Quantifying climate hypocrisy – the Canada file

Also published at Resilience.org

Which nation shows greater hypocrisy in the struggle to limit climate change – the United States or Canada?

The US President, of course, misses no opportunity to dismiss scientific consensus, downplay the dangers of climate change, and promote fossil fuel use.

Canada’s Prime Minister, on the other hand, has been consistent in stating that the scientific consensus is undeniable, the danger is clear, and Canada must step up to the challenge of drastic carbon emissions reductions.

It was within the first few weeks of the Justin Trudeau administration that Canada surprised most observers by backing a call from island nations to hold global warming to 1.5°C, as opposed to the 2°C warming threshold that had been a more widely accepted official goal.1

Yet according to a new peer-reviewed study2 of countries’ pledged emissions reduction commitments following the Paris Agreement, Canada’s level of commitment would result in 5.1°C of global warming if all countries followed the same approach to carbon emissions. In this tally of the potential effects of national climate commitments, Canada ranks with the worst of the worst, a select club that also includes Russia, China, New Zealand and Argentina.

The actual carbon emissions policies of the US would result in a lesser degree of total calamity –  4°C of warming – if followed by all countries.

Behind this discrepancy between Canada’s professed goals and its actual policy is the lack of a global agreement on a fair method for allocating the remaining carbon emissions budget.

The Paris Agreement set a target for the limitation of global warming, and it was (relatively) straightforward to calculate how much more carbon can be emitted without blowing through that warming target. But countries remained free to decide for themselves what principles to follow in determining their fare share of emissions reductions.

The result?

Developed countries who committed to take the lead in reducing emissions and mobilizing finance for developing countries often submitted NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions] that do not match the concepts of equity that they publicly supported.” (du Pont and Meinshausen, “Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges”, Nature Communications.)

A fair way to count to 10

An old joke provides a good analogy for the slipperiness inherent in divvying up the global carbon budget. (My apologies to accountants everywhere, especially the one who first told me this joke.)

You ask a mathematician, “how much is 3 + 3 + 4?” She punches the numbers into her calculator, and tells you “3 + 3 + 4 is 10”.

But when you ask an accountant “how much is 3 + 3 + 4?” he sidles up and whispers in your ear, “How much do you want it to be?”

Though climate scientists can provide a simple number for how much additional carbon can be emitted globally before we hit our agreed-on warming threshold, each country’s ruling party decides for themselves how much they want their share of that carbon budget to be.

And the radically different circumstances of countries has resulted in radically different positions on what is fair.

A 2016 study published in Nature gives us insight into Canada’s position.

Entitled “Global mismatch between greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change”, the study categorizes countries into how drastically and immediately they are hit by the effects of climate change. While all countries are already being impacted, the study found that Canada is among the 20% of countries who are suffering least from climate change.

Countries are also categorized according to their responsibility for climate change, and Canada is among the 20% who have contributed the most (on a per capita basis) in causing climate change.

In economic terms, those who do most to cause climate change while suffering the least damage from climate change are “free riders”. Those who do the least to cause climate change, but suffer the most from it, are “forced riders”.

The study shows that Canada is among the 20 “free riders” now, and will still be one of 16 “free riders” in 2030. The “forced riders” in both 2010 and 2030 include many African countries and small island nations. (Yes, that would be the same island nations that Canada claimed to be backing in 2015 in the call to adopt a 1.5°C warming threshold.)

“Figure 1. Global inequity in the responsibility for climate change and the burden of its impacts” in “Global mismatch between greenhouse gas emissions and the burden of climate change”, by Glenn Althor, James E. M. Watson and Richard A. Fuller, Nature, 5 February 2016. Countries shown in dark brown are in the highest quintile in emissions and in the lowest quintile of vulnerability to climate change. Countries in dark green are in the lowest quintile of emissions, but in the highest quintile of vulnerability. The top map shows this mismatch in 2010, the bottom map the projected mismatch in 2030.

Is there evidence that the “free riders” are trying to maintain their free-riding status as long as possible? According to du Pont, Meinshausen and their research colleagues, the answer is yes: most countries have set carbon emissions commitments that reflect their immediate self-interests. In the case of the major fossil fuel producers and consumers, that means the sum of their commitments adds up to a woefully inadequate global carbon emissions reduction.

An equity framework that dares not speak its name

In their discussion of the emissions reductions pledges made by nations following the Paris Agreement, du Pont and Meinshausen try to match these pledges with various approaches to equity. They note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has listed five major equity frameworks. These frameworks are summarized in this table from an earlier paper:

Source: “Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals”, by Yann Robiou du Pont, M. Louise Jeffery, Johannes Gütschow, Joeri Rogelj, Peter Christoff, and Malte Meinshausen, Nature, 19 December 2016

Of particular interest for our purposes is the final entry, CER or “Constant emissions ratio”. This has been defined as

[maintaining] current emissions ratios (‘constant emissions ratio’, or CER), so that each country continues to emit the same share of global emissions as it does at the moment, even as the total volume is cranked down.”3

In other words, those who have emitted an outsize share of carbon in the past get to preserve an outsize share of a shrinking pie in future, while those who have emitted very little carbon to date are restricted even more drastically in future.

If that sounds anything but fair to you, you are not alone. Du Pont and Meinshausen say the Constant Emissions Ratio “is considered unfair and not openly supported by any country.”

Yet when they looked at the Nationally Determined Contributions following the Paris Agreement, they found that the Constant Emissions Ratio “implicitly matches many developed countries’ targets”.

The Constant Emissions Ratio framework for these countries would be the least stringent of the IPCC’s equity frameworks – that is, it would impose the smallest and slowest cuts in carbon emissions.

