487 million euros for cycling

€30 per person year every year (based
on 2010 prices) is enough to build the
world's best cycling infrastructure but
only if it is spent as an integral part
of highway engineering, not on separate
"catch up" projects and not used for
other items such as cycle training

The Fietsberaad reports that Dutch government expenditure on cycling has now reached an annual level of 487 million euros per year. Given the Dutch population of around 16 million people, that's approximately 30 euros per person per year, over the entire country, all cities, towns and villages, and out in the countryside.

Much money is now being spent on improving regional routes, for longer distance commuters (I've covered this before), which leads to higher rates of cycling to work. Improvements of cycle parking around business areas should be done by business themselves.

To catch up with The Netherlands other countries must spend more for a short time in order to progress quickly and then drop to the same rate as The Netherlands or spend the same amount and wait a long time (quality will then approach what The Netherlands has asymptotically, fast progress initially followed by a long period of catchup up). No country can "catch up" by spending less.

Britain, with it's population of around 65 million people, needs to spend the equivalent of about €2 billion per year to match Dutch expenditure. The USA needs to spend approximately €10 billion per year.

These figures may seem large, but it has been shown within The Netherlands that cycling actually saves Dutch companies considerably more than is spent on infrastructure each year. This is quite apart from health effects and the benefit to the economy of importing less oil and lower wear and tear on the road network. Also it has been shown that when all things are considered, building cycling infrastructure works out cheaper than not building it, even when we consider just long distance relatively rarely used cycle-paths.

Update September 2013
Apparently a British politician today claimed that the Dutch government spends just €3 per person per year on cycling. This is clearly a misuse of figures.

The article linked from the top of this story refers to the total investment in cycling by and through all government departments put together in 2010 of €487 million. €77 M of this total comes from the "bikes for business ruling" (itself a government initiative) leaving €410 M from government itself. This sum breaks down as follows:

1. €306 M spent by through local government.
2. €7.6 M spent by the water boards
3. €3.4 M spent by city regions
4. €58.5 M spent by provinces
5. €34.7 M spent by the central government

However, this can also be looked at in a different way as different levels of government cross-subsidize each other. €85 M of the total spent by local government came indirectly from city regions and provinces and €15.7 M came indirectly from central government. The same document offers the same figures arranged in a different way:

1. €207 M spent by through local government.
2. €7 M spent by the water boards
3. €50 M spent by city regions
4. €97 M spent by provinces
5. €49 M spent by the central government

In fact, of course, this is just one of many different ways that the figures could be re-arranged depending on what point one wanted to make. A lot of the funds spent by local, city of provincial governments was itself originally collected and distributed by central government. How this is sliced and diced is immaterial. It is rarely, if ever, possible to find exact equivalence between different countries for how they arrange their budgets because there are so many different ways to do it.

€487 Million per year is not the real total

In any case, this headline figure of €487M per year in the Netherlands is acknowledged not to be nearly the total amount spent on cycling. This is not only because such things as workplace parking and secure residential cycle-parking (a legal requirement) are considered to be expenditures for employers and housing developers but also because of how things are accounted for elsewhere. The break down document quoted from above included a couple of interesting paragraphs at the bottom which translate as follows:

The small amount of direct expenditure from city regions is due to the fact that these regions don't manage the roads and cycle-paths themselves.

This is another reason why direct national government expenditure is low. National government also doesn't manage roads and cycle-paths directly.

The estimate of €406M is on the low side. This is because all levels of government include cycling components in other projects. Cycling costs are therefore often invisible. It should also be noted that cycling infrastructure which is part of new developments is paid for by the builders of those developments.

Note the acknowledged to be "invisible" cycling costs. All developments and plans include cycling and it's not usually considered to be something additional to the basic plan. Only where something exceptional is needed do the funds come from the cycling budget. That is why building an excellent traffic light junction for cycling in the Netherlands cost less than a tenth the sum charged to cycling of building a very bad one in the UK. Cycling funding in the Netherlands is not only at a far higher level than in the UK but it is also spent far more efficiently than in the UK.

Also note the required investment by developers. We see benefits from this locally. The excellent infrastructure inside, to give access to, and to provide for recreational and commuting routes reaching several kilometres outwards from the newest suburb of Assen, for example, cost nothing from the cycling budget. These are also reflections of government policy. In order to get planning permission, developers in the Netherlands must present designs which work well for bicycles.

Dishonesty

The difference in expenditure between the UK and the Netherlands is vast. It cannot be reduced to a single figure because there is no equivalent figure to be found. It simply won't do for a British politician at no less a level than Parliamentary Under Secretary of State to make out that Britain's astonishingly low rate of expenditure on cycling is anything close to what is spent in the Netherlands. An attempt has been made to equate two entirely different things and to find an equivalence which does not actually exist. IMO, Norman Baker has used figures in a way which is dishonest.

It doesn't matter what channels the money might be diverted through in either country. What matters is that it is spent and spent well. In the Netherlands the expenditure is at a very much higher level than in the UK and this money is also spent far more efficiently than in the UK. These are the facts. The results speak for themselves.

What is Norman Baker actually comparing with, and a challenge.
Norman Baker's comparison of total UK funds for cycling with the funds directly allocated by Dutch central government are interesting because they are so obviously a comparison of apples with oranges.

The published Dutch figures which Norman Baker referred to are funds are for very specific uses. In 2013 these particular funds were overwhelmingly used for just one purpose - expansion of railway station cycle parking facilities. This one item is allocated €38M out of a total of €44 M.

Norman Baker is comparing a fund which is almost entirely for expansion of cycle parking at Dutch railway stations with the total government expenditure on cycling in the UK.

Let's make this into a more honest comparison. Perhaps Norman Baker would be so kind as to let us know how much the British government is spending on railway station cycle parking in 2013.

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