Comments on: Amsterdam

By: Christopher Armstrong

Christopher Armstrong — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:51:27 +0000

Living overseas at the moment in a small city in Sweden has made me resent the inability to ride a bike in Sydney. The town might be spread out over a radius of 4 - 8 km, but you can ride almost anywhere on a bike. Its less than 10 min to go to the university or shopping for food and only about 15min out to the pubs in town or to IKEA on the off chance I need to.

There are bike paths everywhere and almost everyone owns a bike. Its quite a sight to see the rows and rows of bicycles parked at the university during class time. The only difficult thing is to buy a bike around the start of university time - the second hand bike stores often run out, and given the high second-hand prices vs the quality, its not that much more to get a new bike. At least they have different coloured bikes here!

I’ve even learned a thing or too about bike maintenance (well you would when it costs $60 to fix something that is simple enough to do yourself).

By: Michael James

Michael James — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:28:22 +0000

This article also reminded me of an unintentionally amusing article by David Brooks in the New York Times earlier this year (www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22I%20dream%20of%20Denver%22&st=cse) on urban environments. His piece was titled “I dream of Denver” and he dissed Amsterdam, and thus had over 400 bloggers rain down on his head for this stupidity. Here I will reproduce one letter that kind of summarizes it:
140. February 17, 2009 10:03 am
As an American expat living in Amsterdam on a canal I find your comparison a bit odd to say the least. It took a bit of adjusting to the small refrigerator, yes, but my grocery store is a five minute walk away. So is everything else I might need to buy. If I get ill my doctor in Amsterdam will come to my house (yes, they do housecalls). My pharmacy is also a five minute walk away from my home. If I want to discover another neighborhood it is a short bike ride away. I take the train to my office, it’s a thirty minute commute. I have a car I use once in a while on the weekends. When my American friends and family come to visit they remain in constant awe of my lifestyle. A former Ambassador to the Netherlands maintains a home in Amsterdam. I think that should give you a clearer view of our life style here.
— Kevin Motay, Amsterdam Netherlands

By: Michael James

Michael James — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:23:01 +0000

Arrgggh, Grant Doyle, you have unsettled me for the rest of the day! It has reminded me of a fateful decision I made several decades ago, when I chose to work in Paris rather than Amsterdam. I still wonder how my life would have been different. Amsterdam has to be a contender for the most civilized city in the world. But lo, even if Paris is a much, much larger city, incredibly (for anyone who has experienced living with Parisians) it is actually looking more like Amsterdam as time passes. Of course I speak of the Velib system and more importantly the cycleway system that has been developing over the past 12 years or so. Incredibly Parisian drivers have been tamed and the streets at least partially reclaimed by people.
Meanwhile back in Oz, is it too much to hope for? Brisbane’s car-loving and tunnel-loving mayor professes to love Paris and has promised a Velib system (recently postponed for about a year) yet seems to miss the central point that first you need a cycleway system and a cycle-friendly city, THEN you might get lots of people using cycles (whether Velib or their own).

By: jungarrayi

jungarrayi — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:54:12 +0000

Free as a gazelle indeed! A few years ago I paid a visit to my country of birth.
Apart from being told to “donderop” by a fast riding cyclist that nearly ran me over when I unwittingly strayed onto a “bicycle path” (that being the foreigner I’ve become I failed to recognize), I gazed with wonderment upon acres of bicycles parked at the railway stations.
Rather than gazelles y saw penguin chicks. You know the ones that it seems an absolute miracle that their parents manage to find after a day’s fishing at sea.

By: Malcolm Gillies`

Malcolm Gillies` — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:09:09 +0000

An amusing feature of Dutch cycling culture that the author omits, is the vibrant black economy of bike theft that keeps those black, indestructible Gazelles in constant circulation and provides a meagre income to one of the Netherlands’ colourful underclasses.

The Dutch say that if you don’t want it stolen, the lock should be worth more than your bike. When you stumble out of the cafe at 3am looking for your trusty fiets, you may nonetheless find yourself considering the services of the shady bloke riding past muttering, “bike for sale, bike for sale”.

By: Edward Stratton-Smith

Edward Stratton-Smith — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:40:56 +0000

Absolutely magnificent. It should also be remembered that the enviable Dutch cycling “culture” has nothing to do with culture at all. It is the result of 30 years of political will and the right decisions. It would be worth copying in this country.