Cycling and Safe Streets in Amsterdam: A Movement Sparked by Parents and Children

Bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam

My family recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam, where we got to try out cycling in one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. When we exited the train station, we were greeted by a multi-story parking garage clogged with more than 3,000 bikes, a now famous landmark in Amsterdam, reflecting how predominant cycling is here. Approximately 38% of all trips in Amsterdam are by bike compared to 2-3% in Austin.

I have been reading up about how these infrastructure changes came about. This video chronicles Amsterdam's history as a cycling city, pointing out that Amsterdam has not always embraced cycling like it does today. In the 1970s, after a record number of children were killed on Dutch roads, Dutch parents and their children led mass protests and organized around the country, demanding a transportation policy that prioritized safe streets.

Cycling in Amsterdam

While much attention has been given to how this fierce activism helped launch the construction of the nation's world-famous cycling infrastructure, families across the Netherlands worked for much more than that.  A wonderful documentary from 1972 captures how Dutch families have taken to the streets for a whole range of measures to make streets safer for children in dense urban areas. The Dutch government responded by creating play streets, "street corner havens," car-free Sundays, and an array of other traffic calming measures.

One of Amsterdam's biggest infrastructure challenges today is, ironically, addressing the deluge of bikes that fill the streets. Before our trip, a Dutch friend had warned us to not cycle in Amsterdam with children in the busy urban core unless they were super experienced urban cyclists.  It is true that making the jump to cycling in Amsterdam for my family was, well, terrifying at times. Sort of like going from driving a car in a small town to an L.A. freeway. My preteen children had to learn on the fly that they could absolutely not stop, much less slow down, while we were cycling in rush hour cycling traffic. And this was while cycling without helmets (no one wears them in Amsterdam and they were unavailable at the bike rental shop). The worst part was avoiding the speeding mopeds that weaved in and out of cyclists in the cycle lanes—apparently a widespread problem in the city. Luckily, it sounds like the government recognizes this is an issue and is working to ban mopeds in cycle paths.

Speeding mopeds and rush hour traffic aside, overall we were extremely impressed with Amsterdam's cycling infrastructure—an incredible opportunity to try out in person what we can aspire to here in Austin. The dedicated cycle lanes, the cycle-centric street crossings, the traffic lights for bikes, the ubiquitous bike parking facilities, and more. All these things were a delight to see in person.

Today, the Netherlands' traffic fatality rate is 60% lower than it was when parents and others first set out to advocate for safer streets. Meanwhile, Austin's traffic fatalities are on track to be a record high this year.  It is good to keep in mind the experiences of the Netherlands in making its street safer: that changes are more than possible, but they will not come about until the public demands them.

Off-street cycling lanes in Amsterdam

Cyclists even have their own lights!

A highlight: cycling through the famous Rijksmuseum

More dedicated cycling lanes with nice big buffers from the street

When to Allow Your Children to Navigate Austin's Streets Alone on a Bike?

Cycling with my son down South Lamar: Not for the faint of heart!

As my sons approach their teens, they are wanting something I had as a kid: the ability to explore their neighborhood on bikes without their parents hovering over them.

A typical arterial street in our neighborhood.
Lots of parked cars, leaving no room for two cars to pass each other,
let alone two cars and a cyclist.

But our inner-city neighborhood streets today are not like the quiet streets in the suburbs where I grew up. Today, our streets are crowded with parked cars and traffic while lacking basic pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Our kids have to regularly navigate weaving in and out of parked cars while distracted drivers speed by them. When there are sidewalks (which are rare), the kids must confront huge cracks, uneven pavement, and missing curb cuts.  It's one thing to navigate these hazards as a 40-year-old with many years of experience cycling, and another thing when you are 9.

Our neighborhood is by no means alone in this regards in Austin.  Throughout the city, parents must regularly confront this question: At what point is it safe enough to let your child ride his bike or scooter without an adult nearby?

One of our rare neighborhood sidewalks.
Notice the lack of curb cuts.

Six years ago, Lenore Skenazy wrote a controversial article about how she let her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway home alone. This sparked a national conversation about parents becoming too obsessed with theirs kids' safety, stripping kids of the independence that they need to grow into healthy, confident adults. More recently, an article by Hanna Rosin criticized parents' pre-occupation with safety and cites evidence that links the loss of children's ability to engage in independent, risk-taking discovery  to increases in "depression, narcissism, and a decline in empathy."

