Something which people who visit Assen often notice is the lack of cargo-bikes. Somehow an expectation has grown up that cargo bikes are the way of transporting children by bicycle. Actually, children have their own legs and really should be able to use them to transport themselves as soon as they have the ability to ride a bicycle. This of course is only possible if the infrastructure is very very good, and over most of this city that is indeed the case. It wasn't always like this, but motor vehicles were removed from the centre several years ago and that left behind conditions where everyone is safe.

The photos below were taken within ten minutes a little after three o'clock on an afternoon a couple of weeks ago:

All ages and abilities served by one type of infrastructure. The youngest daughter in this family rides on the front of Mum's bike while her slightly older sister rides her own bike. They're heading directly towards the city centre. Directly towards the same streets as shown in the following photos. It's not unusual to see children this young cycling to the city centre. A comprehensive grid of very high quality infrastructure makes this possible.

The city centre streets are used by bicycle by people of all ages. The woman in the centre has more experience, but lots of experience isn't required to be safe here. The youngsters on the right are already able to make their way through the city without an adult to accompany them.

Of course some children are accompanied by parents. These two are heading towards a large square in the middle of the city which was once a car-park.

The youngest child sits on Dad's bike while her older sister rides her own bike.

Mother and son.

Young teenagers have complete independence. This group rode through together. Presumably the lessons for the day had ended. The light grey concrete on the left of the cyclists is textured to help blind people find their way. Paving like this is laid throughout the city centre.

Another mother and son. The mother's bike has a fold down child-seat on the back, which is possibly used sometimes for a younger sibling.

They're all moving in the same direction, but they're not all looking in the same direction. Cycling is very social in the city centre. People are always looking out for their friends and family. A lot of smiles, a lot of waves.

More youngsters riding home from school together. The city centre streets make a good route to many locations.

Teenagers attending secondary school (age 12 upwards) are likely to have further to travel.

Eating while cycling and riding no hands. These are comparatively safe things to do when there are no cars on city centre streets.

Mum indicates a right turn. The children also will turn up onto the forgiving sloped kerb .

Teens again, riding sociably side by side.

Very young children ride on the back of their parents' bikes. But those who cycle on their own bike are often also very young.

Where have the cars gone ?

Red dots show the locations which feature in the photos Traffic lights are no longer needed because through traffic has been removed. The car park no longer exists. There are now zebra crossings to make it easier for pedestrians to cross the "road" for bikes.

The photos above show very typical views of the centre of Assen in 2014. Many other Dutch cities look similar. However, it wasn't always like this.

In the 1970s, the number of children being killed on the roads reached a peak. Cycling was in decline in the Netherlands at that time.

Assen, like other cities, was full of motor vehicles. Cars, buses and trucks dominated the city centre streets. Cyclists who remained on these streets were under pressure. The situation was much like that of many cities now. There was "no space for cycling infrastructure" and car parks were full.

If Assen had continued on the path which the city was on, it's unlikely that people would cycle so much in the city as they do now.

Pedestrian zone. Cycling allowed on given routes. Note generous delivery times.

The problems in the centre of the city were turned around by a second revolution which returned old streets which pre-date motor vehicles to people rather than allowing the problems due to allowing motor vehicles to dominate them to grow.

The city centre area is now a large pedestrian zone. What looks like a road in all the photos above (except the first one) is actually a stripe through the pedestrian zone on which cycling is permitted. This is a design which works very well because it is familiar. "Road" for bikes, "pavement" for pedestrians result in no clashes between cyclists and pedestrians within this pedestrianized area. Signage at each entrance to the pedestrian zone points out this status.

Cycling and walking are the most popular means of transport for shoppers in Assen and these are the modes which are best catered for in the city centre.

Of course it's not just the city centre which has cycling infrastructure. An extensive and fine-grained grid of high quality infrastructure stretches across the entire city so that no-one has to cycle in conditions which are not subjectively safe. This is the only way of making cycling accessible to everyone.

When our children were young we still lived in the UK. The streets were not safe enough for them to ride their own bikes so we used this Ken Rogers trike with child seats. It worked well, but we wouldn't have needed it in Assen.

What about parents ?
In many places, people who didn't bother with a car before they had children find that they need one once they have children. Of course it is in many ways better if people switch to using cargo bikes to carry their children rather than using a car, however the experience of the children themselves is not so different if they're transported by a parent with a bicycle rather than being transported by a parent with a car.

