Something important happened to me last week.
I passed the halfway point in my trip to the Netherlands. My dear wife arrives here May 1, after which I will spend two weeks showing her around, and demonstrating what I have learned here, before our return to Atlanta on May 15. (The picture is of the Brooklyn Bridge, erected in 2022 across a canal in its namesake of Breukelen, the Netherlands.)
Each trip on my Swapfiets now gives me a melancholy feeling. Most of my first month here I was exhaling. I was so busy figuring out what was around me that I forgot everything else.
Now comes the great inhale. I understand the bike, I can navigate the roads, and I’m no longer a hazard to other fietsers. But my proficiency comes with the realization that this will all end soon. Atlanta’s roads are calling, bumpy, dangerous paths where drivers despise bikers, and where I’ll usually ride alone.
I’m building an itinerary for my wife’s vacation. I’m thinking about lessons I can bring back and what I might teach people if people will listen. I’m imagining how I might turn this collection of blog posts into a e-book, one that might prove relevant as I continue to age and, in time, become irrelevant.
That was my purpose, and it’s only partly accomplished. The fun part is done. Now for the hard part.
In Dutch the word for the bill is rekening. I’m facing the reckoning.
The Density Revolution
Your ability to bicycle within a city is based on its density and physical size. Dutch cities are tightly packed with people and just a few miles across. That’s why cars don’t work here. American cities are vast, except near their centers, so drivers dominate the discussion there.
This is changing. Atlanta is trying to build density, trying to make itself more compact. But it’s a struggle. The people who live there, in their single-family houses, surrounded by lawns, ask “where are people going to park” whenever a new development comes up.
That’s the wrong question. What they’re really asking is, “How are people going to get around?” Increasingly the answer is, on two wheels. E-bikes and cargo bikes are increasingly popular. Some people on the east side of the city, where the hills are easy and the street plan is a grid, think we can get along fine, just on bikes. But we’re the minority.
Think of density and transit in terms of zones. There’s the walkable city of a college campus, like Georgia Tech. There’s a bikeable city extending 5 miles in any direction. Then there’s the car city, everything outside I-285 and developments designed after 1960.
Atlanta’s Bike “Problem”
I’m 70 and I know. Walking is great exercise, but it’s not easy and it’s not quick.
These days I can only walk a half-hour before I must sit down. I wear a back brace that lets me repeat this a few times during a tourist day. I can still get in my 10,000 steps, but for how much longer?
On the other hand, I can ride an e-bike for 30 miles and feel energized. I’ve done it. I’ve even done it on a Dutch style bike, albeit with a different saddle.
The point is, an e-bike ride of 5 miles is easy, even for someone defined as elderly. It’s almost as fast as driving that distance, given Atlanta traffic.
Imagine if everyone could do that. Fat tire bikes will make it effortless, although they need more space to park than e-bikes, and riders should have helmets by law. Cargo bikes mean you can take the kids, even do a Costco run, without a car.
Atlanta is talking up a plan of dedicated “bike trails” that will take 30 years to build. That’s not enough. The e-transport revolution is happening in real time.
Atlanta needs 20 mph (30 kph) speed zones in dense residential and commercial areas with narrow streets, where that’s already the practical speed limit. Atlanta should think of pedestrians first, then e-bikes and other 20 mph vehicles, and see cars as guests.
Those policies alone will be a heavy lift, but it might get us to 2030 alive, without everyone needing a parking place for their $12,000/year mobile living room.
