2/3 of kids bike to school in Assen because it was designed that way (2013) | Hacker News Reader

2/3 of kids bike to school in Assen because it was designed that way (2013)

aviewfromthecyclepath.com

213 pointsgmays248 comments

I didn’t realize how good I had it growing up in a 1920s streetcar suburb of a Rust Belt city, where pretty much everyone walked or biked to school. Even people who are lukewarm on postwar suburbia usually hew to the consensus that it’s the ideal place to raise kids, and it makes no sense. Children need environments they can navigate under their own power.

It's not just how they are built. I live 1/4 of a mile away from my kids' school. There are crossing guards and sidewalks. Many people still drive their kid to school in my neighborhood. It's crazy to me.

When I went to high school, I walked, as I lived only a few blocks away. So did most kids. During the morning dropoff time, it was mostly walkers, bikes, and busses, with a few cars here and there.

Today? Proportions are reversed. Just a few walk or bike, and an absolute catastrophe of cars dropping off kids. So many that they back up in to the surrounding neighborhood. It's bizarre to me.

I wonder if other parents these days would call CPS on you if they saw your kid strolling past the car pickup line?

You will read the occasional horror story of people getting CPS called on them by some out of touch busybody because they let their kids walk to the park, but honestly that is just as rare as stranger-danger abductions. It's on the order of a case every few years. Basically nothing worth worrying about.

It probably depends upon where you live.

I've seen kids in our neighborhood walking to school alone as early as the 3rd grade. And we have a pack of young kids - ranging from 2nd grade to kindergarten, that regularly roam without adults.

So at least where I live, this doesn't appear to be much of a concern.

I don't think it would be a problem here (Somerville MA): our oldest started walking to school alone in first grade, and home in second grade. Along with our middle child they are also often around the neighborhood on their own, going to the park by themselves or friends' houses.

Driving is the American way and our cities have always been built around roads, from the very first day that an American landed on the shores. It would actually be un-American to shun cars, as it were.

As the old patriotic hymn goes

"He is sounding forth the car horn that shall never ever cease. He is fastening the seat belt in his drivers side reclining seat. As he tried to make men Holy let us drive to make men free. His truth is rolling on.

Jesus Christ pick a lane ass-hole. Jesus Christ pick a lane ass-hole. Jesus Christ pick a lane ass-hole. And put your turn signal on!"

I heard the rythm and tunes of "Comfort Eagle" by Cake, while reading your hymn. Your hymn sort of fits, both in tone, sarcasm and meter of that song. Thank you

I was going for a parody of "Battle hymn of the Republic" / "John Browns Body" / "Blood upon the Risers" / "Solidarity Forever".

However true this may be, the difference between 30 years ago and today is still not explained by that.

I grew up in a very much car-centric suburb. My elementary school was 1.5 miles away. For the first 3 years I rode the school bus. As soon as I hit 4th Grade, I was riding my bike or walking. Most of my friends did the same.

I guarantee you that that same school today sees barely 10% biking/walking compared to 1990.

Agreed. I should have clarified in my post, but this is the same exact neighborhood and school. Demographics are roughly the same. And yet walking / biking is now seen as non-viable.

Might be the "stranger danger" hysteria that was responsible for that change.

Cars have gotten larger. They've gotten faster, accelerate a lot quicker, and can stop a lot faster. Take a look at any video of driving from from the '70s-1990 of American drivers. Cars were small and a bit uncomfortable, and accelerated slowly. The National Speed Limit Law also had some effect on keeping speed limits low. All of this made it more viable to be a pedestrian or a cyclist even with little dedicated architecture.

Today a collector road with a speed limit of 30 mph is seeing drivers at 45 mph, despite stoplights. Nobody is going to bike around 40 mph cars.

> Our cities have always been built around roads, from the very first day that an American landed on the shores

Roads maybe, but not cars (which of course hadn't even been invented when the America was founded). The US used to have extensive streetcar networks. The dominance of cars is a 20th century phenomenon.

You missed the joke.

That reminds me of a comment I once read about the roads in my city being too narrow to accommodate bicycle infrastructure because it was originally designed for horse and carriage. I had to laugh at that, because the streets were originally multi-use. People mostly walked or took a tram. The horses were there, but mostly for commercial use or the wealthy. The typical city dweller had neither the space to graze them nor the means to buy feed.

I live in a downtown century home neighborhood with the elementary school right around the corner (Waterloo region, Canada), and most kids walk, but there are a handful whose parents drop them off on nearby side streets or whatever. Possibly on the way to work or something? Obviously there may be individual considerations, but overall it just seems nuts that anyone would consider that option given how small the catchment is.

Anyway, the school has a tiny parking lot (like 20 slots) just for staff use, but they’re constantly facing calls to expand it, add “pull-in” spots, and so on. I’m glad they’ve been able to resist these as I could well imagine many parents teetering on the edge of comfort level with walking, and potentially switching if it was only slightly more convenient to drive or slightly more scary to walk.

I wonder if there's some sort of game-theory esque problem with cars.

As in, the more people drive to a destination, the less pleasant and convenient it is to walk the same route, and the more attractive driving becomes.

I think, also, the more driving you do in general, the more it feels like the default.

It's the school drop-off paradox: https://blogsmedia.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/120/files/2022/01/Pic...

Yes, absolutely both of those are factors. Walkability is a classic tragedy of the commons.

Which is why it is important and justifiable to occasionally decide collectively to do things that may be perceived as “anti-car”, such as removing (or refusing to build) new car-serving infrastructure such as parking spaces.

This is definitely the case - I used to work next to a bakery and a shopping market with a deli - great lunch options - but that option was rarely exercised because they were built in the classic American "island in the middle of a sea of parking spaces" style that meant the walk was incredibly unpleasant. Folks who lived with half a mile of the grocery store would drive over just to avoid spending five minutes walking (and dodging cars in) the parking lot.

Car oriented infrastructure makes cities less habitable.

I'd drive to my grocery store a 1/4 mile away because I don't want to carry a weeks worth of groceries home

I have a friend whose family of five is car free and he does big grocery runs with a hiking pack or even bike trailer.

But certainly point taken— that type of thing is well outside the norm. Most carfree urban dwellers I think handle this by just breaking up the shopping into more, smaller trips. Going every two days instead of every seven, and paying a slight premium for smaller packs of stuff like TP vs stockpiling 48 rolls at once.

And honestly, some of it is a mindset shift more than anything else. Like a lot of people who do these big whole-week mega shops still seem to be "popping out" to the store (in the car, of course) every other day anyway for some single item they forgot, emergency snacks, whatever. So maybe if you're there anyway, do the work and extend the meal plan another day or two, bring a backpack’s worth of stuff home, and avoid or defer the mega shop that justifies owning a car in the first place.

I would agree that it is manageable to make shopping work without a car, but I'd rather not spend more time going to and from the store, and I'd rather drive a little further to cheaper stores for bulk goods. Also, I don't think the mega shopping is what justifies owning a car, it's more a product that I already have a car because I need to go to work. The car is a sunk cost in most of America.

I feel like both justify the other in some ways: I need a car to do big shopping trips <-> I need to do big shopping trips because I have a car

Or, as you say, having a car is just a given most places in America, so there’s not really a question of it being any other way.

As someone who has lived car free I both agree and disagree with your point. What we tend to do for shopping is occasionally cab/instacart big heavy bulk stuff (like dried beans, canned goods, spices, the 3lbs cut of beef) from Costco/equivalent and then do random small shops through the week to pickup vegetables, fruit and other perishables - it works out quite well and it's nice to be able to plan recipes pretty flexibly.

Again, it's totally manageable to come up with ways to shop without a car. I already have a car though, so it would take more time and effort for me to not use it at this point.

Sort of? Walking to the store, and generally being outside, is healthy and if you're going to the gym already then the occasional walk is an easier way to get some exercise for free.

Sort of? It’s absolutely more time and effort if I include “exercise time” in my now every few days grocery runs. So rather than take 5 minutes each way in a car once a week traveling to the store you’d like me to walk to the closer expensive store several days a week and say it’s only sort of quicker and easier? You have to construct reasons to make it better and even then a walk to the store isn’t the same as a gym workout. I’m much happier walking to the park several times a week with my family than walking to the store with them.

Basically.

America’s high parking requirements are one example for this. The parking lot is usually between a sidewalk (if it hasn’t gotten eaten to expand said parking lot) and the front entrance, reducing a given spot’s walkshed, and both being within a parking lot or crossing its driveways to pass one are not pleasant.

I think it's more than that. The more cars are going the less pleasant it becomes for everyone, also cars themselves. But a large amount of people does what everyone else does and just rationalises/justifies it somehow when challenged.

I see the same with children. When I was young nobody wanted to be dropped off by their parents, everyone wanted to bike. I see it with my kids somewhat (they are still a bit young to bike to school alone here) and some colleagues kids (who are older) and it is an argument to bike to school. Interestingly this seems to be very school dependent some schools have almost all kids biking while others have none. It is almost like a phase transition.

I have a 1 year old, whom I've been taking to playgrounds nearby me here in San Francisco since he was 6 months old. He is on his naked feet, in a public space, almost daily and gets great joy out of it, and there are lots of super clean, really nice facilities here. I've also been biking him since he hit 20 pounds, at 9 months.

