Health, Wealth and Happiness. The benefits of cycling last through your life

I made three short videos during the study tour two weeks ago. As it happens, all three of them show children and teenagers using the cycling infrastructure in one way or another.


A cycle-path through a residential area in Assen followed by a crossing which is safe for all to use


Teenagers in one corner of a park in Groningen. It was a sunny afternoon, so thousands of people had ridden their bikes to different corners of this and other parks. It's similar if you cycle to the beach.


In this video there's not so much cycling as walking. 6000 people, mostly from primary schools around Assen, take part each year in the local Avondvierdaagse. Participants walk 10 km each day on four consecutive evenings. Because of the number of people taking part they often cause a little disruption on roads and cycle-paths in and around the city, but this isn't the sort of thing that any reasonable person would complain about.

Most, if not all, towns in the Netherlands have an event like this, modelled after the internationally famous Nijmegse Vierdaagse. The Nijmegen event attracts an amazing 45000 participants who each walk a minimum of 50 km per day (reduced to 40 km per day for people under 20 or over 50 years old) for four days in order to earn their medal.

Why are children important ?
Why do I concentrate so much on young cyclists ? That's easy to answer. Today's children are the only possible source of tomorrow's adult cyclists and children are a common interest of the whole population. Children love to cycle and cycling is a transport mode which can offer children a greater degree of freedom and affordability than anything else that is open to them.

If we don't "get them when they're young", i.e. at the age when the affordability and freedom offer a unique combination then we must instead try to convince older people to take up cycling when they've already formed a habit of travelling by other means and when they can more easily afford other means.

Under 18s in The Netherlands make a huge proportion of their
journeys by bike. 0.8 journeys per day for under 12s, 1.7
journeys per day for 12 to 16 year olds. Adults cycle less but
even over 75s make an average of one trip every three days.

Countries which fail to achieve a high cycling rate amongst the young will struggle even more to achieve it amongst adults.

Promoting cycling for everyday journeys is not the same as promoting it as a sport. As others have noted before, sports like swimming or playing tennis are worthy but they are of no use to travel to school or to visit friends. But cycling requires something that other "sports" do not. While any road design will suffice in order to transport people to a swimming pool or tennis court, those same roads very possibly will not suffice so far as making cycling attractive and accessible enough that people who are not cycling enthusiasts will see riding a bike as something for them. To achieve a high modal share amongst young children and teenagers requires our streets and cycle-paths to be so subjectively safe that not only do children feel safe, but that all their parents expect them to be safe as well. This is how the point is reached where children are given the freedom to travel independently.

Adult obesity in OECD countries. Can they be compared
directly ? As some are "self-reported", methodologies
clearly vary between countries.

The avondvierdaagse youtube video (above) was made public a few days ago and one of the first comments asked "Where are the overweight children?". According to the figures I've seen, obesity levels in the Netherlands are somewhat lower than those of many other countries, but not actually near the lowest.

As for what proportion of children are obese, that's difficult to judge. Some figures put this as high as 7% of the total, which would mean you'd expect to see two obese children in each classroom. Is this true ? I don't actually know as I don't work in a school and I've never studied this. It seems high, though. To my eyes there are obviously fewer really large people here than in the UK and that's despite our province, Drenthe, being worse than average for The Netherlands as a whole. I am given to wonder whether differences in methodology of reporting obesity might mean that little can be learned from the comparison of figures which come from different countries. I've seen the same thing with cycling modal share figures, which are almost never gathered in the same way in different countries. In fact, there are often several different conflicting figures available for modal share even for the same town.

Dutch children have the same taste for overly fatty food and soft drinks as those who live elsewhere. However, unlike children elsewhere, the great majority of Dutch children walk or cycle to school. It doesn't stop with getting to school, though. School trips are by bike too (including regular weekly trips to play sports) and children make trips to go shopping, visit friends or buy fast food by bike as well. Without the cycling habit (12 to 16 year olds each make an average of about 1.7 trips by bike each day), it is very likely that obesity would be a bigger problem here than it is.

