Having displayed my ignorance of the history of my adopted country yesterday, today I discovered yet something else about its recent history: how cycle paths came about. As the wide majority of people in the country, I do a large chunk of my transportation on a bike (and by train for the longer distances), and the place that biking occupies in people’s lives is one of my very favorite aspects of living in this country. While growing up in car-infested São Paulo, I did quite a bit of biking before being able to drive (going to school etc.), which was quite unusual; but symptomatically, the day I turned 18 I got my driver’s license and never mounted a bike again until I came to live in the Netherlands at age 23. Ultimately, it is mostly a matter of infra-structure: driving and parking is often a nightmare around here, so, in the wide majority of situations, one is much better off biking. There are cycle paths virtually everywhere, including routes that are not allowed for cars; cycle paths make it safe and pleasant to bike around. Foreigners are often surprised that we don’t wear helmets to bike in the Netherlands, but rather than indicating Dutch recklessness when biking (although there is a lot of that too, especially in cities like Amsterdam), it in fact indicates how safe it is to bike here.
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