Amsterdam is going downhill for cyclists, survey says

Amsterdam, which used to be regarded as little short of an earthly paradise for bicycles, is in danger of losing its appeal – with just 59 per cent of cyclists saying they feel safe on its streets, down from 72 per cent 12 months ago.

That’s according to the 2023 Urban Road Safety Index, which questioned 7,515 cyclists about their experiences in 25 European cities, and found that not just Amsterdam but Stockholm, Vienna and Berlin were all on the downward safety trajectory.

The prime culprits for this new cycling angst are e-bikes, battery-powered bicycles that can travel substantially faster than their traditional counterparts – and do so almost silently in narrow streets packed with pedestrians, cars, buses and, worst of all, trams.

It’s a recipe for disaster and that’s frequently what results.

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E-bikes account for roughly 50 per cent of new bicycle sales in the Netherlands, and in the Dutch capital they were involved in 74 serious accidents in 2022, twice as many as the previous year.

So, where has replaced Amsterdam as the city in which cyclists feel safest?

In the latest index – produced by Dutch geodata company CycloMedia – Tallinn, Oslo, Warsaw and Helsinki come out on top.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, Istanbul, Rome and Milan come bottom of the list, with Prague fourth worst.

Fifth worst – and this is where the shock has really hit home in the Netherlands – is Amsterdam, where the city council is considering introducing a maximum speed limit of 20km/h for e-bikes.

That limit is being proposed by Amsterdam city councillor Melanie van der Horst, who says the aim of the council’s deliberations should be to find the appropriate speed for the powerful two-wheelers.

“There are bicycles that can be ridden at 35km/h on this city’s streets at the moment and that is simply not appropriate,” she says.

“I know some people who have been involved in accidents with battery-powered bikes, which are much heavier than their older counterparts, and some of them have said they’ll never cycle in Amsterdam again.”

There are problems other than e-bikes, the survey finds, though none rate as highly.

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They include three-wheeled cargo bikes, mopeds, complicated intersections, inadequate street lighting, poor traffic planning and, ironically, new cycling infrastructure that makes it possible to go faster.

In fact, the problems identified by Amsterdam’s cyclists are becoming more and more reminiscent of what motorists used to say a generation ago about cars.

“I try to avoid going into the city, especially at rush hour,” says one woman. “There’s nowhere to park. There’s roadworks everywhere. And I don’t want my expensive new battery bike to be stolen.”