Originally Posted by
Roody
Interesting side discussion. Although I think the protagonists disagree a lot less than they think they do.
One problem is that the thread title might be a bit misleading. My understanding is that, even within Holland, there are varying qualities of bike infrastructure. The infrastructure in Amsterdam is superior to some other areas and inferior to others. So a better title might be "Amsterdam Bike Structure."
Regional differences often outweigh national differences. And IMO, both ate outweighed by physical differences. If you placed an Amsterdam-style bike structure into Seattle, a different "bike culture" would arise in Seattle. Of course we'll never really know because there's no way to control the variables.
The video actually is almost not at all about Amsterdam, when it comes to city cycling it's mostly about Groningen, which has only a quarter of the population size (800.000 vs 200.000). He probably went to Groningen because it has the most bike use, relative to the size off course, and the best infrastructure. So that title would be very misleading.
There are regional differences, but which city has the best cycling infrastructure is mostly determined by which city started working on it first. A lot of the improvements are done when regular maintenance/renewal is due, to save costs, and cities can't just raise taxes considerably to do a lot at once. So it's a very steady process of improvement that doesn't allow for an exciting contest where one city races past the others. The cities that were ahead in the 70's, are still ahead.
Groningen was first in the seventies because it was a fortress city, very compact with a lot of narrow streets, so it was the first to experience the problems with the increase of car traffic. Amsterdam is compact for other geographical reasons, so they were soon to follow. Both were left winged cities, that certainly helped but is not a factor anymore. In the nineties the right wing came to it senses, and now the consensus that cycling is a very important and desirable form of transport is almost perfect. More spatious cities like Rotterdam (600K, bombed in WWII) and The Hague (500K, chic wide lanes) are lagging behind but they are heading in the same direction at about the same pace. As is in the video, this sustainable safety plan is a national plan, and local authorities aren't allowed to just build a road and forget about the cyclists, it's not legal, a judge would throw it out and have the road rebuild.
The country side with all it's little villages and bigger towns has never had such a dramatic turning point, as it never got smothered with cars and didn't really turn away from cycling in the 50's and 60's. The children had to go to school in another village, shopping had to be done by the wife and 2 cars a family was a bit expensive back then. In the 90's it just went along with everybody else, and quite enthousiastically because the roads on the countryside took the most victims, often young ones.
So I'm afraid the regional differences in infrastructure are small and decreasing every year, as the ones ahead are nearly finished so others will catch up. The big differences start as soon as you pedal cross the border with Germany or Belgium. The biggest differences are not in the infrastructure, but in the cycling by the cyclists. Amsterdam is just a 2 hour drive from Groningen, and they are both frontrunners, but the behaviour of cyclists is different. They cycle closer together, at higher speeds, correct eachother more often and in a less polite way, and they are cycle lane oriented in the sense that they will group together on the right if there's no cycle lane, and in Groningen it's slower but cyclist tend to use the full width of the road and ride more erratic.
Originally Posted by
tandempower
From what I've seen, Dutch culture promotes a competitive spirit toward other nations and the USA in particular.
No, I can't say I recognize that at all.
You seem to basically be echoing that attitude here by saying you'd basically like to compete as a Dutch 'team' if you could, but then you complain about the USA being to big and dominant. It's all promoting the ideas that nations have to separate people into collectives and pit them against them in competition. It doesn't have to be that way. You could just forget about collectivism and live as an individual; but are you too attached to the spirit of collectivist competition to do that? Probably, but don't keep pushing it in this thread.
As I explained, I chose not to have this debate in a competitive 'national team' spirit, so I know it hasn't have to be that way. I don't see how that would contribute to the debate, and when it comes to who knows best about the other's culture, I would feel I have an unfair advantage because my exposure to American culture is far greater than the other way around. I don't mind that, that's just the way it is and there are perfectly good reasons for it.
Something he noted, which I liked, was that the engineers designing and improving streets were unsatisfied with their own work and always looking for ways to improve it. Of course that means making it better; but the word, "superior," sounds like some kind of absolute designation.
