查看文章

When bicycles were first introduced, planning was no problem at all. The only road-building worry was the surfaces and it was not for nothing that Dunlop used its first pneumatic tyre for a bicycle. The first cycle tracks were designed mainly for improving the cyclists’ comfort. Planning for cyclists would be easy if the motorcar had not arrived. The arrival of the car caused an enormous change to the road network. In 1938 a bicycle advocate in The Netherlands argued in a pamphlet against bicycle taxes that ‘cyclists who in early days could ride on public roads without danger are nowadays pushed aside the road by the increasing and still faster car traffic’(Reitsma, 1938). In the same year, traffic victims were presented as a specific group in statistics of accidents for the first time. Subsequently, for reasons of road safety, cyclists and motor vehicles were separated more often. Though cycletracks were also constructed to …