Bicycle Rush Hour Utrecht (Netherlands)

American attitudes to cycling are about 20 years behind the times. Cycling is a completely practical mode of transport for everyday journeys, even in low-density suburbs and moderately rural areas. Yes, you can fit all your shopping on a bicycle. You can even take your kids to school on one. [link] [link] Yes, your partner with a back injury can ride a bicycle. So can someone with coordination or balance problems, missing limbs or any number of other impairments. [link] [link] Yes, you can ride 20 miles to dinner without working up a sweat and you can do it in much less than 2 hours. [link] If there were the political will to make it happen, American cities could look like this: [this video]

Not having a shower hardly invalidates an entire transport system. Nor do I believe that much of the populace has a medical condition that makes it impossible to bike. After a couple of years in Netherlands I strongly believe that to make the bike a success you obviously need a bike-suitable commute in terms of distance, but also, it needs to be safe. And that boils down to - infrastructure that is designed for bikes and cars a like. Not some stupid painted lane as an after thought. - Stringent traffic laws that protect the weaker traffic participant. In Holland for example, the burden of proof is for the more dangerous vehicle in a collision. For this reason I am not a fan of bike-rental programs. I feel they are easy to implement (dump 20 bikes at train station) and get some political brownie points (see, we do bikes) yet change very little. Redesigning an intersection for safer passage is a whole different matter. Inspiration? Have a look: [link] Yes, that is government promo, so here is a random busy intersection in a major city. Note, no helmets, no high vis gear, and all ages are represented. Also, no cars, no door-zone... [this video]

There are many cities without a lot of cars that work very well (even if they have some). The large cities this is true for, that I have some personal experience with, are London and Amsterdam. The difference is that they are also swarming with public transport and/or bikes. The following is not an uncommon sight in your typical Dutch city: [this video] And in London using the tube / subway is just the fastest way from any A to B anywhere in and around the center (unless you can't walk half a mile), and the most convenient and care-free one (no finding a parking spot, no road taxes, no insurance, no fueling it up, no having it repaired if it breaks down, no winter tires, no ice scraping, no cleaning it,...).

Well we do bike mostly on biking lanes here in the Netherlands (no chance of contact with a car) and we have a very biking oriented culture in general. Also here the cars are guilty (car driver can claim the damage with the bikers insurance afterwards though) unless proven that they had no responsibility what so ever (bikers and pedestrian are so called "weaker traffic participants"). It may make car drivers more cautious, or perhaps the fact that almost everybody is on a bike at some point makes them more careful. Also, on roundabouts (there are a quite some) bikes always have priority as well. In any case, I have never heard of any accidents. It is known though that here, when the schools start after a holiday there is an increase in accidents, this is probably related to car drivers needing to become used again of the high amount of bikers on the road. Here is a nice example of a typical rush hour, the red lane is only for bikes, of course everybody is very careful at intersections :) [this video] (by the way the bus also has it's own lane in this example, and everybody knows: bus drivers don't mess around.)