De Eland bar is located at the corner of Elandsgracht and Prinsengracht in the centre of Amsterdam. The coffee is great and inexpensive — for Europe — as is the white wine, and nobody seems to care if you loiter for a few minutes or for a few hours. With large windows on all sides, it is a wonderful place to watch life pass by.
Or at least it is after the first, tense hour, which the average foreigner spends waiting for the inevitable bicycle pile-up as cyclists fly by at seemingly reckless speeds. And the bikes are not all just simple affairs; some are five-seaters with a box-like contraption in the front for a few children and a dog and another seat at the back for a larger child.
They whizz around the corner into Prinsengracht apparently indifferent to the several bicycles careening towards them or of the car that’s just around the corner. A crash for sure? No, missed. They all pedal on serenely, with only the foreigner in the bar convinced that a major accident has just been avoided.
But after an hour or so it feels like watching a live ballet performance; though wonderfully choreographed, occasionally there’s the dreadful fear the beautiful pas de deux will come unstuck. But it never does.
You can tell a lot about a country from watching its traffic. You can tell the Netherlands is a long-settled state whose citizens, despite some recent challenges, are confident that the system works well for them. The cyclists seem happy to ride in all types of weather because that is what is good for the country and for them. And it is why even cabinet ministers and ambassadors cycle.
Even if the terrain were pancake-flat, South African cabinet ministers would not abandon their blue-light brigade, which reminds citizens of how important they are
There are good reasons why cycling in South Africa is a form of exercise and not a means of transport, and it’s not just because so many of our big cities are riddled with hills. Can you imagine how taxis would treat bicycle lanes?
In South Africa getting from A to B is approached as something akin to a military manoeuvre. Drivers are at all times ready for a defensive or aggressive move. If you were watching a busy intersection from a bar on a corner in South Africa, it would look terrifying. Mainly because it really is terrifying and, unlike in Amsterdam, accidents do happen, frequently. But here’s the interesting thing: when they do happen, strangers rush to help.
And, even if the terrain were pancake-flat, South African cabinet ministers would not abandon their blue-light brigade, which reminds citizens of how important they are. Unlike the Netherlands, ours is a new and fragile democracy and there is limited confidence in its processes.
A Brit running an NGO in China, whom I quizzed about the government’s apparent need to micromanage its people, referred me to the Beijing traffic.
He was onto something. It was about 2010 at the time and the proliferation of cars was making life precarious and unpleasant for the cyclists who had until recently dominated the capital’s roads. Once the cars took over the only rule observed was that the vehicle in front was to be avoided; cars weaved in and out of lanes, including the bicycle lane, and traffic lights got short shrift. It was chaotic. Was my NGO friend right? Is this what Chinese society would look like if the government abandoned its tight restrictions?
Within a few years, things on Beijing’s roads became so bad I abandoned my habit of using a bicycle during my trips to the city. It had been a wonderful way of getting around a very flat city with a network of excellent, wide roads. The only real danger had been the occasional lump of phlegm spat out by the cyclist in front, which would require a quick change of direction.
The Beijing car population surged from about 2.5-million in 2007 to more than 7-million in 2022. The inevitable traffic congestion means Beijingers spend more than half of their commute time stuck in traffic jams. Such is progress. The government has made impressive additions to its subway network, but the Chinese show little sign of giving up their cars. Attractively priced electric vehicles will help with the pollution but do nothing for the jammed streets. In time perhaps the government will ban cars and force its citizens to do what’s good for society and get back onto bicycles.
But they will be reluctant cyclists, unlike the proud Dutch who regard their bicycles as a sophisticated badge of honour.
Back home, our near anarchy means cars are weapons of mass destruction as much as forms of transport.
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