What's different about cycling in the Netherlands and can we duplicate their success in the US?

Imagine a whole street just for bicycles! That was one of my first sights when I landed in Amsterdam for a semester abroad in 1970, and I was enchanted. Few other countries were so bike-friendly then or have made as much progress in bike infrastructure since. Today, you can cycle across the Netherlands on separate paths that often follow shortcuts unavailable to cars, pull up to a traffic signal that senses your presence and changes the light to green as you reach the intersection, park in a multistory bike parking ramp or a secured, sheltered bike parking garage, or hop onto a train with your folding bike in your hand. If there's a road construction zone with a detour, separate signs will lead you through a bike detour as well. The natives offer bitter complaints about lingering imperfections in the system, but from the US, the Netherlands looks like cycling heaven. What does it take to build a cycling paradise

NATURAL ADVANTAGES:
Let's face it, the Low Countries are FLAT! There's seldom a major snowstorm, and the snow is usually gone in a day or two. Water and wind do get in the way, but there are few places or days where cycling is impossible.

NATURAL DISADVANTAGES FOR CAR TRAFFIC:
Tremendous crowding limits road capacity, parking, and garage space for cars. Cycling is faster -- and cheaper -- for most trips. Where it's harder rather than easier to drive a car than ride a bike, the decision to bike comes naturally, and bike infrastructure follows.

ATTITUDE:
From the "bicycle royalty" on down, everybody understands that cycling is a legitimate way to get around. Mothers cycle to the store or to school with their kids. Newspapers and magazines are delivered to shops by bike. There are post office bikes, bikes transporting things inside airports and factories, and thousands of commuters taking a bike to work. Grandmothers go shopping by bike. Vacationers bike within the country or set off around the world on their bikes. There's nothing weird about being a daily cyclist in the Netherlands.

MOTIVATION:
Ignoring global warming and rising oceans is not an option for a country where much of the land lies as much as 30 feet below the current sea level. The Netherlands can't expect to put off oil shortages by finding new reserves, either. Fuel conservation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions excite and motivate people more in the Netherlands than in the center of the US.

LET'S COMPARE:

	Minnesota	Netherlands
who?	kids, young men, health-conscious baby-boomers, and poor people	almost everybody
what for?	for exercise, often after driving to a trail, much less often for commuting or shopping	to get places
when?	in nice weather	every day
where?	on scenic trails, along abandoned rail lines, sometimes on marked bike routes on streets, and sometimes among the cars.	next to almost every inter-city road, and on the streets in town centers (where there's often a 30 kph - 18 mph - speed limit)
accountability	cyclists tend to be blamed for accidents.	the automobile driver is presumed to be responsible for collisions involving bikes and cars.
traffic control	traffic light sensors don't detect bicycles; the cyclist's only options are to go up on the sidewalk (where cycling may be illegal) and press the pedestrians' signal button, wait for a car to trigger the signal, or cross against the light.	cyclists have their own traffic lights, with buttons that are set up within reach and in many places with automatic sensors that detect approaching bicycles so that the lights turn green as they near the intersection.
bike parking	often unavailable, inconvenient, insecure, or inadequate.	routinely available; indoor parking facilities normally present at transit facilities.
bikes	suited to fair-weather cycling in sports clothes	normally set up with lights, fenders, chain guards, baskets, and racks for riding in ordinary clothes to shops, train stations or work.
shortcuts	some rails-to-trails routes provide shortcuts for cyclists but many bike routes are circuitous.	bikes are allowed to travel against traffic on one-way streets, and shortcuts give cyclists substantial advantages over motorists in places. In some areas, motor traffic is banned, and bikes provide the fastest and easiest access.
traffic routing	isolated suburban enclaves -- often without sidewalks -- are linked by multi-lane, high-speed roads that are unfriendly to cyclists and pedestrians. Country roads lack safe shoulders and are often littered with broken glass.	well-marked town-to-town bike routes allow cross-country trips by bike. New neighborhoods are designed for pedestrian and bike use.
biking to school	dangerous in many places and frequently discouraged or actually forbidden, with school buses the norm for most children. Secure parking is generally unavailable, the usual bikes are not suited to carrying school materials, and cycling is considered weird	normal. Schoolchildren bike, walk, or take public transit. School outings are often by bike.

In short, many factors that encourage cycling in the Netherlands are cultural, and they could be copied in the US. We can't flatten Minnesota or get rid of winter, but we can "complete the street" by making sure that road and bridge construction projects include space for bikes and pedestrians. We can tell our traffic engineers that other countries have sensors that detect cyclists approaching controlled intersections, and that we want them here, too. We can insist on bike racks in front of grocery stores and offices. We can identify and eliminate hazardous areas that spoil otherwise good bike routes. We can "adopt" bike paths to beautify and clean, and we can demand bottle-deposit laws to reduce broken glass on road edges and bikeways. We can encourage mapping organizations to include bike routes on GPS and online maps and allow route-mapping for pedestrians and cyclists, using non-automotive shortcuts. We can require schools to be bike-friendly.

We can also buy and ride foul-weather bikes, ask for secure indoor bike parking at our schools, dorms, workplaces and apartments, and find places to clean up and change at work.