Both of these articles, however, ignore the hazards we observe everyday as we travel through our neighborhoods: absent-minded drivers who text, ignore crosswalks, and regularly speed through our neighborhood streets. Rosin asserts that the world is not a more dangerous place than it was when we were growing up, but she bases her argument solely on crime stats and child abduction rates, not on traffic safety. Meanwhile, pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise. A pedestrian is injured every 8 minutes in a traffic crash in the United States, and 19% of these injuries are to kids 15 and younger. Pedestrian injuries are the second leading cause of accidental death among children 5 to 15. 

I wonder if I would feel more comfortable letting my kids ride a New York City subway alone than, say, riding their bikes or walking to their local library. I might. According to a report released last week by Smart Growth America, the Austin metro area is the 24th most dangerous region for pedestrians (and probably not any better for cyclists); New York City is 48th (out of 51 metro areas). To get to our neighborhood library, my kids have to navigate several hazards, including crossing a very busy and dangerous intersection on South Lamar where I regularly see cars turning left that fail to yield to oncoming cars, let alone pedestrians and cyclists. (Here's a link to a prior post about our cycling adventures together on South Lamar).

All this being said, I think that ultimately the decision about whether to let your child ride his or her bike alone is a very personal one. It depends on the conditions in the neighborhood, as well as the child's cognitive abilities and experience riding with adults and learning good cycling safety judgment. What also helps: a leap of faith, a kiss on the cheek, and maybe a prayer or two. 

The cast from the broken arm!

Taking all these things into account, last month we finally decided our kids were old enough to go off alone on their scooters to buy snow cones on the edge of the neighborhood.  The outcome? Did our kids survive? Yes. Although my oldest son's scooter hit a big piece of broken pavement in the sidewalk, causing him to fall and break his arm. I kid you not.

Will we let our children ride alone again? Yes, although next time I will remind them to look out for the cracks in the sidewalk.

Here's the uneven pavement that was the source of the fall and broken arm.
This is very typical of the state of neighborhood sidewalks in Austin.
Despite several calls to the City of Austin, this sidewalk has still not been repaired.

Safe Routes to School

My kids are headed back to school in a few days, with mixed feelings. We have all had a wonderful summer, and it is hard to make the transition to a new season and schedule.  One thing we are excited about is using the new cycle tracks in our neighborhood to bike to school. No more sharing the sidewalk with walkers, navigating around telephone poles, and riding across poorly marked intersections.

The city has installed a bunch of other great safety improvements to the streetscape around my kids' school, including a new sidewalk, new paint markings in the street, and new crosswalks. These improvements will make it safer for all the children in the neighborhood to walk and bike to school.

These types of improvements are critically important in getting children to travel to school via foot and bike, with long-term health benefits. In 1969, 48% of children used active transportation to get to school. This number had fallen to 13% by 2009.  Meanwhile, obesity rates for school-aged children have tripled since 1980.  And, most importantly, these improvements save lives. One-third of children's traffic deaths occur when children are walking or bicycling and struck by cars.  

Many safe routes to school improvements have been made possible as a result of federal transportation dollars. Unfortunately, according to the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, Congress completely eliminated dedicated funding for safe routes to schools this year, so it is up to our state officials to choose whether to dedicate transportation funding to these important projects. 

Here's a great picture of a before and after shot of a street near a school that has been upgraded to a safe route to school:

 

SAFER STREETS FOR KIDS

So, after eating zillions of ice cream cones, chocolate croissants, chunks of manchego cheese, and more, how much weight did Which Way blogger gain in Spain?  NONE!  I couldn't believe it. I'm convinced it was all of that walking and biking we did. And how much has our family walked or biked together since we got back home 10 days ago (except for to and from our cars)?  Zilcho!  So, I have resolved that our family is going to do more walking and biking outings together -- even in the heat, bad streets, lack of shade, and all. 

Unfortunately, if we want to get far on our bikes as a family, that means navigating some treacherous streets here in Austin. Many of the bike lanes near our house look like this one on South Lamar, with unbuffered lanes right next to cars zooming by at 45+ miles per hour. 

Here are some great news items posted on my neighborhood listerve this week about some exciting traffic calming projects being adopted across the country to make streets safer for kids: 

Los Angeles Times blog post about traffic slowing methods

New York City press release about the adoption of "Slow Zones" to combat speeding

Gotta appreciate this quote from one of the NYC council members about the NYC Slow Zone project: "Our streets are not for drag racing, they are where we raise our children, shop at local establishments, and say hello to our neighbors." Here, here. As part of the NYC project, the Slow Zones will be marked with prominent blue gateways with large signs, speed bumps, and "20 MPH" marked on the street. We need more of these in Austin, especially after a child this year was struck and killed by a speeding car while he was playing in front of his home in Southeast Austin. This was on top of a number of other auto-pedestrian deaths this year. Very tragic. And in 2011, there were 21 auto-pedestrian deaths in Austin. Horrendous.