During my European travels this past summer I had a four hour layover in Amsterdam while en route from Florence to Prague. It was a long enough stop to warrant getting out of the airport to briefly explore the city. I had my Mom with me and in an attempt to make the trip as easy as possible for her I got us a taxi from the airport to the Amsterdam Centraal train station. The taxi was a 100 euro mistake that I would rectify on the return journey.
I hadn’t been in Amsterdam since my college days. Back then it may have been the coffee shops and local beer that attracted my attention (not to mention the museums and cultural sites), but on this most recent visit it was the urban design that I was most excited about.
As a college student in the mid aughts Amsterdam’s approach to recreational drug use seemed both radical and enlightened compared to policies in my home country. It still does, but it’s the city’s status as a cycling capital that I have greater appreciation for after a decade researching and writing about urban issues, as well as becoming a cyclist commuter and living car-free for the past four years. So even more than the local drug policies it was the tangle of bicycles I encountered as soon as we disembarked at Amsterdam Centraal that seemed radical and enlightened.
When I bought my first e-bike in the fall of 2022 it revolutionized my personal urban mobility, and was also to single greatest contributor to my moving from recreational cyclist to bike commuter. With its step-through frame, swept back handlebars, and upright seating position, my e-bike has received both affirmation from admiring strangers as well as skepticism around the pointlessly-gendered form factor. Regardless, I have proudly professed the “omafiets” (“grandma bike”) design of what I’ve dubbed my “Dutch-style cruiser,” and I was thrilled to see so many real life examples in Amsterdam.
In addition to my increased experience with urban cycling the other personal development that colored my short sojourn in Amsterdam was my ongoing photographic exploration of urban milk crates.
For a city with so many cycles, bike baskets were far more common cargo accessories than milk crates based on my survey of the city center.
My understanding is that “marqt” is a local high-end grocery chain that has parlayed its crates into a popular bike accessory.
It was wonderful to see such a variety of cargo accoutrements, from crates, to bike baskets, to panniers.
Not to mention all the additional seating for carrying smaller humans.
My Mom and I waited out an afternoon rainstorm with drinks in a small cafe, watching cyclists navigate the nearby canal in various levels of weather gear.
For our return journey I did the sensible thing and eschewed the $100 taxi ride for a $2 train ticket from Centraal straight to Schiphol airport.