UNICEF Index of child
well-being. High cycling
countries in orange.

Health, Wealth and Happiness for everyone
In my view, adults owe the next generation the best start in life and the best future we can possibly provide them. If children can cycle then they already have a head start. The freedom of Dutch children is a good part of what makes this country score so well on the UNICEF index.

However, we could also do what is required to enable mass cycling purely for selfish reasons. Let's pretend for a moment that we're not bothered at all about children. Just for the next few paragraphs, think only of the adults...

Dutch doctors find that cycling helps to treat many ills amongst adults. Dutch companies gain a competitive advantage due to their cycling employees. The tax payer gains because when all the costs and benefits are worked out, it's cheaper to build high quality cycle facilities than not to build them. Motorists benefit because more cycling results in fewer traffic jams.

The advantages of cycling keep on adding up, but in order to reap these rewards it is necessary to build infrastructure which offers everyone a very high degree of both safety and convenience.

If we're to achieve mass cycling amongst adults we have to enable it for children so that the pattern is established and can continue through their entire life. Not only is cycling good for physical health, but also for mental health. Happy and healthy children have a better chance of becoming happy and healthy adults.

Teenagers ride home three abreast from their school 17 km away while young children riding a shorter distance in the opposite direction are overtaken by racing cyclists. All these people, and myself as well, need the same infrastructure i.e. that which is easy to understand and offers direct and safe journeys. This consistent high quality experience can be achieved where there are cycle-paths and where there are not. Why aim for anything less ?

A new version of the UNICEF report was published in April. The Netherlands is still in first place, Finland, Sweden and Germany are still within the top six.

Study Tour report - a young group from Norway

First day: Single file on a direct cycle-
path between a village and Assen

Two weeks ago, we hosted a Study Tour group from Norway. Six students aged between 13 and 15 from the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole (a secondary school) in Porsgrunn came with two older students aged 18 and two adults, Michel Fouler from "På sykkel i Telemark" who organised the tour and Bent Gundersen who is one of the teachers. All are from the Telemark county in Norway.

A discussion with Dutch students
allowed experiences to be shared.

Due to the efforts of cyclists in the area including Michel's cycle training organisation, Alle Barn Sykler, and an enthusiastic cycling headmaster, 60% of students cycle regularly to the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole. However, the same is not true of Norway in general.

Posing with the Fietsles (cycling
lesson) statue in Groningen

Cycling amongst teenagers has declined sharply in Norway. While 15% of those aged between 13 and 17 cycled on a daily basis in 2005, by 2009 this figure had shrunk to 9%.

This is one of the reasons why there was interest in comparing the conditions in which Norwegian and Dutch children and teenagers cycle, because how pleasant the conditions are for cycling certainly affects how much people will cycle.

Pre-schoolers in Groningen riding home
from day-care on their own bikes

Work on a presentation started even during the journey home. On Friday 23rd of March, a week after returning home, the students travelled to Oslo to a workshop with the Road Transportation Department in Norway, connected with planning for the Norwegian Bicycle Masterplan for 2014-2023. Tobias and Chatrine, two of the 15 year old students, made a presentation based on what they had seen in Assen and Groningen on the Study Tour.

Amongst the items in their presentation was this film, made by the two older students, Ingvild Stensrud and Herman Andreassen. It combines footage from a pre-school, primary school and secondary school in Assen and Groningen. See how children, all types of children, even very young, with disabilities, from immigrant families, cycle to school in the Netherlands and gain independence by doing so:

Our observations
This was a wonderful group to host. The confident and intelligent manner of the teenagers outshone their ages. They were genuinely interested in the issues and they asked sensible questions.

The last day: Confident and without
helmets.

It was interesting to see how confidence on the bikes grew over just three days in the Netherlands. At first the group was reluctant to cycle two abreast due to concerns about taking up too much space. This concern passed quickly. In its place came the Dutch, confident and sociable way of riding next to a friend and talking at the same time.