I'm not the native speaker here, but I'm pretty sure "superior" is not absolute but relative by definition, like in 'superior to'. Maybe it's your competitiveness and national pride why this word bothers you? I'd say let's just call it like it is, it doesn't give me feelings of personal superiority or something, I had no part designing Dutch cycling infrastructure whatsoever. My contribution to Dutch cycling is limited to cycling, gentlemanlike behaviour and breaking the rules that should be changed.
What's more, a street design that seems good might be lacking in other ways. Many of these Dutch streets look like they are overbuilt and lacking in trees/greenery. One thing that concerns me with development and land-use reform is to ensure that carbon-capture as living biomass (i.e. wood) is not in competition with human activities. But the challenge is to what extent populated areas can be reforested without roots and branches causing too much damage to built structures.
Again you seem to feel the need to say something negative about my country like you're the one into competitive nationalism. I don't mind that, you just don't come across well informed enough and cycling infrastructure and/or green space and landscaping are not the ones I'd pick if I was looking for something negative to say about the Netherlands. There are differences between municipalities, space is very limited, daylight is highly appreciated so you can't just put trees close to windows, but in general the city planners put trees anywhere they can, often on the street, as a traffic calming instrument.
I think US areas are actually blessed by the history of auto-centric development in this way; i.e. because there is a lot more room for tree-replanting once the importance and need for it is acknowledged. I think it would be more difficult to re-integrate living trees/wood into populated Dutch areas, though there seem to be quite a lot of trees and green spaces there despite the high population density.
The country as a whole is very green, the problem is that almost all the green is planned, organized, maintained and neat, there's little room for nature doing what it does. It's hard to find a square mile without road signs, a bicycle path, wildlife that has been put there, etc, but the cities, towns, villages and hamlets are full of parks, trees, bushes, flowers, little fields and then there's the citizens who want to show off their front gardens or put plants and flowers on their balconies. The amount of green in urban area's would be described by most foreigners as abundant.
This is also a cultural difference, relevant to cycling. The whole notion of space and distances and how to handle it is different, just like Fins have a different attitude towards sunlight compared to people in Spain. I believe that any cultural difference can have an impact on cycling and a lot of them will, good or bad. The cultural difference in bikes for example, if you're on a fast bike or commute as an exercise, you will tend to go faster through traffic I presume. Individualism in cycling might also influence traffic behaviour, in the Netherlands we have very few very little hills, but strong winds, so cycling in groups close together is a normal and developped skill. Dutch cycling is dominated by upright bikes with coaster brake, so they have a better periphial view and communicate with their leg movement. To me it seems optimistic to assume that the infrastructure idea's will all work just as well without these cultural particularities and without adjustment to the local cultural differences.
Maybe it would be more useful for Americans to look at cycling infrastructure in countries that are more alike. Germany for example, they have much more space and a different attitude towards it, it's much more a car drivers country, they like their fast new flashy bikes, they wear helmets, they have hills and mountains. Their cycling infrastructure and their cycling mileage isn't as impressive, but adequate, so as inspiration it isn't as great but as an example it might be much more useful. But Germans tend to be very organized and behave orderly, so you might also look at France and Spain where interesting things concerning cycling are happening and whose cyclists are probably a bit more like the Americans. That the Netherlands has the best cycling infrastructure doesn't mean it is the best example for America, more useful examples could be found in countries that have more in common, geographically, and on the matter of cycling culture.
I agree with you that cycling is walking sped up mechanically, or you could say "mechanically-enhanced walking." And of course you can focus on culturally differentiating people into groups. I.e. you could visit Seattle and Boston and New York and differentiate them in terms of cultural differences. Then you could go around telling people in each city they would fit more with people in the other cities in an attempt to homogenize culture of like-mindedness to the greatest extent possible. The more you did this, the more you would end up with black-sheep being outed within various communities due to the expectation of fitting in. It would get more and more fascist. Or you could just accept diversity and expect people to interact constructively across and despite differences.
I do accept diversity, I even acknowledge it and acknowledge it's implications for cycling infrastructure, that was my point from the beginning. I believe it's safe to assume that greater cultural differences are likely to make more difference for cycling than little cultural differences.