In the case of Canada and other members of the climate rogues gallery, their post-Paris commitments turn out to be even weaker than commitments calculated by the Constant Emissions Ratio method.

Former ExxonMobil CEO and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Follow the money

Let’s take a closer look at some of the Nationally Determined Contributions – individual nations’ commitments towards the global goal of rapid decarbonization.

“Selected Country Pledges Under the Paris Agreement and GHG Emissions”, from “The Paris Agreement on Climate Change”, by Radoslav Dimitrov, published by University of Western Ontario, March 2018.

Canada’s commitment ranks among the weakest of this lot for three reasons. First, the Reduction Target of 30% is near the low end of the scale, with several other industrial economies pledged to Reduction Targets of 40% or more. Second, the Target Year for achievement of the Reduction, 2030, is five years beyond the US and Brazil Target Dates of 2025. This matters, because every year that we continue to emit high amounts of carbon makes it that much more difficult to forestall catastrophic climate change.

Third, the Base Year is also very significant, and on this measure Canada also ranks with the poorest commitments. The European Union, for example, pledges to reduce from a Base Year of 1990, while Canada will work from a Base Year of 2005.

Between 1990 and 2005, Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions rose 25%,4 and so if Canada’s emissions in 2030 are 30% lower than in 2005, that is only about a 12% reduction compared to 1990.

Canada’s national government claims to understand that swift and dramatic action must be taken to reduce carbon emissions. So why would this government then commit to only a 12% emissions reduction, compared to 1990, as a target for 2030? Let’s follow the money, with a quick look at the relative influence of the fossil fuel industry in Canada.

Radoslav Dimitrov writes

the energy sector (oil, gas and electricity) is important to the Canadian economy, accounting for approximately 10% of national GDP in 2016, more than a quarter of public and private investment, and approximately 29% of exports.”5

Notably absent in the above paragraph is employment. Natural Resources Canada says that in 2017, only 5% of employment was either directly or indirectly within the energy sector, and that includes the electricity sector.6

Both of Canada’s traditional ruling parties like to talk about their commitment to “good middle-class jobs”. But given the scale of the environmental crisis we face, how big a challenge would it be to fund an immediate job retraining and investment program to start replacing fossil fuel jobs with renewable energy jobs? Couldn’t a committed government-and-industry program find new “middle-class jobs” for 3% or 4% of the working-age population?

I think the answer is yes … but as for capital investment, that’s another story. The fossil fuel industry accounts for closer to 25% of Canadian investment, and an immediate and sustained push to reduce the output of carbon-intensive fuels would result in a dramatic and immediate drop in the stock-market value of fossil-fuel corporations.  Those stocks are a big part of the portfolios of most people in Canada’s stock-owning class.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A two-pronged strategy which starts with “dig the hole deeper”

Since before his election as national leader, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has proclaimed the need to “balance the environment and the economy”. What has this meant in practice?

As the industry-friendly Financial Post put it in 2015,

The encouraging news — at least from the perspective of the energy sector — is that Mr. Trudeau seems onside with continued oil industry expansion and that his climate change program aims to support it rather than contain it.”7

Part of Trudeau’s program was a commitment to establishing a modest national price on carbon. He found a prominent early ally in an unlikely location, Alberta. There the NDP Premier Rachel Notley not only implemented a carbon price, but also announced a cap on carbon emissions from Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

Notably, however, that cap will start to reduce tar sands emissions only in 2030, and in the meantime emissions from that sector are projected to rise 50%, from 66 megatonnes/year to 100 megatonnes.

The Alberta plan thus mirrors Trudeau’s national policy. While championing a modest carbon tax, the Prime Minister has consistently pushed for the construction of major new pipelines – and the business case for these pipelines is that they are essential in the expansion of tar sands extraction.

On this front, at least, Trudeau is willing to put our money where his mouth is. Last summer, the Trudeau government invested $4.5 billion to buy the TransMountain Pipeline, with the prospect of spending at least several billion more in a much delayed project designed to almost triple the line’s bitumen-carrying capacity.

Meanwhile a national price on carbon emissions of $20/tonne is scheduled to be implemented in January 2019, rising to $50/tonne in 2022. While most environmentalists see this as a positive step, they also believe the price needs to be much higher if it is to result in dramatic emission reductions.

Setting a low bar and failing to clear it

As we have seen, the Nationally Determined Contribution that Canada has offered in response to the Paris Agreement is one of the world’s weakest.

The evidence to date suggests that Canada is on track to miss its own low target. Canada’s Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand concluded in March 2018 that Canada is making little progress and will miss its 2030 targets unless both the federal and provincial governments step up the pace.8 And just this week, the UN Environment Program said that Canada is on track to miss its emissions targets for both 2020 and 2030.9

That should come as no surprise: it’s hard to cut national emissions by 30%, when you’re also fully committed to the continued rapid expansion of the country’s most carbon-intensive industrial sector – tar sands extraction.

Photo credits: all photos are publicity photos released by the Prime Minister’s Office, Canada, taken by Adam Scotti, accessed at https://pm.gc.ca/eng/photos.


References

1  “Catherine McKenna pushes for 1.5 C target in Paris climate talks”, Globe & Mail, December 6, 2015

2  “Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges”, by Yann Roubiou du Pont and Malte Meinshausen, Nature Communications, accessed at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07223-9.pdf

3  In “US trying harder on climate change than ‘unambitious’ China, says study”, CarbonBrief, 20 December 2016

4  “Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions rose sharply between 1990 and 2005: study”, April 22, 2008, accessed at CBC News.

