Another piece on how the Netherlands became a bicycling country,
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In the 1980s a few Dutch cities began to experiment with new ways to get people out of cars and onto bikes again. For example The Hague and Tilberg built a few bike lanes and painted them bright red. But biking rates didn’t go up after they built these bikes lanes.
City planners learned that it wasn’t enough to just build a few dedicated bike lanes. No, they needed an entire network of bike lanes throughout the city.
Around the same time, Delft began running their own experiments. Rather than build a few bike lanes, they spent the equivalent of about 12 million dollars building a city-wide biking network. Bicycle use went up by 6% of driving went down by 3%. It was considered an early success.
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more on the 15 minute city
It's bizarre that the notion has been politicized.. David Levinson offers some comments.
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Part of the problems is that we should be talking about 15-Minute Neighbourhoods and not 15-Minute Cities, because (a) that’s what we mean, and (b), the only reason to live in larger metropolitan areas is to can interact between neighbourhoods — otherwise, everyone should live in a small town and save on real estate costs.
This article (in news.com.au, i.e. Murdoch papers) discusses the controversy but conflates 15-minute city with “Smart Cities”, which I had really hoped we had buried. The adjective “Smart” before anything (smart roads, smart cars, smart cities) is a red flag. This article by Oliver Deed argues the 15-minute city is about improving lives, not controlling them.
So what is a `15-Minute Neighbourhood’? It’s one where all your daily needs (food, doctor, library, schools, etc.) can be met within a 15-minute walk from your home. This does not necessarily include your workplace, although it may.
The conspiracists have replaced “can” with “must”, changing opportunity into a constraint. Charitably, they have difficulty reading. Uncharitably, they choose to misinterpret and mislead.
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08:36 in Current Affairs, design, General Commentary, transportatiaon | Permalink | Comments (0)