The explosive growth of cycling in Amsterdam (actually a story about marketing hype)

Many cities publish figures for cycling modal share which don't stand up to scrutiny. Read the note below the main part of this article for an explanation of the exaggeration in this particular case

This month's Vogelvrije Fietser (the magazine of the Fietsersbond) included an article (which you can download or read here) entitled "The Bicycle reigns in Amsterdam".

It's an interesting read. Amsterdam has long been known internationally as a cycling city. Many cities overseas have compared themselves to Amsterdam, often rather inappropriately.

However, Amsterdam is a moving target. The city has not been standing still. Very few other places can claim to have seen cycling grow as it has over the last over the last 20 years in Amsterdam.

Within the whole city, the modal share for cycling increased from 33% in 1986-1991 to 47% in 2005-2008 (but see the note below)

Within the inner ring road, this increase was from 39% to 62% of journeys by bike.

As ever in the Netherlands, these figures are claimed to be not just for commuters, but for all journeys.

Cycling to railway stations has seen particularly spectacular growth. Just 6% of train passengers arrived at the station by bike at the end of the 1980s, while 40% of train passengers arrive at the station by bike now.

The most popular reason for cycling is that it is fast. 50% of those who were asked in a survey, gave speed as their reason to cycle while just 6% said they cycle because it is inexpensive.

Just 73% of Amsterdammers own a bicycle, while 88% of people in the whole country have (at least) one. However, the average number of journeys per day by bike by Amsterdammers is, at 0.9 cycle journeys per day, a little higher than the average for the entire country. While car ownership has increased across the Netherlands as a whole since 1990, the number of cars owned in Amsterdam has dropped by three percent and their usage has dropped even more. The modal share for cars has dropped from 39% to 31% of journeys, and just 13% within the inner ring road, a reduction in the number of journeys made by car of 133000 each day.

What's Amsterdam really like?
Amsterdam is not perfect. The city doesn't have so high a rate of cycling as many other cities in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam there is still quite a lot of outdated and less than excellent infrastructure, resulting in conflict which has led to complaints between groups of cyclists. It's a place where you need to take more care than in some other parts of the country. The city also has the lowest rate of child cycling in the Netherlands.

For all that is wrong with Amsterdam, visiting the city by bike is not like visiting the capital cities of other countries. For cycling, it's in advance of anywhere except other Dutch cities, and as these recent figures show, the feeling of improvement that I have had after recent visits is not just an illusion as there has been real growth since we first took a trip to the city in the early 1990s. It certainly looks better now for cycling than it did in the 1970s.

Walking is missed out
Mark Treasure pointed out in a comment that the rise comes in large part due to walking having been missed out from these modal shares. He's right. Both the Fietsersbond and myself fell into a trap with these figures as they don't reflect the whole picture. I worked out in a comment below that if walking remains the mode for 20% of journeys in Amsterdam then the true modal share for bikes today is about 38% vs. driving at 25% and public transport at 18%.

This recalculation leaves Amsterdam with a higher than average modal share for cycling compared with the rest of the Netherlands, but lower than quite a few other smaller cities. This is much as you might expect as there are greater challenges in a larger, busier city.

It's rather disappointing to find that Amsterdam is playing games like this with statistics. Without reliable figures no real comparisons can be made. I prefer real statistics to marketing inspired exaggeration, wherever it comes from.

2015 update
Amsterdam has unfortunately continued to make claims of high cycling modal share based in part on ignoring the high number of pedestrians in the city. The real figures are impressive enough. Please return to reporting these real figures instead of marketing the city based on a deception.

2019 update
New figures from Amsterdam have been published, this time without the hype. 35% of journeys made by Amsterdam residents in Amsterdam are by bicycle. 5% of trips make by visitors to the city are by bike:

This time the figures are in line with what we've seen in older reports for Amsterdam and for other Dutch cities over a period of time. Amsterdam has the highest cycling modal share for any capital city in the world, but the rate is still a little low in comparison with other Dutch cities which have better cycling infrastructure.

