‘It’s a madhouse here, my wife no longer dares to cycle’

Tring tringle! Cycling next to each other and having a conversation is not there during a bike ride from The Hague Hollands Spoor station to the Bloemenbuurt. It is constantly entailing or accelerating because something has to be: a city, racing or cargo bike, a delivery service, a Volkswagen with speakers on loud, a bus, a tram. Every once in a while you have to divert for a double parking, tricycle or overhang in his phone. And then it is Saturday morning: not nearly as busy as during the week.

“What kind of means of transport is that,” says Jos de Jong (65) when a scooter with double front wheels drives along. Just before, calling over his shoulder, on a separate cycle path on Valkenboslaan: “This is neatly laid out, but much too narrow!” A parent and child can just cycle next to each other – but then nobody has to catch up. While De Jong points out, there would have been room differently: the cars have two wide lanes and no fewer than three parking lanes.

De Jong is chairman of the Fietsersbond region The Hague. Which means that he thinks along and lobbying for cycling pleasure and safety in the design of the public space. He has something to fight for, because the number of bicycle traffic victims is increasing. Between 2018 and 2023, the number of people who ended up in hospital with serious injury increased from 23,300 to 25,400 – and those were mainly cyclists. In 2022 there were 290 fatal bicycle victims; the highest number in 27 years.

Zoom in

The municipality of The Hague turns dark red on the ticket with traffic accidents. Last year, 5,662 traffic accidents reported to the police took place, the highest number since 2000. And, De Jong says, in 2040 the number of cyclists from The Hague due to population growth will have increased by 40 percent. The number of accidents will grow, as is the expectation for the rest of the country.

Speed limit

Reason for Minister Robert Tieman (Infrastructure, BBB) to send a ‘Multi -year Bicycle Safety’ to the Lower House on Thursday. With a number of measures that should help, such as encouraging the use of a bicycle helmet. And, the most striking: municipalities can experiment with a maximum speed on cycle paths. It should help against the Fatbikes performed, the perpetrators of many serious accidents. Hospitals were rather the alarm about that. And the municipality of Enschede said it wanted to ban Fatbikes in the center this week.

Those ideas are well -intentioned of course, says De Jong. “But it’s not going to help.” There is already a maximum speed for cyclists: 25 kilometers per hour. “Just not being enforced.” And forbid Fatbikes? “That is not easy legally. You can’t easily distinguish between means of transport.” According to him, the solution is much simpler: “Move fast -moving cyclists to the roadway, and reduce the speed to 30 kilometers per hour.”

But restricting the car – that is politically sensitive. During the bike round, De Jong points out places where his lobby was not successful. The Hobbemastraat: a busy shopping street with two tram jobs, parking lanes, wide roads. No cycle path, maximum speed 50 kilometers per hour. “The entrepreneurs were against, they said their customers come by car.” De Kemperstraat: no bicycle strip, 50 kilometers per hour.

Unclearly

Through De Jong’s eyes you can see how much there is still to be won for the cyclist. Bicycle strips suddenly become narrower or stop as suddenly as they start. Some places are messy and unclear: where do you actually have to go? Such as Hobbemaplein, near the Haagse Markt, where there is a traffic jam cars in front of the ATMs. “This situation is idiot,” says De Jong. “It is also very dangerous for cars here. And for pedestrians: you just have to be able to walk with your pram here?”

But his biggest thorn in the eye is the Goudenregenplein. Cyclists, cars and pedestrians have to cross the narrow connecting road, where they drive 50 kilometers per hour, without a cycle path or traffic light. “Here you only see red dots on the map of The Hague with traffic accidents,” says De Jong. “I sometimes stand here at 4 pm, then it is a madhouse.” Then the high school students from the adjacent school cycle home. “They sometimes end up between the tram track.” Cyclists have to struggle between cars, which is becoming increasingly difficult, since cars ‘become more and more wider’. “My wife no longer dares to cycle here.”

Things are also going well: there is more political attention for cyclists. In Utrecht and Amsterdam, known as bicycle cities, the car is ‘guest’ in more and more places or not at all. At the end of 2023, Amsterdam entered a maximum speed of 30 kilometers per hour. But in The Hague and in many other places, De Jong says, there is still too much reasoning from the car. City boards are really given priority to cyclists often too complicated “and don’t look forward to the participation process with the neighborhood”.

And in the meantime a new battle group has already risen: that for the pedestrian. “More is walking, walking is in. There are also people who say: give a much larger part of the available space to pedestrians. They argue for a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. Well, I wish them every success.”

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