There are acquaintances of mine closer to 2-10x as wealthy as I am, and they have never taken their 1 year olds to a playground. They drive everywhere. They don't childproof their homes, they are filled with designer furniture. They have big playpens. They're definitely elite educated. They are certainly aware of the benefits of this kind of development / play for their children. They own all the same Wirecutter approved crap as I do, so they are online, they have read this stuff.

These are cultural differences. They are not motivated by racism or something like that - you know, potentially encountering the "other" at the playground is not really what it's about.

People feel the outside world is dirty and their babies are clean and that dirt is stress. Imagine this for 10 years. You will be driving your kids a quarter of a mile.

The best thing to do would be a viral Instagram momfluencer campaign. This is just how the "clean" people think and consume. You do not comprehend how stressful children are for this group. It's bimodal.

Yup, a friend of ours turned into one of these "babies are clean" moms, down to wiping their hands with baby wipes every time before they were allowed to touch food.

Unsurprisingly the kid's completely undeveloped immune system decided to compensate by developing severe allergies to wheat, milk, eggs and peanuts.

> People feel the outside world is dirty and their babies are clean and that dirt is stress.

I just stumbled across this the other day... "How mud boosts your immune system" - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220929-how-outdoor-play...

> Children love getting dirty. They are drawn to puddles like muddy magnets, with no regard for footwear or the colour of their clothing. But getting mucky could have a powerful effect on their wellbeing, too.

> "Don't get dirty!" was once a constant family refrain, as parents despairingly watched their children spoil their best clothes. Whether they were running through farmers' fields, climbing trees or catching tadpoles, it was inevitable that children's whites would turn brown before the day was over.

>These are cultural differences. ... People feel the outside world is dirty and their babies are clean and that dirt is stress. Imagine this for 10 years. You will be driving your kids a quarter of a mile.

No wonder younger Americans all have deadly allergies to so many common things like peanuts.

This is usually because the design of the streets is still terrible, even if there are sidewalks.

There are plenty of streets with sidewalks in the US that are less walkable than sidewalk-less alleys or narrow streets in Japan. Having sidewalks is certainly better than no sidewalks, but there are other variables.

It's gotten fairly engrained to drive for some people. A lot of people in the US never consider using the bus, simply because they have no experience with it. It doesn't matter how good the service is.

I just bought a house in a streetcar suburb of Philadelphia, and this is among the reasons why. I've lived in some places that were more walkable and some places that were more car-dependent, and I know for sure that when I'm raising kids I want them to be able to get around on their own. I (mostly) had that benefit growing up and I don't want to deny that to them.

My friend showed me this podcast episode [1] about a Japanese TV show where young kids embark on their first independent errands. The episode discusses how a mix of street design, neighborhood groups, and school policies make many Japanese neighborhoods safe enough for children to “navigate under their own power” to schools and stores.

[1]: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/first-errand/

Postwar suburbia was designed for cars, not people.

At first, they were isolated enough that kids could still be kids, while their parents went crazy. Then the kids weren't even allowed to roam free and "be kids." And the suburbs and their homes got so close that there might not be trees in the yards, let alone a grove to go play in. And so, at the same time these youth demographics were marketed to for the first time ever, they were also stifled and smothered out of their autonomy.

When I read the headline I thought they meant “and the rest walk”. Most Dutch primary schools are small and local. My school (not in Assen), back in the nineties, had a rule that you weren’t allowed to come by bike if you lived less than 1km away because they didn’t have enough space for the bikes otherwise. I always looked with envy to the kids who got to bike, I had to walk.

All I mean to say is, this is a pretty normal statistic (anecdotally) and going to primary school by other means than biking or walking happens but isn’t super common except in very rural areas or special schools (either for special needs kids or based on some niche philosophy) that attract kids from a larger distance.

Calling this a normal statistic feels wrong. Amazing that their are places that is true, but I live on a literal island and the vast majority of kids get to school by bus. With the next set by drop off.

Normal in the Netherlands. This article makes it out to be specific to one suburb in Assen.

It’s like writing an article about how great the croissants are in eastern Toulouse. It’s France, the croissants are great everywhere.

Ok. That makes a lot more sense. Being normal to an area might be the case. I'd imagine for a lot of folks, the point stands. Just, it is not only a single suburb that demonstrates it.

It’s normal in pretty much all of Europe. In rural areas people might need to catch a bus in, or even be driven. But the vast majority of children in towns and cities walk to school. My parents used to walk me until I was about 8, then I walked myself.

No it is not. Eastern European countries are very car centric and so are the smaller austrian cities + surrounding towns.

I imagine Germany to be the same (outside of the major cities that is).

It only seems that everyone walks to school because everyone seems to live close to one. But that’s not the case. Far from it.

Even in Eastern Europe, which is quite car centric by European standarda, kids typically live close enough to school to walk there, at least in cities. Also, public transport is very common, especially for older kids, whose don't want to be driven around by their parents but are neither old enough nor rich enough to drive a car.

This is a remnant of the old era where the 90s kids lived in the commie blocks and had schools right in their neighborhood.

This has changed tho as the families are moving out to suburbs which are heavily car centric.

While things are indeed moving in that direction, at least in the biggest city in Eastern Europe (Bucharest) its far from reaching the vast majority of the population.

But it's not abnormal in the rest of the Netherlands either. It's pretty ubiquitous.

"Normal" is geographically bound.

I was born in Europe and was not aware of any other mode of going to primary or secondary school other than walking.

Now I'm in a small town in Canada where the city council consistently votes against any sort of public transit let alone walking improvements, and every family has multiple cars. Plus, most kids would not be allowed to walk alone and unaccompanied to school even if they could :(

Heh yeah, when I read the headline my first reaction was "that would not be special in the Netherlands", before realising that, of course, Assen is a Dutch city.

Edit: see also this fun video comparison of school drop-off somewhere in the US and somewhere in the Netherlands: https://www.reddit.com/r/kutautos/comments/uau4rw/als_alle_s...

Oh boy, how do people put up with that drive through?

Selection bias. Nobody who doesn't normally drive in a lackadaisical manner or values their time drops their kid off at school or picks them up if they can help it.

What's the alternative for people who value their time? (Honest question, I'm not from the US.)

Big yellow metal box full of kids.

That video (US) is super bizarre.

Presumably you could just get out of the car and walk like 50 metres to the school entrance? What's the point of the queue?

Nowhere near enough space for all the parents to park. School wouldn’t release the kids to search out their parents’ cars on their own, but must confirm each child is released directly to the right parent.

It's mostly a social phenomenon and highly dependent on where you are... and most interestingly people and educators adapt to either method as soon as they move to a different place where the habits are different, and that's within the US.

That's a school drop-off line, you can see children leaving the cars and entering the school at 0:27.

My first reaction (as a Dutchie) was "only 2/3?". If I had to estimate the number at my old school it would be 90%.

(edit: I see that number is for primary schools, that makes more sense, for high schools it would be higher)

What about secondary schools? There is a stretch of road on the way to the local Junior High (in California,US) that is absolutely not safe to bicycle (I've personally witnessed 3 car crashes and a car vs motorcycle crash each of which would have also hit a bicyclist had there been one there). Due to a nearby freeway and the geography, there aren't a lot of good alternate routes. The "next best" option adds 2km to the route, much of which is unseparated (other than by paint) by traffic with a speed limit of 45mph which regularly travels 50mph (70-80km/h).

most dutch cities have secondary schools which are easily bikable by most students. In my personal experience, everyone i know biked, including people who had to bike for more then an hour to get home. This was roughly 30 years ago. But i doubt it changed much.

Mind you, biking is so ingrained in dutch culture that alternatives are rarely used unless the distance is either too large (more then an hour one way usually) or there is some special need why one does not bike. This is especially true for teenagers and students, because other forms of transportation are either slow or inflexible (public transport) or far too expensive (motorized scooter) or not legal for them to use yet (a car).

I think on most Dutch secondary schools, the percentage of kids biking to school would be about 99%. Well, some of the older ones might ride a moped or something like that.

Fwiw a good 20% of my (high school) class came by (public) bus because they lived two towns over.

If you only lived one town over, or closer, (eg < 15km) you’d bike.

My thought was: "Two-thirds? Must be a fairly spread-out area then, for so many kids to not walk." I too remember a rule that kids living close to school weren't supposed to come by bike.

It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia

Probably more than 2/3 travel to the local school by bicycle, on foot, or by bus where I live in Norway. By bus because we are a rural kommune and some children live too far away to walk or cycle.

I pretty regularly biked ~10km to school starting around age 12 in middle America. It was dangerous including a 4 lane highway with no bike lanes. Given how fat the town is I grew up in I imagine it was safer in the long run than being inactive.

I kind of wonder whether the fatalities would be worth the tradeoff if America encouraged biking to improve health at the cost of road carnage, but my inclination is to say yes even in the case of children.

It doesn't have to be that way. A four lane highway should have enough buffer to allow for a two way hike and bike path some distance from the cars.

From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle.

Funding these would be easy, just drop the speed limit by 5mph and then automate the issuing of tickets to drivers exceeding the speed limit. Tell voters what the enforcement action is funding and that once the bike paths are finished the speed enforcement will ease off a bit (but not completely.)

