{"id":188,"date":"2007-05-05T09:26:11","date_gmt":"2007-05-05T09:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alephnaught.wordpress.com\/2007\/05\/05\/an-interesting-article-on-bicycles\/"},"modified":"2007-05-05T09:26:11","modified_gmt":"2007-05-05T09:26:11","slug":"an-interesting-article-on-bicycles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2007\/05\/05\/an-interesting-article-on-bicycles\/","title":{"rendered":"An interesting article on bicycles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
An article from the Wall Street Journal on how
\nThe Netherlands and Denmark (and others) are using bicycles to reduce
\npolution.<\/font><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Building a Better Bike
\nLane<\/b><\/font>
Bike-friendly
\ncities in Europe are launching
\na<\/b><\/font>
new attack on car
\nculture. Can the U.S. catch up?<\/b><\/font>
By NANCY
\nKEATES<\/font>
May 4, 2007; Page
\nW1<\/font><\/p>\n

COPENHAGEN — No one wears bike
\nhelmets here. They’re afraid they’ll mess up their hair. “I have a big head and
\nI would look silly,” Mayor Klaus Bondam
\nsays.<\/font><\/p>\n

People bike while pregnant,
\ncarrying two cups of coffee, smoking, eating bananas. At the airport, there are
\nparking spaces for bikes. In the emergency room at Frederiksberg Hospital on
\nweekends, half the biking accidents are from people riding drunk. Doctors say
\nthe drunk riders tend to run into
\npoles.<\/font><\/p>\n

Flat, compact and temperate, the
\nNetherlands and Denmark have long been havens for bikers. In Amsterdam, 40% of
\ncommuters get to work by bike. In Copenhagen, more than a third of workers pedal
\nto their offices. But as concern about global warming intensifies — the
\nEuropean Union is already under emissions caps and tougher restrictions are
\nexpected — the two cities are leading a fresh assault on car culture. A major
\nthrust is a host of aggressive new measures designed to shift bike commuting
\ninto higher gear, including increased prison time for bike thieves and the
\nconstruction of new parking facilities that can hold up to 10,000
\nbikes.<\/font><\/p>\n

The rest of Europe is paying
\nclose attention. Officials from London, Munich and Zurich (plus a handful from
\nthe U.S.) have visited Amsterdam’s transportation department for advice on
\ndeveloping bicycle-friendly infrastructure and policies. Norway aims to raise
\nbicycle traffic to at least 8% of all travel by 2015 — double its current level
\n— while Sweden hopes to move from 12% to 16% by 2010. This summer, Paris will
\nput thousands of low-cost rental bikes throughout the city to cut traffic,
\nreduce pollution and improve
\nparking.<\/font><\/p>\n

The city of Copenhagen plans
\nto double its spending on biking infrastructure over the next three years, and
\nDenmark is about to unveil a plan to increase spending on bike lanes on 2,000
\nkilometers, or 1,240 miles, of roads. Amsterdam is undertaking an ambitious
\ncapital-improvement program that includes building a 10,000-bike parking garage
\nat the main train station — construction is expected to start by the end of
\nnext year. The city is also trying to boost public transportation usage, and
\nplans to soon enforce stricter car-parking fines and increase parking fees to
\ndiscourage people from driving.<\/font><\/p>\n

Worried
\nthat immigrants might push car use up, both cities have started training
\nprograms to teach non-natives how to ride bikes and are stepping up bike
\ntraining of children in schools. There are bike-only bridges under consideration
\nand efforts to make intersections more rider-friendly by putting in special
\nmirrors.<\/font><\/p>\n

The policy goal is to have
\nbicycle trips replace many short car trips, which account for 6% of total
\nemissions from cars, according to a document adopted last month by the European
\nEconomic and Social Committee, an organization of transportation ministers from
\nEU member countries. Another report published this year by the Dutch Cyclists’
\nAssociation found that if all trips shorter than 7.5 kilometers in the
\nNetherlands currently made by car were by bicycle, the country would reduce its
\ncarbon-dioxide emissions by 2.4 million tons. That’s about one-eighth of the
\namount of emissions it would need to reduce to meet the Kyoto
\nProtocol.<\/font><\/p>\n

