Featured Image: Inside Utrecht's Central Station Bike Garage.

In his role as international relations manager for the Dutch Cycling Embassy, Chris Bruntlett spends a lot of time talking about best practices for implementing biking infrastructure. 

Bruntlett says that a lot of his dialogue with peers on the front lines of urban renewal in cities such as Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and Austin centers on the word “accessibility.” For Bruntlett, that means, “As cities build out new trams, trains, and bus lines, they really should be thinking from the very start about how to improve the accessibility of the station.”

Part of that equation relates to the number of people able to walk to stations and stops within a half-mile to a mile radius. “If you can cycle or take a scooter to the station, then we're suddenly talking about a four or five kilometer (2-3 mile) catchment area — that's 30 times more passengers that can access that one station,” Bruntlett says.

Bruntlett points out that the payback for improving bike access to these stations is a competitive edge that you give to your public transportation system. He says that to achieve that objective, among other things, “you have to design your (biking) network to feed into your public transport facility. You have to provide secure, free bike parking there, which is the strategy that's done here (in the Netherlands). Then, you need to have a rental bike or a shared bike on the other end of your journey for the last-mile solution.”

Photo Credit: Mark Douglas Wessel

Where Big Sweeping (Biking) Gestures Take Place

Although Denmark may disagree, the Dutch Cycling Embassy’s website boldly declares that the Netherlands is “the world’s number one cycling country.” Building on the country’s experience of creating and constantly improving biking infrastructure since the 70s, the Embassy has a declared mandate to “facilitate cycling worldwide as the most modern, efficient, and sustainable method of transport.” 

So it comes with high praise that the city of Utrecht readily comes to mind when you ask Bruntlett which Dutch city is a shining example of how to create a unique synergy between public transit and biking. In this year’s PeopleForBikes City Ratings, Utrecht boasts an impressive score of 86 out of a possible 100, placing it third overall out of 170 large cities worldwide. 

“The special thing about Utrecht, which is why you know it’s one of the best examples in the Netherlands if not the world, is it does these sweeping gestures, like the biggest bike parking (garage) in the world, the car-free (district of) Merwede, and the school with the cycle path on the roof,” says Bruntlett.

“But (Utrecht) also does the little details well,” he says, including the creation of neighborhood bike parking facilities which are strategically dispersed throughout the city center. The facilities, in tandem with the massive central station garage, underpin the Dutch planning mindset that every bike ride should begin and end with a place to park your bike. 

30,000 Bike Spots and Counting

Photo Credit: Mark Douglas Wessel

My most recent Utrecht bike tour in June of this year began just outside the massive, three-story bike parking garage at Central Station, which can accommodate 12,500 bicycles, making it, as already mentioned, the largest facility of its kind in the world. If that’s not impressive enough, the total bike parking capacity tops out at around 30,000 spots when you factor in adjacent garages. Numbers which help explain the constant beehive activity of bikes constantly entering and exiting the garage. 

My guide Ronald Tamse is not just a guide but also a traffic engineer and urban planner with the City of Utrecht. As we watch bikes shuttle back and forth at street level, he shares with me how this section of the garage has purposely been left open so that people can either stop and park or keep going if they’re en route to another destination. 

He also says the lower, basement level connects directly with the train station, enabling you to park your bike and quickly access the platforms. Before the main bike parking garage was built, the area surrounding the train station was overwhelmed with parked bikes. However, thanks to a massive investment in bike parking, that challenge has been addressed — at least for now.

“In a couple of years the 30,000 spots won’t be enough,” Tamse says, due to the ever increasing number of people using bicycles as a means of transportation within the city. So much so that there is a growing consensus to no longer keep expanding bike parking at the station but to decentralize the city’s infrastructure dedicated to this task. 

Tamse says adding more spots around the train station isn’t any different than the challenges posed by expanding roads to accommodate more cars. “It just attracts more cars. And here, if we keep adding more bike parking at the station it will just fill up,” he says. “The (bike) routes going to the train station are already at the maximum of what they can handle.”

According to Tamse, the answer is smaller (by Dutch standards) parking garages with capacities ranging from 200 to 2,000 strategically located throughout the city adjacent to transit stops. Accentuating the rising demand for safe bike storage, “More and more people are investing in expensive bikes and e-bikes, so we need more guarded parking areas,” he says, opposed to parking in outdoor spots more susceptible to theft. 

Park King

Turning our attention back to the central bike garage, I discover that the reason cyclists are able to enter and exit so quickly is the bike paths run not just in and out, but throughout the facility with gently sloping ramps that enable you to access each level while still riding.

As Bruntlett had shared before my trip, optical sensors are used — much like the technology in some car parking garages — to inform patrons of vacant parking spots and guide them to the actual location via a digital wayfinding system. 