One of the missing
helmets was
in a bin on Friday

Similarly, on the first day, all the students wore helmets. By the third day, no-one could find one. We'd never presume to tell anyone what to wear when cycling, and that goes double for other peoples' children. However, by the end of three days there had been a revolution. This is subjective safety at work. People reacting to the conditions.

Index of child well-being for a
range of countries. High cycling
countries highlighted in orange

It was mentioned to us that Norwegians were not entirely happy about being in 7th place in the index of child well-being from UNICEF (is your country in the list ?). As I've noted before, the top four nations in this survey are the top four cycling nations in Europe.

The connection with cycling should not be surprising. Dutch children and teenagers see cycling as freedom. Even though we live in a rural area and the distance that some have to travel to get to their chosen school can be long, there are no school buses here. We were told by in our school meeting in Assen that one of their students currently rides more than 60 km as a round trip each day to get to school and back home. This is interrupted only for a brief period mid-winter when her parents object to her riding the entire way in darkness. Why prefer cycling ? Because otherwise she'd miss out on the social aspect of riding with other students.

Subjective safety at work: Five Dutch
children on skates and one on a go-kart
chasing us as we pass a man walking
two dogs. All separate from the road

While they were here, the Norwegian teenagers experienced some of the freedom that Dutch teenagers find to be normal. This freedom comes because of the safe cycling conditions and the safe cycling conditions are due to the infrastructure. Our Norwegians visitors were passionate about what they saw, and wanted to take this back with them. We hear that the presentation and film have had quite an effect and hope that Norway's planners and politicians will listen to their youngsters.

Children and teenagers need freedom. Instead of designing around adults in cars, planners must design around the needs of children. Children must be seen as the rightful heirs of our future transport network.

We still have places on the public study tour in May, and can organise tours on most dates to suit groups. Contact us to make a booking. We would be very pleased to meet with an official group from Norway this year. We can show you exactly what the students saw.

Please also read more feedback from the Norwegian group.

Around 4% of journeys in Norway as a whole are made by bicycle. Youtube videos reveal many of the same problems for cyclists in Oslo as in many other cities around the world. Click for more stories about school travel in the Netherlands.

Who do we campaign for ?

Road sign in Assen designed by child.
"I'd rather cycle". Many children and
adults elsewhere feel the same way

Three years ago, I posed the rhetorical question "Do the British love their children too?" This week, I received an answer in the form of a note which said "For my children in Bristol. Thank you for your work."

In the 1970s, the Dutch reacted to increased danger on the streets by calling for change to make their children safer while preserving their ability to make independent journeys.

In other nations, children have in large part been removed from the streets. They no longer make journeys in an independent manner. For instance, in Britain, newspapers report such things as that a teenage boy can't make a journey of 11 km on his own while in the Netherlands this sort of distance, and much longer distances, are quite routinely ridden by many teenagers every day to get to school, even in winter.

A peloton of teenagers heading home
after school.

A retrospective glance shows that the Dutch did something extraordinary in the 1970s. With mass support, the future of the country was changed. If this had not happened then the Netherlands could be a very different place now.

This was pure luck. The Dutch care for their children, of course, but they do not care for them any more than parents in other nations do. What happened in the Netherlands was that the right people supported the right campaign at the right time. With the right support for the right campaign, similar things could just as easily happen in other countries.

The power and compassion of parents is significant. Cycling campaigners sometimes scoff at ill-conceived "safety" campaigns to force children to wear fluorescent clothing and helmets, however such safety campaigns represent a lot of passion. They come from parents who are not happy with the conditions under which their children live. Change is wanted, and these parents are active in fighting for it. The effort is often misdirected into ineffective campaigns, and far too much seems to benefit the producers of fluorescent clothing and helmets rather than actually changing things. Meanwhile, the rate of walking and cycling amongst children continues to drop in the UK.

Confident youngsters in Assen city
centre. On average, Dutch children
travel independently from 8.6 years

If this energy could be redirected into a campaign to really make conditions on the streets better, then the UK, and other nations, could very easily achieve what the Dutch have achieved, and quite possibly much more. By including parents and children in a campaign, it can achieve mass support which goes well beyond a campaign focussed on "cyclists".

