To whom the streets should really belong!

In last weeks SPIEGEL magazine, the 'battle' for the streets of urban Germany was a central theme. The biggest and most influential magazine of Germany addresses the problematic state of current urban centres and ways to improve this. As you, being a reader of this blog, already know, the bicycle plays a very central role in these urban future. Below, I translated the editorial of the special and added my interpretation here and there. I hope, we can have some fruitful discussions based on it!


To whom the streets should really belong.

Congestion, noise, streets clogged with parked cars – Germans metropolises are the hell for car drivers, although urban planners always wanted to make their life easy. If you want to see smart concepts for all people, you have to observe other countries. Then, you will see that even a bit of orderliness can help. 

What is the ideal city? While one is dreaming of the narrow streets of Rome, another feels best in busy Manhattan, while a third votes for the beautiful promenades of Paris or Budapest. All these fantasies have one thing in common; the city is first of all a place where people meet. They sit in bars or public squares, walk by shops or observe passers-by. We are social creatures and the city is our territory. 

But how does this relate to reality? In Germany’s metropolises one trembles over clogged streets with parked cars, congestion and noise. Over decades infrastructure is extended and adapted - first and foremost in favour of cars. Mostly this has only offered some relief for a short period of time. 

Transport planners must learn: wider streets attract more cars, and even wider streets even more [i]! Curiously enough, the construction of new streets is in many places still the main recipe to solve traffic problems. Yet, if we want to make cities into places in which people feel good and safe we must change this perspective. As for example architect Jan Gehl from Copenhagen did. His axiom is: cities are there for the people. These people obviously have to mobile as well, but preferably in a way that doesn’t ruin the urban life of others.

The car is a highly practical mode of transport; especially to leave the city and to cover long distances. When several individuals travel in it and the engine is fuel-economic, a car even has a better CO2-balance then a train. However, in narrow urban centres space is scarce. Here, car drivers could and should not expect a green wave of traffic lights and an easy parking spot.

Troublemaker or problem solver?

In concepts for the future of the city, the car therefore plays a minor role: less car lanes on the streets in favour of wider footpaths, bicycle paths and places designed for people to hang around. “We have to invite people to walk and cycle”, says Gehl. When we offer attractive alternatives, people will choose to leave the car behind. Copenhagen is an example of such policies. The city centre became a huge car free zone. At the start, shop and restaurant owners were heavily against such plans. Until they noticed that more pedestrians meant higher profits. The majority of Copenhagen residents commute to the office or to the university by bicycle [ii]. No surprise, with such an excellent network of bicycle paths. Gehl’s architecture firm nowadays advices many metropolises all over the globe. New York, Dublin, São Paulo - his ideas of a modern people-oriented urban future are implemented worldwide. 

Such concepts are currently not a part of Germany’s strategies. In many communities and at the ministry, mobility still mostly relates to the car and the train [iii]. Pedestrians and cyclists are troublemakers that should do it with red-brick pathways.

At the same time, the bicycle offers a huge potential: it uses much less road space [iv]. Depending on the calculations, cyclists use between one sixth and one eight of the space that a car uses. Cyclists are also very fast, especially on short distances [v], and the bicycle offers direct access to the destination.

Bicycle paths have absolute priority

The bicycle has one clear disadvantage over the car: a cyclist is vulnerable for weather conditions. If we look at the Netherlands however, we see that rain has almost no effect on passionate cyclists whether they are student or work at a bank. An Amsterdam resident accepts wet pants now and then because of all the advantages that cycling offers [vi]. Even snow and ice are not able to stop cyclists – as we see in Copenhagen. Their bicycle paths are cleared first in the morning, even before the car lanes. 

Bicycles are even perfectly suited to transport groceries, large furniture and lazy grandchildren around the city. Best equipped for this are the three-wheeled bicycles, as for instance the legendary Christiania bicycles from Copenhagen [vii]. In Copenhagen, more than 30.000 of such bicycles are part of the fleet. These vehicles have a big transport box with rain cover in which there is more than enough space for two or three children or for several crates of beer.

Many German cities offer comparable conditions for cyclists as Copenhagen or Amsterdam: there are almost no mountains and short average distances (except maybe in Berlin) [viii]. What is missing, are consistent pro-cycling policies [ix] - and also a different behaviour on the streets. Although the Germans perfected the garbage separation system, when we are on our way to our office we don’t want to hear from rules and turn into egoistic bullies. A red light is for many cyclists no reason to stop; the pedestrians and car drivers should just watch out. These car drivers don’t ignore a red light because they are afraid for penalties. However they interpret other rules to their own liking; they push people aside, park their car illegally or use the public transport lane to pass others. Everything out of self-defence, they claim.

Why can’t we be as orderly as the Danish when we are on the road? They really stop at a red light, accept and respect the pedestrians and public transport lanes – and drive decently [x]. Copenhagen ranks top three in the ‘Monocle’ magazine’s ranking of cities with the highest living quality [xi]. This has partly to do with the well organised bicycle traffic.

Missing in this logic (according to Münchenierung):

• Cycling is not (only/at all) about rational considerations. It also helps if it is considered cool/normal and people do it because it makes them happy.
•  It has not always been so perfect in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Only, during the 70s and 80s it changed. But not per se due to planners and urban designers (who love to believe in ‘nurture’ over ‘nature’). They were mostly following sentiments and behaviour of the people themselves, at least in Amsterdam, where there really was urban warfare against new car oriented plans that were destroying the urban fabric (read for instance this piece from a visiting San Francisco bicycle expert). We should be aware of this to prevent of seeing Amsterdam as a far off utopia; it has just made different choices fairly recently! Although, a recent survey I did in Amsterdam showed that on many crossings (although the amount of cyclists clearly exceeds the amount of cars) the design is still car centric. Almost 40% of left turning cyclists find their own route in contrast to what is designed for them (Zipfs law of least effort). The lack of car service on a higher level and of decent public transport, combined with a positive culture and short average distance seem much more important though. Nature and nurture seem to go hand in hand in this development, as they should in all contexts (i.e. link your local policies to the local nature of your place and people)

Notes by me

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[i] Explained by the theoretical concepts of induced traffic and latent demand; people accept a fixed travel time budget and if the speed of travelling increases (e.g. by wider roads), they use the benefit to move further away or switch from other modes

[ii] True? When majority of commuters: yes, when also more vulnerable people are included: no.

[iii] Not in Munich, where the bicycle is an integral part of long and short term strategy making.

[iv]  and urban space in general.

[v] up to ten kilometer, depending on the urban context.

[vi] and because of rain clothing, shower possibilities at work and a cultural acceptance of arriving wet now and then. And it almost never rains anyway.

[vii] Or the original high quality ones of the Amsterdam based Fietsfabriek.

[viii] These aspects seem to play a large role, although Pucher and his colleaugues found that in low density areas in Germany much more people use the bicycle than in the United States. I believe that also status and culture are important variables. Both ‘average distance’ and culture and much better predictors of the amount of cycling than for instance infrastructure. In many Dutch and German cities the quality of the cycling infrastructure is inversely proportional to the distance to the city centre. The amount of cycling decreases almost always sharply though.

[ix] essential that this is combined with anti-car policies as push factors. 

[x] Don’t forget that Amsterdam cycling is also mainly disobedient to rules (adagium there is “red is the new green”), but the mass of cyclists created an overhand, so cars HAVE to obey and slow down. Also, the sheer number of cyclists make it highly safe.

[xi] Munich ranks almost as high or higher each year (1st in 2009 and 2011)