A high percentage of parents using cargo bikes to transport their children is better than having the same parents driving cars, but while a growing number of cargo bikes might indicate a growing confidence amongst parents it should be seen as a step in the right direction but not as an end in itself.

There are quite a lot of cargo bikes in Assen. They're used for many other reasons than to transport children.

Why not cargo bikes ?
So long as they're used for carrying cargo, there's nothing wrong with cargo-bikes at all. There's also nothing wrong with them for carrying small children.

It is only when cargo bikes are seen as a solution for carrying children who are old enough to ride their own bikes (i.e. 4+) that this indicates a problem. The problem is not with the bikes or their riders but with the environment for cycling.

If parents don't think that the local cycling infrastructure is sufficiently safe for their children to have control over their own movement then this indicates that the infrastructure is sub-standard. Children should have conditions safe enough that they can have control over their own movement and not have to rely upon their parents for lifts, either by bike or by car.

Mother of three in Groningen

Where the cycling infrastructure is very good, cargo bikes are relatively rare and mostly used for carrying cargo. It's better for parents and for children if children can be given the freedom to control their own movement.

I'm not criticizing anyone for using a cargo bike to transport their children. People who do this in difficult environments should be applauded for making a positive choice which is not always rewarded by society. We made a similar choice when we lived in the UK and our children were small. We first used a tricycle and later moved on to trailerbikes (also uncommon in the Netherlands for the same reason). It was not always easy to do this because other parents could be quite critical and drivers were sometimes quite aggressive around our children.

It's not always so good as this in the Netherlands
Cities across the Netherlands vary in how easy it is for everyone to ride bicycles. For instance:

• Amsterdam has the lowest rate of cycling to school of any city in the Netherlands, closely followed by Den Haag and Rotterdam.
• Groningen has a marvellous centre, but hostile cycling conditions can be found a short distance north from the centre.
• Assen is also not perfect. In particular, a new dangerous junction south of the city centre makes access difficult for vulnerable people and recently there have been several design mistakes made in new infrastructure.

The Netherlands is still far and away the most successful country on earth at encouraging people to cycle, and at encouraging people to let their children cycle. Assen is a stand-out city even within the Netherlands. But I always warn that you should never assume that this country always gets everything right.

A truly high cycling modal share requires that everyone should be able to cycle everywhere. That is what true mass cycling is all about.

It's quite well known that Dutch children cycle to school and it's increasingly well known that the freedom of Dutch children is a good part of why they have such good well-being.

The infrastructure which makes it possible for Dutch children to have freedom in safe conditions didn't appear by chance. It is in large part the direct result of campaigning by Dutch parents for better conditions for their children.

The same type of campaigning could also pay dividends elsewhere. This is why we have started the Campaign for Childhood Freedom (link removed as this unfortunately did not achieve any traction). It's not a "cycling" campaign. While adult cyclists elsewhere would stand to gain much by building of infrastructure as exists in The Netherlands, this campaign is not aimed at adult cyclists. It's quite important to make this distinction.

This is for children. Everyones' children. Everyones' children deserve the same advantages that Dutch children already have. Every parent wants their child to be safe, to be able to develop socially, to have friends, to be healthy. All these things are enhanced by the building of an environment in which children can walk and cycle in safety.

Independent travel is a large part of what makes Dutch children so happy. Note that riding is usually social and side-by-side.

There's no conflict between pedestrians and cyclists because those who have a shorter distance to travel and walk have separated paths for walking while those who ride a bike have a cycle-path of sufficient width that it's possible for friends to ride together or a mother to give her child a little help. This cycle-path is 3.5 metres wide - wide enough for side-by-side cycling in both directions at once.

Being independent from a young age is valuable to any child. Surely all adults remember having fun when their parents were not around.

Bicycles allow children to make relatively long journeys with their friends and without needing their parents to accompany them.

The average age for a child to go independently to school is 8.6 years. It is a sign of how healthy cycling is in this area that it is very rare to see a cargo bike or bakfiets used to transport even very young children. Conditions here are safe enough for children to ride their own bikes rather than be transported on their parents' bikes. Parents carry children on their own bikes for much the same reason as they drive children in cars. i.e. in an attempt to keep them safe where the infrastructure doesn't do a good enough job.

Bikes parked at a secondary school waiting to be released at the end of the day.

The extent to which Dutch children travel independently is quite extraordinary. On average across the whole country they go to school and back unaccompanied from the age of 8.6.