Note that cars are used for 19% of journeys made by Amsterdammers as well as 46% of journeys by visitors to the city. Unfortunately, car usage is growing in the Netherlands. There has been some modal shift. The cycling modal share for residents is claimed to have grown from 29% to 35% over the last ten years and car usage to have dropped from 27% to 19% but policies restricting car access within cities has not been sufficient to prevent overall growth in their use.


For more information, please read the Fietsersbond article for yourself, or you may be interested in some of the many other posts on this blog about Amsterdam.

Population density vs. cycling rate for a range of cities

This is another of those myths and excuses that I've covered before, but just keeps on coming up. i.e. that the Netherlands has a high rate of cycling because Dutch cities are especially dense. Some campaigners make a lot of noise about high density being required to achieve a higher cycling rate or lower car use. Actually, there is not much of a correlation between cycling rate and density.

As you'll see in the plot above, it isn't true that cities with the highest population densities have the highest cycling rates. Rather, you'll find that Dutch and Danish cities have the highest cycling rates, whatever their density happens to be, because cycling in them there is a more pleasant experience because these cities have invested in cycling infrastructure in order to make it pleasant. Subjective safety is very important.

The belief that the Dutch live in remarkably highly densely populated cities is just a myth. Assen, where we live, has just 780 people per square km. That's not only significantly less dense than New York, but also less dense than relatively spread out American cities such as Portland (1655 people per square km).

New York makes a great example. Over 10000 people live in each square km of what is a very compact city for its population, yet for all the recent hype about growing cycling, the cycling rate remains extraordinarily low by international standards: Just 0.6% of commutes are by bike in that city. Conditions may be slowly improving, and it's a very good thing that they are, but it's still not yet a place to look to internationally as a success story. They're a very long way from the point where all types of people feel safe to cycle for a large proportion of their journeys.

Dutch cities need cycle paths like this
precisely because they are not dense

Much to my amusement, some Dutch people believe the same story about density. i.e. that they have relatively densely populated cities. I was once told this as part of a presentation about Groningen, the density of which is actually just 2300 people per square km. Even the capital of the country, Amsterdam, has just 3500 people per square km. The highest density city in the Netherlands is Den Haag with 5900 people per square km, but Den Haag does not have anything like the highest cycling modal share for a Dutch city. Quite the reverse, in fact, as in a presentation to us on a visit a few years back, the cycling rate there was described as "quite low".

To summarize, population density has little to do with cycling rate. Even within individual countries there is little correlation. You'll see that less densely populated Portland has more cycling than more densely populated New York, that Cambridge people cycle more than Londoners, that Bremen does better than Berlin, and that Groningen has more cycling than Amsterdam even though the densities of each of the higher cycling cities in those pairs is lower.

At this point, it's traditional for some people to respond with comments about average journey distances being so much longer in whichever country they live in. However, I'm afraid that doesn't really hold water either. While the mean distance is skewed due to the maximum possible journey distances being greater, the median for everyday journeys does not vary as much as you might imagine. Even in the USA, every-day journey distances are limited by time more than by the actual distance and 40% of all journeys are under 2 miles in length. The longest journeys may not be practical by bike, but Americans rarely choose cycling as a mode of transport even for the shortest journeys.

By contrast, longer cycle journeys are easier to make in the Netherlands. We find this from our own experience. Places that seemed "too far to cycle to" in the UK are often closer together than we remember them being, and people make the same and longer distance journeys here by bike without a second thought.

The reason for the vastly higher rate of cycling in the Netherlands is not population density, but policy which support cycling, effective campaigning, and successful infrastructure design.

For those who prefer a scatter graph:

The cycling rates for cities with stars after their names are the lowest on my graph, but they're all actually exaggerated relative to the other cities in the list. For these cities I could find only figures for "commuters" and not for all journeys. That the local authorities should choose to publicise this figure instead of one for all journeys is itself an indication that you don't see a lot of school children, parents with children, or pensioners on the streets of these cities. Where there is a healthy cycling culture, commuters are a minority of cyclists.