> From what I have seen of the Netherlands, the bike paths are physically separated from the driving lanes (except side residential streets) so there is much less risk of a cyclist getting run over, side swiped, or cut off by a vehicle.

another very important factor in road safety in the netherlands is that bicycle users and car users are only mixed in low speed situation (less then 30km/h if i remember correctly) and that car drivers are always at fault for an accident with a bike with the exception of some very specific, hard to prove cases.

Drivers education stresses this dearly, and because everyone in the netherlands grows up riding a bike, the social contract to keep bikers safe is very highly lived after.

It's also quite healthy for folks - biking to school (or work!) helps get the body moving in the morning much more so than getting a ride in. It's unfortunate that in north america the car is viewed as the default mode of transportation regardless of how short the trip may be.

At the last job i actually went into an office for, I ended up biking because it was faster, the parking situation was so bad circling the lot and the neighborhood for a spot was just maddening.

Riding my bike the few miles ended up being shorter time door to desk.

Daily doses of outside and brief forced exercise were fringe benefits

In the US, most cities have bussing programs to intentionally give kids long commutes. The goal is to put students from poorer areas in better schools.

Academic outcomes show this doesn’t help the students, but cities continue on regardless. What person thinks a 40 minute commute for a child is appropriate or healthy? I would be shocked if that worked for anyone.

Why do they opt for such a silly scheme over improving the quality of local schools?

In a lot of parts of America school funding comes from local taxes so regions would need to band together to provide consistent funding across districts (which would cause the richer districts to lose funding money which pisses off rich people).

Yes, but why not change that system in order to provide more equal funding, instead of resorting to bussing?

As I said, the rich people don't want it to happen... so it won't.

Additionally, people literally buy houses for the school district - if you start to disrupt that system you'll potentially cause a shift in housing values and then you're up against both the rich and property owners and America can't win that fight with its current political system - money carries too loud of a vote.

Funding has nothing to do with the schools. A single disruptive student can shut down a class.

Within a school district, teachers are assigned. They rarely get the school they want. So for any given school, an entire district has the same pool of teachers. And yet some schools are much worse than others.

Improving the quality of the schools wouldn't necessarily lead to people volunteering to desegregate themselves.

> In the US, most cities have bussing programs to intentionally give kids long commutes. The goal is to put students from poorer areas in better schools.

Busing hasn't been a thing for many years, and never was in use in "most cities".

Edit: for those in other countries, "busing" in this context means loading the children who would normally attend one school onto a bus and transporting them to another (often distant) school. The intent behind this was to even out the distribution of races among the schools. It never did work well (not the least because essentially all of the students and parents involved hated it), and was effectively banned by a series of Supreme Court decisions starting in the 1990s.

My kids school has bussing. As does every school in my county. Kids with huge commutes that do nothing but lower test score averages looking at the data.

Somewhere up that direction, or maybe in Denmark, I heard there's a bike tunnel, where the the ventilation system is set up such that you always have a tailwind.

I want some of those here.

Normally I roll my eyes at these “here in Europe” accounts from one single country. But then on the other hand, that is the most European thing to do on the Internet.

Trust me it pisses me to no end to read that all the time.

Europeans underestimate how different countries in Europe are.

> It's quite normal in Europe and Scandinavia

I live in central Stockholm and indeed walk to school with my youngest kid.

But every single day I’m amazed and frankly enraged by the massive number of cars leaving kids right outside the school gates.

And often driving off at high speed, checking phones for that “important” morning meeting.

Frankly sick of reading this mythical ‘car-free’ Europe thing. Neighbors as close geographically as Sweden and Denmark can be light years apart in their cultural values.

Oh we have that too, far to many parents driving their children to school when the could easily have walked.

Saying it's normal doesn't rule out exceptions, even frequent ones.

I kind of love the Netherlands (long story) and we have a huge framed photo from Ikea of a canal in Amsterdam on our kitchen wall. Our youngest knows where the picture is from, even though he hasn't had the chance to go yet due to Covid/environment/finances.

Still, as a parent from Sweden, seeing so many pictures of biking kids and no helmets is jarring.

I know that selling bike safety ideas to the Dutch is like selling ice to the Innuit, but it's still weirding me out.

Edit: typo.

Fwiw I recently bought helmets for my family. There is a bit of an uplifting trend for helmets, since a popular tv show spent some time promoting them. Or better, spent some time on the ridiculousness of not wearing helmets while cycling.

I grew up and still live in the Netherlands.

That's really interesting! And, I guess I think, good for you!

Right after writing my post above I had to google "dutch bike helmets" and found stuff like [1] which really makes it very clear that you (as a nation, I mean) just really aren't much into helmets. Cool that there are exceptions, although of course there always are at this level. :)

I don’t know about Sweden but my wife is Danish and we live in NL. The Danes have the same absolutist attitude to helmets. And, well, seeing the average Danish bicycle infrastructure I get where they’re coming from. Outside some nicer areas in the large cities it gets pretty laughable pretty fast. And Denmark likes to brag about their bicycle infra!

I’d wear a helmet in most of Denmark too.

Agreed on it being off to see that many kids without helmets. I'm curious on what the stats are. Specifically, why are they so ok without them?

The biggest hazard for bike riders is cars, and my understanding is that the risk of getting hit by a car is much lower in the Netherlands due to a combination of infrastructure/legal/cultural differences. (Some of which are no doubt intertwined.) It's possible to fall off a bike and hit your head while riding all on your own, but it's also possible to trip and hit your head while walking - at the relatively slow speeds they cycle at there, they seem to not worry about it so much.

EDIT: Also traffic calming is pervasive, so even if somehow you do get hit by a car it's at a much slower speed and therefore much more survivable.

I mean, yes. The biggest risk on the road is cars. So, moving off roads and dedicated biking infrastructure is already moving the needle a lot.

However, don't under estimate how much you can hurt with a low speed fall from a bike.

Also... this is just what I was asking. I was not intending my ask as a challenge that they are wrong. I'm genuinely interested in the data.

It's important not to mystify "infrastructure/legal/cultural differences" too much. Too often in north america we hear that biking would never work over here because of "cultural differences" but the netherlands went a rather dramatic shift in infrastructure priorities starting in the 70s that's built this biking utopia - it's very possible for other parts of the world to follow suit!

Oh certainly, and I didn't mean to imply that it wouldn't work here. (In fact I'd very much like it to and have been doing whatever I can to push for that.) Infrastructure, culture, and law are not static, though influencing each can be difficult in its own way. But not impossible!

It's striking to look at comparison pictures of cities in the Netherlands between the 1970s and today. The old photos could just as well be a lot of cities in the US today: https://exploring-and-observing-cities.org/2016/01/11/amster...

Not sure what the data is. I biked 2+ hours almost daily in a major US city for a couple years. Every accident I had was one where I was in a designated bike lane, and the car crossed it to turn or enter a parking lot in an opening. Separating cars from bicycles in my personal anecdotes was what the danger was, I never had issues when I rode on the real road not on a bike lane. Once you're in the bike lane it's like you're in another world and cars forget you're there (and you can't really ride on the regular road when there's a bike lane next to you, as it makes drivers hostile).

There is safety in numbers and there's little chance that you'll see any significant portion of the population mixing with traffic on main streets. If you can't expect children and families to ride there, it's not safe enough.

On side streets with little car traffic it often does make sense not to separate infrastructure, but traffic calming is then particularly important.

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/11/reality-vs-myth...

That said:

> Every accident I had was one where I was in a designated bike lane, and the car crossed it to turn or enter a parking lot in an opening.

A "designated bike lane" that's just a strip of paint is also not enough for exactly that reason, and if the bike lane (even a protected one) is frequently interrupted by curb cuts into parking lots that's likewise not bike-friendly design.

Do cars have right of way on turns like that? It's an interesting difference between Germany and Australia for example.

In Germany bicycles and pedestrians have right of way on roundabouts or driveways. So everyone is used to looking out for cyclists when entering or exiting a roundabout or driveways. It's perfectly natural.

In Australia cyclists and pedestrians don't have right of way. Often on foot you have you wait at a roundabout until there are no cars. I think this is a much more dangerous approach as it makes for building bad habits of not having to look out for others.

I believe the person going straight in a lane has right-of-way over someone trying to turn in front of them faster than they can reasonably stop. Bicycles are treated as cars, but pedestrians always have right of way if on a pedestrian path.

My near misses and accidents generally are because either someone tries to quickly get in front of me so they can turn in front of me, or because they didn't notice the bike lane at all when turning.

I think the Australian rule would be nearly impossible to follow in a major city, as it's difficult to predict when a car quickly overtaking you may want to "get one over you" and gun it and turn into a driveway in front of you, which is a major cause for my hits / near misses.

Now that you say it I'm not actually sure what the rule is in Australia. But in practice as a pedestrian or cyclist you have to be aware of cars and can't expect to be given way.

In Germany being given way feels pretty much ingrained. It is a very different experience.

And yes, crossing across sidewalks or bike lanes with poor visibility is a common bad one. Both when being the one driving and on foot or bike.

