The bicycle and the city

In 1970 Amsterdam was a city of cars. Photographs from that year show the main squares used as car parks and almost no bicycles. Today the same city is known worldwide for cycling. The change was not a return to tradition. It was a decision, and it was argued about bitterly.

What moved the argument was not environmental concern. It was children. Road deaths in the Netherlands had risen through the 1960s, and in 1971 more than four hundred of the people killed on the roads were children. A campaign began with a name that translates as 'Stop the Child Murder'. Parents blocked streets. The subject stopped being about transport and became about who the street belonged to.

The changes that followed were slow and physical. Separate lanes with kerbs, not painted lines. Junctions redesigned so that a cyclist and a turning lorry are never in the same place. Streets near schools closed to cars at the start and end of the day.

The result is often described as a cultural difference, as though Dutch people simply like cycling. The history suggests otherwise. People cycle there because the infrastructure makes cycling the easy choice, and the infrastructure exists because a generation of parents refused to accept the number of funerals.

That matters for other cities, because culture cannot be copied and kerbs can.