Shopkeepers prefer cyclists

Branko Collin sent me an interesting story today:

The popular Ferdinand Bol shopping street in Amsterdam (which crosses the Albert Cuyp market) has been partially closed off while the city of Amsterdam has been tunneling a subway underneath. Now that the end of the tunneling is in sight, the city's department of infrastructure has announced it will put the original double tram tracks back in.

The street's shopkeepers' association is none too pleased about this, as it reduces the space for cyclists and pedestrians.

It was reported here and here.

Bradford and Amsterdam at the start of the 20th century

A few days ago Judy showed me this film of Bradford at the start of the 20th century. Shortly afterwards, I saw the one below showing Amsterdam at a similar date.



I was struck by the similarity of the two films. In both cases, the roads have trams, horses pull carts, dogs run freely, and there are bicycles and pedestrians.

What neither film shows, compared with the present day, is motor cars. As a result, human beings are free to walk, talk and relax in the street.

Cities around the world looked similar for most of the 20th century. It is only later, particularly from the 1970s onwards, that the bicycle was once again prioritized in the Netherlands, and from then onwards the similarities have faded as development took a very different path.

A survey last year found Bradford to be the 'worst city in Britain for cycling'. However, on looking for information on Bradford I found an amazingly long list of websites about cycling in Bradford, with hard working people involved in campaigning, training, and quite a lot of sport cycling.

Unfortunately, the problem is the infrastructure. If Bradford still looked like Amsterdam it would have a higher cycling rate than it does. But sadly, while the Netherlands moved on in road design since the 1970s, the UK did not, and Bradford is quite typical. So far as we've been able to tell, this is what the street shown in the Bradford video above now looks like. This may well also be the route of the local bike bus:

View Larger Map

For real change to occur, Bradford, like all towns in the UK, needs to do what works.

Update 11 March David Domestique made a comment, which made me look at the website again, and that's where I saw this video of the bike bus in action:

It's a nice example of good people getting on with doing things in a positive manner. However, they still need government support if cycling is truly to grow.

This second video shows the conditions faced by cyclists who take part in the bike bus:


I'm not criticising the riders one bit. If I was there, I'd hope to find such agreeable people to ride with. But feeling a need to do so is one of the problems which the UK faces. Cycling is not nearly as subjectively safe as it needs to be for the masses to want to ride. There's a reason why rush hour looks somewhat different here.

The films come from BFIfilms and Mark Wagenbuur.

Higher income brackets cycle as well in Amsterdam

Direct from the Fietsberaad:

Amsterdam can barely cope with the growing numbers of cyclists, as a survey of mobility in the Dutch capital over the past 25 years demonstrates. There are as yet no bicycle jams, but partly due to the arrival on the scene of carrier bicycles, the width of bike paths is increasingly a problem. And of course parking guarantees a headache.

In busy squares, at train and metro stations, but also near university buildings, shopping centres and leisure spots in narrow Amsterdam streets an increasing amount of public space is taken up by parked bicycles, according to the report ‘Mobiliteit in en rond Amsterdam, Een blik op de toekomst vanuit een historisch perspectief’. Data demonstrate that at these locations often several dozen percent of all bicycles are parked outside the official parking spaces. In June of 2007 for instance 1,390 bicycles were parked at the back of Amstelstation, whereas capacity ran to no more than 1,100. This comes down to an occupancy rate of 126%. For the west side of Centraal Station (including the bicycle flat) this was a staggering 136% in October of 2008. The overall estimated number of bicycle parking spaces (stands, staples and parking facilities) is currently 200,000.

The heaviest streams of cyclists are mainly headed for the central part of the town centre. But bicycle numbers in the immediate vicinity of the town centre and the surrounding ring are impressive as well. The large numbers of cyclists do not cause substantial delays due to traffic jams. But a number of busy routes does have a problem with the width of the bike paths, partly due to the increasing use of carrier bicycles.

The busiest cycling routes are Marnixstraat (1,970 passing cyclists in the evening peak hour), Weteringschans (1,920) and Weesperzijde (1,900).
Nevertheless the bicycle can easily compete with car and public transport in the inner city, according to local authorities. The percentage of car trips by Amsterdam residents has fallen in all distance categories. Bicycle use has greatly increased in all distance categories under 10 kilometres. This has happened, however, not only at the expense of the car, but also of public transport. Over short distances cycling is apparently more attractive than public transport.