5  “Selected Country Pledges Under the Paris Agreement and GHG Emissions”, from “The Paris Agreement on Climate Change”, by Radoslav Dimitrov, published by University of Western Ontario, March 2018.

6  “Energy and the economy”, on the Natural Resources Canada website, accessed Nov 28 2018.

7  “Justin Trudeau aims to strike balance between environment, economy with carbon policy”, Financial Post, February 6, 2015

8  “Canada, provinces lack clear plan to adapt to climate change, auditors say”, by Mia Rabson, Canadian Press, 27 March 2018

9  “Canada set to miss C02 emissions target, UN says,” in Toronto Star, 28 November 2018, accessed in Pressreader.

A tale of three cities – cycling in Valencia, Paris and London

Also published at Resilience.org

Efforts to promote cycling are gathering steam in many cities for a wide variety of reasons. Campaigns may fly the banners of carbon emissions reductions, reducing air pollution for immediate health reasons, promotion of active lifestyles to combat obesity, creation of safer streets for non-auto-driving residents as a social justice issue, reduction of inefficient private-car usage as a way to fight gridlock – or all of the above.

On a recent trip to western Europe I had the chance to compare results of these campaigns so far.

The gold standard on a nationwide level, of course, is set by the Netherlands, the subject of the first two installments in this series (here and here). The Dutch have been working on this in a concerted way for forty years, and they are far ahead of the other countries I visited. Though I haven’t been to Denmark, my observations here are also shaped by the excellent book Copenhagenize, and addresses by that book’s author, Mikael Colville-Andersen, at two conferences I’ve had the good fortune to attend.

I was able to cycle about 100 kilometers each in Valencia and Paris, and 150 kilometers in London. But these are big cities and my rides weren’t nearly enough to cover all areas. My observations are also based on a single visit, so I’m not trying to write any sort of “report card” on how successful these cities’ recent programs have been.

Yet in observing which efforts are working well so far, which are showing promise, and which ones seem seriously flawed, I hope these reflections are of use to people in many other cities. Although our geographic and political situations vary a great deal, nearly all cities in industrial civilization have been dominated by car culture for a few generations, and we face many common challenges as we work back towards cities that are safe for everyone who could and should be moving about our streets.

Stealing bike lane space from pedestrian sidewalks

In both Valencia and Paris, I was immediately struck by the extensive use of paint-on-pavement to signal that “bikes belong here”. Any recognition of the rights of cyclists is a welcome first step. But in both cities, there were prominent examples of “cycle lanes” that did little or nothing to make streets either safe or convenient for cyclists, and instead were setting up more conflict between pedestrians and cyclists.

The core of Valencia has many wide arteries with relatively wide sidewalks as well as multiple lanes given to cars. Rather than carve some space out of the street for a protected bike lane (e.g., by eliminating a car lane, narrowing all car lanes slightly, or taking away some car parking space), planners have instead painted a bike lane on the already well-used pedestrian sidewalk.

This is quick and cheap and risks less pushback from the motorists’ lobby. But it results in terrible bike lanes, which wind and curve around light poles and bus shelters, and force cyclists to merge with pedestrians as they cross intersections and then sort themselves into separate areas on the sidewalk when they get to the other side. The pedestrians, quite naturally, amble into the painted bike lane frequently; many of them no doubt have strolled the same sidewalks for decades, and find it difficult and more than a little annoying to now keep in mind that cyclists might be whizzing by in what used to be a safe space for distracted walking.

Cycling these areas, then, is only slightly faster than walking – and cycling to work would not be an attractive option for most people with a commute of more than a kilometer or two.

Outside of the oldest central core of Valencia (where streets are very narrow and quiet) many side streets are just big enough for three car lanes plus narrow pedestrian sidewalks. Planners have so far chosen to make many of these streets one-way, with car parking on both sides. This leaves no room for a bike lane and guarantees slow movement for everybody, whether in car or on bike or on foot.

The obviously necessary  – but obviously politically challenging – course would be to take some street space back from cars and allocate it to cyclists, while preserving sidewalk space for pedestrians. This would make both walking and biking more pleasant and safe, and would promote a gradual shift to active transportation rather than reinforcing car culture.

In Paris I saw the same timid steps to create bike lanes on busy arteries without taking away any space from cars, with similar results. The wide Boulevard de Rochechouart and Boulevard de Clichy, near the train station Gare du Nord, both feature six or more lanes devoted to cars, plus a wide park-like median for pedestrians.

With such an expansive street allowance bequeathed to them by citizens from previous centuries, could planners find a sensible way to allocate a few meters for a protected bike lane? Alas, the car space has apparently been deemed sacrosanct, and bike lanes have been painted through the formerly pedestrian-only medians. Because of many obstructions in these medians, the bike lanes shift positions frequently – on one block there may be two uni-directional lanes at the outside edges of the median, while on the next there is a bi-directional bike lane in the center of the median.

Not surprisingly pedestrians wander across the bike lanes or stand there chatting or checking their phones, and the angry ringing of bike bells and the squeak of bike brakes adds new notes to the chorus of car horns. Cyclists unfamiliar with the routing must also find the shifting cycle lane after crossing each intersection, and that can be difficult to do while also dodging cars, taxis and delivery trucks. For a bicycling tourist the whole scene may be quaintly amusing, but it would not make for a pleasant or convenient ride on any regular basis.

Routes through recreational areas

Both Valencia and Paris do have new features that make cycling a very enjoyable, calm and safe activity in particular recreational or scenic areas. This doesn’t do a lot to encourage residents to take up biking for daily commutes, but it does help make the city a more attractive place in leisure hours.

