Earlier in March, I was fortunate enough to visit Amsterdam, for the launch of Maap’s first store in Europe. More on that soon, but a trip to Amsterdam meant I got to experience a mecca of cycling for the first time, as an adult, anyway.
I still don’t know how zebra crossings in the Netherlands work. Cars stop, pedestrians stop, but bikes keep whizzing through. This might not be quite legal, but it felt instructive of how important cyclists are here. Apart from Copenhagen, I’m not sure I have ever been anywhere where being a cyclist feels like such a normal, ordinary thing. It made me happy, and it made me sad that UK cities feel so far from this, in the main.
People ride their children to school, they use their bike to get to work, to the pub, or to the shop. When they get there, the bikes are locked up to a railing, a lamppost, or just left outside. This most precious thing, everyone’s means of getting around, is so ubiquitous that fear of bike theft is low.
Cycling around the Dutch city never felt dangerous, thanks to an intuitive network of cycle paths, low traffic zones and infrastructure that put cyclists first. It felt chaotic, sure, but that was only due to the sheer number of people on two wheels – don’t dawdle in the cycle lane, whether you’re on foot or on a bike.
I didn’t see a single crash in three days, such is the normality of bikes just being everywhere here. If you misjudge a junction slightly, expect a ding of a bell, and for someone to swerve around you, but it all feels natural, as smooth as it could be. It feels a long way from the snarled up vehicle traffic we are used to, and the aggression and danger that comes with it
(Image credit: Alberto Viciana)
These are just people in regular clothes, on regular, heavy bikes, without helmets. Why bother when everything just works? Cycling is fun, but it’s just the norm in Amsterdam. What a dream that seems like.
Just last week, our government in the UK relaunched its “plan for drivers”, with the transport secretary, Mark Harper, stressing that the Conservatives are “on the side of drivers”. This mainly takes the form of continuing its crackdown on low traffic neighbourhoods and other active travel measures, but in reality, what it does first is continue to make us cyclists feel like second class citizens.
The idea that we don’t belong on the road is never far away. The last time I was on a group ride, I was close-passed with breathtaking regularity, with an added bonus of being squirted with windscreen washer fluid once – it was not a coincidence. The government’s rhetoric, and the lack of proper action on making cycling better in this country, leads to drivers feeling emboldened, feeling like they own the road. It could not be further away from my Dutch experience, where the bike was king.
I’m sure I am preaching to the converted here, but how I miss the emptier roads of the pandemic years. Now, the UK feels more car-centric than ever, with little hope of the dramatic culture shift that would be needed for that to change. Bike theft remains a serious issue, as does infrastructure, as do potholes, as does our right to be on the road. If we are ever serious about a better world, then active travel feels like a central part of that. At the moment, a great cycling future seems like an unrealistic dream. Maybe we should all just move to Amsterdam.