Bicycle

On Saturday 30 May, a fashion show for cyclists will be held on the streets of Amsterdam. The designs are a selection from the entrants in a competition that aimed to make cycling safer and more fashionable, organised by the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in the Milan shopping district in September last year.

The NABA competition was attended by Alderman Edoardo Croci, who said that young people should take the lead in promoting sustainable mobility, because they are more aware of environmental issues.

Until recently it was a hype: show-off house agents riding through Amsterdam on a Vespa. However, the times have changed. House agent Bart ter Haar rides a bicycle these days, he told Jort Kelder in his TV show Bij ons in de PC.

In 2007, Ter Haar was also a guest on the show, telling that one could ask whatever one wanted for a house. Now he tells about a house with an ask price of 6.5 million euro, which has dropped by a million. The owners of another house had asked 6,750,000 euro, but sold it for 4.5 million. “They just needed to sell at that moment.”

Cycling while sitting up straight, wearing normal clothes, on a city bike with chain guard, fenders, a rack and a dynamo. For some time, Americans have advocated the Amsterdam way of cycling. According to the New York Times, it is now becoming a trend.

The newspaper quotes the owner of a vintage bicycle shop who says that not car culture, but bike culture is the problem, meaning that “the discourse about city biking is dominated by cycling zealots who don’t have the desire, or the skill, to attract people who don’t see themselves as cyclists, just as people who ride a bike to work”.

Yesterday night, opposition parties in Oost have called on Alderman Willem Paquay (SP) to show some results and to take up residence in the district he is running. According to Jeroen van Spijk (D66), Paquay has achieved next to nothing since he started in his job one year ago. Paquay dismisses the criticism as a publicity stunt.

Van Spijk says that Paquay has sent no proposal to the district council whatsoever over the past year. Many meetings of the council committee that deals with his portfolio would have been cancelled because there was nothing to discuss. According to Van Spijk, Paquay’s performance raises doubts as to whether the SP has the capacities to be part of a local government.

Over a hundred former prisoners who are doing a good job may lose their jobs if the Locker bicycle parking facilities are contracted out, warns the SP. According to a study, the programme would save society over half a million euro per year.

Hans Bakker of the SP wants the contracting decision reversed. “Not only is there a risk that this vulnerable group of workers will lose their jobs; in addition, some of them may go astray again. This will cost Amsterdam more than keeping them employed”.

Research institute Novius estimates that the programme costs 5.5 million euro per five years. Over the same period, society would save over 8 million euro, including 4.8 million euro due to reduced recidivism and 1.8 million in unpaid welfare benefits.

This spring, the municipality will introduce a new corporate identity for all its bicycle promotion activities. The name Fietspunt (Bicycle Point) will be used to advertise Amsterdam as a Bicycle City and the names AFAC and Locker will no longer be used.

According to the municipality, the current ‘proliferation’ of logos creates confusion as to the message and the trustworthiness of the sender. In addition, the names AFAC and Locker would be at odds with the Style of Amsterdam manual. The name Fietspunt is to express professionalism. The makeover costs 200,000 euro.

[By Paul van Coeverden] – Districts were once to involve citizens more in the government, but the Amsterdam district Oost-Watergraafsmeer seems to have a different view: it presents a plan in which as many as 225 large, salient trees around the Amstel Station will be cut and hides this in an appendix to the Urban Development Plan Amstel Station Area (SP).