Cycling boosts health, offers affordable transportation – and it’s fun. Few countries embrace biking more enthusiastically than the Netherlands, where it is deeply ingrained in its cultural DNA. On average, each Dutch resident has 1.3 bicycles and there is an extensive network of cycle paths – more than 37,000 km (nearly 23,000 miles) – nationwide, according to the country’s official tourism board.
Cycling is also great for air quality and the environment.
“If everyone in the world cycled like the Dutch,” said Jill Warren, chief executive of the European Cyclists’ Federation, quoting a 2022 University of Southern Denmark study, savings would be equivalent to “about 86% of the national carbon emissions of a country like Germany or about 20% of carbon emissions from the entire global passenger car fleet.”
But while many cities and towns around the world are actively working to improve their infrastructure to encourage cycling as a safe and sustainable mode of transport, achieving the goal is not immediate.
The Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC) recently launched an initiative that aims to help everyone – from citizens to urban planners – imagine what their cities could look like with more greenery, flowers and bicycles. The new Cycling Lifestyle AI tool can transform any street or neighborhood to be more livable and bike-friendly.
The simple-to-use tool combines artificial intelligence (AI), Google Street View, and knowledge from Dutch cycling experts, to visually reinventpublic space into a green, safe, and cycling-friendly environment. Users choose a street, either through a form on the tool’s site or via GPS. Artificial intelligence will then create four different versions of what a “Dutch” street plan could look like.
'Add a touch of Dutch to your street’
Briana Van Note, public relations manager for the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, North America, told Forbes that the Cycling Lifestyle AI tool was designed to provide inspiration for people worldwide to envision what their streets and neighborhoods could look like if cyclists took priority.
“Ultimately,” she said, “we want to motivate real change within communities and governments to ensure the streets get more green space and become more friendly for sustainable means of transportation like cycling.”
To try the Dutch Cycling Lifestyle AI tool, click here.
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One summer, many years ago when I was 17, I met a Dutch girl in a pub who was backpacking around Ireland. She said she was staying in hostels and was off to Doolin in County Clare the next day. Somehow, I hadn’t realised it was that easy to strike out and see the world. The next morning I took the bus to Doolin and began a lifelong love of independent travel and the open road. I never saw the Dutch girl again despite a full search of every pub in the village.
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