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A nation on two wheels
A Visitors to the Netherlands are often amazed by the bicycles. There are more bikes than people in the country, and more than a quarter of all journeys are made by bike. Outside Utrecht's main railway station there is an underground cycle park with space for about 12,500 bicycles. It is easy to assume that the Dutch have always cycled like this, but that is not quite true.
B In the 1950s and 1960s, as incomes rose, car ownership in the Netherlands grew rapidly, just as it did across Europe. Cities knocked down old streets to make room for wider roads and car parks, and city planners assumed that the bicycle, like the horse, would soon belong to the past. The number of bike journeys fell steadily.
C The cost of this change became clear on the roads. In 1971 more than 3,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in the Netherlands, more than 400 of them children. Parents and campaigners organised a movement called Stop de Kindermoord ("Stop the Child Murder"), blocking streets and holding demonstrations to demand safer roads.
D Then, in 1973, an international oil crisis caused fuel prices to rise sharply. To save fuel, the Dutch government introduced a series of car-free Sundays. For the first time in years, families walked and cycled on empty motorways, and many people began to imagine what their cities might be like with fewer cars.
E From the mid-1970s, Dutch cities started to invest heavily in cycling. They built separate cycle paths, physically protected from traffic, redesigned junctions to make them safer, and reduced speed limits in residential streets. Some city centres were closed to through traffic altogether. Cycling numbers began to rise again.
F Today, cycling is simply the normal way to get around for most Dutch people of all ages. Children cycle to school alone, and business people cycle to meetings in suits. Experts from around the world now visit the Netherlands to learn how its cities did it. The answer, they are usually told, is not that the Dutch love bicycles more than other people. It is that their cities made cycling the easiest and safest choice.
