Too many bikes (in Amsterdam)

[mvrider]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/europe/a-sea-of-bikes-swamps-amsterdam-a-city-fond-of-pedaling.html?pagewanted=all

In a city of 800,000, there are 880,000 bicycles, the government estimates, four times the number of cars. In the past two decades, travel by bike has grown by 40 percent so that now about 32 percent of all trips within the city are by bike, compared with 22 percent by car.

...

But many Amsterdamers say it is not so much the traffic jams like those at the morning ferry that annoy them most, but the problem of where to park their bikes once they get to where they’re going, in a city with almost more water than paved surfaces.

...

Part of the problem is that many Amsterdamers are not satisfied with just one bike, and often do not care where they leave those they have.


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/21/world/amsterdam1/amsterdam1-articleLarge.jpg

[moose8]

That sounds like an awesome problem to have.

[deechee]

I would totally lose my bike in there.

[cmg]

i like the red one in the back corner. :)

[fiamme red]

They need to systematically remove bikes that are obviously abandoned. It's a problem (to a lesser extent, of course) in Manhattan: I usually lock my bike up next to one of the derelict bikes that often remain in place as long as a couple of years. Today it was a Roadmaster with the saddle and the front wheel missing.

[MattTuck]

Interesting. They should do what many colleges do, go and tag bikes and if they are not moved in a certain amount of days, the city comes, cuts the lock, and takes the bike. That might alleviate some of the parking issue.

But, as the article says, "imagine if those were all cars!"

[BumbleBeeDave]

I didn't give you permission to shoot pictures in my back yard!

:p

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/21/world/amsterdam1/amsterdam1-articleLarge.jpg

[Lovetoclimb]

Certain parts of cities in Japan when I was bike traveling through there looked like this. Being Japan, I expect there was some incredibly organized functional system to the storage, but it looked like pure chaos to me. As someone said above though, not a bad problem to have, as opposed to the massive parking lots and car garages we have now. Just flair out your bike then it is easy to find!

[slinkywizard]

In Utrecht, one of the Netherlands' bigger cities, a new subterranean bicycle storage facility is being built that will have the capacity to store 12.500 (!) bikes in an orderly fashion: http://www.cu2030.nl/archive/2013-06-20/definitief-ontwerp-voor-nieuw-entree-utrecht-centraal-met-groots
Groningen, a university city in the north of the country, has the highest percentage of transport by bike, about 60% and that number is growing. In most of the country, bicycle infrastructure is separated from other traffic. Bicyclists have their own traffic lights, have access to most of the places where cars are kept out and bicycle lanes are physically separated from the rest of traffic, not just by painted lines on roads. It helps off course that The Netherlands is one the flattest countries on the planet with the highest point lying a whopping 322.7 m (just under 1000 ft.) above sea level...

[maunahaole]

We rented bikes for a day when we were there a couple years back and encountered that exact problem. The bike parking areas are ordinarily stuffed to the gills with bikes. Bikes make sense there as it is flat and the layout of the city is very unfriendly to cars in general once you get off the main streets.

[CoryThornton]

They need to systematically remove bikes that are obviously abandoned. It's a problem (to a lesser extent, of course) in Manhattan: I usually lock my bike up next to one of the derelict bikes that often remain in place as long as a couple of years. Today it was a Roadmaster with the saddle and the front cheap led flashlights (http://www.robustbuy.com/led-lighting-gadgets-led-flashlights-c-505_1027_730.html) missing.

Never seen so many bikes... I always believe parking is getting congested with more cars:)

[oldpotatoe]

Certain parts of cities in Japan when I was bike traveling through there looked like this. Being Japan, I expect there was some incredibly organized functional system to the storage, but it looked like pure chaos to me. As someone said above though, not a bad problem to have, as opposed to the massive parking lots and car garages we have now. Just flair out your bike then it is easy to find!

When I lived in japan, many had 2 bikes, one at each train station. Ride from home to station, lock bike..train to another train station, second bike to work...in evening, repeat. Japan Like Amsterdam, relatively small, concentrated, not like suburbia of the US. Most work close to where they live, etc..PLUS remember price of gas is something like 4 times what it is in the US.

[bikinchris]

I just happen to be in Amsterdam today. There are thousands of bikes I saw today that had flat tires and haven't been ridden in months or years. They really should make public announcements and start tagging in earnest. they could teach people mechanic skilss while building up free bikes for kids or lower income people with the tens of thousands of parts they could scavenge from abandoned bikes.

[bikinchris]

sorry, double post.

[bargainguy]

On my first trip to Amsterdam, I took my Bike Friday as checked luggage. I'll never forget walking out of Centraal Station and seeing the sea of bikes like the first shot.

Cute story: OK, so I had this weird looking folding bike with me. Thought for sure I'd get stopped and quizzed about it. Nobody cared, but several people stopped to ask: "Where did you get that mirror that attaches to your helmet? I've never seen one before! What does it do?" (The last one kills me.)

[bluto]

Whats with NYT lately and all the negative bike articles/editorials.....sucks

[Louis]

What's wrong with those people, don't they know that you're supposed to drive your Escalade or Tahoe wherever you go?

[torquer]

Whats with NYT lately and all the negative bike articles/editorials.....sucks
Did they hire that crazy old lady away from the WSJ?
Seriously, I've noticed an increase in coverage, mostly around the Citibike program, but it hasn't seemed particularly negative. Sure, they quote the usual complaints from bike haters, but it's not like they ignore the pro side.
And they recently ran an article about the rebuilding of the highway between Denver and Boulder that mentioned the parallel bike lanes as an unqualified benefit.

[Onno]

NYT is just giving more coverage to bike-related issues--lots of articles specifically on urban cycling, commuting and infrastructure. I don't think it's been slanted negative at all. And the Amsterdam article certainly isn't anti-biking; it's just showing that when lots of people bike, there are different kinds of problems. I appreciated it because I tend naively to think that if everyone biked, lots of problems would disappear. This article shows that new problems arise, but as several people noted, these are better problems than the ones we have here, of commuting hours by car, traffic jams, etc., insufficient parking (or trolling for hours to find a parking spot), etc.