A striking feature in Valencia is the major linear park through the heart of the city, occupying the shallow valley of the Turia River which was diverted in 1969. This park is now widely used by cyclists of all ages, who travel through the park to the spectacular Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències and other attractions.

Spacious paths for cycling and walking wind through the Turia River valley (above and below). Largely free from motor traffic, these areas offer safe recreational cycling for people of all ages, within a few blocks of dense urban districts.

On the sparsely populated south-east flank of the city, there are also some excellent cycle routes connecting the core city with the port district.

Bike route near the Valencian suburb Natzaret, with Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències in the distance at upper left.

In Paris a new initiative has been both warmly welcomed and hotly contested. In 2016, city council approved the banning of motor vehicle traffic on a formerly busy, 3.3 kilometer roadway on the “right bank” of the River Seine. (A similar roadway was closed to motor traffic along the left bank of the Seine in 2013.)

This roadway (shown in the photo at the top of this article) provides great views of and access to many of the city’s most famous sights. Popular with walkers, runners and cyclists, the spacious route has also proven an immediate hit for people taking advantage of the new dockless scooters.

Coincidentally, while I was in Paris a court decision upheld the closure of these roads to cars, allowing the city to do much more to make these important areas attractive for active, healthy and non-polluting transport.

High-profile initiatives like the Seine roadway transformation will have little direct impact on daily transportation of most Parisians, beyond those who live or work very close to these routes. To be truly effective, a good bike route network needs to connect most residents safely to most of the destinations they normally access. Yet as first steps toward that network are concerned, it would be hard to find better places for Paris to begin than on the right bank and left bank of the Seine.

Bikes and buses: a natural fit?

In several cities on my European tour I found myself riding in “bikes and buses” lanes. On one level, this makes sense: cities wanting to smooth the passage of both public transit and active transportation might do so by setting aside a lane on a main artery for the shared use of bikes and buses. With relatively little traffic in that lane the buses can move more rapidly and thus attract more users, while also giving some official encouragement to cycling.

But is a bike-and-bus lane likely to attract new cyclists, beyond those who are already willing to brave city traffic? I don’t have the numbers, but I certainly have my doubts that people who are today unwilling to ride in car traffic will feel comfortable tomorrow in sharing a lane with even bigger buses.

In my head, I can rationalize that bus drivers are trained professionals and are much less likely to be careless, drunk, or driving while texting than the average car driver. Yet after nearly 40 years of frequent biking in busy cities, I still find it a scary adrenalin rush when a full-size city bus thunders by with inches to spare and then pulls over right to the curb in front of me.

Nowhere did the “bike and bus lane” paradigm seem more obviously flawed than in central London, where buses are nearly as numerous as taxis.

As luck would have it, my route each morning and evening in London neatly coincided with one of the much ballyhooed new “cycle superhighways”. These are painted a distinctive blue, protected for significant stretches by curbs between cyclists and cars, and they extend radially out from central London.

These routes are no doubt a significant improvement for city cyclists, and I was glad to be able to ride one into the central city each day. Yet the first time I started to relax and enjoy the ride, I was shocked to suddenly find myself turfed out into a bus-and-taxi lane.

An example of the “Cycle Superhighway” suddenly merging into a lane for buses and taxis (during rush hour) and for all motor traffic (during all other hours).

For the benefit of riders who have never seen a city bus before, a yellow sign proclaims that “This bus pulls in frequently”. If you can focus on this little yellow sign while you are being abruptly cut off by a vehicle 1000 times your weight and size, you can understand perfectly what is happening.

Though these interruptions to the bike lane were only a block or two in length, they also happened several times along the five kilometers I rode the CS2 (Cycle Superhighway) each morning and evening.

I can only imagine how frightening it would be to a first-time city cyclist who might venture out on this “protected cycle lane”, perhaps with a young child following, only to find themselves suddenly dodging buses.

In this respect the Cycle Superhighways fall short of basic standards that would be followed for any cycle route along any arterial road in any Dutch city.

This is likely one reason the Cycle Superhighways have failed, so far, to attract many riders beyond the young, fit and brave cyclists who would be riding anyway, regardless of specific bike infrastructure. On the stretch of “Superhighway” I rode frequently, weaving around buses and into the general traffic lanes is a necessary skill, unless you are content to make frequent stops and then wait patiently while many passengers embark and disembark from the bus ahead of you.

On two mornings I kept a mental count of how many cyclists passed me compared to the number of cyclists I overtook. When I maintained a pace of about 20 km/h, 8 or 10 cyclists overtook me for every one that I overtook. Nearly all of them appeared to be about half my age, though there were no children riding their own bikes, and I recall seeing only one young child being carried on a parent’s bike. This, of course, was an entirely different demographic than I had become used to while riding in Dutch cities.

The cycle riding population became more varied in the central core, with many people riding the reliable and widely available, but relatively heavy and slow, bike-share bikes. These trips tend to be short, and on many core city streets traffic is moving very slowly anyway, so biking probably feels safe enough to a much wider group of people. (Not safe in every way, mind you – there were a surprising number of cyclists wearing face masks as a defense against the polluted air.)

While the most congested streets in central London see significant use by cyclists of varying age on sturdy bike-share bikes (above), bike lanes on busier arterial roads into the core are still predominantly used by young, athletic cyclists on fast bikes (below).

The limited success so far of the Cycle Superhighways brings to mind an important principle for urban programs aiming to increase the number of cyclists:

Don’t build bike lanes for those who are cycling now. Build them for people who aren’t cycling now.