The difference is that right-of-way laws for pedestrians and cyclists are actually enforced in Germany. The laws are generally similar elsewhere in the world, but as they are unenforced the larger, heavier vehicle de facto has right-of-way because the driver can easily kill a cyclist or pedestrian without meaningful consequence.

AFAIK in the US a bicycle is considered a car for right-of-way purposes and thus has no privilege over the car. The only upside in the traffic laws is ability to use the bike lane, SOMETIMES (but usually not) legal right to be on the sidewalk, and no need for a driver's license / registration / insurance.

> AFAIK in the US a bicycle is considered a car for right-of-way purposes and thus has no privilege over the car.

The US is not a single jurisdiction for traffic laws, and whether bicycles are considered vehicles and whether and how they are treated differently than cars at intersections or for other purposes varies widely by state.

I suppose that's true. Nevertheless it's generally accurate and simply telling a foreigner to read the code of every single jurisdiction you pass through is not practical. Any jurisdiction where a bicycle has privileged right of way over a car on a regular public road is by far the exception in America, and a one hour bike ride can easily go through several novel jurisdictions. If a frenchman were to tell me the rules for right of way in bicycles in France I would not consider him wrong if there were some town in French Guiana where the rules are different (despite it being part of France).

> Any jurisdiction where a bicycle has privileged right of way over a car on a regular public road is by far the exception in America

Its actually quite common for them to have special treatment in the rules of the road, either being classed as vehicles with special privileges (beyond just use of bike lanes and sonetimes sidewalks) or not as vehicles at all; in fact, it is so common that I would argue it is by far the norm, the difficulty is that it is not at all consistent what the special treatment is.

> a one hour bike ride can easily go through several novel jurisdictions

The relevant jurisdictions here are thr 50 states, the District of Columbia, and (pedantically, but good luck including them with others ona bike ride) other territories. Its possible to get several on a one-hour bike ride, but only if it is carefully planned for that purpose.

> If a frenchman were to tell me the rules for right of way in bicycles in France I would not consider him wrong if there were some town in French Guiana where the rules are different (despite it being part of France).

Sure, but just on Idaho stop rules alone, there are differences from the majority “just like a car” rule in 9 states covering about 10% of the US population. The exceptions aren't equivalent to “some town in French Guiana”.

When a turning vehicle is attempting to turn across any lane (including a bicycle lane), it must yield to the vehicle traveling straight in that lane, whether or not it is a bicycle (and whether or not that bicycle is classified as a 'vehicle' or as having 'all rights and all responsibilities of a vehicle'). This does not vary between jurisdictions in the US.

Truth. Although I have been knocked unconscious once and have one 10 year old elbow injury that still occasionally causes me trouble that begs otherwise, in practice. In big cities the practical rule is USUALLY the car will turn if it thinks you can reasonably stop in time, and occasionally they'll turn whether or not they think you'll stop in time. A couple times a year the car will just smash you to turn, because fuck cyclists they shouldn't have been on the road.

I would never advise cyclists to consider what you've stated as the actual rules. In practice the rule you should follow is the person turning will turn if they reasonably believe you have time to stop, and prey they do not alter the deal further. De facto vs De jure.

Helmets are designed to protect riders from bike crashes, not from cars.

Dutch commuter bikes are slow and upright, and many have a low top tube and are thus very easy to hop off of— a 9-12 mph bike crash is not unlike slipping while jogging, whereas a 18-35 mph crash on a road bike is a lot more risky. Lower-speed cycling is enabled by Dutch land use which does not require many long-distance trips: https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/best-kept-secret-dutch-b...

Almost as if helmets are not the magic death prevention tool people who argue for the status quo want to sell you on, and it's instead the 3 ton machines with powertrains sized to satisfy a neighborhood street that cause the overwhelming amount of deaths and injuries.

> I know that selling bike safety ideas to the Dutch is like selling ice to the Innuit

Lol! That's the best saying I've heard in a looong time :D

It's interesting that you love the Netherlands as a Swede. From my point of view, it's always the nordics (iceland, norway, sweden, finland) that have the insane happiness, social mobility, etc. ratings, and I love (at least the mental picture of) warm homes in a cold, snowy, foresty climate/environment. If y'all spoke English (or Dutch, I guess) over there as a primary language, I'm actually quite sure I'd have moved there, at least for a couple years. (Currently living in and learning German(y) and I find it very hard, so for me the language is kind of prohibitive unless I'd be sure I wanted to move away from my current life and fully commit to fitting in somewhere new.) Living for two months in Finland didn't destroy that mental picture at all, and though I was impressed with the English being absolutely impeccable from anyone under 60 years old, the colloquially used language is clearly a local language. A local hacker space was very welcoming, but many things are in Swedish/Finnish because that's simply what everyone there speaks.

I'd be interested in this 'long story' if you are willing to share it!

As a Dutch person I learned some Swedish and some German (both not very well, but enough to go around) and I found Swedish significantly easier. It feels more similar to Dutch/English in terms of grammar and flow. Just one data point, but maybe useful for you to know!

as a dutchman, i once stumbled across some swedes in a bar.

With enough beer, im convinced we would be able to speak the same language at a certain point.

Both the Dutch and Swedes (and I guess it goes for Norway and Denmark as well) generally speak English. So much so that my colleagues from other countries find it a problem in that they get very few opportunities to learn Swedish; because everyone just switches to English when they are around.

Yes, I know this effect everywhere. Currently at work in Germany (to be fair: also because it was previously just not practical; I should ask for speaking more german now), or when my girlfriend studied in the Netherlands she said the same. When I was in Finland, people spoke English really really well, but when I looked for an internship, there was not much available in the first place, and that which there was, all required speaking either Swedish or Finnish. (Probably this is better in the capital area, I wasn't near there.) But even if people speak it very well as a secondary language, you're still limited in making friends or finding jobs, even if casual interactions (e.g. stores, school/work friends) try to be helpful and speak english unless you absolutely insist on using your broken version of their language.

I'm not going to go into the various forms of grass-is-greenering that could apply here, but of course (?) I'm aware that a lot of Dutch like coming up here too for vacationing and such.

About English, that's kind of a point of pride up here (English was taught from age 11 when I was that age ~35 years ago, but these days it's from age 7 and my oldest kid is starting to have classes and understand more and more).

I would say that you can get very far using English in Sweden, both in business and in private. Probably quite a few Swedish people's English will start to fail if you e.g. open a random kitchen drawer and ask them to name all the things, but still. You can get by.

See also references like [1], I'm pretty sure I'm not making this up just to rose-tint all the blue and yellow. Or something.

[1]: https://studyinsweden.se/blogs/2018/03/26/people-in-sweden-s...

I find it quite jarring to see all the Swedish people walking without helmets on those icy streets!

The number of bicycle accidents is quite small and the number of serious head injuries even smaller, helmets would save less than 5 children yearly [1]. This is mostly due to education, both primary school cyclists and driver's license and road design separating cars and bicycles.

[1] https://swov.nl/nl/fact/fietshelmen-hoeveel-slachtoffers-zou...

I've actually thought about wearing a bike helmet while walking outside during the winter season. The alternative is putting on crampons which seems like more of a hassle but has the added benefit of preventing slipping on ice so would also protect my wrists and shoulders.

I think the helmets would just be too much of a hassle, making them mainstream would take people off bikes again? It messes with your hair, it's hot in summer, difficult to combine with a hat in winter, you have to put it somewhere when going places, like bars. And make no mistake, here we jump on an off bikes all day, I would really hate to have to wear one on a bike. (I do wear one when mtb-ing btw!)

I'm 40, lived for all of my life in the Netherlands, I hardly saw any accidents, and I never ever saw any accident where a helmet would be of any use. Yeah it's anecdotal, but I feel it's just safe enough. I feel the same about biking as I do about walking. Helmets wouldn't make it safer. But, show me the data to convince me otherwise. Still, lets say it makes things safer, I wonder if the net effect would still be negative because it would drive people into cars, where you don't need a (stupid!) helmet.

I think it's difficult for people from other places to imagine just how little cars you encounter with good bike paths, and how people drive around you when everybody is a "cyclist" (hate the word, it's just normal here) and a driver. For example in a collision, it's always the car's responsibility [0], because pedestrians and people on bikes are considered vulnerable, they always get 50-100% off their damages paid. It creates a certain culture.

[0] https://www.anwb.nl/juridisch-advies/aanrijding-en-dan/aansp...

I left my motorcycle helmet attached to a motorcycle for YEARS in high-crime areas and never had it stolen (arguably worth more than a bicycle helmet -- but who really wants to buy a used helmet). Realize it's an anecdote but honestly I don't see the big risk in leaving the helmet on the bike when you go in the bar.

> I think the helmets would just be too much of a hassle

While probably true, I think the emphasis is misplaced. The primary reason helmets aren’t as encouraged as elsewhere is the immense bike infrastructure that keeps cyclists safe. The risk is much much much smaller than in car focussed places.

There is integrated chain and wheel lock on dutch bikes already, it is trivial to add basket for helmet storage as "standard" feature.

In the last 20 years large shift happened in skiing, for example. 20 years ago almost no-one would wear ski helmet is US, now almost anyone does, although it's not required.

