Safe cycling for 8 to 80 year olds

The wide age range of people on bicycles is one of the more striking things for visitors to the Netherlands. Very young children can be seen cycling with their parents on the streets, sometimes even still with stabilisers on their mini-bicycles. Younger children are often passengers. These kids start cycling to school and other destinations unaccompanied at the age of 8 or 9, giving them an independence and freedom which is unparalleled in the world. On the other end of the spectrum the senior citizens keep on cycling to a very high age indeed. Sometimes aided by electric bikes, but more often just because they simply still can. It gives this age group health and other benefits similar to the young children: freedom and independence.

Certainly not 8 yet, but why wouldn't you ride with your stabilisers
on the public road...

Safe streets for people from 8 to 80 is not a concept to strive for in the Netherlands, it has already become every day reality. Dutch streets are complete streets and Dutch cities are cities for people. Decisions that led to this reality were taken deliberately in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The (re-)construction of the cycling infrastructure mainly took place from the 1980s up until now. First an a smaller scale but really nationwide from the mid 1990s to the present day.

Certainly not 80 yet, but showing that cycling can be done gracefully
at a more senior age.

Early examples of Tilburg (1977), The Hague (1975-1981) and Delft (1979-1986), already showed that creating a sufficiently dense separate cycling infrastructure network does increase cycling and at the same time makes it safer. The Dutch also learned from their initial shortcomings. Later projects, with many improvements in the details of the infrastructure, ranging from the angle of kerbs (curbs), via widths of paths and smoother surfaces, to more priority on junctions, had even better results in cities and towns in every region of the country. Interestingly enough there are no real separate cycling infrastructure projects anymore. The projects are embedded in an integral transportation policy approach. Making cycling equally important and valuable as motorised and public transport. And more: in recent transport policies cycling is seen as the preferred transportation option in a city or town and as such given benefits and priority over the other means of transport.



Looking at it on a macro scale reveals that all this led to the country with the highest modal share of cycling in the world’s safest streets, and with the widest age range of people cycling. Yes, you can truely say everyone cycles in the Netherlands, which is very visible in the above video.