Changing a car-dominated city to a place where people of all ages feel secure in routinely biking to work, school or shopping is a difficult chicken-and-egg problem. You don’t get most urban dwellers to start riding bikes until there is wide network of safe biking spaces, connecting most people to most of their common destinations. But it’s hard to get politicians to spend political capital championing the transition to safe and clean transportation, when there are so few people biking.

It’s encouraging, then, that London’s cycling-promotion efforts go far beyond the high-profile but sparse network of cycle superhighways. As discussed in the excellent short film Cycling London’s Bicycle Super Highways, there is an accompanying push to create “Quietways” throughout London’s residential areas. This program, which simultaneously calms motor traffic while creating hassle-free routes for cyclists through residential areas, has the potential to connect many residents’ homes with major arteries. And it is only when people can safely get through and out of their own neighbourhoods on bike, that significant numbers of new riders will join those already using the protected lanes along major arteries.

As Chris Kenyon of employer association CyclingWorks says in the video,

Our road system actively excludes certain groups from taking part in active transport. … we see fewer women, fewer older residents, and almost no children whatsoever, able to cycle in our streets.  We think this is an issue of social justice. … Councils need to say, if active travel is important as a health strategy for the capital, then how do we make sure it’s available to everybody?”

Iain Simmons, Assistant Director of City Transportation, is also clear that the current preponderance of fast athletic riders is not the desired long-term goal:

Ultimately, here in the city, we’re looking for something where actually everybody slows down. A good speed for vehicles and cyclists to go is about 10 miles an hour, because the differential between them, and someone who is walking along at 3 miles an hour in the pedestrian lane, is actually more easy to understand and deal with. Try and bring that civility, and that calmness, into people’s journeys.”

Traffic calming, then, is paramount. It is worthwhile recalling that even in The Netherlands, with their vast network of protected bike lanes, most urban streets neither have nor need specific cycling infrastructure; planners just need to ensure that car traffic on side streets is low speed and low volume, and then biking can become a safe and convenient option for people ages 8 to 80.

Just do it

Finally, it is important to remember that not all of the transition to safe active transportation is led by municipal officials. Much of the leadership comes from ordinary citizens, who conclude that cycling is a sensible option in spite of an almost complete lack of dedicated cycle infrastructure. This is especially true where previous reliance on private cars has resulted in daily patterns of gridlock, and bikes are just as fast or faster than cars whether bikes are promoted or not.

On my first morning in Paris I was cheered to see a great variety of cyclists out on the streets creating unsanctioned patterns of mobility: turning traffic-snarled one-way streets into contra-flow cycling lanes, for example, or detouring around stalled traffic by taking whichever lane had some free space at the moment.

The next morning I came across several signs warning that due to construction, circulation through the Bastille area was “difficult”. When I approached the massive, multi-spoked traffic circle in front of the Bastille opera house, I was startled to see cyclists weaving through the creeping chaos of tourist buses, cars, delivery trucks and motorcycles. After watching this pageant for 15 minutes or so I realized it wasn’t so difficult after all, and I got back on my bike to join the parade for a few laps. In closing, then, here is my brief tribute to the Parisian avant-garde.

When good is not enough – extending the bicycle’s reach in The Netherlands

Also published at Resilience.org

The Netherlands has a worldwide reputation as a bicycle-loving country – but bikes account for only a small proportion of kilometers travelled.

While the Dutch have given far greater official support to bicycling than other industrialized countries have, the dominance of car culture is still a fact of life in The Netherlands.

The government publication Transport and Mobility 2016 includes the section heading “The Dutch and their sacred cow” – and the authors aren’t referring to the bicycle. Rather, they note that over half of the adult population, and 71% of households, owns a car. This proportion rises to 84% of rural households, and 90% of high-income households.

Using figures from 2014, the publication states that 28% of trips made are by bicycle and 18% are by foot –  but these trips tend to be short. Overall, 73% of kilometers traveled within the country are by car, with 9% by bike, 9% by train, 3% by other land-based public transport, and 3% on foot.

What are the most promising ways to shift a significant portion of this travel to carbon-emissions-free or low-carbon modes? Trips for education only account for 7% of kilometers traveled, and 80% of Dutch students under 15 already bike to school, so additional improvement in that category will be hard to achieve.

Commuting is the biggest single category of kilometers traveled. In common with other countries, the Dutch spend a disproportionate amount on roadways to accommodate more cars. But unlike most other countries, the Dutch are also investing substantially in infrastructure that makes it possible for more people to get to work without getting into a car.

Steel wheels and rubber tires

Building the Cycling City, published by Island Press, August 2018

In their excellent work Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality, Melissa and Chris Bruntlett discuss two areas of focus in efforts to increase bicycles’ modal share. (See the first part of a look at this book here.)

Cycling is the most common form of transportation in the country for short trips – 3 to 5 km – but most commutes are significantly longer than that. Fortunately, the country has also maintained a highly effective train network, and trains and bikes are now working symbiotically.

The Bruntletts note that “the nationwide [rail] system serves over 1.2 million passengers each and every day, half of whom bookend their train travel with bicycle rides.” (Building the Cycling City, page 140)

A small infrastructure program has been essential in promoting bike-train trips. Because the train system is already well used, there is no room on trains for bikes at rush hour. Therefore people are encouraged to keep one bike at home to ride to the local train station, and another one on the other end to pedal from the train station to the workplace. (That’s one reason the country now counts more bicycles than people.)

To be secure in this practice, people need safe bike parking adjacent to all train stations. Thus you can now find bike parking facilities at every train station – for hundreds of bikes in smaller towns, thousands of bikes in small cities, or tens of thousands of bikes in bigger cities.

This covered bike-parking facility is in the northern city of Groningen, adjacent to the train station.