Still, none of that interests me as much as getting it across that some things go beyond respect for cultural differences. E.g. I've heard so many people say that the US is not Europe and so there will never be a culture of LCF and transportation biking that thrives and grows. The underlying idea is that if Americans submit to automotivism, then that's just the way it will be regardless of environmental consequences. That's just narrow and short-sighted. Environmentalism trumps the right to cultural autonomy/sovereignty because unsustainability is not a culturally relative concept.
But again you're stubbornly holding on to assumptions about my view that aren't correct. I'm very optimistic, I believe the bicycle brings freedom in many ways and I suspect Americans will appreciate it for that. And they will appreciate all the other advantages, but cycling is by it's nature a grassroots thing that will be done by people according to their diverse local habits and culture.
Everything is interaction so I don't really know what you're talking about here. How would you think city planners would not interact with the cycling community?
I was pointing out that city planners and there plans should be prepared to stand corrected by the cyclists, and that de cyclists evolve their cycling behaviour within the infrastructure and that this process can force infrastructure changes, or allow for desired infrastructure changes. Shared space wasn't invented by a city planner, it was introduced by cyclists who thought 'if I just cycle slowly hear, I won't bother anyone'. The same with two-way traffic for cyclists in one-way streets for cars. That's just something were cityplanners were forced to give in to the behaviour of cyclists. It's not that the city planners can just build the infrastructure after having consulted cyclists, and the cyclists will use it according to their plans, you will end up with much better cycling if you acknowledge and respect the constant dynamic of cyclists and infrastructure working together and influencing eachother.
Maybe what you don't realize, though, is that some people will ride a bike and get active in a community just to gain a voice to push other interests. Vehicular cycling came across this way to me when I first saw it because these people are claiming to be for transportation cycling but then they're arguing against bike lanes and basically challenging people to take the whole lane, which irritates the line of cars behind you waiting to pass, and intimidates people out of cycling unless they're totally brave. So I think there are good ideas and bad ideas about cycling and if you try to listen to a community without evaluating what is smart and what isn't, you could end up adopting some bad ideas just because 'the community' is communicating them.
Most of the cycling I do is VC and that's the kind of cycling I enjoy most. But that's why in one of my first posts in this topic I made the distinction between the goal itself and how you get there. The Netherlands for example made huge progress towards VC by building a lot of cycling lanes, because cycling lanes changed the behaviour of the cyclists and motorists and helped them to reach an understanding that enabled more VC. Now in the cities it is basically VC, but with a lot of locations were the traffic is split so the cars can speed up.
You are not prohibited from saying anything, except maybe certain words that will end up with *s in them when you post your text. There are things I think you should avoid and I'm telling you the reasons I think you should. If you don't understand my reasons, or disagree, or just want to be obstinate, you can ignore them. What's stopping you? I might just avoid responding eventually, or the discussion will derail into bickering over disagreements, as it so often does on the internet. What you're doing now is very passive aggressive, though, which is to avoid saying things I'm telling you you shouldn't, but then to complain about it on another level. If you disagree and want to give your reasons, that's one thing. But by shifting from reasoning to accusing me of exercising authority, you're shifting from a discussion of reasons to a battle over who should have authority to control whom, and that is essentially a shift from discussion to ego-competition.
I just posted in this topic to share my view on a subject I happen to know a lot about. So I never expected to be confronted with suspicion, incorrect assumptions, negativity, dogma and what seems intentional misinterpretation of my words. I'm not a native speaker so I'll happily stand corrected when I use words wrongly, but I expect people to start discussing assuming I come in peace, my intentions are good and try to interpret my words according to how I most likely would have meant them. You didn't meet that expectation at all, imo you have been nothing but hostile towards me.
Now you're just making a little provocative comment about uprooting trees because I say a lot about the importance of trees and reforestation? Seriously? What's your problem? Do you hate trees or do you just look for things other people find important to pick fights about?
I like trees, but a remark like that would be considered by foreigners in the Netherlands as typical Dutch directness, or Dutch rudeness for those who didn't manage to get used to it. Normally I would have held back because of cultural differences, but with your views on cultural differences and universal values you probably would have wanted me to ingore those differences, so I didn't hold back.