When listening to those in the know speak of bicycle route networks and pedestrian safety, of harmonious traffic spaces and the like, the example of Amsterdam almost invariably comes up, touted as the highest example, the holy grail of How To Do It, a nirvana for cyclists and pedestrians.
This is both true and not true. On the one hand, there are really as many ways to get around by bike or foot as can be imagined, and rights of way of cyclists and pedestrians are respected near-universally. Cycling has been ingrained as part of an Amsterdam way of life for so long it would be impossible to conceive of that life otherwise. Riding through the city, you feel safe and accepted. One sees men in suits and women in dresses pedaling along in wingtips and heels, holding an umbrella with one hand and steering with the other. One sees parents with three, four, even five children in tow on child seats, trailers, or special bikes that carry up to four riders. If you’re a cycling parent and you visit Amsterdam, bring several thousand dollars or be prepared to cry over all the equipment that would be perfect for Portland family commuting but is unavailable here.
On the other, it would hard to imagine a more difficult city to design such a network in, except that it’s so flat. The weather is awful for a huge chunk of the year, and all the canals make route planning very difficult. The streets are ridiculously narrow,* it can be difficult for the visitor to understand where that cycling path is going, and slipping through roundabouts and intersections where six or seven streets converge is not exactly easy. In Portland, we straighten these kinds of problems out: we tear down, repave, redirect. Witness the intersection where Sandy Boulevard, Twelfth Avenue and Burnside Street used to meet on the East side. It was one of the most dangerous intersections in the city until they redirected westbound traffic onto Couch and eliminated the feed from East Sandy altogether. Now it’s just another busy intersection (although heading south from Twelfth, down Sandy and left on Eleventh remains terrifying on a bike). That can’t happen in downtown Amsterdam because every building and intersection is worth keeping just the way it is. Heck, the royal palace is smack in the middle of downtown; what are you going to do, ask the Royal Family to move so you can straighten a bike path? How un-Dutch-like of you!
* However, narrow, twisting streets do have the benefit of slowing traffic way down in the core area. No need for speed bumps or other calming devices; no one can get up the speed to make them useful.
In any case, I think it’s safe to say that among the cycling population in Portland, there’s a lot of Amsterdam-envy. If only we could be more like them (although this may have as much to do with affordable health care, extremely low violent crime, all kinds of social support – in short, a sustainable life in general).
In order for Portland to become the Amsterdam of the West (the ‘West-west,’ it would be fair to say – Amsterdam is already in the West), three things have to change:
1. Traffic speeds have to drop precipitously. Up until only recently, the goal of any traffic planner was to move automobiles through a given space as quickly as possible, which meant clearing out bikes and pedestrians as much as one could. This philosophy has changed dramatically, especially in the last fifteen years. Traffic calming has made streets like NE Alberta and SE Hawthorne far more conducive to riding and walking. Even Sandy Boulevard through the Hollywood district is getting into the act.
However, I think the mindset of auto speed remains. While there are more non-car amenities, the speed limits in those areas haven’t changed. Recent studies about how fast a car should be allowed to drive past schools led to a lowering of the speed limit in school zones to 20mph. Yet on Sandy and Hawthorne, and East Burnside (another neighborhood in flower), the speed for auto traffic is still 35mph. Who says grownups pay more attention to traffic than kids? Portland wants fast arterials that are also safe for bikes and foot traffic: that’s asking to have one’s cake and eat it too.
2. Bicycle routes becoming more prominent, even on the busiest streets. Years ago I had a long debate with a cycling traffic planner from the city. I contended that there should be some streets on which bicycles were discouraged; i.e., no bike paths, no amenities. There were plenty of routes nearby, I argued, that would get cyclists to the same places. Why not, I reasoned, let cars go where cars go and me go where I go? He disagreed and said it was precisely the busiest roads with the least number of cycling amenities that needed them most.
I realize now that he was right. It has to do with that having-one’s-cake-and-eating-it-too mentality. The problem is that the idea still encourages drivers to go too fast on city streets, and it gives the impression that there are places that cyclists don’t belong. This was reinforced to me one day when riding along SE 92nd avenue, in a bike lane for goodness’ sake, when a driver rolled down his window to tell me to get on the bike path (a few blocks away) where I ‘belonged.’ Bikes everywhere, I say now. Any time a person can act more aggressively in one part of society than another, it’s often the aggressive behavior that bleeds into that part that is supposed to be cooperative, not the other way around.*
* Personal rant: this to me is a real problem with Capitalism: where a competitive market exists, the competitive mindset and rules can bleed into other parts of society. Infamously, an economist from a conservative school once suggested solving the problem of there being too few babies available for adoption by creating a sort of futures market for newborns, where the price for a baby could be quoted like the price of wheat. Rant over: back to our program.
3. A much stronger social compact. This is the toughest hurdle of all. In Amsterdam, there is agreement among car, pedestrian and cyclist not to pursue their position in traffic too aggressively. They get around in different ways, but the understanding is strong that they’re all part of the same world, the same society. To be sure, they jump across an intersection against the light, or at the tail end of a yellow light. Or they’ll make that illegal left-hand turn or zip around blocked traffic in not-exactly legal ways. Everyone’s in a hurry, everyone does it, everyone is trying to get where they’re going.
But the competition is low-key and isn’t carried out to the point where the social compact is damaged. There is pursuit of self-interest, and there is pursuit of self-interest at the grave expense of another. Not once in the week-plus that I was there did I hear a horn honk in anger, did I see the middle finger fly, or angry words exchanged. They’ll push the system, but only so far.
This is not the case here, where so much social interaction is defined by differences and voiced through vitriol. We seem to push our system as far as it will go. There are cyclists that blow lights until they’re stopped somehow (sadly, often by getting hit). There are cars that hurtle around with impunity until some confrontation or epiphany finally gets them to slow down. When we get to the level of confrontation, it’s already too late to make something positive come out of the encounter.
A stronger social compact is part of the reason I started this blog. Dialogue is the only alternative before confrontation escalates the circumstances beyond reason and understanding. It may sound trite to say that each individual’s actions impact the overall picture, but in this situation, it couldn’t be more true. No party in traffic space can act independently and expect a harmonious (and safer) outcome.
The biggest difference between Amsterdam and Portland has nothing at all to do with bike lanes.
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