How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital

of the world
In the 1960s, Dutch cities were increasingly in thrall to motorists, with the car
seen as the transport of the future. It took the intolerable toll of child trafc
deaths and erce activism to turn Amsterdam into the cycling nirvana of
today
Renate van der Zee
Tuesday 5 May 2015 08.04 BST

nyone who has ever tried to make their way through the centre
of Amsterdam in a car knows it: the city is owned by cyclists.
They hurry in swarms through the streets, unbothered by trac
rules, taking precedence whenever they want, rendering motorists
powerless by their sheer numbers.
Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to
accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network
of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers
and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport. Its not
only Amsterdam which boasts a network of cycle-paths, of course;
youll nd them in all Dutch cities.
The Dutch take this for granted; they even tend to believe these
cycle-paths have existed since the beginning of time. But that is
certainly not the case. There was a time, in the 1950s and 60s, when
cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities
by the growing number of cars. Only thanks to erce activism and a
number of decisive events would Amsterdam succeed in becoming
what it is, unquestionably, now: the bicycle capital of the world.
At the start of the 20th century, bikes far outnumbered cars in Dutch
cities and the bicycle was considered a respectable mode of transport
for men and women. But when the Dutch economy began to boom in

the post-war era, more and more people were able to aord cars, and
urban policymakers came to view the car as the travel mode of the
future. Entire Amsterdam neighbourhoods were destroyed to make
way for motorised trac. The use of bikes decreased by 6% every
year, and the general idea was that bicycles would eventually
disappear altogether.
All that growing trac took its toll. The number of trac casualties
rose to a peak of 3,300 deaths in 1971. More than 400 children were
killed in trac accidents that year.
This staggering loss led to protests by dierent action groups, the
most memorable of which was Stop de Kindermoord (stop the child
murder). Its rst president was the Dutch former MEP, Maartje van
Putten.
I was a young mother living in Amsterdam and I witnessed several
trac accidents in my neighbourhood where children got hurt, van
Putten, 63, recalls. I saw how parts of the city were torn down to
make way for roads. I was very worried by the changes that took place
in society it aected our lives. The streets no longer belonged to the
people who lived there, but to huge trac ows. That made me very
angry.
The 1970s were a great time for being angry in Holland: activism and
civil disobedience were rampant. Stop de Kindermoord grew rapidly
and its members held bicycle demonstrations, occupied accident
blackspots, and organised special days during which streets were
closed to allow children to play safely: We put tables outside and
held a huge dinner party in our street. And the funny thing was, the
police were very helpful.
Van Putten remembers the 70s as a time when Dutch authorities were
remarkably accessible: We simply went to tea with MPs and they
really listened to what we had to say. We cycled with a group of
activists and an organ grinder to the house of the prime minister, Joop
den Uyl, to sing songs and ask for safer streets for children. We didnt
get beyond the hallway, but he did come out to hear our plea.
Stop de Kindermoord became subsidised by the Dutch government,

established its headquarters in a former shop, and went on to develop

ideas for safer urban planning which eventually resulted in the
woonerf: a new kind of people-friendly street with speed bumps and
bends to force cars to drive very slowly. Nowadays the woonerf has
gone out of fashion, but it can still be found in many Dutch cities.
Two years after Stop de Kindermoord was established, another group
of activists founded the First Only Real Dutch Cyclists Union to
demand more space for bicycles in the public realm organising bike
rides along dangerous stretches of road, and compiling inventories of
the problems encountered by cyclists.
Somehow we managed to strike a chord, says Tom Godefrooij, 64,
who got involved with the Cyclists Union as a young man. He
remembers noisy mass demonstrations with tricycles and
megaphones, and nightly ventures to paint illegal bicycle lanes in
streets the union considered dangerous.
First we would be arrested by the police, of course, but then the
whole thing would be in the newspapers and municipal politicians
would eventually listen. We had a great ghting spirit and we knew
how to voice our ideas. And in the end, we would get our bicycle lane.
Even in the 70s, you know, there were politicians who understood
that the general focus on cars would eventually cause problems.
The activists of Stop de Kindermoord and the Cyclists Union were
resourceful and undaunted, but there were other forces helping to
create a fertile soil for their ideas. The Netherlands possessing few
hills and a mild climate had a great tradition of cycling to begin with
and the bike was never completely marginalised as it was in some
other countries. The intolerable number of trac deaths really was a
serious concern for politicians, and there was a nascent awareness of
the pollution caused by vehicle emissions.
The 1973 oil crisis when Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil exporters
imposed an embargo on the US, Britain, Canada, Japan and the
Netherlands for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war quadrupled
the price of oil. During a television speech, prime minister Den Uyl
urged Dutch citizens to adopt a new lifestyle and get serious about
saving energy. The government proclaimed a series of car-free

Sundays: intensely quiet weekend days when children played on

deserted motorways and people were suddenly reminded of what life
was like before the hegemony of the car.
On one of these car-free Sundays, Maartje van Putten, together with a
group of other parents and children, rode her bike through a tunnel to
the northern part of Amsterdam, in which no provisions for cyclists
had been made. We didnt realise that what we did was dangerous,
because there were still some cars on the road. Our trip ended at the
police station, but we made our point.
Gradually, Dutch politicians became aware of the many advantages of
cycling, and their transport policies shifted maybe the car wasnt the
mode of transport of the future after all. In the 1980s, Dutch towns
and cities began introducing measures to make their streets more
cycle-friendly. Initially, their aims were far from ambitious; the idea
was simply to keep cyclists on their bikes.
The Hague and Tilburg were the rst to experiment with special cycle
routes through the city. The bicycle paths were bright red and very
visible; this was something completely new, says Godefrooij.
Cyclists would change their routes to use the paths. It certainly
helped to keep people on their bikes, but in the end it turned out that
one single bicycle route did not lead to an overall increase in cycling.
Subsequently, the city of Delft constructed a whole network of cycle
paths and it turned out that this did encourage more people to get on
their bikes. One by one, other cities followed suit.
Nowadays the Netherlands boasts 22,000 miles of cycle paths. More
than a quarter of all trips are made by bicycle, compared with 2% in
the UK and this rises to 38% in Amsterdam and 59% in the
university city of Groningen. All major Dutch cities have designated
bicycle civil servants, tasked to maintain and improve the network.
And the popularity of the bike is still growing, thanks partly to the
development of electric bicycles.
The Cyclists Union has long ceased to be a group of random activists;
it is now a respectable organisation with 34,000 paying members
whose expertise is in worldwide demand.

We have achieved a lot, but were facing many new challenges, says
their spokesman, Wim Bot. Many old cycle paths need to be
reconstructed because they do not measure up to our modern
standards some are used by so many people that they are no longer
wide enough. We have the problem of parking all those bikes, and we
are thinking of new ways to create even more space for cyclists and
pedestrians. What our cities really need is a totally new kind of
infrastructure. Theyre simply not t for so much car trac.
The battle goes on, says Godefrooij. The propensity of urban
planners to give priority to cars is still persistent. Its easy to
understand: an extra tunnel for cyclists means you have to spend
extra money on the project. Weve come a long way, but we can never
lower our guard.
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