In late June on our journey around Europe, we made our way to Amsterdam in the Netherlands – the last time I was there was back in May 2015. It was sweltering hot (so hot they had to spray water across the canal bridge to keep the roadway and tracks cool…) and that was reflected in the sheer number of people who were observed biking everywhere, enjoying the sunshine.
Yep, Amsterdam continues to be one of the top cycling cities in the world – in the top 5 according to the Copenhagenize Index. It has achieved this largely thanks to a fantastic network of protected cycleways and intersections, low-speed streets, and low-volume streets.
Some things haven’t changed – still lots of bike parking everywhere and good cycling infrastructure.
The ubiquitous “mini-cars” from last time are still around too and making use of the cycle tracks as well.
They seemed to have given moped scooters the hard word about not using cycleways now though…
As I saw in several places across Europe, there also seemed to be a greater prevalence now of electric “fat-bikes” zipping around as well.
Here’s a few more pics of interesting features I saw while wandering around the streets…
Yep, it was hard not to like what I saw all around this amazing city. I guess we’re slowly building up a similar network here in Christchurch – how quickly we get to Amsterdam-like status though is hard to know…
Does Amsterdam live up to the Cycling Capital billing?