Netherlands still invests millions to support cycling
thenextweb.com
thenextweb.com
Last month I left London for Amsterdam, leaving behind Brexit and the UK's shambolic handling of Covid. Yesterday was my first day in my new office: a large, peaceful space in a quiet corner of central Amsterdam, overlooking a canal, two minutes walk from home.
(Ironically, everything I need is now so close I hardly cycle anywhere.)
How I wish I could agree.
Living in the center of Amsterdam is something well outside realistic possibilities of Dutchmen nowadays. Dont confuse capitals for countries. As a former Londoner you must be aware of that (or not!). But thats a topic for another discussion.
Life in the Netherlands is pretty good in my experience, regardless of where you live exactly. I’ve spent almost my entire life in the Nijmegen, Eindhoven and Den Bosch area. I’d actually prefer it over Amsterdam...
The generalizing statement that Dutchmen are sensible I would argue is as incorrect as it is anywhere.
The quality of cycling infra is nearly everywhere good.
I left Amsterdam after 4yrs last November.... and had the best years of my life immersed in music, art and culture from every corner of the planet. Brexit was why I moved originally and now I'm in another EU country.
Yes, I experienced that when I moved to Amsterdam the first time in 2000. Rather than being uniquely Dutch, though, I suspect it reflects the experience of expats everywhere.
Fast forward to 2021, I guess I am an expat here but I don't feel exactly like one. My husband is Dutch and I speak Dutch nearly fluently. And while we were based in London for 14 years, we kept his Amsterdam apartment and visited once or twice a month.
Anyway, back to the topic of bikes in the Netherlands, we current own two bikes each (two city bikes, a touring bike and a MTB) and in the spring will buy a third (two race bikes)!
On the topic of bikes... I’ve got in the spare room: Orange 224 + P7 (both 2008); Genesis Flyer (2019); Canondale CAAD8 (2010); Production Privee Shan No.5 (2020)... and a Sparta Dutch city bike with a huge basket and panniers :) Pretty much covered for any scenario!
Rest assured thats the case everywhere (well anecdotal evidence of N=2).
I do too love Netherlands and bike culture, but much like most of Western Europe it is overdeveloped and too synthetic. I'm not a huge nature fan, but does NL even has any sort of country-side housing? Another question is how they deal with bureaucracy and how much of common sense does average citizen or governor has? I thought I was hacky and handy until I moved to NZ to learn so much about farming while still living minutes away from metropolis.
But still not real nature. I grew up in Australia and my idea of nature is seeing virtually noone for 50km in any direction :)
So yeah, countries like Australia have nature like you describe. But the very small country .nl has 17m+ inhabitants, which makes it a bit impossible to have large areas with NOTHING.
More like 100km (and 180km to the "drielandenpunt" where NL/BE/DE meet), but still nearby...
When I first arrived in Amsterdam and got a company car, I decided to have a day trip to Germany. I left Amsterdam after breakfast, drove for a bit, crossed the German border, stopped for a coffee, and was back home in Amsterdam by 1pm.
Coming from Australia, where the nearest state capital to Melbourne is a 9 hour drive, that blew my mind.
https://fietsberaad.nl/Tour-de-Force-English/Home aims for “an increase of 20 percent in the amount of bicycle kilometres in 2027, compared to 2017”. They don’t mention costs, but I would think that’s quite a bit more expensive.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/
It gives you a very good impression how awesome the cycling infrastructure is in the Netherlands and how far they are ahead of every other country.
See for example this video from the youtube channel related to the blog: