Cycling in the Netherlands

Cycling is a ubiquitous mode of transport in the Netherlands, with 36% of the people listing the bicycle as their most frequent mode of transport on a typical day as opposed to the car by 45% and public transport by 11%. Cycling has a modal share of 27% of all trips (urban and rural) nationwide. In cities this is even higher, such as Amsterdam which has 38%, though the smaller Dutch cities well exceed that: for instance Zwolle (pop. ~123,000) has 46% and the university town of Groningen (pop. ~198,000) has 31%. This high modal share for bicycle travel is enabled by excellent cycling infrastructure such as cycle paths, cycle tracks, protected intersections, ubiquitous bicycle parking and by making cycling routes shorter, quicker and more direct than car routes.

In the countryside, a growing number of inter-city bicycle paths connect the Netherlands' villages, towns and cities: some of these paths are part of the Dutch National Cycle Network, a network of routes for bicycle tourism which reaches all corners of the nation.

Cycling became popular in the Netherlands a little later than it did in the United States and Britain who experienced their bike booms in the 1880s, but by the 1890s the Dutch were already building dedicated paths for cyclists. By 1911, the Dutch owned more bicycles per capita than any other country in Europe. After World War II, however, much like it had in other developed nations, the privately owned motor car became more affordable and therefore more ubiquitous and the bicycle started to be squeezed out. Even so, the number of Dutch people cycling was very high compared to other European nations.

The trend away from the bicycle and towards motorised transport only began to be slowed in the 1970s when Dutch people took to the streets to protest against the high number of child deaths on the roads: in some cases over 500 children were killed in car accidents in the Netherlands in a single year. This protest movement came to be known as the (literally "Stop the Child Murder" in Dutch). The success of this movement — along with other factors, such as the oil shortages of 1973–74 — turned Dutch government policy around and the country began to restrict motor vehicles in its towns and cities and direct its focus on growth towards other forms of transport, with the bicycle being seen as critical in making Dutch streets safer and towns and cities more people-friendly and liveable.

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Wikipedia