In Stockholm, Copenhagen, and especially Amsterdam, bikes and riders rule the world. A pedetrian strays into a bike lane at dire risk. Bikes and bikers have absolute priority and they’ll take out an unwary pedestrian without swerving, slowing down, or blinking.
We had read about how bikes prevail in Europe, especially Scandinavia, but we had no real concept of this until we experienced it.
Bikes and their riders are everywhere. They have their own lanes, their own parking lots and parkades, even their own set of traffic lights at some intersections. And they definitely have their own rules. They are allowed to ride through red lights that stop other vehicles. They don’t have to yield to a pedestrian, which cars seem to (although less so in Amsterdam). They rule.
- We watched a military parade where an old lady on a bike tried to ride through the parade and really took umbrage when the police officer tried to stop her.
By next year, the plan is for 50 per cent of Copenhagen workers to bike to work. It seemed like that many already do. And the less congested streets are visible proof of that. Well, there are fewer motor vehicles certainly. At least European bike riders warn you of their approach from behind by ringing their bells, unlike most of their very silent North American counterparts.
In Amsterdam there are approximately one million bikes. In the Netherlands, that number increases to 18 million (which is 1.3 bikes per person apparently). The oft-repeated joke is that Amsterdam people own five bikes over their lives. They buy one. I guess this means theft is rampant.
Traffic jams and rush hours are bicycle jams. And to make things worse, rental shops are on every street corners so anyone can rent a bike, and many do, so there are uneducated bike riders out there along with the rest of them.
From what we saw on the streets of these cities, many families don’t own cars, so you see the oddest (to a North American at any rate) contraptions and arrangements:
- bikes with windscreens to protect the child being carried right in front of the rider;
- bikes with child seats in front of and behind the rider, then behind a wagon behind to haul groceries;
- bikes with a push cart in front; and,
- bikes with baskets in front. All of them have this, now I think about it.
Riders wear jeans, shorts, sweats, three-piece suits and ties, short skirts, high heels, everything and anything. Not a helmet in sight. And those child carriers are not the kind the CSA would approve.
And talk about distracted driving. Cyclists were listening to their I-Pods, talking at the top of their lungs on their phones, and worst of all, texting usually through rush hour traffic. Some of them smoked at the same time. I’m not sure how they managed all ths with only two hands. Of course that’s me wondering. The last time I rode a bike, I ran into Ken, took a header and wound up with a concussion.
Strangest thing we saw: a mother riding beside her young daughter (maybe five or six years old) also on a bike, the mother supporting the five-year-old’s bike with her right hand, steering her on bike with her left, with an infant in the child carrier in front of her and groceries and a brief case in the wagon behind. Where’s your camera when you want it?
A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is what we saw of bikes in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Denmark. My camera wasn’t fast eough to capture everything like the Mother and her children, or the texting bikers, or even the stream of 50 or 60 or 100 bikes at a time that would go past. But I did my best.
