Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality

This book discusses success stories of building cycling infrastructure in several Dutch cities (Groningen, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, etc.), the history of urban planning in those cities over the last century, and how lessons learned in those cities can be and are being applied in North American cities to promote cycling and "human-scale design." This isn't a topic that I know much at all about, so I learned a lot from this book and am now really interested in what's going on in my city.

I listened to this audiobook on my bike commute, which was probably the ideal way to listen to this, and I found it really thought-provoking. A few things that I found especially interesting: the authors sing the praises of non-"traditional" bikes show more like electric-assisted bikes, cargo bikes, and upright bikes as a way to encourage biking among people of varied ages/abilities. I hadn't thought much about how useful these could be. The in-depth looks at the different Dutch cities were also really interesting. Most broadly, though, I found one of the main ideas, that the impressive bike infrastructure and system in the Netherlands isn't just a foregone conclusion/how things have always been, really compelling; though people in the Netherlands have ridden bikes for a long time, there have been active decisions within the last century regarding how traffic in cities is conceptualized and how the flow of traffic (of various kinds) is directed. There's a lot of optimism in this view, I think, regarding how these kinds of decisions could also be made elsewhere. show less

Although the focus was on cycling, it's message extends to say that we ought to look to the Netherlands to help us better interact and transport around our cities.

Each chapter contained a clear and reasoned argument, supplemented by interviews and historical stories, as to why the Netherlands ended up choose the bike or bike and train as their primary method of transportation and how they are better off for it.

I was accidentally given this book twice for Christmas due to it being the only thing on my wishlist, so now my only decision is who to donate to, my local councillor, or my local library.