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July 24th


Our first full day in Amsterdam started with a meeting and tour from mobility expert Marjolein de Lange. Marjolein works for Fietsersbond the biking union in the Netherlands. They work towards improving and expanding bike-friendly infrastructure through working with all forms of government as well as the public. The work Marjolein and Fietsersbond does can't be described as anything less than badass.

During the presentation, we learned that much like all of the other cities we've visited Amsterdam wasn't always a biking city, and it took a ton of work to get to where it is today in terms of sustainable transportation options. In fact, through the 1960's they lost a lot of bicycle infrastructure and put in heaps of infrastructure for cars and their drivers. Heres a photo representing the changes Amsterdam went through during that time.


As you can see tons of major and minor driving roads were put in and around the city while tons of biking lanes and roads were taken out (specifically in the city center). This wasn't the full extent of the cities plans either, during the 1960s the city actually planned to build massive highways going through the city. This, of course, would only be possible with the destruction of many homes. This coupled with high rates of child death related to traffic and rising gas prices caused outrage and people began to believe that biking could actually be a sustainable option for transportation. This is when Fietsersbond really began to take shape and fight for the decrease of motor vehicle infrastructure and the increase in bicycle infrastructure.

They continue to do this work today. Marjolein herself just fought for and won a redesign of a bike path that goes through one of the art museums here in Amsterdam. Her goal was to make it safer and easier for bikes and their riders to go through and it worked.

This day gave me hope on potential changes back home and worldwide. it shows that if you get enough people together to fight for a common goal you can get somewhere. It helps when you start with something small and feasible, but eventually, you can move onto large scale things. I think we should all take notes from Amsterdam and see what we can do together rather than trying to change everything as induviduals.

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