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A view from the cycle path
Personal blog · aviewfromthecyclepath.compoliticsculture
A view from the cycle path is a personal blog at aviewfromthecyclepath.com about politics and culture. Since 2013, 29 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 32 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
A Dutch cycling-infrastructure blog by a cycling advocate. HN commenters cite its posts on protected bike routes, roundabouts, cycling myths and Dutch car ownership, and praise it as informative.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 32 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Why is it that people cycle more in the Netherlands than in any other country ? The answer is in the infrastructure. Long established blog with content up to the present day detailing how the infrastructure of the Netherlands makes cycling so pleasant that almost everyone cycles in this country and
Most-linked posts?
- /2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-10-14
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-01-01
- /2010/08/brain-injuries-and-dutch-cyclist.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-12-16
- /2008/09/three-types-of-safety.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-11-19
- /2014/05/the-best-roundabout-design-for-cyclists.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-09-18
- /2011/02/who-cycles-in-netherlands.html?m=12 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
- /2010/07/not-really-so-great-cycle-path-design.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-05-08
What Hacker News says?
> Not everyone is a young single person that can just go to a food co-op every few days, throw some organic produce in their backpack and ride home. In places with good bicycle infrastructure like the Netherlands pretty much everyone cycles (93% cycle at least once per week). In fact the mode share for bicycles is lowest in the 30-40 age range with the 2nd highest being 65 and up - highest is under 18. The biggest u…
Comment linking /2011/02/who-cycles-in-netherlands.html?m=1
on “Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco”Submitted 2/3 of kids bike to school in Assen because it was designed that way (2013) as a story · 213 points
HN discussionYou're confusing people because you're talking from a left-hand drive perspective. This is known in the right-hand drive cycling world as a Copenhagen left, and many consider it to be bad infrastructure design. http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/07/not-really-so-g...
Comment linking /2010/07/not-really-so-great-cycle-path-design.html
on “Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck”Submitted Driving a "Green car" vs cycling as a story · 44 points
HN discussionSomething to say? There is no way to disagree with that. http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Irresistible.pd... , figure 10 shows that fatality rates per 100 million km cycled of 1.1 and 5.8 and injury rates per 10 million km cycled of 1.4 and 37.5. In 2007, it was 5 to 25 times as dangerous to ride bicycle in the USA as in the Netherlands. I doubt that has changed for the better for the USA since. (Found v…
Comment linking /2008/09/three-types-of-safety.html
on “Tell HN: Wear a Helmet”Submitted The Extraordinary Efficiency of Bicycles as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI think the Dutch bike experience is the result of a conscious decision to make cycling feel safe and convenient which was partly motivated by the 1970's fuel crisis. The real puzzle is why is this the only country make that decision. See also http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2009/10/effect-of-hills...
Comment linking /2009/10/effect-of-hills-on-cycling.html
on “French city of Dunkirk tests out free transport”Submitted A Glimpse of a Better Future as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCongrats! You are one in 90 lifetimes! From http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/08/brain-injuries-... > Rather than reacting emotionally we have to look at the numbers to make sense of this. The overall risk to Dutch cyclists (it's on page two of the document) of a "head/brain injury" is 153 per billion kilometres ridden. That means that one such injury is one per 6.5 million kilometres ridden. > On average, e…
Comment linking /2010/08/brain-injuries-and-dutch-cyclist.html
on “Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study”Submitted A Glimpse of a Better Future as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere 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/2010/1…
Comment linking /2010/11/reality-vs-myth-dangers-of-dutch-cycle.html?m=1
on “2/3 of kids bike to school in Assen because it was designed that way (2013)”Submitted Early cycle campaigning videos in danger due to The Orchard Music and YouTube as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> Other countries like the Netherlands went through the same car-centric design phase and realized it was too expensive and bad for the country so they reverted. Where did you get the idea that they reverted? Car ownership in Netherlands has continued to rise despite widespread biking culture. https://english.kimnet.nl/publications/publications/2022/02/... https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2019/08/the-car-free-m…
Comment linking /2019/08/the-car-free-myth-netherlands-is-great.html
on “Jeep owners fed up with in-car pop-up ads”In Copenhagen at least there are rules for when you can turn left on your bike: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/07/not-really-so-g... I don't know how other European cities do it.
Comment linking /2010/07/not-really-so-great-cycle-path-design.html
on “The best-kept secret of Dutch biking: the Dutch hardly bike at all”Bike lanes are often more dangerous, but that is generally due to poorly designed bike lanes . There's lots of informative explanation on this blog http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/subjective...
