The Netherlands has the overall best biking environment in the world, but it isn’t perfect and some things get “lost in translation.”
0:00 – Introduction
1:30 – Myth #1
2:30 – Myth #2
3:30 – Myth #3
4:25 – Myth #4
5:20 – Myth #5
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2 Comments
Myth: Cycling works well in NL because the Dutch don't own cars anyway or are not allowed to own cars or are too poor to own cars:
Whilst the car numbers are definitely lower than in the US and some EU countries, NL is still quite high on cars per capita list and higher than quite a few Eu countries that don't have any cycling infrastructure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita
Myth: Car owners are always victim of cyclign infra decisions.
It can be true that on occasion a street is converted to a cycling only street, especially in bigger city centers. However car usuage is also high in NL, as mentioned in previous myth, and the car infra in NL is actually of a very high quality. Much higher than most countries.
It should not be cars vs bicycles. Most traffic jams vanish when car traffic is 10 or 15% lower. If you could get these percentages by getting people to bicyle it's in the best interest of all the other car drivers. Thats the message they should understand and the nice thing is, it isn't bicycle propaganda.
In my humble (Dutch) opinion the main reason for the quality of Dutch cycling infrastructure is that is legally required.
It is codified in Dutch law that road design must prioritise the safety of all road users and particularly vulnerable ones. This means that municipalities that build unsafe (or even sub-par) bike infrastructure can be held liable if an accident happens due to negligence, making them think twice about the quality of the design they want to implement.
It is crazy to me that laws like this are uncommon for road design. Like, if an electrician fudges your plugs and you get injured you can hold them accountable. So if a traffic engineer fudges the road design and you get injured … why shouldn't they (or the institution they work for) be held accountable in the same way?
It seems to me there is a link with American individualism here too. Accidents are caused by people making mistakes, in the American mind. The same way that being poor is your own fault, so is getting in an accident.
Got doored by a parked car? Either your fault or the driver's. But never the fault of the designer who put the bike zone and the door zone in the exact same spot.
America is so willing to blame individuals without acknowledging (or fixing) the flaws in the fundamental structures that cause people to behave in certain ways.
In short, as long as the American mindset is this unwilling to see the need for radical systemic change … I fear that poor bike infrastructure will be the least of your problems.