This Fietsberaad-publication contains a number of accounts concerning the traffic policy of several cities characterised by a relatively high degree of bicycle use, extending over a prolonged period. Each account gives a specific picture of the ‘course of development’ of bicycle use in a municipality and the relation between bicycle use and local policy. They concern five cities in the Netherlands known as ‘cycling cities’: Groningen, Amsterdam, Enschede, Zwolle and Veenendaal. This is added by a selection of five cities from other neighbouring countries that also know a respectable level of bicycle use: Münster and Freiburg in Germany, Copenhagen and Odense in Denmark and Ghent in Belgium. The immediate ground for this publication is the study of Boersma & Van Alteren, completed some time ago, seeking an explanation for the high degree of bicycle use in Groningen. For this reason the Groningen case receives most attention in this publication; the Boersma & Van Alteren report is summarised extensively. The Groningen account, and, for that matter, most of the other accounts as well are slightly adapted versions of articles published earlier in Fietsverkeer magazine. This, however, does not apply to Odense and Copenhagen, both of them new accounts. The ten city accounts each give a picture of the way in which cycling policy has contributed to the high degree of bicycle use over a prolonged period. Although they are indeed ten unique stories, they do correspond in quite a few places; parallels that could serve as examples of the ways in which a high degree of bicycle use can be attained. This is a revised edition of the 2006 original report. (Author/publisher)
Abstract