Primary schools are many and their catchment areas are very small. As a result, almost all children either walk or cycle. Those who live closest to the school will walk, but 49% of primary school (age 5-11) children go to school by bike.

Secondary schools (age 12 upwards) are spaced further apart. In this area of The Netherlands there are no secondary schools in the villages so it is normal for children from the age of 12 to cycle up to 40 km a day in order to get to and from school.

In this part of the country a somewhat higher ratio than average of primary school children cycle (see section below) and more than 90% of secondary school aged children cycle to school. Not that it does not stop in our cold winters.

Update Monday 9 September
The photos and video above were taken in Kloosterveen, the newest suburb of Assen. This is an excerpt from the cycling plans for the city from 2006:

The entire document in Dutch is downloadable from our website.

Kloosterveen was planned from the beginning for a high rate of cycle usage. It was expected that there would be 86 cycle trips per day made for every 100 residents. Primary school children were not included in this figure but were considered separately. Primary school children were expected to make up 10 to 12% of the total population and planners expected two thirds of them to go to school by bike. The remaining 1/3 are those who live close enough to the primary school that they are more likely to walk.

By the time this suburb had a population of 6000 people, 1800 bicycle trips were made per day by primary school children in addition to the 5200 other bicycle trips per day made by everyone else. That's a total of 7000 trips per day by bicycle by 6000 people. For the whole population including primary school children that adds up to 116 trips by bicycle per day per 100 residents. It was also estimated that about 10% more trips per day could be counted if people from elsewhere riding through the suburb were included. I was doing this when I shot the video. The suburb can be used as a through route by bicycle but not by car.

This suburb is expected to eventually grow to accommodate 15000 people and the intention of the planners is that by that time there will be 17500 cycle journeys per day - the expected total of residents, primary school children counted separately and cyclists from elsewhere passing through.

Cycle trips per 100 residents per day. Commuting: 13, business trips: 4, shopping: 21, education (excluding primary education): 14, visits/social: 10, recreational and other: 24. These numbers exclude the vast number of primary school children riding bikes and people from elsewhere who ride through Kloosterveen on their journeys.

Also see the design of the shopping centre of this suburb, a route into the suburb which can be used by bikes and buses but not by car or the direct route provided to the city centre, designed to attract people from their cars, and other posts about Kloosterveen.

It should be noted that there are roughly 50 other developments like this under construction across The Netherlands and all follow similar principles. Residential areas designed as long ago as the 1970s had similar aims and older residential areas have also been transformed to allow only bicycles to use them as through routes. As a result, usage patterns, including how frequently children cycle to school, are very similar in older areas to newer suburbs like Kloosterveen.

The moped 'menace'
Much is often written about the nuisance of mopeds in the Netherlands. However, their numbers are usually vastly overestimated. While this suburb has 116 trips per day by bicycle for every 100 residents, there are just 3 trips per day by moped. 2.6%.

Judy took the photos during last week's study tour. The video resulted from my accidentally turning towards the school during a lunchtime ride this week. Normally I'd take a different route at this time of day. There are many choices.

There's an interesting blog post at Kennington People on Bikes which provides a London based counterpoint this this blog post. In Vauxhall, they're planning for no children at all to cycle to school. The post features additional photos of children cycling to school in Kloosterveen, taking by Charlie during the Study Tour two weeks ago.

Earlier today I wrote a blog post about how Londoners use cars for exactly the same journeys as the Dutch use bikes. However, there was more than just that in Transport for London's data and at least one thing which I thought much more important: How people behave when they have children.

What happens when Londoners have children ?

UNICEF Index of child well-being. High cycling countries in orange.

TfL say that "Car trip rates are consistently around 50 per cent higher amongst residents of households with at least one child than those living in childless households across all income bands. Averaged across all income bands, adults in households with children make 0.93 car driver trips a day on average, compared to 0.58 car driver trips per person in households without children."

They go on to say that "Parents of pre-school and primary school aged children have the highest car driver trip rates, and young adult households by far the lowest car driver trip rates."

It may be difficult for campaigners to see why, but this is evidence, as if we needed it, that Londoners care about their children. Being cocooned in a car is bad for children, but parents in London see see driving as the least bad option to try to keep their children safe.