Unfortunately, many adult cycling campaigners continue to treat child cyclists as something different to themselves. It has become common in the UK to call for a two speed approach with a double network. Campaigners want on-road facilities for themselves (the "fast cyclists") while also asking for off-road infrastructure to cater for "slow cyclists". This approach is wrong. For a start, it loses the support of many people because it sounds rather like "cyclists" are greedy. It sounds like a request from a greedy person who wants both to have their cake and also to eat it. However, its the biggest problem is that it is doomed to failure by the low expectations embedded right into the demands being made: Off-road infrastructure is expected to be inconvenient for experienced cyclists, while on-road infrastructure is expected to be unsafe for the inexperienced.

There is no logic behind this strange dichotomous approach. Infrastructure which isn't convenient enough for experienced "fast" cyclists also isn't convenient for "slow" cyclists. Infrastructure which isn't safe enough for inexperienced cyclists also isn't pleasant for the experienced. The two speed approach introduces a divide between two groups of people who need not be divided. It gives no clear route for progression from one set of infrastructure to the other, nor a clear reason why there should be a progression and it helps to keep "cyclists" as an out-group separated from the rest of society.

Cycle-racers, parents and children, all
on one cycle-path in Assen

It is possible to design infrastructure which works equally well for everyone. That is the gold standard. It is what the Dutch did and this blog is filled with examples (see links on the right). Don't ask for less.

For real progress in cycling, campaigners need to start to "think of the children". However, children should be thought of not as small people to be condescending towards, but as the rightful heirs of our future transport network. Today's child cyclists are tomorrow's adult cyclists. It is by working with today's concerned parents, by understanding that their concerns are valid and need to be addressed, that tomorrow's adult and child cyclists will best be catered for.

Not only do other countries have a chance of improving conditions for cyclists, but by the same means they could also improve their own positions in the UNICEF index of child well-being. Is this not something that every country should aspire to ?

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Whatever problems may appear to stand in the way, the Dutch forty year head-start which should always serve as a reference.

The note which prompted this post was attached to a donation which we were sent by a blog reader who is a concerned parent from Bristol. Bristol is Britain's first Cycling City. It received extra funding for a short period of time, at nowhere near the level of Dutch funding. There was much speculation about how the money was spent, and the programme unfortunately failed to meet its targets. To this day, Bristol is still failing to provide safe conditions for child, and adult, cyclists. What happened in the Netherlands in the 1970s was almost unique, but similar things did also occur in Denmark.

Go Vilnius ! (or what future should a growing nation choose ?)

In the last week we hosted four representatives from the city of Vilnius in Lithuania for a study tour of Assen and Groningen.

Lithuania is developing fast. The capital, Vilnius, faces many challenges due to growth. Personal cars as a means of transport have grown in popularity, and this has resulted in several problems, such as a high rate of illegal parking. This was the reason for the much publicized story a few months back where the Mayor of Vilnius drove an armored vehicle over a car:


It was a publicity stunt, of course, but the Mayor being involved in this way demonstrates that increased car usage has caused problems which reach right through society. Vilnius is not alone in this of course. The same problems are seen in very many other cities around the world.

The Vilnius representatives came to Assen and Groningen in order to see how cycling could help. Every journey by bike is a journey which is not taken by motor-vehicle.

On Thursday morning I woke early. I remembered that some months ago, Todd Edelman forwarded me a link to an article about public transport usage across Europe. The Czech authors of that article used it to point out that their country has the highest public transport usage across Europe, a deserved boost to morale for a country with very good public transport. What woke me was remembering that I wrote back at the time to say that it also demonstrated something about cycling. I realised that this could also perhaps be of interest for Vilnius, as well as many other cities facing similar dilemmas.