Bicycle ownership among Amsterdam residents has greatly increased over the past 25 years (63% versus 73%). Ownership in Amsterdam is below the overall Dutch average (73% versus 88% ). The increase in bicycle ownership was greatest among residents aged 45 and over, among people aged over 65 it has almost doubled (from 27% to 48%). The average number of bicycle trips per person per day is however higher in Amsterdam (0,9 versus 0,8). People there use their bicycles therefore more intensively than the average Dutchman. The largest increase in the number of bicycle trips per person per day occurs in the group aged 45 to 59. This may be due to car parking policies, but also to health advantages or a more positive attitude towards cycling in general, is the impression of the writers of the report. The group aged 12 to 15 also cycles more and is incidentally the group with the highest bicycle use. Among residents in higher income brackets the cycling percentage in the overall number of trips has more than doubled (from 15% to 33% ).

In Amsterdam people park their bicycles at home in a storage facility (46%), in the street (36%), in their home (10%), in the courtyard (5%) or a parking facility (2%). In the districts outside the ring road the percentage of bicycles parked in a storage facility is considerably higher than in the neighbourhoods within the ring road. Within the ring road over more than half of all bicycles are parked in the street(53%), whereas this is rare outside the ring road(4%).

Amsterdam video

A nice promotional video from Amsterdam. You'll see a good cross-section of cyclists. It could, of course, be anywhere in the Netherlands.

I first saw this video a while ago, but didn't get around to putting it on the blog. Judy saw it (again) today and said she liked it - good enough reason to put it here in case any of you had not seen it before.

Do people cycle in the Netherlands because it's difficult to drive here ?

Researchers at IBM have come up with an index for how bad it is to commute by car in various cities in the world.

For a long time I've argued that the Netherlands wins cyclists mostly by making cycling pleasant. Use of the carrot rather than a stick. It's much better to convince people to do something because they want to do it than to force them to do something they don't want to do. And that's how it is here. There is no "them vs. us" feeling around cycling vs. driving. Most people both cycle and drive.

Of all the cities in the survey, Amsterdam has easily the highest cycling rate. It has been shown that increasing the proportion of journeys by bike has many benefits, amongst them improving conditions for the remaining drivers.

This is born out by this research which reveals that not only is Amsterdam good for cyclists, but it is also a better city for drivers than car oriented cities such as London, Madrid and Paris. For drivers, Amsterdam is on a par with Los Angeles and only very slightly worse than Berlin, Montreal, New York and Melbourne.

The worst place in the survey for cycling is Beijing, a city where driving is rising as fast as cycling is falling.

Roads in the Netherlands are actually very good. They're an efficient network, well maintained. They are also well sign-posted and car parking is not difficult to find. It's an easy place to drive. However, despite this, car ownership is actually relatively low for such a wealthy nation.

People cycle here because they feel that they can. Cycling is attractive, convenient and safe.

Why doesn't everywhere try to emulate the Dutch success in cycling ? It really is difficult to find an excuse which holds water. Even the world's best cycling infrastructure is not actually expensive. It's quite possibly the most cost effective method for improving conditions for drivers.

The IBM link came via Velo Mondial.

The state of walking and cycling in the USA

"Over one-third of the U.S. population is under age 16 (cannot legally drive) or over age 65. Streets designed just to move cars are leaving behind the most vulnerable road users, often making them prisoners in their homes or completely reliant on others to drive them around. Less than half of states and major U.S. cities have adopted complete streets policies that require that roadways be designed and built with all users in mind." - So says the Alliance for Biking and Walking 2010 Benchmarking Report.

Cycling rates correlate well with rates of investment in cycling, not only within the USA, but also internationally. The success of the Netherlands has come due to investing in the needed facilities - and the facilities really are needed:

"States with the lowest levels of biking and walking have, on average, the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In contrast states with the highest levels of biking and walking have, on average, the lowest rates of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In addition, where rates of biking and walking are greater, more of the adult population is likely to achieve the 150 minutes of weekly moderate-intensity aerobic activity recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to CDC, physical activity can reduce your risk of dying early from the leading causes of death, like heart disease and some cancers."