It's not just London, it's everywhere
Parents across the world are united by a desire for their children to be safe. Every parent wants the best for their children, however while Dutch children benefit from an environment in which their parents can give them great freedom and which UNICEF says gives them the best wellbeing of any children, their British counterparts are rate second from bottom (only the USA is worse) in well-being, have less freedom than in the past and are cocooned in their parents' cars because of fear for their safety. This isn't only bad for the development of children but also for parents who have the added stress and expense of having to work as unpaid taxi drivers.

Children across most of the world share the same problems of lack of independence and this is a large part of the reason for the obesity 'epidemic' which leads to many calls or action. Nearly half of Britain's children are not getting the bare minimum of daily exercise needed for good health. It's similar in many other countries. Sadly, the solutions proposed often do not include the idea of allowing children the freedom that they crave because people can't see how that can be achieved.

Very young child cycling home from school on a normal day in Assen. When she's a few years older she'll do it without her Mum. Who doesn't want such freedom for their children ? (this photo was not taken in a park but in a very typical modern Dutch residential area)

I do not criticise parents in London or elsewhere because they want to keep their children safe. I also cannot criticise them for attempting to do so by driving them to their destinations in the family car rather than allowing their children to make their own way on a bicycle. Parents who do this are sacrificing their own time to benefit their children. Driving their children is an act of love.

The harm caused to children as a result of this is not the result of decisions made by individual parents who have no choice but to react to their environment so much as it is the inevitable result of decades of road design which has made cycling and also walking less than desirable, even on many residential streets.

Where's Boris ?
In London the fault lies with Transport for London and the buck stops with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who for all his flannel about cycling has done almost nothing at all to make it possible for the majority of the population, and particularly for children, to travel independently instead of having to rely on their parents.

Events on closed roads demonstrate how popular cycling could be in London if only people felt safe to ride their bikes. But people do not feel safe and they will not cycle until they do. The standard of infrastructure in London is so poor than even most adults do not cycle now. Just 2% of journeys are by bike. In order for children to be able to cycle, the infrastructure needs to be far better as not only do The degree of subjective safety required to encourage parents to allow their children to have freedom.

A month has now passed since we invited Boris Johnson and other London politicians to come and see what it is that makes it possible for Dutch people to cycle as much as they do and to see for himself how Dutch children benefit from their freedom.

Since we sent our invitation, Boris Johnson has got himself into the paper again, this time cycling in Australia. Australias has similar problems with childhood obesity and lack of children's independence and social development to those of the UK. But what good is this doing for Britain ? How does this help the children of London, the UK, or Australia for that matter ?

Campaigners. It's time for effective action !
There's an opportunity for cycling campaigners if they wish to take it.

The rear window of our somewhat old car displays a faded sticker left over from a previous ineffective attempt to improve conditions by asking for "space for cycling"

Forget about ineffective campaigning for things like "space for cycling" (it may as well be "help the shoplifters" so far as the general public are concerned). Stop antagonizing people by talking about controversial but not particularly important issues like strict liability. Stop expending effort in debating the pros and cons of a single street in London which has been inadequately transformed for the second time. None of this is going to make cycling into an everyday experience for the whole population.

By concentrating on these details you are missing the big picture.

We moved here so that our children could have the same advantages as do Dutch children. It's not something everyone can do. We have campaigned for children from the start on this blog. This is what "Go Dutch" should have been about! Sadly, that campaign in London was derailed from the start. This photo is of our children, now adults, on holiday in the Netherlands next to the "cycling lesson" statue in Groningen

Cycling should be for everyone
Campaigners are partly to blame for the UK's disastrous last forty years because they've consistently failed to focus on the issues that really matter and have instead concentrated only on what existing cyclists needed to continue as a minority. Partly as a result of this emphasis, cyclists certainly are a minority now. By allowing themselves to be pigeon-holed as "the cyclists", and by setting their own standards so low, campaigners made it easier for government to get away with decades of under-investment in cycling infrastructure which could have benefited everyone.

Slowly, but oh so surely, the policies of successive governments have led to Britain's parents believing they have no choice but to transport their children by car. Parents want only the best for their children, but their choices are limited by the environment. This is why both walking and cycling to school have declined while driving to school has risen.

Parents are doing the best they can for their children, but while they keep their children safe from being killed in collisions on the streets by transporting them by car, those same cars will still kill them just as surely if they lead to a sedentary lifestyle and the resulting health issues.

This is your "Stop The Child Murder" moment. The best issue to campaign on now in the UK is the same issue as the Dutch campaigned on forty years ago: The safety and health of all the nation's children.

