Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Streetsblog

The Dutch Have a Strong Car Culture — and Stronger Bike Infrastructure

We wrote a couple of months back about how Amsterdam prioritized people over cars only after ceding city streets to motor vehicles. Today, David Hembrow at A View From the Cycle Path has more on that subject.

As in the U.S. and other European countries, people race cars in The Netherlands. "Dutch people like cars a lot," writes Hembrow. "They also like bikes." Hence the sight of Dutch people riding bikes to -- and on -- the racetrack in Hembrow's video.

In other places, car culture grew at the expense of cycling. The difference between The Netherlands and those places is that the Dutch chose to develop infrastructure that preserved and enhanced the safety and convenience of riding a bike, Hembrow writes:

It is sometimes forgotten by campaigners elsewhere that the Dutch cover 3/4 of all their km traveled by private automobile. There are enough cars and there is enough driving in the Netherlands that cars could be utterly dominant to the extent that they make cycling unpleasant. Indeed, that situation had already arisen by the 1970s in the Netherlands, when people owned far fewer cars than they do today. Domination of cars led to an increase in cyclist injuries and a steep decline in cycling.

Dutch people now cycle for a higher proportion of journeys than people of any other country not because cycling is "in the culture" but because cycling to almost any destination is possible without having to deal with motorized traffic. Dutch cycling infrastructure has made it possible for cycling to survive alongside a rise in motoring, removing danger and noise and enabling journeys to anywhere by bike, even motor racing circuits.

Go back a few decades and you'll find that British people cycled for a higher proportion of their journeys than Dutch people do now. As cars came to dominate roads, the UK suffered the same steep decline as the Netherlands did, but because no measures were taken to prevent that decline the decline continued. The same happened across most of the world. For instance, in New Zealand.

Nations once thought to have "cultural" cycling can suffer declines just as well as can those where cycling was forgotten about decades ago. Twenty years ago, Denmark stopped emphasizing cycling, bringing about a decline. The fastest decline in cycling ever seen is that happening now in China, where cycling was once far more significant than in the modern day Netherlands.

Elsewhere on the Network: The Urbanist and PubliCola (via Seattle Met) have updates on Seattle’s affordable housing plan; Human Transit has an epic thinkpiece about how different transit agencies in the same region should coordinate without merging into a giant new entity; and TheCityFix says that to reduce traffic deaths, cities in India will have to redesign streets to slow speeding drivers.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Why Did Secretary Duffy Decimate University Transportation Centers?

University Transportation Centers are "where innovation happens." Earlier this month, though, the Trump administration took a sledgehammer to their budgets.

May 20, 2025

Tuesday’s Headlines: Share the Love Edition

Citi Bike's workers are backing Brad Lander for mayor while their bosses at Lyft chip in on Andrew Cuomo's PAC. Plus more news.

May 20, 2025

Day 1: Criminal Court Judge Issues Safety Lectures to Cyclists, Including Citi Bike Celeb

A Manhattan Judge used the bench to give "a talking to" to suspected cyclists — including one of the Citibikeboys!

DOT Proposing A 14th Street-Style Busway For 34th Street

It's the sequel you've been waiting for. Here's hoping Mayor Adams delivers, said one activist.

May 19, 2025

Sohn in Albany: State Bill to Force Drivers to Pass Safely Stalls

Apparently, New York City is just too unsafe for legislation forbidding drivers to pass cyclists too closely.

May 19, 2025

Car Harms Monday: Machines Took Over Cities and Left Humans in the Dust

There isn't enough physical space for every single household to store its fleet of personal vehicles in front of the home, nor is there space for everyone to drive at the same time. So let's fix that.

May 19, 2025
See all posts