I didn’t realize that the Dutch fought for their bike lanes. There’s a lot of history within this that I’m currently naive about but excited to learn!
Here’s the article I’m starting with — How the Dutch got Their Cycle Paths: https://www.pps.org/article/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycle-paths
@dariohudon indeed, early seventies the Netherlands was en route to become a very car centric society.
We are still recovering from it. A lot of infrastructure esp in poorer or less populated areas are still very car centric despite most people using bikes there. An average village will have a "village square" that is a big parking lot, oft empty. Yet bike parking is always full.
Once there are funds to redo, it will become a communal center again. For leasure, pedestrians and cyclists
Just saw @CyclingMikey's YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/c/CyclingMikey
Thanks for this :)
Life on the road from a helmet camera. Sometimes interesting, sometimes scary, but almost always fun. I'm a driver too, I love cars, but I don't like dangerous driving and people taking risks with vulnerable road users. Someone has to stand up against the endemic road crime on our public highways and try to change it for the better. Thankfully I'm not alone - there are tens of thousands of us reporting road crime with video.
@derek This is fascinating! In my city of Calgary, Alberta, cycle paths were a divisive topics which was very hard to wrap my head around without rendering opponents to 'short term thinkers'.
This did a disservice to discussions and understanding the why. This video helps to comprehend the climate that needs to take place during expansion of bikes as a cultural norm.
Thanks for this :)
Les néerlandais ont dû se battre pour avoir leurs fameuses pistes cyclables dont leurs élus sont si fiers, actuellement.
Faut en prendre de la graine !
@dariohudon I recommend this post by @BicycleDutch among many good ones.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/the-battle-for-the-ferdinand-bolstraat/
@dariohudon This reminds me of similar looking forms of protests in Germany at the moment which have the goal to make people wake up to the need to switch to climate-neutral energies. The twist is that social democrats call them
extremists, conservativess call them terrorists and particularly Bavaria throws such protesters in jail for 30 days without a proper charge.
@almodozo @forpeterssake Do you remember what the arguments against it were?
I wonder where those who opposed it are today? And especially, what they think of it now?
@dariohudon @almodozo
Do you mean the arguments against safe streets in the Netherlands, or in the US?
I think in both countries, there was this narrative of the automobile being "the future," and walking or biking was portrayed as antiquated and backward. I think that was 50% natural optimism for new technologies, and 50% advertising spin by auto manufacturers that realized they could create a massive market if they convinced everyone that they needed a car and destroyed the alternatives.
@almodozo @forpeterssake Indon’t think I’v ever read a more succinct and salient explanation of ‘why’.
Usually, it’s covered solely with negativity but your addition of our optimism for new technologies is something we, as humans, have suffered multiple times ie. social media.
As someone in marketing, our role when creating markets exchanges a positive for a negative ie. diamonds and social pressure, vehicles and the negative appeal for alternatives
1/
@forpeterssake @almodozo You’ve got me thinking in a perspective now and I’m fascinated.
Optimism as a problematic approach. An all or nothing focus that steals an important piece of ourselves, green space, compassion…
I’m sure it’s been discussed but I’m curious what this is called? And how many times we’ve done it as a society.
Thanks for this Pete ☺️🙌
Where they are now:
— aged out (it's been a while!)
— and/or moved out to the suburbs/commuter towns (there was a big exodus from cities like Amsterdam in the '70s/80s! See attached chart and https://twitter.com/almodozo/status/1017078006945320960)
— and to some extent of course the resistance is still there, just the Overton Window has moved what the debates revolve around.
As for what the arguments against it were — same as anywhere I guess. Shopkeepers complaining that reducing or eliminating car traffic would destroy their business. Car owners complaining that it would make the everyday life of "regular working people" harder.
Some of that was in bad faith of course (a lot of working class people relied on public transport). Some of it was disproven (pedestrian zones turned out to boost commerce — though it's true that there were probably segmentated differences, in that the shops that flourished weren't necessarily the same ones as were there before). But the arguments are evergreen.
But @forpeterssake makes a good point, though. It's hard to imagine now how deeply entrenched the belief in urban government was that cars, and direct traffic in general, were the future, and responsible governance meant literally paving the way for that future.
In Amsterdam, whole historical neighbourhoods that are now cherished tourist destinations were destined for the chop to make way for highways right into the city.
And we're talking about Labour and Communist politicians, who saw it as part of a greater vision of working class prosperity, replacing inner city slums with life in modern suburbs.
It took literal riots to stop some of this destruction (tho tbf it revolved primarily around a new subway line in that case). And a cultural and generational seachange to change the mindset, as some rebels of the 1970s became policy makers and urban planners in the 1980s.
/Sorry, long.
@almodozo @forpeterssake Thank you so much for sharing this Joost!
I’m going to process and then reply :)
@dariohudon
https://youtu.be/F4kmDxcfR48
From "Not Just Bikes" https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
@interplanetarisch I did add some alt-text however, it may not have been as descriptive as it could have been. I will do better moving forward. It seems I can’t edit it once posted.
Here’s an addition to the current alt-text:
A black & white photo where hundreds of cyclists & their bikes are lying down on a road in a Dutch city.
They lie down in protest for safer roads for cyclists.
This moment is considered one of many that helped the Netherlands become so bike friendly.
@interplanetarisch @mhaenggi It’s from a National demonstration on the Museumplein against traffic safety, 1977 (see picture of Museumplein today)
My original description of a road was incorrect, as the Museumplein in Amsterdam is a large public space. I found more information on the history of dutch cycle culture here: https://www.amsterdam.nl/nieuws/achtergrond/strijd-tussen-auto-fiets/
"Mass protests against the domination of cars were one factor that led to the superb cycling infrastructure of today's Netherlands."
Link to article in the above toot by @dariohudon
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