Comment linking /search/label/subjective%20safety
on “Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year”Did you know that car ownership in the Netherlands has continued to rise? This is a blog post of a cycling advocate, from 2019 but still relevant - [0] Quote: In 1992, 42% of Dutch households were car-free. By 2016 this had dropped to about a quarter. Car ownership has continued to increase since then. Higher car ownership leads to higher car usage. Almost anyone who can easily afford a car has one and there aren't…
Comment linking /2019/08/the-car-free-myth-netherlands-is-great.html?m=1
on “43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on”Cycling infrastructure is cheaper to build than not to build: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/06/cycling-infrast...
Comment linking /2011/06/cycling-infrastructure-is-cheaper-to.html
on “Changes in Dutch streets throughout the years (photo album)”http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths... See excuse #3, "our population is too spread out"
Comment linking /2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html
on “Changes in Dutch streets throughout the years (photo album)”The oldest age I've found is 75, and they still rode 2x per week in 2011. http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/who-cycles-in-n...
Comment linking /2011/02/who-cycles-in-netherlands.html?m=1
on “Aerodynamics of Gravel Bikes”True story: I moved from southern California to Holland in no small part because of how amenable the country is to cycling. People like to think that cycling is popular here naturally because the country is flat and densely populated. However, it's easy to forget that during the postwar boom years, a major shift toward cars happened and it took a concerted effort of willful resistance and politically non-expedient m…
Comment linking /2010/05/487-million-euros-for-cycling.html
on “In 1897, a Bicycle Superhighway Was the Future of California Transit”For more in-depth reading on Dutch street design, this blog is fascinating: https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/what%20wo...
Comment linking /search/label/what%20works
on “The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets”>totally separate pathways. Relevant links: https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/unravelling http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/unravellin...
Comment linking /search/label/unravelling
on “1960s Bike Buses Used to Transport Cyclists Under the Thames”this is a summary for a more detailed article here: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/08/why-tunnels-are...
Comment linking /2014/08/why-tunnels-are-better-than-bridges-for.html
on “Cycling: Why Tunnels are Better than Bridges (2014)”The obsession with helmets in many countries is born of an idea that violence on the roads is inevitable. It's a bit like responding to knife or gun crime by saying everyone should wear kevlar vests, problem solved! Rather than insisting that knives and guns are not used in public spaces. Some people have real problems grasping this. Cars are seen as inherently dangerous, pedestrians and everyone else should (ideall…
Comment linking /
on “Junction design in the Netherlands [video]”I like that they are trying to consider different possibilities, although I'm not personally fond of what they came up with. For example, one picture looked like ramps for bikes to go over cars, but in practice it works better for cyclists to go under (even though from an engineering standpoint it is more work to put the heavy traffic on top). I also don't want bikes to be indoors (and I primarily bike for transport…
Comment linking /2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html
on “What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes”The most straightforward designs of roundabouts don't have a good safety record for cyclists. This post gives some hints based on the Dutch experience http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2014/05/the-best-rounda...
Comment linking /2014/05/the-best-roundabout-design-for-cyclists.html
on “The Case for More Traffic Roundabouts”Maybe legally, but because they don't have barriers protecting people from cars, they lack "Subjective Safety," which is one of the fundamental principles of Dutch cycling network design (and is essential for the average person—as in children and elderly people, not just the brave lycra warrior—to feel comfortable cycling): http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2008/09/three-types-of-...
Comment linking /2008/09/three-types-of-safety.html
on “Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips”Here's a random main street in Denver: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7322582,-104.9861576,3a,75y,... Or another one: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7356145,-104.9873758,3a,75y,... ...or another one: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7383571,-104.9929042,3a,75y,... You can click around to pretty much any street in the city, and 100% of the space is dedicated to cars. A complete bike network that enables mass cycling…
Comment linking /2015/05/the-grid-most-important-enabler-of-mass.html
on “Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips”There seems to be no data supporting the article's assertion that roundabouts are being replaced by traffic lights across the UK as a whole. I'll add my own anecdata: many more roundabouts are being built in my area of the UK. There are also roundabouts with traffic lights. As a driver, I much prefer roundabouts. When I'm cycling, I just prefer roads with fewer cars and can't wait for self-driving cars, since at lea…
Comment linking /2014/05/the-best-roundabout-design-for-cyclists.html
on “The UK is replacing roundabouts with traffic lights; US is doing the opposite”A quick search turned up a paper on Netherlands (population 16.77 mil): ... 9,200 sustain serious injury in a bicycle crash. A third of these seriously injured bicycle casualties are diagnosed with head or brain injuries (32%) http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/UK/FS_Bicycle_helmets.... Showing 211 cyclists have a serious head injury per billion km cycled... Discussion: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/0…
Comment linking /2010/08/brain-injuries-and-dutch-cyclist.html
on “Mandatory bicycle helmet law in New Zealand”
