The Dutch and their Cycling Paths: The Politics and Governance of Dutch Cycling Infrastructure, 1920-2020 (en)

The Netherlands is often depicted as one of the premier cycling countries in the world. But how did this happen? Historians have just started to uncover the long history of the political struggle behind the Netherlands’ extensive cycling infrastructure. Henk-Jan Dekker, a PhD graduate from Eindhoven University of Technology, reports from the archives on the important role of social movements and their interaction with national, provincial, and urban policymakers and engineers governing mobility and cycling infrastructure. The urban revival of cycling from the 1970s onward has to be understood in the context of cycling policies initiated between 1920 and 1970. Often geared toward recreational cycling or suburban commuters and not urban cyclists, these nevertheless help us understand why cycling and cycling activism could achieve such successes in the fifty years since 1970.