You mean the basket where my bag is in? Or the groceries? Or do you want put it where my kids' seats are? In any case, it's annoying and unnecessary, I hope this never changes, wearing a helmet will fundamentally downgrade the relaxed, casual biking experience that is so normal here.

Yeah I saw it in skying, one year nobody wore a helmet then suddenly I felt very self-conscious about it. Same thing for MTBing. Skying, Snowboarding and MTBing are much more dangerous though and I happily wear a helmet going down slope over 25 km/hour. Biking 10 km/hour, essentially running speed... No. Bikes look like this here [0] and they are everywhere, don't forget, it's very different from this: [1]

[0]: https://denhaagfietst.nl/wp-content//uploads/2020/02/DHKruge...

[1]: https://www.triathlon365.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Vrouw...

I cycle every day to work in Germany and my 3 year old daughter already cycles in the city (not alone obviously). However, I would always wear a a helmet and I think it saved me at least once from worse. I really wonder how Dutch infrastructure could have saved me from getting hit by a 90 year old lady on the way to get doctor on city neighborhood road (was fascinating to see how the helmet absorbed the energy). It might be rather that Dutch drivers learned to share roads with bikes (although I am always scared of Dutch bus drivers when the overtake you on a bicycle)

I remember an article about that — bike ridership is so widespread that most drivers have someone in their family that bikes, if not a biker themself.

Would you wear a helmet to drive a car? Or walk down the steet? Why not?

A car is basically a huge powered helmet.

Helmets in cars can be very effective. This is why racing drivers wear them.

They also travel significantly faster than normal road users.

Yes, if I was travelling 300kmph in my car, I would wear a helmet.

One part is to not share roads, but to have separate bike paths. Physical separation (e.g. trees between cars and bikes) is another method. There's lots of clever things infrastructure folks have come up with; Not Just Bikes is the classic YouTube channel that details many of them.

This is something true for major roads. However, also in the Netherlands you cannot have a separate road door to door for everyone. But I guess if cars are below 30 kmh statistical risks are less. However, I flew mid air a bit hit by a car at approximately 15 kmh .

Yeah that's why I said it's only part of it. I'd really recommend that YouTube channel, there's so many little things you can do to make traffic safer for everyone.

I cycle all the time in the Netherlands. When I ride my city bike, I never wear a helmet. When I ride my race bike, I always do, as do most others.

The two manners of riding are so different. They both feel equally safe.

I do have a scar on my nose from falling head first onto the road. That was riding my city bike. While carrying a TV. In a rainstorm. With no hands on the handlebars. So 100% my fault :)

Did the TV survive the crash?

It did. I somehow threw the TV onto the footpath as I fell. Its box and polystyrene packing did their job.

They don't wear helmets because they aren't zooming around like Lance Armstrong. The risk of accidents with head injuries a helmet would help against is limited. Same thing why you don't wear a helmet when you go by car although an occupants risk of head injuries in a typical accident is comparable.

You can't really equate safety gear across different modes of transportation, otherwise if you wear a seat belt when riding in a car then why not wear a seat belt when riding a bicycle?

They bike very slowly tho. Almost painfully slowly to me. The low speed keeps them safe, even in accidents.

It’s social science, and a ‘proper’ experiment can’t really be done, but the scientists expect the gain from making helmets mandatory would be more than offset by the loss in health from making cycling less popular.

Many people also don’t realize that many Dutch cyclists typically don’t cycle very fast. The average speed of people on bicycles is 12.4km/hour (https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/dutch-cycling-...). That’s a speed that young runners also can reach fairly easily. Should they wear helmets, too on the road?

And those who go faster often _do_ wear helmets.

Source: am Dutch.

Sure, helmets would make cycling safer. Helmets would also make walking on the sidewalk safer. But I bet you don’t wear a helmet there. This implies there is some level of risk you’re willing to take before you wear a helmet.

My theory is that cycling in the Netherlands is safer than it is in most countries. Just some factors:

- People mainly cycle for transport, not for sport: you sit upright, you go relatively slowly

- Every car driver in the Netherlands is also a cyclist sometimes, so people know how cyclists behave and respect them

- Cycling is everywhere: you don’t encounter cyclists only in the center of big cities, basically every road except (often, not always!) highways will have cycle paths in parallel so as a car driver you encounter cyclists everywhere and anywhere

- The bicycle infrastructure is fantastic: if possible bike lanes are separated from car lanes by greenery or trees or something, bike lanes don’t cross right next to intersections (so you’re not in the blind spot of a car making a turn - the car already turned and then crosses the bike path) etc.

Not comparing, but is it really safe? https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/09/cycling-injuries-three...

50,000 serious injuries in one year seems considerable.

I have a theory that requiring helmets would reduce bicycle usage, making people in general less healthy. It would also increase the ratio of cars to bikes, making roads more dangerous. I think the net effect would be worse outcomes.

I'd love to see evidence of this (either proving or disproving) but it seems like a hard thing to measure.

That said, I always wear a helmet when biking, but I never wear a helmet when driving, and I am aware of the irony.

I believe when Australia introduced mandatory helmets, bicycle use indeed dropped dramatically. That's definitely a big part of why many Dutch are opposed to mandatory helmet laws.

Helmets should probably be mandatory for e-bikes, though. They go a lot faster, and more importantly: faster than people realise.

A Dutch satire program had an item on this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WflYjsaC19g). A lot of these injuries is with the elderly and the teenagers. It is suggested that this due to the rise of e bikes, which go faster.

A helmet should be required for ebikes.

I think this is a recent development and it is mostly older people who would previously not cycle as much anymore, but now drive e-bikes and so are going a lot faster while being physically more fragile. I think they were mostly one sided incidents (them driving into stuff or slipping).

For those people, I’d indeed recommend or mandate a helmet.

Do consider that in the Netherlands, people cycle 15,000,000,000 kilometers per year (that’s over 800 km per year per citizen, including babies etc.) to put the 50,000 injuries into perspective.

(Dutch source: https://www.fietsersbond.nl/ons-werk/mobiliteit/fietsen-cijf...)

If you practice a bit of judo you learn to keep your head off the ground.

That may be the best way to learn this skill, but really any physical activity will contribute. If, as a child, you've wrestled with your sibling, or played tag, or played soccer, or skateboarded, or indeed, ridden a bike, you've practiced keeping your head off the ground when falling.

As an adult, I have catastrophically wrecked, at high speed, on asphalt, both while cycling (destroyed the front fork) and while rollerblading, without a helmet, and in both cases flipped and skidded on a shoulder without touching my head. As a child, I had done that when falling from horses.

A common misconception is that helmets protect you from cars, according to the helmet manufacturers they are not:

> “There are many misconceptions about helmets,” Richter told British trade magazine Cycling Industry News on July 6.

> “We do not design helmets specifically to reduce chances or severity of injury when impacts involve a car,” said Richter.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/07/10/bicycle-...

Whoa, there is a huge difference between "not specifically designed to protect against" and "does not protect against".

A bike helmet is not specifically designed to protect against a brick falling from a building and hitting your head. But would you rather experience such an event with a bike helmet, or without?

Also you should take any article singing the praise of MIPS for regular bike helmets with a huuuge grain of salt. MIPS as it's been designed and tested for motorbike/downhill racing/etc. is a definite advantage. But those are all systems where the helmet is so tight it's almost glued to your head. And if you look up the research papers on MIPS, they use test stands with a crash test head and literally glue the helmets to the head before testing. A bike helmet is so far from firmly attached that the 10-15mm rotational slip offered by MIPS is obviously pointless.

It is weird, but any discussion on safety is in vain: we will NOT wear helmets. Period.

Increasingly, it has become mandatory to wear helmets on the several varieties of slow motorized vehicles like scooters. I think we're now down to the slowest category of 30km/h.

As a result, that industry collapses. Once a helmet is mandatory, we dump it.

Davis California is a model for this in the US, specifically designed on the Dutch model of urban transport.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/03/davis-califor...

Awesome for Davis. Sad when you realize this could be every city in the greater Bay Area which all share a similar climate to Davis but somehow is not...

San Francisco is getting there tho. I see new protected bike lanes pop up regularly.

Park City, Utah is very similar. Kids there have electric bikes because of the mountains. There are safe bike paths and tunnels under roads everywhere in the city.

Isn't it around that number everywhere? At least if you include walking: I can imagine that in high-density housing, many people live so close, they don't need any transportation.

It seems like the author just happened to have found an article about this new suburb in Assen but that it's actually just reporting on the status quo.

Certainly not if you define everywhere as including all of the US and Canada.

I meant the Netherlands actually, the country this is about. It's like speaking of Medicine Hat[1] specifically, when it's actually normal in all of Canada.

[1] actual city name. I chose the one nearest in population to Assen and this is honest name. https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4167203

I think the point of this article is that this could be tried other places?

Sure, but why single out a random town instead of just using the model that is being applied similarly throughout the country? 17 million people is a much larger sample size than 60 thousand, ought to be more convincing that it can work in various situations.

That is kind of the first two paragraphs of the article, though? Right?

Yes, which feels kind of weird: first mention Assen, then start writing about the Netherlands as a whole as though that was the topic all along. Idk, maybe it's just me

I think that is just a natural, "start with a specific example as a hook" that actually works really well in education and general propaganda.