The Campaign for Childhood Freedom (links removed because domain abandoned)
A good slogan is needed for a campaign which is focused around children. "Stop The Child Murder" worked because it was emotive and was something that the whole population could get behind. The Campaign for Childhood Freedom also seeks the widest possible support. The health of future generations is vitally important, everyday exercise is vital to improving the health of children, and the best way of achieving this is to make it possible for every child to be active in their daily life and have a degree of freedom and independence similar to that which Dutch children benefit from.

For how many adults is the memory of their first bicycle also a memory of the freedom and independence which it provided ?

Children don't have driving licenses. If they are not to be cocooned in motor vehicles then there is a choice of travelling no further than walking distance or of experiencing the vastly greater degree of freedom which a bicycle provides.

To enable today's children to have the same experiences as their parents and grandparents requires a change to the infrastructure so that they are safe. Cycling infrastructure must be of a quality that you would let a five year old use it and it must go everywhere. Not only to school, but to beaches, parks, city centres and anywhere else that children might want to go.

There's no need to alienate the audience with anti-car policies. The Dutch don't. However, streets around schools certainly should not be dominated by cars

It doesn't only help children

I made three short videos during the study tour two weeks ago. As it happens, all three of them show children and teenagers using the cycling infrastructure in one way or another.


A cycle-path through a residential area in Assen followed by a crossing which is safe for all to use


Teenagers in one corner of a park in Groningen. It was a sunny afternoon, so thousands of people had ridden their bikes to different corners of this and other parks. It's similar if you cycle to the beach.


In this video there's not so much cycling as walking. 6000 people, mostly from primary schools around Assen, take part each year in the local Avondvierdaagse. Participants walk 10 km each day on four consecutive evenings. Because of the number of people taking part they often cause a little disruption on roads and cycle-paths in and around the city, but this isn't the sort of thing that any reasonable person would complain about.

Most, if not all, towns in the Netherlands have an event like this, modelled after the internationally famous Nijmegse Vierdaagse. The Nijmegen event attracts an amazing 45000 participants who each walk a minimum of 50 km per day (reduced to 40 km per day for people under 20 or over 50 years old) for four days in order to earn their medal.

Why are children important ?
Why do I concentrate so much on young cyclists ? That's easy to answer. Today's children are the only possible source of tomorrow's adult cyclists and children are a common interest of the whole population. Children love to cycle and cycling is a transport mode which can offer children a greater degree of freedom and affordability than anything else that is open to them.

If we don't "get them when they're young", i.e. at the age when the affordability and freedom offer a unique combination then we must instead try to convince older people to take up cycling when they've already formed a habit of travelling by other means and when they can more easily afford other means.

Under 18s in The Netherlands make a huge proportion of their journeys by bike. 0.8 journeys per day for under 12s, 1.7 journeys per day for 12 to 16 year olds. Adults cycle less but even over 75s make an average of one trip every three days.

Countries which fail to achieve a high cycling rate amongst the young will struggle even more to achieve it amongst adults.

Promoting cycling for everyday journeys is not the same as promoting it as a sport. As others have noted before, sports like swimming or playing tennis are worthy but they are of no use to travel to school or to visit friends. But cycling requires something that other "sports" do not. While any road design will suffice in order to transport people to a swimming pool or tennis court, those same roads very possibly will not suffice so far as making cycling attractive and accessible enough that people who are not cycling enthusiasts will see riding a bike as something for them. To achieve a high modal share amongst young children and teenagers requires our streets and cycle-paths to be so subjectively safe that not only do children feel safe, but that all their parents expect them to be safe as well. This is how the point is reached where children are given the freedom to travel independently.

Adult obesity in OECD countries. Can they be compared directly ? As some are "self-reported", methodologies clearly vary between countries.

The avondvierdaagse youtube video (above) was made public a few days ago and one of the first comments asked "Where are the overweight children?". According to the figures I've seen, obesity levels in the Netherlands are somewhat lower than those of many other countries, but not actually near the lowest.

As for what proportion of children are obese, that's difficult to judge. Some figures put this as high as 7% of the total, which would mean you'd expect to see two obese children in each classroom. Is this true ? I don't actually know as I don't work in a school and I've never studied this. It seems high, though. To my eyes there are obviously fewer really large people here than in the UK and that's despite our province, Drenthe, being worse than average for The Netherlands as a whole. I am given to wonder whether differences in methodology of reporting obesity might mean that little can be learned from the comparison of figures which come from different countries. I've seen the same thing with cycling modal share figures, which are almost never gathered in the same way in different countries. In fact, there are often several different conflicting figures available for modal share even for the same town.

