Do we really want to be the world's cyclist capital?
This year, Amsterdam lost its first place to Copenhagen on the index of the world’s most bike-friendly cities. Is the city too reluctant to innovate? ‘We shouldn’t even want to be the world’s cyclist capital’.
Cycling traffic in Amsterdam can seem slightly chaotic at best. Anyone who has ridden his bike across the Berlagebrug can attest to the hordes of people impatiently trying to cross the intersection, narrowly avoiding the pedestrians who are attempting to cross the street.
And who, while riding through the Vondelpark, hasn’t softly tapped a pedestrian on the back (or wanted to) and whisper: ‘Use the sidewalk, stupid’. And what to say about all the cyclists going the wrong way up the fietspaden, the cycle paths?
There are just too many bikes in Amsterdam and that’s why cyclists are becoming increasingly impatient, turning traffic into chaos. In contrast, ‘Cyclists in Copenhagen really follow the rules,’ an international student coming from the Danish capital said during the highly popular UvA summer school course, Planning the Cycling City. ‘In Copenhagen you never see people riding next to each other. In Amsterdam people always do.’
When Amsterdam lost its place on the so-called Copenhagenize index (an international index for bike friendly cities prepared by the Copenhagenize Design Co., an urban planning firm based in Denmark) to Copenhagen this year, it seemed a long time coming. ‘The Danish capital remains impressively consistent in its investment in cycling as a mode of transport and in making efforts to push it to the next level,’ the jury wrote in its report. Amsterdam on the other hand, ‘like most Dutch cities, suffers from an insistence on maintaining the status quo rather than trying to improve, think modern and take things to the next level.’
Did Amsterdam lose its place because it is unwilling to face its problems? Or because it’s just gotten used to having too many cyclists? After all, it’s always been the cycling capital of the world. Maybe it’s tired.
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Improvements
‘Copenhagen built three new cyclist bridges over the past few years and has many new bridges in the making,’ Meredith Glaser explains. She is an urban planner and collaborates with the UvA and Copenhagenize Design Co. ‘They even introduced small foot racks where cyclists can rest their feet so they don’t have to get off their bikes while waiting for a traffic light.’
It’s these little touches that enabled the Danish capital to take the place of Amsterdam as the world’s cycling capital this year.
‘You simply can’t keep track of the constant flow of new bicycle/urbanism stuff in Copenhagen,’ the Copenhagenize report reads. If only Amsterdam could keep up with it.
However, Copenhagenize does note a report Amsterdam made with the aim of improving the connection between Amsterdam Noord and the rest of the city by building more bridges. ‘If the city gets serious about proposals like these, it’ll be back on track,’ the firm wrote.
Maybe Copenhagen just has more money to realise such projects, Meredith Glaser explains. But she refuses to say that Amsterdam isn’t also improving its ways. ‘Amsterdam, as other Dutch cities, doesn’t necessarily have to be number one; it’s not in the Dutch culture. They do it their own way.’
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Dutch way
So what is the Dutch way that lost us our place to Copenhagen? Take, as an example, the comments of Walther Ploos van Amstel, lector of City Logistics at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. ‘A bridge over the river IJ, as Copenhagenize suggested, would give commuters in the region an alternative to their cars,’ he says. But the bike is not the only alternative, he emphasises. ‘Already 80 per cent of traffi c in central Amsterdam comes from pedestrians.’
What counts, according to Ploos van Amstel, is that the city’s cycling traffic is well connected to the public transport system, and that commuters have alternatives to using cars. In their blueprint, the city should prioritise pedestrians and put bikes in second place, he says.
‘Should Amsterdam want to be the number one bike friendly city in the world?’, Ploos van Amstel asks. ‘Just look at the scrap-iron bikes parked all over town, or the pedestrians that have to wait for all the bikes to pass so they can cross the road.’
He believes Amsterdam is beyond caring about world rankings, and has trained its eyes to other horizons. ‘There’s no point in investing in yet another fast lane for cyclists. That costs tens of millions of euros. Before we do so, we should wait and see what works best in terms of improving all clean forms of transport.’
The aldermen and the city council made a conscious choice to wait for big investments to be made, Ploos van Amstel explains. ‘Finding the right formula requires extensive research, and the city is working on this in collaboration with the UvA, the HvA and the Vrije Univer-
siteit.’ Could prioritising pedestrians be the ‘modern way of thinking’ Copenhagenize is calling for?
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Small steps
In thinking small improvements and help for pedestrians are the way to go for Amsterdam, Ploos van Amstel gets some support from Meredith Glaser. Any improvement to pedestrian infrastructure is an improvement to cycling, she says.
Just look at what happened in the P.C. Hooftstraat. ‘They widened the sidewalks and reduced the space for cars so there is more space to walk.’ And, Glaser explains, because there will be fewer cars in the street, there will also be more space for people – on foot or by bike. ‘It all happened in one week, just like that,’ Glaser says.
Copenhagenize conducted a study on nine major Amsterdam crossings, analysing a total of 34,000 cyclist movements. They looked at the design elements of the crossings and analysed the behaviour of cyclists. Do people use the zebra crossings? Do they cut across the crossings? Or, as Glaser explains: ‘What kind of infrastructure do we see around us, and how do cyclists react to that?’
‘In most cases, cyclists use it differently to what it was designed for’, Glaser says. Copenhagenize sent the results of their research to the city, that decided to redesign four of the intersections. ‘Using soft measures, the city adapted to this reality.’ At the intersection near the Berlagebrug, the brick islands that separated cars from cyclists are smaller now, Glaser explains.
With the added space more people are taking the turn and (even) wait for the red light instead of just sneaking across. These soft touches will eventually make it more attractive to bike or, dare we say it, go for a walk. Hopefully, soon there will no longer be a need to use the car.
‘I don’t even know if people notice though,’ Glaser says. ‘The city should shout it out on social media.’