As an American this definitely seems exceptional. I grew up in rural and suburban areas without sidewalks, and biking/walking to school was unheard of. I interpreted this as just one proof by example that it could work, and as a call to arms for trying it elsewhere.

Counterexample: in our rural Montana town large numbers of kids bike to school and many more walk. We do have sidewalks and heavy traffic bypasses the town on the interstate.

I guess it depends on where in America you are. Around here (city), walking and biking to elementary school is pretty common. When you get towards middle school and high school, the distances get larger, so more students take public transportation. School buses are very rare; I don't think I've seen them outside of field trips (though I do think some students take them).

Driving always seemed like a less common form of transportation.

Here in San Francisco, you have the school physically closest to you and you have the school to which you get assigned. In most cases, they are not the same. So you end up traveling 20-45 minutes by bus. Isn't this the norm in the USA? Which is why there are yellow school buses everywhere?

Here you have the school closest to you that you have the right to attend, and then you have the option of being on a lottery for schools that a further away. Looking at this[1], it seems like San Francisco is similar, unless I'm misunderstanding something?

One problem is that in some parts of the city, the public schools are so bad that people are trying to move to out of boundary schools or charter schools that are further away. But the main issue there is not giving people functional local schools rather than lack of cycling infrastructure (which is actually somewhat developed here).

[1] https://www.sfusd.edu/student-assignment-policy/tiebreakers/...

I live in Seattle and my kid bikes to school almost every day. It's really easy if you say yourself up with an e-bike.

It's been a few years since I've been to Seattle, but other than trails along the bay I don't recall biking within the city itself feeling safe. Were there many protected bike lanes?

Any city is safe to bike in if you either stick to residential roads or take the entire lane:

https://i.redd.it/x8qqewx3m7l91.png

Here's Seattle's network of protected bike lanes: <https://i.imgur.com/vEDhqoz.png>. Note that many of them are flawed in one or more ways:

* There are frequent car crossings at blind alleys and driveways, often every 20-30 feet.

* Many are "protected" by flexible posts that are easily driven over.

* When protected bike lanes run next to roads, drivers often turn across them at intersections without looking.

I generated the map with Overpass Turbo: <https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1mT6>. To make it render nicely, check "Don't display small features as POIs" under settings. If you want to try it for a different city, drag/zoom it into view and hit "Run".

Seattle has improved and there are now regular corridors through most of the city. You do sometimes have to join an arterial or cross it, but I can get from my house to downtown, Capitol Hill, or North Seattle/shoreline easily with a bike plus the train.

Seattle and surrounding areas have built bunch of protected bike lanes, but the main problem still remains: it's very hilly. Basically there are specific areas you can bike through, but it quickly fails as general transportation mode since not everyone is a super athlete.

E bikes make the hills here a non issue.

Which part of Seattle?

It really depends on where you live in the US. When I moved from Los Angeles to the Atlanta suburbs my daughter rode her bike to elementary school like she always had. The school principal called and told me it wasn't allowed. I offered to ride with her since I work from home and it wouldn't be a problem but she wouldn't budge. I offered to fund raise for bike racks, setup bike trains, and give safety courses. I tried for years and years, through three kids, and never got permission. My kids are all grown now except my oldest who does indeed ride an e-bike to high school.

What does she mean, "not allowed"? She's not the boss of your daughter. Couldn't you just tell the principal she can't forbid your daughter from riding a bicycle?

She said if my daughter showed up by bike she wouldn’t be allowed into the building. If they saw the bike locked up to the fence they’d cut the lock and impound it. She was apologetic and said it was a safety issue because everyone else drove and it’s not safe for students to be around cars and busses. I pointed out that everyone else drove because they weren’t allowing people to walk or ride their bikes. It was very frustrating. I was glad when we moved on to Jr High.

> She said if my daughter showed up by bike she wouldn’t be allowed into the building. If they saw the bike locked up to the fence they’d cut the lock and impound it.

I would try to record this conversation, and once I had the recording, warn the principal in a public letter that would be a criminal act and cause for a civil suit, and threaten to also take it to the local news media. Of course, if my daughter was willing to take up this fight.

Yeah, I was much younger then and much less self confident. If I had it to do over I'd escalate, like you suggest. Maybe get the super intendant involve. Another option would have been to find more parents that were interested and get some ground support.

When I went to school, the kids biked to work. The bike racks were long and festooned with bikes. There were no bike paths or any special roadway consideration for them at all.

These days when I pass a school, there's a single bike rack with maybe 3 bikes in it. There's a loooong line of SUVs idling waiting to pick up their kids, with the driver (almost always mom) reading a paperback draped over the steering wheel, or on the phone.

I never figured out why they always had to have the engine on. The whole thing was enveloped in a miasma of exhaust fumes.

The modern "no bikes" is a cultural thing. Parents these days also are terrified of their kids walking to school.

> The modern "no bikes" is a cultural thing.

It’s reinforced car culture.

> Parents these days also are terrified of their kids walking to school.

Also, reinforced car culture. Communities optimize car throughput, enabling faster, deadlier traffic and fewer reasons to walk or bike…resulting in fewer people walking or biking…resulting in optimized car throughput.

Given the prevalence of bikes in the Netherlands this doesn’t seem surprising. Usually Elementary schools in US cities are close enough to walk to in many cases. This however doesn’t stop most families from driving their kids to school.

"Close enough to walk" and "has walking infrastructure" are two very different things. In making schools and other things easier to access by car, we have often made them harder to access on foot, especially for children who are more vulnerable in dangerous situations around traffic.

I live in a bike-friendly city (League of American Bicyclists "Gold" level) but all of my cycling routes include roads without bike lanes. I wouldn't ask a kid to do it, at least not until people learn to drive much safer.

The surprise in this for people from the Netherlands is that this is a surprising statistic for people from other countries. Having lived here all my life, my first thought was: 2/3 seems a bit low to me. I had to read the article to see that it is a bit lower for primary school kids (who can often walk) and actually 90% for secondary school age.

The differences between our infrastructure compared to other countries somehow grew organically inside the Netherlands, not many people here were noticing that this was anything special. Even right wing politicians here don't really oppose bike infrastructure, except for a few lunatics. Now that everyone here "gets" it, it even seems to be accelerating lately. I think we must thank our politicians, civil servants, city planners and a few very effective activists in the previous century for their good work.

I'm American and the photo of the bikes parked at the school shocked me. I've never seen so many bikes in one place. I'd estimate that bicycle usage in the schools near me at around 1%. When I was in high school (800 students) I was one of 4 people who regularly biked to school.

I'd love to see the US start to organically shift toward the infrastructure you have in the Netherlands.

It is not just the bike lanes, but also the gradual downsizing of roads to smaller roads. If you bike through the cities here, you will never have to drive along a highway for example. At least not within a few feet. (Secondary road). This gets the speed out of traffic, also prevents cars driving into stores at crossroads for example. This doesn't happen very much here, once every few years and it is big news.

you should see these pictures of bike storage at central train stations:

[0] utrecht centraal prior to their major renovation [1] airial picture of the a different bike storage at the same train station

[0] https://tondejager.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/bikes-in-utre... [1] https://www.aerophotostock.com/-/galleries/all/-/medias/8098...

It was not organic, there were fierce fights against the cars in the 70s[0] but unlike in the US where the car aided white people fleeing desegregation, they won. Not so in the US.

I don't think you'll see an organic shift except in some city areas unless there's an intentional change in policy.

[0] https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-...

Maybe next they can think about student housing.

Yes, there are still many problems in need of a solution in the Netherlands. I sometimes wonder if they'd get solved better when managed by boring bureaucrats who do thorough analysis and slowly implement consistent long-term policies, without too much politic influence, like our infrastructure.

I lived in Amsterdam for several years, then went back to a mostly-bicycle-ignorant country. And, boy, do I miss the infrastructure for biking! You simply never feel like you're missing out on anything by not having a car. Plus, your health and stamina improve by having routine aerobic activity every day :-)

Reminds me of Peachtree City, Georgia, where a lot of residents get around by driving golf carts and there's lots of paths and parking to accomodate those golf carts.

This is from 2013. I wonder if they improved the cycle paths network in the last 9 years.

I sometimes like to turn headlines like this on their head. e.g. this can also be read as "1/3 of kids in Assen are prevented from biking to school by design"

It can also be read as 1/3 are walking:

> The remaining 1/3 are those who live close enough to the primary school that they are more likely to walk.

Very probably.

Safe from traffic is one thing. Presumably there aren't homeless encampments and junkies walking around. My daughters high school teenagers are mostly driven to keep them safe. Last week a student was mugged on the way home had her stuff stolen.

This almost never happens in the Netherlands. Also the routes to and from schools are so safe because they all take that route. Worst thing that can happen is hitting someone else with your bike.

Yes, it's a very correct observation that a well functioning society should also provide universal healthcare (including mental health), a social safety net that limits homelessness to the fullest extent possible, decriminalization and free safe treatment for hard drug addicts, and urban planning that encourages lively neighbourhoods around schools where there are always responsible adults close by.

In a perfect world yes. Unfortunately we can't pick up our schools and move them if it turns out to be a poor location.