The footprint of this massive facility is about 184,000 square feet, equivalent to Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center in scale. A critical design component that essentially doubles the bike capacity of this space is a two-tier parking system known as 2ParkUp, featuring gas-assisted lifts and protective sleeves to prevent frame damage.

Uncovering the City’s Heritage

Photo Credit: Mark Douglas Wessel

As we depart from the station, we cross over one of the city’s many canals. So many that it is sometimes hard to distinguish one from another. What makes the Catharijnesingel canal so unique, however, is that it was once covered  by a 12-lane motorway, dating back to the 70s. A period when not unlike most North American cities, Utrecht’s priorities were focused on making it easier for cars to get in and out of the city. 

In hindsight, “it was an urban planning mistake,” says Tamse, which 40 years later was rectified by daylighting the 900-year old moat so that today, it has been returned to its natural setting with an abundance of greenspace. Yet there is still enough room to accommodate walking and bike lanes on both sides of the canal; and while currently two car lanes remain, “they will be blocked by the end of this year,” adds Tamse. Only those with a special permit (e.g. for deliveries) will be allowed to enter. 

The 360 degree transformation back to a canal is especially remarkable considering that it leads directly to the city’s main shopping center, the Hoog Catharijne Mall. Most North American retailers might shake their heads at the notion of making it more difficult to access the shopping center, based on the all-too-common perception of retail owners that those arriving by automobile will spend more money. 

Yet, in the wake of this transformation, Utrecht has found the opposite holds true. “You can take a look at someone who goes by car and as a shop owner, point to the trunk of that person's car and say, ‘look, he bought a lot of stuff.’ But that person is only coming once a week — going by bike or by foot, you're willing to go much more often and absolutely spend more money,” says Tamse

Seeing Red 

Photo Credit: Mark Douglas Wessel

Throughout Utrecht, as in other Dutch cities, red asphalt is used for the cycle paths, serving as a visual reminder for drivers and pedestrians that this is the public domain of cyclists only. 

Nowhere is this more readily apparent than on the Tolsteegsingel and Maliesingel Streets. As we ride on the one bike path heading out of town, there is an equally steady flow of cyclists on the opposite side of the street. The remaining center lane, sandwiched by the two bike lanes, is for cars. 

Previously, this road was completely dominated by cars, with zero space for bikes. Then, in the 70s as the Dutch biking culture began to kick in, one cycling lane was added that was approximately 1.5 meters (3.2 feet) wide — only enough to accommodate a single person on their bike. 

Fast forward to today and each lane is now approximately 2 meters wide, enabling cyclists to bike side-by-side making it easier and safer for friends or family members to navigate the streets together. “And the single car lane is bi-directional,” Tamse points out. 

All of which makes for an interesting dynamic because the single road forces car drivers who choose to travel on this inconvenient stretch in the first place to slow down, especially when another vehicle is approaching from the opposite direction because as everyone on the road knows, the safety of the cyclists is what comes first. 

Yet another consideration that has gone into the makeup of this road is that while the red cycle paths have been built using a smooth asphalt surface, the car lane is made of bricks. This difference in materials is intentional. The smooth bike lane contributes to “comfort for cycling,” Tamse says.“We know by nationwide research, that a car on bricks, because of the rumbling and the noise, we drive slower.”

Where They Walk and Ride the Line

The last part of our journey takes us to a Zusterpark, a linear park on the edge of the downtown core. There are no cars to be seen along this stretch, only cyclists heading in and out of town on the designated bike path, with a separate trail for pedestrians. Perpendicular to this stretch is another bike lane and a dedicated bike tunnel (beneath a road overpass) out of which the occasional cyclist emerges. 

“This is a former railway line on the east side of the downtown area which used to be a barrier between two neighborhoods,” Tamse explains. The main railway is on the west side and when this particular stretch was no longer in use, the line was transformed into a park, creating Utrecht’s version of a high line, or perhaps more appropriately, a low line since it is at ground level. The fundamental difference, which should come as no surprise, is that it is also extremely bike friendly. 

Incentives and Disincentives

Having grown up in Utrecht and witnessed its transformation from a car-centric city to one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, Tamse says his hometown’s dramatic transformation has come about by a lot of small changes made over decades. Changes ranging from prioritizing road infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians to implementing paid car parking (to disincentivize drivers) and creating safe bicycle routes so people are more willing to cycle.

There is a cultural factor that comes into play as well, he says. Starting from an early age, kids are encouraged to get on their bikes with parents riding along. 

“Parents bring their kids to elementary school by bike, and then they can cycle on to their office or wherever your job is. So your kid learns to cycle quickly and (as a result) can cycle on their own to elementary school, which saves time for you as a parent.”