Dutch children have the same taste for overly fatty food and soft drinks as those who live elsewhere. However, unlike children elsewhere, the great majority of Dutch children walk or cycle to school. It doesn't stop with getting to school, though. School trips are by bike too (including regular weekly trips to play sports) and children make trips to go shopping, visit friends or buy fast food by bike as well. Without the cycling habit (12 to 16 year olds each make an average of about 1.7 trips by bike each day), it is very likely that obesity would be a bigger problem here than it is.

UNICEF Index of child well-being. High cycling countries in orange.

Health, Wealth and Happiness for everyone
In my view, adults owe the next generation the best start in life and the best future we can possibly provide them. If children can cycle then they already have a head start. The freedom of Dutch children is a good part of what makes this country score so well on the UNICEF index.

However, we could also do what is required to enable mass cycling purely for selfish reasons. Let's pretend for a moment that we're not bothered at all about children. Just for the next few paragraphs, think only of the adults...

Dutch doctors find that cycling helps to treat many ills amongst adults. Dutch companies gain a competitive advantage due to their cycling employees. The tax payer gains because when all the costs and benefits are worked out, it's cheaper to build high quality cycle facilities than not to build them. Motorists benefit because more cycling results in fewer traffic jams.

The advantages of cycling keep on adding up, but in order to reap these rewards it is necessary to build infrastructure which offers everyone a very high degree of both safety and convenience.

If we're to achieve mass cycling amongst adults we have to enable it for children so that the pattern is established and can continue through their entire life. Not only is cycling good for physical health, but also for mental health. Happy and healthy children have a better chance of becoming happy and healthy adults.

Teenagers ride home three abreast from their school 17 km away while young children riding a shorter distance in the opposite direction are overtaken by racing cyclists. All these people, and myself as well, need the same infrastructure i.e. that which is easy to understand and offers direct and safe journeys. This consistent high quality experience can be achieved where there are cycle-paths and where there are not. Why aim for anything less ?

A new version of the UNICEF report was published in April. The Netherlands is still in first place, Finland, Sweden and Germany are still within the top six.

On the Study Tours we pack into three days as much as possible of what took us many years to learn. Perhaps it's not surprising that people sometimes look a bit shell-shocked by the end of the tour as it can be quite hard to take it in. Feedback is always welcome, and happily it usually demonstrates very well that participants on the tour have understood what they saw. Today we were lucky enough to receive feedback from two different people.

Michel from Norway sent us this wonderful video made by Ingvild Stensrud and Herman Andreassen, two of the Norwegian students who came on a tour in March. I don't understand Norwegian, and there are no English subtitles, but it's a very watchable video which demonstrates much of what they saw on the tour:


The second item came from Claire Prospert of the Newcastle Cycling Campaign. Claire has written a wonderful and detailed blog-post for the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain which is both a review of the tour in May as well as being extremely thorough and informative in itself. Please read her post.

The following video is one of several shot on the tour which you can find on Claire's youtube channel. This video catches the first thing that everyone saw on the the first day, before the tour had even started - the full spectrum of Dutch cycling from a velomobile to a school trip heading out of the city went by right outside the door of the accommodation on a street which used to be the main route for cars into Assen from the South but now is a much more friendly space:


During the May Study Tour we came across three different groups of children from three different schools. While it would be quite exceptional elsewhere, this isn't an unusual sight at all in the Netherlands (read other blog posts about school trips by bike). This brings us back to what is one of the most important things with regard to campaigning for a high cycling modal share: you have to start with children, and indeed that is what the Dutch did.

Why come on a tour ?
Our blog, as well as others that we link to on the right, go to some effort to explain how things work in the Netherlands. There are also books on the subject, and many people refer to Google Maps. All of these things give an impression, however there is really no substitute for seeing it yourself.

When in the Netherlands, there is much to see, and it is very easy it is to miss things or to misunderstand the context or usage. I know from personal experience that on first visiting the country it is easy to ride past important infrastructure without noticing it at all - the ease of cycling in the Netherlands makes it very easy to take the reason for that ease for granted. What's more, very few Dutch people who have "always" been surrounded by the infrastructure realise that it is exceptional. People's memories are short and they don't necessarily recall how things used to be.