The most impressive of these efforts is in the southern city of Utrecht. A large university town just a short train ride away from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden and Den Haag, Utrecht boasts the country’s busiest train station. To ensure that many of the rail passengers don’t need to rely on motorized transportation to get to or from the station, the station is now the site of the world’s largest bike garage, in a complex which holds 22,000 bikes and will hold 32,000 when completed.1

A state-of-the-art bike parking garage in downtown Utrecht. Gently sloping ramps wind from the street up through the three levels of parking, and electronic signs at the ends of aisles tell cyclists where free spaces are located.

The largest of the facilities holds 12,500 bikes of standard or close-to-standard sizes, while a separate facility can accommodate delivery bikes and bakfiets – long bikes with a large box that can hold up to three children. The garages are fully sheltered from weather, are constantly monitored, and most are open 24 hours a day while some sections are open “only” from 6 am to midnight. With so many cyclists using the facilities, it also makes sense to have a service and repair shop on site.

This attention to the needs of people with bikes may sound expensive. But clearly a 12,000-bike parking facility is far less expensive in both Euros and land area than a comparable-capacity car parking garage, or the kind of bus terminal that would be required to get all those people in and out of the train station by bus. And making the bike-train combo safe and convenient pays big dividends: Transport and Mobility 2016 notes that “An inhabitant of Utrecht differs from the inhabitants of the other provinces in making the most trips as well as the most kilometres by bicycle and train.”2 (Emphasis mine.)

Electrification

During my first week in The Netherlands, I was bent over the handlebars fighting a fierce wind when an elderly woman, sitting bolt-upright in the breeze, passed me with little apparent effort. I thought, “Wow, these Dutch people are really fit!” After the same thing had happened several more times, I caught on and learned to recognize electric-assist bikes3 by their characteristic battery location.

The Bruntletts note that

“Despite its mostly flat terrain, the Netherlands has emerged as the world’s largest pedelec market per capita, with electric bikes making up almost a third of new bicycle sales in 2016. Denmark is a close second ….” (Building the Cycling City, page 50)

There is a very good reason that The Netherlands and Denmark are such good markets for electric-assist bikes: they have the infrastructure that allows safe riding on an extensive network of protected bike lanes. Citing European Cyclists Federation development director Kevin Mayne, the Bruntletts say “the places with the best bike infrastructure are the ones that sell the most pedelecs, and the global e-bike market won’t fulfill its potential without great places to ride.” (Building the Cycling City, page 87)

But with safe infrastructure and traffic conditions in place, pedelecs have the potential to get people out of cars for longer commutes, not just short rides.

Within the city of Groningen where distances are small, cycling already has a 61 percent modal share, which the city hopes to increase to 67 percent. The Bruntletts write

“What would be more impressive would be to increase the current 12 percent of people arriving by bike from outside the city …. E-bikes will play a crucial role in any such increase by lengthening the average commute distance from eight kilometres to twenty kilometres with very little additional effort from riders.” (Building the Cycling City, page 64)

Elsewhere in the country, a small network of snelfietsroutes (“fast cycling routes”) are being built between major residential and commercial centers. Designed not for scenic appeal but with the straight-forward goal of promoting efficient bike commuting from city to city, these routes also appeal to cyclists who may not be up to an athletic workout five days a week, but would still like to bike their long-ish commutes. Electric-assist bikes have already proven very popular on these inter-city routes.

In general there is no need for specific public infrastructure to support pedelecs, if there is already a comprehensive network of safe lanes for ordinary bikes. Yet the presence of charging stations could make even longer rides practical – for example, the kind of rides that would use most of the battery power on a one-way trip, requiring a re-charge before the return trip. Some employers are now providing charging stations in bike garages at work, and I spotted this station outside a popular restaurant along a well-used cycling route.4

Public bike-charging station in Stellendam, South Holland

As with parking garages, charging stations for bikes take up much less space than charging stations for an equivalent number of cars. And since e-bikes consume far less energy than e-cars, charging infrastructure is far less technically demanding and far less expensive. (Pedelec batteries are rated in Watt Hours while electric car batteries are rated in KiloWatt Hours.)

Post-script: follow the red-brick road?

As Melissa and Chris Bruntlett so engagingly document, The Netherlands has done far more than other industrialized countries to safely integrate bicycles into their overall transportation system, with great results for public health and for the vitality of their cities. One result of the national habit of cycling is that the transportation sector in The Netherlands is accountable for just one-fifth of the country’s carbon emissions, compared to one-third in the US.

While the Dutch have a commanding lead when it comes to effective promotion of everyday cycling, they have achieved this in the context of a transport system where cars remain dominant. Most households own cars, most kilometers are traveled by car, and many features of daily life and of the national landscape will be entirely familiar to people living in other car cultures.

Outside the core urban areas, a hierarchy of speed rules just as it does in many other countries – the spacing is just tighter. The US Library of Congress report “National Funding of Road Infrastructure: Netherlands” states

“According to European statistical sources, the highest motorway density in Europe is found in the Netherlands (78 km per 1000 km² on average in 2009), Luxembourg (59), and Belgium (58).”5

Motorway interchange near Schiphol airport

As noted earlier, more affluent citizens are more likely to own and use cars for their commutes, and they also tend to commute longer distances. For a small, densely populated country which clearly values its farmland, the motorways take up a surprising amount of space in rural areas. Furthermore, dedicated high-speed car-and-truck lanes also impose their geometry on slower-speed travellers. While cycling through the countryside, for example, you need to find the infrequent roads that cross the motorways, where you may bike up and over the dedicated high-speed transport lanes. Likewise if you’re pedaling a bikeway alongside an expressway, you need to take a detour each time you come to an interchange, with a wide curve around the sprawling clover-leaf interchanges. These impositions on cyclists and other low-speed travellers are deemed necessary to allow uninterrupted high-speed travel on the expressways.

