AMSTERDAM

Five years after I first discovered the possibilities of biking in New York, I find myself at last in "The Holy City:" This is what we in the biking world call Amsterdam; the city that models to us the possibilities of what New York could become if we were to look beyond the mess that Robert Moses started and that Uber and Lyft have finished. For we are finished as a city. Our streets are choked with cars. Buses don't move and subways are broken. We cannot breathe, we cannot walk, or cross the streets; we are being hit and killed by cars in numbers not seen in decades (pedestrians have it worse). We simply have to change; we have to expand our thinking.

So I came here. To observe, to learn and see what the Dutch are doing right just from a personal perspective. And it's a lot.

If you follow the pioneering work of Clarence Eckerson (https://www.streetfilms.org) you already know that one of the things many European cities have done to restore balance, is remove parking. This removes any incentive to drive. In the central city of Amsterdam there is very little car parking. One native told me there is a shopping mall that offers 200 parking places inside the building. Beyond that, cars simply have very little place to go. But there is​ bike parking. And how:

I mean, everywhere you go...

At the Centraal Station, in spite of 3 floors of bike parking (not counting underground valet) and an close to acre of it on the ground, there are barges on the water, which hold even more bikes. And they get used!

It seems there is never enough.

To the naked eye, it eventually starts to seem like so much clutter. I mean, who would need so many bikes? But as a New Yorker, your eye is different and you quickly translate: in our city, that number would represent cars - lots of cars. Because most cars driving around New York only hold one person. No WONDER we can't move!

In spite of the clutter, a cyclist looking at all this bike parking is like Oliver Twist peeping into a shop window filled with delicacies: we have virtually no bike parking in New York. The occasional bike rack, usually taken up by delivery bikes. Everyone else is left to their own devices. There is one company trying to make a go of secure parking: https://www.ooneepod.com/ We are rooting for them, but so far they have yet to find permanent space in Manhattan. 

So changing who gets parking has had a tremendous effect on how Amsterdam functions. But they've done lots else. Like build bike lanes truly protected from cars.

With split phase light signals for bikes...

Floating islands for buses and trollies so that bikes don't have risk being pushed into traffic, or getting crushed by a 10-ton vehicle approaching the curb.

But there are also unprotected lanes which feel perfectly safe, in part because they are not adjacent to parked cars who could pull out at any minute or "door" us. And check those bumps to the right: if you did pull over, you couldn't open your car door. If you stop to discharge passengers in the middle of the street you'd hold up traffic (which cars hate to do to each other). So traffic moves and bikes are safe.

The truth is, there's been a complete culture change here. Bikes - and pedestrians - have been so prioritized over cars, that even when they mix with them, cars tend to drive rather sheepishly - especially when turning - like an ex trying to live down past bad behavior (yeah, good luck with that). As a result, anyone can walk here - you can walk all over the city.

If you can't walk, you can roll

Or take public transportation, which is accessible

And biking is safe for everyone. Moms...

Delivery Workers.

Dog Lovers.

Vision Zero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero) is a science, and I don't claim to be an expert, but I know the principles when I see them - because I feel safe. And they're at work in Amsterdam. New York will never be Amsterdam, but we can be a much better New York. It's time to turn the streets back over to the people.