Unfairly prioritising pedestrians

Wait a second.

Its reputation is that of an idyll for cyclists, a city freed from the torment of cars. But while Amsterdam remains a model to most of the world, there are signs of trouble in paradise.

A series of developments have led the Amsterdam branch of the Fietsersbond, the Dutch cyclists’ union, to claim the municipality has turned on them, unfairly prioritising pedestrians in the city’s historic centre.

……………………..Unfairly prioritising pedestrians? But pedestrians are more vulnerable to cyclists than cyclists are to pedestrians.

Where once the cyclist was king, free to weave around the small roads of the centrum with abandon, it is claimed there has been a discernible change of attitude. At best cyclists are being treated as “guests” in the heart of the city, at worst as intruders to be expelled to outer lanes, it is suggested.

Meaning cyclists used to be allowed to zip around without paying attention to pedestrians? If so that’s not a particularly good situation.

“Amsterdam is still a cyclists’ paradise but it is getting more and more difficult to move through the centre,” said Jan Pieter Nepveu, a spokesperson for the Amsterdam branch of the cyclists’ union. “It starts with the proclamation of a pedestrian zone and before you know it, cycling is discouraged with kerbs and then fences. The centre becomes the domain of pedestrians. The municipality will have to defend cyclists against an increase in walkers, tourists and the catering industry.”

Or maybe cyclists will just have to go around the centre. Making cities the domain of pedestrians is a good thing.

Over 2019 and 2020, a trial was launched by the municipality to see if it could encourage cyclists to take “alternative routes” rather than travel directly on the Damstraatjes and Haarlemmerstraat, two central areas.

The “stress” caused by overcrowding and fast-moving bikes was said to have moved local residents and entrepreneurs to demand action. “The cyclist’s behaviour is the most important point in this issue,” a report on the experiment noted.

That’s just it, you see – fast-moving bikes are dangerous to pedestrians. People shouldn’t be biking fast through crowded areas full of pedestrians. (They also shouldn’t be riding motorized scooters on the sidewalks in Seattle. Ahem.)

[C]hoices are also being made that are clearly designed to constrain the free-wheeling spirit of the past, it is claimed. The most recent flash point has been the redevelopment of the Binnengasthuis site in Amsterdam’s university quarter, a complex of buildings that used to be a hospital.

What was once an important cycle lane running through the site is to be submerged into “a pedestrian area where bicycles are guests”, as a recent council agenda described it. The move drew about 50 protesters a week ago, including Saar Muller, 68, a a retired clinical physicist.

“The university intends to give pedestrians priority and divert the cycling through traffic through an unsafe road – narrow, many cars, loading and unloading,” she said. “This development seems to us to be part of a broader tendency to create ‘pedestrians first’ space…

But, again, why not? Why should cyclists be first instead? Pedestrians are the least intrusive and the safest so why shouldn’t they be put first?

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