But what if, as a world community, we finally embark on the serious kind of energy and lifestyle revolution that is needed to adequately reduce carbon emissions? Or – a more likely scenario in our current political scene – what if we run short of cheap fossil fuels without finding a technological miracle to allow our high-energy lifestyles to continue with low-intensity fuels such as solar and wind-power? What sort of challenges will we face in transforming our transportation infrastructures?

The Netherlands will clearly have a head start in such a transition. Yet as I cycled through the countryside, it often struck me that there too, the road system is astonishingly overbuilt. Frequently I found myself biking on a dedicated bike path, beside a two-lane service road, beside a multi-lane expressway, with another service road and bike path on the other side.

A generation or a few from now, when our descendants have through choice or necessity transitioned to a low-energy, and therefore low speed, transportation system, will they still need or want to devote such wide swaths of countryside to transportation? And if not, how will they repurpose some of those thousands of hectares of heavy-duty pavement?

In my first few days biking through The Netherlands I wasn’t always happy that many bike lanes are routed along old, somewhat rough brick roads – the surface just wasn’t as smooth, fast or  comfortable to bike on as a well-maintained asphalt surface.

But then I reflected on the almost endless repairability and reusability of those brick roads. From my own work experience I know that “recycling” asphalt and concrete pavements demands large amounts of high-intensity energy resources. But in The Netherlands I saw workers with simple hand tools re-laying old bricks and re-creating good-as-new roads.

I won’t be around to see it, but in the long term my guess would be that the centuries-old red brick roads of The Netherlands will be the ones that are renewed for centuries to come.

Centuries-old street in centre of Haarlem.

Next week: a look at new cycling infrastructure in Valencia, Paris and London in light of the infrastructure in The Netherlands.

 

Top photo: covered bike-parking facility next to train station in Groningen.


Footnotes

“A third big bicycle parking garage for Utrecht”, 17 April 2018, Bicycle Dutch website

2 Transport and Mobility 2016, Statistics Netherlands, page 19

3 While the “electric bikes” now seen in North America most often don’t require the rider to pedal at all, the variety common in The Netherlands has a motor which only kicks in while the rider is pedaling. These electric-assist or pedelec bikes thus amplify a rider’s strength, but don’t allow completely effort-free riding.

4 On the downside, ubiquitous availability of charging stations could lead more people to rely on the battery-assist mode almost exclusively, resulting in a steep drop-off in the exercise levels and health benefits of e-bike converts. See discussion of a recent European study at “Riding e-bikes does not lead to health benefits”, on A view from the cycling path, September 12, 2018

5 National Funding of Road Infrastructure: Netherlands”, US Library of Congress

fall on beach

PHOTO POST

The weather along the lakeshore of late has been frosty, soaking, bone-chilling, blustery – with “warm” definitely not part of the list. Yet elusive rays of sunlight have teamed with the wind and waves to create beautiful sights.

These sights are ephemeral, of course – even softball-size rocks roll around in the force of the waves as the beach is reconfigured almost every day. Still, grains of sand, leaves, and even feathers have all changed the landscape in their own ways, if only for a moment.

Point line plane (click photos for larger views)

 

Weight of a leaf

When westerly winds made it hard to stand up straight and the biting cold made it even harder to focus a camera, sparkles of sand flew swiftly along to the east. But a tiny feather slowed the wind just enough to catch a drift of sand in its lee.

Feather rocks wind

On a slightly colder but sunny and calm morning, a leaf celebrated its equally complex relationship with frost, sand, wind and time.

It’s complicated

The lack of wind and waves made that a good morning for fishing out on the breakwater, never mind the cold.

Perpendicular

When wind and waves inevitably returned, foragers of a different sort stationed themselves along a shifting stripe of blue light, pecking in the sand each time the water washed past their feet.

Round stripe

Top photo: Draw the line (click here for full-size view)

A modest investment with major dividends: cycling culture in the Netherlands

Also published at Resilience.org

How would you describe the process in which a small country builds a 35,000 kilometer network of fully separated bike infrastructure – and traffic-calms 75 per cent of their urban streets to a speeds of 30 km/h (19 mph) or less?

Building the Cycling City, published by Island Press, August 2018

One apt analogy is “picking the low-hanging fruit”. While Dutch cycling policy has required only modest annual investment, it has resulted in cities where bikes are used for most short trips – five kilometers or less – which can be pedaled by ordinary citizens from age 8 to 80 with no great effort. Furthermore this policy has helped preserve historic urban centers by removing the need for intra-city expressways or vast parking lots, while also promoting a fit and healthy population.

These are some of the themes that come through in a recent book by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett. Building The Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality provides an excellent overview of the different ways that transportation policy has developed in five Dutch cities. The book also shows how lessons learned there are now benefitting other cities including New York, Calgary, Vancouver, and San Antonio.

This article is based on the Bruntletts’ excellent work, as well as on my own four-week bike tour of the Netherlands in September and October.

Giving priority to the most vulnerable road users, not the least vulnerable

In cities throughout the industrial world in the 20th century, the lion’s share of public space became the domain of people engaged in a dangerous and polluting activity – driving cars. The Netherlands was no exception to this trend.

But by the mid-1970s, spurred in part by a growing number of traffic fatalities and in part by the OPEC oil embargo, a strong reaction to auto-dominance took hold in several Dutch cities.

