Post

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett
@modacitylife.com

One of the key lessons from Dutch cycling history is cities didn't start with protected lanes. They began by making streets safer, calmer and more inviting; with lower speeds, parking restrictions, traffic filters and reduced through-traffic to create an environment in which cycling could flourish.🧵

144 reposts447 likes

Aural Sturgeon
@aural-sturgeon.bsky.social

That's the real first step. Few enough people want to ride *at all*, let alone more than a mile or two. Create places where walking or riding are sufficient for most days, and people will do those. Let sprawl persist and no number of other facilities or accommodations will make a dent.

Cyclmartn
@cyclemartn.bsky.social

Yes, but I don't get what that has to do with increasing population density? Our small town has a grocery store, a doctor and two elementary schools. High schools and bigger stores are in the city 4 miles away. That area is not densely populated but all bike paths are separated from other traffic.

Eric Doherty
@ericdoherty.bsky.social

Yes. But density is *slow*. Often very slow. Transportation systems can be transformed much quicker than land use. And the best land use plan is a good transportation plan.

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett
@modacitylife.com

Yet planners elsewhere often reverse this sequence: building segregated lanes assuming people will use them and support will follow. When those lanes are expensive, disruptive, isolated or lightly used, they become easy targets for opposition; creating a vicious circle of low ridership and support.

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett
@modacitylife.com

The better approach is to create the conditions for cycling first: build demand; then invest in high-end infrastructure where the numbers justify. Not every street needs a protected lane, and sometimes the most important intervention is just a street where cars have been slowed, filtered or removed.

King of Cake Believe
@504spyboy.bsky.social

I've been convinced for years that a place like New Orleans could tolerate long corridors of pedal-powered thoroughfares, by installing posts at the intersections of every other street, which would allow cars to access homes, but would prevent straight through car traffic.

Paul Luton
@paulluton.bsky.social

Careful. Councillors will hear "build demand" and assume that an advertising campaign will do. The conditions for cycling means wide areas not dominated by motor vehicles and that isn't politically cheap.

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett
@modacitylife.com

Therefore, the main takeaway from the Netherlands shouldn’t be to just build more bike lanes. It should be to make the act of getting on a bike easy at first, and let the network grow from there. As Dutch planners learned long ago, the most important part of your bike plan is actually the car plan.🔚

tatere
@tatere.bsky.social

Do these same measures help w the issues caused by mixing fast travel (bike, scooter, ?) w slow travel (walk, jog, most wheelchair (?))?

Kent Lind
@camasonian.bsky.social

Connections are also underemphasized. So much of US bike infrastructure is piecemeal short stubs that are built when sections of road are upgraded. But don't actually connect to anything so are dead ends. Dead end car streets and cul-de-sacs have low car traffic too but no one is puzzled as to why

Drawn
@commoner.bsky.social

This is such an interesting perspective. And really important for councils to know. I live in a Green-run council and they have done pretty much nothing in 2 years on that list. No lower speeds, no parking restrictions (everyone parks on the footpath), no reduced through traffic.

gmokery
@gmokery.bsky.social

Not enough people recognize that the Dutch & the Danes & the Parisians rebuilt there pre-WWII cycling cultures deliberately & others can do likewise. Similarly, most don't know we rebuilt local agriculture in USAmerica as policy from the 1970s on, partially as a response to the energy crises then