2015 update
Progress is only possible with continued funding. Sadly, the Cycling Embassy of Denmark reports that funding for cycling in Denmark has been cut. There is no country on earth which can expect cycling to grow organically without support and that includes Denmark and the Netherlands.

The graph shows comparative figures for several cities giving an indication of how funding of cycling is linked to the resulting modal share. Amsterdam spends $39 per person per year and has a 35% modal share, Copenhagen spends $13 and achieves a 20% modal share, Berlin spends $6 for a 10% modal share, Portland spends #3.50 for a 4% modal share, the USA as a whole spends $1.50 for a 1% modal share (cycling and walking combined). Thanks to The Fietsberaad for the pointer to this report

Parking thousands of bicycles

Cycle parking has always been a problem in the Netherlands. There are so many bikes, and they take up a lot of space and a lot of innovative ways have been though of to deal with the bikes.

One of the first, and perhaps the most famous, of the huge cycle parks is that in the photo above - the Fietsflat at Amsterdam Centraal Station. This dates from 2001 and can accommodate 2500 bikes on three levels.

It's no longer anywhere near the biggest. I have previously posted about Groningen's new railway station parking which accommodates 4150 bikes, bringing the total there to well over 6000 (since this was written it's been expanded and you now find 10000 bikes at the station). I have now heard that Utrecht is building spaces for no fewer than 20000 bikes at a new cycle park at the central station. Even Assen with its population of just 65000 will soon have 2300 spaces - nearly as many as in the fietsflat (this has also been increased to over 2500).

The railway company here doesn't really want to upset cyclists, as four out of every ten train passengers arrive at the railway station by bike. However, they have started talking about the idea of charging for cycle parking at railway stations because the cost of providing it is so high. This is compounded by the problem of people dumping old bikes at the station. Another possible approach they could take would be to pay people to look after guarded parking at the station. It would make it easy to tell what bikes had been abandoned.

The problems of having so many bikes go back a long way as you can see in this film from 1958 (courtesy of BeeldenGeluid):

The video says (roughly translated) that:

"There are 900000 people in Amsterdam and 600000 bikes, and that this causes problems in the rush hour. What's more, cyclists have the same problems as drivers in finding places to park their bikes. You'll see a guarded double decker cycle park which dates from that time. They keep your bike safe, and you can book spaces in advance in order to make sure you will be able to park your bike regularly.

Then there is the problem of bikes parked where they shouldn't be on the street, which get in the way and can look unsightly. Some are dumped or stolen. The police collected 2500 bikes off the street at this time, and reduced the rate of cycle theft. A hundred bikes were returned to owners who knew their frame numbers, 150 more were identified by their owners visiting the "bicycle graveyard" to find their bikes and the rest were auctioned."

There are more cycle parking stories.

The photo at the top comes from wikipedia. More details, and licensing conditions for the photo can be found here. In Dutch, "flat" refers to an apartment block, while in English, "flat" refers to a single apartment. Hence the reason for the name "fietsflat" - bicycle apartment block.

Unicycling to school

Where child cyclists cross a bus-road near their school, it is the cycle-path which very obviously has priority.

The children shown in the photo are unicycling to a primary school here in Assen, unattended by any adults.

They're riding on the sidewalk alongside a bicycle path which provides the direct route to this school. It's perfectly safe to let children do this sort of thing here. The cycle-path provides priority for the children, including here where th cycle-path has priority over a road built specifically for buses.

There is another view of the same school, including a very short glimpse of a child with a unicycle, in my now quite famous video of children riding to school.

Lots of children here seem to know how to ride unicycles and it's not all that uncommon to see them going somewhere on them.

It doesn't even seem to be a particularly recent thing. This video (from BeeldenGeluid) shows a child unicycling to school in 1956:

The presenter says how "there are 500000 normal cyclists in Amsterdam, and one on a unicycle. He is joined by a peleton of other cyclists on the way to school. He is without bell, brakes, lights, steering but the police can't do anything about it."

