Other Dutchies
After posting about Netherlands’ four-day week just now, I remembered two other things I’ve been meaning to share.
One is Sebbiebikes, the website of a young Dutch national who is:
cycling from Amsterdam to Japan. to get there, i cross around 25 borders. but wait, this is such a privilege, as my passport is among the strongest in the world! so: why do you need this sheer luck to be able to see the world? the answer lies in many places, but the core is: borders. so, while i’m biking for 2.5 years, i’ll learn about borders. why are they here? how do they work? and (how) can we get rid of them?
A passport from Netherlands is the world’s fourth strongest (a British passport is only the sixth, by the way), providing access to 188 countries. But why should this be the case? Why are certain borders impassable to certain people, simply because of the accident of where they were born?
I think that’s an excellent question and one that presents an entire research question for someone who believes in international freedom. That’s sort-of what Seb is doing, except he’s not doing it as an academic. He’s on the road, on his bike, to learn about borders in practice, blogging as he goes. I think that’s cool. He’s currently in Damascus.
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The other thing I’ve been meaning to mention is a YouTube channel called Not Just Bikes. The Escapological element lies in how Jason Slaughter, the Canadian behind the channel, sat down at his engineer’s drafting table to work out the best possible place for his family to live. For them it was Amsterdam. So they moved. YOU can move.
Jason’s channel is also fun if you’re interested in public transport or urban planning, and if you have hundreds of hours to spend learning about the world’s train and bus systems.
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Ooh, I love this. I was a bit eye rolling at the sponsor thing until I read more and realized it’s a donation to those organizations sponsorship, not sponsoring the cycling trip in and of itself. I love the idea of a grand adventure all in the name of a cause. You definitely see that a lot with cycling trips.
PS. I sent an email, I realize now it may have gone to your spam.
It’s interesting that countries seen as more progressive promote cycling as transport and build effective infrastructure and physically slow cars down.
Even in Amsterdam it wasn’t always so and this shift was down to a determined group of mothers sick of their children being endangered by cars.
I’ve always found it weird that Glasgow, a city with low car ownership, has a motorway through the middle of it and privately run bus services that are expensive yet cycling infrastructure is patchy and not really a network (I know they are trying).
I’d like to cycle but in my head I struggle with the risk/reward thing plus the ridiculous size of modern cars, getting hit by one of them is probably painful.
Walking longer distances makes me realise that planners back in the day either hated or aimed to discourage pedestrians by making them wait an age for the green man to appear.
For an amusing take on urban planning, Mikael Colville-Andersen’s Ted Talk is well worth a watch too. His book “Copenhagenize” is a fascinating read if you can find it in your local library and an eye-opener on many levels.
Hey Brian. NotJustBikes has some brilliant videos to help dispel the myth that Amsterdam was always friendly to active travel. It was, as you say, a deliberate choice and a careful plan. And it has nothing to do with Amsterdam being flat! Thanks very much for telling me about Mikael Colville-Andersen; my local library DOES have his book and I’ve reserved it on your recommendation. I’ll check out his TedTalk too. (Don’t get me started on Glasgow’s car problem: we can blast off about that over a beer sometime).