That's a very defeatist attitude. It's not about relocating schools. Public policy needs to change to reduce urban sprawl, stop producing homeless and criminals, and improve public transportation and livability to the point where walking to school is normal.

I don’t consider it defeatist at all. Yeah we can do all those things, but we’re not going to do it tomorrow or do it right every time.

You can build new ones. Why always all this fatalism from US people when improvements are discussed? Richest country on Earth, nothing can be done about problems.

That’s quite the reduction of my statement.

I'm not saying you should move the schools away from the homeless people, or vice versa. I'm saying you should dramatically reduce the number of homeless people by providing them with a social safety net, and for those addicted to drugs to provide them with free treatment so they no longer have to resort to crime.

It's actually cheaper for society to treat the disease of drug addiction in a humane way, than to fight the crime that results when drug addiction is criminalized.

Why not solve war and hunger while you’re at it?

We could "solve hunger" in USA with just the money we're wasting prolonging the suffering in Ukraine. Not spending lots of money to fill troubled areas with deadly weapons (see also Haiti, Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc.) might not solve war but would certainly reduce it.

We don't do rational and good things, because 95% of Americans have no effect on what our nation actually does. Our system is a simulation of democratic rule, where we make a great show of occasionally choosing between Coke and Pepsi. Meanwhile all laws are written by lobbyists. They also appoint all bureaucrats, which explains why we performed more poorly against covid than every other nation, except Peru, Brazil, and a few eastern European nations... while spending twice as much on health care as every other nation. Gosh I wonder where Pfizer is spending their windfall profits?

You'll know that things are about to change when the billionaires begin dying violently. So, not soon.

The fact that you think this is a strong counter-argument is a bit telling.

War is different from the other things here, because it's not something a nationstate can unilaterally solve. But I don't think anyone disagrees that well-developed societies should strive to implement mechanisms that avoid war.

But hunger, universal healthcare, reduction of homelessness to a minimum and adequate social safety nets are all universally agreed-on goals for developed societies. And if you look outside the US you will find 50+ countries that are actually achieving these things. You may take the Wikipedia list of countries with universal healthcare as a starting point.

If there are pedestrians and cyclists around - which is indeed the case when children come to school or go back home - then nobody gets mugged, even if there are some junkies or homeless people also in the same neighborhood. First, because junkies and homeless people are not automatically violent (and the Netherlands has a lot less violent crime than the US); second, because there are too many witnesses; and third, because unless they're cycling, they're not on the bicycle path anyway.

So what makes you assume it was “homeless and junkies” who mugged them, and not some Christian republican human trash?

(“Human trash” as a counterpoint to your “junkie” slur; also note I’m not really interested in _your_ response, I already know what you are; the point of this comment is to show dang’s skewed moderation criteria. Might not work this time, so I’ll continue doing it for a while, of course without annotating it.)

Ok, since you're obviously not interested in using HN as intended, I've banned the account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Is there anywhere to get this kind of experience in the US?

Not a helmet in sight…

But don’t look at your phone while biking or you’ll get a ticket!

"This cycle-path is 3.5 metres wide - wide enough for side-by-side cycling in both directions at once." 3.5 meters is ~11.5 feet which is less than ONE highway lane in the US (at 12 ft). Bike lanes are so much more space efficient than highways - one bike lane can transport so many more people than a highway - and yet this country is wildly opposed to them. I just do not understand why.

Hypothetically... lets see, Assen has a population of 68,000 and that roughly matches Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

So, hypothetically, lets wave a magic wand and redesign Eau Claire to follow the same design plan as Assen.

Would you still have 2/3 of the kids biking to school?

Temperature for 2021: https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/clim-history/stations/eau/eau-...

Cumulative snowfall for 2021: https://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/clim-history/stations/eau/eau-...

Going to weather spark to have a consistent source: https://weatherspark.com/y/11595/Average-Weather-in-Eau-Clai...

> The cold season lasts for 3.2 months, from November 28 to March 3, with an average daily high temperature below 36°F. The coldest month of the year in Eau Claire is January, with an average low of 9°F and high of 24°F.

> The snowy period of the year lasts for 5.4 months, from November 2 to April 15, with a sliding 31-day snowfall of at least 1.0 inches. The month with the most snow in Eau Claire is December, with an average snowfall of 4.5 inches.

---

https://weatherspark.com/y/54846/Average-Weather-in-Assen-Ne...

> The cold season lasts for 3.7 months, from November 19 to March 10, with an average daily high temperature below 46°F. The coldest month of the year in Assen is January, with an average low of 32°F and high of 40°F.

> The snowy period of the year lasts for 1.7 months, from December 14 to February 5, with a sliding 31-day snowfall of at least 1.0 inches. The month with the most snow in Assen is January, with an average snowfall of 1.3 inches.

---

The biking design and participation is a wonderful design to aspire to... it isn't always practical in all climates.

Assen barely gets to freezing temperatures and has a dusting of snow.

If one says "oh, that's too far north"... then lets go to St. Louis. https://weatherspark.com/y/12083/Average-Weather-in-St.-Loui...

> The cold season lasts for 3.0 months, from November 28 to February 28, with an average daily high temperature below 50°F. The coldest month of the year in St. Louis is January, with an average low of 25°F and high of 41°F.

> The snowy period of the year lasts for 3.7 months, from November 26 to March 17, with a sliding 31-day snowfall of at least 1.0 inches. The month with the most snow in St. Louis is January, with an average snowfall of 3.2 inches.

(with the cold season part, note the cold range dips quite a bit lower in St. Louis than Assen)

We could continue this with Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Fargo, Missoula, Spokane, Salt Lake City... even if we could wave a magic wand and redesign the city to be perfectly bikeable it wouldn't have the participation like it does in Western Europe.

I'm not saying to ignore the effort to make those infrastructure changes (they'd be good), but rather try to avoid the implicit "the US is bad because so few cities are designed to allow 2/3 of the students to bike to school" because it is impossible to get there.

“Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Considering the fact that northern European folks in bike oriented cities can do it, I'm sure the folks in Eau Claire can prove themselves just as tough.

My point is that winters in the continental United States are significantly different than the winters in Northern Europe.

The infrastructure appropriate for one isn't necessarily appropriate for the other.

For what it's worth, Oslo is still 10 degrees F (5.5 degrees C) warmer in the middle of winter than Eau Claire.

London, Ontario (used in the video) is further south than Madison, WI.

> The cold season lasts for 3.3 months, from December 3 to March 13, with an average daily high temperature below 38°F. The coldest month of the year in London is January, with an average low of 18°F and high of 29°F.

It's a bit nippier than Assen but its quite a bit warmer than Eau Claire in the winter.

If cities provided separated bike infrastructure and kept that infrastructure clear of snow, cyclists can manage it. Pogies (https://bikepacking.com/gear/pogies/) are incredibly effective for keeping your hands warm; the rest of your body can be kept warm in cold temperatures by standard wind-resistant gear & the heat generated by your body when you exercise.

Studded tires make an enormous difference if you get ice in your town.

The problem is not the climate. It is the infrastructure. American cities, towns, suburbs, roads, and just about everything else are designed for one mode of transportation: the car. Even walking is an afterthought -- ever feel uncertain of how you're supposed to get from your car to a business, because there's a sea of parking lots right up to the business's front door?

Cars are not scalable. We need to redesign American cities for micromobility today.

(NB: I was, prior to being a fully remote worker, a full time cyclo-commuter, and sometimes bike infrastructure advocate.)

The problem is partially the infrastructure. My rust belt city, or Eau Claire WI, could put in perfect bike and pedestrian infrastructure tomorrow, and it would be barely used for a generation, or more. Many bike advocates advance the wrong approach. Sure, with the right gear, anybody could commute in the middle of a Wisconsin winter. A better approach would be convinced the residents of Eau Claire (or any town, USA) to start by riding their bikes when the weather is good. Then gradually shift expectations to riding when it is raining. Then riding when it is cold. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think it would be a huge improvement if 2/3 of the residents of my city walked, took the bus, or rode their bikes to work five months out of the year. Over time, some percentage of those folks would realize that they could ride (or walk) when the weather isn't great.

I don’t think a single bike advocate starts from the position that “everyone will ride in all seasons from day one!”

The solution to get people riding in summer is the same as winter… safe infrastructure.

I believe a lot of that "towns are built for cars" has to do with the population density of the surrounding area.

I was using Eau Claire as an example... Eau Claire itself has a population of somewhere between 68,000 and 70,000 depending on when the count was done. 70 is a nice round number. Eau Claire is in Eau Claire County which has a total population of 105,000 (2/3 the population is in the city) an area of 645 square miles (1670 square kilometers) and the population density for the county is 165 people/square mile (64/ square kilometer).

We head to Assen, and that has a population of 68,000 and move up to the province of Drenthe... that has a land area of 2634 square kilometers (1017 square miles), a total population of 493,000 (nearly 5x the population of the county of Eau Claire) and a population density of 188/square kilometer (490/ square mile).

This is, where I believe, things get different when doing these comparisons. The city of Eau Claire needs to be built for the people who aren't in the city (even though most live in the city). Its a 90 minute drive there before you get to Minneapolis or if you head in the other direction, its 90 minutes before you get to Wausau (population 40,000).

