Go, social-planning technocrats!

Great article from today's New York Times.

The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread

Dutch drivers are taught that when you are about to get out of the car, you reach for the door handle with your right hand — bringing your arm across your body to the door. This forces a driver to swivel shoulders and head, so that before opening the door you can see if there is a bike coming from behind. Likewise, every Dutch child has to pass a bicycle safety exam at school. The coexistence of different modes of travel is hard-wired into the culture.

This in turn relates to lots of other things — such as bread. How? Cyclists can’t carry six bags of groceries; bulk buying is almost nonexistent. Instead of shopping for a week, people stop at the market daily. So the need for processed loaves that will last for days is gone. A result: good bread.

Gotta love the kicker at the end:

But while many Americans see their cars as an extension of their individual freedom, to some of us owning a car is a burden, and in a city a double burden. I find the recrafting of the city in order to lessen — or eliminate — the need for cars to be not just grudgingly acceptable, but, yes, an expansion of my individual freedom. So I say (in this case, at least): Go, social-planning technocrats! If only America’s cities could be so free.

AMS > NYC?

And this from the other coast, via The Church of Sit-up Cycling's FB page:

After biking in Amsterdam, New Yorker comes full cycle

Elegant Dutch ways prove hard to stick to on fast-paced Big Apple streets

The writer sort of wavers between seeing the light:

Who knew that urban cycling — which I find mostly exhilarating and joyous, but occasionally a grim struggle for a sliver of pavement — could also be elegant? [...] Once I started slowing down, I became a more polite rider.

And going a little wobbly, snapping back to North American reflexive attitudes on helmets, speed, heavy bikes, the whole yeah-but-you-can't-do-it-here thing, etc. But always good to see this kind of article, even imperfect, percolating through the mainstream media.

A Brooklynite in Amsterdam

Meet Bakfiets en Meer, a cool and wide-ranging cycling blog by an American in Amsterdam:

How to Carry a Tree by Bike: Established vs. Emerging Cycling Cultures

Another difference between an established cycling culture and the emerging one is that people don’t look for excuses to ride, nor do they often gather for the purpose of riding (a certain type of) bikes. Critical Mass, Tweed rides, Cycle Chic rides, bicycle house moves etc are certainly all harmless fun and, depending on your perspective, good or bad for the promotion of cycling. But for me there’s just something artificial or staged about them.

Another post with the blogger's interesting backstory is here:

An American with a bike company in Holland? Part 1