Netherlands

Sensible, humane labor, housing, health, and education policies and efficient, democratic transportation systems go hand-in-hand.

Over the past few years the city has built a handful of "neighborhood greenways," projects that involve small changes to side streets that can have a big impact in making them more bikeable, while connecting residential areas to the wider network of bike lanes. If the Chicago Department of Transportation picks up the pace on building these bikeways, it could actually create the kind of "8 to 80" bike network that the department says is its goal, and the Active Transportation Alliance and other advocates have been pushing for.

Last month, I had the chance to use bike-share systems in two Dutch cities and Seville, Spain. The systems – OV-fiets in Rotterdam and Nijmegen and Sevici in Seville – differ from one another and from Chicago's Divvy system in several key ways. Together, they make for an instructive comparison about how our friends in other countries get around. 

Last Thursday, Dutch "mobility advisor" Sjors van Duren stood by the Lakefront Trail, pointed to the block of Monroe Street between Columbus and Lake Shore Drive, and asked, "What is the function of this street?" The answer, it was agreed, is to distribute automobiles between the Loop and Lake Shore Drive. Van Duren works for the Arnhem Nijmegen City Region in the Netherlands, and he was brought to Chicago last week by the Dutch Cycling Embassy (a public/private program that aims to export Dutch cycling policies) to lead a group of local advocates, planners, engineers, and neighbors to find a way to make Monroe Street better for cycling between the Loop and Lakefront Trail.