Officials from some American
\ncities have made pilgrimages to Amsterdam. But in the U.S., bike commuters face
\nmore challenges, including strong opposition from some small businesses, car
\nowners and parking-garage owners to any proposals to remove parking, shrink
\ndriving lanes or reduce speed limits. Some argue that limiting car usage would
\nhurt business. “We haven’t made the tough decisions yet,” says Sam Adams, city
\ncommissioner of Portland, Ore., who visited Amsterdam in 2005. There has been
\nsome movement. Last month, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a proposal
\nto add a congestion charge on cars and increase the number of bicycle paths in
\nthe city. It would also require commercial buildings to have indoor parking
\nfacilities for bikes.<\/font><\/p>\n

Even in
\nAmsterdam, not everyone is pro-biking. Higher-end shops have already moved out
\nof the city center because of measures to decrease car traffic, says
\nGeert-Pieter Wagenmakers, an adviser to Amsterdam’s Chamber of Commerce, and now
\nshops in the outer ring of the city are vulnerable. Bikes parked all over the
\nsidewalk are bad for business, he
\nadds.<\/font><\/p>\n

Still, the new measures in
\nAmsterdam and Copenhagen add to an infrastructure that has already made biking
\nan integral part of life. People haul groceries in saddle bags or on handlebars
\nand tote their children in multiple bike seats. Companies have indoor bike
\nparking, changing rooms and on-site bikes for employees to take to meetings.
\nSubways have bike cars and ramps next to the
\nstairs.<\/font><\/p>\n

Riding a bike for some has more
\ncachet than driving a Porsche. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
\nsometimes rides to work, as do lawyers, CEOs (Lars Rebien Sorensen, chief
\nexecutive of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, is famous for his on-bike
\npersona) and members of parliament, often with empty children’s seats in back.
\nDutch Prince Maurits van Oranje is often seen riding around town. “It’s a good
\nway to keep in touch with people on the streets,” says Tjeerd Herrema, deputy
\nmayor of Amsterdam. Mr. Herrema’s car and driver still make the trip sometimes
\n— to chauffeur his bag when he has too much work to
\ncarry.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jolanda Engelhamp let her
\nhusband keep her car when they split up a few years ago because it was becoming
\ntoo expensive to park. Now the 47-year-old takes her second-grade son to school
\non the back of her bike. (It’s a half-hour ride from home.) Outside the school
\nin Amsterdam, harried moms drop off children, checking backpacks and coats; men
\nin suits pull up, with children’s seats in back, steering while talking on their
\ncellphones. It’s a typical drop-off scene, only without
\ncars.<\/font><\/p>\n

For Khilma van der Klugt, a
\n38-year-old bookkeeper, biking is more about health and convenience than concern
\nfor the environment. Her two older children ride their own bikes on the
\n25-minute commute to school while she ferries the four-year-old twins in a big
\nbox attached to the front of her bike. Biking gives her children exercise and
\nfresh air in the morning, which helps them concentrate, she says. “It gets all
\ntheir energy out.” She owns a car, but she only uses it when the weather is
\nreally bad or she’s feeling especially
\nlazy.<\/font><\/p>\n

Caroline Vonk, a 38-year-old
\ngovernment official, leaves home by bike at 8 a.m. and drops off her two
\nchildren at a day-care center. By 8:15, she’s on her way to work, stopping to
\ndrop clothes at the dry cleaner or to buy some rolls for lunch. On the way home,
\nshe makes a quick stop at a shop, picks up the children and is home by 5:55. “It
\nis a pleasant way to clear my head,” she
\nsays.<\/font><\/p>\n

Teaching
\nNewcomers<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

The programs for
\nnon-natives target those who view biking as a lower form of transportation than
\ncars. “If they don’t start cycling it will hurt,” says Marjolein de Lange, who
\nheads Amsterdam’s pro-bicycle union Fietsersbond and has worked with local
\ncouncils to set up classes for immigrant
\nwomen.<\/font><\/p>\n

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 23
\nwomen — many in head-scarves — gathered at a recreational center north of
\nAmsterdam to follow seven Fietsersbond volunteers to learn to navigate through
\ntraffic. The three-hour event cost ?3 (about $4) and included practice
\nweaving in and out of orange cones and over blocks of wood. It ended with all of
\nthe women gathering in a park for cake and
\nlemonade.<\/font><\/p>\n