I couldn't access that particular survey, but these surveys are carried out regularly, with similar results from year to year. In the 2007 survey, Latvia, next door to Lithuania, was shown to have the highest public transport usage in Europe, as shown in the graph below. Eastern European countries dominate the left side of this graph while Western European countries are mostly on the right side of the graph. There is a strong correlation with GDP per capita. As people become richer, they use public transport less:

It's simple to explain this. As nations become more wealthy, their people desire motor vehicles and other luxury items. Once it is possible to afford them they will buy them. This phenomena is not restricted to Europe. It's been observed most dramatically in recent years in China, which has very quickly transformed itself from being notable for its high rate of cycling to being notable for its massive traffic problems.

I thought it interesting to look at where Lithuania and the Netherlands appear on the graphs in the report. To make it obvious, I've highlighted the figures for Lithuania in yellow and those for the Netherlands in orange. I've also highlighted France in red, this being a typical low cycling rate established western European nation.

With these three nations highlighted you see that Lithuania appears amongst other up and coming Eastern European nations. These nations all have higher than average rates of public transport usage. The Netherlands and France, on the other hand, are both on the other side of the graph with relatively low levels of public transport usage. The Dutch have almost the lowest rate of public transport usage in Europe:

However, when we look at the rate of motorized individual transport, the picture changes. You now find that France is with the group of almost all wealthier Western European nations on the left of the graph with a high rate of motor vehicle usage. The Netherlands is in a rather unique position for a Western European nation - amongst Eastern European nations, due to its relatively very low rate of motorized transport. The reason for this is of course the high rate of cycling:

Despite relatively easy affordability of cars and a high car ownership rate, the Netherlands has easily the highest rate of non-motorized transport in Europe. Other Western European nations which have achieved a higher than average rate of cycling, including Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Finland show the same effects on all three graphs as the Netherlands, but to a less obvious extent. Other established nations in Europe, including the UK, France, Ireland, Austria and Italy, appear on the right side of the graph due to the domination of motor vehicles:

My conclusion: Unless there is another factor which changes what people do, as countries become more wealthy, their people stop using public transport and instead drive cars. The attractiveness of cycling in the Netherlands has lured people away from cars to an extent that public transport has not achieved in any rich nation. This makes a huge difference to overall transport patterns.

A choice must be made

If no action is taken then the likely future for all Eastern European nations, including Lithuania, as well as in developing nations all across the world, lies with cars taking over from public transport. This increase in car ownership and use results in roads which are uncomfortable on which to walk and cycle, walking and cycling risk becoming low status activities, and stopping their decline becomes difficult.

If this happens, it comes at a huge price not only in monetary terms due to the enormous cost of building roads, importing oil and cars, but also in environmental problems, road casualties, congestion, rising obesity and lowered freedom for children.

However, there is a choice. If these nations instead emulate the Dutch approach and retain a high rate of non-motorized travel by making cycling into an attractive alternative to driving then the future can be brighter. Encouraging cycling has many other benefits. These reducing environmental problems, improving the public health, reducing congestion and increasing the happiness of children. However, perhaps the raw financial aspects are most attractive. If 30% instead of 20% of journeys can be non-motorized in the future then this makes a huge difference to the cost of roads and maintenance of roads. There will also be less fuel needed to power those cars. The potential savings are far larger than the cost of providing even the best cycling infrastructure in the world.

The positive choice

Cumulative Current AccountBalance per capita for a range
of countries. High cycling
countries highlighted in orange

The choice of copying the "Dutch" approach has been taken by some of the most successful countries in Europe. In these graphs I also highlight in orange other countries which have taken steps to be similar to the Netherlands and in red other countries which have taken a similar approach to France (including some which are not in Europe but are often taken as examples).

We now see that the most wealthy nations in Europe (those which have the highest positive current account balances per capita) are also mainly those which have adopted positive measures for cycling.

Index of child well-being for a
range of countries. High cycling
countries highlighted in orange

A UNICEF survey to identify the world's happiest children also highlighted the same countries as having the best conditions for children.

