Anyone who’s ever visited free-spirited, liberal and tolerant Amsterdam knows that it can feel like a trip to the cottage.
Cars, trucks and buses are conspicuously absent. In Amsterdam the bicycle rules.
The Dutch learn to bike as soon as they learn to walk, and continue cycling well into old age. A staggering 37% of Amsterdam residents commute by bicycle alongside canals and over 2,500 kilometers of bike paths. About $40 million a year is spent for cycling infrastructure, some of it allocated to new parking garages for thousands of bicycles.
Meanwhile, car parking in the city has been reduced by more than half, and speed limits have been lowered in many places to 18 mph. If a car is needed, there is a “car dating service” called “Green Wheels” that lets you share community cars for a small monthly fee.
Living in a small country with such a dense population has taught the Dutch to be expert recyclers. A number of programs separate and recycle organic waste, green glass, brown and white glass, clothing and shoes, paper, chemical waste; and if you buy a new electrical appliance, you have to pay a fee for removing the old one. That’s groovin’ with the woowoo!
