Sunday, July 10, 2011

The Dutch & their bikes

Amsterdam has a population of about 750,000 yet has 1.2 million bikes! Never before have I seen so many bikes (or inhaled so much secondhand marijuana smoke) so this post is entirely dedicated to bikes.

Here is a bike parking area:

The bikes below are chained to the canal railing; many bikes are not chained to anything. Instead, they have a chain through the wheels so that they cannot turn without unlocking it. Someone said that on average they have their bike stolen every two years.

They bike out in the country too, of course!

I'm not sure how everyone finds their bike back at the end of the day. They have a bike parking garage by the train station but unfortunately I couldn't get a photo as my hands were full of baggage.

They created floating bike parking on the canal to accommodate them all.

And with so many bikes comes special bike lanes, bike road signs and...

bike traffic lights for busy intersections!

No comments: