This video is such an excellent summary of the history of Dutch biking culture in the twentieth century that all I can really do is rehash some of its points. Go watch it!
What's important to realize about my home country, the Netherlands, is that it wasn't always a biking utopia. After the devastation of World War 2, the entire country's infrastructure had to be rebuilt. The Dutch looked at car-centric America as an example, and thanks to the Marshall Plan, there was a lot of help from American city planners. One of them wanted to bulldoze low-income neighborhoods to put a fucking highway through Amsterdam. (This did not happen, mainly due to the exorbitant cost.)
It wasn't until the 1970s that (due to a combination of factors) we collectively realized that car-centric infrastructure sucks, and we need to do something about it. Activists made such a fuss that it created a political climate in which the status quo became untenable.
All of this is to say that a better world is possible, but it doesn't come free. 🚲
P.S. I'd love to see more than just my own posts in the #fuckcars hashtag! Where are my car-fuckers at??
Help I'm trapped in American suburbia and dependent on cars because there's no public transit to speak of to most places.
I'm sorry to hear that, bud. Single-use low-density urban planning for housing is a scourge upon this earth.