A plan to put 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on the streets of Amsterdam in five years has met with fierce resistance from an unlikely quarter - the city's famed body of cyclists.
Cyclists say that the promotion of EVs will diminish the status of the bike, swallowing up a large portion of the 550,000 parking spots currently used by cyclists and encouraging a more sedentary lifestyle.
According to research conducted by the city, cyclists are responsible for a full 55 percent of all movement within the centre of Amsterdam. However, transport planners want a big increase in EV use over the next five years, rising to 40,000 EVs trundling over its cobbled streets by 2020.
Cycle lobby groups are understandably concerned that a carbon-neutral way of getting round the city, proven for many years, will have to make way for a vehicle which is less environmentally-friendly.
"We are afraid. If you add more parking spaces, you get more cars," said Marjolein de Lange, a member of the cycling union Fietsersbond, "We think the cleanest means of transport is the bike. Definitely." *
* Do Amsterdam's cyclists have a point? Or will they just have to budge up and share? Let us know!
Perhaps they need to reduce prices dramatically and try to rely on turnover to make a profit. Bikes are more expensive than some motor vehicles...
Italian tourist and pussycat in Portugal.
Ha... I think for us at Tern Bicycles it is normal protocol for the UK!
Am I the only one who thinks the brake levers look awful too?
Yep, it's official - reds under the, er, bonnet...
Stephen Aylen, a non-aligned councillor for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council who questioned why the "ugly and out of place" structures had been...
Indeed, I was drawing from personal experience – I don't use it that often but it's such a nice bit of infrastructure that I sometimes go out of my...
Except socialism doesn't work like that in real life. It's the capitals countries that try to look after those in need, and the average person's...
It's the mass that's the issue. Two people on a petrol powered scooter can really mess up a cyclist. Also the fact so many of the petrol scooters...
The new RH tubes claim to solve that issue, but price and availability is a problem. I tried to get some to try out, but they went out of stock on...