A Cultural Shift

Things work a little differently in some parts of Europe. The northern parts stand out for their efforts to put a special priority on the bicycle. The photo shown is one of the first things you see when you arrive in the city of Leiden by train.

Here in North America, most cities put little emphasis on bicycle infrastructure beyond a slightly wider right hand lane. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a debate that will continue among certain pockets of cyclists for years to come. At the same time, it's tough to ignore that cities with well designed bicycle-specific infrastructure simply have more cyclists.

An article in the Wall Street Journal looks at examples in Europe and the few examples in the US where cities are making changes to "launch a new attack on car culture". (That expression is used positively, by the way).

A couple highlights: Many people have seen or heard of the massive bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam. Apparently this fits 2000 bikes, officially. They're now building one large enough for 10,000 bicycles.

Also, have a look at the end of the article where US cities with bicycle infrastructure are listed, along with their cycling rates.

Toronto is in a unique situation, since it already has relatively high cycling rates in the downtown core (pdf warning), probably attributable to the livable downtown with high population density. Toronto's potential as a cycling city has only barely been tapped.

The WSJ article was found on Cleverchimp.