How come everyone cycles in the Netherlands?

I have been to many places where there is lots of cycling but Utrecht beats them all.

I have been to many places where there is lots of cycling but Utrecht beats them all. I am on a cycle study tour of a couple of Dutch towns talking to local officials and campaigners about their cycle story and Delft, Groningen and Utrecht are all amazingly impressive.

But the flow of cyclists in the rush hour in Utrecht must be the most intense movement of cyclists in the world, rather like those old pictures of Peking – as it was – in the 1960s before China decided that the automotive industry was its catalyst to capitalism. That flow in the centre of Utrecht at 8 30 am in the morning was so intense that it was virtually impossible to get across the cycle lane until, thankfully, a red light temporarily made it possible.

There was no point wondering why the city authorities had built a 12,500 strong cycle park under the railway station. It might not be quite full up yet, and that’s only because COVID resulted in many people getting the working from home bug but it will be in a few years time. In Delft, the 10,000 cycle parking spaces under the station had filled up and indeed had been built in stages as initially 5,000 had been considered big enough for a town of 100,000 people but the demand was far greater. Delft is a particularly pretty town within easy commuting distance of Rotterdam and The Hague making it a des res for civil servants and business people alike.

The important lesson we learnt talking to local officials in these three cities was that none of this had happened by accident. The idea that the Dutch cycle because the country is flat – it is – or because they always have does not explain the dominance of cycling across the country. In each of these places, there was a batlle to get cycling established as a mode to be encouraged. Ths was partly stimulated by a national movement in the early 1970s which arose to campaign against the shocking number of deaths of child cyclists at the hands of drivers. ‘Stop the child murders’ was a powerful grassroots movement in the 1970s which demanded safer streets for the children who cycled to school. This suggests that the Netherlands did have a cycling culture far more ingrained than in other countries but it could easily have gone the way of the Chinese. Cycling was in fact declining in the 1970s from a modal share of journeys of about 50 per cent to around half that in the 1980s.

The campaign against child deaths was one of the reasons why it did not decline further. It was the beginning of a resistance movement that swept through the country and saved cycling for future generations. But it only just succeeded. In each of the towns we visited, there had been a turning point where a scheme to build a ring road or a series of urban motorways was being promoted in the post war period. This was largely promoted by American experts called in to upport the Marshall Plan, the main aid vehicle devised by the US to rebuild Europe after world war two. In each case these proposals had not only to be defeated, but more progressive and sustainable alternatives had to be put forward.

There’s no way of disguising what had in contrast to roadbuilding. Car use has to be discouraged and the alternatives, from public transport to walking and cycling have to be encouraged. And in every case this was met with opposition which had to be defeated. Remarkably, even now when the cycling culture is embedded so strongly in Dutch culture, ‘the battle is never won’ as Shelly, who promotes cycling in Groningen, put it. It’s not so much that anyone wants to, say, reinstate cars in the central square of Groningen or displace cycling streets to allow for more cars, it’s that every measure to further boost cycling still reveals the odd dissenting voice.

Here the political structure of Dutch governance system comes into play. Essentially, the proportional representation system used universally at local and national government always delivers coalitions sometimes, as in Groningen left leaning, but at times also dominated by right wing parties. The latter no longer protest at the lack of parking facilities in towns or the fact that the politicians themselves have to cycle to meetings, but they still argue that ‘cars should not be bullied’ whatever that means.

The fact that there are always coalitions in power mean that compromise is always possible, in a way that might seem difficult to British or American politicians used to sharp and seemingly irreconcilable arguments.

That does not meant there aren’t complaints. As one official put it ‘ Our residents don’t know that we have the highest cycle modal share in the world. They come to our meetings on their bikes but they still ask where can we park our cars. Car ownership has not declined in the Netherlands in fact is has increased.’

But cycling remains at the heart of mobility in the urban realm. And will continue to do so. That’s because as one cycling activist put it, ‘it’s not that the Dutch love their bikes. It’s that they see them like vacuum cleaners. An indispensable object that is a necessary part of life’.