Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Del. Ken Plum's observations on biking in Europe
Del. Ken Plum is a neighbor of mine and he often sees my wife Kerie and I riding past his house. We've discussed the importance of bicycling as a part of our transportation network and he is very supportive of bicycling as a mode of transportation, including agreeing to participate in the Bike/Car/Bus Challenge in 2011 when Kerie and I rode our bikes to the Reston Town Center from our neighborhood in less time than it took Del. Plum to drive there.In his latest newsletter Del. Plum discusses a recent trip he and his wife took to Europe. He noted the prevalence of biking in the Netherlands:
I always pay close attention to how other countries deal with their transportation needs. Never have I seen as many bicycles as there are in Amsterdam. Multiple levels of covered parking for bicycles at the airport and train station accommodate thousands of bicycles. Most every lamp post, park bench, and railing had bicycles chained to it. Checking on my observations when I returned home I found that Amsterdam and other Dutch cities are the most bicycle-friendly in the world.
There are more than 22,000 miles of bicycle lanes in the Netherlands with more than a quarter of all trips made by bicycle. That number is 38 percent in Amsterdam, a city of about a million people, and in the university city of Groningen 59 percent of all trips are by bicycle. A typical street scape in Amsterdam would include a narrow lane for automobiles, bicycle lanes in both directions, trolley rails, and a sidewalk for pedestrians. Men and women dressed for work were among those on bicycles as were many seniors. Spending a couple of days there makes it obvious why it is considered one of the best cities in the world in which to live.
This is a video segment showing what rush hour looks like in one town in the Netherlands, Utrecht:
There are more than 22,000 miles of bicycle lanes in the Netherlands with more than a quarter of all trips made by bicycle. That number is 38 percent in Amsterdam, a city of about a million people, and in the university city of Groningen 59 percent of all trips are by bicycle. A typical street scape in Amsterdam would include a narrow lane for automobiles, bicycle lanes in both directions, trolley rails, and a sidewalk for pedestrians. Men and women dressed for work were among those on bicycles as were many seniors. Spending a couple of days there makes it obvious why it is considered one of the best cities in the world in which to live.
Labels: amsterdam, delegate ken plum
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Bike rap video from Amsterdam
Here's a fun bike video we happened across while reading Bakfiets en Meer (City cycling news and opinion from Amsterdam). The blog post title, This is Amsterdam and This is My Bike! is a common refrain in the video. The last image of a huge boom box on the back of a bike reminded me of Antoine's boom box trailer, minus the bubble machine:Labels: amsterdam
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Biking around the world
The State We're In is a weekly NPR program "about human rights and human wrongs." This week's program is about bikes: The right to bike. "We compare bike life in two cities: San Francisco and Amsterdam. We talk to a man from Uganda whose bike made the difference between life and death and we hear from a committed cyclist in Manhattan who lost twenty bikes to thieves and reached a point where he became one himself."From the Amsterdam segment: "Every self-respecting city in the world will have it's centers car-free by 2015. It seems quick but I promise you it's going to happen. Everybody's working on it, everybody sees the benefit." (Pascal van den Noort, Executive Director of Velo Mondial)
Labels: amsterdam, the state we're in