This rider was 16 when the film was made, so he'll be 69 this year. I'd like to think he is still be riding that unicycle.

Note how he rides through something I've commented on before: an older Amsterdam which lacks cycle paths. It is sometimes assumed by people from other countries that the Netherlands has always been as it is now, but that is not true. There is a continual process of improvements for cyclists.

Van der Valk

In the 1970s on British TV there was a series called "Van der Valk" which followed a Dutch policeman from week to week. The show was made in English and I understand that the actors were all English too. However, it was shot in Amsterdam.

The interesting thing about this video, which shows the opening credits, is that having been shot in the early 1970s, it shows a different Amsterdam to that which you'll see in the present day. There are fewer bikes, and lots of cars. Dutch cities just don't look like this any more.

See also some before and after photos of Assen in the 1970s vs. now.

School buses

An American style school bus

There are no school buses in this country. There are companies which have a few of the traditional yellow school bus as used in the US, but they hire them out for corporate events, weddings etc. and do not use them to take children to school.

Children here predominantly cycle. We were told by a local secondary school teacher than the cycling rate to his school is 100% in the summer, dropping to around 95% in the winter. Some children cycle daily round trips of up to 40 km ( 25 miles ) in order to get to school. and back home.

Children attending primary school also cycle. This video, which I took a few months back when it was -2 C ( 28 F ) shows a normal school run at a primary school. It could have been taken on any day.

At this location, two thirds of all primary (elementary) school children arrive at school by bike.

This is the result of having infrastructure and a social environment which feels safe enough that people let their children ride bikes to school.


Amsterdam - child cycling under pressure
But wait, what's this article on the right ?

The headline reads "Amsterdam first years not happy cycling". It discusses how in Amsterdam the cycling rate for children in the first year of secondary school has dropped such that just 53% of children in the first year of secondary education cycle to school every day, vs. 89% of children over the entire country.

The reason most given not to cycle is the heavy traffic and the risks due to it.

The article also goes on to say that of those who cycle daily, 43% have fallen from their bikes at some point - mostly by crashing into other cyclists. The low quality of cycling infrastructure in some parts of Amsterdam is part of the reason why.

Why include this piece ? It's the same story as above. A high degree of subjective safety is vital if you want people to ride bikes. Amsterdam appears to many foreigners to be a paradise for cycling, and it has the highest cycling rate of any capital city in the western world. However Amsterdam is not a leader within the Netherlands. The city doesn't have the lowest rate of cycling in the Netherlands, but it most surely doesn't have the highest either. For all its charm (Amsterdam is really a marvelous city for many reasons), conditions for cycling in Amsterdam are not so good as in many of the other cities in this country, and that is reflected in a cycling rate which is lower than it otherwise might be.

The only "school bus" in Assen is part of a small fleet of
special buses which can  be hired for special events. You can
also choose the British double decker or Indonesian Bedford.

In the Netherlands, having only just over half of all children in the first year of secondary school cycling each day is something that is recognized as a problem. It's something to work on and improve. Note that it can be expected that by the second year of secondary school, rather a higher percentage of the children will be cycling.

And in the UK ?Instead of looking over the North Sea and taking note, the UK is as ever looking for advice in the opposite direction - across the Atlantic. There is a move with the Yellow School Bus Commission to introduce American style yellow school buses to the UK. This commission is ignoring the factors which make people continue to feel that their children are unsafe on the streets and if successful it will further reduce the opportunity for British kids to get exercise. It will also, of course, cost a fortune. Instead of spending on infrastructure which enables a truly green form of transport, the government will end up buying diesel to power buses and produce fumes on the streets. Should I be surprised that this commission was established and is sponsored by a bus company ? Is this proposal for the benefit of the children or of bus company shareholders ?

Children with disabilities ?
Children with disabilities can't always cycle to school and for them an alternative is provided. To minimise the number of private cars used on the school run, mini-buses are provided which call to each home to pick the child up in the morning and which return again after school. However these minibuses are not available to children who can make their own way to and from school.

The American school bus photo at the top is a public domain image which can be found here. The article is from the ANWB*Auto paper published on the 11th of September.