Cycling plays a role in both of these other results. The high non-motorized transport rate of the Netherlands directly translates into a reduction in the amount of money which leaves the country to pay for imported oil. It also drastically decreases the cost of road-building and of imports of motor vehicles and parts as well as costing businesses less due to fewer working hours being lose due to traffic congestion and illness. These all have an effect on the Current Account Balance and help the Netherlands to remain in profit year on year.

Cycling also plays a large part in the happiness of Dutch children. They have a very high degree of freedom from a young age as their parents are not so concerned about their safety on the safest streets in the world.

Why make the choice for cars ?
The default position for many nations is to just let things happen. Individuals buy and use more cars, and the state provides for this. It is sometimes thought that high car ownership and usage are synonymous with development.

This is seen as both the path of least resistance, and also of giving people what they want. However, it is actually a very expensive choice by government which leads to individuals having few choices in the future. This policy has been followed by many countries, including all those highlighted in red on the graphs above. Many of them now have extremely high levels of debt.

The alternative choice, of choosing to spend money on building high quality cycling infrastructure and encouraging cycling is both less expensive and better for society. This is the path which results in emulating the success of the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland - rich countries with a high standard of living. Is this not what everyone wants ? Even the most expensive cycling infrastructure in the world is cheap compared with building motorways.

Like many other countries, Lithuania is currently in a position where it needs to make a choice. Right there in the capital city of Vilnius a decision needs to be made about whether to try to accommodate ever increasing numbers of cars, or ultimately to spend less money in providing better conditions for their citizens by encouraging the type of development seen in the Netherlands. The message sent to the world by the Mayor of Vilnius shows that the issues are on the table.

Your future is what you make it.

Update: Why emphasize non-motorized transport ?
All motorized means of transport have similar energy usage per passenger kilometre. Switching from one motorized mode to another can't make a significant difference to overall energy usage. It is only by reducing our use of motorized means of transport that we can significantly reduce our carbon emissions.

Slide from my 2017 presentation on energy efficiency

Also see my blog posts about the effect of transport on the environment and my 2017 presentation about energy efficiency of transport.


The document that I link to is concerned with promoting public transport and therefore doesn't comment at all on the much lower rate of motorized travel in the Netherlands vs. other countries. Instead, improvements are expected to come from funding public transport. The public of all countries tends to support the notion that "Better public transport" would improve the traffic situation. However, in many cases it seems that the expectation is that someone else will use public transport while they'll continue to drive. For this reason, I don't think this is an effective policy. Most short distance public transport use is because people have few other choices, not because sitting on a bus is a positive choice in itself. Cycling has the potential to attract people away from cars in a way that buses cannot because it is a personal mode of transport, not a public mode, and can be used to make any journey at any time without waiting or making detours.

Note also that there is a reason why Cyprus is an outlier in some of the graphs above. This country sadly provides fewer choices for transport than elsewhere. Wikipedia says, "Because Cyprus has no working railway system, various other methods of transportation are needed to ensure the proper delivery of any cargo, be it human or freight. Since the last railway was dismantled in 1952, the only remaining modes of transport are by motorways, by sea, and by air." The result is the highest car ownership rate in the world and while sport cycling remains of interest to a minority, conditions are unattractive for everyday cycling.

Another thing to note is that the huge number of people who park bikes at Dutch railway stations and bus stops are counted in surveys like this one only as public transport users. In any case, the low proportion of public transport usage vs. other modes means this doesn't skew the results much. The margin of error of these surveys is actually quite large, as can be seen by comparing results from one year with the next.

Do the British love their children too ?

It's a rhetorical question - of course they do. However, it does not always look much like it. Today I read in the Cambridge Evening News about how following a crash which involved two children going to school in Cambridgeshire on a dangerous road, a school bus has been laid on for others with the same route. However, this has resulted in the bus being withdrawn for another 57 children and they will have to make a similarly dangerous journey by other means.

The truly absurd thing about this is that the distances involved are so short. Sawston to Great Shelford was my commute for nearly two years when I lived in that area. It's a distance of under three miles ( 5 km ). These children should all be able to cycle that distance, and this is where they are really being let down. Why is it that British people put up with conditions on their roads which put their children in danger ?