For these reasons, it is helpful to be on a tour which specifically takes in so many interesting features as possible, and on which there are explanations of why these things are interesting. Because you benefit from our years of experience on a three day tour, this saves a lot of time. We're native English speakers and understand the different contexts of cycling in both English speaking countries and the Netherlands. This is what is unique about our study tours and why people find them to be so informative.

On the back of an announcement of more money for child cycle training, the Department for Transport in the UK has released a report titled "Cycling to School - A review of school census and Bikeability report data". Sadly, this confirms what I wrote last November about how an emphasis on Bikeability and Cycling Proficiency have failed British cycling.

The new figures shows again how the rates of children cycling to school remain extraordinarily low in the UK. The change over the period of 2006 to 2011 is given as -0.01% for 5-10 year olds and +0.06% for 11-15 year olds. This is also presented as a change of 0% for all ages combined.

I have no doubt at all that those who train child cyclists in the UK do so with the best possible motives. However, effort shouldn't be confused with success. Sadly, the effort of the people doing the training is being squandered on something which looks good in press releases ("More money for school cycle training" !) but doesn't actually make any real difference. While British children are being trained in large numbers, this does not lead to them cycling. Conditions on the streets of the UK simply remain too unpleasant and too dangerous for more than a very small proportion of parents to allow their children to cycle.

There are also new figures for the whole population's cycling activity. These show that the average of 16 bicycle trips per person per year in 2006 has changed to an average of 15 bicycle trips per person per year in 2010.

Both these sets of figures come from a time when many people in the UK have spoken of growth in cycling. While growth is often reported in the UK, those reports are often not based in fact. There's a long history of unsubstantiated claims.

This is not real progress. Real growth can be measured and would appear in these figures. All that we've been able to see for many years in the UK is a change in the least significant digit of a small number, and these new figures again show a continuation of the same statistical noise as I wrote about in 2010.

For comparison, the Dutch population makes on average about 0.8 trips by bike per day, which is equivalent to about 220 trips per person per year. The UK's figures are far lower and as you can plainly see, it's not only children who rarely cycle in the UK, but adults also find the conditions for cycling unpleasant. In the UK, "cyclists" continue to cycle, while the majority of the population continues to think it is too dangerous to cycle.

When even many campaigners in Britain continue not to ask for enough and don't aim at the right people to make a real difference, it's hardly surprising that the government doesn't do so either. To know what is really going on, campaigners need to become less easily satisfied and more critical of claims that cycling is growing.


If you look at the figures for cycling over time, it is very easy to see that the UK has not developed a set of policies which have led to a real increase. It is important to recognize this truth, not to imagine that a non-existant cycling revolution is taking place, not to believe deliberately confusing hype and not to look in the wrong direction for solutions. Rather, it is important to acknowledge the facts for what they are. Yes, it's unfortunate that cycling has stagnated at a very low level. However, by acknowledging this fact, there is a base to work from. What's more, by accepting properly gathered statistics, there is a yard-stick against which any future progress can be measured.

I took a cycling trainer course when I lived in the UK. Unfortunately we were told we had to advise children to hug the kerb putting them in danger. That's why I never trained children.

For cycling to grow, real change is needed. An emphasis on "soft measures" such as training has failed in the past and will continue to fail in the future. Cycle training and marketing of cycling are but a small part of what is required. These measures do not work in isolation from changing the streets for the simple reason that they do not solve the problems that people face when they try to cycle.

There will be no real increase in cycling in Britain until real funding is provided, excuses stop being made, and the country starts to copy the best parts of the best examples without misunderstanding the intent. This is the only way in which the conditions which can result in real mass cycling can be created.

Update 2013
My attention has been drawn to a very interesting graphic from Joe Dunckley showing the impact of cycle training on the frequency of cycling in the UK.

The data came from Transport for London's Attitudes to cycling report and shows that after they've had cycle training people are as likely to cycle less as they are to cycle more.

More on exaggeration and broken promises. And as for cycling to school, even pre-schoolers can be seen riding their own bikes to day-care in the Netherlands. From an average age of 8.6, very nearly every Dutch child rides independently. See also the Cyclists in the City blog for another view of the same figures, while Joe Dunckley provides a humourous take by pointing out that "press releases announcing the annual funding for cycling training that they've been funding for decades now outnumber actual cyclists".