In the northern city of Groningen, a plan to build big new roads through historic neighbourhoods prompted 24-year-old Max Van den Berg to get into municipal politics. Just seven years later, the city implemented a transportation policy promoted by Van den Berg and allied councillors. Their Traffic Circulation Plan

“proposed dividing the city center to four parts and forbidding cars to cross between those quarters. This made the inner city practically impenetrable with a car, leaving cycling and walking the best ways to get around. The plan didn’t completely remove motor vehicles from the equation – as public buses and delivery vans would retain limited access to parts of the core – but it came remarkably close.” (Building the Cycling City, page 53-54)

One result 40 years later is that distracted walking or cycling is not a capital crime in Dutch cities. Even at rush hour in Groningen, one can walk or pedal through the central city while engrossed in conversation, while focusing on a smart phone, or while writing the next great novel in your head – without fear of being squashed by a car.

The same pattern holds true in many other small- and mid-sized Dutch cities where the urban core is mostly free of the noise, pollution and danger posed by cars. While some cars and delivery vehicles creep through these districts, the drivers know that foot-powered residents have the right of way – not just at crosswalks or traffic lights but all along the length of narrow historic streets.

Above, a “scramble” in Groningen at rush hour, where cyclists going every direction smoothly negotiate their way through the intersection. Below, an intersection in the core of Leeuwarden, the capital city of the province of Friesland.

Today, Groningen’s traffic planning embodies a very basic principle: “pedestrians over cyclists, cyclists over public transportation, and public transportation over cars. Essentially, the most vulnerable users of the city have priority over the least ….” (Building the Cycling City, page 61)

The important but limited role of separated bike lanes

The Netherlands is justly famous for its vast network of protected bike lanes, not only along arterial roads within cities, but also throughout the countryside connecting every village, town and city.

The rules for when, where and how cycle lanes are built are now well defined. Basically, in areas where it is not practical to slow cars so that they travel at close to the speeds of bicycles, separated paths must be installed. In cities, this often means a street-side lane with a curb separating the bike traffic from car traffic. In most cases these cycle lanes run on both sides of the streets. Critically, the urban bike lanes are not carved out of the sidewalks – the realm of pedestrians, who are also to be protected and encouraged – but are achieved by narrowing or removing car lanes.

“Bicycle street. Autos are guests.”

On rural roads with moderately fast cars but low traffic volumes, separate bike lanes are not always installed but cars are expected to – and do, in my experience – pass bikes carefully and courteously, yielding to bikes whenever oncoming traffic makes it impossible to pass safely.

Alongside busier roads with traffic of 50–60 km/hr or faster, there are fully separated bike lanes. Often these run right beside the roads, but there are also many cases where the bike paths diverge from the roads significantly, providing a quieter ride and cleaner air for people on bikes.

A significant component of the system is the system of signage. Bicycle routes are marked by signs at nearly every intersection, with signs that are visually distinct from the directional signs for motorists. This makes it easy for a bike rider to navigate through new areas, without pulling out either a smart phone or a paper map. There are also hundreds of maps on metal signposts showing local cycling routes, with each province maintaining its own set of local route maps.

Above, a roadside sign showing local cycling routes in the northern province of Friesland. Below, a popular cycling route on the coast in the southern province of Zeeland.

 

All this infrastructure, of course, costs money – but is it expensive? That’s a matter of perspective, and the Dutch do spend more money on cycling infrastructure than other nations. Melissa and Chris Bruntlett write,

“The Dutch cycle because their government spends an astonishing €30 ($35 US) per person per year on bike infrastructure – fifteen times the amount invested in nearby England.” (Building The Cycling City, page 15)

Yet this €30 per person is a very small fraction of what the Dutch – and other nations – spend on auto infrastructure. According to official figures from 2015, “The Dutch government spends a total of 15 billion euros on traffic and transport” each year – meaning the cycling infrastructure expense is a bit more than 3% of the government transport and traffic budget.

For this €30 per capita, the Dutch have been able to preserve the character of their central cities, keep carbon emissions lower than in neighboring countries, and enjoy some of the best health in the world due to an active population and cleaner air. Given the cost of health care alone, the €30 per capita spent by the Dutch government to promote cycling is an astonishing bargain.

While infrastructure such as separated cycle paths is an important component of the cycle strategy, it is important to keep in mind that the Dutch did not immediately launch a major building program when they began to focus on cycling in the 1970s. Furthermore, even today about 75 percent of their roads do not have separate cycle lanes.

In their chapter on Amsterdam, Melissa and Chris Bruntlett explain,

“This cycling utopia was built on traffic-calming rather than bike lanes. Instead of constructing separated cycle tracks on every street, officials started with speed-limit reductions, parking restrictions, through-traffic limitations, and lane narrowing and removals.” (Building the Cycling City, page 93)

Cycle lanes are great, but you’ve got to get from home or office or school to the cycle lane, and that route must be safe before most urban residents will want to bike on a regular basis. If the route to and from a dedicated cycle path remains dangerous and nerve-wracking, only the daring folks who are already cycling are likely to get onto the cycle path.

Traffic-calming on most or all non-arterial roads, therefore, plays a crucial role in laying the groundwork for widespread use of separated bike lanes along major routes. Fortuitously, the cost of traffic-calming methods is generally very low, meaning that is an obvious place to start in a long-term strategy to boost active transportation.

In the next installment, I will look at ways the Dutch are extending the humble bicycle’s reach through an intentional symbiosis with their train network, and through the rapid uptake of electric-assist bikes. A third installment in this series will look at cycling promotion efforts in Valencia, Paris and London, in light of the Dutch example.

In the historic centre of Middelburg, province of Zeeland.


Top photo: mural and bikes in downtown Leeuwarden, Friesland