Cycling is good. The network is better.
The strength of the Dutch-style interconnection is asserting itself in bicycle garages being installed all over the Netherlands to increase their capacity with admirably efficient equipment. Cyclists ride on footbridges or use conveyor belts to reach or leave underground spaces. The supports allow the bikes to be stacked. The registration or rental of bicycles is done with a smart card. An on-site mechanic service ensures repairs immediately.
Den Hague Centraal, a station itself undergoing major renovation – a suspended tramway already crosses the large hall perpendicular to the platforms of the trains -, completes the installation of its new car park of 8,500 places, arranged on 18 very long rows of superimposed supports. It is the largest equipment of its kind in the country after that of Utrecht, world champion in the category. the car park de The Hague also offers 600 bikes for hire for visitors.
Parking is free for 24 hours if you have a ticket. The rental of an OV Fiets (OV for openbaar vervoer, or public transport, and fiets for bike) costs 3.95 euros for a full day. Wherever similar spaces and services have been established, they quickly had to be extended to meet growing demand. Just build, and they come …
“Initially, the management of the national railway network did not want to know anything about the rental of bicycles, says Sjors van Duren, consultant in mobility, questioned in Arhem. After five years, they recognized that this addition increased the value of their offering. “
The bicycle and the train advance, so to speak, in a roped party; they support and stimulate each other. In cities, half of all trips are made on two wheels and each weekday, the national rail carries an average of 1.3 million people. One in two arrives at the stations by bicycle. This percentage of cycling riders has increased by two-thirds in 20 years as the number of riders has doubled.
“This integration was never really planned,” explains Roland Kager, met in a park near the bicycle garage at The Hague station. The transformation started four or five decades ago, little by little. The infrastructures have facilitated and amplified it. “
Trained as a transport engineer, former researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Mr Kager is now a consultant on cycling and urban planning at the studio Bereikbaar. He regularly advises national and foreign cities to spread the good Batavian news.
He gives the example of Amsterdam, where the inhabitants were the dunces of the country in 1995 as regards the use of the bicycle – whatever the clichés for tourists say, therefore -, now in the good national average.
He is currently working on the case of Rotterdam, a large city, reputed to be the most pro-auto in the country (“the Detroit of the Netherlands”), which has also taken the turn of public and active mobility. “We see the transformation underway in France, Germany, all over Europe,” says Mr. Kager. Cycling and public transport are more and more central to the offer, while the place of the car is reduced, except when it remains very useful, for long distances in the countryside for example. Cycling is good, but you have to connect it to other ways of getting around in cities, between cities and out of the country. ”
The REM in development in Montreal is part of this wave. It remains to be seen how the structuring regional megaproject will ensure intermodality, the key to successful mobility. The Quebec transportation network suffers greatly from the lack of efficient local, regional and national links. Getting to Sherbrooke from Montreal or Quebec by passenger train remains impossible. There is still no TGV in all of Canada, and in fact all over the Americas. In contrast, Mr. Kager arrived at the interview in The Hague from Rotterdam (25 km) by a train running every three minutes. After the meeting, he immediately left the country to go to Italy, still by train.
The maps of Dutch cycle paths and railroads networks almost perfectly match the territory. The country has more than 400 stations. One in five Dutch people live within a kilometer, and eight in ten live within five kilometers of at least one of these stations. Studies also show that cycling can maximize the efficiency of travel by quickly reaching stations that are more distant but better positioned for a given circuit.
“The bicycle is often the first and the last link in the chain,” Kager adds. It facilitates access to the complex network. “
The mobility specialist is familiar with the North American all-in-car model. He saw the permanent traffic jams, noted the deficiency or non-existence of public transport, the dilapidated infrastructure. The New York subway alone needs more than $ 60 billion Canadian to bring it up to standard.
“I think cities need to be rebuilt around the humans who inhabit them,” he concludes politely. You have to move, of course. But it is not normal for inhabited spaces to be so disturbed by vehicles, which are often parked. We are talking about public space that belongs to everyone and not just to motorists. “
This report was partly funded with support from the Transat-Le Devoir International Journalism Fund.