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Environmental Sustainability and Cycling as a
Transport Mode: Best Practices

During this period, private vehicle-oriented transport and vehicle dependency
enhanced due to the marketing of automotive companies in the USA. This trend,
which lasted until the 1970s, began to reverse with the first oil crisis in 1973 and
the second one in 1979. In that case, with their new strategies and plans, central
and local governments started to use interventions that will allow bicycles to be
accepted as a type of urban transportation again instead of interventions that
encourage the use of private vehicles. Along with the increase in the concerns
about environmental sustainability and global warming caused by emissions,
various European cities, in particular, adopted the human-centered policies,
and walking and cycling was adopted again in urban mobility (Öncü, 2016)
Regarding the examples of safe cycling from the world in this research, we
will discuss Amsterdam and Copenhagen which are the examples of cycling
capital of the world today, as well as Munich, Paris, Montreal and Ankara which
aim to make cycling a planned transportation mode thanks to their important
cycling policies.

• Amsterdam
In Amsterdam, where cyclists are the main actors of urban mobility, an urban
transportation system equipped with highly developed cycling routes and
parking lot infrastructures have been established and is gradually developed.
As in almost all cities of the Netherlands, cycling routes that are safe and pass
through the entire city and its surroundings in Amsterdam are used by all people
in the city, including the elderly and children, for transportation purposes.
Considering the cycling culture in the city in a historical frame, it can be
said that number of bicycles in general was quite superior to the number
of private vehicles in Dutch cities in the early 1900s (Buehler and Pucher,
2010). Following these years, when bicycles were used as an effective means
of urban transportation, people increasingly started to own private cars,
especially with the Dutch economy developing after the war. During these
periods, urban plans designed the streets of Amsterdam in such a suitable
way for the access of motor vehicles, which reduced the use of bicycles by
an average of 6% annually. The uncontrollable increase in the number and
use of private vehicles, which began in the 1950s and 1960s and lasted until
the 1970s, has put Amsterdam away from being a people-oriented, walkable
and, beyond that, livable city. As a result of increasing traffic and automobile
density, number of deaths caused by traffic accidents reached 3300 in 1971
alone, which involved mortality of 400 children. Consequently, the campaign
pioneered by the various demonstrations of activist groups saying “Stop Child
Murders” (stop de kindermoord) gained strength soon and supported by
Dutch government as well. Along with the opening of official representative
office for this campaign, pedestrian-oriented ideas that restrict vehicle use

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 259