And as cycling campaigners, where exactly do we expect the next generation of cyclists to come from if children can't ride their bikes such a short distance to school in safety ?

It's a societal problem, not just a cycling problem. And it's not the only societal problem that Britain faces. The UK has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe (the USA has a rate much higher again), a high rate of drug abuse, a knife crime problem, a problem with out of control teens, and the highest rate of binge drinking in Europe. There is a relationship between the policies which make for safe cycling and the social policies which lead to a happy childhood. The top four countries for cycling are also the top four for childhood happiness. Compare the experiences of British children with those of Dutch children.

Whether you are British or not, how does your country measure up ? What are your roads for ?

Note
Because the Dutch love their children, they campaigned for them. A 98% reduction in child road deaths has been achieved in the Netherlands.

My rhetorical question received an answer three years after this article was written.

A similar story came up a few months back. If the question in the title sounds vaguely familiar, that's perhaps because it's similar to the one posed in this 1980s pop song.

Pit Canaries

Seen many cyclists recently ? There is a huge difference between the rates of cycling in different countries.

The graph on the left shows the rate of cycling as a percentage of all journeys made in sixteen different countries. This is also known as a modal share or modal split. Australia, the USA and the UK are at the left with 1% of all journeys by bike, while Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands are on the right with 11%, 18% and 27% of journeys by bike respectively.

There is a huge difference between the numbers of cyclists you see in different countries. There is also a huge difference between their behaviours.

So, back to the question. How many cyclists do you see when you go out, and how many of them are dressed in a way that indicates that they feel they have to worry about their safety on the roads ?

Are your cyclists a small part of traffic, wearing helmets, dressed in fluorescent jackets and predominantly young and/or "sporty" ? Do your cyclists cycle "vehicularly" and identify themselves as "cyclists"? Or do you live in a location where cyclists are of all ages, both sexes, and generally ride in normal clothes with no worries about visibility ?

Cyclists are the pit-canaries of the roads. If they're numerous, dressed in ordinary clothing and wide-ranging in age you can tell that you are in a location where cycling is "normal" in society and where it is safe enough, and feels subjectively safe enough, that everyone cycles. If people feel they have to dress to be safe then this is a sign that they do not have adequate subjective safety.

It goes further. Do you see women routinely cycling alone at night ? Do children cycle long distances alone, day and night ? Do most children go to school by bike ? Do parents consider it to be safe for their children to do this ? Do those parents who do let their children cycle make them wear helmets and fluorescent clothing ? These are indicators of how subjectively and socially safe people feel and are a determinant of health of cycling in an area.

Make cycling a truly attractive thing to do and more people will do it. Here in Assen, children are regularly seen riding great distances with groups of friends. Some cycle 20 km to school in the morning and 20 km back again each evening. Take a look at a video of how children get to primary school here.

As mentioned a few days ago in "Reclaiming the streets", cyclists are also the pit-canaries of society. Societal problems can also lead to low rates of cycling. If there is a significant risk of mugging (or worse) in your area, you will see fewer cyclists. This is a problem for social safety. It is surely no co-incidence that the three countries with the highest cycling rates also have progressive social policies. You will find a very similar ranking of countries in the results of a UNICEF report summarized by the BBC with the title of "Why are Dutch children so happy ?".


Dutch infrastructure works so well to convince people to cycle that recent immigrants to this country cycle on average about as much as people who live in Finland.


The graph at the top is from John Pucher and Ralph Buehler's article "How Cycling was made Irresistible" - one of many articles referenced on our cycling articles webpage. The Dutch really have made cycling into an irresistible thing to do. Everyone cycles for at least some of their journeys.

We run cycling study tours here in the Netherlands on which we demonstrate the how it is that the Dutch have achieved their amazing high cycling modal share. We also run cycling holidays in this location, which we believe is the most pleasant in the world for cycling.

Sadly, since this blog post was originally written, the cycling rate in Denmark appears to have dropped quite sharply.