David Hembrow lives in Assen, Drenthe, Netherlands. A cyclist in a cycling family living in the cycling province of the world's greatest cycling country. David was born in the UK, lived for a bit in New Zealand. http://hembrow.blogspot.com
Tonight I watched the Tegenlicht
documentary De Regenmakers, a very interesting programme about the
growth of environmental activism in China, focusing on four activists.
One of the people featured was Zhao Lei in Beijing. She was protesting against the
pollution due to a local incinerator, but the footage included video of the
quite remarkable traffic jams now commonplace in the city. This reminded me
that I was going to write about what has happened to cycling in China.
It used to be that when talking about the cycling rate of the Netherlands we
had to explain that it was first in the world only if you disregarded China,
which was a special case. However, that's now changed. As The Guardian
pointed out a few days ago, "Twenty years ago, four out of five residents in the Chinese
capital pedalled to work through one of the world's best systems of bicycle
lanes. But the modern passion for cars has made two-wheeled transport so
treacherous, dirty and unfashionable that barely a fifth of the population
dares to use lanes that are now routinely blocked by parked cars and invaded
by vehicles attempting to escape from the jams on the main roads."
The thing is, cycling in China was never motivated in the same way as cycling
in The Netherlands. The Chinese cycled out of necessity. They could not
afford cars, and perhaps they weren't available to buy even if they could
afford them. This has changed, and a generation who wanted a car but were
forced to cycle went and bought cars.
The Netherlands is a completely different case. The rate of car ownership
here has not climbed at the same rate as in other countries in large part
because bicycles offer such a pleasant experience and a convenient way of
getting about. The result is a very high
discrepancy between the rate of car ownership and car affordability vs.
other comparable countries. i.e. more people make a positive choose not to
own a car here than anywhere else.
Even Chinese news sources now recognise the problem in China: The first concern is safety of cyclists as bicycle lanes have
been edged out or phased out and bikes must use faster and more dangerous
auto lanes. i.e. A lack of subjective
safety is also working against cycling.
And
this is what Beijing looks like today (there are plenty of
other videos on youtube, including this one showing the
technique for making a
left
turn by car).
Roads have been built on an epic scale, favouring cars even if they don't
really provide much in the way of convenience. Some people do still cycle,
but in conditions like this they probably wish they had cars too.
Does this really look like progress ?
Posted
03-18-2010 9:34 a.m.
by
David Hembrow