First day: Single file on a direct cycle- path between a village and Assen

Two weeks ago, we hosted a Study Tour group from Norway. Six students aged between 13 and 15 from the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole (a secondary school) in Porsgrunn came with two older students aged 18 and two adults, Michel Fouler from "På sykkel i Telemark" who organised the tour and Bent Gundersen who is one of the teachers. All are from the Telemark county in Norway.

A discussion with Dutch students allowed experiences to be shared.

Due to the efforts of cyclists in the area including Michel's cycle training organisation, Alle Barn Sykler, and an enthusiastic cycling headmaster, 60% of students cycle regularly to the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole. However, the same is not true of Norway in general.

Posing with the Fietsles (cycling lesson) statue in Groningen

Cycling amongst teenagers has declined sharply in Norway. While 15% of those aged between 13 and 17 cycled on a daily basis in 2005, by 2009 this figure had shrunk to 9%.

This is one of the reasons why there was interest in comparing the conditions in which Norwegian and Dutch children and teenagers cycle, because how pleasant the conditions are for cycling certainly affects how much people will cycle.

Pre-schoolers in Groningen riding home from day-care on their own bikes

Work on a presentation started even during the journey home. On Friday 23rd of March, a week after returning home, the students travelled to Oslo to a workshop with the Road Transportation Department in Norway, connected with planning for the Norwegian Bicycle Masterplan for 2014-2023. Tobias and Chatrine, two of the 15 year old students, made a presentation based on what they had seen in Assen and Groningen on the Study Tour.

Amongst the items in their presentation was this film, made by the two older students, Ingvild Stensrud and Herman Andreassen. It combines footage from a pre-school, primary school and secondary school in Assen and Groningen. See how children, all types of children, even very young, with disabilities, from immigrant families, cycle to school in the Netherlands and gain independence by doing so:

Our observations
This was a wonderful group to host. The confident and intelligent manner of the teenagers outshone their ages. They were genuinely interested in the issues and they asked sensible questions.

The last day: Confident and without helmets.

It was interesting to see how confidence on the bikes grew over just three days in the Netherlands. At first the group was reluctant to cycle two abreast due to concerns about taking up too much space. This concern passed quickly. In its place came the Dutch, confident and sociable way of riding next to a friend and talking at the same time.

One of the missing helmets was in a bin on Friday

Similarly, on the first day, all the students wore helmets. By the third day, no-one could find one. We'd never presume to tell anyone what to wear when cycling, and that goes double for other peoples' children. However, by the end of three days there had been a revolution. This is subjective safety at work. People reacting to the conditions.

Index of child well-being for a range of countries. High cycling countries highlighted in orange

It was mentioned to us that Norwegians were not entirely happy about being in 7th place in the index of child well-being from UNICEF (is your country in the list ?). As I've noted before, the top four nations in this survey are the top four cycling nations in Europe.

The connection with cycling should not be surprising. Dutch children and teenagers see cycling as freedom. Even though we live in a rural area and the distance that some have to travel to get to their chosen school can be long, there are no school buses here. We were told by in our school meeting in Assen that one of their students currently rides more than 60 km as a round trip each day to get to school and back home. This is interrupted only for a brief period mid-winter when her parents object to her riding the entire way in darkness. Why prefer cycling ? Because otherwise she'd miss out on the social aspect of riding with other students.

Subjective safety at work: Five Dutch children on skates and one on a go-kart chasing us as we pass a man walking two dogs. All separate from the road

While they were here, the Norwegian teenagers experienced some of the freedom that Dutch teenagers find to be normal. This freedom comes because of the safe cycling conditions and the safe cycling conditions are due to the infrastructure. Our Norwegians visitors were passionate about what they saw, and wanted to take this back with them. We hear that the presentation and film have had quite an effect and hope that Norway's planners and politicians will listen to their youngsters.

Children and teenagers need freedom. Instead of designing around adults in cars, planners must design around the needs of children. Children must be seen as the rightful heirs of our future transport network.

We still have places on the public study tour in May, and can organise tours on most dates to suit groups. Contact us to make a booking. We would be very pleased to meet with an official group from Norway this year. We can show you exactly what the students saw.

Please also read more feedback from the Norwegian group.

Around 4% of journeys in Norway as a whole are made by bicycle. Youtube videos reveal many of the same problems for cyclists in Oslo as in many other cities around the world. Click for more stories about school travel in the Netherlands.