Utrecht: Planning for People & Bikes, Not for Cars

Having lived in Copenhagen I can only attest the surge in living quality when a city adopts a no-compromise bicycle strategy. Back in car-loving Munich I feel set back a century. With city council members putting forward arguments like that bike lanes will “destroy retail businesses”. It’s frustrating. Ps: here’s the short film the article talks about. Shows the fantastic transformation of Utrecht. [VIDEO]

> Biking isn’t safe enough to not wear a helmet Could you explain why you think that? That’s a pretty general statement. Are you imagining city biking here, or something more like racing in the country-side? Some data about how this is dangerous could be convincing: [VIDEO] count the helmets. Just to be clear, I’m not against helmets (I wear one, as is custom in my country).

I'm from Europe (Ukraine). Yes, I'm totally aware about risk of death in a road incident. After each incident, our bicyclist association does protest near to city administration, demanding more and safer bike lanes. Our plan to fix it is to make the city safer for cyclist. We are heavily inspired by success of Netherlands: [VIDEO] . Situation is improved in recent years. Currently, half of my path to work is safe, while the other half is not. Helmet is a good idea (I recommend to wear helmet after all), but it has some downsides. We can discuss upsides and downsides of helmet a lot, but I recommend using my OKR instead, when you recommend biking to newbies: «use helmet until you will fall 10 times at least». It's simple, easy to understand, easy to remember, actionable, and leaves no room for doubt.