’s Focus
Hi all,
In the last update we discussed Amsterdam’s cycling history and some of the benefits of it. Today we’ll look at how Amsterdam has continued to invest in urban cycling, some downsides of the system, and some potential barriers to implementation for other cities to consider.
Before we get into that I do want to quickly address something that came up from the previous newsletter.
Cars are not the enemy, but they aren’t the only solution
Some of you reached out to say that, despite the potential benefits of cycling, you would still find it hard to “give up” your car for various reasons. Your commute is too far, you use your trunk to transport large objects, sometimes it’s pouring rain and you don’t want to bike etc. And I actually agree with you! Sometimes it makes sense to drive. I don’t think what Amsterdam has accomplished is great because I just intrinsically hate cars, I think it’s great because it offers residents a better balance of options between walking, cycling, driving, riding public transit, etc.
While there are certainly many negative consequences of cities relying too heavily on cars, I recognize that a full 100% ban isn’t that feasible. That’s why I’m not advocating for getting rid of them entirely, although there definitely are some people who feel that way. In my opinion, good cities don’t ban one option or the other, they allow citizens to choose between them based on their needs or circumstances.
I absolutely love to hear your feedback, and I hope that my stance on this is a little bit clearer now. With that out of the way, let’s get into the rest of the update.
Why it works
We already know that Amsterdammers cycle a lot, but that’s not just because they love riding bikes, it’s because (after the protests in the ‘70s and ‘80s) the city has literally been built with cycling in mind. This is immediately apparent when you just look at Amsterdam’s streets.
We can break their design choices into two main areas:
Design that makes cycling easier, faster, and safer
Design that makes driving a car harder, less convenient, and slower
Making cycling easier, faster, and safer
Contrary to many American cities, Amsterdam’s cycling infrastructure consists of far more than just a few painted bike lanes on the street. Their bike paths are raised sections that are often fully separated from cars by dividers that make cyclists feel safer, and more clearly indicate driving vs. cycling space. Here’s a quick visual of typical Dutch cycle lanes from the excellent YouTube channel Not Just Bikes:
Amsterdam understands that if you want people to cycle more, you need to make sure they feel safe doing so. You don’t need a high-tech study to understand that protected bike lanes make riders feel safer (though some scientists went ahead and did just that) or that not all cycling infrastructure is created equal. As Meek Mill says, “there’s levels to this s**t.”
Making driving slower, aka “traffic calming measures”
The other half of the same coin is, as you can make it easier/safer for bikes, you can also make it slower/less convenient for cars. These design choices are called traffic calming measures, and they include things like speed bumps, curves, cobblestone paving, narrowing certain stretches of road, etc.
If you’re a driver used to wide roads, no bike lanes and right of way, then these design choices might feel discriminatory towards you. However, I would argue that Amsterdam doesn’t necessarily hate cars, it’s just that they strike a better balance between different modes of transportation than most other cities do.
In fact, the Netherlands is often voted one of the best places in the world to drive, probably because this emphasis on cycling clears up road traffic, and ensures only those who need/want to drive are doing so. A rare win-win for both sides.
Downsides
I have a friend named Garrett who happens to have a very serious peanut allergy. In addition, he kind of dresses like a slob all the time. Now the peanut allergy is not his fault, it’s just his natural genetics, so I don’t make fun of him for it. But the other thing, that he’s 27 years old yet he dresses like someone who is in the middle of their 3rd divorce, is something that he does have control over, so I criticize him about that all. the. time.
I bring him up because when I look at the most commonly heard complaints about cycling in Amsterdam, some of them are legitimate criticisms of the city’s infrastructure/policy (like Garrett’s wardrobe), but some of them are more just natural results of urban life (like Garrett’s peanut allergy) that the government doesn’t have as much control over, so I don’t think it’s as fair to criticize them for it. Whenever I’m looking at different urban innovations, I think it’s important to distinguish between those two things, what’s a failing of the system vs. what’s more out of their control.
Two downsides that I do think could potentially be addressed via system/structural improvements are:
Overcrowding/Congestion: Especially during rush hour, and in the more touristy sections of Amsterdam, overcrowding can be an issue. It’s an unsurprising consequence of making cycling so easy and popular, but widening of bike lanes1 and improving other transportation alternatives (subway, improving walkability, trams, etc.) could certainly help.2 Additionally, while bicycle overcrowding is an issue, it’s still highly preferable to car congestion, due to things like efficiencies of space, better environmental effects, and reduced likelihood of injury/fatalities.
Theft: Bicycle theft is quite common in Amsterdam, and one way to combat this is to add more secure bike racks/bike parking option.3 Bicycle storage infrastructure is comparatively cheap and doesn’t take up much space, so some additional investment in this area might go a long way.
With that out of the way, I think some less legitimate criticisms that I see a lot online, or hear from tourists, are:
Dangerous/reckless cycling: The reality is that some people are just assholes and will continue to be assholes regardless of them being on a bike or in a car. There are ways to combat it, such as more strictly penalizing texting while cycling, or creating fast/slow lanes, but I don’t think this is really the fault of the cycling system in Amsterdam so much as it is a feature of human nature/dense urban environments.
