Move onto the fuelling
Up and down
To the left
Drifting
To the right
Due to defects
Right through syrup
Looking great
Because
We've got one lap
Down
Left
Up and down
Into the热
To the right
Down
We're now in Nijmegen, which is the oldest city of the Netherlands.
It was founded about 2,000 years ago by the Romans and Nijmegen is a city that is situated
on the river Duval with a city centre which is actually on the river side with about 180,000
inhabitants.
Nijmegen is the prime example of the medium-sized city.
When you ride a bike and you see somebody, you know, and they're like drinking a beer
on a terrace like over here, you can stop and have a beer with them.
And that's what I like about this city.
It is big enough to be fun, but small enough to meet people.
We are the cities which stories are not very often told.
You know, talk about Paris, New York, LA, Tokyo, we don't really talk about those cities
which are smaller.
From a policy point of view, it is a really interesting field to really discover cycling
on that level.
The city of Nijmegen has won the award for best Dutch cycling city last year and to be
honest we are very, very proud of that because we have been focusing on creating a regional
network of decent, fast cycling routes and creating a good inner city network and that
has led to an inner city model share of cycling of over 60% in Nijmegen.
One of the benefits about coming to cities in the Netherlands is that you really get
to see the city on a human scale and there's so much ease built into just getting around.
It's pretty amazing to be able to get from one city to another.
We traveled to Arnhem by bicycle.
It was all flat, all through countryside and it was so peaceful.
The good thing about Nijmegen is when you exit the city centre, you are going to meet
cars but you will be immediately covered by a network of separated cycling tracks, cycling
streets and overall really good cycling facilities.
So what you see here is that children go to school on their own, adults ride on their
bikes and even seniors take their regular bikes or their pedal eggs and they pedal around
the city, visit relatives, visit friends and go shopping.
You start with children, if you're embedded with children and they learn from this age
then for everyone it's normal that you cycle.
Also the people in cars, they know from a cycle perspective how it is to be in traffic
with a lot of cars so they know how to behave.
The priority that's given to cyclists, I mean it would just make it so much more attractive
for people that don't cycle at home if they could just have a go on how it is here.
Compared to the 1990s you see a lot of protected bike lanes, now the fast cycle lanes are the
latest thing so that really helped the city to keep young families within the city borders
who didn't want to live in the city centre giving them the opportunity to bike everywhere.
We are currently standing in a car free zone which is accessible only to delivery trucks
and the city centre is completely pedestrianised but it wasn't always so.
Back in the 70s this used to be a main road and the main square in the city used to be
a parking lot so over the course of 40 years a lot of change has been made and this has
resulted into a very livable city, a very happy city and a lot of people cycling and
walking in the city centre.
In the 60s of the last century there were always cars in the city, everyone went shopping
with the car and there was a question, what do we do?
We continue welcoming the cars in the city or we stop it and we turn around the policy
to more cyclists, more buses and more pedestrians as well.
So the policy changed and we all made measures at first without pollers so we put up the signs
and you may not enter the city but that didn't work.
The city centre needs access, you need the delivery trucks to go to the shops, people
living there need to be able to move their goods so the city of Nijmegen has created
a fence of bollards.
If we use pollers then it's simple, you can't get in if you don't have permission to get
in.
Delivery vehicles can come to the shops between 7am in the morning and 12am in the afternoon
so what you see is when the city centre is empty with shoppers it's full of delivery
vehicles, the stores are being supplied.
They've got deliveries to make and garbage to haul away and I saw a huge, huge semi yesterday
morning making a delivery and it was honestly as big as the semi's that we have in our
cities and they worked out a way to noodle around through this dense little pedestrian
network early in the morning.
And those bollards are also for public transport, in the city there are bus lines and buses
can load the bollards automatically and then you can enter the city and provide transit
and service to the people.
So one of the great things about Arnhem in Nijmegen is that they are silent.
The city centre where they've been able to get most of the cars out, most of the trucks
out, most of the two-wheelers out is that it's a hearing city, you can hear people talk,
you can hear people walk, you can hear kids play, you can hear people laughing.
One of the things you realise in these types of cities is that there's a lot of noise
but noise that we've forgotten about, not noise of trucks, not noise of cars, but noise
of people.
So I did my research project in Cairo in Egypt and I lived there for six months and it was
only when I came back that I heard this silence in the city, you know, not hearing the noise
all the time and then I realised how precious that is to have this silence that also gives
some peace in your mind.
The best thing is when I wake up in the morning, I don't hear any traffic, it's amazing.
This is bike sort of lined up outside the cafe, you just pull up, put your bike lock
on, go in, have a drink, the lifestyle that I wish we had in Australia.
Even coming to a small Dutch city like Nijmegen, we realise how much work a city like Vancouver
still has to do to get everyday regular people on bicycles.
We do have the burgeoning cycle track network.
We have the start of a cycle culture but you do not see the range of ages and abilities
that you do here.
On the island of Kauai, I don't see very many people on our paths but here the people
who are in their 70s and their 80s are passing me on the bike and I'm just totally blown
away by that.
It's an atmosphere of a village, I would say, and with safe children in places and everyone
is on the seas and if I'm in some places abroad, then yeah, it's quite a different world.
This is paradise, I have to make sure not to forget how this is when I get back home.
It is so different, so damn different.
There is a law here, it's presumed guilty.
If you are involved in a car accident and you were the driver, you are going to be in
a big trouble because you are going to be presumed guilty no matter what.
So that's the main difference and that is particularly what I really need in my country.
To talk about what should the Dutch export, what should cities like Nijmegen export and
a lot of people focus on the technical competency the Dutch have on making a city work for people
on bicycles, I don't think that's the real export here.
I think the real export is how it is that they started thinking about a city differently
so that the bicycle could be an integral part of the mobility package.
That is a real secret, starting to get people to think about the city completely differently
and then thinking about how the bicycle fits into it.
Even from the United States we just have not made the cultural shift that walking and biking
is really where we need to be and I think once businesses see that and have that understanding
they will be more supportive of it.
Generally Netherlands is a really nice place to live and cycling is part of that but it's
not just the biking, it is about having the independence and the bike kind of accommodates
the independence so that young children can go to places without always having to be escorted,
they can take responsibility of their own lives and research has also shown that it
is an important piece of personal development.
I think that one of the things that we take away from the Netherlands and bring back with
us is that if we can get it to a point where like here you've got teenagers riding around
because it's the easiest way to do, not because it's cool, not because it's a status symbol,
it's just a means to get around and socialize with your friends, I think if we can get that
in North America and in Vancouver especially then I think we've succeeded.
And we are in the city of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, as you can hear this is Nijmegen, it's a cycling
city, people ring the bell, they enjoy it.