In Drenthe, there probably isn't any place where you need are 50 miles from the nearest hardware store or grocery store of reasonable size (according to Google Maps you can drive from one end of the province to the other in under an hour). Assen to Groningen (p. 200,000) is 1/3 the distance of Eau Claire to Minneapolis.

With that much higher of a population density it makes a lot more sense to optimize for more local transportation.

If we took a Voronoi chart based on cities with a population of more than... 40,000 and overlaid that on Wisconsin and the Netherlands I am fairly sure that the area that each city reaches to is larger in Wisconsin and that the population that area is larger - that there's a lot more rural population in Wisconsin.

The consequence of that is that the cities at the centers of each area need to be designed primarily with distance travel in mind rather than local travel.

The places where those areas are smaller because the cities are more closely packed (the large metro areas on the coasts in particular) it is more feasible to invest in local transportation options because that citywide be serving a higher portion of local population rather than the "out of town".

In terms of investment in bicycle infrastructure - it is those places that will have the greatest return - like Portland and Seattle.

Trying to redesign Eau Claire or Wausau for micro mobility means that population outside of the urban area is very poorly served by the city.

I agree with your assessment - the transport design for many cities is held hostage by the transport choices of the surrounding areas.

Which creates a feedback loop. The city is redesigned to accomodate car commuters so it’s less pleasant to live in so more people move to the suburbs so the city is redesigned for those extra car commuters so it’s less pleasant to live in…

Outside Assen, people use cars. And bikes for recreation. The discussion is about travel within the town though (the people live in the same suburb where the school is as well, or close to it).

> The city of Eau Claire needs to be built for the people who aren't in the city (even though most live in the city).

I think this is a fallacy. Why should the transportation infrastructure be built for those who don't live there? When cities are built for cars, then cars is what they get. But if they build for other modes, then those modes because much more preferable. The preference of these occasional visitors shouldn't be dictating the immense budgetary concerns of maintaining car infrastructures. There's no reason folks coming from outside the city can't park at a periphery (or even central) parking structure and then bus/walk/bike to their destination, if we take the original corollary that Eau Claire gets perfect bike infrastructure tomorrow.

I do appreciate the math you've done. Assuming it's all accurate, those are good points about density and temperature averages. However people can still walk and bike safely in that weather, extra buses can be scheduled during the winter months, and if the majority of the folks live in the city like you said, it's best to serve them with better pedestrian infrastructure due to the quality of life, safety, and money savings the population would receive.

The population center needs to service everyone who is in the wider area.

My example with Eau Claire and Eau Claire county - yes, the majority of people live in the city... and it is the largest area of population within an hour's drive.

Now, if you look at Assen, Assen itself is a suburb of Groningen which is only half an hour away and has 200,000 people.

The number of people who need to go into Assen because its the place to go for a particular thing is rather small compared to those who would go to Groningen.

Meanwhile, Eau Claire is the only level II trauma center for a very large area ( https://dhsgis.wi.gov/dhs/traumacare/ ).

It is necessary to build the city to be able to support the surrounding area - even if those people don't live there.

Meanwhile, another comment mentioned the city of Davis in California... which is a suburb of Sacramento. Or Portland Oregon which is surrounded by smaller cities (Beaverton, OR which abuts Portland has a population of 1.5x Eau Claire). In this way, the city of Portland doesn't need to support the surrounding area as much because the surrounding cities themselves area able to take that load on and so there's a much larger portion of local transportation rather than regional transportation.

If you were to draw that Voronoi chart for the Sacramento area, or Portland area, or Drenthe, NL you would find that the cities that are best able to support local bike commuting and build the infrastructure for it are not as dependent on the rural in the area between them and the next city of 40,000. It is quite possible that for Portland, that Voronoi chart would be entirely within the city proper.

> There's no reason folks coming from outside the city can't park at a periphery (or even central) parking structure and then bus/walk/bike to their destination, if we take the original corollary that Eau Claire gets perfect bike infrastructure tomorrow.

My parents live half an hour outside of the city that they're closest to. They go in to town once a week and get groceries to feed a family of five for the week. This fills up the entirety of the back of a SUV.

Doing a "drive in and park on the outside" wouldn't work for grocery or hardware or any of the other shopping excursions needed. I would contend that that is the norm for people heading into town from outside.

I live in town and can walk a few blocks to a grocery store with a small pack and get what I need for right now whereas my parents have to commit an hour just to commute into town and back out for groceries... and that's done to reduce gas use.

The point that I'm trying to make with this is that if you live in an area where the distance between cities of reasonable size is an hour or so apart, the city has things that pressure it into being built for regional rather than local travel.

One of the things to consider is in the days of old where regional travel was less common, the even smaller towns and cities were self sufficient rather than having people living there need to head into town.

When I was growing up, instead of heading into the city (30 min each way) for groceries or hardware, we'd go to the nearby town (10 min by car - possibly bikable in fair weather) that had a grocery store and hardware store. About 20 years ago, the grocery store closed and 15 years ago the hardware store closed (and last year, the pharmacy closed).

I believe that the path to encourage bikes and smaller transportation areas, the smaller outlying towns need to become more self sufficient in supporting the needs of the surrounding areas so that people don't need to drive half an hour or more to get to the grocery store or hardware store. By doing that, the larger cities serve a smaller area and in turn can have their infrastructure more focused on local transportation (e.g. busses and bikes).

Meanwhile in Portland... https://bikeportland.org/2022/09/21/the-alameda-bike-bus-has...

0 kids in suburbia bike to school because it was designed that way

That's not true. While it isn't a huge number, I've noted that the bike racks at the local elementary are usually full unless the weather is crummy. Granted, they don't have a ton of racks so it's probably only a couple of dozen bikes or so but that's not nothing. A decent number of kids in that neighborhood walk as well.

My kids ride the bus, mostly because there is a gap in the sidewalk where the road dips into the neighboring county between my house and the school and that road is rather busy. It's an unfortunate quirk of the geography for the elementary, but it will be possible for them to bike to the middle school if they want to.

European towns were generally laid out in the days of horses and pedestrians before asphalt, cars, and sprawl. So it is easier for them to revert to bikeways and walkways. US cities were generally laid out when the US was the biggest oil producer and biggest car manufacturer. Now that we are in later days of the age of oil, people will continually curse the decisions of the past as we try with great difficulty to reconfigure.

The US had many beautiful city centers that were walkable and had public transport. It was bulldozed to make room for the car.

They went so far as to invent the concept of jaywalking to get rid of those pesky pedestrians on the road, so that cars could have all the space.

Important caveats to your point:

1. Most US cities predate the automobile, and nearly every city freeway involved bulldozing existing homes and neighborhoods.

2. Places like the Netherlands also went car-heavy as they rebuilt after the world wars. Instead, more recent policies have made redevelopment to bicycle and people friendly streets possible.

3. A nice boulevard with space for trams, bicyclists, pedestrians, and cars is not narrow.

My overall point is that specific development policies cause the biggest differences between North America and, say, Europe. Not the specific geography and existing layout of the cities. (Though it certainly makes a difference, there are plenty of old European cities that aren’t nearly as people-friendly as Amsterdam because of their car-friendly policies)

Article is about a new suburb that was planned in 2006, so nothing to do with those old days.

The Netherlands was really car centric in the 50s and 60s, activism in the 70s turned it around and since then it's gradually becoming more bicycle centric. Some old highways from the 50s have since been demolished. Change is possible, it takes planning and political willpower.

Did anyone notice that __no one__ is wearing a helmet in any of those pictures?

In California it is a law that anyone under 18 years old must wear a helmet. And those above 18 not wearing a helmet get ridiculed by the sanctimonious helmet wearing crowd.

> sanctimonious helmet wearing crowd

First of all: What an absolutely ridiculous statement.

> Did anyone notice that __no one__ is wearing a helmet in any of those pictures?

Yes, because they all have separate roads and pathways for bicycles. Helmets save lives and reduce injury significantly, but the biggest way to avoid accidents on bicycles is to separate them from cars.

By the way, the lack of helmets is almost exclusively a Dutch thing. In France, another country with a love for bicycles, the attitude is quite different.

Gosh, where could we search to find sanctimony from helmet authoritarians? I would say, in this very thread!

Helmet use varies a great deal among all the different situations in which humans ride bikes. As in every other facet of human life, humans are well-equipped to judge the risks they face on a regular basis. The one invariant, everywhere, is that helmet laws reduce cycling rates. Which is actually the point, as these laws are pushed by automobile lobbyists.

The people who have been most concerned about whether I've worn a helmet have been auto drivers immediately after, or more frequently while, driving very poorly.

Sanctimony implies moral superiority, something that I didn't present. That is your own projection :)

People should be free to make their own decisions, and I am against mandatory helmet laws - but, that decision should be done with all of the facts. Your post is not aligned with reality.

> these laws are pushed by automobile lobbyists

Please do not devolve into conspiracy in a factually-based discussion. Thank you.

No culture congratulates themselves for getting the basics right quite like the Scandinavians.

Congratulations Scandinavia. You are good at the thing you've always been good at and everyone knows you're good at, walkable bikable cities.

And it's so easy to fund with all of that oil money in the sovereign wealth fund too!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com