Though she faltered at times,
\nRosie Soemer, a 36-year-old mother of two who came to the Netherlands from
\nSuriname, was sold. “It is so much easier to go everywhere by bike,” she says.
\nLearning to ride was her husband’s idea: He bought her a bicycle for her
\nbirthday a few months earlier and has been spending his lunch hour teaching her
\nin a park. “It helps me if she can get around better,” says her husband, Sam
\nSoemer. “And it’s safer than a
\ncar.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Amsterdam and Copenhagen are
\ngenerally safer for bikers than the U.S. because high car taxes and gasoline
\nprices tend to keep sport-utility vehicles off the road. In Denmark, the tax for
\nbuying a new car is as high as 180%. Drivers must be over 18 to get a license,
\nand the tests are so hard that most people fail the first few times. Both cities
\nhave worked to train truck drivers to look out for bikers when they turn right
\nat intersections, and changed mirrors on vehicles and at traffic corners so
\nthey’re positioned for viewing
\ncyclists.<\/font><\/p>\n

As bike lanes become more
\ncrowded, new measures have been added to address bike safety. A recent survey
\nfound that people in Denmark felt less safe biking, though the risk of getting
\nkilled in a bike accident there has fallen by almost half. (The number of
\nbicyclists killed fell to 31 in 2006 from 53 in 2004, and the number seriously
\ninjured dropped to 567 from 726 in that period.) According to one emergency
\nroom’s statistics, the primary reason for accidents is people being hit by car
\ndoors opening; second is cars making right-hand turns and hitting bikers at
\nintersections; third is bike-on-bike crashes. Bike-riding police officers now
\nroutinely fine cyclists in Amsterdam who don’t have lights at
\nnight.<\/font><\/p>\n

Parking for
\n10,000<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

Amsterdam is also working to
\nimprove the lack of parking. The city built five bike-parking garages over the
\npast five years and plans a new one every year, including one with 10,000 spaces
\nat the central railroad station. (While there’s room for 2,000 bikes now, there
\nare often close to 4,000 bikes there.) But even garages aren’t enough. Bikers
\nusually want to park right outside wherever they’re going — they don’t like
\nparking and walking.<\/font><\/p>\n

Combating theft is
\nan important plank in developing a bike-friendly culture. In 2003, the city
\ncreated the Amsterdam Bicycle Recovery Center, a large warehouse where illegally
\nparked bikes are taken. (Its acronym in Dutch is AFAC.) Every bike that goes
\nthrough AFAC is first checked against a list of stolen bikes. After three
\nmonths, unclaimed models are registered, engraved with a serial number and sold
\nto a second-hand shop. At any one time, the center has about 6,000 bikes neatly
\narranged by day of confiscation, out of an estimated total of 600,000 bikes in
\nthe city.<\/font><\/p>\n

How AFAC will encourage bike
\nriding in Amsterdam is a somewhat perverse logic, because it means some 200
\nbikes are confiscated by city officials a day compared to a handful before it
\nexisted. The thinking is that the more bikes that are confiscated, the more
\nbikes can be registered and the better the government can trace stolen bikes.
\nThe less nervous people are that their bikes will be stolen, the more likely
\nthey are to ride. “Is your bike gone? Check AFAC first,” is the center’s
\nslogan.<\/font><\/p>\n

Remco Keyzer did just that on a
\nrecent Monday morning. The music teacher had parked his bike outside the central
\nstation before heading to a class and returned to find it gone. “I can be mad,
\nbut that really wouldn’t help me,” he says. Sometimes people ride away without
\npaying the required fee. Bruno Brand, who helps people find their bikes at AFAC,
\nsays people get mad, but he explains it is the local police, not him, who
\nconfiscated the bike.<\/font><\/p>\n

Within the past
\nfour years, the city increased the fine for buying or selling a bike in the
\nstreet. Punishment for stealing a bike is now up to three months in
\njail.<\/font><\/p>\n

