On your bike to work
On your bike to work

Government makes 100 million euro investment for bike tracks and bike shelters

Of course, everyone already knew that biking is good for your health and fortunately more and more people are starting to act accordingly. Figures of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management show that the amount of time people spend biking has increased with 12% since 2005. Secretary of state Van Veldhoven (infrastructure and water management) wishes to see this number increase even more. Her goals is to stimulate another 200,000 commuters to take the bicycle instead of the car, which would result in 3 billion extra kilometers ridden by bike.

Biking to your work is good for your health

Half of all car rides to and from work are less than 7,5 kilometers. The average speed of a Dutch bicyclist is 16 km/h, so these bike rides last about 30 minutes. Since Het Voedingscentrum (the nutrition center) states that adults and elderly should do moderate to intensive exercise, it makes sense to assume that biking to and from work would be an ideal solution. Unfortunately, the reality is disappointing. To promote bicycling, the Dutch government proposed the following:

Van Veldhoven called employers to make bicycling more attractive by:

  • Introducing a traveling allowance of 19 cent per kilometer. When you bike to work this will be a “bonus"

  • Offering employees an expense allowance for a new bicycle

Bicycling to work
We won't mind the extra bike lanes

Investing in bike tracks and shelters

The government wants to invest an additional 100 million euros to innovate and enlarge sheltering facilities at train stations and speed up the process of laying the bike tracks. The money will be spent as follow: 

  • 74 million: constructing bike shelters at train stations. Electric bikes, speed pedelecs and carrier tricycles are taken into a count. 

  • 26 million: laying new bike tracks 

Hopefully the enlarged shelters, adapted for special needs bicycles such as carrier tricycles, electric bikes and speed pedelecs, will make it easier for owners of a Van Raam bicycle to park safely.

To someone who enjoys biking the additional bike tracks are of course a nice bonus!

Together with the region

Next to the investment, the government expects civilians in the region to put in an effort. To stimulate this, the government’s funds are limited to 40% of the costs of this project. They prioritize projects that can be completed in the short term.

National bike conference

State secretary Stientje van Veldhoven has opened the national bike conference on June 21 where all plans to encourage more people to take their bicycle were further explained. Van Veldhoven’s ambition is to ensure that people can get to their work, school and friends quickly. Bicycling plays a key role in this!

Did you know that..

Despite state secretary Van Veldhoven’s wish to see more bicyclists, the Netherlands is not doing bad at all when it comes to bicycling. Did you know that…

  • there are more bicyclist than cars on the road during morning rush hour?

  • we go on more than 15 billion bike rides every year?

  • a Dutchman owns 1,3 bikes on average?

  • the fastest bicyclists are from Zeeland?

  • the average bike ride covers 20,5 kilometers 

(source: de fietssite.nl)

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