This paper shows how the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany have made bicycling a safe, convenient, and practical way to get around their cities. The analysis relies on national aggregate data as well as case studies of large and small cities in each country. The key to achieving high levels of cycling appears to be the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily traveled roads and at intersections, combined with traffic calming of most residential neighborhoods. Extensive cycling rights of way in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany are complemented by ample bike parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists, and a wide range of promotional events intended to generate enthusiasm and wide public support for cycling. In addition to their many pro-bike policies and programs, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany make driving expensive as well as inconvenient in central cities through a host of taxes and restrictions on car ownership, use, and parking. Moreover, strict land use policies foster compact, mixed-use developments that generate shorter and thus more bikeable trips. It is the coordinated implementation of this multifaceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies that best explains the success of these three countries in promoting cycling. For comparison, the paper portrays the marginal status of cycling in the UK and USA, where only about one percent of trips are by bike. 

The article was published in Transport Reviews.

The most important approach to making cycling safe and convenient in Dutch, Danish, and German cities is the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily traveled roads and at intersections, combined with extensive traffic calming of residential neighborhoods. Safe and relatively stress-free cycling routes are especially important for children, the elderly, women, and for anyone with special needs due to any sort of disability. Providing such separate facilities to connect practical, utilitarian origins and destinations also promotes cycling for work, school, and shopping trips, as opposed to the mainly recreational cycling in the USA, where most separate cycling facilities are along urban parks, rivers, and lakes or in rural areas. 

The key to the success of cycling policies in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany is the coordinated implementation of the multi-faceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies summarized in Tables 1, 2, and 3 in the article. Not only do these countries implement far more of the probike measures, but they greatly reinforce their overall impact with highly restrictive policies that make car use less convenient as well as more expensive. It is precisely that double-barreled combination of ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ policies that make cycling so irresistible

Rutgers University - Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
33 Livingston Avenue, Room 363
08904 New Brunswick, New Jersey
http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/
John Pucher (Professor, Urban Planning and Policy Development Program and Research Associate, Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center), tel. 001-732-932-3822, ext. 722

/07/2008

John Pucher and Ralph Buehler

research

Urban Policy

Transport and infrastructure