摘要: |
I was fortunate to be able to spend a few days in the Netherlands at the end of my summer break, with one of the highlights being a cycling infrastructure tour of Utrecht, somewhere I last visited in 2018. In common with many parts of the country, the active travel infrastructure is constantly being improved and increasingly integrated with rail, a partnership that extends the range of both to create a door-to-door service. This is achieved by making it very easy to cycle into secure parking right near the platforms, as well as having a national shared rail cycle service, OV-fiets , which enables destination cycling for those leaving their own cycles at their home station. Utrecht has built the largest cycle parking garage on the planet at the city's central station, which can accommodate 12,500 cycles[a. The country also knows how to deal with the major natural and man-made barriers to cycling. Utrecht is home to a clever solution to a local space problem. The walking and cycling Dafne Schippers Bridge (pictured below] to the west of the city was built to provide better access to an urban extension to Utrecht, which is still being built to the west of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. |