Bicycle pollution: Between ~12,000-15,000 bicycles are fished out of Amsterdam’s canals every year, which is littering, and not good, but I think this is more a result of lots of bikes, canals, and likely alcohol all being in the same city. One could argue that better bike locking/parking structures could help, but I wasn’t able to find any connection between more bike facilities and a decrease in bikes fished out of the canal, so once again I don’t feel it’s fair to blame the system for this one. Also, it does lead to some cool job openings like this one:
Finally, some folks will argue about accessibility. The rationale is that demographics like the elderly, physically disabled, etc. can’t ride bikes safely. I know this comes from a good place of wanting cities to be more inclusive, but to this I would say, is it really cycling that’s inaccessible? Or is it cycling in a city with crappy bike infrastructure, aggressive drivers, and unsafe conditions? Take a look at these pictures courtesy of the good people at the Dutch Cycling Embassy:
Especially with the rise of e-bikes, and things like handbikes or cargo bikes, cycling might still not be accessible to absolutely everyone, but it’s probably more accessible than you think given proper conditions like they have in Amsterdam.
Barriers to implementation
I love this system, but there are some things to keep in mind if you’re trying to replicate its success in other urban areas.
Geography/Density
On the previous newsletter there was a comment about hills being a potential issue with cycling in cities. This is true! Cycling can be tiring, and cycling uphill especially so. In that regard, Amsterdam benefits from being a largely flat city. This map below shows the relatively even gradient throughout most of Amsterdam’s metropolitan area.4
Their relatively flat geography might make it harder to recreate that scene from The Princess Bride but it does make for great cycling. Additionally, at ~4,400 people/sq km, Amsterdam is relatively dense, meaning cycling trips are more feasible as the distances are typically shorter.
Public Willingness
The next barrier is that many urban residents (or suburbanites commuting into the city) have just become so used to driving that they don’t consider any alternatives. I don’t really blame them, because if I thought that bike lanes were just painted lines on the road I wouldn’t be convinced that cycling is a viable urban mode of transportation either.5 Additionally, in the US one study found that 70% of Americans are "somewhat or very attached" to their cars, so any attempt at replicating Amsterdam’s system should emphasize the change as less of an eradication of cars,6 and more of a better balance between different modes of transportation.
Integration with other forms of transportation
One thing Amsterdam does incredibly well is making cycling as compatible as possible with other modes of transit. For example:
Subway stations have ample space for bicycle parking
Busses are all equipped with multiple racks for people’s bikes
Train stations have entire underground storage facilities like this one in Utrecht, a city just a few miles southeast of Amsterdam7
In the world of mobility studies, this would fall under “first/last mile solutions”, basically figuring out the answer to how the first and last mile of your trip gets completed safely, efficiently, and conveniently. Amsterdam has made it as easy as possible for that answer to be cycling.
By making other transportation modes more compatible with it, they encourage cycling to be just one component of a broader transit journey. Dutch junior infrastructure minister Stientje van Veldhoven explains it well here
“If you want to get people out of their cars and into public transport, you need to make sure using public transport is easy and comfortable. It needs to be very easy to park your bike as close to the train as possible – and you don’t want to be looking for half an hour for a space.” (source)
It’s largely because of inter-modal compatibility like this that a whopping 50% of all trips taken on public transit in the Netherlands begin on a bicycle. Now obviously this poses a ton of upfront costs, construction, changes to existing stations etc. which is why I’m listing it here as a barrier to implementation, but Amsterdam is still a great example of how investment in different, connected resources can positively impact the adoption and viability of multiple solutions and systems.
Conclusion
Today we looked at why Amsterdam’s cycling success is a result of their conscious design, high population density, flat geography and successful integration with other modes of transport. It also shows no sign of slowing down, as the Netherlands continues to invest hundreds of millions of euros/year on improving cycling infrastructure, and Amsterdam is currently piloting a program that would remove 10,000 parking spaces from the city center.
Last week I said the main takeaway should be that Amsterdam did not accidentally stumble into being a good cycling city, it was a conscious decision they made. For this week, I hope that you now understand that if you make it easy for people to change their behavior, they are more likely to do so! Measures like conscious street design and compatible infrastructure have shaped Amsterdammers’ behavior for decades, and the percent of Dutch trips made by bicycle only continues to rise because of this.
I certainly don’t expect every single city to duplicate Amsterdam’s cycling prowess. But I do think that other cities can look to Amsterdam’s continued support and investment into cycling as inspiration. Any urban system or initiative, regardless of its relationship to cycling or transportation, benefits from that kind of commitment and follow-through.
That’s it for this edition of CityBits, if you enjoyed today’s article please leave a comment, share it with your friends, and just HAMMER that like button so I can keep writing stuff like this.
Thanks!
-Max
I’ll have a whole other article about this but basically just adding more lanes doesn’t actually improve the flow the traffic or congestion issues, so this is somewhat of an oversimplification for now.
If I had a cost-effective solution to avoid congestion entirely, 100% the time, I would be the greatest urban planner in the history of time, so I don’t consider this a major failing of any system.
Bike theft stats tend to be unreliable because it’s so underreported, but two surveys conducted in London and Montreal estimated roughly 45%-50% of cyclists there had experienced bike theft. From that POV Amsterdam actually looks great given ~8,000 is only ~1% of 800,000, but again, bike theft stats can be misleading so take this with a grain of salt.
While researching this piece I did find this article about two cities in Wales and New Zealand competing for title of “steepest street in the world”, which culminates in a Kiwi engineer flying all the way to Wales just to measure their the street’s gradient in person. Absolutely thrilling stuff.
Though it does lead to very silly videos like this
Except for those cars that don’t have mufflers and make a ton of noise going 25mph down the street, those can go straight to hell.
I’ve actually had the pleasure of visiting this facility back in 2019, and while it was super cool and impressive, it also reminded me of that scene in Blade III where the vampires have a whole human blood farm strung up in a warehouse. However, that visual isn't helpful to my argument so I'm burying it here in the footnotes instead.