Danish and Dutch officials say
\ntheir countries might have been more congested if protests in the 1970s and
\n1980s had not sparked the impetus for building bicycle-lane networks. The
\narguments for more biking were mostly about health and congestion — only in the
\npast year has the environment started to be a factor. Proponents of better
\ninfrastructure point to China as an example: In Beijing, where the economy has
\nboomed, 30.3% of people commuted to work on bikes in 2005, down 8.2% from 2000,
\naccording to a survey by the Beijing Transportation Development Research Center
\nand Beijing Municipal Committee of
\nCommunication.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now, the Dansk Cyklist
\nForbund, the Danish Cyclist’s Federation, says that to make progress it can’t be
\ntoo confrontational and must recognize that many bikers also have cars. “Our
\ngoal is the right means of transportation for the right trips,” says director
\nJens Loft Rasmussen.<\/font><\/p>\n

In comparison, the
\nrules of the American road can take some adjustment, as Cheryl AndristPlourde
\nhas found when she visits her parents in Columbus, Ohio. Last summer, the
\nAmsterdam resident enrolled her 8-year-old daughter in a camp close to her
\nparents’ house. The plan was for her daughter, who biked to school every day
\nback home, to walk to camp. But her daughter whined about the 10-minute walk —
\nall the other kids drove, she said — and the streets were too busy for her to
\nbike. By the third day, Ms. AndristPlourde was driving her daughter to the
\ncamp.<\/font><\/div>\n

Bike-Friendly Cities in the
\nU.S.<\/b><\/font><\/div>\n
A number of towns have recently focused on
\nmaking roads more accessible to bicycles. Here are some of the top spots chosen
\nby the Bicycle Friendly Community Campaign from the League of American
\nBicyclists, an advocacy group based in Washington,
\nD.C.<\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
CITY<\/b> <\/td>\n% OF ARTERIAL ROADS WITH BIKE LANES<\/b> <\/td>\n % OF COMMUTERS WHO BIKE<\/b> <\/td>\nCOMMENTS<\/b> <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Boulder, Colo.<\/b> <\/td>\n97% <\/td>\n21% <\/td>\nBoulder has spent an average 15% of its transportation budget on building and maintaining bicycle traffic over the past five years. The goal is to create a system that’s “equitable for all users,” with no hierarchy among pedestrians, cars and bikes, says Marni Ratzel, who runs the city’s program. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chicago<\/b> <\/td>\n11% <\/td>\n1-2% <\/td>\nMayor Richard Michael Daley bikes to work, setting the example for this city, which released an ambitious new bike plan last year. The goal: making all of Chicago’s streets safe and convenient for cycling. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Davis, Calif.<\/b> <\/td>\n95% <\/td>\n17% <\/td>\nMostly flat and temperate, this town’s logo is a bicycle; it has more bikes than cars and is the only place to earn platinum status on Bicycle Friendly Community’s list of top cities. The city is about to build a $1.7 million bike-only tunnel under a major road. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Madison, Wisc.<\/b> <\/td>\nAbout 37% <\/td>\n3.2% <\/td>\nThere are 32 miles of bike lanes, 35 miles of bike paths and more than 100 miles of signed bike routes. On University Avenue, the major street in the downtown and University of Wisconsin campus area, there can be over 10,000 bicyclists a day — plus 30,000 cars. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Palo Alto, Calif.<\/b> <\/td>\n13% <\/td>\n5.7% <\/td>\nAlong with the bike lanes on roads, the city also has nine miles of bike paths. In 2004 it spent about $5 million on a rail line under-crossing and $1.5 million on a 0.8-mile bike path. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Portland, Ore.<\/b> <\/td>\n28% <\/td>\n5.4% <\/td>\nThough there are lots of hills and rain, this city has 163 miles of bike lanes. All but two bridges accommodate bicyclists. There’s still a long way to go: The city still has 38 miles of bike lanes left in order to achieve its master plan. But in some neighborhoods bike commuters are as high as 9%. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
San Francisco<\/b> <\/td>\nAbout 4% <\/td>\n2.1% <\/td>\nIn November 2003, San Francisco voters approved a half-cent sales tax measure, estimated to total $2.6 billion over 30 years. Of that, $56 million (a little more than 2%) will go to bike-related projects. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\nTranslate<\/span><\/a>\"\"\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article from the Wall Street Journal on how The Netherlands and Denmark (and others) are using bicycles to reduce polution. Translate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-netherlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2w3Qj-32","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}