bikes more than cars.
(Photo: Tom Miller)
Industry news publication Bike Europe reports today that, in Amsterdam, people use their bicycles more per day on average than their cars:
“The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.”
City of Portland officials and planners have often said they want Portland to become the “Amsterdam of the West,” so it’s always interesting to see the trends coming out of Amsterdam.
Here’s more from Bike Europe:
“The infrastructure department of the city registered approximately 235,000 car movements in both directions at the city centre in 1990; by 2006 this had fallen to 172,000, a decrease of over a quarter. Over the same period the number of daily movements by bicycle rose from 86,000 to over 140,000 (+60%).”
Read the full article here.
[Thanks to Ron Richings for the link.]
[Editor’s note: The original title of this post was, “In Amsterdam, bicycle use exceeds car use for first time ever”. I have dropped the “first time ever” part after reading feedback in the comments. I assume the Bike Europe story was referring to the first time since they’ve kept these stats.]